3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

A zriel's second ride in the prison wagon, this time away from the Harlow Estate with his skin intact, painted a very different image. The first time, he'd knelt on the floor of the wagon, his bare chest draped over the seat to keep his ruined back from bumping anything, praying for the blood loss to drag him to the Underworld so he could escape the hell that was his life. Now, he rode on the bench he had once clutched, yet again wishing Loren's first attempt at killing him had succeeded.

Shame and humiliation ricocheted through him in both instances. Once, it'd been for the crowd's shock at his scars and to have slipped in and out of consciousness during the lashing. This time, both familiar emotions rolled through his chest and seized his lungs for Ariadne. She'd never recover from such disgrace.

He should've fought harder against the liquid sunshine. The poison still pulsed through his veins like an inferno. The invisible flames licked from his toes to his eyes and burned his throat with each breath.

Never, in all the ways he imagined Loren coming after him, did he expect the bastard to risk using the mage-made compound. Though Madan had lost his arm to Loren's devious torture with the same liquid, Azriel hadn't considered it being used as a way to force a transition. With Ariadne's haphazard rescue attempt mottling what she remembered and his brother's own memory gaps from those nights, he knew of nothing that pointed to liquid sunshine having such capabilities.

Yet the moment the poison entered his body, it triggered that hidden side of him. His vision had turned dark on the edges when he'd stumbled up the front steps, and his head had ached from the strain of holding him together. By the time Ariadne arrived, his skin crawled, and only focused, deep breaths kept his bones from cracking sooner. But losing his grip didn't happen until Loren had mocked Ariadne's title and belittled her much like he had in front of the Court House all those weeks ago. The single, unfocused second was enough to slip.

He'd underestimated Loren's hate, and because the bastard always got under his skin, he lost everything.

It was Ariadne's furious attempt to get back to him that twisted the proverbial dagger in his heart. She'd stabbed a military officer, demonstrating the huge change she'd undergone since their first official meeting when she'd frozen at the sight of dhemons attacking the Vertium ball. Rather than cower in fear for what would come, she charged forward and faced those who challenged her voice.

I love him, I love him!

Azriel shook his head to himself and pressed his fists against his eyes. The tips of his spiraling horns scraped past his wrists at the motion—a terrible reminder of what caused this fresh set of nightmares.

The wagon trundled to a halt. He straightened, dropping his hands to his lap, as the door opened. He'd be damned if he let any one of those soldiers see him crumble.

The officer on the far side, Captain Pietro Niil, lifted his lip in a sneer. "So the General was right. Filthy half-breed."

Muscles along Azriel's neck and shoulders tensed with indignation, then locked up as the collar around his neck sent a wave of high fae magic through him. The magic woven into the metal had been designed to entrap enemies by binding their strength and abilities to the one in possession of the collar's key. A quick glance at Niil's chest revealed the small skeleton key dangling by a chain.

How Loren had convinced the high fae to give him one perplexed Azriel. The dwellers of the L'Oden Forest to the west rarely dealt with vampires. Aside from traveling merchants and their lycan guards, they preferred to keep to themselves. To pass along one of their most powerful tools, the collars too often used to control new lycan prisoners, meant he'd either been very convincing…or very stupid.

Because the fae never gave without taking, and if Loren promised something in return, he knew nothing of fae dealings. Unless he was careful, his very soul could belong to them.

The Captain stepped aside, and a grunt soldier climbed into the wagon to attach a chain to the collar. His leash. As though he were an animal needing to be tamed.

They had no idea just how true that could be.

Flashes of a burning village and the echoes of screams resurfaced from Azriel's memories. Silhouettes of vampires and dhemons alike streaked before the raging infernos, and in his mind's eye, he lifted a short sword to meet an oncoming attack.

He'd razed armies once. Led his troops into battle at his father's command to take back the land stolen from them. The vampires had met them with equal force. Though dhemons were strong and fueled by hatred, their enemy had been too quick and far more organized in their efforts.

