“Good morning, my dear,” Cyrus says. I look back at him and find the pleasant smile on his face. “I hope you rested well?”
“Well enough,” I reply as I sink into the seat beside him when he indicates it. “Are you up early or is this normal for you?”
“In truth, I only sleep maybe once a week anymore,” he says as he forks a strawberry and pops it into his mouth. I once again wonder how we are still receiving food when that storm has made the roads impossible and there is no help in the house. “I did indeed sleep the first night we arrived, but not since, and possibly not again until my visit here is over.”
“And how long do you expect that to be?” I ask, attempting to sound as innocent as possible. One of the Court members sets a plate of food before me and the action is done very grudgingly.
“As long as it takes,” Cyrus says. He reaches over and takes my left hand in his. Always so tender and terrifying. “A few days if you begin remembering, a few weeks if not, just to be sure.”
A few weeks can turn into a month, and month into two. How long can we keep the people of Silent Bend away?
Instead of showing the fear I feel over that, I smile instead.
“I expect everyone at this table in the next sixty seconds!” Cyrus suddenly bellows. I would have jumped hard, totally taken off guard, just a week ago as a human. But I heard his quick intake of breath as warning.
Several blurs race into the room and Lillian and Nial take a seat, followed immediately by X and two other court members. Over the next few seconds, more and more bodies fill in around the table. And within exactly forty-two seconds, every single vampire has arrived—except Cameron.
“I do believe your ‘tight’ friend is missing,” Cyrus says as he leans in my direction.
“There’s no one else in the House,” I say as my brows furrow. I search the crowd around us, waiting for his face to appear. “Have you see him?” I ask it in Lillian and Anna’s direction.
“Not since last night,” Lillian says. The concern grows on her face.
“Not since you danced with him,” Anna confirms. I can see the gears turning in her head, fast and hard. She’s head of security. It’s her job to know where everyone is.
“Anyone?” I ask, searching the faces of those around us. I’m met with only shaken heads.
“I’m sure he just got a little overly excited with the drinking last night and wandered off for more,” Cyrus says, brushing my anxiety off. “It happens. He’ll show back up.”
“Can we please talk about this ridiculous situation at hand?”
Every eye turns down the table to the young man who spoke.
He only looks about sixteen, maybe seventeen. Marble white skin that appears almost translucent, eyes a light gray that’s washed out in color. His black as night hair is styled up and high, in almost the shape of a rhino’s horn. A black jacket with many buckles and a high collar hugs his frail-looking frame.
He’s at once beautiful and horrific.
“Ridiculous is the word you choose to use in the presence of your King, Sebastian?” Cyrus asks as he stands. His eyes flash red and he places his fingertips on the table and leans forward, toward the young man.
“I am a member of the Court,” he says, very little fear in his voice for the way Cyrus is glowering at him. “I am not some scavenger dog to an infant of a Born who’s too ignorant to know how to do her own dirty work.”
Cyrus disappears in a flash and suddenly, Sebastian’s head forms a new hole in the wall as the King pins him with a hand around the throat. “You will watch your tongue,” Cyrus whispers in a low, controlled voice, half an inch from Sebastian’s face.
“Let the boy be,” a woman from the table says. I turn in her direction. She’s a large woman, at least six feet tall, with dark, long hair and severe cheekbones. And a constant look of disdain upon her face. “He’s only voicing the thoughts of every person at this table.”
Cyrus holds her eyes with that heated glow and releases his grip on Sebastian. Slowly, with the control and silence of a jaguar, he walks around the table, never once looking away from her.
“These are the thoughts of the entire Court?” Cyrus says. “That my request is ridiculous that you aid in the building of our kingdom? That after everything I have done for you, that I ask you a favor in return? This. This is ridiculous.”
“We have helped you rule for centuries, millennium, and you ask us to track down exiled Born,” she says, defiance burning in her eyes.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle as the silence around the table grows. I swear pressure is building in the room and with the first breath exhaled, everything will explode.