“I’m just… I don’t know. I just have nightmares, okay? Maybe it’s some kind of psychological leftover from being orphaned as a baby. I don’t remember my parents, but I’m assuming I was around when whatever happened to them happened. I think some of it must stem from that.” It was crap, of course, but for a time when she was younger, that had been her working theory. Maybe Ty would buy it.

“Ah. Very analytical of you,” Ty replied.

Then again, maybe not.

He removed his hands from her shoulders then, though the motion was reluctant, and he skimmed his hands down her arms before pulling them away. He sat very close to her, perched at the edge of the couch, his hip pressing against her own, and it seemed she could feel the sensation from that one point of contact vibrating through her entire body.

It was, at least, a distraction from what Ty wanted to talk about, which was nothing she had any interest in canvassing with him. But as distractions went, this one was fraught with its own sort of danger.

“Yeah, I’m full of deep thoughts,” Lily said wryly. She pushed her hair away from her face with one hand and swallowed a yawn. It suddenly occurred to her that he’d said something about where she would be allowed to go during the day.

“So, what, no tying my hands today?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I’d rather your hands be free if we need to make a quick exit. It’s not safe here. I’m sure you’ve surmised that the fire tonight had a little something to do with us being at Mabon.”

Lily nodded, remembering Anura, hoping she was all right. “Damien?” She hated saying the name, as though just that simple act might summon him out of thin air. And from what she’d seen so far, the idea of that happening wasn’t so far-fetched.

“I would assume. We didn’t have any time to talk to Anura, and I’m sure that was the point. I can only hope she managed to avoid him on her way out. I’ve often thought that smoke is a much handier form than a cat, but beggars can’t be choosers. In any case, we’ll have to be very careful while we’re here. I don’t want to stay any longer than we need to, but…” He trailed off and turned his head away, frowning.

“But?” she prompted.

“Things aren’t right. Nothing is right.”

She heard the bewilderment in his voice, and it tugged at her. She wasn’t familiar with his world and couldn’t say she much liked what she’d seen of it so far. But he’d been living in it for a long time, and it certainly seemed like things were in a state of flux.

“I was sent to look for you because of the attacks. Simple enough, right?” he asked, surprising her when he kept talking. But he seemed to need to, and she didn’t interrupt, just nodded. She wasn’t sure he was really talking to her, anyway, so much as working things out for himself.

“But then it wasn’t simple at all. I wind up wandering in the boonies for nearly a year, too busy to get involved with the usual dynasty bullshit. I find you, and you’re… not what I expected. We’ve got the Shades after us, courtesy of whoever wants to decimate the Ptolemy. And now I find out that not only is the damned dynasty in danger, but they’re also making it awfully hard for anyone else to feel sorry for them. I can’t even begin to guess why the Ptolemy are provoking the Dracul this way. It’s easy to suspect them, but I was under the impression that Arsinöe actually wanted proof before they incited a bloody war.”

He gave a frustrated groan and shoved his head in his hands. Lily watched him, mulling over what he’d said. Some of it was new to her: he hadn’t mentioned these Dracul before as the suspected source of the trouble.

“I’ve been cut out completely,” he said. “And hell if I know what to do about it.”

“Why them?” she asked. “Why would the Dracul go after the Ptolemy?”

Ty scrubbed at his face with his hands, then looked at her. He looked tired. Appealingly tired. She tried not to notice.

“Bad blood, simmering ever since the Dracul petitioned the Council for recognition as a dynasty in their own right. They’re the youngest, and I suppose you can imagine how rare it is for a new bloodline to show up anyway. Vlad had to prove he was the first to wear his mark, and since he swears it was given to him by an ancient and rather dark goddess, the proof was… well, I understand it was quite an undertaking, but he managed it. Still, there were lots of roadblocks the other dynasty heads threw up, trying to stop them. They’re the ones who can turn into bats, you see,” he said with a wry smile. “The only highbloods with an animal form. And the most famous, which pisses everyone off. They weren’t going to have him no matter what he did. Vlad’s a wily one, though. By the time he petitioned, he was already well organized and backed by plenty of muscle. He was selective, and smart, about who he turned. There were too many of them. The Council couldn’t say no. Especially when someone set a Romany curse on a couple of very vocal opponents.”

