Chapter 2
Danton
"It's a waste of blood."
Lan glanced up at him and shook his head, black braid shining in the sunlight.
"Even these creatures can understand a warning.
" He stalked around the barrier created by the pikes driven into the street and the heads adorning them, then stood on the far side, fists on his hips, looking back at Danton.
Danton Trask smothered the irritation growing inside him. Lan was one of his best, oldest friends. Raging at him would do nothing to calm the increasingly frantic restlessness. No more than this barbaric display would do anything to curb the humans who had caused it.
Most of the race was – not pacified, but, what, lulled?
Probably. The first thing most peoples did when something catastrophic disrupted their way of life was try to get back to it.
They might be living in the remains of their civilization, but they weren't ready to admit it.
They were still struggling to turn the lights on in homes that no longer had roofs. Or walls.
That was partly metaphor, partly just what he'd witnessed.
Hit a city and drive it to its knees and the people that lived there would simultaneously light fires and hunt for clean water and at the same time, seek out the technology they'd just lost. Business as usual was the most comforting soporific the conquerors could offer if they wanted a smooth transition.
Vampyren didn't care about smooth.
Which meant he shouldn't either, he reminded himself. They were all going through a similar culture shock. No way around it. The conquered didn't stop to consider that the victors were out of their element and might be homesick.
"Who are they?" He pointed at the heads on stakes.
Lan tilted his head to one side as if the heads on pikes might have explanations written on them somewhere. "Local government. Rebels. Damned if I know. Doesn't matter. The warning's interpreted by the viewer."
Danton grunted. Probably true. Seemed it might be more effective if it was spelled out. And it was still a waste of blood.
The planet was rich with humans. But a huge percentage of the males had been killed in the invasion. There were five male heads on pikes in front of him where it seemed one or two would do. Five was a waste.
It wasn't like the Vampyren could eat the offspring of human women bred to Vampyren.
Only to those bred to male humans. So the captive breeding programs needed human males to produce food stock with human females, and human females to produce Vampyren warriors when bred to the invaders.
It was safer that way. Even warriors didn't breed with Vampyren females if they could help it.
Sex was fine. Sex with the females was great. They were lithe and acrobatic and uninhibited.
But breeding changed their hormones, producing an unquenchable blood hunger. For their own kind. After breeding, the number of Vampyren males who got away was shockingly small.
On one of the cross streets, a cadre of motorcycles went by, their frames straining under the weight of the aliens riding them.
Humans and their fuel-burning vehicles should be beneath the invaders, but the motorcycles raced fast and made noise and drummed up attention, like mag sleds from their own world.
He'd ridden a few himself since they'd been here.
They made it easier to hunt down the humans trying to run from whatever they'd been assigned.
Another bike sounded and he looked in that direction, waiting to see another flank of soldiers, but this was a single bike, a girl with a long dark braid coming out from under the shiny black helmet she wore, another human female holding on to her.
The visors on their helmets were down and they were half a block off, but Danton could see the girl in front clearly enough, the round fullness of her arms, the muscled set of her shoulders, the lean legs under leggings.
She was in good shape, like a fighter, though her full breasts offered less martial comforts.
Even as he watched she'd stopped the bike and was staring at the heads, the girl behind her still hanging on as if they were still moving.
He could tell by the angle at which the helmet sat on the girl in front that she was staring directly at the heads.
As he watched her, she raised the visor on the helmet, maybe trying to get a closer look.
Maybe only letting anyone around her know that she was looking and without flinching.
That was Vampyren enough for him to admire.
He could almost feel the connection when she looked up from her contemplation – prayer? – of the dead and looked directly at him.
Still without flinching that he could see.
He raised his chin and squared his stance, his muscles flexing as he made himself look bigger.
She should tremble. She should definitely flinch.
Their eyes met. She was too far away for him to really see her eyes. But there was no doubt of the connection.
They stared at each other across the intervening streets. He waited for her to drop her gaze.
Finally, she did. He tightened his stance, waiting for her to look back up and acknowledge she'd lost.
But when she looked back up, it was to hold up one middle finger in her planet's symbol of hate.
His lips twitched. He refused to let himself smile.
An instant later he'd beaten the impulse. Full Vampyren again.
As was only right for the officer, the soldier, and the last in the line of Vampyren royalty.
"If you're quite finished," Lan said dryly, unimpressed by the contest between Danton and the girl.
Across the street, she wheeled the bike around, gunning it away. Just before they disappeared he saw the rider's hair hanging past the helmet was an unattractive purple, and the girl piloting the bike had a tattoo of a star on her right shoulder, revealed by the tank top she wore.
They struggled so hard to be individuals. But none was very different from the others.
"I'm finished," he said dryly to Lan. "What are we doing now?"
Lan shrugged, looking out onto the mostly empty streets. "Thought we'd take in the fights."
That was a perfectly reasonable suggestion for an afternoon off. Watch the humans and when the loser was executed, slake his thirst in blood.
He fell into step beside Lan.