Six Scorched Roses (Crowns of Nyaxia)

I hated sitting still.

Despised it, actually.

Vale all but threw me back into the bed, and I sat there for half an hour before I was fidgeting, trying to get up only to immediately stumble again. He caught on fast, soon taking watch at my bedside.

“You’re self-destructive,” he muttered, visibly irritated with me.

“I’m busy.”

“You’re ill.”

So what?

But before I could come up with another protest, he went to the bookcase, withdrew some books, and plopped them heavily onto the bed. “Here. If you want to work so badly, then work.”

I picked up the books. They were all written in a language I had never seen before.

“Is this… Obitraen?”

Only at my tone did Vale seem to recognize the flaws of his plan.

“What are these, anyway?” I picked up another one of the books and flipped through it. It was illustrated. Graphically so.

My cheeks tightened as I turned the book sideways, taking in a full-page spread. “My, Vale. Your taste is…”

He snatched the book away. “Fine. Then sit here doing nothing.”

“What is it, exactly, that you think I do, if you thought you could give me a random collection of books written in a language I didn’t understand and that would qualify as ‘working?’”

His face flushed with something that almost—almost—resembled embarrassment. Gods, I wished I could capture that expression. It was a thing of art.

“You’re awfully ungrateful of my hospitality,” he muttered, turning away.

“Wait.”

He stopped at the door and looked back.

No, these books, whatever they were—and I was very sure they had absolutely nothing to do with my field—wouldn’t help me work. But… still, curiosity nagged at me. How many humans had gotten to read Obitraen books?

“You could read them to me,” I said. “If you’re just so desperate to host.”

“Read them to you?”

Was the twinge in his voice disgust? His lip curled as if it was.

“I don’t know Obitraen, but you do. If you want me to stay in bed, it would be easier if I had something to do.”

Vale thought for a moment, then snatched one of the books from the bed—not the illustrated one, sadly—and sat in a chair by the window.

“Fine,” he huffed. “It isn’t as if I don’t have much more important things to do, but I’ll indulge you if you’re bent on being difficult.”

“An honor,” I said, unable to suppress a smile. “I know you’re very busy.”

But Vale, for all his supposed busyness and his grumpy reluctance, launched into those stories with all the enthusiasm of a man who would rather be nowhere else in the world.

I lost myself in those stories. It was too easy. My mind was thick and muddied, and I was exhausted. The first book Vale had picked up was a history book, vampire lore told in short vignettes. Their history was… appalling, but also riveting, every myth and legend woven into a tapestry of blood and betrayal. And yet, even when telling such horrible tales, his voice was smooth and deep, rising and falling like the swells of the ocean. Steady, like a heartbeat or breath. Elegant, like the way his blood looked on the wall.

I didn’t remember falling asleep, only that Vale’s voice and his stories followed me into my dreams. And I didn’t remember lying down or pulling the covers around myself, only that when I awoke, I had been carefully tucked in, silk sheets smoothed tight around my body.

I felt hot and weak, but worlds better than I had before. So I did the only natural thing: I got out of bed and started exploring.

I still couldn’t decide if Vale’s mansion was the ugliest or most beautiful place I had ever been. Each room I wandered into was more cluttered than the last—an absolute mess, but with the most fascinating objects. I came to the conclusion that Vale must only live in a very small section of this enormous house, because almost every room I peered into seemed to be used as storage. All of them were stunning, but the fourth room made me stop in my tracks, awed.

Weapons. Everywhere, weapons. I was an academic, a farmer’s daughter raised in a farmers’ town. I’d never held a sword—had barely even seen any, save for those on the hips of city guards. They’d always seemed to be simplistic and brutish instruments to me. Unremarkable.

Not these.

These were works of art. Even I, a woefully untrained eye, could see that immediately. Swords lined the walls, hung straight up and down in slashes of silver and gold along dark wallpaper—swords of every size, every shape, some nearly as tall as me and others light and delicate. On one side of the room, several sets of armor were mounted on wooden frames. Gorgeous, even from a distance—silver metal and black leather and capes of purple silk. Freestanding racks, haphazardly arranged about the space, held axes, bows, arrows.

A few, I realized as my eyes adjusted, were marked with spatters of black.

And there, on an end table right within the door, was a rapier stained with dried red blood—dried, fresh red blood. Perhaps from only a few days ago.

The hairs prickled on the back of my neck. The beauty of it all collided with the realization that dozens—hundreds, maybe thousands—had almost certainly been killed with the instruments that surrounded me now.

“You’re very bad at resting.”

I jumped and almost fell into a rack of arrows before Vale’s hand snaked out to catch me. He pulled me upright, but didn’t let me go. Our bodies were close. His eyes were slightly narrowed, searching my face, and I struggled to decode the complexities of what lay within them.

Annoyance, yes—that I expected. But something else, too, like he was waiting for the answer to a question and was nervous about what it might be.

“So I take it you’re feeling better,” he said.

“Yes. Better.” I cleared my throat and pulled away. Then looked to the room.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” he said.

“How did you get all of this?”

