The Consort's Will 《COMPLETE》

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Night approaches. An unforgiving chill seeps into the tent, and a piercing howl gobbles up the silence with every passing wind. I hug the wool blanket to my chest and lean my chin on my knee. My grandma always used to tell me the wind was nothing more than the sighs of aching souls helping us through our journey. The harder it howled, the more they were trying to tell us something.

My gaze settles on the tent door. Despite being zipped closed, it quivers and bends to Nature's will.

"He's probably freezing," I mutter.

Bogdan hums with indifference. He flips another page of his book, his red eyes skimming the page despite the minimal light surrounding us. My stomach does a flip-flop when he glances up from his novel for a fleeting moment.

I've been with the man every day for months, yet being in his presence still affects me just as much as it did from day one. It's not just because I love him, either. The first day I met him the immortal vampire stole my breath away, his haunting beauty weaving into my brain and taking up a permanent residency.

I chew on my bottom lip and force my thoughts back to the problem at hand. I need to choose my words carefully before proceeding. Allowing Leo to travel with us was hard enough on Bogdan. Asking him to allow Leo to share a tent with us might send him over the top.

"He won't do much good to us if he's dead," I say.

Bogdan's red eyes flicker to me. The small light beside the bed bounces off his menacing features.

"He won't do us any good alive, either," he counters.

Maybe he's right. We spent the day with Leo, discussing all he knows about Secondaries. He knows more than we do, but Bogdan pointed out in a moment of discretion that we now have everything he has to offer. If that's the case, he said, we no longer have a use for him.

"Letting him freeze is cruel," I whisper.

"Letting him starve would be cruel, too," Bogdan replies evenly, and his knuckles tighten around the edges of his book.

I flush with a mix of emotions. Earlier today Leo admitted that when he left Mark's camp, Kelly was still in their captivity. They're not trying to kill him, though. He's tied up and being starved. Each day they extract more poison from his heart, storing it away as future ammunition for the war.

The painful reminder makes me shudder. Before all of this, Kelly was my best friend. He might not remember, but he was. In my heart and mind, he still is. Bogdan reminds me daily that Kelly made a choice to return Fiona to enemy lines. Not us.

But it doesn't make the sting of being away from him any easier.

I take a deep breath, steadying my emotions to keep from crying. I made that mistake a few weeks ago. The next morning the droplets of sadness were frozen to my cheeks, tears stuck in time...unmoving and unchanging. Just like Kelly.

"I know you don't trust him," I say, cutting the tension and the silence between us. "But I can't let him sit out there and die from the cold."

"He could kill you in your sleep," Bogdan responds. He snaps his book shut and glares up at me.

"I'll take my chances. The alternative is knowing I killed him in his."

Bogdan tightens his jaw. The heat of his gaze makes me weak at the knees, and I know he can sense my changing emotions as my fear morphs into a frustrated desire. His gaze flickers over to the tent door. On cue it begins to shudder as the unrelenting wind slaps against it, urging Bogdan to see reason.