Don’t Judge a Vampire by her Fangs Chapter 1
CASS
Edward waited near the base of the staircase like he had grown from the marble itself, hands clasped behind his back, eyes tracking every nervous cluster of vampires in the foyer.
The clan still buzzed with leftover fear.
Valerian’s disembodied laughter clung to the air, a phantom echo none of them could pretend they had imagined.
Con’s hand brushed my lower back as we stepped off the last stair. His touch grounded me, a solid weight in the swirl of whispers and darting gazes.
Edward’s gaze locked on us the moment my boots hit the marble.
“Cassara. Constantine.” His tone was smooth, but the muscles along his jaw were tight. For a man who usually charmed entire rooms with a single smile, he looked as if he had been chewing glass.
“Edward,” I answered, folding my arms so I did not reach for my spear just to feel better. “You look like you swallowed a live rat. What happened?”
“Besides a disembodied maniac haunting us?” Con muttered.
Edward’s mouth twitched, but he did not take the bait. “The clan is frightened. They heard that voice. They felt that magic.” His gaze lifted briefly to the landing above before dropping back to me. “They need to see Rene.”
Of course they did.
Behind Edward, the foyer stretched out like a stage.
Crystal chandeliers washed the space in soft light, gilding marble columns and the sweeping staircase.
Usually, I liked the place. It was dramatic.
Elegant. Tonight it felt like a hunting blind, and we were the ones silhouetted in the open while something with long fingers scratched along the walls of reality.
Clusters of vampires lingered in watchful knots. Some spoke in low tones, heads bent together. Others simply stared up at us with wide eyes, as if we might announce that this had all been a joke and they could go back to pretending the world was safe.
“Rene will address them when he is stronger,” Constantine said. His voice was even, but I felt the tension coiled within him.
“He is our overseer,” Edward replied. “Our king. They need to see him standing. Breathing. Not disappearing behind closed doors.”
The word king rippled outward. A few of the vampires closest to us stiffened, listening harder.
I glanced up at the balcony. Raven had stayed with Rene in their suite after Valerian’s little performance. He had already been weak before all this.
“He is not disappearing,” I said. “He is trying not to fall on his face. Kind of important if you want your king to keep breathing.”
Edward’s eyes softened for a fraction of a second. He liked Rene. Most of them did. Respect earned over centuries did not vanish overnight. But fear had a way of eroding loyalty quietly, grain by grain.
“You know how they think,” Edward said. “If they do not see him, they will imagine the worst. Whispers have already started. Someone claimed they saw him collapse earlier. Others say he is poisoned. Or cursed.” His gaze cut sideways toward a cluster near the far column. “Siris has not made things easier.”
Of course he didn’t.
Con followed Edward’s look. “If Siris is feeding those stories instead of killing them, I will personally have a conversation with him.”
“That would help,” Edward said dryly. “Nothing soothes nerves like the thousand-year-old warrior giving lectures about loyalty with a sword in his hand.”
“People listen when they are afraid of you,” Con replied. “It is efficient.”
I almost smiled. Almost. “You are not wrong. Terrible at politics, Con. But not wrong.”
A hush rolled through the foyer before he could respond. It moved like wind through tall grass, starting at the far end of the hall and sweeping toward us in a wave of silence.
Every gaze shifted upward.
My skin prickled before I even turned.
Rene stood at the top of the staircase.
Raven hovered at his side, one hand pressed against his arm, the other gripping the banister so hard her knuckles were white. Her long black hair spilled over her shoulder like ink, and her violet eyes were darker than I had ever seen them.
Rene had put on a fresh suit. Dark-charcoal. Crisp white shirt. Mahogany hair brushed back from his face, the natural gold streaks catching the chandelier light and making him look almost human for half a heartbeat.
If you did not know him, you might think he was tired. Pale.
If you did know him, you saw the truth immediately.
He looked as if someone had scooped out half his soul and forgotten to put it back.
His pale-blue eyes swept the foyer, catching on clusters of vampires, on Edward, on me and Con. He even tried for a hint of his usual smile. The one that said he saw everything.
Then he took his first step down, and the illusion cracked.
He leaned heavily into Raven. Not a casual touch, not a possessive curl of fingers. Weight. Real weight. The kind that said his legs were not entirely trustworthy.
Raven adjusted without missing a beat. She shifted closer, her body taking more of his weight, her face turned toward him as if they were simply sharing a private joke.