“The invisible thing,” Lily said with a frown. “The Dracul are Gypsies?”

“Some of them,” Ty said. “And the curse is a thing called a Mulo. A flesh-eating spirit that sleeps in its corpse during the day. How to create one is not exactly common knowledge.”

“I still don’t get why he’d try to take out the Ptolemy. Especially not with something so obvious.”

Ty shrugged. “You play to your strengths. And he and Arsinöe hate each other. She made it very clear what she thought of the Dracul, their penchant for elevating gutterbloods into their ranks. She was the lone ‘no’ vote on their acceptance, and when the two camps aren’t avoiding each other, they fight. Maybe Vlad’s decided to go for the brass ring, Lily. I don’t know. It’s highblood business. I don’t think like they do, and I don’t particularly want to.”

She’d noticed this before, his way of separating what he did from those he did it for. The way vampire society worked, Lily decided, was something any medieval tyrant would have been proud of. And it was telling that the word gutterblood rolled so easily off his tongue, when it was something she herself had heard him called. He was so used to it… and that made her sad.

“But you allow yourself to be a weapon of the Ptolemy,” Lily said as gently as she could. Did he truly not see this? “Doesn’t that make you about as involved as it gets? I mean, don’t you care that you’re contributing to the problem? It sounds like Arsinöe is one of the worst ones for wanting to keep highbloods and lowbloods separate.”

She could see the shutters come down over his eyes immediately.

“The problems,” Ty said gruffly, “are not of my making. And if it weren’t me, it would be someone else. I don’t have the luxury of choosing my path. I’m just a weapon, not the hand that wields it. And I owe the queen.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” Lily muttered, looking away. “But if you’re so important to her, you’d think she would have mentioned all of this other stuff. And what about Jaden? Can’t be all that great if he ran away from it.”

“I don’t know. He won’t talk about it, and he’s gone… out.” She saw the flash of anger, though he quickly buried it. “Maybe he’s gone out to see Anura so they can talk about you and me. Maybe he’s working with Damien now and has gone to plot our untimely demise. Hell if I know, Lily.” He sighed heavily, and Lily again felt that reluctant tug at her sympathy. “Jaden’s my blood brother. Something happened to him, but I can’t help if he won’t trust me. I won’t apologize for what I am, what I do, but I’ve never betrayed blood.”

He looked so vulnerable, sitting there in the dark, that Lily felt herself opening to him. Her instinct was to comfort him, perhaps because he was the only man who had ever tried to do the same for her. Ty was a difficult and moody man. That she had seen from the first. But it was something to know that he could be hurt by a friend’s lack of faith. That he considered himself worthy of such faith, at least when it came to his own blood. There was some code of honor he ran by; she just hadn’t figured out what it was yet.

Nor if she fell under any of it.

“What about me?” she asked softly, unable to help herself. “Will you betray me?”

It was obvious he didn’t care for the question. “I thought we’d established that I was trying to make sure you stay safe, Lily. I’ve been up front about why I sought you out.”

“No, I mean when it comes to Arsinöe. What if she decides my mark means I shouldn’t exist? Or what if I’m made as much a slave as—” She barely stopped herself from saying as you.

He watched her, a hint of regret in his expression. That, and all it implied, frightened her more than almost anything she’d been through since she’d met him.

“There’s a saying among vampires,” he said softly. “Blood is destiny. Your blood, Lily, brought you here, and brought you to me. I believe that. And as long as you’re in my care, I’ll protect you. Beyond that, your blood will take you where you’re meant to go. And it will get you home. You’ll have to trust in that, if nothing else.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe in fate, Ty. I’ve made my own. And so have you, right? You aren’t supposed to even be looking at a queen, much less be so valued by one. You made that happen. Not some weird blood destiny.”

He gave a humorless little chuckle, and she hated the bleakness in his eyes. It was the look of a man worn down over many years, to the point where he had no hope left. What came after that, in another hundred years? Maybe it would be the coldness she’d seen in Damien, the complete lack of feeling.

But Ty was different. And so utterly alone.

“Who protects you?” she asked suddenly, and saw his surprise.

“I’m going to try not to be insulted you asked me that. I can take care of myself.”