Chapter Three — The Sigil and the Vampire (1)

The Blood Court came calling at dawn, and they brought theater.

Layla watched from the gallery above the great hall as the delegation swept in like a murder of elegant crows. Twelve vampires in black and silver, faces like porcelain, walking with the unhurried grace of things that had never once been in a hurry in their immortal lives. At their head, impossibly tall, impossibly pale, with hair like spun ink and eyes like old wine, walked the man she'd seen once before — in a memory she'd spent nineteen years trying to forget.

"His Grace, Abel Moreau, Duke of the Blood Court, First of the Eternal Line."

Abel Moreau smiled, and the great hall got several degrees colder.

"King Thorne," he said, his voice like honey poured over a knife. "What a pleasure. I heard you'd acquired a new treasure, and I simply had to see it for myself. They say she's human." He tilted his head, wine-dark eyes finding Layla in the gallery with the precision of a hunting hawk. "Extraordinary. You've had five years to choose a Queen, Your Majesty. Tell me — what does a human hostage have that a thousand immortal brides don't?"

Karen Thorne didn't look up from his throne. "She delivers dinner."

Abel's smile sharpened. "Does she."

"She's also," the King added, in a voice that made the marble floor feel fragile, "none of your concern."

"Ah." Abel spread his hands. "But everything in Verath is my concern, Your Majesty. That's the nature of our cooperation. The Blood Court and the Wolf Crown, bound by treaty and mutual terror. I only wondered — since the whole supernatural world is wondering — whether your new acquisition signals a change in policy." His eyes slid to Layla again. "Or merely a change in taste."

The great hall held its breath. Layla felt a hundred pairs of eyes on her — wolf, vampire, and the nervous human servants who'd slipped in to watch the drama.

And then Isolde, daughter of Elder Cyrus, stepped forward.

She was gorgeous in the way a hurricane was gorgeous — all golden hair and sharp cheekbones and a smile like a knife in a birthday cake. She'd been glaring at Layla since the delegation arrived, and now she turned that glare on the King.

"Your Majesty," Isolde said, sweet as poison. "The Elders have discussed this. A human hostage at the heart of the Wolf Court is unprecedented. It weakens us. It invites questions. It makes us a laughingstock." She smiled at Layla with the warmth of a glacier. "Perhaps the wisest course is to return her to the human world — with a purse of gold and our thanks, of course. A clean ending. A dignified one."

"Or," said Layla, before her brain could catch up with her mouth, "you could just ask me what I want."

The great hall went absolutely silent.

Isolde's smile froze. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me, Blondie." Layla's heart was trying to escape through her ribs, but her mouth had apparently decided to run this operation solo. "I've been in this palace for five days. In that time, I've been fed, clothed, given a suite, a phone, a reading nook, and a hammock. The King's been more hospitable to me than my own landlord, and my landlord once water-boarded me with a leaky ceiling. So forgive me if I'm not lining up to be 'returned with a purse of gold' like a library book that's overdue."

Somewhere in the gallery, Locke made a strangled sound that was definitely a laugh.

Isolde's face went through several stages of processing. "You—" she started. "You speak to the Elders' daughter like that? You're a human. You're nothing. You're less than nothing. You're—"

"Careful," said the King.

The two words fell into the hall like stones into still water. Karen Thorne rose from his throne. He didn't hurry. He didn't raise his voice. He simply stood, and the entire hall — wolves and vampires alike — seemed to shrink away from him.

"Isolde, daughter of Cyrus," he said, very quietly. "Finish that sentence, and I will finish your family line."

Isolde went white.

Abel Moreau laughed — a delighted, musical sound. "Oh, this is magnificent. King Thorne, I take it back. Your acquisition is worth every rumor. I haven't seen the Elders' daughter look that terrified since the Reaping Wars."

"Your Grace," the King said, without taking his eyes off Isolde, "the Blood Court's opinion was not requested. But since you're here: the human is a hostage of the crown. She remains under my protection, in my palace, until I decide otherwise. Any delegation — vampire, wolf, or ghost — that attempts to remove her will be treated as an act of war."

"Your Majesty." Elder Cyrus stepped forward, gray-faced, hands trembling. "The old laws. The taboo. You know what they say about a wolf who—"

"Every throne in this world," the King said, cutting him off, "I would hand over in a heartbeat. Her? Not an inch."

The hall erupted — or would have, if anyone had dared make a sound. Instead it was a ripple, a shift, a hundred pairs of eyes moving between the King and the human girl in the gallery as if watching the foundations of reality crack.

Layla's heart was a drum. Her hands were shaking. And she couldn't, for the life of her, figure out why the King's words made her want to cry.

* * *

That evening, she found him in the garden.

The garden was absurd — a quarter-mile of impossible flowers that bloomed silver in the moonlight, planted, Locke had told her, "by the King himself, personally, with his own two hands, and if you tell anyone I told you that I'll deny it." Karen Thorne was standing at the center of it, looking up at the moon, and for a moment — just a moment — he looked less like a monster and more like a man who had spent a very long time being alone.

"You shouldn't have said that," Layla said.

The King didn't turn. "Said what?"

"'Not an inch.' In front of the whole court. You just told every power in the supernatural world that a human is more important to you than your throne." She stepped closer. "Do you know what they'll do with that?"

"Yes," he said.

"Then why?"

"Because," the King said, turning to face her, "it's true."

The moonlight caught his eyes. Gold. All gold. Soft and fierce and burning, and Layla felt her breath catch somewhere between her lungs and her mouth.

"Karen." She said his name. It was the first time she'd dared. "I'm a liability. I'm a weapon they can use against you. Every single one of them knows it now. You just told them where to aim."

"I know."

"So why keep me? Why not—" Her voice cracked. "Why not let them take me back? You said it yourself. You'd hand over your throne. You don't need this. You don't need me."