Page 36 of Blood Ties

“Do you know who I am?”

“Bryony Ellison. Edith’s granddaughter. Human. Angry. Too close to a starving vampire.”

“I’m deciding what keeps us safest.”

“Then decide from the bedroom.”

Her jaw tightened. She hated being told where to go.

Hunger made the thought dangerous rather than amusing.

“I’m hungry enough to fucking hurt,” I said. “I’m not hungry enough to forget you’re a person. That could change if the court keeps draining me. I need you behind the locked door before it does.”

She studied me until she believed the part I couldn’t hide.

Then she carried the chair into the service passage.

The sitting-room door remained open. Her footsteps crossed the suite, followed by the bedroom lock sliding into place.

Distance removed her scent. It didn’t remove her pulse.

I leaned back against the dais and waited for the next wave.

The throne room looked larger without her in it. I’d spent years listening to empty passages and waiting for the few visits Edith could risk. Silence had once been ordinary. Now it felt wrong after less than an hour of Bryony’s questions, dry humour and sensible shoes crossing the stone.

Wanting her back was selfish. Hunger would use any feeling it found and turn it towards blood. I fixed my attention on the sealed gate instead.

Adrian would be testing it from the other side. He’d lost Bryony, Edith’s case and the easy coronation he’d expected. He wouldn’t wait quietly while we worked out how to free me.

The threat helped. Anger was easier to control than appetite.

The court sent it quickly.

Red light sank into the iron and pulled at every drop of blood the flask had given me. My fangs cut the inside of my lip. The taste made the hunger worse.

I didn’t call for Bryony.

She needed a choice made without my voice pressing on it.

The bedroom remained locked for several minutes. Long enough for her breathing to slow. Long enough for me to regain control of my hands.

Then the lock opened.

Bryony returned without the chair. She’d rolled her jumper sleeve above one wrist, although the bandage still covered her palm.

She stopped outside my reach.

“I’ve decided,” she said.

10

BRYONY

My legs still preferred the chair.

Stellan watched me from the dais as I crossed the throne room. His eyes were almost completely red now, and the hunger rolling from him made my empty stomach clench.

I kept walking.