“I’m fine.”
He took her hand, his touch sending shivers over her skin, and led her out into the fresh spring air. The sunset hung hot in the sky like a ripe peach, bathing his skin in a tawny light. Around the gravestones, violet bluebells and broken acorns blanketed the grass.
Caine stopped by a towering oak, turning to look at her. “Ambrose has sent his men out to search for Miranda. Nothing to report so far.”
“I’ve been looking for her too,” Rosalind said.
“You’re supposed to stay here. The Brotherhood want to murder you.”
“You can’t stop me from looking for her, just like I could never stop you from going after Malphus.”
“Except that I could stop you.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “Fine. I see your point.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother in there?”
He peered down at her, and the ruddy light stained his gray eyes a coral color. “If Josiah had known Malphus was my brother, Malphus wouldn’t be alive right now. I’m not going to give up my secrets without a very good reason.”
The lack of trust stung, but she couldn’t blame him. After all, she had helped Josiah break him. “Miranda told me Malphus used to give me flowers. Is that true?”
“He did. I wasn’t as nice.”
“I want to meet him. If he doesn’t hate me now.”
“You’ll meet him. Ambrose still has big plans for us.”
“Plans that involve finding Miranda?”
“That’s the first step. The Brotherhood will no longer be stupid enough to rely on technology the way they did. They’ll be amassing an army of their own, and Ambrose wants to crush them with magic.”
A shiver ran up her spine. “When Cleo was hammering Randolph with a spell, he protected himself with… magic. It was a different sort of magic. He was speaking in Latin, and his body glowed a golden color.”
Caine nodded. “They don’t use Angelic. But they have their own sort of magic. They give it another name. That’s all.”
Rosalind let her eyes trail over Caine’s muscled frame, clad in a form-fitting black shirt. “Do Ambrose’s plans involve me reporting to you as my commanding officer?”
A smile flickered over his lips. “Mmm. Yes. You’ll be required to follow all of my orders.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Fair warning. There are a lot of female vamps in the army who will be competing for my attention. Can you blame them, honestly?”
She cocked a hip. “It must be quite a hardship for you to live in a vampire city. No mirrors.”
“Nyxobas gives me the strength to endure. Speaking of Lilinor, I need to return before sundown, but I’ll come back as soon as I hear anything.” He nodded at the mansion. “You’re safe here, but stay in Abduxiel Mansion.”
Giving orders again. She crossed her arms, shooting him an irritated glare as he turned to leave.
He walked a few steps before pausing to turn back to her. “Stay here if you want, I mean. Your choice.”
As he walked off to the crypt portal, a small smile curled her lips. For the first time in a while, something unclenched in her chest.
She now lived with a grim reaper in a cemetery, and her twin sister was missing. Yet after all the tumult of the past few days, she felt a strange sense of normalcy.
If nothing else, they were all alive—and somewhere deep within Rosalind, a sense of belonging was budding.