Page 152 of Blood Curse

Nobody lowered their voice when I entered.

The ordinary noise helped. This wasn’t a ceremony waiting for me. It was a room full of vampires who had travelled too far, slept too little and finally had enough blood to complain about its temperature.

“Cold,” a man near the fire said after his first swallow.

Mara set another crate on the table. “Hold the glass near the fire.”

The grey-braided woman raised hers towards me. Her injured leg was stretched onto an empty chair. “You came back.”

“I said I would.”

The woman laughed into her glass. Stellan’s mouth curved.

He put the crate down and opened the first bottle. The scent reached me: warm metal, salt and something rich enough to make my tongue press against my teeth.

Human teeth.

I ran the tip of my tongue over them to make sure. Still blunt. Still mine.

Stellan poured without glancing at my mouth. He had heard my heartbeat jump, but he let me decide whether it mattered.

I moved to the end of the table where the air from an open window cut across the blood scent. A young vampire filled three glasses and carried them to people who hadn’t risen. Another passed her unopened bottle to a man whose eyes had started to darken.

“Take mine,” she said. “I fed downstairs.”

“You’ll need it later.”

“Then I’ll get another one later.”

He accepted the bottle. His fangs withdrew after the first few swallows.

“Is that really the safety system?” I asked. “Enough bottles and everyone watching one another?”

Stellan glanced towards the man’s clearing eyes. “It works when watching means helping, not punishing. Hunger becomes dangerous when somebody hides it until they can’t think. Here, they can ask before that.”

It was almost disappointingly sensible.

Elias appeared at my shoulder. “You look disappointed.”

“I expected more velvet and at least one goblet shaped like a skull.”

“Mara broke it in 1887.”

Mara called from across the room, “It was ugly.”

“You heard that?” I asked.

“Everyone heard that,” Stellan said.

I looked around the loose tables. “Did the court always gather like this?”

The woman with the grey braid rested both hands around her glass. “Not exactly like this. There used to be music, cards and enough food for the humans who worked late. Some vampires fed here. Others collected what they needed and left. Stellan appeared halfway through, inspected everything and pretended he wasn’t staying.”

“I was working,” Stellan said.

“You were counting cards.”

She smiled at me. “He won every game.”