5. Chapter 5 #3
The last two words altered the room. He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The words came out with an edge so cold it made my skin tighten.
I believed he hated them. That did not mean I fully trusted him. But I believed that much.
“And if someone violates that?” I asked.
“They die.”
No hesitation. The prosecutor in me marked the answer: clear, direct, prejudicial as hell. The woman in me, the one Lucian had starved and bled and humiliated, did not object.
“Convenient legal system,” I said. “No appeals?”
“There are hearings when facts are uncertain. Investigations. Witnesses. Records. Taras is meticulous enough to make bureaucracy weep. But where blood slavery is proven, the sentence is death.”
I looked down at the wine.
Lucian Devereux had believed himself too powerful for consequences. Men like him always did. Vampires too, apparently. Power produced the same rot regardless of pulse.
“How often do you... feed?” I asked again.
“It varies. Newly turned vampires require more. Trauma increases the need. Royal blood in you will make you stronger, but strength requires fuel. Tonight, you have had some of my blood and this wine. That will likely be enough until you wake. Tomorrow we will assess.”
Assess. I almost smiled. Almost.
“What happens if I refuse?”
His eyes held mine. “Then you will suffer.”
“Eventually?”
“Soon.”
“You will weaken first,” he said. “Then pain. Confusion. Instinct becomes louder than reason. A starving vampire is dangerous, especially a new one. I will do everything in my power to make sure you never reach that point.”
“Without force?”
The question left before I could soften it. I did not want to soften it.
His hands remained visible on the table. “Without force.”
“You already used force once.”
“Yes.”
The single word sat between us. No argument. No excuse. My throat tightened.
He continued, quieter. “I will not pretend the promise is untouched by what I have already done. I can only make it and keep it from now on.”
“Drinking from the vein?” I asked, because the room had become too thick with things neither of us could fix.
His gaze lowered briefly to my hand on the glass. “It is the most satisfying method.”
My body remembered his wrist. Not as memory exactly. Memory belonged to the mind. This was lower. Teeth. Tongue. Warmth. The taste of him forcing death back from me. Shame and need braided so tightly I could not separate them.
I set the glass down.
“Define satisfying.”
His jaw flexed. For the first time, he looked as if he would rather face an execution chamber than answer a direct question.
Interesting.
“It nourishes more efficiently,” he said. “The blood is fresh. Living. The donor’s body responds, and ours responds to that. There are compounds in vampire venom that make the act pleasurable for human donors when done properly.”
“When done properly.”
“Yes.”
“And improperly?”
His eyes went flat. “You know the answer.”
I did. My wrists ached, though the wounds had closed.
“Vampire to vampire feeding is different,” he said after a moment.
I should have stopped him. I did not.
“How?”
“It carries a sexual component.”
The air changed. Or I did.
I became aware of everything at once: the robe against my skin, the cooling place at my throat where his mouth had been, the smell of snow and dark earth across the table, the blood wine moving through me like a secret my body had agreed to keep from my mind.
I kept my voice level. “Does it?”
“Yes.”
I waited.
He looked at the decanter, then back to me. “Between vampires, feeding is intimate. Pleasure can be controlled or intensified depending on the relationship. Between mates...” He paused.
It was the smallest pause. I heard it anyway.
“Between mates,” I said, because apparently I was determined to walk barefoot across every shard of glass available.
“I understand it is transcendent.”
There were words a person heard and words that entered through the skin. That one did the latter.
Transcendent.
A religious word. A dangerous word. The kind people used when they wanted to excuse losing themselves and call it salvation.
I leaned back. “You understand.”
“I have never had a mate before you.”
The answer was so direct it stole my next breath.
Four hundred and thirty-five years, he had said earlier. A span of time large enough to make human loneliness look like a bad afternoon.
Not my problem, I told myself. And yet the table seemed quieter after he said it.
“So you are speculating.”
“I am relying on accounts from mated pairs and historical records.”
“Ah. Peer review.”
There it was again, the faint glimmer at the corner of his mouth. This time he did not let it become a smile.
“Something like that.”
“You said blood wine,” I said. “From around the world?”
“Yes. There are vintners who specialize in blends. Some are old families. Some are witch-assisted. Some are modern operations with laboratory precision and appalling labels.”
That surprised another almost-laugh from me, but I held it behind my teeth.
His expression warmed anyway. “The palace cellars are extensive. You will never be without what you need.”