#TeaserTuesday: Chapter 9

With the exception of the prologue, this is our first chapter of "Baby Val," and it's one I really enjoyed writing. Dragon Slayer drops just three weeks from today! I'm bound and determined to get my print ARCs ordered in the next day or so, but you can pre-order the novel for Kindle HERE. 

Please enjoy Chapter Nine, and have a wonderful Tuesday!

9

A BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

Tîrgovişte, Capital of Wallachia

1439

“Vlad! Vlad, wait for me!” Val panted as his small legs worked and his arms pumped and he struggled to catch up to his older brother. Vlad was only four years his senior, but they were a dramatic four years for boys who were four and eight, and Vlad had always been sturdy and large for his age. Val, by contrast, was a pale, slow-growing, delicate thing. “No bigger than a bouquet of flowers,” Fenrir’s wife and mate, Helga, liked to say, smiling and ruffling his golden hair. Vlad hadn’t meant to run off and leave him, Val didn’t think, but his legs were so much longer, so much stronger. And now Val was alone as he rounded the corner and saw that Vlad was long gone. 

He took a ragged breath and redoubled his efforts, soles of his boots slapping across the stone floor.

The scents of the palace household flowed through his sinuses, down into his lungs. He smelled his parents, and Father’s wife, who was Mircea’s mother; smelled his brothers, and the family wolves, their mates. Smelled the maids, and nurses, and Father’s human advisors; smelled fresh bread baking three floors down in the kitchen. And very near, just around the next corner, a scent and a sound – the steady thump of a heartbeat – he sensed–

“Got you!” Fenrir crowed, scooping Val up in both arms, tossing him into the air, so his head almost brushed the ceiling, and then catching him securely against his chest, held tight in his strong embrace.

Val shrieked in delight. Father could dismiss Fenrir as dumb and huge all he liked, but Val loved him. He was Val’s favorite wolf.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry, little prince?” Fenrir asked, still holding him. He began to walk in the direction Val had been heading, his much-longer strides eating up the distance.

“Vlad said I could go with him into the city. There’s going to be acrobats!” His stomach swooped excitedly at the thought.

“Oh, well, you won’t want to miss that,” Fenrir said, and lengthened his stride.

It was a warm, bright summer day, and though the windows were set at sparse intervals, all the shutters were flung wide to let in the heat, and the corridor swelled with light, the stones the color of toasted bread, warm even through the soles of Val’s boots – when he’d been walking, anyway. Now, carried securely in Fenrir’s arms, he had a rare, high view of the tapestries on the walls; a glimpse out the windows, as they passed, of the bailey, and the moat, and the red tiled rooftops of Tîrgovişte spreading out down the hill, a wide stretch of packed humanity, the hustle and bustle of commerce and busy commoners, all the way to the jagged peaks that stood ink-blank against the horizon.

The capital city of his father’s principality may have been the only home he could remember, but he still found it irrepressibly lovely.

“Are you done with your lessons for the day?” Fenrir asked as they reached the stairwell and started down.

“Um, well…” Val fidgeted. He didn’t want to lie. So he said, “Mostly.” His tutor had ended their lesson. After the fifth time he asked if Val was feeling well – “Radu, are you well?” and that name, his father’s picked name for him, had set him into a fresh batch of wriggling in his chair – the tutor had sighed and said, “Clearly, you’re distracted today. Go on. I saw your brother walk past the doorway three times already.”

Val hadn’t wasted any time after that.

But though he had waited at first, loitering outside the study where Val had been attending to his Greek and Latin lessons, Vlad hadn’t been able to wait anymore, far outdistancing him.

Sometimes it wasn’t much fun being the youngest.

At the bottom of the spiral staircase, Val and Fenrir encountered Father’s preferred wolf, Cicero, named for the Roman orator, in company with his packmate, Caesar, and Val’s oldest brother, Mircea.

