Page 39 of Maksym

“I told her.”

“You chose subtlety, then.”

“She asked why her suffering had personal significance.”

“Ah.” His gaze moved to the closed door. “And?”

“She told me a goddess giving her a vampire king as a mate after two years of vampire captivity was a cruel joke.”

Taras was silent for half a second.

“Reasonable assessment,” he said.

I looked at him as his expression remained blank and felt a spark of dry humor.

“Yes,” I said. “I thought so.”

The spark died quickly.

Taras’s eyes sharpened again, and the corridor seemed to narrow around what came next.

“Father.”

There it was.

The word had been standing behind us since Grace whispered blood slave into the desert night. Kazimir Kozlov had outlawed the trade a century ago with the kind of finality that made wise men bury their appetites and foolish ones bury their evidence. If an Elder in my territory had been keeping slaves, if Devereux had moved human bodies beneath my authority, then this was not merely a crime.

It was rot inside the wall. I nodded once.

“I will call him.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Before either of us moved, the soft rhythm of footsteps approached from the adjoining corridor. Millie appeared, carrying a small tray.

A steaming bowl sat on it; the scent of warm broth rising gently through the cold air. Beside it lay a folded nightgown in pale cotton, thick socks, and a tall glass of blood wine. Practical mercy, arranged neatly on silver.

She paused before us and looked me over. Her gaze moved over my face, my hands, the set of my shoulders.

Then she said, “You did well tonight.”

For one humiliating second, I almost smiled like a boy. Millie saw that too, because Millie missed nothing worth seeing. Her expression warmed, but she spared me by not naming it.

“She needs sleep,” I said.

“She needs many things,” Millie replied. “Sleep is the first among many.”

Taras rose and stepped aside.

Millie turned to Grace’s door, then paused with her hand on the latch. “Majesty.”

The door closed behind her.

My study had been designed to remind visitors that the Western Crown did not conduct business from velvet alone. Dark wood paneling climbed the walls. Shelves held ledgers, treaties, maps, and sealed boxes containing debts old enough to have outlived nations. My desk was broad, black, and large enough to hold two enormous monitors and my laptop. It held no ornaments except a blade-shaped letter opener and a carved gold paperweight.

Taras stopped at the threshold. “I will begin pulling records.”