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‘Rowan,’ he says. He doesn’t offer a surname and she doesn’t offer warmth. She simply watches him as if she owns a right to judge. His eyes return to me. ‘Eira Cross.’

The witch Ciaran O’Rourke is hunting, the same witch Valentin intends to use to pry my secrets from my head, stiffens at my name.

I stand from the bed and immediately regret it when my body reminds me what we’ve been doing for the past few days. For hours last night.

My legs are steady, but there’s a soreness that has nothing to do with injury and everything to do with being ridden hard, kissed until I forgot my own thoughts, and dragged through pleasure until I stopped knowing where my skin ended and his began.

I take two steps, then stumble.

Embarrassment flares hot. Jealousy flares hotter. It’s a spectacular combination.

Valentin reaches for me, catching my elbow with a firm grip. Then he stumbles too.

Not a dramatic collapse like before but a simple misstep… a brief sway. But like everything weird and un-wonderful that’s happened recently, it’s very unlike the vampire. My head snaps up and my jealousy evaporates into something colder.

And I note that, Gods, he looks terrible. Truly terrible. Worse than before.

His skin is sallow; shadows sit above his cheekbones like bruises. His mouth is too pale and, worst of all, there’s no trace of silver in his gaze.

The mark presses up his neck – almost black – like a spreading stain.

My throat tightens. ‘Valentin.’ His name emerges smaller than I want it to.

He straightens, forcing control back into his posture, but I can see the strain in it. ‘I am fine.’

After three days of snarling and forbidding anyone to summon this witch, nearly breaking Luca’s throat over the thought of her, he’s suddenly very still.

Dangerously still.

I turn my head, watching him instead of Rowan. His face is composed, but the composition is too precise… a mask fitted over strain.

I weed through the emotions pulsing through the room. Recognition. Distrust. The exhausted calculation of a king who knows he has avoided an answer until the answer walked into his room and caught him weakened.

Rowan’s attention drops to the mark. ‘You look like shit, vampire.’

‘Your manners have not improved.’

‘Nor has your instinct for self-preservation.’

I sit up higher, clutching the sheet. ‘Lovely. We’re all bonding.’

Rowan’s eyes return to me. There’s interest there now, cool and invasive, and beneath it something that makes the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.

Valentin’s head turns towards me. His voice brushes my mind, low and threaded with warning.

Stay behind me.

Oh, excellent. Nothing says reassuring like tactical furniture placement.

His mouth barely moves, but I feel the faintest pulse of amusement through the thread.

Even now. Especially now.

Then he moves with deliberate calm, zips up his fly, and every motion is controlled enough to look like arrogance unless you know what strain looks like in his body.

‘You should’ve summoned me the first night. I’m assuming your condition has something to do with that something dreadful that’s been making your Tower go dark?’ She’s staring directly at me as she speaks.

‘I had other priorities,’ Valentin replies.