Father’s wolves had been with him, according to Mother, for centuries. Loyal Familiars who served as confidants, generals, political advisors, and, even, friends. They’d been Dacian, originally, bearing Dacian names. Father had renamed them for Roman notables, and he’d taught them all the languages he knew, given them access to the finest tutors and books, so that they could be of greater use to him. They were unfailingly loyal. They took the protection of the heir, though Mircea was half-human, very seriously.

Too seriously, in Val’s opinion. They rarely smiled, and Mircea rarely did so either in their company.

“Mircea!” he called. “Vlad’s taking me to see the acrobats. Come with us!”

Mircea smiled the warm, but regretful smile that had become the only one he exercised. Val thought he had vague memories of his oldest brother when they still lived in Sighișoara, before the palace, before father was officially sanctioned as prince. A toddler’s fuzzy memories, snatches of sounds, and colors, but he remembered Mircea laughing, and leaping, and being a child. He was the heir now, officially, and all he ever did was train and study.

“I’m afraid I can’t, Radu.”

Val frowned at the name.

“But I’m sure you’ll have more fun without me.” He rolled his eyes, first to the left and then to the right, indicating his wolf escort.

Fenrir broke out in a hearty chuckle.

Cicero and Caesar shared a glance over top of the heir’s head.

But Val frowned. “We’ll miss you.” And he already did, a tug of regret in his gut. Vlad’s friends were never unkind to him…but they weren’t outright welcoming either. Not like Mircea, who always went out of his way to ensure Val felt included, asking for his opinion, even though he probably hadn’t earned the right to give it.

“Send my regards,” Mircea said, reaching up to pat Val fondly on the cheek. “Have fun. Be careful with my favorite brother, Fen!” he called as he and his wolf escort retreated toward the stairs.

“No worries on that, your grace,” Fenrir assured, and off they went again.

They caught up with Vlad in Mother’s garden, on the hedge-lined path that led past the stables toward the gate. Vlad had come to a stop, kicking at stray pebbles, impatient as he waited. He glanced up with a nod that seemed to say finally when they appeared, Val riding on Fenrir’s shoulders by that point. Two human men-at-arms waited a few paces away, arms folded, relaxed and awaiting their little prince’s orders. This was their into-the-city escort, Val knew.

“What kept you?” Vlad asked.

You were too fast, Val thought. But that was something a baby would say. So he said, “We ran into Mircea. He said he can’t come.”

Vlad snorted. “When does he ever? Come on.”

The men-at-arms made to fall in.

“I’ll take them,” Fenrir said, setting Val down on his feet beside his brother.

One of the guards shrugged, but Val thought he looked relieved.

The afternoon stretched out before them as they walked through the gates, across the bridge, and headed down the motte’s slope toward the city proper, a glorious, too-warm, high-summer day filled with the thrum and call of humanity, the sun a bright discus overhead. Val held a bit of his brother’s sleeve pinched between his thumb and forefinger, and felt a not-unpleasant prickling of sweat beneath his clothes, cool drops gathering at the back of his neck under his hair, sliding down between his shoulder blades. He loved the heat; though his fair skin would flush, and if left too long in the sun without a hat, or a cup of water, or a stolen bit of shade he was wont to faint, he liked the way summer made everything feel so alive. Winter was a dead season; not without its charms – Mother’s soothing voice as she read to them, the crackle of logs, the scent of wine, and pipe smoke, and the raucous shouts of wolf laughter and conversation. But winter was all indoors, shut up against the snow, and his hands cracked and bled in the dry air. Summer, though, summer was ripe, and unrushed, and all the green things thrived.

Val breathed deep through his nose, and he could smell everything, scents tripping over one another in their haste to be identified. As the city swallowed them, Val could smell the hundreds and hundreds of scent markers of human commoners;  the vegetables and freshly-butchered meats on offering in the market stalls; tobacco smoke; fresh flowers; sweat and offal; and best of all, the competing savory and sweet flavors of the vendor food being hawked with enthusiastic shouts.

Fenrir drew some looks, in part for his size, in part for his mass of curly red hair, but mostly because he wore the finely-tailored red tunic, breeches, and knee-boots of the princely household. It was probably Fenrir that Vlad’s friends spotted first, a moment before a skinny arm shot through the crowd.

