I Am the Wild (The Night Firm #1)- Karpov Kinrade Page 0,73

himself. I stand and face him, eye to eye. "You need to chill your shit immediately. If this case wasn't already damned by their testimony, your outburst was surely the nail in the coffin. Unless you want to spend the rest of eternity underground, calm the hell down now."

His teeth elongate, and he eyes my neck like it will be his dinner, but I don't back away. “Calm. The. Hell. Down.”

Finally, Dracula nods. "You are right. This display has not helped us. I will save my anger for later.” And with a flourish of his cape, Dracula strides out of the courtroom without another word.

We follow him into the main hall and find a few benches tucked away in a corner, hoping for smidgen of privacy. Liam, Elijah, Sebastian, Lily and I sit on one bench. Dracula alone on the other.

“Let Liam explain,” I say to the Count, then glance at the red-haired vampire. For once, he almost looks grateful.

"I was her healer," Liam says calmly. "She was worried about the baby and didn't want to worry you, so she asked for my help. We were not having an affair, and I had no idea the baby wasn't yours."

The rage on Dracula's face evaporates into grief so deeply profound and heartrending I have to look away. The sobs shake his body as all the pain of this loss consumes him.

It's too much. No one moves to offer him comfort, so I do.

I take a seat by his side and put an arm around his broad shoulders. With a soft, soothing voice, I give him what solace I can. "The grief will destroy you if you let it," I say. "I know how hard this is, and I'm truly sorry for the loss you bear."

I ignore the brothers. I even ignore my own wariness about this man—this vampire. Instead, I connect with the part of him that is in all of us. The heart and soul, the pain and sorrow. In this we are the same.

In this, Dracula and I share the same unsealing wound.

When he looks up and into my eyes, there is new understanding there. We are now kindred, bound by pain, through pain. Bound in the darkness of grief.

Bound.

“Thank you,” he says softly.

I nod and step back, giving him space, and take a seat between Sebastian and Liam to discuss strategy. “That crystal looked awfully familiar,” I say.

Sebastian nods. “Indeed.” He motions to Lily. “Return to the castle. Check the safe.”

She nods and sprints away, disappearing down the hallway.

I lower my voice. “You don’t think the prosecution stole it, do you?”

Sebastian grits his teeth. “We shall see. But in my experience, the Van Helsings will do almost anything to punish Dracula. He caused much pain to their family, back in the days when we were not governed by laws.”

I look to the Count, but he says nothing, his eyes fixed on a fireplace crackling amongst the gray stone.

"If the baby wasn't Dracula's, then who was Mary involved with?" I ask aloud, though no one answers.

Dracula just clenches his fist.

Liam looks ready to set the building on fire.

Elijah and Sebastian have no more answers than I do.

Derek steps around the corner, looking drained of all life—even for the undead. "It's not good," he says, speaking to all of us. "If another outburst occurs, we will each be fined. Heavily. And…” he pauses, looking uneasy.

“And?” asks Sebastian. “Spit it out, brother.”

Derek takes a deep breath. “And for the remainder of the trial, due to his entanglement in the case, Liam isn’t allowed in the courtroom.”

“What?” roars the fire Druid. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Be that as it may,” says Derek coolly, “the judge believes things will proceed more…smoothly…if you are not present.”

Liam leaps to his feet, pacing next to the fireplace and sparking the flames with his fingers. “Fine. Go and protect this monster,” he says, gesturing to Dracula. “I took this case for Mary. And we don’t even know who actually killed her yet. So go. Go play lawyer. And while you do, I’ll be here focusing on what really matters. Finding the truth!”

He clenches his jaw, and the fire roars at his back, casting him in crimson light. Steam mixes with his breath.

“Perhaps,” Elijah says plainly, “if you had been honest with us from the start, we could have avoided this problem.”

“It wasn’t that simple,” hisses Liam.

“Listen,” I say, looking at everyone calmly. "We could argue all day, but that’s exactly what the prosecution wants. Dracula’s outburst set us