Page 13 of Lifeblood

I couldn’t. Iwouldn’t.

But I very much wanted to now that these last truths had come to light.

Mates.

I’d lived two hundred years without feeling even an inkling of a mate bond. And now that I’d met these kings,nowthat fate had decided to put me in the crosshairs of the wife lottery, here I was with four mate bonds. Or one large one? It certainly felt more whole when we’d all been together in that room.

I shook my head before sighing and resting my forehead against the cool, glass window. Everything had changed. Things always did. You learned that after living so long. But I was a lifeblood alone, and these demon kings… I didn’t like that they controlled my future.

But they may know about lifebloods.

The thought of that filled me with more hope than it should have. Because it didn’t change the state of things: I was their prisoner now. Mate, sure. But prisoner nonetheless.

My future was theirs. Maybe even if they decided to let me choose one of them over the others. Because they’d still be forcing me to choose one demon king to whom to submit my blood and my body.

“You’re not thinking of jumping, are you?”

The coolly asked question slipped through the air and wrapped around me suddenly. I jumped, startled, and spun to face the door to the room.

Mordred stood just inside the door, still in his dark-black suit jacket, and his hands in his pockets. None of them wore ties, but I was surprised to find his suit still buttoned up, the sleeves still down. All of the pomp and circumstance was over now; there was no need for this kingly façade.

We both knew where the real power lay, and it wasn’t in my hands, bound or not.

“No.” I raised my bound hands. “Reinforced glass. Nice touch. Think we can do away with the ropes?”

Mordred’s dark eyes roamed over my body as Lance’s had, but with much less obvious lust. His gaze was more of an acknowledgement of the bond between us pulling tightly like high gravity than an invitation to join in sinful fun.

“Can you promise to behave?” he asked.

I leveled him with a look. “I’m stuck in a tower with a platoon of demonic guards and four demon kings, each of whom has a mate bond with me and can sense my location if we’re close enough. Yes, I’ll behave.”

I didn’t really have a choice. At this point, it was all about playing my cards right for the longest life I could dig out of this situation. Longestandbest-lived.

Mordred shrugged lightly, his hands never leaving his trouser pockets. “Then I suppose we can.”

And yet, he didn’t move to undo the rope… but shadows around him did. They poured slowly out of the naturally created shadows from the neon city lights outside the Shard and crawled across the floor toward me.

I hated that my breath hitched, but it did. It was so unnatural a sight, I couldn’t help it.

Mordred smiled. “They won’t bite.” He spoke in such a tone that implied,But I do.

An excited, traitorous shiver curled down my spine and continued to my toes as the shadows rose up into tendrils before me. Deftly, Mordred commanded them to wrap around the rope binding and untie it. It fell away with the shadows to the floor, where they retreated once their job was done.

I rubbed at my wrists and tried to still my breathing. It was just magic. Justshadows. How could shadow magic be that attractive?

Submit. It wasn’t so much a voice in my head but a feeling that pounded through my very being. The mate bond was calling.

Mordred took a few steps toward me but kept his distance. “How is your hand? Lance healed it, no?”

I lifted my palm to the demon king. “Yes. You can’t even tell.”

Mordred licked his lips as his gaze rested on my uninjured palm. On where my silver blood recently spilled. “Good. Don’t do that again.”

He sure liked giving orders. “Are you their leader?” It seemed like a foolish question at first—as far as I knew, all four demon kings ruled equally within the Demon Courts as a council of sorts. While each of their specific courts were wildly different from one another, they still ruled overall as one.

Supposedly. Seeing Mordred with the others, I wasn’t sure anymore.

Mordred lifted his chin just slightly. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

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