Chapter 369: Two Victories
"So you intend to treat my darling Ashlynn like another mine full of unique treasures."
Nyrielle’s words exploded among the onlookers like a crack from Heila’s whip, shocking them to silence and bringing even the nearby servants to a halt. Could Beilan truly have been that audacious? Some shook their heads while others turned away, afraid to see the moment of a friend or business partner’s gruesome death at the hands of one of the most powerful vampires to walk the earth.
"Never!" Beilan said with more heat than he’d intended. "The wonders that her Dominion can create are not just treasures, they’re living manifestations of her love for her home and her desire to protect it," he said. His hands clenched into fists at his sides and a thin rivulet of blood trickled from one fist where his nail had pierced the soft scales of his palm.
Ashlynn hadn’t just described the treasures she could create when he met with her. Because of Nereida and everything she had done to help the pair of witches when they arrived in High Fen City, Ashlynn had taken out a bottle of Thornback Egg Paste. As a man and a husband who had always asked his wife to wait ’one more year’ while he secured one business deal or another, the look on his wife’s face when that bottle appeared told him that his days without children of his own were about to come to an end.
But when he’d asked Ashlynn the price for such a life changing elixir, she’d shaken her head and asked only that he lend the might of his business empire to her cause whenever he could. What she’d asked for hardly seemed like sufficient repayment for the boon his yet hatch children would reap, but now that he stood before the cold and ruthless Nyrielle he realized why Ashlynn might feel the need to compensate him so well. The things she would ask of him would not be easy, but if he couldn’t succeed here, at this very first hurdle, then he had no business calling himself her ally and working on her behalf.
"I will not trade such treasures for gold or jewels," he swore. Holding out the hand he’d accidently pierced with his sharpened nails he squeezed his fist and let blood drip to the stone floor, breaking the tense silence with the steady splat of falling drops of blood. "I swear to you, there is no price that could match up to the value of these things, and I will never dishonor the gifts that her Dominion is willing to entrust to me. For every wonder she sees fit to birth, I will return something that could not be obtained with lesser means or I will return to her what she entrusted to me."
"My husband knows many powerful people," Nereida said quickly, slithering up beside her husband and holding tightly to his other arm arm. "What he’s offering to do is to give you and Lady Ashlynn access to his network of those people and to broker the kind of support from them that normal money can’t buy."
"And, and if you demand it," Nereida said a touch awkwardly, feeling like she had to match up to her husband’s grand gesture. "Then I will remain at Lady Ashlynn’s side, as servant and hostage to ensure my husband never breaks his oath."
"Nereida," Ashlynn said softly with a complicated expression on her face. She understood that Heila’s friend was attempting to offer herself up as a hostage, but she’d been an aggressive social climber for far too long and her habits had betrayed her. Perhaps Nyrielle would hear the offer to become a hostage for what it was, but it was more likely that she would see it as an attempt to insert herself more permanently into Ashlynn’s growing inner circle.
"Ashlynn, my darling," Nyrielle said, softening her tone and turning to look at her anxious lover. She could feel the echo of Ashlynn’s heart racing within her chest and she knew that despite the way she’d reacted, Ashlynn both wanted to protect this merchant and wanted to continue her plan. "You’re being willful again," she said with a soft smile.
"I know," Ashlynn said, stepping close and wrapping her arms around Nyrielle so she could look up into the other woman’s midnight gaze from inches away. "So indulge me this time."
Suddenly, thunderous applause broke out across the arena on the floors above and anywhere on the first floor that was far enough away from Nyrielle to avoid getting caught up in the frigid darkness of her anger.