XXIV

Since the bal masqué, the enforcers had been whispering about Serafina Blackwood’s arrival. There was no refuge or reprieve anyone could seek from it. It rippled to all corners, eclipsing the rex’s inner circle of trusted advisers to even reach the more talkative of courtiers.

The repetitive subject intrigued Sabina, especially when she had never been in the presence of a blood sorceress before. Hence, when a servant arrived to inform her that the rex had requested she join him and his mother for breakfast, she couldn’t quicken her pace enough.

She made her way through the enigmatic passage to the royal apartments, where she was greeted by a servant opening the double oak doors of the upper chambers.

Serafina Blackwood and Darius sat on opposing ends of the table. They looked so imposing together it relaxed the joints in one’s knees through sheer terror alone.

The table wedged in between them was set with tea, nettle bread, water infused with dandelions, and silver trays stacked full of little tarts filled with butter and preserves.

Sabina neared an empty seat at the table and bowed her head. “Good morning, Your Majesty.”

“Good morning, Sabina,” Darius replied.

“So this is she, then, I’m assuming?” Serafina asked. Her voice was low and dulcet like the sweet honey spread she smoothed onto her slice of black bread. “My keeper?”

“Mother, this is Sabina Vernostia Levitia.” Darius gestured towards his enforcer. “Sabina, this is my mother, Serafina Blackwood.”

“It is an honour, Serafina Blackwood.”

“An honour,” Serafina exclaimed as her oxblood lips arranged themselves into a smile that pronounced her dimples. Such an endearing feature for a face otherwise ferocious in its beauty. “It’s been a long time since anyone has ever considered me in such high regard.”

“Sabina is who I shall entrust to keep watch of you while you’re in the Citadel.” Darius took a sip of tea. “Make sure you stay out of trouble.”

Serafina hummed in interest, glancing Sabina up and down. “You don’t often see an occassella prove herself to reach the ranks of an officer. You’ll have to tell me all about the First Rite someday. I’m ever so curious.”

“Tell you what.” Sabina lounged lazily in her chair. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know if you spill your secrets about blood magic.”

Serafina cackled. “It’s doubtless you’ve heard many tales about us, what we do.”

Such tales were wide and varied, depending upon the source. To matriarchs, they were little more than bloodthirsty harridans who brainwashed the feeble minds of occasselle youth. Forcing them to abandon the true and proper course of marriage and motherhood to sacrifice the unborn under the waxing moon and bathe in their bloodshed.

To the church, they were runaway brides and exiled daughters who, in their banishment, came to be stewards of the only ever-fertile sliver of land in the country. Through dutiful ritual, they deposited fresh crops and animal products to the markets daily. In both cases, they were seen as a nuisance, a dangerously corruptive force to the established order and shunned by many as a result.

“Only that you kill occassi males,” Sabina said, drinking from a glass of dandelion water. “Do you kill occassi males?”

Serafina’s face degraded into something perfectly wicked before she glanced at Darius, as though almost seeking approval.

“She gave it her best to be rid of me,” he revealed, and his own cheekbones sharpened like the points of daggers when he smiled. “Guess I’m a stubborn old thing.”

“And look at you now,” Serafina said, something of a simulated maternal pride in her voice.

“Before I send you both off”—Darius set down a cup of tea—“if I might have a word, Mother.”

Sabina took the initiative and made herself scarce, clasping the brass knob to close the door all but for a tiny fragment of an inch.

It was Serafina who spoke next. “I must ask: You’re not still serious about what we earlier discussed?” The treacly drawl of her voice was unmistakable.

“I am.”

“Darius—”

“Since you’ve been so desperate to trick your way past the Citadel gates again, you could at least be of use to me.”

“You are stubborn, Darius.” Serafina’s chair legs scraped and cutlery rustled as she reached over the table for her son. “I must ask you to reconsider—”

He massaged his temples with a grunt. “I still don’t see why we can’t just go forth and do it.”

“It has consequences, Darius. It always has. And I will not risk putting myself in jeopardy again by repeating it.”

He tensed in aggravation, dragging a hand down his face. “There has to be some way for you to perform the ritual without me having to sacrifice my sanity and my ability to feel—”

“You mean your ability to love her?” Serafina interjected, her smile mocking.

His throat clenched in response. No elaboration was necessary.

