Chapter 14 Blood in the Milk #3
She grinned, as if she was plucking the thoughts right out of my head and didn’t care a jot about my impatience. “Come now. You haven’t ruled over this court for very long, it’s true. But you should know by now that the cost for most things is always blood.”
The crimson marbled the white, blood swirling amid the milk.
Just five drops.
That’s all it had been. I’d watched each ruby teardrop tremble and fall from the pad of my index finger only half as intently as Guru, who had seemed poised to pounce and start lapping my blood straight from the puncture wound on my finger at any moment.
Now his pink tongue rasped at the contents of the saucer with fervor, a rattling, low-pitched purr working out of his throat while he drank.
“He likes the taste of you,” Algat observed, hands on her hips.
“That’s really disturbing.” We had cats back in Zilvaren.
People kept them for the same reason Algat kept Guru in the library: They made excellent rat catchers.
But cats did not make good pets, as far as I was concerned.
They couldn’t be trusted. At least a dog was loyal enough to die in solidarity if its owner dropped down dead in their own home.
I’d heard too many tales of cats eating their owners’ faces under those circumstances.
“Guru’s very discerning,” Algat observed, watching proudly as the feline cleared the saucer. “He won’t drink from just anyone.”
“I’m honored,” I said dryly.
Algat harrumphed. “You should be. Now. Books. I’m feeling very generous tonight. Five drops of blood equate to one whole book.”
“Wow. You’re right. So generous.”
“Consider yourself lucky. Normally, I’d only relinquish a few pages. And they would have been in Alchimeran. I’m assuming you don’t read, write, or speak the language of your people?”
Gods, I wanted to punch her. “No.”
“Hm.” She flared her nostrils, looking unimpressed. “Like I said. Lucky.”
Algat disappeared into the stacks, and I stayed put, declining to follow her into the shadows.
Guru remained, perched on the edge of the table like some red-eyed gargoyle, staring at me like he was trying to will more blood out of me.
Gods only knew why I did it, but I squeezed my fingertip over his empty saucer, pressing two more droplets out onto the plate for him.
The cat fell upon the gifted blood like he was starving, making a weird gurgling sound as it licked the saucer clean for a second time.
“Here we a—” Algat looked at me. “Tell me you didn’t give him undiluted blood?”
“I did.”
“Great.” She slapped her hands against her sides, and a puff of dust exploded from her skirts. “He’ll be up chasing the birds and howling for hours now.”
Good. I hope he keeps it up all fucking day, I thought.
Algat huffed. “Well, aren’t you the rudest thing?”
Fuck. She’d heard me? How the hell had she heard me?
“Because hearing things is my special skill, child. And you might as well be screaming your thoughts at the top of your lungs, the way you project them.”
Wonderful. So it wasn’t just Fisher I had to be careful around now. I had to watch out for this old witch, too. “Is there a way I can prevent you from digging through my mind?” I laced the question with as much authority as I could muster.
I had no idea if the female responded because she had to or because she felt like it. “You can command me not to,” she said. “But I would strongly advise against it. You never know when you might need me to hear your thoughts.”
Yeah. I was never going to need her to hear my thoughts. “I command you to never listen to my thoughts or invade the privacy of my mind again, Lord of Midnight. I command you to never read or invade the minds of my friends or my mate ever again, either, too.”
The vampire hissed, baring her fangs, and the air suddenly felt very cold.
Guru arched his back, his fur standing on end.
He mirrored his master, hissing, and then launched off the end of the table, turning into a puddle of shadow that fell across the floor and merged with the large shadow cast by a grand writing desk.
“You come with your hand out, asking for help from Algat, and then you bind her hands behind her back?”
“I’ll bind more than just your hands if you prove to be a problem for me.” It wasn’t a threat. Threats weren’t going to make this female bend to my will. It was a fact and nothing more. “I’d like to see that book now. I don’t have all night to waste on this.”
“Seems to me that this should be the only thing you’re focusing on right now,” the female observed. Her eyes had roved down my body and were fixed on my gloves—and the glowing runes that were burning right through the leather.
Quickly, I hid my hands behind my back, alarm prickling across my shoulder blades. “The book, Algat. Please.” Was it unqueenly to say please? It was probably un-Sanasrothian in general, but I was surprised when the female’s hard glower softened a touch.
