Bitten

When Vasile woke the next morning, he realized that Rhys had never shown up, which was slightly out of the ordinary for him. Rhys almost always tried to show up at some point, even if it was to just leave a note to remind Vasile that he loved him, but maybe he had gotten too busy. When he came down to the breakfast table, he found just his parents there waiting for him.

"Well, I was hoping we could speak with Rhys as well, but I think it's time we talk about your decision for your marriage," the King said once Vasile had sat down.

Vasile had expected this. His concern for Rhys' well-being aside, this issue needed to be ironed out. He nodded his agreement with the necessity of the discussion and waited patiently for the king to begin.

"Your mother and I have spoken, and we even had a small conversation with King Deldrich of Rhys' family," Vortigern said thoughtfully. "I see no reason to block the marriage between you two. Going against the blood bond would be detrimental to you both, and I do not wish to cause any more harm to either of you. So, if this is what you wish to do, as soon as all of this is over with, you can announce your engagement and work on planning the wedding."

Vasile bowed his head gratefully, then asked the next most obvious question: "What will this mean for your plans for coronation and retirement?"

"I don't see a reason to change what we wished to do," Vortigern said as he looked at his wife. "You will be crowned come your 200th birthday, and then you will take over as you were meant to. And Rhys is smart; I think he'll find his footing as King Consort fairly easily."

Vasile smiled silently and bowed again, deeper this time, but still without leaving his seat. The King and Queen waited for Vasile to straighten back up, then Vortigern said, "Of course, you realize now your mother will want to talk of nothing but wedding planning, so I wish you luck with that. And you'll need to tell your siblings."

At that last sentence, Vasile rolled his eyes jovially. "Speaking of my siblings," he said, "I haven't seen Vik since she suggested that Nik and I go to the party at Lady Ebenholz' estate. Has she retreated to the country house?"

Vortigern furrowed his eyebrows at that. "She is the Ambassador's point of contact while he is undercover, so she isn't supposed to leave right now. She might have just disappeared into one of the libraries."

"I also haven't heard from Rhys in quite some time," Vasile told them, the concern for his partner etched on his face.

Vortigern looked concerned as well. "Well, he did leave that communicator with him, though we could also ask Virmarus to come to the palace as well. If anyone would know where Rhys is, I would assume he'd know."

Vasile fished the communicator from his pocket and hit the button that dialled Rhys. The line rang straight to a tone that told Vasile that Rhys' communicator was powered off. Beginning to panic slightly, he pushed the button to call Virmarus, as Rhys had taught him to do. Virmarus answered on the third ring, simply saying, "Virmarus speaking" as a greeting.

Vasile, much more sophisticated regarding communicators now, spoke slowly into the device, careful to enunciate each word. "Virmarus, hello, this is Vasile. Can you hear me?"

Virmarus couldn't help but smile. He remembered how clumsy with technology everyone had been when he first made the communicators. "Yes, Your Highness, I can hear you fine. Is everything okay?"

"No, Virmarus, it is not okay. I have not been able to raise the Ambassador on his device. I know that he may not be available, but I am concerned for his safety and he told me to contact you if that ever happened," Vasile said, painfully slowly and annoyingly crisply.

Virmarus checked his watch and then frowned. "He should have been home by now. I'll try calling myself and then get Eowyn to see if she's heard anything. I'll also make my way to the palace."

He didn't wait for Vasile to respond before he hung up, and Vasile heard the beep that told him the call had been disconnected. When Virmarus called Rhys, it also made the sound to show that Rhys' communicator was completely off. That was odd, because Rhys knew not to turn it off unless something was wrong. He quickly called up Eowym to tell her what was going on, and asked her to see if she could track where Rhys' communicator was when it was still on last.

He made a quick stop at Rhys' home, and nobody there had seen him either. Virmarus was starting to get a pit in his stomach, and he quickly made his way to the palace to speak with Vasile and the monarchs.

When he was shown into the sitting room where they were sitting, along with Nik, Lukas, and Aisling, Virmarus bowed before them. "I apologise for the intrusion, Your Majesties."

