Page 11 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

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.

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