Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Amen,” Dagon responded, holding his hand over his own goblet when the talem reached over his shoulder. “No, thank you.” The talem moved on and Dagon flicked his wrist, lifting a precise stream of water from the pitcher in front of Zachariah and arching it to his own goblet. He didn’t spill a drop. Fuck, was his control incredible.
“I hate when you do that,” Zachariah lectured, leaning forward slightly. “Just ask me to pass the damned water.”
“My way is faster.” Dagon shrugged.
I looked out over the sea of nobles to see them staring at Dagon with wide eyes. The room was almost full now, which meant there were a lot of them. At least Alek didn’t keep an overly formal court. People came and went as they pleased within the room.
“Plus, we may as well put on a show for the patrons.” His smile was frighteningly fake as he took a drink.
“Just once,” Zachariah muttered. “I’d like to get through a repast just once without feeling like you guys are going to throw the tables over—”
“Like that one time—” Talon started, his eyes dancing.
“In Constantinople,” Saint finished.
“Istanbul,” I corrected him.
“Right.” He nodded. “Istanbul.” He glared at the blood goblet like it had personally done something to offend him. “Remember the days when the humans came to the table?”
Dagon grunted with a smile. “Good days.”
“So convenient, too,” Talon added. “And I’m never against a curvy ass in my lap while I—”
“Just once,” Zachariah interrupted, shaking his head. “Ajax,” he ordered in a tone I knew all too well.
Every hunter heard the cue and set their hands on the table.
My power flexed, and I threw it into a spherical bubble, stopping time for everyone in the ballroom except those of us at the end of the table.
Zachariah glanced at the room before turning his disapproving glare on Talon. “You cannot sit at the king’s table in the middle of court and loudly reminisce about some feeder’s ass in your lap hundreds of years ago.”
“King Tarak never minded,” Talon retorted. “In fact, I remember more than a few humans in his lap.”
Most of us muttered our assent. The king before Alek’s father had been…raucous in the best possible ways.
“That was over eight hundred years ago,” Zachariah lectured, his hazel eyes narrowing on us. “As you can see, things have evolved.” He gestured toward the room.
“I don’t think fake-ass nobles dressing themselves in jewels and drinking bagged blood from a cup make them evolved,” Dagon argued. “I think it makes them fake.”
“Agreed,” Talon said, reaching for a piece of bacon and looking at the closest table of nobles. “Look there.”
I bit into a biscuit and followed his line of sight to where Cassandra Zorin sat with a preening group of aristocrats, all daintily holding their goblets mid-sip.
“Half of those nobles would happily unseat our king for his throne,” Talon continued.
“Same could be said for our time,” I argued, just for the sake of arguing.
“This is our time,” Zachariah chided.
“Fine, but in our time, those nobles would have been open and honest about their intent. Someone would have brought a challenge against the king. Today it’s all done in shadows and lies. There’s no integrity among the nobles.” Talon bit into his bacon.
Hunger bit into my stomach and surged through my veins. I reached for the crimson-filled goblet, but the scent of the bagged blood turned my hunger to overwhelming nausea.
“We simply have to”— Zachariah started, then narrowed his eyes on me. “What is going on with you?”
“It’s the blood. Probably bad or something.” I set the goblet back down.
“It’s the human,” Talon muttered between bites.
And here we go.
“What human?” Zachariah cocked his head and leaned forward in his seat.
“Seriously?” I shot a look at Talon. So much for keeping Grace a secret.
“Hey, if you’re going to spend almost every night checking in on the woman, then your brothers should know.” Talon kept eating unapologetically.
“What. Human.” Zachariah repeated.
“She’s…” Fuck, what was she? She wasn’t my girlfriend or whatever mortals called courting in this century. She wasn’t nothing to me, either. She was the first thought I had at rising, and the last thought before my eyes shut in the morning.
And I wasn’t ready to examine why that was.
“She’s a friend,” I finally managed to say.
“A friend you’re fucking?” Dagon asked, stabbing his food with his fork and carrying on like we weren’t examining my personal life.
“Please. Ajax fucking a human? That’s laughable.” Saint drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
“Like you haven’t fucked a human,” Dagon retorted.
“I’m not the size of a fucking tree.”
“True.” Dagon waved his fork at me. “He makes a good point. Humans are kind of fragile, and you’re…not.”
“We’re not having this conversation.” I shook my head. Not that we hadn’t been in the same situation countless times over the centuries, giving each other shit about whichever female’s bed we were occupying, but Grace was…different.