“What happened to you?” Abel asked. “We all thought you’d been killed. Heck, there was evidence!”

Cain nodded. “I know. I killed one of the assassins, but the others took me prisoner and made it look like I was dead.”

His brother’s eyes widened. “Prisoner? Who took you? What did they do to you?” He eyed Haven and Thomas suspiciously, before his gaze fell onto Wesley. Abel inhaled visibly. “What the—”

Cain raised his hand. This was getting old pretty quickly. “They’re all with me.” He pointed to his friends, introducing them. “These are Thomas, Haven, and Wesley. All three were instrumental in my escape from that hole where they kept me and tortured me. Without Wesley’s magic I would have never survived. Nobody harms the witch.”

The lies rolled off his lips like water down a fast flowing stream. Emphasizing Wesley’s witchcraft and making him seem more powerful than he was had been Haven’s idea. It would make sure the vampires wouldn’t want to cross him and draw the witch’s wrath on them.

Abel inclined his head toward the men from Scanguards. “I’m grateful to you for bringing my brother home. Consider yourselves our guests.”

“They’re not guests, they’re my guards,” Cain corrected his brother with a firm voice. To reestablish his rule, he had to make sure Abel knew who wielded the power. He couldn’t show any weakness, not even for a second.

A perplexed expression spread on Abel’s face. “But you have your guards here.” He pointed to the men who’d brought him to the palace. “Surely you can’t possibly want to have strangers guard you.”

Cain narrowed his eyes. “The king’s guards guarded me before, and look what happened: I was kidnapped under their watch. I hope you don’t mind, my dear brother, that I’ve picked new guards to protect me.” He stared his brother down, leaving him with no doubt that his words weren’t meant to ask for permission, but to issue an order he expected to be followed without questioning.

“As you wish,” Abel finally said.

“Good, then . . .” Cain stopped himself.

A scent suddenly drifted to him. It was subtle, but nevertheless caused his heart to beat erratically. His entire body reacted to it because, unlike his mind, his body recognized the scent. He felt it in every cell of his being.

Slowly Cain lifted his eyes to the top of the stairs, drawn to where she stood. Faye wore a colorful cotton dress with a pattern consisting of tropical flowers in various green, blue, and pink tones. The fabric hugged her generous bust and widened past her wasp-like waist to make room for her hips and the bare long legs that became visible just below her knees. Her toes peeked out from her high-heeled sandals. He couldn’t tell whether she wore a bra or whether her breasts were naturally firm to give them such an appealing shape. Though if he could trust his dreams, he had his answer: in his hands her breasts had had the perfect combination of softness and firmness.

Swallowing away the lust that instantly surfaced, Cain forced himself to remain standing where he was. Instead, he brought his gaze back to her face, where her eyes stared at him as if he were a ghost. Her lips parted, and even from where he stood he could see how her chest rose to take in a breath.

Faye was even more breathtakingly beautiful than she’d been in his dreams. Combined with her scent that now wrapped around him like a cocoon, he didn’t know how any man, vampire or not, would have any chance resisting her. Just looking at her he was lost. If he walked to her now, his lips would utter a confession he couldn’t dare make. Nobody was allowed to find out that he suffered from amnesia. Not even Faye.

So he suppressed the urge to run up the stairs and sweep her into his arms. He couldn’t allow himself to do that. Certainly not in front of Abel. She was engaged to Abel now, and until he had a chance to speak to Faye in private to get a sense for her feelings for his brother he couldn’t show any of the palace’s residents what he felt. He had to continue the charade and play the strong king who wouldn’t lose his composure. John had told him on the plane ride here that he’d never been one to show his emotions in public. If he did so now, the vampires watching him would find it odd and become suspicious. And he couldn’t give them or Abel any reason to believe that he’d changed or that he wasn’t who he was pretending to be.

He ran one last look over Faye, before he nodded to her stiffly. “Faye. It’s good to see you.”

The casual words made his heart clench. Would she understand that for so many reasons he couldn’t be more affectionate at this moment?