“Vlad!” Marcus shouted, shouldering his way between bodies, dragging Nicolae along behind him. “There you are. Finally! We’ll have to hurry, they’ve already started – oh,” he said, voice falling flat at the end when he spotted Val.

Val pinched Vlad’s sleeve tighter, gathered it in his whole hand, squeezed until his knuckles went white.

Marcus – ten and tall for his age, broad-shouldered and already starting to resemble the man he would become – turned to look over his shoulder at Nicolae, who made a helpless sort of gesture in response. Marcus turned back, looking at Vlad – just at Vlad. “You brought your brother?”

Two days ago, Vlad had dumped a handful of fireplace ashes down the back of Val’s shirt – and caught a single blow from Father’s riding crop across the backs of his thighs for the effort. But that was nothing new; he would stick wet fingers in Val’s ears, and muss his hair on purpose, and had blamed mud tracked on the rug on Val. “Brother things,” Mother would say with a shake of her head.

But here now, in front of his friends, Vlad drew himself up like a bristling cat, stuck out his chin, puffed up his chest, and said, “So what if I did?”

Marcus and Nicolae exchanged another look, one Val had no hope of interpreting.

“Alright,” Nicolae said. “Follow us.”

Fenrir was able to bull his way through the crowd, the four boys following along in his wake. The tight press of bodies around them, the overwhelming headiness of so much scent at once, tightened a sensation almost like panic in Val’s belly. He held the back of Fenrir’s tunic with one hand, Vlad’s sleeve with the other. Vlad shot him a dark look, like he thought he was acting like a baby, but didn’t shake him off.

“I hear there’s women in this troupe,” Marcus said with a laugh. “From the Far East. And they’re naked.”

Nicolae chuckled.

Vlad said, “You’re lying.”

“It’s just what I heard!”

“What you hoped, you mean,” Nicolae said, and then Vlad laughed.

“You’ll see,” Marcus grumbled. “They’ll be naked, and then you’ll have to cover little Baby Radu’s eyes.”

That name.

Val faltered a step…but then Vlad took his hand from his sleeve, slid it into his own, their fingers laced. Vlad’s palms were callused and tough from riding and training. Only eight, but he could gallop bareback, down a hare with a bow from horseback, and wield a short sword meant for a much older boy.

Val caught himself, letting his brother’s strong grip tow him along, and the name didn’t bother him so badly.

The crowd parted around Fenrir, at first because of the sheer spectacle of him, and then because they noted, sometimes with quiet gasps and exclamations, the two boys who trailed behind him. One dark and one light, hands clenched tight. One sallow and harsh like their father, one golden and slight as their mother.

Finally, they reached the edge of the throng, and the square where the acrobats had already begun their performance.

Vlad breathed a quiet, self-satisfied laugh. “I don’t see anyone naked, Marc.”

“Shut up.”

They settled into a familiar argument, Marcus’s insecurities playing off Vlad’s sureness, but Val wasn’t paying attention. He could only stare, open-mouthed, at the spectacle before him.

If not for his vampiric sense of smell, he wouldn’t have known whether the five lithe, androgynous humans leaping over one another were male or female. But he flagged two women, and three men, all of their faces painted, dramatic lines of kohl giving them cat’s eyes. They wore beaded and belled crimson costumes, gauzy and diaphanous, long sleeves swirling like flags as they lifted one another, and sprung into wild jumps and twists.

They moved like birds, like fairies. Like creatures who weren’t nailed down to the earth.

Free, he thought, unbidden. They looked free.

His hand tightened, a spasm flex of excitement.

And Vlad squeezed back.

~*~

His name.

It probably shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. To him, at least.

Mother had told them the story often, one of their frequent requests at bedtime, when the winter wind howled through the cracks in the shutters and they weren’t quite ready for her to blow out the candle and slip off to her own bed. The story of the tourney at which she’d first laid eyes on their father. When, tall and regal, head held high, shoulders squared, he’d ridden into the arena on a prancing chestnut destrier and captured her heart with a single wink. Vlad II, back from his apprenticeship…maybe not quite like anyone expected, though no one could have said what he was supposed to look like. Mother told them how, up in the stands, flanked by Fenrir and Helga, she’d leaned out over the rail to toss a favor into the sawdust: a heavy golden belt buckle that Father still wore every day.

