Chapter 96

“I trust Mathias with my life,” Darby said. “I offered myself to him when he wouldn’t feed otherwise. When he needed it. And I was never in any danger of dying, or anything else, the entire time.”

Thabo shook his head. “Edmund has put you up to this.”

“No,” she asserted. “I’m pretty sure Edmund would’ve wanted me to keep my mouth shut. I might love him, but I care about Mathias, too. And I can’t stand back and do nothing when I know you’re wrong about him.”

Her announcement surprised Mathias as much as it did the other vampires, and another round of murmurs spread throughout the room. Thabo glanced at Edmund, his eyes dark with deliberation, before he nodded once.

“Then Mathias needs to prove to us that he realizes the error of his ways.” He held his hand out, and the mustached vampire Edmund didn’t recognize hastened to open a long flat box that sat on the coffee table. He extracted a polished stake and rose to hand it to Thabo. “He must destroy what he created.”