Chapter 39 Dinner and a Show
Dinner and a Show
Sage
The rest of the evening went by in a languid haze.
When Noctis had started requiring blood tithes from non-cits, drinking straight from other Magiks became taboo, almost like a kink. Something a vampire would do only with a lover, behind closed doors. Certainly never in public—at least for high society.
And so the vampire fetes of old, filled with half-naked omega Magiks draped over furniture—pale, wanton, and lethargic—had become relics of the past. Curious old customs forgotten in favor of propriety.
But now that Victor had found a loophole in the Blood Consort practice, it seemed like the vampires really had just been biding their time until they could reclaim their roots, because all pretense of civility was now gone, and dinner was revealed to be me and a half dozen other omegas with no objection from the guests.
The sheer overlay of my dress had been ripped to shreds and removed, leaving me in a satin slip, half conscious as Victor played with me on his lap, taking sips from my throat in between conversations with the rest of his council.
When I had the energy to let my eyes roam the room, I stifled a delirious giggle at how the omegas and I resembled water pipes at a hookah lounge.
Accalia had long since left, but Vorthain remained, silently observing from a corner in the room.
“What are you?” I whispered as I stared at him, Victor’s fingers running up and down my arms, more as a gesture to mark me as his possession than to offer me any sort of comfort.
Vorthain smiled, his fangs gleaming in the shadow of his hood.
One of the other vampires rang a small bell. “Refresh!” she cried, licking the blood off her lips as a glassy-eyed merfolk omega lay across her lap, his breath slowing.
A few of the guards came in, picking up the “used” omegas and ushering in new bodies, giddy and ready.
I, however, remained.
A blonde seraph sat next to us, cozying up to Victor. “She looks like she could use a break, don’t you think, sir? I’m more than happy to take her place.”
Yes, please, I thought.
But Victor growled a low warning, causing her to cower and scamper to another vampire’s waiting arms, her wings beating slowly behind her dejectedly.
“Victor…”
He looked down, the crimson of his eyes nearly eclipsed by his pupils, mirrored voids I saw myself slipping into.
“Yes, darling?”
“I’m… I’m so tired…”
His fingers finally found my pulse, and he vocalized his disappointment. “Let’s get you some Sanguis Vita, then.”
He scooped me up in a bridal carry, my limbs weak and falling limply to my sides as my head lolled against his chest. “Council members, it appears my mate and I will need to retire for the day. But please, there is no need to rush. Stay as long as you like. Enjoy yourselves.”
It felt like I was levitating as Victor brought me back to my room, and while I couldn’t see him, I could sense that Vorthain was behind us, following our every step like a shadow that was heavier than the object that cast it.
The sconces went by in blurs as I hummed to myself, a Sirena Murphy song I’d listened to on repeat when it’d been released six years ago. But for some reason only the melody came to me now, the words melting like snowflakes as soon as they hit my tongue.
“I may have gone a little overboard,” Victor said, concern tugging at his brow.
“You had reason to celebrate,” Vorthain replied. “It’s not everyday one ushers in the dawn of a new age.”
Victor’s chuckle reverberated through me, and he lifted me closer to his face, running the tip of his nose along my cheek. “Yes, I suppose not.”
We entered his rooms and then mine, and he laid me on the bed.
My shoes had long since been abandoned, and he tucked me in gently, giving me a chaste kiss on the forehead. “Rest now, darling. Vorthain will watch you while I get your supplements.”
The dark priest bowed his head slightly as Victor left, then took up his vigil once more in the corner of the room.
With great effort, I turned my head towards him, blinking slowly. “Why are you doing this?” I asked, my voice sounding separate from the rest of me as it floated across the room.
My eyes drifted towards the window, where the sky was just beginning to lighten over the wall and treetops outside of the mansion. Vorthain stood, gliding over to close the curtains before coming to my side.
He then sat beside me, and his fingers—gray, cold, and weathered—traced the visible scars, the physical memories of my attack. As his touch moved, so did a feeling of foreboding, as though each contact were an injection of dread shot straight into my bloodstream.
“I’m simply fixing a broken system. Don’t you want to be happy? I can make you happy.”
Of course I wanted to be happy, I just didn’t think I’d ever find that with Victor.
We were just so different. He hated my hobbies and interests, and he never laughed at my jokes, the few times I’d tried to make them.