Azriel never understood the Caersans' fear of dhemons. Members of the Society rarely faced off with them, and those who did were almost evenly matched. The only upper hand dhemons ever held were their ambushes. If they could catch the vampires unprepared, they could strong-arm a victory.

The leash jangled as the soldier tugged, forcing him to follow or fall on his face. He chose the former, though he didn't hold back the snarl of disdain or subsequent chuckle when the vampires cowered.

"Frightened of me, Captain?" Azriel's voice, deeper in this form, commanded a level of respect he'd used many times with other dhemons. Even smaller than most, he could emulate his father's tone with impeccable accuracy.

Niil pinched his mouth into a thin line and stood a little straighter. "I do not fear dead beasts."

"Oh, no," he growled back and leaned a little closer so the tips of his horns almost brushed the Caersan's cheek, "it's what waits after death you should fear."

The color leached from Niil's face before he pointed to the prison behind him. "Solitary."

Another yank of the chain and Azriel snarled, the sound not unlike a bear. He bared his sharp teeth before gnashing them at Niil as he passed. When he spoke next, the dhemon language made the Captain step back in alarm, "You will die alongside your precious General."

Then the collar's magic locked up his voice, choking the air from his throat so all he could do was glare at the cowering Caersan. A faint glow emitted from the key, and a moment later, his legs jerked forward, disconnected from his own will. The sensation unnerved him, an uneasiness curling in his gut.

If the fae magic could control his very movements, what else could it do?

"Not so confident now, are you, monster?" Niil spat from behind him.

Azriel grit his teeth, fighting back to regain control of his limbs. It burned, and the pressure, near bone-breaking, reminded him of transitioning between vampire and dhemon.

He broke through the barrier and lurched back, his fist colliding with Niil's jaw. The Caersan stumbled. Before Azriel could strike a second time, the sharp edge of a sword pressed against his neck. Through the blind rage, the pain didn't register—only the trickle of warmth down his throat.

"Just as ill-tempered as your bitch," drawled a bored voice behind him. Nikolai.

"She was kinder to you than I would've been," Azriel hissed back, once again unable to move thanks to the glowing key.

"You will be pleased to know," Nikolai continued, lowering his voice, and he shifted into view, "she will be well taken care of by the General."

True pain lanced through him at that. No blade or broken bone could compare. A fire danced through his blood at the memories of Ariadne dancing with Loren, wearing his engagement necklace, and hiding the bruise he'd left behind.

"Does that upset you?" A smirk curled Nikolai's thin mouth. His whispers, meant only for Azriel's ears, could only mean one thing: they didn't want others to know who he was.

But he, once again, couldn't reply. The notion only spurred Nikolai's amusement, and he said, louder this time, "Continue, Captain Niil. I shall debrief with you shortly."

This time, when the key glowed, Azriel let them lead him inside the prison. The moonlight disappeared behind the thick, windowless walls, and with it, the last shred of hope to which he'd clung.

Madan froze, fingers of his remaining hand gripping the back of the couch in Monsumbra's Caldwell Estate. The words, echoing in his mind from Brutis's telepathy, sent ice-cold dread leaching through his gut.

He's been exposed .

" Ariadne ?" he asked back, the mental thread between him and his closest companion growing stronger with each exchange. If he couldn't save his brother, the least he could do was protect his sister. " Do they know what's happened to her ?"

It wouldn't be the first time. After her abduction and the torture that followed, Madan had pulled Ariadne from the dhemon's mountain keep while Azriel distracted Ehrun. The bastard had ignored the Crowe's command to cease any retaliation against the vampires, his need for vengeance too strong to ignore.

Madan's shared blood with both Azriel and Ariadne, through different parents, always placed him in a difficult position. He'd abandoned his brother when he'd been needed most to protect his sister from any further harm. The result almost cost Azriel his life.

Now Madan stood in the fine manor, overseeing the care of Eastwood Province to prepare for Azriel's return as Lord Governor, and watched with wide, unseeing eyes as his world fell out from beneath him. Once again, he had to choose: save the brother he'd loved for five centuries or protect the sister he'd just begun to know.

