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Curiosity sparked deep within Elarian. Setting her hatred aside—what remained of it, at least—she settled on the edge of the bed. Her fingers caressed the golden collar at her neck, suddenly grateful for Lucan’s lingering touch. Everything about him threatened to unravel her world, but he had remained the only constant for nearly a century. Trapped inside his Blooded Palace, she clung to him as if he were the last piece of driftwood in the raging ocean.
Questions churned beneath the surface of her thoughts, each one chasing the next until they tangled into something impossible to unravel. She should have been planning Lady Drevain’s death, or the death of the vampire conveniently lounging in front of her without a care in the world. Instead, she found herself staring at the place Lucan had stood only moments before.
She hated him.
She was almost certain she did.
“Were you lovers?”
It wasn’t the question she meant to ask, but the first one that untangled itself from her mind. Ataen blinked, then barked a laugh so loud, the witchlights trembled.
“Gods, Luc’s face would be absolutely priceless if he heard you ask that.”
Elarian frowned. “So…you weren’t? I’m sorry for asking.” Sorry? Why am I sorry?
“Oh, no, kitten, we most certainly were.”
“And you…are not now?”
The thought puzzled Elarian. She could scarcely imagine loving someone as violent as Lucan, but even more she struggled to understand not loving someone after exposing everything to them. How could one stomach seeing them in the arms of another, walking as if they had not shared something profoundly sacred under Melistra’s watchful gaze? The moon elves took but one lover their entire lives. Sex was simply that—sex. But to love someone?
Surely there could be no room in one’s heart for more than one person.
“If I recall correctly,” Lord Ataen replied, “the moon elves insist upon treating love as though it belongs to one person forever.”
“We don’t insist upon anything. It simply is.”
“So if your mate dies and your heart stirs again for another in due time, you simply suffer?”
“I…”
Elarian stopped, suddenly overcome by how little she understood of this concept called love. It had been preached to her thousands of times, etched in her skin each time she bled herself for Melistra.
But was that love?
Or simply a scared, lonely girl manipulated into forgetting she ever longed for more?
“What would a vampire do?” she asked at last.
“We love deeply, but forever is…difficult.” Ataen paused, a gentle smile softening his features. “I’ve loved, oh…four souls across my life and undeath—perhaps five if I’m being generous.”
Elarian nearly choked on her spit.
“You remember how many vampires you’ve killed, haven’t you? That is but a mere scratch compared to the marks left by a lover.”
She stared at him.
“And…Lucan?”
Ataen laughed softly.
“Oh.” His eyes drifted toward the door where the white-haired prince had stood not long ago. For the first time since meeting him, Ataen’s humorous mask slipped. “There has only ever been one Lucan. He was a beautiful thing once.”
Elarian scoffed.
“I may dream of killing him, but even I can see he still is beautiful.” The admission twisted like a knife in her stomach.
“No,” Ataen said, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t mean his face.”
