Chapter 6
Penelope
I don’t need to look behind me to know she’s following.
Of course she is. Not only is she now my bodyguard, but the vampires are here to impress Mother.
I don’t care if Dahlia potentially stopped me from being eviscerated this evening.
I don’t need a bodyguard, and I am very done being dictated to.
Fuck having a babysitter, let alone a blood-sucking one.
The fact she’s one of only two women I’ve ever wanted to sit on the face of, and she didn’t tell everyone I snuck into Sangui City unguarded, unaccompanied and rubbed Roman’s face in it, is beside the point.
I storm into my room and slam the door behind me, hoping she gets the message.
She doesn’t.
I flop on my bed, only to realise I’m still covered in blood and organ residue and stifle a scream. Gods, this was a designer dress too. I sit up as Dahlia lets herself in and proceeds to waltz around my room, picking shit up like she owns the place.
“Excuse me, your job is to stand there and make sure I don’t die. Not touch my shit.”
She smiles, full-fanged, at me.
“Is that supposed to scare me?” I snap, over the antics already.
There’s a rush of air and I yelp. Suddenly she’s right in my face, the fangs that were harmless twenty feet away are far sharper up close.
“My job, Brat, is head of training in the new unified army…”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Is that so, I heard you were demoted, General.” I smirk.
She growls. I’m about to cuss her out for being a wolf instead of a vampire when I realise…
I got to her. I actually pissed her off enough I burrowed under her skin and got to her. Delicious.
I smile. Her eyes narrow. She’s irritated as much as I am. That makes my smirk deepen.
Which makes her growl legit rumble out of her chest. I poke her smack in the middle of her décolletage. “You. Don’t. Scare. Me.”
Her eyes close. She takes a deep breath, using what I imagine is a considerable amount of strength and patience, and lets it out.
The only hint of irritation is the flaring of her nostrils.
Which is kind of cute. It softens some of her hard lines.
I’m going to enjoy antagonising the shit out of her.
She draws her body back, wafting her hand around. “You are an inconvenience at a party I thought I was going to get drunk at. Much like the party you gate-crashed in—”
I’m up and lunging forward, my hand slamming over her lips.
She startles, her arm wrapping around my waist to steady us.
Her body presses against mine, warmth pooling between us despite the fact that her skin is cool under my touch.
Everything about her is steel and strength.
The most surprising realisation though, is that I feel safe wrapped in her grip.
“Don’t. No one needs to know. I got in and came back. I didn’t cause any trouble. So just leave it, please…”
“Sth eww do knnow ow tt ehave,” she says against my palm.
“What?” I say, my face scrunching as I try to understand her words. She reaches up and peels my fingers from her lips.
“I said, so you do know how to behave. Seeing as you said please so nicely, consider your secret kept. Now, as for the rest of your antics—”
Hold on. Who the hell is she speaking to?
“Antics? Don’t act like you’re so much older than me, you’re not my mother.”
Her head rocks back as a laugh spills from her belly.
“Mother of Blood, Penelope… I’m over five hundred years old.”
That promptly shuts me up. I pout. Which serves to make her laugh harder.
Whatever.
She must have been turned around the same age as me though, because she looks the same sort of age. How do you even tell how old a vampire is?
She stops laughing and turns serious.
“I think we need to have a little chat about your behaviour…”
“My—? Ugh. One, don’t patronise me. And two, the only thing we need to chat about is how you’re going to sit in the corner and stay quiet while I get through my sister’s wedding.”
Dahlia raises a perfectly trimmed eyebrow at me.
“More like you can play nice and behave yourself like the good little princess you are, or we can do this the hard way. I’ll let you decide.
Hmm?” She leans into my neck and inhales one, long, deep sniff.
No warmth ripples from her skin and yet her presence fills the atmosphere.
She’s heavy, domineering, like she owns every ounce of air she passes through.
The space between my legs heats.
She lets a little gasp of air out. “Fuck, I forgot how much you smell like crack.”
I shift, trying to move my underwear.
“Even with the crusted blood of some other bodyguard on me?” I say, my nose crinkling.
