Dark Needs at Night's Edge

12

Call you what?" Murdoch asked, but Conrad only shrugged. "Even with your one-sided conversations, you still seem a hundred times better already." Murdoch wasn't nearly as surprised as he should be about his progress.

They had an ace in their pocket. Conrad narrowed his eyes. They know something I don't about the bloodlust. "If I'm so much better, then free me."

"Can't do that. You could relapse. It's not even an option until you're drinking bagged blood, and you go at least two weeks without a rage."

Barely reining in his temper, Conrad said, "Am I to stay here the entire time?"

"No. Of course not. At the end of the next week, we're tracing you to a meeting about the Accession. A huge crowd is expected, with Lorekind from all over the world attending. Thousands of females will be there—Valkyrie, sirens, nymphs. You might find your Bride among them. Especially now, on the cusp of the Accession. We're also going to search for Nïx, a Valkyrie soothsayer. She's been aiding us with you. When we can find her."

Conrad had heard of Nïx the Ever-Knowing. She was powerful and supposedly as mad as he was. But whereas his mind was clotted with memories, hers was filled with visions of the future. "Why would she help you?" Just because Sebastian and Nikolai had married Valkyrie didn't mean the rest of their kind accepted vampires. "Leeches" were universally hated in the Lore, even the clear-eyed ones.

"We're not entirely sure," Murdoch admitted. "But she could help locate your Bride."

"And what about your Bride, Murdoch? Your heart beats. Sebastian and Nikolai know it. You can't hide it."

When Murdoch stood and crossed to the window, Néomi relocated from her window seat to the spot beside Conrad in the bed. The first female ever to move away from Murdoch in favor of another Wroth. He felt a surge of satisfaction.

"I've made a vow to my Bride that I would tell no one, and Wroths keep their word." Murdoch ran his hand over the back of his neck. "I ask you not to bring it up to them."

"It's none of my concern—just as my Bride isn't yours," Conrad said.

"But we believe finding your female could help you recover fully."

"Fully recovered still means I'm a vampire."

"That's true," Murdoch said. "Everything we're doing will be wasted if we can't convince you that some vampires aren't evil. Not all of our kind have to be destroyed."

"What did Nikolai mean about controlling the memories, pulling them up at will?"

"You can learn to do it—but you have to be stable first."

Stable? When was the last time he'd been stable? "What have you been injecting me with?"

"A sedative and muscle relaxant concocted by the witches. They also put some element in it that's supposed to make you more susceptible to your Bride's influence. If we can help you find her."

Son of a bitch. "You don't say." His gaze landed on Néomi. She tilted her head at him.

Was she... his? Was this why she affected him so strongly? Then why hadn't she blooded him? Especially if he was more susceptible to her from the shots?

He inwardly shook himself. No, it wasn't possible. She wasn't truly alive. "What witches?" Conrad asked. "Mariketa the Awaited?"

"How did you know about the Witch in the Glass?"

He didn't remember Mariketa from his own experience but from the memories of one of his victims. "Someone I drank must have."

Conrad's casual tone had Murdoch raising his brows. "We couldn't ask Mariketa for assistance with this. Her male is Bowen MacRieve, the Lykae who helped us capture you. It happens that he wants you put down. At the tavern, he told us he'd give us two weeks to get you straight or he'd come destroy you himself."

"Why would he wait? Why assist you?"

"Sebastian saved MacRieve's life recently. He also spared the Lykae from what he considers a fate a thousand times worse than death."

"Then why come after me at all?"

"You're a fallen vampire who showed up not only in his town, but in a place he and his mate patronize. A little too close for his comfort. So MacRieve is sympathetic, but only to a point."

And the Lykae's witch could easily scry and find Conrad. Yet another enemy bent on destroying him. The line begins here, gentlemen.

"Conrad, the three of us have vowed to bring you back from the brink, even with you spitting and bellowing if we have to. I'm asking you, as your brother, to just... try."

How far are they willing to go?

Conrad shook his head. What am I thinking? Imagining a recovery from this? He'd made his choices. He'd suffer the consequences.

Even if there was a way, he wouldn't have time. Pain shot through his arm as if to punctuate his thoughts.

If the curse of the mark was true, then the fact that Conrad had begun dreaming of Néomi could mean far more than he'd imagined.

He needed to get free and hunt that bastard. If he could defeat Tarut and take the demon's blood, Conrad would truly be the most powerful male in the Lore. He would be unstoppable.

Which would help him defeat his next set of opponents: the Woede.

Months ago, Conrad had unwittingly drained a warlock who'd known a critical secret: the only way to defeat Rydstrom's usurper.

Now Conrad was the last living being with that information—not that he consciously knew what it was or even how to find it.

Rydstrom would kill for what was in Conrad's mind. So would his brother, Cadeon the Kingmaker; as a mercenary, that demon had seated five kings. But he couldn't quite reclaim his own brother's crown.

Conrad said, "You risk much, taking me to the gathering."

"It will be wild there, so we'll stay on the periphery of the crowd and see if any female catches your fancy."

Conrad was to skulk in the bushes at some field party, looking for a woman. My degradation is complete. He willed himself not to look at Néomi. "I have no interest in having to care for and protect a female that I don't get to choose for myself." Even as he said the words, he lost himself musing what it would mean if fate had chosen Néomi for him... . Could Conrad find a way to bridge their existences? To make it so he could claim her? He'd dreamed about taking her—if it was a fraction as good as his dreams...

"Conrad!" Murdoch snapped his fingers.

He blinked. "What?"

"I said that we know about your involvement in the Kapsliga, and we know the vows involved."

Conrad's eyes shot wide. "Don't—"

"We know you've never been with a woman."