The king and queen regarded him haughtily, but respectfully. "Thank you for responding promptly to our summons Master Corden. What have you to tell us?" the queen asked primly.

"Rhys was in disguise last night and has not been seen since," Virmarus explained to them. "He generally updates me if he works longer, but I heard nothing, and his family haven't seen him either. We have to assume he got himself into a situation of some sort. Where is Princess Viktoria? She was being kept in the loop as well. Has she heard anything?"

"Vik has been... difficult to find for the past 24 hours," Nik filled in.

Virmarus looked alarmed by that, and glanced between the people present. "My operative is missing and so is his point of contact? That's...suspicious, at best, Your Majesties. I don't wish to jump to conclusions here, but the plan Rhys has been trying to move forward is risky, especially if someone divulges where he's supposed to be."

Vasile and Nik shared a look that Virmarus picked up on immediately. "If there's something you two know, now is the time to share," he said earnestly.

"Roland Andras escorted us out of a party at Lady Ebenholz' manor last night. A party that Vik suggested we check out," Vasile volunteered.

"Escorted you out?" Virmarus asked, blinking at the prince for a moment. "How

publicly

did he do that?"

"Fairly quietly, if quite rudely," Nik supplied in response.

Virmarus didn't bother to hide his relief at that. He could just about kill Rhys himself for taking that chance, though he understood all too well why he would. It was clear to everyone present that Virmarus was trying to decide what to do. Under normal circumstances, giving away Rhys' undercover identities was risky, but if it was possible that his identities had already been compromised, then telling them the truth wouldn't harm anything.

On top of that, if Rhys had been caught, then the situation had changed. Their targets were the royalty, but Rhys was a risk to them and they knew that. They would try to use an Ambassador of Arcasias as leverage to get to the royalty. This was the new play they were taking, and The Shell would have to work fast if they wanted to bring Rhys back alive.

"That was incredibly risky of him," Virmarus finally commented. "You'll have to thank him later for getting you out of there before anyone noticed you were there. That may have turned into your death."

Vasile's eyes widened at that. "So Andras

is

one of your agents," he concluded, the pieces dropping into place in his mind.

Virmarus looked at Vasile like he was a little slow. "He

is

, yes," he agreed. "The real Roland Andras has been living with humans for a while, and he gave us permission to use his likeness and name to weed out the issues. So when Andras was being rude to you both last night, that was

Rhys

trying to get you out of a dangerous situation without blowing his cover."

Vasile mumbled under his breath, almost (but not quite) too low for Virmarus to hear, "If we get out of this alive, I'm going to murder him."

While it was polite in societies with better hearing to ignore such comments meant to be mumbled like this, Virmarus gave him a sympathetic smile and said, "Rhys told me recently he was fairly sure you might not forgive him for that one, but taking on the Roland identity has gotten him closer than anything else has. It's why he went with him when they asked Roland to bring him. Of course, Roland was Soren that night, and Rhys was himself. He wanted to be the only one going into danger. He was also playing Brennan Hugh, though that really only taught him about palace gossip and how many men and women wanted a piece of the royalty...Lukas and Nikodemus especially."

Vasile eyed his brothers while his parents shot them looks of their own; one scandalized and one proud. It was only then that Virmarus seemed to remember that the King and Queen were there, and he gave them an almost apologetic look, though when he looked back over at Lukas, the expression on his face said that he understood why they felt that way.

"Either way, I think we need to assume right now that his cover was blown, and..." Here he stopped, looking back at the King and Queen, then eyeing the rest of the siblings here in the room, almost like he didn't really want to say this to them. "We likely have to assume that his cover was blown because someone turned on him. He's too careful for anything else. The only one who had enough information to do that other than two operatives here in Arcasias who were waiting on orders from Rhys and myself is Princess Viktoria."

The entire royal family exchanged looks with each other. None of their faces registered doubt that Virmarus had spoken truthfully, though Veronika's countenance was quite dark with barely suppressed rage. "There's only one reason she would betray the entire family," the queen said. "She hopes to seize power for herself. She has been resentful of the succession plan for quite a while, but we hoped she would accept it in time."