Mother had been a purebred vampire, and so had Father, and they’d scented it on one another, irrevocably drawn together right away. He’d reined his horse up right in front of her, smiled up at her from beneath his visor.

“What is the fair lady’s name?”

“I see no fair lady.” She’d smiled wide enough to flash her fangs. “But my name is Eira.”

Mother talked fondly and at length about that tourney, Father’s indomitable strength, skill, and horsemanship. He’d unseated every opponent at the joust. Conquered totally in the melee.

Mother told them what none of the cheering spectators had known that day, what Father had told her later, in the candlelit dark of a bedchamber amid warm, tousled sheets: that he wasn’t Vlad II, son of Mircea at all. That he was Remus, twin brother of Romulus, co-founder and one-time-heir of Rome. That he’d hidden from his brother for centuries, that he’d found a purpose and a calling here, in the shadow of the Carpathians, and that he wanted the chance to be the kind of benevolent and thoughtful ruler he’d been too callow to appreciate before.

Mother never talked about what happened after. About her Remus – her Vlad Dracul– having to marry the eldest daughter of Alexandru the Good, Prince of Moldavia. That Princess Cneajna had borne him a son, half-human. A political obligation, Father called it. Though he did love his half-human son, Mircea, named for his own pretend father. And most of all he loved Eira, his Viking shieldmaiden, who had eventually taken him back into her bed.

Eira birthed two purebred sons. The first she named Vladimir.

“It isn’t a Wallachian name,” Vlad chastised her gently.

“It’s not?”

“No, my love, it’s Russian.”

And so her Vladimir was renamed Vlad III by his father.

And everyone save their household wolves thought he was the son of Cneajna, who locked herself most often in her room with a book and a cup of wine, indifferent to the unfaithfulness of her husband.

So when Val was born, Eira brought his small face up to hers, and kissed his forehead, and said, “You will be my Valerian. My precious boy.”

And when father proclaimed him Radu, Mother wouldn’t play along.

To the people of Wallachia, and Moldavia, and Transylvania, and to all the visiting dignitaries who arrived at the palace, Dracul’s youngest son was Radu.

But Val was Val in his head. And in his mother’s smiling mouth. And in the gentle, reassuring squeeze of his brother’s hand.

And his name mattered. It always would. Because the world didn’t care about the truth, but the people who loved him did. And those were the only people whose good opinions he valued.

~*~

Val couldn’t suppress a yawn as Mother tugged his nightshirt down over his head.

She chuckled. “My sleepy little prince tonight, hm? Too much fun today?” She smoothed his shoulder-length hair down with several long, gentle passes of her hand.

“Mama, it was amazing,” he declared, going limp and flopping backward on the bed. “They were so beautiful. And the way they moved.” He lifted a hand and swept it through the air in demonstration. “Can I be an acrobat?”

“Well.” She lifted his legs and tucked them beneath the covers, pulled the blankets up to his chin. “You’re already a prince, and I think that’s pretty special, don’t you?”

He made a face.

She smiled and perched on the side of the bed. “Think of it this way: a prince can hire acrobats to come entertain him whenever he wants.”

“Hmm.” Small consolation.

“Where is your brother?”

As if summoned, Vlad walked in, already dressed for bed. He went to the washstand in the corner of the room and scrubbed his face with the still-steaming water from the bowl. He came to bed pink-cheeked and heavy-eyed.

“Another sleepy son,” Eira said fondly, gathering him close for a moment, kissing his dark, silky hair.

“No I’m not,” he protested, and then yawned hugely.

“Of course not. Up you get. Go on.”

By the time they were settled, both of them beneath the covers and snuggled up shoulder-to-shoulder, Helga had arrived in the threshold, bearing a wooden tray.

“Ready, mistress?” she called.

