Chapter 16
RAFE
“Rafe, wait.” Lizzie is running behind me, out into the night.
The streets are empty, but it will not be long before the rest flies out after us, tongues laced with the scandal of our first assembly. They will find a vein to quiet the uneasiness that has settled in their guts, but none of them will question what has unfolded.
They are sheep. The lot of them.
“Where are you going?”
“As far away from the damned court as possible,” I bellow back. “I need a drink.”
“If you need to feed?—”
I turn on her. “After what you have just witnessed, you want me to rip into your throat?” I stare into her bright green eyes, expecting her to flinch or blink, but she holds my gaze. “I’m going to a blood house. It’s best that you don’t follow me.”
I have still not fed from her. The urge to do so trembles through me, harder to deny than ever. But she would not survive it. Not now.
I stride away, my boots pounding against the cobblestones, but Lizzie’s footsteps echo behind me, refusing to fade. “Rafe, please.” She catches up to me, breathless, reaching for my arm. “Please.”
“What?” I turn on her, my fangs flaring. I hate myself for it. None of it is her fault, but the anger and grief and pain rages through me and the only solution I know is oblivion.
“Juliette was protecting Nate.”
“Protecting him from a conspiracy, yes.”
I saw the moment in my sister’s eyes — the moment she realised she’d been stabbed in the back by the whole damned court.
“Why didn’t Valeria try to stop what was happening?” Lizzie asks.
“Because she planned the whole fucking thing.”
Lizzie doesn’t wince at my language — there’s not a glimmer of distaste from the vicar’s daughter. “What do you mean?”
“Valeria couldn’t let Nate die.” The need to tell her about the bond between Nate and Sera hangs heavily on my tongue. I fight it back. “She needs him. But she knew the Court wouldn’t let his crimes go unpunished. Juliette was the only other who was at fault.”
“But Juliette was her heir?—”
“And you think she truly wanted one like Juliette?” I scoff. “The matriarchs are in waiting. They sit at the feet of the thirteen, biding their time. And you believe they would just sit there for infinity when we are so hard to fucking kill?” My arms fly out wildly. “How did any of them get their seat? By being ruthless. By taking down their own matriarchs when the time was right.”
“Juliette wouldn’t?—”
“If you believe that, then you know nothing. Bianca Vespucci is the youngest serving matriarch. She plotted and lied and deceived her way through her entire vampiric existence until the perfect moment to stab her own mother in the back. Quite literally.”
“But Bianca is alive and serving on the Court?—”
“Yes, because the Court allowed it!” I turn away from Lizzie, desperate to fly into the night. “Don’t you see? They make the rules. They will bend them whichever way they see fit to make sure they stay in power and keep control. Juliette wasn’t Valeria’s puppet anymore, so she got rid of her and replaced her with the ultimate lapdog.”
I know I shouldn’t leave Lizzie alone — not when there will soon be hundreds of vampires on the streets, all without pledges, all desperate for blood. But if I take her home, then I will give into the hunger. I will drain her.
And I will enjoy doing it.
“Go back to the house. Now,” I bellow behind me. “And lock the door.”
Lizzie turns, retreating in the direction of the Crescent. She can’t disobey me. But bolting the doors will do nothing. If I get past Mrs Hawley and tell Lizzie to open the door, she will have to.
And then she will see that I am not so different from Ambrose, after all.
The blood house I used to frequent with Enzo has been thriving since the exile. Illegally, of course. But the Court turns a blind eye to matters which are against our laws, but benefit them to continue.
It sits on one of the smartest streets in Bath, masquerading as a gentleman’s club, although no humans save the blood servants can cross the threshold.
I stride in, my head fuzzing. I feel as if I am already nursing a hangover. And those always left me exceptionally hungry when I was a human.
A gutterfang at the door attempts to take my coat. I shrug him away.
“You are in good time to take a seat, my lord. The auction will begin shortly.”
He ushers me through into an intimate room packed with clusters of seats and sofas facing a small stage. I am the first to arrive, but it does not take long for the room to fill up behind me, and for a velvet rope that has been strung across the stage to be removed.
My pulse is in my throat.
The anticipation of what blood will be on offer is almost too much after everything that has happened tonight.
My fangs itch and my veins throb. I clutch onto the arms of the chair, hoping if I grip hard enough, I will be able to stay in one place and not decimate every human that steps into my path.
Blood houses are similar to the brothels one might find in the backstreets of London. We pay for the use of a human’s body; just as gentlemen do. But the auction is where we differ. We are more particular about the blood we choose to fuel our organs than humans are with where they put theirs.
By necessity, there is a demonstration of the wares on offer before any coins are exchanged. But of course, in desperate times, we take what we can get. And tonight, with so many in attendance, it will signal a significant profit for the gutterfangs that run this establishment.
As I wait for the auction to begin, I close my eyes and try to block out my sister’s face.
I should have stopped her. Saved her. Spoken up.
I am a coward.
A coward who will not even feed from his own pledge.
My thoughts lurch back to Lizzie — the softness of her hair, the depths of those green eyes, the tender, pulsing veins that snake like icy rivers underneath her skin. It is pathetic to be thinking of her when I have not taken what is rightfully mine. What has given me pause? I should not care whether Lizzie sobs after a feeding, or if being under my jaws reminds her of the horrors inflicted by Ambrose. She is just a human. Disposable. Replaceable.
