Six Scorched Roses (Crowns of Nyaxia)

Vale led me back downstairs when I finished collecting the blood. As I did every time, I found myself slowing down every hall, unable to look away from each antique and piece of art. I couldn’t stop myself from craning my neck as we passed the wings again, my steps slowing without my permission.

“You like them?”

Vale sounded amused.

“They’re… remarkable.”

“More remarkable on my wall than they were on the man who bore them.”

It was a horrible thing to say. A reminder of vampire brutality. And yet… I was intrigued more than appalled.

“And who was that, exactly?”

“A Hiaj general who was said to be very talented.”

The words very talented dripped with sarcasm.

“Hiaj,” I repeated. “That’s one of the two clans of the House of Night?”

My gaze traveled to the painting beside the wings—depicting a man with feathered white wings driving a spear through the chest of another with slate-grey bat wings.

“You… know more of Obitraes than I’d expect of a human.”

“I like knowing things.”

“I can see that. Yes. Hiaj.” He tapped his finger to the bat-winged man. “And Rishan.” He tapped the feather-winged man.

Rishan. I formed the word silently, rolling my tongue over it.

“You must be Rishan, I assume. Going by your taste in decor.”

“You assume right.”

“So you have wings.”

I said it before I could stop myself. Feathered wings. What would they look like? Would they be dark, like his hair?

“You’re an especially nosy mouse today.”

I blinked to see Vale staring at me, amused.

“I’m always nosy,” I said. “You don’t know me very well yet.”

Yet. As if we would form some kind of friendship through this little bargain of mine. A ridiculous thought. Still… when he laughed a little and grinned—reluctantly, like he didn’t mean to—I could imagine it could happen.

“Maybe you’ll get to see them one day,” he said, “if you’re very fortunate.”

And I could imagine, too, that I would indeed be very fortunate if I got to see Vale’s wings.

“Who is in power now?” I said. “Back home?”

“Home?”

He said the word slowly, like it was foreign.

It didn’t occur to me that Vale might not think of the House of Night as his home. But then again, would one consider a place their home when they hadn’t been there for hundreds of years?

“The House of Night,” I said. “The Rishan and the Hiaj are always fighting, aren’t they? Struggling for power.”

“You know too much of my country’s dirty laundry.”

“I had a colleague once who studied anthropology, with a specialization in vampire culture.”

Vale laughed. “A dangerous field.”

Dangerous, indeed. He had gone to Obitraes and never came back. He was a nice man. I liked to think that perhaps someone Turned him and he was still living some life over there—even though I knew it was more likely that he just became somebody’s meal.

Vale turned and started walking back down the hall, and I’d given up on getting an answer to my question when he finally said, “The Hiaj. The Hiaj have been in power for two hundred years.”

So Vale’s people had been usurped. Judging by the style of art and what I knew of vampire conflict, that couldn’t have been pleasant.

And…

“How long have you been here?” I asked, carefully.

Vale chuckled at the question I really asked and gave me the answer I was really looking for.

“It’s not a pleasant thing to oversee the loss of a war, mouse,” he said. “You’d move halfway around the world after that, too.”

He indulged more of my curiosity on our walk back to the front door, pausing here and there to tell me a few facts about this artifact, that painting, this tapestry. Even those sparse tidbits were more than enough to confirm that I’d been right—that Vale had incredible amounts of knowledge just holed up in this castle, never mind what he must own back in the House of Night. But what struck me even more is that he offered this information to me freely, without me even having to ask, like he understood each question I had before I asked it. I would have almost thought he was a mind reader, but the House of Night did not have mind magic—that was a gift reserved for the House of Shadow.

No, he was just… observant. And for those few moments, strangely enough, I felt like I didn’t have to work so hard to bridge the gap between myself and the rest of the world. Didn’t have to work so hard adjusting my facial muscles and body language, nor at decoding his.

And maybe… maybe he felt the same way. Maybe—for all that my prodding earlier had simply been cruel words to throw at him—maybe he really was lonely.

This thought struck me all at once when he went to the door, opened it, and then stopped.

I was so bad at reading expressions. But was that… disappointment?

He stared out into the dark path ahead.

“It’s late,” he said. “How long does it take you to get back to your home from here?”

“A few hours.”

That was an understatement, actually.