Virmarus set his features into a steely look, one that spoke to how barely in control his anger was. His eyes shook slightly from holding back, which everyone knew was a werewolf trait. His wolf was likely losing it somewhere inside his head, but Virmarus stayed in control. "If that is the case, then she will have to answer for what she has done, and she had better hope that we get to Rhys while he's still alive. On the plus side, we know he is still because thanks to their blood bond, Vasile would know if he was dead."

The monarchs and Vasile all nodded at once, acknowledging the truth of his words. "Is there a way to find him using the bond?" Vasile asked.

Virmarus looked thoughtful at that. "There might be, but your parents might know more about it than I do. I only know about blood bonds from books. I know bonds between wolves, or even cats, give you access to all sorts of information about your mate but I don't know how it works with vampyres."

"You should be able to connect to his mind so long as he's awake," Aisling pointed out. "But be warned, if you do it, you might be able to feel what he's going through."

Vasile didn't even hesitate. "How do I do it?" he asked, ready to do whatever it took.

Aisling turned to their parents, and they began explaining to Vasile how to do it. He needed to find the connection to his partner that the blood bond had created and follow it to Rhys. It might take a little work to do it the first time, but after that it would be easy to do moving forward.

Rhys, meanwhile, was just barely starting to open his eyes. His head was killing him, and he could feel dried blood on the back of his neck and in his hair, making it stick together. It was an uncomfortable feeling, as was the feeling of the ropes that bound him to the chair he was in. He closed his eyes and tried to teleport, but nothing happened. When he managed to focus them on the ground, he could see a fae trap along the floor underneath him.

"No more running away, Draven," Josephine said to him. "Can't have you ruining everything again. I'm quite impressed with you, you know. It's too bad you're a half-breed. You're a great little spy."

Rhys let out a groan of pain and carefully turned his head toward her. "I'm sure there was a compliment in there somewhere...All the same, I would never spy for

you

."

"Oh yes, you made that quite clear," Josephine agreed. "Just such a waste. Oh well. Maxwell, dear, get the blood sample ready."

One of the men came over to Rhys with a knife and cut his skin along his arm, letting the blood drip down into a small bottle. This was typical in vampyre kidnappings. If anyone wanted to make sure a blood sample came from the person they loved, they only had to taste a tiny bit. It could also be used as a proof of life because it would connect them to their loved one just long enough to know they weren't dead.

"Now let's see," Josephine said as she picked up one of Rhys' iron daggers. "How did you do this last time? Just hold it against your skin?"

She came up and pressed the iron dagger against where the cut had been made. Rhys ground his teeth together, trying not to give her the satisfaction of making him scream, but he couldn't stop himself from grunting through the pain. She eventually pulled the knife away and then looked under his arm to see the deep burn mark which had stopped the bleeding.

"Impressive," Josephine said.

Rhys was breathing heavily, trying hard to calm himself down. "My superiors know where I was last night. They'll follow my trail eventually."

"Oh, we've moved away from the main manor," Josephine told him. "You see, the Ebenholz have a few near abandoned buildings, perfect for workings like this. Too bad your research didn't teach you that, Ambassador. Or should I call you King Consort? Oh wait, they hadn't decided on that yet."

"How did you...?" Rhys said, the shock clear on his face.

Josephine grinned and then went over and opened the door to let in her guest. Rhys' eyes were so wide he almost might have thought they'd pop out of his head. Viktoria swept into the room, looking rather pleased with herself. "Your Highness? How- Why-?"

Viktoria looked down her nose at him, the contempt she felt finally plainly written upon her face. "Come now,

Mélange

," she said, the sneer on her face coming out in her tone as well.

Mélange

meant mixture. "You can't actually expect that I would allow one such as you to destroy my family's legacy. My brother may be too enamored of you to do what he should, but I most certainly am not!"

Rhys stared hard at her for a moment, trying to figure out what he could even say to that. Nothing would likely get through to her; he had seen this kind of hatred his whole life, but this was to a whole new level, even for him. "So, what? In order to preserve your

legacy

, you help them kill your entire family? It's fine to hate me, but why them?"

Viktoria's expression did not change as she practically spat, "I am not answerable to a filthy mutt like you, Draven. Those in power who are too weak to rule properly will be expunged for the good of each race. There is nothing more to it."

