Page 39 of B Negative

Up.

So, up we went, and again, my stomach wanted to relieve itself of its contents. I closed my eyes against the dizzying climb, pressing my face into the guard’s chest.

I breathed in his strange scent, trying to focus on that instead of the rumbling in my guts.

He smelled like sunshine and freshly cut grass and that distinct scent of central air kicking on for the first time in a season in my childhood home.

I allowed myself to get so wrapped up in the guard’s scent, and the memories of my childhood it conjured, I didn’t notice when we stopped climbing.

“She triggered the enchantments, sire,” Tweedle Dee said as he set me on my feet in the middle of what appeared to be Titus’s office.

Snitch.

Also, I hadn’t meant to.

B and Sunny were right behind me, and while Sunny looked poised and beautiful as ever, B, for all his daily training, was winded.

Like, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath, winded.

I focused on the king in his office. Floor to ceiling windows let in the vast skyline of Cypress City. And unlike the overwrought library, Titus’s office was every bit modern and sleek.

Titus stood in front of a glass and metal desk that I knew would be covered in smudges and fingerprints and coffee mug rings if it were mine. A white leather office chair with metal arms and casters completed the set. The walls here, like other parts of the tower I’d seen, were a soft creamy beige, neither warm nor cool

I gave the guard a withering look over my shoulder before meeting Titus’s gaze and turned the accusation right on him. “Why would you keep a spelled book in a public place anyone has access to?” I asked.

Titus gazed at me, eyes giving nothing away.

The guards tense behind me.

“Gentlemen, will you leave me with my rival’s mate for just a moment?”

I could almost feel them smirking as they both left me alone with the brutal king.

I took strength from my friends at my back, covering up the cower I wanted to give into with bluster. “That vampire is not my mate, or weren’t you paying attention that night?” The words were out before I could stop them.

Titus Kubrick stared at me, tone dripping with danger. “I certainly was paying attention, young one. But if I know Julian, and I think I do, he’s done everything in his power to make sure no one in attendance at the incursion will reveal that juicy tidbit. And you’d be wise not to spread the rumor further.”

“And just why is that?”

Titus gave me a puzzled look for a fraction of a second before the expression vanished. “A king without a mate is one thing, but one whose mate ripped the bond from his chest is another entirely.”

I studied the king, trying to read the subtext in his face.

Had I harmed Julian’s position by publicly breaking our bond?

My throat tightened at the thought.

The last thing I wanted was to make Julian vulnerable to attack or usurpers.

“Why did you try to break the enchantments on my most ancient vampire bible?” he asked, changing the subject.

Vampire bible? What the fuck was that?

But again, I was in the position of not being able to ask questions or risk Titus finding out I was a recently made vamp, not one who grew up with the culture.

I only deliberated a second before deciding on my strategy and laid my cards on the table. Or appeared to, at least. “Look, I’ll be totally straight with you, Titus. I don’t want Sunny here. Just like I’m certain, beneath all her nice words and poised demeanor, she doesn’t want to be here either. So, I was looking for a way to nullify the mate bond for her. And what better place to look than in the oldest book you have.”

Titus stared at me for what seemed like an eternity, weighing my words, deciding whether he believed me, and more importantly, if he could trust me.

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