“Isn’t it dangerous for a little human mouse to travel so far alone at night?”

“It won’t be night for much longer.”

My body refused to let me forget it, too. Every blink was gritty, and my muscles grumbled in irritation. I was thirty. Old enough for my body to protest a night absent of sleep in ways it hadn’t ten years ago.

But I shrugged.

“If I didn’t do dangerous things,” I added, “I would do nothing.”

“Hm.” He eyed the trail, then looked back to the stairs, seemingly unconvinced.

I cleared my throat and adjusted my bag over my shoulder. “Well—”

“You could stay,” he said. “If you would prefer to wait until morning to leave.”

He looked as surprised to have said it as I was to have heard it.

I arched an eyebrow. “Well, Vale, you already had one houseguest this—”

“Not like that,” he huffed. “The houseguest is gone. I offer you your own bed. Though”—and here his voice lowered, slightly—“if you wanted to share mine instead, I wouldn’t object to that, either.”

I stilled. Words evaded me. I searched his face for any one of the many signs I’d memorized that someone was making fun of me, telling me something that wasn’t true, and I found none of them in Vale’s expression.

That surprised me almost as much as it surprised me that I was considering it.

That I found myself, far too vividly, imagining what it might have been like to be in that woman’s place—to feel his hands over my body, pinning me. To feel the size of him inside me, feel what it would be like to be taken that roughly, that hard. I’d been fooling myself if I thought I had put him out of my mind. If there was any part of me that wasn’t thinking, just a little bit, about the sheen of sweat over his bare muscles with every movement he made tonight.

I cocked my head and stared at him.

“Vampires have a good sense of smell, don’t you?” I said.

He had moved a little closer. “Yes.”

“Do you smell me?”

My voice was low, rough.

“Yes,” he said. “Acutely.”

“Is it… difficult for you?”

“What does that mean?”

I didn’t answer, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you asking if I’m tempted by you?”

He leaned closer still. My back pressed to the doorframe. I remained very, very still, even as he stepped closer, our bodies almost—but not quite—touching. He lowered his head, so his lips nearly came to my throat.

I didn’t move.

My breath had gotten shallow, my heartbeat faster. Some primal thing within me reached for the surface of my flesh—reached for the surface of his.

His mouth did not touch me. But I still felt the vibration of his voice, deep and low, over the fragile skin of my throat.

“I smell you,” he murmured. “I smell your blood.”

“What does it smell like?”

It sounded like someone else’s voice.

“It smells like honey. Like… nightshade. Sweet. Perhaps with a bitter bite.”

I heard his voice dip a little at that last part. Amusement.

“And?” I said.

“And I smell the beat of your blood through your veins.”

My pulse quickened a little, as if stirring beneath his awareness. His hands braced against the doorframe now, so his body enveloped mine—though, still, without touching.

“And you know what else I smell?” His face ducked a little closer, voice lowering to a whisper. “I smell that you want this.”

I let out a rough breath.

I did. My curiosity extended beyond artifacts on a wall. It reached for Vale’s body and my own, and what it would feel like to bring them together.

I wouldn’t even try to deny that to myself.

But I wasn’t about to let him take me to bed in sheets still mussed from someone else’s body.

“Wanting something doesn’t count for anything,” I said, and put my hand firmly on his chest, pushing him back. He stepped away without protest, eyes narrowed—maybe with curiosity just as potent as mine.

“Goodnight, Vale,” I said. “Thank you for the blood. I’ll see you in a month.”

And I didn’t look back once as I set off down the trail.

I knew he watched me until I was gone, though.

When I got home, the house was still dark and quiet, though the birds were stirring by then. I called for Mina and heard no answer.

Maybe she left early, I thought, not believing myself.

I found her in her bedroom, perched at the edge of the bed, her eyes glassy and glazed over, her joints locked and muscles tight. She didn’t see me even when I stood right in front of her—not until I shook her, hard, and she blinked and finally looked up at me.

“Oh. You’re home!”

She hid her fear beneath her smile and a dismissive wave, and even though a knot formed in my throat that made it hard to speak, I didn’t question her.

But I still saw her trembling. Still saw the way she paused in the mirror when she rose, shakily, from the bed, looking at herself the way I had the first day I was old enough to feel death following me.

So much of her skin covered the floor that it took me half an hour to sweep it all away.