He thought my life before we’d met was small and insignificant, my dreams pitiful.
And while the sex had been good—great, even—it hadn’t ever been something I actually wanted. It was proof I was alive, a link to a living, breathing Magik to remind myself I existed. Feelings and sensations to fill the emptiness left from everything else he’d taken from me.
To make me feel happiness with Victor would mean not only erasing the memories of five years of torture, it meant changing who I was on a fundamental level.
And the worst part of it all was that I had had a taste of what a mate bond was supposed to be. Ronan, even though he was the reason I was back here, had been like a glass of ice cold water after drinking sludge in the desert. A breath of fresh air after living under a cloud of smog.
A glimpse into a future we could never have.
That kind of connection, somehow both effortlessly earthly and cosmic, both magic and mundane, couldn’t be duplicated, no matter what Vorthain said. And Victor’s treatment of me could never be rewritten into something that even hoped to resemble it.
“It won’t be real,” I said turning away from him and blinking away the tears.
He scoffed, his nails scratching me a little deeper as he continued outlining the echoes of pain on my arms. “What makes a mate bond ‘real,’ hm? Your scientists have tried and failed to find the code, to discover the spell that will unlock the secrets the gods have kept to themselves, hidden in the darkness. But for all their research, they have uncovered nothing.”
His breath was hot on my ear as he leaned down to whisper. “My goddess thrives in the darkness, witch. She’s observed the suffering of us mortals, as some are blessed with power and companionship, and the rest wallow in weakness and mediocrity.”
There were seven gods who had created the Magiks of Lundaria in their images: Hecara for witches and familiars, Sanguiel for vampires, Cethelyne for merfolk, Vorrak for werewolves, Orithiel for elves, Solasia for seraphim, and Ravaric for demons.
As far as I knew, they all had worked together to create mate bonds between the races, to ensure we didn’t tear the world apart out of hatred and confusion in our differences.
But Vorthain spoke of his goddess like she was different, and I’d never heard of any gods aside from the seven of our world.
“Who do you serve?” I asked, my voice so small I was surprised the words even formed sound.
What are you?
“My master’s name was stolen by time, buried in oblivion, and hidden by fear.
You need only know that she’s finally awakened, and is disgusted by what the gods have done to their children.
In her mercy, rather than destroy this world and start anew, she’s instead going to repair it.
She’s giving us a choice, so we can create the bonds ourselves.
To help you see the gods for who they truly are, and unshackle us from the chains of fate. ”
Victor came back in, a bottle of pills in one hand, the other holding a glass of the thick, viscous blood replacement drink. Even in my altered state, my empty stomach revolted at the sight of it.
“That would probably go down easier after a proper meal,” Vorthain said to no one in particular, but he tilted his head towards Victor, his hand still on my skin as he forced the Premier to acknowledge me as a person.
I wanted to hate the man… whatever he was. But I couldn’t deny it was nice to have someone remind my “mate” that I had basic needs.
Victor stilled, his eyes shifting quickly from confusion, to anger, to guilt. “Oh, yes. Sage, you… you haven’t had anything to eat, have you?”
How easy for him to forget when he’d gorged himself on me for hours.
He put the drink and pills on the nightstand, then sat down on the bed, taking out his phone and texting someone about getting me some food, I hoped.
Unfortunately, I fell asleep before any arrived.
* * *
I woke up the next afternoon, feeling like I’d just run a marathon. Not that I would necessarily know what that actually felt like, since my heart condition had exempted me from P.E. all through school.
Victor slept soundly beside me, his arm draped across my abdomen.
What was it about seeing him like this, his face softened, a strand of his wine-red hair falling over his cheek, that was so endearing?
He looked much younger than his thirty-seven years, innocent and sweet. Not like the monster I knew him to be.
His brow suddenly furrowed, and he murmured something before his hold on me tightened, and he pulled me in closer.
Even monsters needed security blankets, it seemed.
I looked up at the Sanguis Vita and sandwich sitting on the nightstand, both equally unappetizing after sitting out for hours.
Carefully extracting myself from his grip, I got up on shaky legs, my chest screaming in pain.
I grabbed my pills, swallowing them dry, and then made my way to the bathroom.
The bright light that snapped to life made me wince, a headache pounding from beneath my temples.