Page 82 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

The next thing my attention flew to was Vincent Feral.

The muscular male looked huge compared to the spindly Elders, especially with the way he stood. Tense, like a cornered animal on the cusp of taking someone’s hand off.

Everyone fell silent when we entered the room. The tension was thick enough to bruise. I could sense all eight Elders boring into me from their thrones, scraping over my mating marks and taking in my scent just as blatantly as everyone else.

But I wasn’t looking at them. Vincent turned toward me, and when our eyes locked, I was sucked into another one of our bubbles where only we existed. The drapes on the large window behind the council were pulled back with the half moon sitting high in the sky, its pallid light painting Vincent’s profile in silver.

Through the bright viridian of his irises, I could see his monster peeking out. He was so close to losing control over his true nature. If that happened, the Elders would not only be useless in our fight against Thomas Knight, they’d stand in our way.

The fae seemed to relax some when his attention drifted to the feathers decorating my shoulders. A shadow of a smile lurked at the crook of his mouth, then promptly disappeared when his eyes drifted to the collar of marks his oldest brother had left on my throat.

My heart beat harder when I caught his dick twitch in his jeans.

“My turn next,” he mouthed to me, the back of his head still turned toward the Elders.

“Focus, Ruby,” Sterling hissed low enough for no one else to catch. “Your scent is strong enough as it is.”

I didn’t give a shit how mouth-watering or fertile I smelled. The Elders could fucking choke on it for all I cared. Still, Sterling was right. As usual.

If things went our way, there would be time to drool over Feral later.

Refocusing my attention on the Elders, I tried to read their body language to pick up clues as to what had gone on before we came in. They appeared even tenser than the one on trial—all of them on the edge of their seats.

“Prince Knight, Princess Ruby. You’re late. I do hope you don’t mind that we started early,” said a thin man. He had a hooked nose and a thick black beard that had a shock of white to it. He reminded me of that creepy Russian guy I’d seen a documentary on—Rasputin or something.

“We surmised you might be...preoccupied.” The second vampire’s ice-cold glare settled on my new collection of marks.

Jeez.

At this rate, I should have come downstairs with one of those picture lights mounted around my neck. Light this bitch up and give everyone a show.

Sterling bristled. “Drawing attention to my personal matters in an attempt to divert attention from the fact that you started this meeting without its most senior member is a stab below the belt. Don’t you think, Elder Grigori?”

The vampire named Grigori seemed flustered for a second, then recovered a moment later with a cold brush-off. “Hmph. I didn’t intend to insult you, My Prince.”

Sterling strode toward the thrones and took his seat between the empty ones, straightening the cuffs of his collared shirt while throwing a frosty glare in the other Elders’ general directions. “Yes, well, you should know by now that in this house, good intentions are worthless when met with failure.” I shivered at Sterling’s lethal yet sedated tone. “Now explain to me why my brother, a royal prince and one of the highest ranking vampires in the country, is on trial.”

A short little man with a bald head that barely stretched past Sterling’s shoulder was the one to answer from his seat on the end. “Your brother is not on trial, My Prince.”

“He most certainly is, Elder Magnus,” Grigori argued. “It’s he who is responsible for the events that transpired in Boston.”

“It–it’s not!” I sputtered, my interruption earning me a glare from every council member, including Sterling. “It’s Dr. Sharpe’s fault.”

“I already told them exactly what happened,” Vincent said in a low-pitched growl. “They’re getting hung up on the wrong fucking part.”

All the Elders looked tense and worn out, probably from the dark fae’s tone and the way the atmosphere seemed to bend around him at his behest. If I wasn’t reading the room wrong, they were wary of my dark knight.

Good. They ought to be.

“Yes, and what a wild tale it was,” Grigori said with a shake of his head. “It’s almost too tall of a tale to believe.”

“Council,” Sterling said, rapping his fist over the wooden arm of his chair. “I can attest to the validity of any testimony my brother has given you.”

“Then you know that Prince Feral shifted in front of humans? He almost killed another royal. And when he was captured by an enemy coven, he murdered a member of this council,” the third Elder said, an older woman with painted lips perpetually turned downward. “It’s unfortunate what happened with Dr. Sharpe. He served on this council for many decades.”

When I spat a placid “ha,” her nails dug into the arms of her chair. “Yeah, and he was a traitor. Plus,Iwas the one to kill him.”

I didn’t want Vin taking the fall for me. I was a big girl who could take responsibility for her own murders. Admitting to being the one to murder Sharpe was a risky move—he had been their friend—but they needed to know the truth.

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