“I’ve never smelt a magician. You’re divine. Fresh and sweet, like spring flowers and the deep heart of evergreen forests.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks, my pussy. My nipples harden.
“Gods,” Dahlia says. “You’re making the scent stronger. It must be the magician’s blood in you. I’ve never drunk one either.”
That makes the heat cease. Like fuck is she drinking me. Never. Doesn’t matter how good the orgasm looked in the Whisper Club. What if she can’t stop. Besides, doesn’t she realise who I am? How dare she assume she can just drink a princess.
I refuse to flinch. Refuse to back down. I’m not going to let some fucking lowlife vampire intimidate me. My hands find their way to Dahlia’s chest, and I shove her out of my personal space.
But she goes solid and immobile. My teeth bare, the prickle of irritation clawing through my veins.
She’s cool, I can feel that even through her combat fatigues.
Our eyes lock, we’re close enough to kiss.
To bite.
To drink.
“Touch me again, vampire, and I’ll stake you before you can swallow,” I snarl.
“I like you angry,” she says.
My eyes narrow. “Trying little vampire, aren’t you?”
“Feisty little magician, aren’t you?” She huffs a laugh out but steps out of my personal space. Her fingers brush her chest as if the shadow of my hand remains there.
“My name is Dahlia, try using it. Things will go a lot smoother for you.”
“Well, Dahlia, if you don’t mind, I’m going to shower off the dregs of my last bodyguard. And get some beauty sleep, given I have to attend yet another of my sister’s wedding facades in the morning.”
Dahlia steps back all dramatic. “Oh, I see, you’re butt hurt because you’re not the heir…”
I suck in a breath, my eyes bugging wide. That fucking bitch.
I straighten up, my fists balled, the pink in my cheeks flaring to crimson. “How fucking dare you.”
“And yet… I’m not wrong…”
I don’t care if she is a vampire and could snap my neck in a blink, I poke my finger in her chest. Hard.
“You know nothing. About me, Morrigan, or fucking magicians. So how about you shut the fuck up.”
I march past her as fast as I can, my eyes stinging with unshed tears. But I’ll be damned if I let her know that. I slam the bathroom door shut so hard my towel falls off the back of it onto the tiles.
She’s wrong. She is. I know it.
Sure, I have had my fallings out with Morrigan, and I know what I am: the spare.
Doesn’t mean Dahlia needs to rub it in my face.
It’s not that I even want to be the heir, or queen one day.
Gods, I don’t. I can’t think of anything worse than having to deal with all the political meetings and contracts and negotiation after negotiation.
I used to sit in the council meetings, once upon a time. Even tried to handle a few things.
Tried again when I was with Roman and look where that got me.
I get in the shower and rinse the majority of the gunk off me, then shut it off and move to the bath instead. I pop the plug in, letting it fill deep.
I sink under the water, the warm suds cleaning the evening away. Fatigue edges through my muscles. Dahlia’s words play over and over again.
She doesn’t understand.
The door flings open and a naked Dahlia strides in.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shout.
“Shower. You’re not the only one covered in dead magician.”
“Gods.” I avert my eyes while she showers off. But I find myself glancing to the steamed-up shower, wishing I could see more.
She gets out and pinches one of the towels. The door clicks shut and then rattles, a soft scratching sound like a body is sliding down it.
“You should know I don’t apologise often. But… For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Dahlia’s voice trails in.
My lips purse, every ounce of me wants to bite back. To remind her the only thing she needs to do is fuck off. But it doesn’t matter what I say. Mother and Daria have decided she’s going to be my bodyguard, and there’s not a lot I can do about it.
“I’ll take your silence as acceptance of my apology,” Dahlia says, and I’m instantly riled up.
“Must you make everything difficult?” I say, slapping the surface of the water.
There’s a muffled laugh. “I get it, okay? I know what you’re going through.”
I snort. Loud, indignant and firm. “Give over.”
The door clicks open. She doesn’t come in, but angles herself, making her voice clearer.
“You’re not the only one who lives in the shadow of their sister.”
I open my mouth to fight back, to shout at her to get the hell out, but I rehear her words. My brows cinch together. I’d be happier bickering.
