Six Scorched Roses (Crowns of Nyaxia)

It was long past midnight by the time I reached Vale’s mansion. It was drizzly and cold, as it often was this time of year. I knocked on the door and received no answer.

I was tired and damp, uncomfortable and oddly on-edge after my encounter with Farrow. I was in no mood for games.

I pounded hard on the door, five six seven eight nine times, and when there was still no answer, I opened the door myself. Vale still didn’t lock his door. Why would he?

“Lord Vale?” I called out into the cavernous darkness as I closed the door behind me. I heard nothing, saw no movement. Perhaps Vale had decided he was tired of me, and he’d ignore me until I went away. Or maybe he’d lure me in and wait until he could grab me and devour me.

I wandered through the master hallway, and when I found nothing, decided, after a moment of hesitation, to climb the stairs.

I told myself that I was simply accomplishing a task—but if I was honest with myself, I’d acknowledge the little trill of delight that ran up my spine.

My mother used to say that I enjoyed the sciences because I was a naturally nosy person. She was probably right. She had always known me better than anyone.

I collected facts the way other people collected jewels, and Vale’s home was overflowing with them—both facts and jewels. The stairs led to a long hallway, just as cluttered and architecturally dissonant as every other part of the house that I’d seen so far. The walls were lined with artwork, most of it depicting vampires with feathered wings gutting, stabbing, burning, and otherwise brutally killing their victims—most often vampires with bat-like wings. But these halls also held other artifacts, too. One stretch displayed a set of grand wing bones, which unfolded along the peeling gilded wallpaper. I had to pause to stare at them in awe.

Incredible.

I’d never seen such a work of biological art. Each wing was longer than I was tall, the bones a delicate gleaming ivory. But despite their light elegance, they were also clearly powerful—even without muscle, I could see that.

I must have been right about Vale. He must be a Nightborn vampire from the House of Night—the kingdom of the only winged vampires.

What did his wings look like?

A distant voice jerked me from my thoughts. I tensed, face snapping to the end of the hall.

The sound had come from around the corner, and it came again. A voice, I realized after a moment—though too high to be Vale’s, and wordless. A cry. Pain?

My heart quickened a beat.

I hadn’t thought much about whether Vale did indeed eat humans. And if, when he did so, he dragged them back here to do it.

I probably should have run. But there was no use fighting nature, and I was a curious creature. So I went not away from the sound but closer, creeping down the hall and around the corner, where cool lantern light spilled from an open door at the end of the corridor.

The sounds grew louder, closer.

And a flush rose to my face when, a few steps away from the door, I realized that what I was hearing were not cries of pain. Very much the opposite, actually.

The moans rose to a crescendo.

No, Vale was not alone. And whoever he was with was having a wonderful time.

The door was wide open. Who could blame me for looking?

I peered around the frame. It was Vale’s bedchamber, a grand room covered in silks and art, with messy trinkets strewn over each surface. A large bed with a carved frame sat in the center of the room. Fine bedsheets were mussed and tangled over it.

And tangled over it, too, were two figures so entwined I wasn’t sure where one of them ended and the other began.

She was beneath him, an expanse of golden skin gleaming beneath the messy curls of red hair, and he leaned over her and clutched her hips from behind. I mostly saw his back and her tangles of hair, her arms splayed and gripping the bedsheets to brace herself as he drove into her viciously. With every thrust, his muscles flexed beneath his skin, rippling over the broad expanse of his back, the curve of his backside, the lean muscle of his upper thighs.

He looked as majestic and beautiful as those wings had. I imagined that perhaps, covered in muscle and skin, they might look almost—almost—as beautiful as he did now.

My face was very hot.

I couldn’t look away. I really did mean to announce myself, or back away, but I found myself frozen.

The woman bent down against the bed, the pillow slightly—but only slightly—muffling her rising cries of pleasure. Vale’s movements grew faster, harder, flesh slapping against flesh, leaning against her and falling over her back.