But her mouth was tight, and the lines around her eyes were etched deep.
The foyer held its breath.
One step. Two. Three.
Every tap of his shoes on marble sounded too loud. I watched the way his hand curled around the banister, the way the tendons in his wrist stood out like cords.
“You told him not to come down here,” I muttered.
“I did,” Constantine replied.
“So he ignored you.”
“He is stubborn.” Con’s voice was flat, but I felt the pulse of worry under it.
Rene reached the midpoint of the staircase. The chandelier light washed over him, catching the sheen of sweat along his hairline. He paused there, shoulders rising slightly as he took in a slow breath.
“See?” I murmured, more to myself than anyone. “Still breathing. That is something.”
As if he had heard me, Rene lifted his head and fixed his gaze on us. For a moment, red flickered in his eyes, bright and unyielding. It swept across the floor, brushing every vampire in the foyer with the ghost of a command.
Silence deepened.
Even the air seemed to still.
Then he continued down.
By the time he reached the last few steps, Raven was carrying more of his weight than he was. Her arm trembled with the effort. He tried to mask it, tried to keep his shoulders square, but there was nothing he could do about the little tremor that ran through his fingers.
He stepped off the last stair.
Raven guided him toward us. Her smile was brittle and brave, the kind you wore when you could not afford to let anyone see you were terrified.
“Look at you,” I said, because someone had to puncture the tension before it suffocated us. “Ignoring doctor’s orders already. You know there are more comfortable ways to commit suicide than grand staircase entrances.”
Rene’s lips curved. The expression wobbled, but it was there. “If I stay in bed, they will start planning my funeral. If I come down here, they remember I am too handsome to bury.”
“Accurate,” I said. “But next time, maybe choose a shorter walk. The kitchen is nice. Less distance between you and a chair.”
Rene’s gaze slid toward Con. “You look displeased.”
“You should be in bed,” Constantine said. No softening. No title. Just the truth, flat and implacable.
Rene’s eyes gleamed. “And you should be less dramatic, yet here we are.”
A little ripple of laughter broke around us. Nervous, but real. Vampires shifted, some of the tension bleeding away simply because Rene was standing in front of them and speaking.
Raven eased him closer until he stood between Con and me, using both of us as anchors. I could feel the unnatural chill rolling off his skin. His power usually felt like dark silk brushing bare nerves. Tonight it felt thin and frayed.
“You did not need to do this,” Raven murmured. The words were for him, but I caught them. “You could have waited.”
“And let them speculate?” he replied softly. “No, my love. They already smell blood in the water. I need them to see steel instead.”
He straightened slightly, drawing in a breath that sounded steadier than it had any right to be. When he spoke next, his voice carried across the foyer with familiar command.
“My clanmates.”
Dozens of heads lifted. Spines straightened. It did not matter how old they were or which clan they originally came from. When Rene called them, they listened.
“You have heard a stranger’s voice in our home,” Rene continued. “You have felt a magic that does not belong to our world. I will not insult you by pretending it was nothing. Valerian Mobius is real. His power is real.”
Whispers fluttered at the name. Older vampires stiffened. Younger ones looked confused or frightened.
“He is a madman,” Rene said sharply. “He thinks himself clever, reaching through keys and cracks in our wards, but he will be put down like the rabid dog he is.”
I resisted the urge to glance at Con. Valerian’s laughter in my head, the way his presence coiled around the artifact fragments, the way he spoke to me, did not exactly match Rene’s confident summary.
But they needed to hear that. They needed to believe their king could keep an ancient warlock at bay.
“Return to your duties,” Rene said. “Stay within our walls. If you sense anything unusual, you report it to Cassara, Constantine, or Raven. You do not investigate alone. You do not panic. We have survived worse threats than a bored warlock.”
He was lying through his perfect teeth. Valerian was not bored. He was hunting. But Rene sold the line with such ease it sounded like gospel.
For a moment, it worked.
The vibration in the room shifted. Some of the fear eased, replaced by something closer to grim resolve. Vampires straightened. A few even nodded, as if they had just remembered who they were.
Rene’s shoulders relaxed a fraction.
Edward stepped forward, always the diplomat. “You see?” he said quietly, more to me than anyone else. “They needed this.”
“I see a stubborn idiot who does not know when to lie down,” I replied, though the edge in my tone softened as I looked at Rene. “But yes. They needed to see him.”