“I only ever performed the ritual once. It’s possible that it could do with some refining. However, I am unable to do much without having someone I might examine the effects on first—”

“You mean if I had test subjects?”

She furrowed her brow in response. Her expression was an impartial mask of contemplation being slowly nibbled away by unease. “What are you thinking, Darius? Yes, it would certainly help, but I can’t imagine many people willingly signing up for this.”

He responded with a smile nothing short of ferocious. “Who said anything about being willing?”

For a while they stared at each other, bodies tensed at this revelation.

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I suppose you won’t mind if I leave the Vidua Nocte twisting in the wind.”

“Careful, Darius. You’re forgetting I could make things quite unpleasant for you and your new bride.” Serafina glanced around the vicinity. “Where is she, by the by? I can’t imagine she approves of your foolish venture?”

“Listen to me very closely.” Darius’s tone was steely composure but his eyes blazed a fiery blue. “Let this be the last time you imply anything untoward about Laila in my presence. If you so much as glance menacingly in her direction, I won’t be the only one who’s heartless. Do you understand?”

“You really do love her, don’t you?” The revelation caused her to beam in his direction. “You should not have let me know that. Because now I know as long as she exists there is something of you I can touch.”

Darius clenched his jaw, unable to refute her words.

A silence stretched thin before Serafina rose from the table, her boots scrunching softly on the antique rug as she made her way towards the door.

Sabina was quick to shuffle out of earshot before Serafina exited into the hallway, her sinuous coils bouncing with wild carnality beneath the cloak of her veil.

“Shall we go?” She gestured for Sabina to lead the way and then followed her through the vaulted passageways to her new dwellings.

“This is to be your room.” Sabina twisted the knob to show Serafina into Darius’s old quarters.

She snorted at the irony. “Oh, he does think he’s funny, my son.”

Sabina closed the door behind her. “What were you discussing earlier?”

Serafina approached the bookcases and lifted one of the leatherbound tomes, flicking through it. “If that was something he wanted you to know he would’ve allowed you to stay in the room.”

“Hence I’m asking you.”

Serafina closed the book with an audible snap. “A secret for another time, perhaps.”

“He mentioned a ritual,” Sabina continued. “I kept going over it in my head until I thought… How did the past rex become heartless? It was you, wasn’t it?”

Serafina slid her book back onto the shelf. “You are exceedingly, frightfully sharp. I see why my son has taken you under his wing. It pains me that I never reached you first.”

“To become a sorceress?”

“I really think you might have taken to it.”

Sabina considered that, unsure of whether to be flattered. “How do you do it?”

Serafina strolled over to sit upon the chaise lounge with one knee slung across the other. She snapped her fingers and her athame materialised, landing on her palm with a light slap. The blade was smooth obsidian with an iridescent sheen that glided in vibrant fluctuations of colour when she moved it. “To perform blood magic, one must draw life from where it already exists. This symbol makes a link between my life force and another’s, and in completing the ritual I am able to access their power, use it, and sometimes drain it completely from them. It’s how we become widows. It’s where our name originates from.”

Sabina had heard the stories. The widows who trailed away into the night, leaving behind a decaying household, a severed bloodline. They were the worst kind of occasselle, the ones who took life instead of giving it, the ones who decided that their selves superseded society.

“You killed your husband?”

“No.” Serafina shook her head. “Fortunately, I managed to avoid the shackles of marriage. Though it cost me. But a father is as much an owner as a husband is. He brands you first, breaks you in, and then hands you off to your new master. I’m sure you understand.”

“I do.” Perhaps more than she would like to. “What made you decide? To become a widow?”

She took some time to ruminate on the answer. “Do you remember the old wives’ tale they used to tell you about barren occasselle? About how they’d tie balls and chains around their ankles and leave them to drown until they became river wraiths? It was always one of my favourites. But what interested me most is what would happen after. See, these creatures wouldn’t spend eternity wallowing in the pit of their own neglect and abandonment. They would rise up with vengeance, grabbing any male that dared venture out into the waters and drag them down into oblivion. Well, it’s the same principle here. I chose to take the violence inflicted upon me and absorb it, transform myself into an even bigger monstrosity than the one that came before me.”

She smiled, and it was a deceptively tender thing.