The pause stretched between them as Brutis and Razer, Azriel's telepathic link, became the bridge between him and his brother. Finally, Brutis's raspy thoughts slid through Madan's mind, " She's safe at the Harlow's . For now. The General plans to marry her ."

" Fuck ." Madan pushed away from the green velvet couch and looked around the dark wood library. Moonlight streamed in through the ceiling-high windows behind him, casting a long shadow across the library's fanciful rug. " When ?"

Another pause and then, " Uncertain . Razer turned back ."

If ever there were a time to ask Azriel's companion to rain hell down on Laeton, it would be then. He could picture the fire and hear the screams as he had during so many of their raids.

Yet to do so would be detrimental. They needed their friends if they had any hope of one day defeating Ehrun, and Razer wouldn't make it out alive. Loren's soldiers were insufferable grunts, but they weren't useless. They were more than capable of taking down someone even as devastating as—

"Madan?" The wizened voice broke through the tempest of his thoughts.

He turned to the door, taking in his grandmother's small, ancient form. Margot Caldwell, the oldest living vampire and the last of the Originals, stood just beyond the threshold in her long, trailing periwinkle gown. She no longer wore black in mourning for her husband, the late Lord Governor Garth Caldwell, but the weight of his passing remained heavy in her wrinkled green eyes. Her hair, once as dark as his own, twisted back from her face like a wave of pearls.

"Grandmother." Madan pushed away from the couch and held out his hand—no, his stump of an arm, thanks to Loren—before dropping it to his side. He silently cursed the arm, as he always did, for making him look foolish.

Margot's pale brows furrowed, and her eyes, sharp as always, seared into him. "What troubles you?"

How could he tell her? She had been so pleased to hear of Azriel's acceptance as the Lord Governor. Ecstatic, even, to know he'd soon return home with his bride. Not only his bride but the woman he'd silently pined for over the months he'd lived with her at the Estate before transferring to become the Harlows' personal guard. The woman for whom he nearly lost his mind and all sense of who he was.

Children, she had said over dinner just that morning. She couldn't wait to hear the pitter-patter of little feet again. The last set she'd heard in these halls, after all, had been his and Azriel's, and they had disappeared so suddenly. She'd been told they'd both been murdered. Markus had refused to let her see their bodies, claiming it to be too gruesome for her eyes.

Now her dreams of seeing the next generation raised into adulthood would also slip away.

Madan opened his mouth to tell her the truth, but the emotions slammed his throat closed, and he squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. "They aren't coming."

A silence met the words, and when he opened his eyes, Margot merely stared. Stared as the realization crept in. Old though she may be, she was no fool. She could piece together any puzzle with nary a picture to guide her. "So they know, then."

"Yes." The affirmation burned his throat, and he shook his head.

"What of his wife?"

"To marry the General, it seems."

Margot nodded once, lips quivering as she turned her attention to a fixed point just beyond him. Her eyes shimmered, so much like Azriel's, and when she blinked, a single tear rolled down her cheek.

Madan stepped forward. "I…don't know what to do, Grandmother."

"You carry on," she whispered without looking at him. "As we have always done."

We. Indeed, his grandmother had carried on through too much. Born mere days before the curse was set upon them during the Mage Wars, her parents died not long after. She'd been given to the Caldwells as a ward, and they married her to their first-born son after his transition. Then, one by one, the closest people she had to parents and family died. Garth's father, then mother, and younger brother. When she birthed her daughter, Mariana, it'd been her first breath of hope. Two grandsons had been more than she ever imagined. Until Markus stole that life, too.

"I can't just let them—"

"Your brother will take care of himself, as he has always done." Margot gripped his handless arm and squeezed hard. "Your sister will survive, as she has always done. Right now…" She pierced him with her vibrant gaze. "Right now, you have visitors waiting for you in the dining room."

Whelan. Whelan would know what to do.

"Thank you." Madan pressed a kiss to his grandmother's cheek before sweeping from the library to the grand staircase he bounded down, two at a time. His heart thundered. He had yet to see the horned fae he loved since arriving in Monsumbra the previous night. None of the dhemons still loyal to Azriel had lingered long in Eastwood without them around.

