Page 85 of The Vampire's Mercy
Damn. I couldn’t help myself.
He smiled again. “Is that so?”
“Sorry. I?—”
“It’s the truth.”
Ugh. Why was he so calm? Luring me into a trap or something? I’d better tread carefully across his eggshells.
He dropped his hands from the edge of the bath, sinking into the water up to his chin. “I’d like to show you something, after you shower and change.”
He shot out of the bath like a smear of light. I jumped to my feet, feeling a jolt in my chest from the sudden move.
“I’ll leave you for fifteen minutes,” he said behind me.
I faced him, heart in my throat. “Oh…”
He was fully dressed now, in black leather trousers and an open black shirt, his damp hair swept back. “Until then.”
He left.
Damn, I hated how crazy fast he moved. And I hated how incredibly fine he looked. Sex on legs with a side of get-in-me-immediately.
He left me alone to shower and change. I did it quickly, waiting by the bedroom door until he returned.
His eyes raked across my body, admiring my hideous purple outfit. “It’s time for you to sing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SILVANUS
The world is mine!
Treasures so divine!
Out I go to wander and see!
Oh, how magnificent to be a leaf so full of glee!
The white rose petals fell again, and a tiny Paris was in my hand. He danced, he twirled, and memories of my brother Lucius returned to me.
Shards of a past, the story not quite piecing together to make a whole. But I remembered his love of politics, the king of vampires before me, and better suited to carry the Heart of All.
Me being king meant he was dead. But how? When did it happen? And how were the vampires still alive? What was the process to pass the crown safely to another without killing everyone else?
I watched my brother on his obsidian throne, sitting with such regal grace. He always wore white, his blond hair tied in a long braid, a golden crown on his head. Taller than me by a few inches, with bigger muscles, and a lot more forceful than me.
A better king.
A dead king.
How did I become king? What was the process of passing on the crown? I had no idea, that part of me lost in the wilderness of my mind.
I asked the dancing Paris.
He didn’t have an answer, only twirled on the spot.
The petals fell thicker as the leaf song went on. More memories came. My brother and I laughing at a grand dining table, drinking blood from bejeweled goblets. Me standing beside him as he spoke from his throne. Him commanding a room, facing an army of… What? What was he facing? I couldn’t see the things in the forest my brother howled his fury at.