Darius sat before a chequerboard filled with silver pieces and moved them about in solo play. Chess had always been a favourite game of his father’s, and later his too. He had tried to teach Dominus to play several times, but his brother had never had the patience. Through every trying attempt, he would always give up after an hour or so and scatter the board, demanding to go boxing. Once he had even swallowed one of the pieces. His father had given Darius a good hiding that day, one he’d never forgotten, and after that Darius stopped trying.

He picked up his final and favourite piece, the hippogriff, its chiselled beak attentively painted in gold, and ran his thumb over it.

“What are you playing at, Darius?” Delanus burst into the room with golden eyes aglow. “Giving over my daughter to that harlot you call your mother?”

“Calm yourself, Delanus.” Darius returned the piece to the board. “Every move I make has its rationale, I assure you.”

“Well I certainly would’ve appreciated being consulted before this!”

“I could return the sentiment, seeing as you saw fit to issue threats to the crown princess.”

Delanus tensed in irritation. “I hope you don’t expect me to get down on my knees and ask for forgiveness, Darius. I’ve had concerns about your behaviour for some time now, but I decided to keep it to myself and offer you my guidance, which you’ve refused. Repeatedly. And now look where we are, with you moving your solarite lover into your rooms as though she is of importance.”

Darius responded with a chuckle as he redid a button on his kaftan to keep from the impulse to throttle Delanus. “Yes, I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to concede to your misconduct and admit, for once, you do not know best. But the fact of the matter is Laila is the bride I chose, and you will respect my actions as your leader and lay your personal opinions to one side.”

The word bride caused Delanus’s face to harden. “You know, I waited patiently for you to get yourself back on track, Darius. This is where I have to draw the line.” He forcefully stabbed his finger towards the floor. “Oh, it’s not that I don’t understand why you might be drawn to her, Darius. When you’ve sampled enough of what our country has to offer, it makes sense that you’d develop a taste for something a little more exotic. To have a dalliance is something I am happy to turn a blind eye to, but to marry her? To make her your regina? That is inexcusable… and I cannot make sense of it from what I’ve seen of your actions so far.”

Darius turned his head to hide what was undoubtedly the blackening of his eyes. His fangs itched to descend from his gums and sink and sink and sink into Delanus’s throat until his sanctimonious mouth could say no more. “Listen to me. Whoever brought Dominus back from the dead is certain to have more motive than pure altruism. What this means is there is a very high chance they are tampering with forces that could threaten us. And there is only one faction who conceivably could have access to that amount of power. Now, isolationism hasn’t worked. The world knows of us, and there is no putting that creature back in the bottle. We need a new path forward. My chimeras provide one layer of defence, and I may yet have an idea for another. But our biggest asset is Laila. With her hand, I can join our countries and attempt to normalise us.”

“You really believe that’s going to work?”

“What choice do we have to prevent more hostility? Further conflict? We cannot continue to exclude ourselves, Delanus. We must bridge the gap.”

A knock at the door gave him a new pinpoint on which to focus.

“Come in, Kirill,” Darius said.

The servant entered with a silver tray holding a decanter of graviji wine and two brass goblets, which he set neatly on the table.

“Have a drink, Delanus.” Darius slid another piece across the board. “I’d like us to toast to my betrothal.”

Kirill lifted the stopper and filled two goblets with a noisy gurgle. He held out the glass to Delanus.

Delanus accepted it with a sneer. “I cannot believe this…” He shook his head in scorn. “I thought after your father, it could only go upwards but look what we got in turn, hm? An imbecile who will fling the keys of the kingdom to foreigners so he can continue to stick his cock into one of them. Your father would never have done that. He would’ve sooner died. Calante willing, he would die again from shame if he saw you now. I had so many reservations when you came into power but I thought… I thought perhaps you just needed some coaxing in the right direction. But now I see clearly. You’re an embarrassment to him and his name! You’re an embarrassment to this country!”

“That’s it, get it all out.” Darius took a lethargic drink of wine. “I’m sure you’ve been withholding that for decades. It must’ve been tiresome, toiling under the weight of your martyrdom for so long.”

“Someone has to do something to save the drowning wreck that is this country!” Delanus cracked, spilling the yolk of his truth. “Calante only knows that with you at the helm of this ship you’ll steer us right into ruin. One might almost think that is your goal. Poor Darius, conceived in misfortune and birthed in shame, a creature so unlovable your own mother would rather smother you in childbed than see you nurse at her breast—”

Darius stood suddenly, breathing hard, the chair behind him springing back on its hind legs with a loud clatter.

