He traced to the sound, finding his "niece" Kosmina standing by his bag, a troubled look on her face.
She and her brother Mirceo were the last of the House of Castellan, the castle guard. The heart of the kingdom.
Kosmina was such a contradiction. She was completely innocent in matters of love and painfully bashful. Her clothing was always demure-today she wore a traditional gown, floor-length with the collar nearly reaching her chin. Yet at the same time she was a mistress of arms-and a merciless killer.
Trehan had helped train her with weapons. He suspected that each of the cousins had secretly had a hand in raising her. I have so much more to teach her. Yet after today he may never see her again; whereas the male cousins traveled outside Dacia, Kosmina had never been beyond its stone borders.
"Uncle Viktor said you were leaving." She shyly glanced up at him from under blond bangs.
"Rest easy. I might be returning directly. I only go to observe, just as I often do." He frowned. "Mirceo doesn't suspect you've come here?" Dacianos didn't usually meet in private-unless a fight was imminent. The last thing he needed was Mirceo appearing, sword in hand, to defend his sister's life.
Chapter 11
As if I'd ever hurt her. Trehan pinched the bridge of his nose. Distrust and dread marked their family, just like a curse.
If only it were so easy as that. Curses can be broken.
"I keep telling him that you won't harm me," Kosmina said. "Stelian's the only royal you'd truly kill."
"Is that so?" Trehan asked with a hint of amusement at her conviction.
She outlined a pattern of the rug with the toe of one boot. "You found your Bride?"
"I did."
"Will you have offspring now? I'd like to be an auntie."
He exhaled a gust of breath. Offspring. When he'd been younger, he'd longed for his Bride, for a family of his own. As ages whispered past, he'd lost hope.
Now he could mate another female and beget young. But children with Bettina . . .
Would never see Dacia. Would never grow the House of Shadow.
"I don't know, Kosmina. My Bride doesn't care for me at present."
She glanced up, brows drawn. "Then she doesn't know you."
"I appreciate your confidence." He still couldn't believe that his Bride and his niece were about the same age.
If some lecherous, centuries-old male lusted for Kosmina, Trehan would gut him so slowly.
And still I go to Rune?
"I'll keep your home and your collection as you left them, Uncle, just in case. But I hope you make a life out there." Her light blue eyes went dreamy. "Every day, I imagine leaving this place."
She was forbidden to leave the kingdom. In this, he agreed with his cousins; it was too dangerous.
"I imagine it will be like waking up, like rising from a coffin and coming to life."
"Coffin, Niece?" She described herself as if she were dead. "Come now, it's not so bad. Life is good here. You're safe from the plague." Afflicting only the females of their species, the sickness was deadly even to immortal vampires. Deadly-or worse.
"Good here?" she queried softly. She pointed to his favorite seat. "Then imagine sitting there, reading the same books. For another thousand years."
The idea made him feel vaguely nauseated, her point delivered. For one so childlike in many ways, she was uncommonly observant.
He managed an even tone as he said, "Imagine the alternative: never seeing my home again, allowing my house to perish when so many have died for it." Years wasted, waiting for something that would never be? Years spent fighting, only to abandon those vendettas?
Those vendettas defined him. His duty defined him.