I watched, unblinking, as he held her down, mouth going to her shoulder as they came together. He made a sound only then, a rough exhale that made the hairs rise on my arms, and I had to strain hard to hear it over the sound of her.

They collapsed together, and with their breath, I let out my own. My fingers loosened around the doorframe. I hadn’t realized I’d been clutching it.

Vale whipped around.

“Lilith.”

For just a split second, he actually looked shocked. Frazzled.

Then his face hardened, going smooth and angry. He turned his back to me and rose from the bed, yanking a crumbled-up pile of fabric from the floor and giving me another distracting view of his backside.

“What,” he snapped, “are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer the door.”

My voice sounded a little weaker than I would have preferred.

The woman made no attempt to cover herself. She rolled over and stretched. I realized that she was covered in blood, especially around her throat—the dark color of the bedsheets had hidden that from me before. She smiled, revealing pointed teeth.

“You invited a human friend, Vale?” she said, with a deep inhale that had me stepping backwards.

Vale shot her a warning glance that made her smile disappear.

“A mouse,” he sneered. “No, a rat. An uninvited pest.”

He shook out the robe he’d picked up with a single violent movement, then threw it over his shoulders.

“I knocked,” I said. “You didn’t answer. I came when I said I would.”

“Oh, so did I,” the woman said, laughing softly to herself, and Vale shot her another unamused stare.

“What?” she said. “You don’t want to share?”

“Let’s not make any more a mess of my home than we already have. Can you give us a moment?”

She sighed, then sprang from the bed, lithe as a cat. She grabbed a piece of fabric from the bedside table and wiped the blood from her chest and throat. “I should be going, anyway. Thank you for the hospitality, as always, Vale.”

She threw on a plain black shirt and trousers, which had been sitting on the ground, then strolled past me with nothing more than another long, curious stare, which started at my feet and ended at my face.

Vale stared out the window, silent, until her footsteps had long since disappeared. Then, finally, he turned. He now wore a dark red, velvety robe, which he had loosely tied around his waist, so it revealed a long strip of his chest—covered in curly black hair—but, almost disappointingly, nothing below his waist.

My lips pressed together.

The robe was so…

“What?” he snapped.

“What?”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing at—”

I closed my mouth. Telling people that I was laughing at their clothing, I realized, was probably not very polite.

“What?” he bit out, irritated.

“The robe. It’s just… it’s very vampiric.”

His lips went thin. “Yes, well. I am a vampire. So I see now why you’re at the top of your field.”

I stifled my laughter.

Right. Work.

“I’m here for your blood. It’s been a month, as we agreed.”

“And payment?”

I reached into my bag and withdrew a rose, carefully wrapped so not a single petal was bent or crushed. He outstretched his hand, and I hesitated, to which he heaved an irritated sigh.

“What? Now I scare you?”

He didn’t scare me. It just smelled like sex in here. I crossed the room, eyeing the bloody, rumpled sheets as I passed. Vale took the rose and stared at it, unimpressed.

“The one you gave me last time seems to be totally unremarkable,” he said.

“You’ll have to be patient.”

“I’m not a very patient man.”

“I don’t lie, Lord Vale. They’re special. I promise.”

“You can just call me Vale,” he grumbled. “I suppose that once someone has seen my bare ass, we can drop the titles.”

He dropped heavily into a velvet chair next to the window. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Here?”

“Yes, here. Is that a problem?”

I glanced again to the bed, and he let out a low, silken chuckle.

“What? Are you really so distracted by sex?”

It was distracting, but I wasn’t about to admit that. I dropped to my knees before him and withdrew my equipment from my bag. When I took his arm to guide the needle into his veins, I was acutely conscious of every patch of my flesh that touched his.

He laughed again as I thrust the needle through the resistance of his skin.

“I can hear your heartbeat. Is that nervousness or excitement?”