In his first century, he dug up the grave of a philosopher and cast a black enchantment that would summon his ghost for a lengthy discourse. The philosopher had been prolific in his writings, penning extensive debates on the nature of evil. Darius could still remember the moments when he’d been at the mercy of fickle candlelight in his deerskin hammock at sea, tracing with careful restraint those delicate leaf pages and inhaling words of black-glossed ink, breathless and bewildered.

Something in him broke its seal that night, opening into a voracious hunger for a conclusion he could not hope to seek within the contents of the calfskin tome. Nature versus nurture, that eternal bind—which came first, and was it truly possible for a beast to turn against his own instincts, his own hereditary burden, or was it simply vanity that led them to think they could battle against such cardinal forces and emerge victorious?

He found his answer from the eroded lips of Antonius Volgis, and for a while he wandered, defeated and tormented, left with the knowledge that it was a theory he could only deduce from his own judgement.

Now Darius stood before his second-in-command, who hurled towards him such vitriol, and Laila, she would want him to forgive, she would want him to show clemency, when everything in him ached to shred the flimsy tissue of Delanus’s heart muscle as he begged and gurgled for release.

He pressed forward with all his unfathomable speed, plunged his fist inside the warm viscera of Delanus’s chest, and squeezed down on his heart. “You think you know war? You think you know strength? You think you know survival? I weathered centuries of domestic warfare with my very own father from the tender age of eleven. I was beaten, maimed, and tortured. And you know what I realised, throughout it all? It’s that causing pain, hurting others, that’s all easy. Do you want to know what is difficult? Peace is difficult. Mercy is difficult. Such a tenuous thing it is. Peace. It requires such patience and precision, such a delicacy in the handling of it because every so often little upstarts like you want to disturb it for the sake of satisfying your own narrow-ended means.”

Delanus’s throat kept making a hollow burbling sound as he lifted his hands and attempted to seal around this artificial orifice, his mouth seeping with black discharge.

“You know, my father, whom you idolise so much, never would have shown you the leniency I have. He would’ve ended your miserable life and then turned his attention towards your wife and your pretty little daughters. But I’ll be fairer to you, since that’s my way, after all. So in the interest of showing mercy, I’ve decided that I shall put your worthless, mewling existence to use in helping me accomplish what my father could not. Heartlessness with no defect.” He withdrew his hand and deposited Delanus to the floor, coughing and wheezing. He took out a folded handkerchief and fluffed it out to wipe his bloodied hand, and then, after dashing it towards him, turned away. “Clean yourself up.”

Laila filled the marble pool in Darius’s balneum, testing the water to find it pleasantly warm. As the water surged she added a few droplets of her chosen oils: lavender, lemongrass, and marjoram—each chosen for their calming effect on the muscles. After a lingering admiration of her work, she sprinkled in a sachet of dried rose petals, and then she went back into the bedroom.

“Hm, let’s see, let’s see,” Laila said, tapping her lips absently as she checked the vicinity for anything out of place. The oppressive velvet drapes to his room had been drawn and she had carefully orchestrated the scene for a romantic ambience, complete with scented candlelight, heated massage oils, and a bouquet of chocolate-covered strawberries.

She resisted the urge to pluck one of the berries while she waited and climbed onto the bed to tuck her legs beneath her, knees positioned outward, demurely arranging her hands in her lap. Her garment for the evening—or lack thereof—was sheer tulle in pale pink with intricate gold-threaded flower detailing. The rounded collar and ruched capped sleeves were edged with lace frills, and a row of gold buttons descended down the front.

Laila could recall her unbridled delight as she unravelled the silk bow of the pastel pink box and peeled back the layers of tissue paper after days of waiting. Now she waited again, only this time to share her new frock with her chosen recipient. A gift from her to him. She twirled a ringlet of her hair around one finger in impatience before she heard Darius’s footsteps in the corridor outside the antechamber, and she quickly rearranged her hands in anticipation.

The footsteps grew as loud as her pulse, and he finally entered the bedroom and found her awaiting him on his bed. His breath caught as his eyes leisurely travelled up her form to meet hers. His cold blue stare was so intense it crystallised her on the spot.

