Blood and Moonfire

Coven Politics

Lady Vessa was waiting in the basement library when Soren returned, which meant she already knew. Vessa always already knew.

"The girl asked you to leave," she said, not looking up from the ancient text spread across her desk. "I felt the shift from here."

"She found her grandmother's letter." Soren remained standing near the doorway, unwilling to fully enter the room until he understood which version of Vessa he was speaking to tonight — the patient scholar or the four-hundred-year-old predator who occasionally surfaced beneath the scholar's careful manners. "She knows we've been monitoring her bloodline."

"Good." Vessa finally looked up. "Secrets discovered on our terms are manageable. Secrets discovered by accident become liabilities."

"She's not a liability. She's a person."

Something flickered across Vessa's ageless face — amusement, perhaps, or something closer to concern. "You've grown attached."

"I've grown honest," Soren corrected. "There's a difference between protecting an asset and protecting a person, Vessa. I find myself increasingly interested in the latter."

Vessa was quiet for a long moment, studying him with the particular patience of someone who had watched centuries of young vampires make exactly this mistake before.

"The pack will move on her within the week," she said finally. "Whatever sentiment you've developed, I suggest resolving it quickly. Sentiment is a luxury the losing side rarely survives."

Soren said nothing.

But he was already thinking of the kitchen window, and the dying roses, and the particular way Mara had looked at both of them when she said get out.

He intended to earn his way back through that door honestly. Whatever that cost him with the coven.