Page 164 of Blood Curse

The red light flared.

The Crown didn’t let go.

The man lunged towards the spill with Stellan still locked around him. The woman kicked free of Mara and reached for Elias’s neck.

The command made them drink. The frenzy came afterwards.

Different weapon. Same authority.

“It used the order to inflame their hunger,” I said.

“Then take that back too,” Stellan replied.

His lip was split. His eyes were black with his own hunger, but his hold remained careful. The man he was restraining got to survive this.

So did I.

I grabbed the leg of the nearest table and pulled myself upright.

“The command is revoked. Their hunger belongs to them.”

The Crown shrieked inside my skull.

The sound punched out of me, high and furious. Glass trembled. The spilled blood lifted from the floor in thin red threads, hung for one impossible second and splashed back down.

The man in Stellan’s arms went limp.

Her hand stopped inches from Elias’s throat.

Mara lowered her carefully.

Nobody else moved.

For several breaths, the only sound in the Night Hall was the rough drag of hungry vampires forcing air into bodies that didn’t need it.

Then Mara pointed at the nearest bucket. “Sand. Slowly.”

A young vampire by the wall picked it up. His fangs were still down, and his hands rattled the handle.

“I can smell all of it,” he said.

“So can I,” Mara replied. “Bring the bucket if you choose. Leave it if you can’t.”

He took one step, paused and passed it to the woman beside him. She carried it the rest of the way and poured sand over the spill. The blood disappeared under a pale, gritty heap.

The room breathed again.

Elias kept hold of the woman until she looked at him and nodded.

Stellan released the man one arm at a time.

“Did I bite anyone?” the man asked.

Stellan touched his split lip. “You offended me with your skull.”

“I can apologise.”

“Do it when you’re less likely to eat the witness.”