As the blood masters and maidens parade out, I look around the room. The rest of the nobility has flooded here. They are glassy-eyed, filled with the same clawing hunger that threatens to derail them, too.
None of them look the least bit troubled by what they saw. They do not care my sister is dead.
A gutterfang with a tray of drinks passes me and I reach out for a glass of claret. It is habit, nothing more, that sees me do it. The need to cling to my humanity rather than letting the monster take over.
And he is desperate to take over.
I drain the wine, then glance back at the stage. It is filled with humans now — some two dozen — making it difficult to distinguish between them when they are so crammed together.
They have been glamoured. They do not flinch or tremble at the amount of narrowed eyes rested on them.
One by one, they step forward and vampires sniff the air, deciding if the specimen on show is to their taste.
Eight humans — five female and three male — are brought forward and chosen by other vampire lords and ladies before any pique my interest.
But the next one, she will do.
She is tall — almost as tall as Nate — and statuesque. Muscular. Powerful. If I couldn’t smell her humanity, I might think she was a vampire.
She would make an excellent one, in fact. And her blood — although it does not call to me in the way Lizzie’s does — is intriguing. She is good enough for oblivion.
“One hundred pounds.” I stand and stride forward.
None will match such a price.
The woman looks at me with large hazel eyes, her cheeks pleasantly flushed. I know she is glad it is me that has chosen her. And it fuels my hunger.
“For that price, my lord, you could have any number of us.”
“I intend to.” I turn and snap my fingers at the stage.
It doesn’t matter who the second or third is. By the time I am done with the first, I will not care who or what they are. They will just be a network of veins and flesh and meat for me to lose myself in.
The first woman leads me out of the room, walking ahead of me. She strides up the grand staircase in the hallway, rocking her hips. I don’t want her body. And the fact she is trying to seduce me into throwing more coins at her — enticing me to fuck — sets fire to my rage.
I pull her into my arms, dragging her against my chest. She gasps, stifles a giggle. But as I push her back onto the red-carpeted stairs, she stops laughing. She looks up at me, breasts heaving, and I slam my fangs into her throat. She lets out a spluttered choke and I drive them deeper, piercing not just her veins but all the surrounding tissue and tendons. I rip them out and spit them away.
She writhes beneath me for a moment, her fingernails clawing at my shoulders, then stills.
I do not stop — drinking deeper and deeper until my vision blurs. I don’t care that she has sagged beneath me; that her skin is now white as snow; that her heart has stopped beating. I just drink until there is no more to take — until she is nothing more than a dried bag of bones covered with cold flesh.
I pull away and stagger backwards, almost falling down the steps. Blood pours down my chin and I drag the back of my hand through it as the world spins in front of me. I go to steady myself on the bannister, but then two more bodies are next to me, guiding me up the stairs. As I turn, I am dimly aware of the blood maid’s body being carried away by gutterfangs dressed like human footmen.
“Come, my lord. You have fed so furiously. Let us take care of you.” It is the second human I paid for, whispering in my ear. Her voice makes me dizzy.
I push her away, flying up the stairs.
At the top, the landing is vast with a dozen doors off it. Other vampires have stepped past me with their humans, pushing into chambers, or choosing to feed in the open — inviting others to watch and join them.
The world turns again and I throw my arm back to the railing. But as I do, Juliette’s eyes flash in front of me. The way they softened in the face of defeat. The determined set of her jaw as she plunged her own fist into her chest.
She was my sister. And she is gone.
I know I was not responsible. I do not have her blood on my hands. But losing her makes me think of Michael — of the way his eyes widened in fear when he saw what I was and what I was about to do.
When he realised his own brother would kill him for what he had done.
Fuck this.
Fuck all of it.
I grab the second blood maid by the throat and slam her against the wall. “What are they plotting?” I scream in her face. “What did she die for?”
I can barely see the girl’s face. I don’t know what I’m saying or why I am yelling at her when there is noway she can have answers for the thousand questions in my head. But I am so enrobed in fury that there is no escape from it.
I pull her to the bannister and dangle her over it, still holding her neck. “Tell me!”
She squeaks and, although she is glamoured, some of her fear has seeped through it. Like she is trapped behind glass, banging on it furiously as she tries desperately to save herself.
“That’s enough, Rafe.”
A hand is on my shoulder, pulling me back, helping the girl to her feet. The voice…
The world turns upside down. I am seeing double, triple — seeing Juliette’s organs rolling down the stairs; her fallen expression the moment she knew she’d been betrayed; Michael’s limp, crumpled body at my feet; Mara’s horror and revulsion when she saw what I’d done — it all burns into my eyelids.
And for a moment, I think it’s Benjamin. There’s a dark face and kind eyes and the low rumble of a voice. A firm grip. But it cannot be him. He would not come here and dare comfort me after everything he’s done.
Whoever the voice belongs to — I push him away.
And this time, no one stops me as I take off into the night.
If the Court wants my family dead, then so be it.
I will give them a dozen more reasons to fear us.