And he needed Whelan more than he could bear.

He hurried into the dining room where a dozen dhemons stood around a long, raw-edged table, their dark blue skin shining with perspiration in the crystal chandelier's light. Black tattoos ran up their corded arms, rippling as they stretched and contracted their fingers. They spoke in a low hum, the casual dhemon tongue and laughter sounding strange within the powder pink vampiric hall.

The jokes and teasing faded when Madan entered. A dozen pairs of ruby eyes shifted to him, then his arm. One of the nearest dhemons, Kall, gaped at him before grimacing at the low cry of despair from the back of the crowd.

Whelan pushed his way to the front, and Madan's heart contracted. It'd been too long since he'd seen him, and the secret he'd kept weighed heavily as the dhemon's beautiful face crumpled in misery. His huge hands cupped Madan's face and grabbed the amputated arm's elbow. The massive black horns, spiraling elegantly from his hairline, bumped Madan's cheek as he pressed their foreheads together.

" Alhija ," Whelan murmured, shaking his head and squeezing his eyes closed. He continued in his native language, "Why did you not tell me?"

Madan's heart warmed at the soft term of endearment he'd come to relish on his partner's lips. My love . He responded in the same tongue, "I didn't want you to worry."

"I thought," Whelan rasped, "when Brutis said you were unable to speak, it'd been due to business with the Caersans. How did this happen?"

With a sigh, Madan pressed his lips to Whelan's and let the larger man pull him closer. The other dhemons continued their chattering, ignoring the public display of affection. None of them cared. It wasn't the dhemons' custom to treat such tender moments with disdain like in the Society. They considered love, and all that accompanied it, natural and right. The culture shock when Madan began his reintegration with the vampires had been difficult.

"I'm fine now," Madan whispered after unentangling his tongue. "That's all that matters."

Whelan shook his head, his deep garnet eyes snapping open to search him for any signs of dishonesty. "Tell me everything."

"You must swear to me you won't go to Laeton."

The dhemon fought back a snarl. "This is from vampires ?"

Madan stroked his thumb down Whelan's sharp cheek and gave the tip of his horn a gentle tug. Oh, he'd be gripping those tighter later, but for now he needed the bonded fae's full attention. "Swear it. I couldn't bear it if anything were to happen to you."

Still, Whelan hesitated. After a long moment of soul-searching and reining in his bond, he gave a single, stiff nod. "I swear I won't go to Laeton."

"Let me rephrase…" Madan glowered at him. "Swear to me you won't go after or lure out any of the vampires involved, nor will you ask any of the others to do it for you. Not now, not ever."

A low growl rumbled in Whelan's chest at the tighter restrictions. "I cannot promise that, given the opportunity, I won't take it."

The very thought of Whelan going up against Loren made Madan's heart crack. While he knew the dhemon could take care of himself, particularly one-on-one against the General, he didn't trust the vampire wouldn't use trickery or an ambush to win. At the same time, he couldn't keep Whelan from acting on his bond if Loren were to unwisely show his face in Monsumbra.

So Madan nodded and, in as few words as possible, told him what happened. At least…what he could remember of it. It wasn't until that moment, when he'd finally unveiled the details of those nights in the guard house, that he realized how little he could recollect. Too many sentences dragged into nothingness, and each flashing memory disconnected from the next.

"Izara, a mage healer, stopped the spread," Madan reassured Wheland as the dhemon took hold of his arm again in alarm to study the amputation. His wide red eyes and pinched brows spoke volumes. "She checked many times, and there's no more aegrisolis."

The sun-inflicted vampire illness would have been a brutal death. Typically brought on by a Caersan's exposure to direct sunlight, it would slowly rot the vampire until they eventually died from the disease reaching their heart. Madan's, however, had been inflicted by Loren cutting liquid sunshine into the back of his hand in the hopes it forced him to transition into…something. What he expected, Madan never found out. After watching a half-vampire shifter die from it, he'd been certain it'd kill him, too. No matter the cause of aegrisolis, no cure had yet been found.