She swallowed thickly, breaking her pose to descend from the bed. “About time you got here, I was beginning to get bored.”

He seemed to remember himself as she spoke, and he closed the door behind him. He slid his hands into his pockets, scuffing the floor with his boot.

“What’s all this?” he asked, giving a quick glance about the room.

“For you.” She gripped the parted folds of his kaftan to bring him close. “I recognise you’ve been labouring under a lot of pressure. You’ve been doing so much for me, and I feel I haven’t done enough to return the favour. So I wanted to do something nice for you. To help you relax.”

It was enough to catch in his throat. How rare it was to be offered such consideration from another. That someone would seek to soothe his ills and unburden him of his troubles was a luxury of love he’d sorely lacked. He didn’t know what it meant to have someone want to take care of him.

“Well,” he said, smirking to disguise how much the gesture had affected him, “aren’t I fortunate?”

She smiled softly as she lifted her hands to his collar and pulled him closer. “First order of business is for you to slip out of those clothes and get into the nice hot bath I’ve run for you.”

Darius seized her hips. “Hm, I think I’d rather you join me.”

“Not yet,” she laughed, moving his hands away. “Good things come to those who wait.”

She slipped his kaftan off from his shoulders and unbuttoned his shirt, gradually peeling him free of every layer.

Darius watched her intently as she did this, making no gesture to move, though his body simmered with desire for it. She left his drawers for last, hooking her thumbs into them when he finally reacted.

“Isn’t it enough you’ve been teasing me without doing this?” he asked, sounding almost pained as she took his drawers off and discovered him already aroused.

“Bath first, then a massage,” she said as she pecked him on the lips, her imperious gaze unflinching. “And we’ll go from there.”

He did as she asked, albeit not without stealing a slightly longer kiss from her first. She couldn’t help but swoon a little into him, against herself, before she sent him off with a shove.

She helped herself to a strawberry as she waited for him to finish bathing, dipping the fruit periodically into her glass of sparkling nectar.

He emerged from the balneum in a haze of steam, his russet skin moistened and diamond-studded with droplets. His hair had gone tousled as it dried, revealing the natural bounce of his waves.

“Come here,” she said, bringing him over to the bed to push him on top of it. She picked up one of the bottles of massage oil and tested the temperature on her backhand. “Turn over onto your front.”

He obeyed and she sat astride his waist, rubbing her oiled hands together before she started on his back. She heard his moan become muted into the pillow as she kneaded him.

“You’re so tense,” Laila observed with a frown as her hands attempted to loosen the stiffness in his shoulders.

“It’s been… a demanding few decades to say the least,” he grunted. “Who would’ve thought such a heavy burden would mount up so much tension beneath it?”

She could feel a smile forming at the wry tone in his voice. “You know the burden doesn’t have to be so heavy if you’d share it.”

“And who do you suggest I entrust with such responsibility?” He chuckled. “Delanus?”

Laila slid her hands up and down his back. “I don’t understand why you made him prime prefect if you respect him so little.”

“Delanus has the merit of being a traditionalist, a perspective I lack. Keeping him near allowed me to understand how that faction of the country functions. Besides, my father had the right of it… Delanus lacks spine but he’s desperate to stay relevant. That makes him exploitable.”

Laila digested this in silence. “Is there no one you keep near to you out of reliance for their abilities?”

“This is Mortos, Laila. Reliance on others is an excellent way to get yourself killed.” He stifled a noise when she touched a particularly tender spot. “Each member of my Eyrie was subjected to rigorous exams and testing to ensure their utility, I can guarantee you that. But do I trust them? No more than a tiger in its cage.”

“Sounds lonely.” Laila frowned, pressing deeper into the stubborn knot along his spine. “I didn’t realise you’d been lonely for so long.”

“No one has ever… been interested like that before.”

“Well, I am,” she declared boldly. “I’m interested in every part of you, Darius. You don’t have to hide anything from me.”

“I have a feeling you’re going to regret saying that.”

She peeled away the towel to reveal his lower half and cupped her hands around his buttocks. She marvelled at the rounded firmness of them, muscles taut as a drum, and almost broke her resolve.

“Try to stay focused, Laila,” Darius taunted her with a smirk in his voice. “I can feel you drooling on me already. Or is that meant to be oil?”