“Fine, I’m listening.”
She sighs. I can just about make out her wet hair draped against the doorframe, all wavy and thick. I wonder what it would feel like to run my hands through it. Her shoulders are bare, the towel tucked tight under her armpits.
I stare at her, lean forward out of the bath, moving this way and that to sneak a glimpse at pieces of her. Dahlia’s jaw is chiselled, a little masculine, but in the way that makes a woman appear powerful.
My clit gives a pulse. I shift in the bath, pushing the heat and thoughts of her soft tresses out of my mind.
Dahlia takes a drawn-out breath, sighing it out as if the words are heavy on her tongue. “My sister, Octavia… she’s one of the original three vampires. Do you know what that means?”
I retrace my memory and the conversations Mother had with us before they arrived. “That she created one of the three vampire lines?”
Dahlia nods against the frame. “In our city, that is everything. Power. Status. Wealth. Respect. It doesn’t matter that I’m one of the oldest living vampires, Octavia will always be better.”
I chew my lip. Dahlia twists her head, her gaze meeting mine through the slit of the door.
I recoil, not because I’m naked, but because it’s the first time I’ve seen softness in her. It’s the way her eyes curve; they’re distant and filled with something I can’t quite place. Maybe she doesn’t want to share it yet. I lean against the bath, giving her privacy.
Morrigan always said I was shallow because I was only interested in fashion and people.
But I’m interested in people because I care.
And what’s wrong with fashion? How is that any different to her obsession with books?
At least I wasn’t standoffish and lonely.
Dahlia’s sharing something difficult, and I’m giving her the space to do that—how is that anything but kindness?
“The godsdamnest thing is, Octavia was hated.” She hits her head against the frame, not hard, but enough for me to hear the clatter of frustration.
“Our entire city feared her, and yet she loved them anyway. Can you imagine fighting for a city that resented you? For ten centuries, she battled against perception and judgement. Always thinking she wasn’t good enough. ”
“But you knew she was?” I whisper.
“I had to live knowing that it didn’t matter how old I got, she would always be older, stronger, more powerful.
It didn’t matter how hated she was, everyone was always more interested in her.
And the worst bit of it was, she was everything: kind, strong, loyal.
In spite of it all. Do you know how inadequate that makes a person feel? ”
I knead the palm of my hand. I thought Dahlia was bullshitting when she said she got it. But everything she’s said is the truth of Morrigan too. Duty bound, self-sacrificing, loyal, strong. Would I do those things? Be that way if I were in her shoes?
My stomach grows heavy. Probably not.
“Yeah, I do know…” My words are so soft they’re barely above a whisper, but she’ll hear them. I swear I read somewhere that vampires have excellent hearing.
“We used to fight, Octavia and me. It was vicious too, what with us being vampires. Blood was drawn. Bones were broken. And then something shifted. We were forced to fight together. Don’t get me wrong, I still tried to win the city in the trials, I wouldn’t be me unless I’d tried to claim it as mine.
But I was living in denial thinking I could beat her.
Besides, she was always meant to rule Sangui. I guess I’m meant for something else…”
“And you’re okay with that? When you wanted the city just as much as she did?” I say, sitting up, trying to reconcile how she could just quit like that.
“No. But I’m more than okay with our new relationship, with the fact that for the first time in five centuries, I feel like my family don’t hate me. We’re more than bickering and competition now.”
“Mmm.” Is that enough for me? Having Morrigan as a sister, loving each other?
She shifts, her spine lifting off the doorframe. “You know what really changed things?”
“Go on…”
“Discovering that all along, Octavia never felt like she was enough. That while I was spending my energy fighting her, she was fighting herself harder than I or the city could. If all you and Morrigan do is fight, you might be missing how she really feels.”
Dahlia is silent a moment and then adds, “Just because you’re not the heir, doesn’t mean you have nothing to offer.”
That sentence is a blade. It slices through my ribcage, severing every vein, artery and capillary in my body.
My eyes sting, my chest tightens and my throat swells shut. It’s like she’s cut me open and wrenched my insides out.
“Ugh,” I groan, and sink under the water.
I hate Dahlia even more.