Mircea
I shouldn’t have told her. I should have known that telling her my father had escaped would mean she wouldn’t be able to rest until he was caught again. Or maybe that was why I had told her. Because while everyone supported me in the Summit, everyone in the room was on my side, they wouldn’t care about this until it affected one of them. Until it would be too late.
Vali seemed to understand the idea of preventative measures.
She scoured the room, with Marcy and Jackson standing guard at the door. Her eyes were gold as she drew on her wolf senses, the colour glowing in the bleak light of the wine cellar. She touched each piece of mahogany furniture, even touching the wine racks.
“Is touching everything going to help?” My tone came out a little harsher than I had intended, and her eyes latched onto mine as I spoke.
“Yes, it helps me sense the room.” She replied before immediately turning back around to continue her search of the cellar. As she continued working I edged closer to her advisers, not wanting to get in her way but also seeing an opportunity to speak to them.
“Bold choice of question.” Jackson said as I reached to stand between the two of them. I looked over to him and saw the judgement clear as day, his arms crossed over his chest to distance himself. He didn’t trust me. I didn’t even need to look at Marcy to know she didn’t trust me either, I could simply feel it in the air around her.
“I’m just curious about how this works for you guys. Vampires investigate the facts that are in front of us, the things that are missing, so I was just trying to understand how touching everything helps.” I said, once again my voice didn’t match the intention behind what I was trying to say. I could hear my mother right now.
“Watch your tone. Even if you say the right words, your tone could make them wrong. As king, your words may be strong, but if spoken with a gentle and understanding tone, you will have them followed without fear.”
“I apologise, I am extremely anxious about this situation and am taking it out on you. That is not my intention.” I said. Jackson’s narrowed eyes slowly relaxed, looking me up and down as he uncrossed his arms.
“I know.” He said, looking past me to Marcy for a second. “We all do. We can smell the stress on you.” My body tensed slightly at his words.
“You can smell emotion?” I asked, he nodded. “How did I not know that?”
“Because, no one’s given a shit in quite a while. Many things about wolves have been forgotten since the treaty was signed, we decided to keep them to ourselves to give us some form of upper hand.” He explained.
“Then why tell me?”
“You think that’s the biggest secret our kind have?” Marcy asked, so I turned to look at her. She had a raised eyebrow, a playful manner surrounding her which didn’t seem to fit with the rest of her demeanour.
“I don’t know…”
“Knowing that we can smell emotions is rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, wouldn’t you agree?” She asked next.
I had thought that I had already questioned the wolves enough since the White Wolf had crashed into the Summit. Thought I had already started rewriting everything I knew about them, but if their kind were keeping extreme secrets from the rest of the supernatural world… maybe I needed to start rewriting even further back.
“I guess it is.” I agreed with her as Vali walked over to us. Her eyes were locked on mine.
“He was comfortable here.” She said, I raised an eyebrow.
“That’s all you have for me? That my father was comfortable in a wine cellar that was fully stocked and he had full access to as well as being able to lounge in comfortable and expensive furniture?” I asked, and I saw Jackson shaking his head out the corner of my eye. Another bad choice of question then.
“If you have been arrested, put into a temporary but inescapable cell and are going to lose every shred of power you have, surely you would feel distress of some kind. Anger, panic, anything…” she said, and I nodded as she turned to gesture to the whole room. “I didn’t get a single scent of any of the emotions someone should feel in this situation.”
“He had a plan.” I said as I realised what it meant.
“I can find his scent on more surfaces than not in here, but all of it is calm. He was waiting for someone, which does indeed mean he had a plan.” Vali agreed, then walking out into the hallway. “But the person who broke him free didn’t leave a singular scent behind. Just like when we try to track taken wolves.”
“It’s the pendants.” I said, pulling my inactive one out of my shirt and letting her look at it. “Every vampire family has at least one of these, it covers scent, makes us untraceable. They were created centuries and centuries ago to help us hide from wolves, we still use them to this day to…”
“To kidnap and kill wolves. I know. Are there regulations over using them? They’re an extremely powerful tool.” Vali said.
“Yes, there are regulations. They are only to be used against wolves, not for personal use and definitely not to cover a crime. We are able to track their usage though, they use a magic signature unlike anything else.” I said, she nodded as she looked up and down the hallway. It seemed that she could never stand still, at least not for longer than a minute or two. Especially now she wasn’t having to hold up a facade in front of every single leader.
“How do you track usage?” She asked.
“Automatic records back at Bran Castle. When the pendants were created the witches gave us a way to track them. It’s a parchment, automatically registers usage, by when, who and where. I would just have to get back and look at it to know who did this and exactly when as well.” I said, she crossed her arms over her chest and I couldn’t stop my eyes from raking over her body once more. The sheer dress left no shape to the imagination.
Nor did it hide the tattoos that covered her body.
“Okay, so you need to get back to your castle and contact me when you know.” She said, her eyes boring into mine. “Me and my two here will go back and initiate another panic protocol, because if your father is out and has a plan, it is extremely likely my people are still in danger.”
I didn’t try to stop or correct her as she then began walking away. There was no point.
I knew she was right.
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