“I take my field seriously, just as you do yours.”

“And that field is…?”

“I was a general.”

“A good one?”

Even as the question left my lips, I knew it was a stupid one. I’d seen Vale fight now. Like it was an art.

“The third best in the House of Night,” he replied, very seriously, and that—well, I wasn’t expecting that kind of honesty.

“The first two must have been something to behold, now that I’ve seen you in action.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “They were. But they are dead, and I’m still here.”

And if anything startled me more than his first answer had, it was this.

Because I recognized something in that tone… something human, something vulnerable. My gaze flicked to him, and he was staring at the weapons with an odd, faraway look in his eye. The kind of expression I saw on the faces of those who walked by their family’s grave sites.

“You said you oversaw the loss of a war,” I said.

He flinched—actually flinched.

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you came here.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you keep all of this?”

“It’s valuable. I wouldn’t leave it behind.”

It was more than that. Perhaps the long, hard stare I gave him told him I knew it, too.

“They’re mine,” he said, after a moment. “If I sold them or left them in Obitraes, they would have been used in someone else’s war. Maybe they would have been used against the same men I led. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

Strange, how vampires and humans were so different and yet so much alike.

“Did you save them because you thought you might need them again?”

A long, long silence. Vale’s eyes went distant, his body still—I had never seen a creature who could be so, so still, as if he didn’t even breathe.

“No,” he said, at last, and closed the door.

Then he turned to me and said, “Do you need my blood, if you’re going to insist on wandering around?”

Vale’s skin was warm. I felt like I noticed a new thing about it every time I touched him. Even his veins were more elegant than those of a human, the pattern to them more delicate and intentional, the darkness visible in streaks of color like embroidery under the thinnest skin of his inner wrist.

We sat in silence as I took the first vial of blood.

He looked past me, and I followed his gaze to the vase on the coffee table—containing three flowers. I’d given him the last one when I was still half-unconscious, apparently, though I didn’t remember doing this. It had gotten a little crumpled in all the excitement of the last few days, but was still just as beautiful as its siblings, petals perfect black and vivid red.

“I still see nothing remarkable about them,” he grumbled.

“They’re very remarkable. I promise.”

“I’m starting to think you might be lying to me.”

“And if I am?”

My voice was surprisingly flippant. I was no longer as concerned as I once had been that Vale would, at best, kick me out of his house, and at worst, eat me. Maybe I even suspected some part of him enjoyed having me here.

I watched his blood fill the glass vial. But I could feel his eyes on me, steady and sharp.

“There would be consequences.”

Something in his voice made me pause. It wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t a joke, either, though it held the sweet lilt of one. I could feel his stare on me, and I knew before I looked up the expression that would be on his face.

I didn’t move my hands, but the sensation of his skin against mine was suddenly overwhelming.

I met his gaze. The expression was just as I’d imagined it—the faint smirk, the cool stare. And yet… something a little less removed flickered in his eyes as they lowered slightly. Lowered, I realized, to my mouth.

“Consequences,” I scoffed.

“What? I’m a dangerous man. You aren’t afraid of what punishment might be?”

Goosebumps rose to the surface of my skin, coaxed by the mocking melody of his voice over the word, drawn out slow.

Even I knew that what he was teasing me with, what he was promising me, was something very different than what he’d done to my attackers in the forest.

Maybe just as dangerous, though.

When my eyes met his, I found it impossible to pull them away. My fingertips tingled, acutely aware of every cord of muscle beneath my hands. My heart beat a little faster. I knew he smelled it.

He had invited me to his bed once before. I’d been tempted then. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted now. Curiosity was my greatest vice.

I’d spent a lot of time over these last weeks thinking about Vale. I was obsessed with him in some ways. I spent all day every day looking at his blood. Admiring its beauty. Admiring that it moved with the same ageless grace as the rest of him.

He was, I’d admit to myself, a very handsome man.

He leaned forward, just slightly.

“Tell me, mouse—”

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

I jumped. The needle jolted from Vale’s arm, resulting in a spray of blood over my chest. I knocked down one of the vials with my elbow, and before I even had time to be horrified by it, his hand had snaked out to catch it—a movement so smooth and quick I didn’t even see it happen until he was handing me the vial.

“Cork that. Apparently my blood is valuable stuff.”

BANG BANG BANG.

The knocks grew more persistent. Vale looked over his shoulder, into the main hallway and the front door beyond.

I put away the vials, a little flustered.

My first thought was that someone found out what Vale had done to defend me and was coming for revenge. But though the knocks were loud, they weren’t frantic or angry. And Vale didn’t look concerned, only irritated.

He didn’t move.

“Do you… want to get that?” I asked.

“No, I don’t.”

I’d forgotten. He didn’t like answering his doors.

But the BANGs continued, a rhythmic beat growing steadily faster, until Vale finally let out an aggravated sigh, rose, and went to the door.

I followed him. I couldn’t help it. He was right; I was nosy.

Vale opened the door with a single abrupt movement.

I stumbled backwards.

The person at his doorstep had no face.