"I will kill him." Whelan's voice crackled with the promise. He cupped Madan's face again and brought his mouth down on him hard.

The barely contained rage bled into the kiss, swallowing any of Madan's thoughts in an instant. His body lit with heat, cock stiffening. Perhaps they should've excused themselves from the others to speak privately…and indulge in one another after so long apart.

When finally they separated, Madan ran a hand down Whelan's hard, muscled chest before slipping his fingers into the waistband of the dhemon's trousers and tugging him closer. "You will do no such thing."

"You can't stop me."

"No," Madan agreed. "But that kill is mine."

A smirk curled Whelan's mouth, flashing his sharp teeth. "Ah, alhija , I have missed you."

"And I, you." Madan drew his thumb across Whelan's lower lip. "More than you know."

"Can we discuss business now?" Kall cut across Madan's thoughts of dragging Whelan to another room and pulled him back to the present. The dhemon continued in his native language, "The prince is captured. This cannot stand."

Prince . Oh, Azriel had always hated that title. He'd hated it more when Ehrun's closest friends had taken to calling him dhomin —little prince. It'd been a mockery of who he was to the dhemons, what with the Crowe seen as their King.

"We did not come together to attack the Caersans," Madan reminded him, stepping around his partner and leveling a pointed look at his best friend. "We came to discuss Ehrun."

Voices rose again throughout the dining room. Some shook their heads in disbelief; others nodded their agreement. As always, the dhemon ranks were divided on what to do without any regard to how it would ultimately cripple them if they failed to collaborate.

"The false King should be dealt with," a dhemon by the name of Lhuka announced loudly, the tattoos across the bridge of his nose wrinkling with disgust. "But if we do not have the true King to replace him, what is the point?"

Azriel was going to kill Madan for this. First, he'd shoved the title of Lord Governor on his brother's shoulders, and now, he was bound to take up the Crowe's mantle as the Dhemon King.

After the night's events, however, they had little choice.

"Let me take care of that," Madan said, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture. "If you storm the capital, no one will see you as any different than Ehrun's goons. They'll kill you all, and Ehrun will get what he wants."

Another rise of conversation at the affront: how dare he consider them so weak as to fall to a vampire's blade? After all, they had a cavalry built and trained for war that could decimate the city in minutes. If only Madan didn't stand in their way.

"Enough!" Kall slammed a fist on the table, the sound as sudden and jarring as an explosion. The dhemons snapped their mouths shut and turned to the scarred and half-blind horned fae with an ax still strapped to his back. "We cannot bring them across the Valley, and you know that."

A smaller dhemon with half an ear missing and delicate carvings in his horns stepped forward. "We should use every advantage we have to retrieve our King."

"Do not underestimate their General, Jakhov," Madan said with a shake of his head. "I did. Once."

Jakhov's sharp, ruby eyes shot to his arm and back. "If their General dies in the attack—"

"The vampires will hunt for the clutch," Whelan cut in. "Even if we killed that bastard tomorrow, we'd have to hide the eggs from more than just Ehrun."

"We're spread too thin as it is," said another dhemon with a bandolier of wicked knives, Gavrhil. "We can't afford to attack Valenul, resist Ehrun's spread through the mountains, and protect the clutch from outsiders. We must focus our efforts."

At first, Gavrhil's words were met with silence. Madan searched each of the dhemons' faces for any sign of hostility. They shifted from foot to foot, and many glowered at the floor. After a long moment, the first nod and murmur of agreement came from Lhuka. A weight lifted from Madan's chest as others picked up the affirmation.

"Alright." Madan looked at Whelan and Kall. "We'll hold off on any retaliation against the Caersans for now. Let's look at how we can keep the clutch out of Ehrun's hands and strengthen the ranks through recruits and training."

"And the King?" Jakhov crossed his arms. "He's still in danger."

Madan swallowed hard. "I will take care of that. I swear to you…Azriel will live to fight beside you all again."

Yet how he'd uphold that promise, Madan had no idea.