“Very good,” he answered with practiced blandness as he held the door open for us. “The show will begin shortly.”
A looming chandelier, dripping wax from innumerable tiny candles, illuminated the banquet hall. Flickering light cast dancing shadows on the wallpaper. Three of the walls were covered with a recent redesign, depicting orderly rows of roses in full bloom. My lip curled. Of course Nemea chose to decorate with more roses.
The last wall was painted a flat black to match the dark boards of the stage. A set of velvet curtains dyed a royal purple were closed over its center.
We walked in, and the air shifted as several predatory gazes turned our way nearly as one. Four circular tablesawaited, each ringed by four chairs. Most were already occupied, and beckoning hands rose from the one closest to the stage. I wasn’t surprised Felicity had picked the best spot.
The polite whispers and titters of gossip flowed in behind us as Zane walked me to my seat. He pulled from my hold once I stood by the last empty chair, between Razira and Emmeline.
“I’ll see you soon, love,” he purred, taking my hand to kiss the back of it. The bold glide of his lips and his adoring gaze on mine drew a few louder whispers.
“Goodbye for now,KingZane,” I simpered, blowing him a kiss as he left. I took my seat and let the hot jealousy of some of the other candidates flow off my back. It was on my bed where he rested his head.
The clusters of gossip quieted slowly, ringing hollow in the room's acoustics.
“I received your note,” Razira said to me in an undertone. “I’m looking forward to our meeting tomorrow.”
“Me too.” I turned to her, wondering again why she wanted to speak to me privately, but she remained inscrutable.
A strain of music cut through any lingering conversations. The curtains parted a few feet, revealing Mathias dressed in one of his signature high-necked coats. This one was sky blue, setting his outline apart from the dark wall behind him.
“Welcome, ladies.” His voice projected perfectly from the stage. “I’ve arranged an evening of entertainment for the twelve of you to celebrate your success in the Trial of the Labyrinth.”
Shock jolted me upright.There are only twelve survivors?I’d been the last candidate to enter the room.Here I’d been expecting more vampiresses to file in and fill the empty seats, but some of them remained only for any lingering ghosts.
“Signal to one of the servants during the show if you would like more than the provided dinner. We have blood wine and finger foods for you to enjoy.” Mathias paused as a few candidates did so immediately. I kept my hands laced in my lap.
“Tonight, you will watch one of my favorite plays, about a pair of star-crossed lovers,” he narrated over the sounds of pouring wine and clinking glasses. For some unknown reason, his maroon eyes fixed on me as he spoke. I’d barely been listening to him, but now that I had his attention, I gazed back at him with the same unblinking intensity. “But first, a moment of business before you feast. Our rivals to the west, the House of Whispers, will be the target of your next trial.”
The rustling that’d followed him naming the House of Whispers settled to heavy silence. All dozen of us seemed to hold our breath, waiting for his next words.
“The Trial of the Nemesis begins as early as your departure from this room,” Mathias intoned. “You will have a little over one week to capture a vampire alive from the House of Whispers to present to the council and the Flask of Dominion with the rising of the full moon. Try to impress the Flask with a powerful nemesis, not just any servant you can capture. Good luck to you all, and enjoy your evening.”
He stepped down from the stage, and walked past my full table to instead take a seat next to the dignified figure of Tierney Sutcliffe. I admired his confident stride on his way by, and he knew it, as a smirk twisted his generous mouth as his attention flicked to me one last time. It set my teeth on edge.
Several vampire actors took to the stage in his absence, and I sat back, keeping my eyes wide open so I didn’t doze off. I couldn’t care less about this play, selected only because Mathias liked it, but I watched it for a lack of anything else to do.
That was, until dinner arrived during the intermission. Without fanfare, twelve young human blood donors filed in. My back went rigid at the familiar snap of Bruvor’s voice telling them to hurry up. The head priest of Eona stood scowling at the back of the room as his charges circulated.
One sat herself in Emmeline’s lap, tilting her head to offer her pulse to the vampiress. “A main course of virgin’s blood for your dinner, my lady,” she said in a demure murmur.
Emmeline sank her fangs in the human’s neck without another word, drawing a gasp from the young woman. Emmeline drank for a few long moments and made a sound of relish against her skin.
“I’ll take from your wrist, dear,” Felicity said to her donor, and the human nodded, offering up his palms.
The sweet scent of blood drifted across the table, threading a dulcet note through my nostrils. My mouth watered again, fangs aching.Fuck.Another blood donor approached me, slipping into my lap. She flicked her braided hair to the side, revealing the pale stretch of her neck peppered with many scars from healed bite wounds.
None of the other vampires were refusing virgin’s blood, as it was a delicacy. Nemea had once called it “sipping from the nectar of youth.”Even the memory of her voice wasn’t enough to turn my stomach, nor the voice of doubt whispering in the back of my mind with Carlyle’s words.
I couldn’t deny that I wanted a taste, even if it woulddamn me utterly. I searched for the strength to resist the frantic pulse fluttering under the donor’s skin, but found an empty pit of hunger within me. My stomach rumbled and churned as if I hadn’t eaten in days.
“Sweet blood for dinner, my lady,” the blood donor coaxed.
There was no war of temptation, no hesitation within me. Just a single thought, not centered around damnation, but pure scientific curiosity.What must a virgin’s blood taste like, to make vampires wax so poetically about it?
I leaned toward the servant, studying her pulse, her breath, the faint tremor in her hands. “Do you prefer the neck or the wrist?” I asked.
She blinked, a faint crease formed between her brows, her lips parting in a small, surprised breath before she gathered herself. After a beat, she swallowed and whispered, “The…the neck, my lady.”
