"Grant? Absolutely. He won't say a word. Not even to the other servants."
"Good."
Nikolai glanced once more at Sienna on the sapphire-blue chaise, still not revived from their journey. Leaning over, he lifted the downy white blanket up over her shoulder. Homing in on her pulse, he found it beating strong and steady. He'd pushed her too far, too long. The vertigo had tipped her over the edge into unconsciousness.
But there was no way in hell he could've stopped to offer her a respite, not until he was double the distance vampires could track. He'd cracked the neck of one of the soldiers, nearly pulling his head off with the force. Unfortunately, he had to leave Volkov and the other hulking one still alive, though both injured enough to make them crawl away and lick their wounds before they could hunt them.
How had Volkov found them? Was he leading one of the queen's scouting parties and coincidentally landed in the town the same night they were there to recruit? Highly improbable. Or did the queen's elixir give him other gifts for hunting down prey? More powerful than he'd presumed.
Friedrich stepped up beside him, passing him one of two amber-filled glasses. Nikolai wasn't a heavy drinker but he needed one tonight.
"Now then," started Friedrich, cocking one leg as he lay his arm across the mantel. "Start from the beginning."
Nikolai stepped away from Sienna, needing some physical distance to focus on anything else but her.
"The attack came after the rally with the recruits."
"Did the Legionnaires see where the meeting was held?"
"No. I don't think so. There were only three of them. Perhaps broken off from their main troop as we hadn't seen any other uniforms in town, and we'd been there all day."
"Probably a scouting party." Friedrich swirled the liquor slowly in the glass. "So they found you by chance?"
"Perhaps."
"It's possible. The queen has scouting parties everywhere. My uncle has his own minions scouring Izeling here in the north."
"So King Dominik has joined forces with his mother?"
It had not escaped any of them that Marius's eldest brother and Friedrich's uncle, King Dominik, ruled this northern kingdom of Izeling with an iron fist. And he was the queen's firstborn and favorite son. Friedrich risked much to help them, traitors to the crown and allies with the Black Lily.
Friedrich chuckled darkly. "Of course he has, the brutal bastard. He's just like my father." Friedrich lifted his glass in a semi-salute with a sardonic slash of his mouth before he took a large swallow.
Nikolai needn't wonder why the duke's expression went glacial at the thought of his father. It wasn't a love match between his parents. Princess Katerina, only daughter of the imperial couple King Grindal and Queen Morgrid, was betrothed at birth to the vainglorious Duke of Winter Hill. Marius had told Nikolai he'd never known his sister. By the time he was born, she'd been married off to the northern duke and was sequestered away like a shameful secret. Little did the royal family know that she would make a grand exit from this world, bringing her faithless husband with her. But what Katerina didn't consider was the scars she'd leave behind on her son. There was no mistaking the haunted look in his eyes now. The wounds still bled, even after all this time when the royal family pretended his mother had never existed. Perhaps that is why the duke was so eager to betray the crown. If so, they had a formidable ally in the duke. Revenge was a cold bedfellow, but it cut with the sharpest blade of all.
"I imagine you killed them all," said Friedrich as if he were discussing the price of grain or cattle.
"Only one."
Friedrich arched one dark eyebrow. "Nikolai, the Merciful? Since when did that happen?"
Nikolai finally shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the back of a mahogany chair with black velvet cushions. "If I'd had the time and Sienna wasn't with me, I would've finished the job. I managed to injure the other two."
"I'm sure that you did."
Nikolai knocked back the fiery liquor, swallowing the pleasant burn. "Sanguine furorem has made them strong. They must be feeding constantly to maintain such strength and speed. Volkov, the sergeant I spoke of, is a newly made vampire."
"And yet he outmatched you?"
"I wouldn't say that." A surge of satisfaction thrilled through him when Nikolai remembered dislocating both Volkov's shoulders and hearing his knee crunch before throwing him into a stone wall a block away.
"I had an opportunity to escape safely with Sienna. So I took it." He glanced her way again. "I couldn't risk one of them getting to her. Her safety was paramount."
"I see." Friedrich set his empty tumbler on the mantel and paced closer to the chaise where Sienna slept on her side, her auburn waves partially covering her face.