Chapter 163
Cillian traded a single gold coin for a bag of apples, smiling at the man who manned the little shop as I approached him. He turned and I froze, captured in his gaze. We said nothing for a long time.
His smile warmed and he offered an apple to me.
“Would you like one?”
I looked down at it. It was shiny and orange and red. I didn’t know if it was the same type of apple that I liked, but it looked similar enough. I took it slowly and shivered as our fingers brushed. A jolt of electricity zipped up my arm.
“A pleasure to meet you, Hedy,” he said and inclined his head. “My name is Cillian Hargrave, Duke of the Western Mountains.”
I blinked. “Mountains...?”
He smiled and stepped closer. He turned me gentle and pointed into the distance where I could just barely see the faintest outline of mountains.
“There,” he said. “Lush with forests, beautiful waterfalls and clean air…”
He pulled back. I felt his body heat and felt a bit cold as he put distance between us.
“It is a shame that you did not grow up in Lunae,” he said. “I can only imagine how lost you must feel. I hope you are settling into your rooms at the palace well.”
I blinked. “I don’t… live here.”
He frowned. “What…”
He looked down. “Of course. Forgive me, I merely assumed that you would want to stay… I suppose that is not the case.”
“What do you want from the members of Moon Shadow?” I asked.
He tilted his head. “Moon Shadow… is that what the organization is called?”
His lips twitched. “Cute. My aims are simple. Why the interest?”
“I’m Pandora, so it concerns me.”
“Pandora,” he said slowly. “It must be the Goddess’ providence then. I have heard enough about you from the intel I have gathered from Damian’s forces. You have caused him quite a headache.”
“I have?”
He nodded. He turned and gestured ahead of him. “Would you like to walk with me? I assume you came after me for a reason.”
“I want you to release the member of Moon Shadow. Leave them alone.”
He cocked his eyebrow. “Why?”
“We have nothing to do with whatever is going on over here,” I said. “We just want to defend our territory and support Candido as the Alpha King.”
“How lucky he is to have such a lovely and devoted subject…” I blinked. My cheeks heated and he turned. “However, I cannot grant your request, Hedy. Just as you do what you feel you must to support your king, so must I.”
“Ian isn’t a king,” I said. “The only king is Candido. Wherever this place is, whatever is going on, is a lie.”
He blinked. “You are right. Prince Ian is not king. However, it was not Prince Ian to whom I was referring. Furthermore, you will find that Lunae in all of its wonder is far more real than you believe.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Vampires live in the caves.”
He smiled. “Is that what you were taught?”
“It’s what I know.”
He looked up at the sky. “A very odd cave to have light and fresh air.”
“This place is just somewhere else on the continent,” I said. “I don’t know where, but it doesn’t matter.”
He shook his head. “Please, continue to take comfort in the familiar. I can only imagine that after a lifetime believing you were one thing and suddenly finding out that you are something else has been hard. A bit of advice?”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Do not cover your eyes to the truth just because it is uncomfortable,” he said and took a bite of his apple. "You will find it much harder to live when you exist in a reality that others do not.”
He inclined his head again and turned. I rounded him and cut him off.
“What do you want to leave them?”
He took another bite. “Want?”
“Yes. What do you want? To stop whatever you’re planning to do.”
“I want a great number of things, Hedy,” he said and leaned close, whispering into my ear. “A great number of them are impolite for public conversation.”
“Hedy!” Candido called and yanked me away from him. Cillian’s scent was still in my nose. My heart was pounding.
His eyes twinkled as he took a bite. “You smell lovely… Though you should not look at just anyone like that, you may give the wrong impression?”
“Stay away from her,” Candido growled.
“As I recall, Hedy came to speak to me,” he looked back at me. “To answer the question it seemed you really wanted to ask… I could be convinced.”
“Convinced of what?” Candido growled.
“You’ll let them go.”
“I will at least refrain from lethal methods of questioning.”
I swallowed. “I want you to leave them alone.”
“You will find, Hedy, that not everything can be yours and you must learn to compromise.”
“She doesn’t have to compromise anything,” Candido hissed. “Or make any sort of deal with you or any other vampire.”
He turned back to me, but I didn’t take my eyes off Cillian.
“Hedy?”
“I don’t want to compromise?”
He shrugged. “You are lovely, Hedy, but I am not a slave to my passions, nor do I owe you anything.”
“Ian said you loved my mother,” I said.
His lips twitched into a wry smile and he took another bite.
“I can see in your eyes that you’re trying to figure out how best to use that information to your advantage,” he said and stepped closer. “Did you expect the sight of your face to be enough to sway me?”
I swallowed. Yes, I did. He laughed.
“I have watched Raven grow up, watched over her, trained her. I have had years with a face far more similar to Hedwig’s than yours for years,” Cillian said. “Hedwig is dead. I have long accepted that she did not want me in this life just as she would not want me in the next.”
His lips twitched and he glanced at Candido. “You seem to share her taste, thus what you could be attempting to do, what you hope or think you can achieve, I cannot fathom.”
He stepped around us, heading further into town. “If I believe it in the best interests of Lunae to kill them, I will.”
My gut jumped. “You can’t!”
“I can, quite easily,” Cillian said, flicking his gaze over Candido. “You I would leave out of respect for your mother. And perhaps… I would leave Candido and his immediate family alive out of respect for Candida… she was a lovely woman.”
Candido went still.
He smirked. “Your masks are useless in my eyes. Vanessa… the one you call Gilgamesh… a few others. Julia is proving to be very forthcoming with information. Smart of her.”
“What do you want?” I asked again.
“What are you offering of merit?” He asked.
My face burned as he stared at me. He was so handsome, even though he wasn’t looking at me with interest right now, I remembered the feeling of our gazes connecting.
“Anything.”
“Hedy, no—”
“Anything?” Cillian asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Anything.”
Cillian walked back and looked down at me. Candido tried to step between us, but a wall went up around us. His eyes flashed with light.
“You’re striking a rather unfavorable bargain for yourself, Hedy,” he said. “You know nothing about me. I could ask you for things you do not want to give.”
I licked my lips and his eyes narrowed. A knowing smile graced his lips, but I didn’t know what it meant.
“Interesting. Very well. I will offer you a blood bond.”
Candido rammed his fist against the wall, banging on it and trying to yell through the wall at me.
“What is that?”
“A contract held in the blood. In exchange for not murdering them, no matter how useful it would be to do so, I will collect on my requests at a future time.”
“Requests?” I asked. “That’s not fair.”
“Nothing about this deal is meant to be,” he said. “This is war.”
I glanced at the wall as Candido kept talking through it, but I couldn’t hear him.
“Why did you put up the wall?”
“Aren’t you an adult?” Cillian asked. “A leader of Moon Shadow in your own right? As you are the only one with anything worthwhile to offer, or willing to make a deal, what use is he?”
I looked up at him.
“Unless… you need him to make this decision?”
He was letting me make this decision all on my own. A rush of excitement and pride went through me. Finally, someone was seeing me as an adult.
It was… different than what Ian did to me, separating me forcibly and using Candido against me. I didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, I didn’t know what he could ask for: my life, secrets…
Sex?