“Is it so wrong of me to admire how pretty you are?” she teased lightly in his ear before moving back, striking him suddenly on the rear. She watched him flinch in surprise with a laugh before she mounted his buttocks.

Darius muffled another moan into the pillow as she firmly kneaded his back.

Laila bit her lip, feeling herself growing more agitated and distracted with him between her legs. She could feel the strength of him beneath her palms, his skin supple and violet-veined. She kissed a trail along the nape of his neck, nipping at his pointed ear.

“Does that feel nice?”

Darius hummed in response before their eyes met.

“What about this?” She kissed his shoulder as her palms dug into his sides, moving in circular motions.

Darius went languid beneath her, all that winter-hardened tension in him turning to spring melt.

“Laila.” Her name came hoarse and strangled from him as she wandered down to his thighs, caressing the delicate inner skin. “Lightly, lightly.”

She did as he asked, moving her palm along him in a long, slow glide as he shuddered. His muscles clenched against her hand, and she could tell he was trying hard not to lose control. She pulled back to focus more attention on the back of his leg, rubbing her thumbs into it.

“I want to try something,” Laila asked, then bashfully she hovered her hand above his back and caused a small static to prickle along his skin, light and feather-soft. “I perform it on myself sometimes. Though it can be a little… intense. Is that all right?”

Darius nodded, though his eyes were wary.

“You can stop me any time you like.” Laila let the static dance along his skin in anticipation to prepare him. She used a low charge at first, letting him adjust to the feel of it, before her hand slid along the nape of his neck.

She kneaded between his shoulder blades with her other hand, her fingertips maddening in their softness, but that was always how it had been when they were together. As someone whose body had been the site of indescribable acts of violence—shattered and pieced together and shattered again—he relished the way the golden lacquer of her touch seemed to be smoothing over his fault lines, seemed to be sealing him whole.

Darius’s hips arched instantly in reaction to her touch as she applied a stronger current to his spine, disentangling centuries of aches and pains he wasn’t even aware his body held.

Laila had never heard him so loud nor so vulnerable, but his noises enticed her, and before long she was increasing speed aside pressure, coaxing his hips to writhe more vigorously until he went rigid.

His climax was potent and full-bodied, rippling through him in overpowering waves as his muscles spasmed with a shudder. He looked over his shoulder at her in a state of near-terror she had not seen in him before as he grabbed a moist towel to wipe the trickle he’d exuded, a fine layer of sheen dampening his forehead.

“Are you all right?” Laila asked in a cross between amusement and concern. She slid down from his back to cup his face in her hands when he didn’t answer her. “Darius?”

“That was… overwhelming.”

Laila couldn’t help but chuckle at his disbelief as she nuzzled the crook of his neck. She could tell he wasn’t used to being caught so off-guard during intimacy, and she felt a swell of triumph at having accomplished the unthinkable. “Is that a good sort of overwhelming, or…?”

“I just… I need a moment,” he said, wrapping his hands around her waist to bring them both down to the mattress. He rested his face on her breast, curving his whole body against hers, and she in turn wrapped her legs around his waist and cradled him to her.

They remained clasped like this for some time before he spoke again.

“Your devious plot worked, by the way.”

“Hm?”

“This is the most thoroughly relaxed I’ve felt in a long while.”

She smiled as she nuzzled into him. She was all set to swoon into a sleep when a flash in the corner of her eye drew her attention.

“Is that my mirror…?” She rose from the bed to investigate, but stopped when Darius encircled his arms around her waist.

“Let it pass,” he pleaded, clinging to her.

“Release me, you brute!” Laila swatted him. She turned and drew him in by the chin to kiss him. “I’ll be right back.”

He pouted at her and she pecked his bottom lip before vacating the bed. He watched her adjust her hair and clothing before she picked up her mirror and went into the antechamber. He propped up his elbow and rested his cheek on his fist, finding it hard to suppress the elation he felt. In all his centuries he never imagined he’d be gifted the love and power he craved, let alone both at once. Yet when he looked into Laila’s eyes he saw she was as foolishly doomed as he was the moment he met her.

Darius helped himself to a glass of wine as he waited for Laila to return to him. He was about to take to a strawberry when a scream sounded and had him jolting upright in alarm.

“Laila?” he called out, speeding to dress himself to see whatever threat had come to his betrothed.

“No, no, no, no…”

“Laila!”

Darius rushed into the other room.