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“Secret!” Her voice sounded like a song, and she never seemed unhappy to see anyone, regardless of how they came to be in her presence. “You’ve brought me something. I was expecting you. ”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Of course you were. ” She was the Oracle, after all.
Brigit turned her attention from the boy to the woman who had just walked in. To a vampire’s heightened senses, Calliope was a confusing jumble of fragrance. She smelled intoxicating and alluring, but there was a pungent edge of warning to her blood. Something in the fiber of her being warded off potential predators.
“Who is this you’ve brought me?”
The tiger smelled my legs and then the hem of Brigit’s dress. It bared its teeth at her, growling, and she knew enough to stop struggling against me.
“Brigit is new. Unsanctioned. Alexandre Peyton turned her to make a bit of an overly dramatic point. ” My voice wavered as I spoke.
“You feel responsible for her?”
“Yes. ”
She didn’t need to hear more. She came to us and put one arm around Brigit, releasing her from my hold.
“We’ll get her settled in no time, don’t you worry. Then you can get back to that handsome wolf of yours. No sense in leaving him there too long. Wolves and caffeine are a terrible combination. ”
The tiger preceded us out of the room, and before exiting I remembered the pizza boy.
“Uh, Cal?”
“Yes, love?”
“Is the boy okay there? I mean…he just heard all that, and—”
“He didn’t hear a thing. He’s busy forgetting some things before he goes home alive and well-tipped. ” She wore a devious little grin, which on her was far too beguiling.
I was often curious if one of her forms had been Helen of Troy, because it didn’t take much to imagine an entire war occurring for the right to love her.
We left the boy in the room alone and began our long walk down a very da
rk hall.
In the room where we settled Brigit, unnatural sunlight dappled behind the curtains. It made my chest constrict from panic and longing. The sun was an illusion, a kindness she provided to those who would never see it again in the real world.
Judging by the tan coloring Brigit’s features, she had been a bit of a sun worshiper in her human life. From my chair in the corner of the room, I wondered how many other parts of her life she wouldn’t be allowed to enjoy now because of me.
I felt as guilty for Brigit’s current situation as I would have if I’d turned her myself. It made me sick to know she would never see her family again. She could no longer enjoy whatever macrobiotic food lifestyle had kept her so thin. She couldn’t go to the beach in the Hamptons this summer or date a normal human boy.
Her life had ended, but in more ways than it would with a normal death. With human passing you lost everything, but you weren’t there afterward to know it. When you became a vampire, you had to mourn your own losses.
It was that awareness of the missing parts of one’s life which often drove new vampires mad, turning them into killing machines. Coupled with the strength and power inherited from their master’s blood, it was difficult to combat the initial reaction to vampirism.
I was genuinely grateful I had never had to experience it.
Calliope had chained Brigit to the bed with satin-covered silver. It wouldn’t burn her, but it held her in place. I was pretty sure it was fairy-wrought silver too, so the extra enchantment helped.
The Oracle was standing next to the bed, humming a strange song while she unpacked bags of blood from a small red cooler. My stomach growled.
Without batting an eyelash she threw one of the bags to me. I took it with thanks and bit into the bag, drinking its contents like a juice box. The blood was cold, but I wasn’t going to pick nits when I was being fed for the first time that night.
“So, tell me about this man of yours. ”
“You’re the Oracle, Cal, I was hoping you’d tell me. ”
She was holding one of the bags to Brigit’s mouth. The girl ripped it open with her teeth and shook it like a wild dog, spraying blood all over the bed and herself. Calliope sighed and threw the bag into a wastebasket, then took Brigit firmly by the chin and looked her right in the eyes.
