“What do you mean unlike anything you have seen?” Alasdair asked, keeping his eyes locked with Vasilios’s.
“The message made a direct reference to our true beginnings. Whoever sent that correspondence knows far more than anyone we’ve faced in the past.” Vasilios seemed to think over his next words as he sat up and studied him carefully. “We sent Stratos to seek out a messenger. To learn if they had heard anything or knew anything that we did not. The plan was to get the information from him and then tell you and your cousins what we had learned. But now, thanks to you, we have a problem. I’ve recently been informed that Stratos met with a rather horrid ending last night. So any information he may have had died with him.”
Oh fuck. Fuck, Alasdair thought as he slowly crossed his legs and reached for the sheet. He couldn’t tell what was going on behind Vasilios’s sharp gaze, but he wanted to be covered as much as possible—all things considered.
“I apologize,” he started, not knowing what else to say. How was he to have known that Stratos had been gathering information for them? Why didn’t the damn vampire say so?
“Apologies are a little too late now. I don’t know what to do with you anymore, Alasdair. First, it was your lack of obedience with me, and now, this? Your usual stringent control snapping and leaving a destructive path in its wake?” Vasilios sighed. “We were keeping this quiet until we knew more. Stratos was under strict instructions—”
“Compulsion,” Alasdair muttered, finally understanding the male’s willingness to die. “He was under compulsion.”
“Yes. He’d been compelled to keep his mouth shut about his assignment.”
“Even if it meant his death?”
Vasilios’s eyes flared at his judgmental tone. “Why are you so surprised? He isn’t the first. The males know what they sign up for as one of the guard. His use to us was to extract information. He was happy to do so. Maybe not so happy to die, however. Alasdair, our number-one priority is to keep you and your cousins safe. But it’s also vital that we keep the lair calm. If we were to mention there was a threat to our very existence, you know the reaction that would follow. We aren’t the most…rational of creatures. We didn’t want to alert anyone of danger on a mere hunch. We wanted facts.”
Alasdair stared at Vasilios as he tried to understand what his Ancient was telling him—but he wasn’t close to being finished yet.
“It seems, however, we are no longer going to be afforded those since you tore Stratos’s head off. That temper of yours makes you act impulsively. There was a reason all those years ago that you learned to curb it. I wish you would remember that.” Vasilios paused, his inspection making Alasdair uneasy. “Not only have you disappointed me, but you’ve put your cousin in a most unpleasant situation. Diomêdês is dealing with her as we speak. The two of you made a thoughtless decision last night. And due to it, we have no advantage.”
Alasdair tried to feel bad about what he’d done, but he was finding it difficult when he felt he’d been acting blind. Isadora had taken him to the Adjudication Room and presented a traitor, and he’d dealt with him accordingly. Stratos’s taunting him was his own bad luck.
Along with being compelled, that is.
The thought had barely entered his mind when Vasilios had him flat on his back beside Leo and his hands restrained by his head.
“You see? This is what I mean. You are preoccupied. This human has you acting defiant and rash,” he bit out by his ear, enunciating each word. “And while I admit to liking that while I’m inside you, out there, you are fucking things up for us, Alasdair.”
The way Vasilios’s eyes darkened to black conveyed his fury. He was enraged, and Alasdair kept quiet—now wasn’t the time to speak. He swallowed, more a reflex than anything else, as he stared into the irate face hovering over his own. This was the second time in only weeks he’d seen anger, disappointment, and confusion on his sire’s face. He wished he could unsee it.
When Vasilios’s lips parted and his fangs extended in a snarl, Alasdair realized his misstep.
“I did not mean that how it sounded,” he rushed out.
“Is that so? Because I have never heard you think it before.”
Alasdair pushed himself up off the bed, wondering if Vasilios would relent. He had his answer when the other vampire rolled to his back, allowing him on top.
“I was merely reflecting on my wrongdoings. You know that. Don’t make this what it is not due to a mood.”
“A mood? What am I, an irritable housewife? Forgive me, agóri, but your actions hardly convince me of what you’re trying to make me believe.”
Alasdair stretched out over the top of him, and then he laid his head on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt guilty—yet another emotion he’d not experienced since becoming immortal. The only thing was, he wasn’t sure if the guilt was towards the one underneath him or the one on the bed beside them.
As he lay there, he realized how imperative it was that things went back to the way they had always been. He had an obligation, a duty to his brood, and his very existence was entwined with the one whose body his was currently molded to. He couldn’t afford any more fuck-ups, and it was time to let his obsession go.
“I never would have done what I did last night had I known,” he admitted quietly. “How can I fix this?”
Vasilios stroked a hand down his back, and Alasdair was curious whether or not he would tell him. Perhaps he would make him wait if he doubted his loyalty, but then he started to talk.
“Unless you can bring back the dead, Alasdair, nothing will fix what you did.”
“I have yet to master that particular power.”
“Hmm. Nor have I.”
“But surely you could send me or someone else to speak with this messenger—”
“No,” Vasilios said, the word sharp and final. “This threat, it is different. It has us…”
Alasdair lifted his head and waited. He’d never seen Vasilios hesitate for anything.
“It has you what?”
His Ancient’s eyes connected with his, now back to their usual green, and Alasdair was surprised to see an edge of fear in them.
“It has us concerned. You and your cousins are not to go after the messenger. Do I make myself clear?”
“No, you do not.” Alasdair shifted to the side of him and stroked his fingers down his sire’s cheek. “You know that Isa, Thanos, and I can each be trusted, so let us help. Or is there another reason I am missing? What aren’t you telling me?”
Vasilios reached for the finger now tracing his jaw and brought it to his lips. He reverently kissed the end of it and then gave a grim smile. “Diomêdês, Eton, and I—we were all named in the initial message that was sent.”
“That’s not so unusual, is it? The Ancients are always named in threats to our kind.”
“Yes, we are. But this is the first time you have been threatened to achieve our destruction. That means they know how our bloodlines work, Alasdair. They know that, to dispose of you three, they will effectively be cutting the heart from the body.”
Alasdair grimaced. Vasilios was right. It was not safe to go after the messenger himself, and that frustrated the hell out of him. His instinct was to protect Vasilios, but his Ancient’s instinct to protect him was much stronger.
“You will not go after them, Alasdair.”
“I know,” he said. Deciding to focus on something else, he asked, ”They? You keep saying they. Do you know who’s sending these scrolls?”
A frown of consternation formed between Vasilios’s eyebrows. “We have some suspicions. The only ones who would be powerful enough to enter the Chamber would be the gods themselves. But, as of now, we can’t be certain.”