Free Veil of Midnight by Lara Adrián

lifted his head, flinching away from the pain with a hissed cry. He saw smoke curl up in front of his eyes, smelled the sweet, sickly stink of seared flesh—his own.

    Sergei Yakut stood before him, holding the long iron poker in his hand. The glowing tip of the metal rod smoldered, red-hot except for the spot of ashy white skin that clung to it from where it had torn away from Lex’s face.

    Yakut grinned, baring the points of his fangs. “Yes, Alexei, you serve at my pleasure only. Remember that. Just because my blood happens to run in your veins doesn’t mean I am opposed to spilling it.”

    “Of course not,” Lex murmured, jaw clenched for the blistering agony of his burns. Hatred seethed in him for the insult he could only swallow and for his own impotence when it came to the Breed male daring him with his glower to make a move against him now.

    Yakut backed off at last. He dragged a brown linen tunic from off a chair and shrugged into it. His eyes were still lit with blood hunger and lust. He let his tongue skate across his teeth and fangs. “As you are so eager to serve me, go and fetch Renata. I have need of her now.”

    Lex gritted his teeth so hard they should have shattered in his mouth. Wordlessly he walked out of the room with his spine held rigid, his own eyes flashing with the amber light of his outrage. He didn’t miss the confused look of the guard on post at the door, the uneasy drift of the other vampire’s eyes as he took in the odor of scorched flesh and the likely heat of Lex’s roiling fury.

    His burn would heal—in fact, it already was, his accelerated Breed metabolism mending the seared skin as Lex’s feet carried him into the main area of the lodge. Renata was just coming in from outside. She saw Lex and paused, turning around as if she meant to avoid him. Not fucking likely.

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    “He wants you,” Lex barked from across the lodge, not caring how many other guards heard him. All of them knew she was Yakut’s whore, so there was no reason to pretend otherwise. “He told me to send you in. He’s waiting for you to service him.”

    Cold jade-green eyes leveled on him. “I’ve been training outdoors. I need to wash off the dirt and sweat.”

    “He said now, Renata.” A clipped command, one he knew would be obeyed. There was more than a little satisfaction in that small, rare triumph.

    “Very well.” She shrugged, padded over on bare feet.

    Her bland expression as she neared said she didn’t care what anyone thought of her, least of all Lex, and that lack of suitable humiliation only made him want to degrade her further. He sniffed in her direction, more for effect than anything else. “He won’t mind your filth. Everyone knows the best whores are the dirty ones.”

    Renata didn’t so much as blink at the vulgar remark. She could cut him down with a blast of her mental power if she chose to—in fact, Lex almost hoped she would, if just to prove that he had wounded her. But the cool flick of her gaze told him she didn’t feel he was worth the effort.

    She strode past him with a dignity Lex couldn’t even begin to fathom. He watched her—all of the guards in the immediate area watched her—as she walked toward Sergei Yakut’s chambers as calmly as a noble queen on her way to the gallows.

    It didn’t take much for Lex to imagine a day when he might be the one in control of all who served this household, including haughty Renata. Of course, the bitch wouldn’t be so haughty if her mind, will, and body belonged entirely to him. A Minion to serve his every base whim…and those of the other males at his command.

    Yes, Lex mused darkly, it would be damned good indeed to be king.

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CHAPTER
    Eight

    Nikolai pulled one of Renata’s daggers free from the thick wooden post where she’d thrown it. He had to give her credit; her aim was deadon. If he’d been human, not Breed, cursed with a human’s sluggish reflexes, Renata’s strike would have surely skewered