I lean back with a sigh, dropping my pen to the page carelessly.What am I going to do?
The door creaks. Someone steps into the library and dashes to the shelf next to me. It’s pointless to dash in here. While daylight had left long ago and only a lantern illuminated my desk, I could see the shadow attempting to blend in with the darkness around it. She smelled like a woman—a vampire.
I stare at the shadow with a bored feeling. “Where’s your visitor’s pass?”
“I don’t need one considering I used to be your brother’s fiancée.”
Anger bursts in my chest. “You have some nerve entering our kingdom, Faline.”
She steps into the soft light and grins fancifully. She’s tall and slim with fair skin like a runway model. But she could have also gotten away with being a flapper girl back in the day with the way she carries herself. Maybe that was true. Quinn might have mentioned dancing.
“I’m free to come and go as I please,” she replies. “Which is why I’ve come to you with a peace offering.”
“You agreed not to come back.”
She sneers at me. “I made no such agreement. I caught my fiancécheatingand then left. It was assumed I wouldn’t return.” She straightened her posture and fixed her features, making them smooth and carefree. “But Quinn should pay for what he did. He needs to understand what he lost. I’m not just an alliance. I’m your key to freedom.”
She drops a device on the table—a phone. On the screen is a paused video.
A couple of seconds is all it takes for me to recognize what I’m seeing.
Amber. Me. Bodies entwined like the end of days had come upon our heads.
Irritation and fear burn within. “How did you get inside?”
“You have all sorts of passageways.” She laughs once, bitterly. “I bet your darling little bloodbag hasno ideaabout those secret tunnels. It was easy to find a peephole and just…” She winks. “Well, I sent it off to a friend of yours. I’m sure you two spoke.”
“This is extortion.”
“This is righting the scales that were tipped inyourfavor!” She slams her fist on the table and then leans forward, glaring at me with glossy eyes. “If you don’t deliver Quinn back to me, I’ll be sure King Marr knows exactly who’s lurking in his midst. They haven’t done it yet, have they, Darius? Theycan’tdo it. They can’t even get within walking distance of that tyrant.”
Fury brews in my throat. “You’re a monster.”
“Look who’s talking.” She lifts her phone and waves it. “Getting really close to becoming that Ripper character, aren’t we, Darius?”
I clutched the edge of the table, wood splintering under my grip. “I’m nothing like my cousin.”
“That’s not what the other kingdoms will think when they see this video. Morgana will have alotof things to say as well.”
I snap my mouth shut. She has a point. Drake is easygoing and understanding regardless of his judgment. But Morgana will rain hell upon my shoulders and destroy my name. My credibility will disintegrate much like my cousin did in that cage on the cliff.
I can’t hurt her.
But I can’t stop it either. Amber made her decisions much like I did. She can handle the consequences. It’s the only way to keep this kingdom from fully falling apart.
“All those fresh bloodbags downstairs,” Faline says in a singsong voice. “It would be a shame for them to run off just as you’d replenished.”
“Alright, fine,” I spat. “Name your terms.”
Faline grins maniacally. “Send Quinn back to me once he succeeds in killing King Marr. Tessa doesn’t have much sway here. She isn’t royal blood and she’s not important.”
My expression remains deadpan as I realize that Faline hasnoidea who the Alards are and what they’re capable of doing.
“You can banish her,” Faline suggests. “With her sister to... I don’t care. Just get rid of them. Reinstate my engagement. Can’t you do that as temporary keeper of the court?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She snarls. “You’ll do everything in your power to make it happen or I’ll destroy your family.”