The mutt comment made Rhys think of Virmarus, and he couldn't help but chuckle, though it was a chuckle that was devoid of any mirth. "You sound like a werewolf, Viktoria. Are you sure you haven't been spending some time with one? Maybe you like them more than you admit."

With no warning whatsoever, Viktoria backhanded Rhys savagely, her thin arm surprisingly strong. She must have been wearing iron rings, because her attack left his face burning with pain along the track that her proximal phalanxes followed. Rhys let out a grunt of pain, not entirely surprised by Viktoria's outburst. When he turned back, Josephine had grabbed a camera and started taking photos of him all burned and bloody to send to Vasile.

"I look forward to making this a long, slow, and painful death for you, Draven," Josephine told him.

Rhys didn't respond. He simply turned his head away from her like what she planned to do didn't matter much to him. It was while he was sitting there purposely not looking at either of them that he felt the connection between him and Vasile open up in a way it never had been before. He was careful not to give a big reaction, but he did move his head slowly, almost like he had caught a fly in his sight for a moment.

Vasile had taken a long time to get through. He had begun to get frustrated with his lack of progress, trying not to listen too closely to his parents' suggestions that the connection becomes closer with....intimate acts. He had to reign in his temper not to respond with the fact that they had deliberately blocked that. Just when his patience was at an end, he got through. Vasile recoiled immediately to the burning sensation across his face and arm. He knew somewhere in his mind that it wasn't

his

pain, but it was so vivid.

He could also feel the pounding in Rhys' head, a sign that he must have been hit hard. "

What happened?

" he thought and heard it echo in Rhys' head.

The sound, even inside his head, hurt, but Rhys pushed through it. "

Your sister decided that I shouldn't be tainting your family's legacy, so she's switched sides. They're gathering blood and photos to send to you to use as leverage."

Along with that, he focused on the memories of what Viktoria had said and Vasile was hit by the memories playing in his mind. The memories were interesting and foreign to Vasile. For one thing, Rhys' aqua-colored eyes saw the world differently than Vasile's own strictly vampyric vision. He had already been certain that Vikki had turned her coat but seeing her striking his love and hearing her hateful words nearly drove him into a rage. He calmly relayed to the rest of the room that he had made contact and confirmed that their suspicions had been correct.

"

Where do you think you are, love?

" he asked, making his mental voice as quiet as he could.

Rhys looked around. There were windows down here, but he mostly just saw greenery. He could hear animals outside, and he eyed the two women for a moment before making a bird noise that asked the birds outside where he was. Josephine turned toward him again, realizing he was trying to communicate, and she came up and placed the iron dagger onto his back, causing him to scream at the searing pain. Luckily, the birds had answered him right before that, but it was hard to concentrate on sending anything back with the iron on him.

Vasile could hear Rhys' scream in his mind and the feeling of the pain was so visceral and vivid that it was hard to differentiate who was actually getting hurt for a moment. Vasile cried out, causing Nik and Veronika to rush to his aid. He waved them off after a moment when it became clear that he had been experiencing Rhys' pain. He remained connected, but told Virmarus the information that Rhys had gathered at such a high personal cost.

While they had been waiting on Vasile to get the connection between the two of them, Virmarus had contacted his people, as well as Rhys' family. Both groups had gotten there around the same time, though Sephira asked Aisling if she wanted to help her look after Tierney so they could keep her away from all this and Aisling agreed.

Virmarus turned to Eowyn, his mind working overtime as he considered the information. "Veilmoor is to the North, right on the edge of Arcasias and Cragmire. Not that the werewolves would help us if we asked. My father's pack is closest to Veilmoor, and..." He shook his head, obviously not wanting to comment further. "I need all of our best fighters here. Tell them to show up right outside the palace wards. Even better if they can handle silver. So no half-weres."

"

You're

a half-were," Eowyn pointed out.

"I'm the exception," Virmarus commented. "I put him in this, I'll get him out. We can teleport to Veilmoor and then we'll look for the building Rhys mentioned. We might not be able to get there without them figuring it out, but with enough of us, it might not matter."