“Yes, Helga, thank you,” Mother said, and took the two small gilt cups the female wolf offered her.

Helga tucked the empty tray beneath her arm and gave both boys a warm, motherly smile. “Enjoy, my lords. That’s fresh from my Fenny.”

“Thank you,” they chorused, dutifully, and Helga left, wide hips rolling like a ship at sea.

They sat up against the pillows and Mother handed them each a cup. The hot, salty scent of blood curled up from it, the metal warm in Val’s palms. A thirst he hadn’t felt before quickened; his mouth filled with saliva.

“Drink up,” Mother encouraged, and he buried his nose in the cup, opened his mouth and gulped it down like a savage. In all things he was delicate, nothing but a little bouquet, but the blood…the blood…

It hit his tongue like velvet, his belly like wine. It tasted of every wonderful thing, and also of home, and safety, and pack, their beloved wolf’s blood offered freely to nourish their bodies. It felt right.

Blood was a gift, mother always said. Not something to which they had a right. Being a vampire wasn’t a right. Her name meant merciful, and she was.

When the cup was empty, Val pulled off of it with a deep gasp. His chest pumped as he fought to catch his breath; he licked the last salty traces of blood off his lips and wished for more.

Beside him, he felt Vlad vibrating with the same craving, his shoulder quaking where it pressed against Val’s. “Mother–” His voice came out low, and hoarse, full of wanting.

“No, no,” she murmured, taking the cups from their lax fingers. “That was the perfect amount for two growing boys. Now it’s time to sleep.”

Vlad grumbled, but when Val slipped down to lie flat, he followed suit.

Mother smoothed the blankets over their chests. “Now, are my little princes getting too old for bedtime stories?”

“No,” they chorused immediately, and she smiled.

“Alright, then, have I told you–” She cut off, head tilting, and Val heard the sound of rapid footfalls in the corridor.

Helga burst in a moment later, still carrying the tray, wild-eyed and breathless. Val could smell fear on her.

“My lady, it’s the prince, he–”

Father.

Eira stood, instantly tense. The usual softness of her posture melted into a straight-backed, alert stance, feet braced wide apart on the floor. “What is it? What’s happened?”

But Val could already feel a low thrum of panic in the palace, like the buzzing of insects, hopping from wolf to wolf, to Helga, to Mother, to his own suddenly-queasy stomach.

Helga braced her free hand against her side, as if she had a stitch. She huffed and puffed, but managed, “It’s his brother. His brother’s here.”

Vlad sat bolt upright in the bed. “Uncle Romulus?”

A low, angry growl pulsed through the room, and at first, Val didn’t realize the sound came from his mother. Then he saw her eyes flash, and her fangs slide down to peek from beneath her lip. “Where?” she asked, in a voice she never used with the two of them.

Val shrank sideways into Vlad, who put an arm around his shoulders.

Helga straightened, hand falling to her side. “In his grace’s study, my lady, but he doesn’t want–”

“I don’t care what he wants,” Eira said. “Not if he’s here. Go and fetch Fenrir, bring him to the study. Cicero is there already, I assume?”

“Yes, my lady, but–”

“Now, Helga. Please.”

The wolf muttered something distressed under her breath, but hastened to do as told.

When Mother turned back to the bed, her expression softened a fraction. “Go to sleep, the two of you. I’m going to help your father.”

Vlad pushed the blankets down, gathering himself to climb out of bed. “But, Mother–”

“You will stay here. Is that understood? Look out for your brother. Neither of you are to leave this room.” Her gaze was ferocious.

Vlad seemed to shrink down in his nightshirt a little. “Yes, Mama.”

She glanced between the two of them, expression stony, implacable. This was no gentle encouragement, nor a request. It was an order: stay put.

“Don’t leave the room,” she said again, and finally left them, shutting the door firmly in her wake.

They sat for a moment, pressed together, not breathing. The candle flame guttered, nearly went out, and recovered in the sudden flurry of wind current left by the slamming door. Its light licked up the walls, across the ceiling and the bed, unsteady flickers that seemed to echo Val’s erratic heartbeat.

