Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 349(@300wpm)
I felt him kneel beside me before he put a hand on my knee.
“We can’t let them be food. What the fuck?”
“Ophir has always stood separate from the rest of the realm. No one has ever questioned that.”
But I didn’t care about what had been done, only what could be done. We lived in the present, but the people of Ophir didn’t know that. Varic needed to fix everything now.
“You’re not understanding because you’re looking at this with human eyes.”
I was shaking and couldn’t stop. I was cold down to my core.
“It’s the way it’s always been there.”
“For those not born lucky, not born to privilege,” I argued. “The iceni are poor, without wealth or whatever it is that Decimus wants. He preys on his own people in a closed society. You have no idea what horrors those people have had to endure for centuries.”
“That’s true, I don’t. I left. And it’s naive to think that liberties have not been taken. When you have a whole group of people at your mercy, few would not take advantage.”
My stomach was twisting into knots just thinking about the atrocities that had probably been committed because it was a closed, insular society no one from the outside was checking on. Ophir was being ruled by a despot, and it could not be allowed to go on.
I had to put my head between my knees and breathe through my nose. It was too much. I couldn’t even imagine— “That’s why they came here, and I nearly killed them all by sounding the alarm.” My vision blurred as my eyes filled. “They only wanted to talk to Varic, to tell him what was happening to the people in Ophir, and I nearly killed their hope, Zev.”
“Stop that now,” he said sharply, and I turned to look at him.
“But I did. I—”
“How were you supposed to know when they gave you no insight into their plans? Are you psychic?”
“That’s not the—”
“The others gave their lives for this cause,” he soothed me. “Even if Sorin had died, there would still have been questions because of how they looked, where it appeared they came from. You or Tiago would have been made to go and question Decimus either…way,” he whispered and turned to Sorin, like something had occurred to him.
“Zev?”
“You lied,” he husked at Sorin.
Eyes that had been so many things in the last hour—sad, scared, angry, defiant—were now suddenly warm as he gazed at me and Zev.
“You knew Varic was gone. You knew the king would never listen to you.”
Sorin nodded.
“You knew everything, and most of all, you were certain the king would send the prince’s consort to Ophir, and you knew, because of that, that His Highness would follow.”
“Yes,” Sorin admitted.
“You never thought to hold the king hostage and demand for ransom that Varic parley with you. Your sole purpose was for Jason to know about Ophir.”
“That is true,” he confessed.
“You knew the prince planned to marry.”
“Everyone knows. Even in Ophir, we have received the prince’s announcement.”
Zev nodded. “I knew it. I did. And now you’ve had a private audience with the one person you wanted to see more than any other—the prince’s consort.”
“Yes,” Sorin declared, then looked at me. “Please, my consort, forgive my deception. Don’t take out your ire on me by not seeing Ophir for yourself.”
“Oh, I’m going to see Ophir,” I promised him, and his smile was huge.
I turned to Zev. “Why in the world would the king allow something so disgusting as the exploitation of the iceni to continue? What reason could he possibly have?”
“I doubt the king knows. You must be invited to Ophir, and no one ever is.”
“The king should be able to go anywhere at any time. He should never be barred from entering any vampyr’s home in his realm.”
“And let’s be honest, Decimus would probably open the door for him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me everything that goes on there?” I asked Zev.
“First, I am powerless to make change there. And second, when was this ever anything we discussed before this night?”
Both statements were true. “And Isabella? She must have seen what was—”
“She was there mere hours, Jason. She went for my mother, had leave only to enter and find her.”
“What about you?”
“That was luck and nothing more.”
“You believe that?”
He was quiet a moment. “I think perhaps she caught my scent when she entered the fortress, as it was so different from others, and she was curious about who I was. I think she might have found me anyway, but luck was definitely on my side.”
I watched his face that he normally kept under steely control, showing me only what he wanted, which was usually his annoyance. At the moment, though, there was a pinching between his brows that looked like pain.
“She came for her courtier and my scent was similar, but not the same. I suspect she had to find the source before she left, and once she was inside, no one, including Decimus, was going to tell her no.”