The human made a soft yelp as my fangs sank into her neck, and then her essence was flooding my mouth and I had no more thoughts. It tasted like the sweetest trickle of water on a parched throat. My head was packed with cottony clouds at the sheer exhilaration of tasting her. There was no more pain in my body, not with this fresh infusion of life.
I tingled all over as I sucked more blood from this young woman’s neck. Only a well-timed commotion from another table drew me back. In an instant, I remembered who I was and released my bite. Halfway into pushing this human off my lap in horror, she seemed to go limp, so I instead held her upright against me. Her head lolled against my shoulder, but she breathed slow and steady through the dizziness that followed a blood donation.
Razira’s ruby eyes blazed with fury. I followed theline of her attention toward what had the other vampires tittering. Willowy Genevieve Mercier was standing over the prone form of a different blood donor. Bloodlust had taken her, from the snarl baring her crimson-stained teeth to the pits of darkness where her eyes should’ve been.
Bruvor approached the body with a slow, bored gait, barely glancing down at the jagged ruin of her throat. He didn't bother to kneel or check for a lingering pulse. Instead, he gave her foot a sharp, impatient nudge with his own, as if checking the weight of a fallen log.
“She's dead,” he said, his voice flat and devoid of any scrap of empathy. He looked to another servant. “Take the body away.”
Genevieve may have overindulged, but most of the blood made a mess in the carpeting as it pooled under the body. The sight turned my stomach, making my share of blood taste like ashes where it lingered on my tongue.
By Aetherius’s light…
But there was no hint of his grace here. Only evil. “Monster.”
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the thought aloud until Razira nodded and stood.
“You greedy monster,” she spat across the room. “Youkilledher!”
Genevieve laughed. Her tongue darted out to lap at the drips of blood leaking down her chin. “Spoken like a true Turned. You’ll never be a queen if you think human lives are worth anything.”
The rest of the room hushed, the other candidates watching Genevieve and Razira far more avidly than they had the evening’s play. Razira’s intensity faltered, her gaze darting. “Watch your back,” she added in a venom-laced purr.
“You watch yours, soft-hearted fool,” Genevieve snarled.
They both sat down. No one else spoke in defense of the dead human, not even me. I couldn’t risk any more attention right now, even if guilt gnawed at my conscience.
As servants materialized to remove the body and sop up the blood, Emmeline cleared her throat primly. She pitched her whisper across the table. “Was it really necessary to get so worked up over chattel? Blood servants die all the time.” My esteem for her dropped through the ground as Razira eyed her coolly and didn’t spare a response.
Still sitting in my lap, my blood donor giggled almost drunkenly. By a quirk of fate or the toss of a coin, she’d come to our table, not Genevieve’s. She’d live another night, even enjoy a good meal after this as a coveted virgin blood source.
But Genevieve’s nights were numbered. A vampiress with no control of her bloodlust had no place in this competition. I mentally placed her name on the list.
Chapter 21
Sidney
I jerked awake with a gasp, my heart pounding against my ribs. Disorientation clung to me like a fog. I pushed upright, rubbing the grit from my eyes. My quarters snapped into focus, the shape of the bedroom anchoring me back to reality.
“Easy.” Zane’s voice cut through the haze. “You slept through the whole day.”
Beside me, Finn stirred too and blinked himself awake. He threw back the blankets and slipped out of bed in his sleep pants, then padded across the room to where Boris paced in impatient circles, his claws clicking on the floor. Finn cocked his head and nodded.
A moment later, he turned and signed,Boris needs to go outside. I will be back.With that, he opened the door, and the honey badger darted out ahead of him. Nibs scurried out after them.
Zane lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress. “I’ve handled all the preparations for the bonding.”
I pulled the blanket over my head. That was tonight, wasn’t it? I wished it didn’t feel so sudden.
“We missed our wedding date, you know?” I asked, muffled.
He slipped beneath the blanket with me, tucking the two of us into a small, secluded world of shared warmth. Without a reflection of light, his eyes were the two dark brown pools I remembered. He waited patiently for me to share what was on my mind.
“We picked the day well in advance. We had friends coming.” Actual friends, folks we could both stand. “It was going to be anevent,and I looked forward to it for months until… well, it just never happened.”
“I’m sorry. I looked forward to it too.” He ran his hand down the curve of my back. “Tonight is different. Maybe after all this…we can have a wedding too.”
“Promise?” I murmured.