Finally, Val said, “How did he find us?”

Vlad snorted – but it was a shaky snort, and his arm tightened around Val’s shoulders. Val could feel his fear, sense it, even if Vlad would never admit to being afraid. “Father’s a prince. He isn’t exactly hiding.”

No, he wasn’t, but it had been so long. And he went by Vlad Dracul now. Only the smallest handful of individuals knew that Father was also Remus, and even those only knew because Father had told them, not because they’d known him then, back when the first king of Rome tried to have him executed.

Val wanted to feign braveness, like his brother, but at the moment, cold terror washed through him, obliterating the chance. “Do you – do you think he’ll hurt Father?”

“Probably not. Why would he? That was centuries ago.” But there was doubt in his voice. Uncle Romulus had been a shadow lying over their lives, a faceless threat, the imagined monster under the bed. “And besides: Fenny and Cicero, and Caesar would never let anything happen to Papa.”

Very true.

“Damn it,” Vlad muttered. “I want to see what happens, though.”

An idea struck Val then. A brilliant one. “I could go.”

“What? No.” Vlad turned to him, frowning, his arm slipping off Val’s shoulders. “You saw her. She’ll box your ears if she catches you out of bed.” She’d never lifted a hand to them in anger, which was perhaps why her expression minutes before had rattled them so.

“But I won’t be out of bed.” He tapped a knuckle against his temple. “Only my mind will.”

Vlad looked interested. For a moment, and then he frowned again. “You can’t ever dream-walk when you want. And you can’t choose where you go. It’ll never work.”

“It might. I’ve been practicing.”

“You have? When?”

Val felt his face color. “At night. Just sometimes. When you’re asleep.”

Vlad’s frown twitched sideways, caught between pleased with the development, and sore for being left out, Val thought. “Can you do it?”

“I think so.” A few nights before, he’d gone to visit Constantine on purpose. He hadn’t been able to hold it long, but he’d set a destination and carried it out.

He wriggled down beneath the covers now, closing his eyes, willing his nerves to let go of his tightly clenched muscles. “If Mother comes, wake me up,” he said, and concentrated on his breathing. Vlad said something, but it was distant, and mumbled, and Val was already slipping away.

Dream-walking, he’d learned in his own self-directed experiments over the last few months, wasn’t a case of actually dreaming. Sometimes it happened when he was asleep, but falling asleep wasn’t the key. He had to go under instead, willingly climb onto the plane where his thoughts, and image could traverse beyond the physical. So in that sense, it was really like crossing over instead. He still wasn’t sure how the mechanics of it worked. All he knew was that a stillness came over him, frightening at first, and then he had the sense of falling; a flash of light, and then he was rising, wind in his hair, and then he was…

Standing in the corner of his father’s study, and there was the low, rolling sound of a half-dozen wolves growling.

Val pressed back into the shadows and tried to make himself even smaller than he was.

Vlad Dracul’s study was a large, airy room, prone to draftiness in the winter, its ceilings high enough that the two fireplaces were necessary to keep it warm. Tonight, summer cool as fresh melon, and almost as sweet, the shutters were thrown wide, letting the breeze in to play with the candle flames, the velvet sky beyond embroidered with stars. A fire burned on one of the hearths, adding to the glow of the candles, and in the diffuse, warm light, Val could see that every wolf of the household was present, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, a wall between Father and the newcomer that Val couldn’t see yet. There was Cicero, and Caesar, their packmates Mihai, and Vasile. Fenrir, and his son, Vali. The wolf captain of the guard, Ioan. If the threat wasn’t clear in their growling – and it was – then it was in their posture: heads ducked, throats guarded, shoulders bunched and ready to pounce. Or to shift. They were all in human shape, now, but Val knew they would shift in a moment, ready to rend and tear with fangs and claws.

Father looked ready for bed, in a nightshirt and elaborate dressing gown; he’d tugged on boots, and pushed his hair back with his hands, though water droplets glimmered faintly at the dark ends. He’d just had a bath. His profile, clean and regal as ever, betrayed an expression Val had never seen on him before, the corners of his mouth turned down, the creases at the corners of his eyes more pronounced.

