Page 80 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

Confidence surged through me, lifting my chin a little higher. “Nope.”

My mate’s mouth twisted at the grin in my voice. “None?”

“I was a little nervous at the last Elders’ meeting. But that’s no shocker considering that same night I was kidnapped, wrenched out into the world for the first time, and told that I’m a vampire princess.” I shrugged. “But I’m acclimated now. Rampaging through enemy territory naked and covered in blood will do that for you, I guess.”

Sterling stopped in his tracks and pivoted to face me fully. “You’re remarkable, Ruby Renada.”

My heart bludgeoned my ribs as he reached to stroke his bite marks. They’d already healed into silvery, puckered scars. “It will be only the wise vampires who will worship you soon enough as the goddess you are. And it’s the fool who doesn’t bow to you now as queen.” He raised his voice for all to hear and turned his head, so his ghostly glare javelined into the crowd.

The air grew thick and disquieted at this glimpse of the vampire prince’s displeasure. A beat later, every vampire in the hall was showing proper respect by bowing to me.

I would never make anyone bow to me—unless they were enemies and I was intent on seeing them squirm. But watching the priest make the outsider vampires bow to me while he planted a slow and possessive kiss on my throat had my insides swirling. Sterling rarely bothered taking advantage of the magical chokehold he always seemed to have over rooms full of people, but bloody hell. When he did, it did something to me.

The silver prince’s mouth made love to my throat, his fangs scraping the flesh and slicing shallow cuts—deep enough to draw blood. Our onlookers’ eyes stained red as they watched Sterling’s tongue slide sensually over my skin, lapping me up. His bloody lips dropped to kiss Eros’ mark on my shoulder, then Corry’s over my heart.

His hands locked together at the small of my back, his lithe body bending over mine like one of those old Hollywood kisses you see in black-and-white movies. Only with Sterling as the dapper gentleman, you got all the manners and class, with more teeth and a little bloodshed.

Not to mention the fact that this was more than a kiss. It was a message.

“Really, Ster?” I rolled my eyes, even though I was eating up every second of a male like Sterling being so unsubtly possessive. “Such a Feral move.”

“If Vincent wanted to demonstrate his claim over you publicly, he’d have no issues bending you over that banister and marking you while everyone watched.”

My pussy grew slick at the image playing in my head, and my pulse thrummed a little harder. Catching my arousal, the vampire’s mouth furled with an audacious smile. “God’s teeth. Your body’s desire to be bred can be scented down every hall in this house. It’s getting stronger by the day. I can’t imagine the riot we’ll have among the males when your birth control is removed.”

An intoxicating inferno washed over me, making my skin flush red. Ster’s nostrils flared as he breathed me in with a gravelly chuckle. “Yes, something like that. Come. We must get to the council chamber. The Elders will be waiting.”

When we rounded a corner, heading into a less crowded part of the manor, I stopped. A man lounged in the hall leading to the throne room, with one booted foot flush with the wall. Even with his face turned to the phone in his hand—scrolling through what looked like a dating app called Fanger—his buzz cut revealed his Salem Coven scar, which was enough to ID him.

“Zeke. What are you doing here?”

“Princess.” Zeke Stone straightened long enough to bow before returning to his slouched position. His attention briefly flicked to Sterling, then wandered back to me. The vampire breathed me in and looked thunderstruck at the scent siphoning into his lungs. Instead of commenting on my smell, he took the safe option and complimented me on my dress.

The vampire was sure to keep his voice cordial, keeping the heat contained in his eyes as he perused my body. His brows shot up when he noticed the three fresh marks on my throat. “Damn.”

“‘Damn’ is right,” Sterling interjected, his voice unfriendly and full of warning. Zeke wasn’t sly enough to slip his flirtatious demeanor beneath the silver prince’s radar. “Seeing as you shouldn’t be here.”

“I was summoned. I’m Zeke Stone.”

“I’m fully aware of who you are and that you’ve been summoned. As a member of a local coven, you know trials for outside covens take place on the second night of the Elders’ visit. The first night is reserved for urgent Cape Cod Coven business and royal-family matters.”

Zeke scrubbed the back of his skull, shuffling nervously under Sterling’s questioning. “Right. But the youngblood texted the SC saying there might be some tension between the council and the royal progeny soon.” He looked down the halls both ways to make sure no one was around to eavesdrop. “And if it comes down to picking sides, know that we’re with you.”

Sterling relaxed, a sigh threading through him. “We appreciate that, Mr. Stone. Now, if only you were a four-hundred-men coven. Then we might not need to grovel before the Elders.”

Zeke let out a low whistle. “Shit’s looking that bad, huh?”

“Wait.” I frowned. “You got summoned for a trial? What did you do?”

“Same thing I always do. Mind my own damn business.” He dropped his attention back to his phone, where his thumb paused over the screen before swiping right on a girl with the name “XxNomadMaddiexX” and the subtitle beneath the picture of her fangs reading, “coven guys suk. lol.”

“He runs The Warehouse fight ring,” Sterling said. “Since it’s in Boston, the Elders don’t like it.”

Zeke shoved his phone in his pocket with a toss of his eyes. “If you ask me, it has nothing to do with being neighbors with the Boston Coven and everything to do with my inclusion policy. The Elders are older than dirt—no offense,” he added quickly, his gaze briefly flicking to my mate. “It’s tradition for vampires to hate werewolves, and I employ a lot of the Boston Pack. So, I’m always here getting bitched at. At least this time around, they have a reason to be pissed. Sucks that Feral’s getting all this shit, though. The guy’s a cagey prick, but knowing the Elders, he probably doesn’t deserve whatever sentence they stick him with.”

I blinked a few times, piecing everything together. The Elders were angry with what went down at The Warehouse the night Vincent shifted in front of tons of outsiders, including humans. Humans who had to be rounded up and mesmerized.

I mean, it could have been a real PR disaster. But it wasn’t. The Warehouse was dangerous, but this was not important compared to the visit from Satan we’d be getting in two days.

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