Page 49 of Vamp CEO Bit You Where?

"That is what Cyrus buried," I say. "Not scandal. Murder. Theft from the Chair. A human liaison killed because he protected people Cyrus believed belonged to him. This coup is not principle. It is for his own gain."

No one speaks at once. That is the true shock. A northern representative turns his seal face down on the marble. An elder follows. A younger vampire who arrived undecided lowers his gaze and steps back from the center aisle. The invited houses do not need Dain present to understand the proof. The absence of his house no longer looks powerful. It looks like control.

"This society does not ratify treason," Gregory says. "Any invited house that shelters Cyrus Dain stands against the Chair."

Elias reaches my side, his voice pitched for me alone, "Freight depot confirmed. Cyrus is there. Jasmine is still alive."

West of the river. Where the bond has pulled me since I walked through these doors.

"Gid."

He is already moving, already armed — the one man in this room who has watched my restraint cost me everything it costs and said nothing of it.

I face Gregory a final time. "I have my standing. I have your confirmation. I invoke the protection now, in motion."

"Then go," Gregory says, "and bring Cyrus back breathing to face what he's done."

I don't concur with him. The law has cracked open. Invited houses are stepping away from Cyrus one by one. And the woman the bond will not let me stop feeling is trapped, waiting for someone to come.

The Convocation doors open ahead of me. Gid is already at my left. Elias falls in on my right, speaking into three channels at once, stripping cameras from the depot roads and throwing false heat toward the wrong bridge.

Behind us, Gregory's order moves through the houses faster than rumor. No sanctuary. No passage. No old courtesy left for Cyrus to hide behind. Law has done what law can do.

Now there is only finding her. Cyrus thinks fear can hold her better than I can find her. I'm ready to prove him wrong.

31

JASMINE

Later that morning, Cyrus comes back, "You're awake. Don't insult me by pretending otherwise."

Cold fingers close on my jaw and tilt my face up. Cyrus crouches, immaculate even now, eyes reading me like a sum that refuses to total correctly.

"I expected to find you smaller by this hour," he says. "Hollowed out. Grateful for a wall to lean against. Instead you fall asleep like you aren't in danger."

"Terrible host." My mouth is dry, my voice a scrape. "No pillow. No coffee. I'm leaving a review."

His thumb presses into my cheekbone, slow, testing where I'll crack. I don't give him the satisfaction of flinching.

"You think defiance is the same as strength," he says. "It is only noise. When the noise stops, there's nothing underneath."

"You'd know all about nothing underneath."

"Watch your mouth."

"No," I say, and I smile at him with a split-second of pure spite. "You're the one who should be careful. You took me to break him. He won't break. You're a sorry excuse for a man."

The blow comes fast and open-handed and snaps my head sideways. Heat blooms across my mouth, then I taste copper. I work my tongue against my teeth, feel the split in my lip, and turn back to face him with blood on my chin.

His hand draws back again—and the wall comes in. Brick and old mortar tear inward with a sound like the building is falling down, and then dust and concrete and a flood of dirty morning light pour through the breach. I twist away from the spray of grit. When it clears, Sebastian is standing in the gap.

He isn't wild. That's the first thing I understand, and the thing that makes my chest go still. He's calm. Suit ruined, knuckles raw, eyes so fixed on Cyrus with the certainty that he already knows how this ends and is only here to confirm it. Behind him the depot is full of motion I can't track—bodies moving faster than bodies should, impacts I feel in my teeth, the floor shuddering, somebody's shape thrown into a stack of pallets that explode into kindling. Cyrus' people, falling. Cyrus' order, coming apart in fragments at the edges of my sight.

"Sebastian." Cyrus' hand finds my hair, then my throat, fingers spread along my jaw and the back of my skull. "One more step and I snap the neck. You know how little it takes."

Sebastian goes statue-still. "Let her go."

"You'll want to negotiate."