Shadow's Claim

"No!"

"Outside of this room, no one knew about those four. So there's no way, unless . . ." Cas trailed off.

All eyes fell on her neck.

Raum sputtered. "You didn't . . . y-you wouldn't!"

Morgana grinned. "Did you gift the vampire with your blood?"

Bettina blurted the words: "It was an accident! He never bit me. We-we kissed and his fangs went sharp."

Cas, Morgana, and Raum groaned in disbelief.

"Oh, for gold's sake, you're really that naive, freakling? First R.H.P.S., and now this. Clearly, I'm derelict in my duties."

"This is why I still have her medallion!" Raum pointed out in a vindicated tone. "She's too naive."

Cas said, "Vampires like him don't have 'accidents.' "

"He tried to warn me!"

"But you were beyond caring?" Morgana said. "It's called seduction. And what it shows us is that your prince is a very cunning player indeed." Her blond brows drew together. "Strange, though-an immortal male will usually become an unthinking, primal brute when fighting for his female."

Daciano a brute? Bettina couldn't see it. "Morgana, it was only the tiniest drop."

"Then maybe he harvested only your most recent memories." Her godmother examined the end of a braid, the Sorceri equivalent of navel gazing. "Haven't I changed in front of you within the last few months?" With a shrug, she said, "If he sees that memory, I'll expect a call from him directly."

Raum's eyes went wide. "Then he knows our kingdom's defenses."

Cas's disappointed look sliced through her. "The secrets I've trusted you with, Tina."

"And now Morgana's arranged for them to be together for this-this tour?" Raum blustered. "What if the vampire bites Bettina? You know that could prove ruinous to her."

Daciano's kisses and caresses had proved so-Bettina could think of little else-so why had no one told her to be wary of those? Then she frowned. "Why is a bite ruinous?"

"Because they're excruciating," Raum said. "Right, Morgana?"

Excrutiating?

In a grudging tone, the sorceress said, "Bite play can go badly. If the vampire's exceedingly thirsty or inexperienced. And the prince did look peckish. Hmm, what say you, Caspion?"

Had Cas's cheeks flushed? "It's like nothing you've ever felt." He sounded almost as if he were speaking from firsthand knowledge. Hadn't he described a bite as altering? Had some Dacian female taken his blood?

Did it . . . hurt?

Daciano was inexperienced, had never bitten another. Would he tear her skin?

Raum traced before her. "Promise me you'll keep your blood from him."

She craned her head up. "I promise! Believe me." Bettina had suffered enough excruciating pain to last an eternal lifetime.

To Morgana, he said, "You intend to send her off without a chaperone, to spend the night with a 'very cunning player' who's practiced in seduction?"

"You did not just say the word chaperone to me."

"I won't have it, sorceress. We will come to blows!"

"Oh, let's!" Morgana leapt to her feet, her eyes beginning to spark in warning, like a viper's rattle.

"Damn you, what if the vampire sullies her?"

That was the absolute wrong thing to say to the sorceress. Morgana looked as furious as Bettina had ever seen her, braids flying. "What if she sullies him? Why is it always the female who gets sullied? Archaic demon! You think like the primordial!"

Raum yelled the vilest of Demonish curses, basically telling Morgana to suck on his horns until they were raw. Bettina gasped. In turn, Morgana blew him a kiss, essentially telling him she'd poison him at the earliest opportunity.

"You Sorceri harlot!"

"You demonic fossil!"

Cas joined in, and the three started up once more.

Bettina stood unsteadily, putting her hands over her ears. Did none of them understand how close she was to losing it? Inside, she was at once blistered and numb, torn between alternating urges.

Cry.

Scream.

The latter won out. "Shut up, all of you!"

They were shocked into silence. She'd never raised her voice to any of them.

Turning to Raum, Bettina said, "If Mathar couldn't find the Vrekeners and you knew a tracker like Cas never would, then you never truly expected to uphold your end of our bargain!"

Pulling at the collar of his breastplate, Raum said, "I had inside information from a very reliable source."

Morgana sneered, "How. Convenient."

"And what about you?" Bettina turned on her godmother. "Vow to the Lore that you have my power! Now, Morgana."

"Freakling, I dispatch the orders." Rattle rattle RATTLE. "I do not receive them."

Bettina sank down on the divan once more. "So you don't. Both of you tricked me."

"I, too, have inside information," Morgana said so smoothly.

"Bullshite, harlot!"

I'll never get my power back. But she would still be queen in two nights.

Seeing Raum and Morgana and even Cas like this made her realize she had depended on them far too much. They were fallible, just as she was.

Even without her power, Bettina had better start thinking like a queen. Before they could start up again, she said, "What will happen now? Will the Vrekeners retaliate?"