Chapter 56: The Physcopath

The first thing Asher felt when he woke was pain. A splitting headache throbbed behind his eyes, so intense that for several seconds he couldn’t remember where he was or what had happened.

He groaned and squeezed his eyes open. The ceiling above him was plain plaster, clean but unremarkable. He was lying on a bed, better than the boarding-house mattress on Cinder Street, worse than anything in Marcel’s manor. When he tried to push himself upright, metal bit into his left wrist and stopped him short. One hand was cuffed to the bedpost, but the other limbs were free. The imbalance felt deliberate, a calculated allowance of movement that still made escape a joke.

"Marcel." He called out reflexively as he pulled against the cuffs "Where is he?"

The door opened almost immediately and a guard stepped inside. Asher recognized the uniform immediately, palace guard, at least, that was what he was supposed to be.

The man looked at him without the slightest trace of the respect or formality expected from someone serving the royal household.

"The Vampire Lord is alive." Relief hit Asher so suddenly that his shoulders dropped. He closed his eyes for a brief second, and took a deep breath. At least Marcel was alive.

Then the guard continued. "But whether he remains that way depends on you, pretty boy."

Something cold poured down Asher’s spine. "What does that mean?" His voice climbed. "Where is he? What did you do to him? If you’ve hurt him—"

"Save it." The guard yelled, clearly irritated by the fortune teller’s voice. "Orders are to keep you breathing and relatively intact, everything else is above my pay."

Asher screamed at him anyway. Demanded answers. Threatened, begged, cursed. The cuff chewed at his wrist as he pulled, but none of it moved the man.The uniform was palace issue but nothing about the man’s posture or tone matched the disciplined formality of true palace guard conduct. This was hired hardness wearing stolen legitimacy.

The ambush had been the same. Specialized anti-vampire weapons, flash charges, silvered nets, and a coordinated strike before Marcel could even announce their arrival at the gates. That level of preparation did not happen on short notice. Someone had known they were coming. Someone had known Marcel would be the one delivering Asher, and had staged the approach accordingly.

Aaron.

The name arrived with the force of obviousness. Of course it was Aaron. The obsessive prince who had put a claim ring on his finger and spoken about futures where Asher’s absence meant death. The same man who had issued a three-day demand through formal channels—and then, apparently, had not bothered to wait for the channels to finish their work.

But why?

Why stage an ambush instead of using open royal authority? Why intercept them at the gates with illegal force instead of receiving them under the banner of the letter? And why was Asher here, in a middling room with one wrist cuffed, instead of being marched directly before the court?

The questions spun without clean answers. Asher’s headache pulsed in time with his pulse. He forced his breathing slower, forced his free hand to stop shaking, and catalogued what he could.

He was still turning the pieces over when the door opened.

Aaron walked in as if he were entering a garden.

The Crown Prince looked rested. His clothes were clean, his hair orderly, and the smile on his face was warm enough to belong to a different situation entirely—one in which Asher had arrived by carriage and mutual agreement instead of hood and force. For a disorienting second Asher almost expected an apology that sounded like a lover’s quarrel rather than a crime.

"I’m sorry about the cuff," Aaron said, and sounded as if he meant it. He crossed to the bedside without hurry, glancing once at the guard, who stood and left without being told. The door shut. "You’ll be free soon enough. After that, you won’t need to worry about anything else. I’ll take care of everything."

Asher stared at him, hot blinding rage rising from his torso and spreading to the rest of his body.

"Why?" The word scraped out of a dry throat. "Why are you doing this? You didn’t have to—"

"Because you belong with me, Asher." Aaron’s smile did not fade. If anything, it deepened, soft and certain and completely untethered from the reality of the room. "We were created for one another. I saw it in every dream. The ring was only the beginning. You removed it, and I understand. You were confused, frightened by things you weren’t ready to see."

He reached into his coat. The object he brought out caught the light with a dull, familiar gleam. Another ring, similar to the first in weight and color, but the metal seemed darker, the inner band etched with finer markings that made Asher’s skin crawl without knowing why.

"I’ve had my mages working," Aaron continued, almost gently. "This time the binding will be more complete. You’ll look at no other man the way you should look only at me. No Vampire Lord this time. And then I’ll claim you again, properly, and after that we’ll live as we were always meant to. Happily. Without interference."

Asher’s free hand had clenched in the blanket. The cuff on his other wrist felt suddenly inadequate compared to the shape of the cage Aaron was describing.

"You’re insane," he said, and heard his own voice shake with fury rather than fear. "Marcel—"

"Is alive for as long as you cooperate." Aaron set the new ring on the bedside table within Asher’s line of sight, a quiet promise and a quiet threat. "Behave, and he continues breathing in a cell designed for his kind. Cause problems, and the arrangement becomes more difficult for everyone. Including him."

He reached out as if to brush Asher’s hair back from his forehead. Asher jerked away hard enough that the cuff snapped taut.

Aaron’s expression flickered—hurt, quickly smoothed into patience.

"You’ll understand in time," he said. "Once the new binding is in place, all of this anxiety will seem unnecessary. Rest. The mages need a few more days to finish their preparations. I’ll be back when it’s time."

He left the ring on the table and Asher cuffed to the bed. He closed the door behind him with the soft, civilized click of a man who believed he had just conducted a difficult but ultimately loving conversation.

Asher remained still where he laid, his mind racing over everything he had just heard. Aaron had completely lost his mind, and somehow he felt like the Matriarch’s warnings were slowly beginning to fall into place.