“Why?” Rupert cried, his face beginning to contort.

“You are mine,” the priest answered. “Or were.”

“Yes,” he pushed out feebly. “I was.”

The priest blinked.

But he had seen…

The female rolled off the bed.

Dead.

Well, that didn’t take long.

“We would…” The priest looked back to his lover as he spoke again, Rupert’s eyes to the vision of him, no attention to the woman, “rule the world.”

“I will now, without you,” the priest told him.

Rupert shook his head, but seized, his much larger frame taking longer for the venom to vanquish it.

“You…you…” Rupert forced out, awkwardly indicating a snake slithering over the bedsheets, “are weak. You do not…do not…understand loyalty.”

“This is not loyalty,” the priest sneered.

“There was naught but you,” Rupert whispered.

The priest stared.

“He will…he will consume you,” Rupert wheezed, spasming into himself. “And you will…you won’t…have that first ally. You will…be alone and he will…be master.”

The priest’s corporeal form in Firenze felt a frisson of fear trace up the back of its neck.

“Emerald oil asps?” Rupert rasped. “You fool,” he whispered.

And these were his last words.

His chosen one’s eyes open, the priest saw the light of life blink out.

But Rupert was correct.

Rupert’s chamber was in his manor in Airen.

There were no emerald oil asps in Airen. They were only in Firenze.

And they had a particular bite, a bite that left a unique mark. One that, if observed by someone knowledgeable in the subject, was easily recognized.

If those bite marks were identified …

And then there were those asps that had killed the Dellish prince’s intended that very night…

And if these were connected…

“Blast!” the priest cried, spiriting the asps back to their realm and speeding his way through the astral plane to his body, his eyes opening with a snap.

He stared at the walls of his cell, his body unmoving.

He could jump atop a horse and ride like blazes, but it’d still take at least two weeks to get to Rupert’s manor.

His body and perhaps the nature of those bites would be discovered long before.

The priest could send no bird. There had probably already been dozens of birds and messengers dispatched, sharing the news the Dellish prince’s betrothed had perished to the venom.

If the connection was made, if inquiries into Rupert commenced, all before they’d brought the Beast to the surface, it could be disastrous.

Not to mention, the others would be furious at this juncture in the raising of the Beast that he’d taken one of their own. They were close, but they couldn’t know how long it would take to complete the rising.

They’d need to replace Rupert.

Train the replacement.

This would take weeks.

More likely months for the priest was weeks away from even bloody getting to them.