Page 31 of The Salvation

I should stay here. It’s the rational choice. Why ruin a good thing? He took me from Kronos and saved me from a doomed fate. How could I be so ungrateful as to leave this room?

For hours, I agonize over the choice, tossing and turning, unable to rest, much less sleep. Finally, I snap. After possibly weeks of this routine with no answers, the need to follow him cloys me until I can barely breathe.

Chest constricting, horror twisting my nerves, and lungs withering, I cover myself with one of his robes hanging upon a hook nearby. Black enough to cover my glowing skin, my inner soul light from any wandering ghosts.

Sucking in a deep breath, I try the door handle, already expecting it to be locked, forcing me to find another way out.

It opens.

My breath catches in my chest. It was unlocked? This whole time?

Suspicion preys on my nerves, but I lower my brows and slowly push open the door. And follow his gray amber and sweet wormwood scent down the passage to my left.

13

"The spy's head does bear the sigil..."

MERIKH

I don’t interferewith the sounds coming from the outer hall adjoining the Founder’s Meeting Hall.

Reaver was Valeraine’s lover centuries ago. They are simply getting...reacquainted.

Mine sits at my side. Kyan is no Founder, but he and Shadow are my partner, my two-in-one lover.

Before we came, I goaded Shadow into coming out of his damned hole in Kyan’s mind. While I am the top for the angel, the demon is mine. The pain of him pounding my dark hole, driving me against the wall, and taking his teeth to my throat was what I required. Or I fear there would have been more shattered skulls and spilled blood.

I may hold ultimate power over my realm, but I would be a fool to ignite a blood feud among my clans. Not with Quintessa’s presence in my Court of Hollows. Not with how I just usurped my claim upon her and gave her the Blood Crest.

Blood crystals emanate a flushed glow upon the Founder’s Hall, where I take my place upon the obsidian throne that towersabove the Founders’ smaller thrones arranged in a semi-circle to face mine. Four sit upon their thrones, and I idly tap my armrest while waiting for Valeraine and Reaver to finish their...business.

Now and then, I glance at Kyan, who paces nearby, his wings relaxed and lowered. A King in his own right and the God of Air, which is the only reason the Founders acknowledge and tolerate his presence, but he is not given a throne. Not in this meeting hall. In my public Court, he and our Curse-brothers retain their thrones alongside mine on the uppermost level.

A few moments later, Valeraine enters with Reaver following close behind her. Despite how Arkenthorne’s throne is open and empty, Reaver is wise to not usurp it. No, while Valeraine sweeps into her throne, the former traitor moves to the circle’s center and kneels, much like he did in the court.

It’s the crude sack gripped in his left fist that has my focus most...and intrigue, considering I can smell the rotted blood stench from here. None of the other Founders say a word. Lecherous leeches.

Rolling my eyes because Reaver says and offers nothing, though he always had a flair for the dramatic, I wave my hand to the vampire. “Care to share how you’ve come into a rebirthed form to grace us with your presence, Reaver?” I snidely remark.

He lifts his head and offers me a too-confident smirk. “I thought you would never ask, My Lord. The reason for that is directly tied to the object I’ve brought as proof of my loyalty.”

The Founders posture, spines tight and wings at attention as they wait.

I cage a growl in my throat, almost preferring the original Reaver, who was the most brazen and outspoken of my Founders. Now, he seems to wait for permission for the most menial of bootlicking. Kyan strays closer to my throne, alerted to my growing tension.

“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation simply to test my ever-dwindling patience?” I address him and drum my fingers along my armrest.

Bowing his head, the vampire opens his sack, tips it, and the severed head tumbles to the floor with a rolling thud. Eyes open and vacant to betray dilated pupils, lips pulled back in a snarl with fang tips stained in blood, and veins robbed of their silver essence. What is most prominent is the blood sigil carved into the center of the dead vampire’s forehead. A crown adorned with blood droplets.

Two Founders stiffen, Valeryc and Azurienne, taking a keener interest in the fallen head.

When the former Founder offers nothing but keeps his head bowed, I unleash my growl of frustration. “Reaver, by my gods-damned Blood Crest, I will pry your sycophantic jaws open to the breaking point until I may open your fucking skull for the answers if you don’t start flapping your tongue as you were always so apt at doing in your past.”

“Before I arrived in your Court, I took the liberty of dispatching this spy in your midst, Lord Merikh. I found him on the border of the Sea of Bones, taking a keen interest in the Lady of the Blood Crest.”

I growl low under my breath. More on account of the image he painted in my mind and not from him executing a spy in my realm. If he hadn’t used such a formal respect for my Queen, he’d already be a blood stain on my floor. Even Kyan remains cautious, studying the kneeling vampire.

“My deepest apologies for not bringing him to you alive, but I had little choice when he attacked me,” Reaver clarifies.

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