Page 24 of Blood Curse

The silver-haired woman rose first. The others followed more slowly.

The pleasure cut off.

Its loss left me cold enough to sway. Stellan’s arm came around my waist, steady without trapping me.

“Bryony?”

“I’m still here.”

The Crown pushed at the words waiting behind my teeth. Make them kneel. Keep them quiet. Use what they came to give.

I swallowed all three.

The vampires watched me now. A man near the fire looked openly suspicious. I couldn’t blame him.

“The Crown feeds on obedience,” I said. “You knelt to Stellan because you wanted to. It left that alone. When you turned the ritual towards its authority, it rewarded me for accepting your submission.”

“Rewarded you how?” the silver-haired woman asked.

There were easier answers. I’d had enough of those.

“It felt good.”

Unease moved around the tables.

“Did it make you order us down?” the man near the fire asked.

“It tried. I didn’t.”

“And next time?”

Stellan’s arm tightened around me, but he let me answer.

“Next time I tell you to stand again. If I stop making that choice, you leave.”

The man studied me, then gave one short nod.

“Did any of you feel forced to kneel?” I asked.

Several heads shook.

The silver-haired woman answered for the room. “The habit was ours. So was the choice.”

“Then the Crown didn’t create the submission,” I said. “It fed when you aimed it at the Crown’s authority.”

“Our oaths woke when it summoned us,” the man by the fire said. “Can it use them to command us?”

Stellan looked around the room. “Did the oaths take control of anyone’s body on the road?”

“They pulled,” the man said. “They didn’t move me.”

“Then they’re calling you, not controlling you,” Stellan replied. “If that changes, you tell us immediately. Nobody tests the limit alone.”

“What happens if the Crown gives one of us an order?”

“We revoke it,” I said. “Then we work out why it caught you and make sure it doesn’t catch anyone else the same way.”

“You make that sound simple.”