Father took a deep breath, chest lifting beneath the heavy brocade of the dressing gown. “It’s alright, boys,” he said, voice soothing. “Let him through.”

Cicero turned to regard him, brows knit together in clear question.

Father nodded, and then the wolves parted, like the Red Sea.

A man stepped forward, and Val remembered that Father was a twin.

Romulus, first king of Rome, looked alarmingly like his brother. But harsher, in Val’s estimation. Sharper, his angles more dramatic. He wore a long black cloak with the hood pushed back, and beneath it his clothes were dark and unremarkable.

Val shivered.

“Brother,” Romulus said, a smile twisting his mouth to a cruel angle. “It’s been a while.”

“Centuries, even,” Dracul said.

Romulus chuckled. A dry sound, like leaves rustling. Like a man with a mouth full of grave dirt. “Come now, don’t look at me like that. You said yourself it’s been centuries – let’s let bygones be bygones. All our bad blood is in the past now.” He held out both arms. “I’ve come to congratulate my little brother on all his accomplishments, and his new title. The Dragon. I like that.” He grinned, fangs flashing.

He made to step forward, but Caesar barred his path, growling low in his throat.

“Caesar,” Father said, softly. “It’s alright.”

Another chuckle. “Caesar, eh? You haven’t gotten too far from your roots, have you?”

Father laid a hand on Caesar’s shoulder and urged him to the side, careful, kind. His brows knit, his face a portrait of concern, he said, “It’s good to see you, Romulus.”

The twins studied one another a long, fraught moment.

Then Romulus inhaled, nostrils flaring, and turned toward the far corner of the room, the chair where Val noticed his mother was seated, Helga standing behind her. “Ah,” he said. “I see your beloved is here. Or. Well.” He tipped his head. “I smell.”

Val bit back hard on the sound that rose in his throat, and watched his mother get slowly, gracefully to her feet, her head held aloft at a challenging angle.

“My lady,” Helga whispered, frightened, hands clenching into useless fists.

“My mate,” Father said. “Eira.”

“Mate,” Romulus said, and then turned to Father, grinning. “But not wife? Does the princess know she bore you only one son, or have you compelled her to think that the other two are hers as well?”

Growling filled the room.

Father looked as if he’d been struck.

Val felt as if he had been.

Only the family knew the real nature of the prince and princess’s relationship. Only the wolves, undyingly loyal, knew that Eira was mother to Vlad and Val.

“What, you thought I wouldn’t be able to tell? You’ve been away from our kind for too long, brother. There are four vampires under this roof, and one half-breed.”

“Perceptive as always,” Father said.

“It would seem so. I’ve also noticed that your youngest son is a dream-walker.”

Dracul frowned. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Because he’s standing right over there.” He nodded toward Val’s hiding place, and all eyes swept his direction.

Oh no.

“Valerian,” Mother gasped.

Father charged toward him in three long strides, expression thunderous. “Radu, what are you–”

A flash, a sense of falling, and Val opened his eyes to his bedchamber, Vlad propped on one arm and leaning over him, watching his face.

“Well?” he said immediately.

Val tried to swallow, but his throat was too dry. His heart beat wildly against his ribs, and his palms prickled with fear sweat. “I got caught.”

Vlad sighed. “Stupid.”

“Uncle Romulus is…” He’d been smiling, and laughing, but.. “He’s wrong.”

Vlad’s dark brows knitted together. “What do you mean ‘wrong’? What did he say?”

“No, he just…” Val frowned to himself, frustrated with his inability to communicate. His uncle hadn’t done anything, or even really said anything, but he’d sensed a threat. Too obscure for his four-year-old mind to grasp properly, or to classify.

The quick rap of footfalls echoed out in the hallway, and Vlad’s eyes went comically wide. “Mother,” he whispered, and flopped down beside Val, closing his eyes and feigning sleep.

Val closed his eyes, too, and hoped he wasn’t in too much trouble.