Before me the doors to the main audience chamber swung soundlessly open, pushed from the inside. I couldn’t see who had opened them, but it didn’t matter. My gaze didn’t stray from Tristan, who knelt in the middle of the room. Naked and bleeding, he had a large manacle clamped around his neck, with a heavy chain running from it to a thick iron ring in the floor. His arms and legs were not chained, so he could fight back, but the chain running to his neck was so short that he could not fully stand up.

Tristan raised his head when he heard my footsteps echoing heavily across the marble floor, his body cringing at the sound as if the vibrations added to his pain. His beautiful face was covered in blood and his nose was broken. I could see the bite marks on his neck and on the inside of one of his arms. They had taken the time to drain him before beating him so his body wouldn’t be able to heal from the wounds.

However, it was his eyes that finally drew an angry hiss out of me. Those haunted blue orbs would chase me for the rest of my existence. He wasn’t pleading to be saved, but for me to finally end his pain. The physical pain was minor compared to what they most likely had done to his mind. I had a feeling Macaire had had some fun with him before he handed the young nightwalker over to the rest of the court.

Movement finally drew my eyes from Tristan and I caught sight of Sadira. She was sitting on the stairs before the chair Macaire had sat in earlier in the evening. Her face was expressionless and still, as if she carved out of white marble. Gritting my teeth, I dragged my eyes from her slender form and looked around the room. Nearly a dozen other nightwalkers were gathered. High-back wooden chairs and a couple chaise lounges now lined the walls; a little comfort while they watched the show.

Tristan was the warm-up act, and I was the main attraction. Turning my attention back to Tristan, I forced the anger to coil up in the pit of my stomach as I stood before him. I would deal with them. I would teach them to fear me. My days of facing the members of the court for my survival were centuries ago during my time with Sadira. Most of these vampires had not been reborn yet. To them I was a myth, a fanciful tale based on very little fact. I would remind them that I was a nightmare.

With my hands resting limply on my hips, I stared down at Tristan. The cold marble floor around him was smeared with his blood. I somehow swallowed my rage and revulsion, lightening my voice to one of irritated boredom. “What are you doing here?”

“I was told to come,” he rasped. His beautiful voice was raw from his screams.

“By whom?”

“Sadira.”

“I am your mistress now,” I said, amazed at how steady my voice sounded. On the inside, my muscles were trembling and my throat had constricted. I had been half his age when I made my first appearance as the evening entertainment and I’d had to be carried out. Sleep dominated my nights for more than a week as my body struggled to recover. I never forgave Sadira for my time with the Coven. Many believed playing the part of the court’s entertainment was supposed to be a rite of passage. It was not only supposed to make a nightwalker stronger, but it also taught obedience. It had taught me to hate.

Looking at Tristan, I knew he was just chum. He wasn’t meant to live a long existence and grow to be strong. Sadira had made him weak and kept him weak by chaining him to her side. I had slaughtered those stronger than him because they’d grown careless and could not take care of themselves. Without Sadira, he would become one of those nightwalkers, and it would be me hounding his steps one night like some dark angel of death. But I wouldn’t let it happen to Tristan. He belonged to me now.

Maybe it was because there was something in his eyes that reminded me of Michael. It might have been the fact that in two nights I had failed to protect both Thorne and Michael. Or maybe it was that I saw too much of myself in those pain-filled eyes. I knew the horrors he had faced and the pain that still awaited him. But reasons why weren’t important.

For once, I wanted to save someone instead of destroying them. I wasn’t going to let these monsters have Tristan. But, unfortunately, we all had a part to play, a little pretense to portray before we could all go our separate ways. And I had to be sure I had Tristan’s absolute obedience.

“I told you not to come here,” I said. My hands slid from my hips to hang limp at my sides, even as tension hummed like an electric current through my taut body. “I should leave you here as punishment for your disobedience.”

“Please, no! Mira, please! She’s my maker. I had to obey,” he pleaded. His soft voice barely jumped above a whisper. He lurched forward, grabbing my legs, a cry escaping his parted lips. When he leaned forward, I saw that his back was a bloody mess of tissue. They had peeled the skin from his body.

I leaned down and placed my hand gently under his chin, forcing him to look up at me. “After tonight, she is nothing to you. After tonight, I am your whole world,” I said coldly.

“Yes, Mistress,” he choked out past the throb of pain.

Cupping his face with both of my hands, I wiped the bloody tears away with my thumbs as they streaked down his cheeks. “Now tell me who touched you.”

I slowly raised my eyes to sweep over the assembled masses as Tristan remained silent. No names left Tristan’s cracked and trembling lips, but I hadn’t expected him to tell me who his tormentors were. We all knew that I could pick the faces from his memories at any time. But I wouldn’t even need to do that.

I didn’t bother to look at Sadira. She hadn’t touched him. It didn’t matter if she had. It was enough that she handed him over to the court for its fun. Skimming over the faces, I noticed Valerio slumping in one of the high-backed chairs, his long pale fingers laced together over his stomach. One corner of his handsome mouth lifted in a smirk, daring me to challenge him, but his clothes were spotless, unlike some of his companions. He had watched the show. It was a neutral stance, not challenging, but he also wasn’t on my side. It was the best I was going to get at the moment.

“I thought he was quite delicious,” Gwen announced, rising gracefully from one of the chairs off to my left, near the dais at the end of the room. Her pale blue shirt and little white shorts were splattered with Tristan’s blood. She would have looked like a tourist on vacation if not for the blood stains and the glow in her narrowed eyes.

“I was so hoping you would say that,” I said, the words held in the embrace of a dark laugh. I stepped around Tristan so I was between him and Gwen. “I believe I said that he was not to be touched.”

“The Elders promised him to us,” she said. Her smile was triumphant, lighting up her blood-smeared face.

“I warned you,” I carefully enunciated in Italian. The Italian came without thought as my mind slipped easily back into seemingly ancient memories of fights fought as the Elders watched. The violence, the brutality, the feral need to rend and shred had built in the air until it became a living, breathing creature.

As I spoke, candles around the room flared to life. The little teardrops of fire popped into existence, sending the shadows scrambling to the far corners.

“The Coven’s word is law!” Gwen shouted, her gaze darting away from me as she noted the increased firelight. Lines of strain stretched from the corners of her mouth as she struggled to keep from frowning. “You’re not above them, Fire Starter.”

“A mistress has the right to deny the use of her pets if she so chooses,” I said, quoting old law.

“His maker handed him over,” Gwen argued, pointing at Sadira. Her smile had faded somewhat and there was no mistaking the trembling in her extended index finger. No one ever denied the use of his or her pet when an Elder wanted to use the poor soul as entertainment. If a master did, he would have to defend him against all comers. In all my years, I had heard of it being done only once. Jabari had denied Macaire when he made the request of me, driving the wedge even further between them. It also didn’t help that during that time I was neither a Companion of Jabari nor was he technically recognized as my master.