Ruler [Blood Magic, Book 3]

Chapter 35: Never Go Home

When I climbed back down from the roof in the minutes before the bruised purple of early dawn gave way to the crimson skies of daybreak, I found Keel waiting inside the warehouse doors. For a moment, I was angry, knowing even at this distance he would have heard me crying and how dare he eavesdrop on something so private after making such a big show of walking away. But then I sloughed it off. Any illusion of privacy was just that with the bond. He didn't have to hear my sobs, he would have felt them. As if to confirm that, he lacked his usual stoic expression, as if he thought I might stay up there and face the unknown of sunlight, and then force him to face it. Daylight didn't kill vampires, but they suffered from heightened photosensitivity - sun allergy times ten. I wasn't looking forward to discovering if I'd won that in our magical genetic raffle.

I started toward the building's inner doors without saying a word to him. He fell in step beside me, until we got near a door, then he sprang ahead and opened it. Kings didn't open doors for anyone, yet I didn't thank him for this courtesy. The bond should be telling him everything he needed to know. I'd still have to deal with him directly later - and when the time came it would be complicated and maybe even terrifying - but first, I needed to go back to my apartment and think. If taking two bullets for Keel and the use of collusive magic to bring me back from the brink of death was an onion, than my time on the roof had barely peeled off the first layer. The rest was going to take a good long while and a whole lot of tearing.

I walked through the halls on auto-pilot, but when I reached the elevator, Keel thrust out a hand capturing my forearm. He turned me towards the hall to the throne room. I dug my heels in and he let my arm drop.

"I'm afraid you can't go back to your suite," he said.

"Why?"

"While no one would dare come after me now, you're a different story. Plus, we don't know if there are any other side effects of the spell-"

"Yeah, I get it." The hollowness in my chest extended to my words as I was once again reminded of how I'd been stripped of all choice. Before the bullets, I'd been gaining something that resembled a life - or at least a reasonably acceptable facsimile of one, but now that was just another thing they'd taken away. The losses lost some of their impact when they came in such quick succession. "Where are you hiding me?"

"In my chambers."

"No."

He expected me to reside in the royal chambers with him, and my father had no problem with that? Again a hundred different questions about deals and contracts barrelled through my head. On their heels, a suffocating claustrophobia overcame me. I stepped away from Keel and he immediately stepped towards me, we repeated this several times until my back hit a wall and I had nowhere left to flee. Then he held his distance.

"I've housed you since the assassination attempt. It's safe. And you still need to learn to manage your blood hunger." I wondered if he was putting on his scientist affect to ease my anxiety. It wasn't working.

What the hell would it be like to live with the king? To constantly have him and the bond pressing in on me, demanding... Of all the things I'd survived, I would not survive this. Fresh, hot tears stung my eyes and I blinked them away.

"Come on," he said, and his hand was back on my forearm. I was so desperate for some space it felt like a prison rather than protection.

"Couldn't you just come and stay at my place now that you're not in danger anymore?" It had two bedrooms and more walls between them.

"Kings do not reside in common flats."

This time when he tugged my arm I didn't fight. There wouldn't be any point.