“Give me a moment,” she said stiffly. “If Guru comes back, sniffing around for more blood while I’m gone, don’t give him any. He’s had more than enough, thank you.”
She had nothing to worry about on that front. I wasn’t opening my finger for the cat again. Algat disappeared in the stacks, and I spent the next little while inspecting the library’s ceiling.
The stars were a myth in Zilvaren. We were told of strange lights in the sky, brilliant as diamonds in their millions, but without any frame of reference I had never been able to conjure an image of what they would look like.
What I had cobbled together in my mind’s eye had fallen woefully short of the truth.
Zilvaren’s sky was a void, punctuated by two burning hot, unrelenting balls of light.
But the night sky in Yvelia was spectacular.
The glittering expanse was both far away and right there at the same time, as if I could reach out my fingers and touch the whole universe.
What had always seemed empty bristled with light and promise.
And there were worlds out there. An incomprehensible number of realms.
Whoever had painted the night sky on the roof of Ammontraíeth’s library was a master of their craft. It was remarkable, what they’d accomplished with some paint and some gold leaf. It was so real. If I just reached up—
I didn’t make a sound as I hurtled sideways.
I didn’t have time.
The projectile hit me in the ribs, impacting with breathtaking force.
I slammed down onto the floor, not understanding what was happening for a split second. And then I was moving.
My daggers were in my hands.
I was twisting under the thrashing weight that was trying to pin me to the ground.
Black and gray and streaks of gold filled my vision.
“Get . . . off me!”
But the feral creature—the dark-haired male with the furious blue eyes—did not get off me. He bared his teeth, flashing gold-plated, engraved fangs as he snapped at me, trying to use them to rip out my throat.
“You’re done,” he snarled. So confident. So godscursed sure of himself. He grappled with me, trying to lock a massive hand around my wrists so he could pin my hands above my head . . . but he had made a grave mistake. He’d assumed that I wasn’t going to put up a fight.
He was on top of me—a very heavy problem. I rectified the situation the best way I knew how. It was a dirty move, but so was tackling someone from the shadows and catching them off guard. I brought my knee up hard and smashed it into his balls.
The vampire locked up, wheezing, but he didn’t release me.
Not fully. The brief lapse in his grip gave me room to yank a hand free, though.
Took me all of two seconds to find the dagger I’d dropped when he’d pinned me.
I didn’t flinch as I drove the point of the blade into his side, up, between his ribs.
The vampire shuddered, pulling back. “What . . .?” He looked down in confusion. “I . . .”
“I stabbed you,” I spat. “Now I’m gonna pull out the blade and watch you bleed.”
His eyes shuttered when I did it. Blood didn’t spurt out of vampires the way it did from the living.
It ebbed, escaping under a loss of pressure.
I felt it, finding its way through the gaps in my leathers, saturating my shirt beneath and slicking my skin.
It was unnaturally cool, but at least it didn’t reek the way a feeder’s did. It smelled stale. Strange. Unappealing.
“Sil . . . ver,” the vampire wheezed. “That blade was never . . . silver.” He sagged sideways, hitting the ground with a thump and rolling onto his back.
I was free.
I rocketed to my feet, ready to stab the fucker again if he so much as lifted a finger in my direction.
He was still staring at the blade in my hand—the one Fisher had given me to wear at my coronation.
I studied it, then held it up for my attacker to see.
“Silver tipped. It won’t kill you, but you are not going to enjoy the next few hours.
Appropriate,” I panted, “since you just tried to tear out my throat. Now who the fuck are you? And why did you just try to kill me?”
But the vampire didn’t get to answer. Before he could, the interlocking runes on the back of my right hand lit up like a signal flare, and an ungodly pain blazed up my arm.
Oh, gods, no . . .
Light filled the library.
I had no control over the wave of power that rose up, up, up. . . . and then out of my hand in a white-blue shock wave.
The writing desk in front of me disappeared. It was there, and then it was gone. Then the bookcase behind it, and all its leather-bound tomes. Gone. The leather couch by the window, gone. The wall, with its portrait of Malcolm smirking knowingly out of its frame . . . gone.
Wind whistled into the library, a cloud of dust and pulverized stone swirling in the air like fine snow. The cold crept in and wrapped around my boots, climbing up my legs, into my bones, making me shiver as I stared at what I had done.
There was a twenty-foot hole in the side of Ammontraíeth.
And I had put it there.