I could hear my own heartbeat, too, and I wished it would calm down. Even I wasn’t sure which it was, but neither was welcome.

“I think it’s amusing that you wandered into my house without a care in the world,” he said, “but the sight of fifteen seconds of sex triggers your nerves. I will never understand humans.”

“I’ve had plenty of sex.” And the minute I said it, I cursed myself for it—why in the gods names did I just say that?

Vale now looked very, very amused, and I absolutely despised it.

“Have you, now? Did some gawky farm boy from next door take you for a ride?”

My lips thinned.

Eron had been gawky, and he was a farm boy, and that summer when I had been sixteen and curious, we had indeed explored each other in the deserted moments behind the barn, when no one else was around. I didn’t want to die a virgin. I was certain, then, that I wouldn’t live to see the winter, so I saw all of Eron instead.

But fifteen years later, I was still here, and six months ago, I swept Eron off the church floor after his funeral, when his mother was too hysterical to do it.

“You know, I did wonder at first,” I said, “why you didn’t kill me when I came into your house. Now I understand it’s because you’re a bored, lonely man, desperate for any kind of company.”

I didn’t look away from the vial, his blood dripping and rolling against the glass. But I felt his stare, and in the moment of silence, I wondered if I’d hit my mark.

“As you just witnessed,” he said, coolly, “I can get all the company I want.”

“Company that got what she wanted from you and then left without saying goodbye.”

“We got what we wanted from each other. It wasn’t conversation that I was looking for.”

And yet… he was sitting here talking to me.

“What do you need this for?” he asked. “The blood?”

“As I told you—”

“My blood isn’t a cure for anything, I promise you that.”

“It appears, L—” I caught myself. “Vale, to be a cure for death.”

He scoffed. “No human encounter with vampire blood has ended particularly well.”

That tone piqued my curiosity almost enough to make me forget my irritation at his insults. I peered up at him. He was looking out the window now, the cold moonlight tracing the outline of his jawbone, especially strong from this angle.

“Were you Born or Turned?” I asked.

There were two ways to make a vampire. Some were birthed, just like the rest of us. But more interesting was Turning—the process of drinking a human’s blood, and offering theirs, to create a new vampire.

I’d thought a lot about it these last few weeks. What that must be like. What other animal could do that? It was a transformation as impressive as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

His gaze shot to me, insulted. “Born. Obviously.”

“Why is that obvious?”

“Being Turned is… undesirable.”

I knew only a little about vampire anatomy. It was difficult to study them when they were so reclusive. And when so many of the humans who went to Obitraes never returned.

“Turning is dangerous, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes. The majority die during the process.”

“But if someone survives it and becomes a vampire, they’re considered… undesirable?”

“Part human. Part vampire. Their blood will always hold the taint of humanity.” His nose wrinkled. “Less pure.”

“But if they survived such a dangerous thing, doesn’t that make them the strongest among you?”

Vale opened his mouth as if to argue with this, then shut it. He looked conflicted, like he’d never thought of it that way.

“It’s just not how it is,” he said, at last.

The first vial was full. I switched to the next.

“Why did you leave Obitraes?” I asked.

“And I thought you were nosy last time.”

“Most humans never get to speak to a vampire. I should take advantage of it, shouldn’t I?”

“Aren’t you so very lucky.”

A few seconds passed. I thought he didn’t want to answer, but then he said, “I wanted a change.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Have you always lived in that little town?”

“I studied in Baszia.”

He scoffed. “A whole ten miles away from home. How exotic.”

I did despise that he was so judgmental, and I despised even more that his sneers prodded at a selfish little wound I tried to ignore. I would never get to see the world—but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to.

“Not all of us have the resources to travel,” I said.

“Humans and your money.”

“I didn’t say money. I said resources.”

He glanced at me in confusion. I gave him a grim smile.

“Time, Vale,” I said. “Time is the most valuable resource of all, and some of us are perpetually short.”