Page 14 of Lifeblood

“Youdid,” I countered. “Silencing them. Holding court.”

“I’m the oldest.” He spoke without much excitement to his words. A fact and nothing more to be discussed. But it only drew my curiosity more.

I was two hundred years old. The Demon Courts themselves had existed, known or hidden to the word, for centuries. And as long as I’d known, these four demons had been their kings. “How oldareyou?”

“Enough,” he said, a low growl rolling through his throat like thunder over a mountainside. The shadows in the room seemed to inhale with it, only releasing when Mordred was done letting the word roll off his lips.

“Old enough, or are you finally growing tired of me, too?”Gods. Why couldn’t I just keep my mouthshut?

Because you’re afraid.

Which wasn’t new. I’d always been afraid. But this was something entirely different. And not just because, once again, I’d found myself cornered by an apex predator in the supernatural world.

The shadows in the room shuddered again, betraying any of the calm Mordred was trying to persuade me to feel along with him. And hewastrying. Heseemedunbothered, his eyes relaxed, his jaw not nearly as tight as it’d been upstairs in the makeshift throne room. But I noticed his shoulders had stiffened. His fists were now clenched inside his pockets.

I looked up as the silence continued and caught him catching me studying him. My cheeks flushed immediately with warmth and I opened my lips to speak, to say it wasn’t what it looked like, that I wasn’t gazing at him as Lance had me, but Mordred lifted a hand, silencing me.

“You talk a lot when you’re nervous,” he stated.

“Can you blame me?” I asked.

He closed the distance between us in soft steps, barely making a sound. Almost as if he moved with the darkness in the room. The dead quiet of the night. I backed up against the glass, but there was nowhere to go. When our bodies were inches from each other, he let his gaze roam once more over the silver gown I still wore, over my short height and soft curves. He withdrew his hands from his pockets, but they hovered between us, not touching me.

“No, I can’t,” Mordred finally said, his deep voice just louder than a whisper. But low. If we hadn’t been as close as we were now, I probably wouldn’t have heard him. “Little lifeblood. Hiding through the decades, scared, until fate finally brought you to us.”

I swallowed thickly, incredibly self-aware how loud the sound was. Mordred’s lips parted and, finally, he brought his hand close to my face. I thought maybe he’d reach for my cheek, draw me in as I had Gareth last night, but instead, his fingertips came to rest over my pounding pulse.

Our gazes met then. His fingertips were so close to my carotid artery that I was hyper aware he could damage it in an instant if he wanted to. If he grew tired of me. If they found another way to sustain themselves and their immortality without me.

I had no say here. And I was terrified. And he couldfeelthat terror flitting through me.

But he didn’t smile. He didn’t look amused by it at all.

“Youaresafe here, Ava,” Mordred said slowly, each word carrying with it a weight that I could nearly feel the same as the mate bond’s orders.You are safe. Submit. Submit. SUBMIT. “No demons will attack you. None of the kings will claim you, not yet.”

I forced a long, shaky breath in and out of my lungs, not caring how vulnerable it made me seem to him. Laying that vulnerability bare actually felt good. Like a step in the right direction to no longer being a guilty coward.

Nothing changes now except the path forward.

And the only path forward was survival.

“I know this is an unusual circumstance,” Mordred continued in my silence. “Mate bonds between supernaturals of different species. A mate bond between five individuals, no less. Fate is fickle.”

“Fate is a bitch,” I hissed.

Mordred’s lips cracked into a smile at that. “Agreed, but I promise you safety. And answers, as soon as we return to the Demon Courts, where we are all better protected.”

And for some reason—against all logic and pattern of behavior until this point—I believed him.

Not because he was one of my mates. Definitely not because he was a demon king.

But because he feltgenuine. The darkness in his eyes was ultimately hard to read, but enough authenticity shone in them, enough authority, that I was able to see truth there. To see past the irrational thoughts the mate bond was giving me, the wild feelings of attraction and gravity, straight to Mordred, King of the Court of Darkness.

My mortal enemy, sure.

But also my mate.

I nodded slowly. “Okay. I believe you. I can’t do anything but that, really, but—”

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