Page 66 of Crown of Death
“I don’t think I understand you, Logan,” he says. “You’re hard. There’s a bitterness in your eyes. You possess your own brand of cruelty and little tolerance.” He twirls me under his arm before pulling me back. “But I know the reasons you’ve done it. And they’re surprisingly tender, considering they are for a man whose cruelty and demands know noequal.”
“I don’t think it matters that you don’t understand me,” I say as he dips me. “I’ll be leaving soon and you’ll likely never see meagain.”
“Oh, I very much doubt that,” he says as he lifts me once more. “There’s certainly something special about you. If there weren’t, the King wouldn’t be looking at you likethat.”
And my eyes suddenly flick up, searching theroom.
I instantly find him. Cyrus watches me over the shoulder of the woman he dances with. He’s intense. Focused. His lips are sealed shuttightly.
“You all know what he wants from me, don’t you?” I say as Edmond twirls me away, and my view of Cyrus isbroken.
“The entire world of vampires, Born and Royal alike, know what he wants,” he says. “But we also understand that it is not our place to tell thetale.”
The music crescendos. His hands go to my waist and he lifts me. I rise through the air, feeling utterly weightless in his stronghands.
His eyes dare me to ask. To demand that he tells me what it is they’re all waiting to see inme.
So, Iwon’t.
I can be a petulant little beast when Iwant.
“A few weeks ago, at my work,” I say, changing the subject, “there was a woman who had been ripped apart. And then another had been killed soon after her. The man I watched you kill in that alley. He was a vampire. He was the one who killed them, wasn’the?”
Edmond smiles and guides me through the steps. “Yes. He was an associate of our House years back. He was always a little…violent. But after he parted ways with us, his tendencies grew more sinister. We’d been tracking him for four weeks when we finally caught up with him in yourtown.”
I shiver. How many deaths are written off as animal attacks, or the work of some insidious human, when really, it wasvampires?
And I’m destined to be one of themsoon.
“So, if you’re not who the King hopes you are, do you think you’ll go meet your mother?” Edmondasks.
Like he smacked me across the face, I stagger back just a step. I look up at him with surprisedeyes.
“You might as well,” he says. He’s enjoying knocking me on my ass. I can see it in his eyes. “The second we release Rath, he’ll go running back to Alivia and tell her everything that’s happened. If you don’t go to her, she’ll come looking foryou.”
My throat is tight. My brows furrow. But I can’t find an answer to hisquestion.
“It’s something you should know about the House of Conrath,” Edmond says. “We’re a family here in the House of Valdez. But not like theyare.”
“Cyrus said she manipulated them all into being a part of her House,” I say through a tightthroat.
Edmond shakes his head. “It might have started out that way. But not anymore. I meant that they’refamily. The loyalty in that House.” He shakes his head again. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. They’ve died for each other. They’d do it again. All ofthem.”
His statements take meaback.
Maybe…maybe there are two sides to the story. Cyrus is so bitter, so cold when he talks about my birth mother. But if someone like Edmond can say these things… Maybe she isn’t everything Ifeared.
“Life is hard for any vampire living on their own,” Edmond says as the music begins to wind down. “As a Royal, you’re entitled to privilege. You’re a rightful heir of that House. To more than one, possibly, if we can figure out who your father is. Or perhaps evenCourt.”
My brows furrow. There’s another one of those words everyone keeps saying, but I don’t know the meaningof.
Edmond sighs and shakes his head. “You really don’t know anything, doyou?”
My eyes turn cold and I glare athim.
He smiles. “King Cyrus lives in his castle in Austria.Roter Himmel, it’s called. But he’s not alone. There are hundreds of Royal Born who live there, at Court. His favorites, or those who were born there. As my father said, my brother Horatio, has lived there for some time. He actually spent some time with your mother there. If your father is a member of the Court, you rightfully would have a placethere.”
I consider it, but an ache pulls in mychest.