Page 31 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

I stared at the copy ofThe Divine Comedy.If memory served correctly, it was the only book on this shelf that wasn’t a book at all; it was the lever that would activate to reveal a secret passageway known only to Sterling and Kenzie since she served as Sterling’s primary blood donor.

And now myself.

I read the gold-embossed lettering on the spine a million times before finally willing myself to pull it. The shelf grated, sliding back into the wall to reveal the pitch-black tunnel on the other side in all its forbidding and somberly still darkness.

Once again, I couldn’t move. My heart thrummed hard in my veins, and my breath rushed out in short bursts as my human instincts took a rare moment to fill me with doubt.

This wasn’t the first time I’d visited the eldest Knight prince’s most private quarters.

But this wasn’t anything like last time, either.

A vampire’s den was supposed to be a sacred, intimate place. From what Eros said the other night, the location of their dens wasn’t something they disclosed to most.

Entering uninvited and unannounced had to be extremely inappropriate, even for a mate.

I didn’t have a choice, though.

Sterling hadn’t answered his phone.

Stepping forward, the stone floor burned my feet like ice beneath my soles. In the impenetrable darkness, the smothering quiet amplified the chaotic rhythm of my heart beating in my eardrum.

With the slight curve in the passageway, Sterling’s den appeared slowly with its Victorian-style furnishings bathed in the amber warmth rolling off the fire, looking like a painting framed in the tunnel’s darkness.

The moment I took the last tentative step to enter the room, warmth swaddled me.

Describing Sterling’s sanctuary as “cozy” was a massive freaking understatement. It’s what I imagined if Albus Dumbledore’s office and Bilbo Baggins’ house had a baby. The eldest prince’s den held lots of warm touches, dark woods, and cozy-looking furniture. So many books lined the walls, the shelves filled with mystical odds and ends, in addition to the piano in the corner and oil paintings on the walls. The only modern things in here were the bar in the room’s corner with the mini-fridge filled with blood and Sterling’s cell phone

plugged into the wall, sitting on the bar counter. It blinked with blue light—probably the message I’d left.

I didn’t gawk at the room’s details for long. Sterling’s oceany scent, laced with its subtle notes of old paper and leather, made my mouth water and the monster stir within me.

Stepping around the couch, my eyes dropped to the open coffin on the floor, laying between the sofa and the fireplace.

In the hearth, the charcoal fragments of a dying fire crackled. Molten veins simmered beneath their ashen crust, casting Sterling’s hard jaw and perfect mouth in golden light, and flickering shadows crested his profile.

His mouth was the first thing I took in, staring at its exquisite contour for I don’t know how long.

Then my eyes—greedy for more—took in the rest of his angelic visage. The priest’s silvery hair fanned out in every which way across his pillow. His white lashes splayed like tiny feathers over his high cheekbones. His arms were folded around himself, slender fingers twitching in his sleep.

My line of sight drifted over his bare chest to settle on the ravaged crucifix tattoo for a moment before trailing down to his waist, where his gray sweatpants sat sinfully low on his hips.

A soft, gentle purr rumbled from my depths before I could stop it. My monster called for her mate.

He didn’t so much as stir.

How had my entrance not woken him? Could he not hear the grate of the passage opening? Or the roar of my blood in my veins, or my monster’s mating call?

Then I realized he was twitching, and his brow was carved with a severe V.

At first, panic flailed inside me, making my chest constrict.

By placing my mark over Thomas Knight’s, I had only inserted myself between their bond, meaning it was possible that he’d wriggled his way into Sterling’s mind just like he’d done with mine only an hour or two ago.

My mental visit with the vampire king had been a crash course in detecting magical energy. Even unshifted, I knew I’d be able to pick up on the pungency of Dagon’s magic with its scent of rotting flesh and eggs. Pretty hard to miss.

Thank fuck there were no traces of it here.

Sterling was just having a nightmare.

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