Текст книги "A Bargain So Bloody"

Автор книги: Vasilisa Drake

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Chapter Forty-Two

“I’m the king’s Chosen,” I blurted. It was the first thing that came to mind.

“Oh, is that the fantasy you offer?” The vampire stepped closer. He wasn’t as big as Raphael or Demos, but he towered over me. My legs began to shake.

“No, I’m the king’s,” I repeated. On reflex, I took a step back and knocked into the bed.

“Then call me the king.” His words came out a bit slow, his footfall at an awkward angle that lacked the usual vampire grace. He reminded me more of Nelson than Raphael. “Pretty thing. Haven’t seen you at Latia’s before.”

“I’m telling you, don’t come near me.” My voice was growing louder, more desperate. The curtain no doubt muffled some sound, and the den was far from quiet, but why wasn’t someone coming?

“Blood love the gimmicks she comes up with,” the vampire swore appreciatively and continued his stumble-stroll towards me.

No. I’m not defenseless. Anger coursed through me. I had beaten the vampire in the library—narrowly. This one was at least partly incapacitated. I drew my dagger underneath the cover of my cloak and drew my feet apart into the fighting stance Demos had taught me. This vampire didn’t yet realize—didn’t believe—I was a threat.

You’ll be underestimated in just about any fight. We’ll make sure to use it to your advantage, Demos had told me on that first day.

Once I attacked him, he’d realize I wasn’t some meek little donor. Which meant I only had one shot.

He was just two feet away when I closed the gap, thrusting the dagger as far as I could into his chest. Delight lit his features for a flicker of a second, thinking I was embracing him, but at the last fraction of a second he twisted, realizing what I was doing. Rage burned in those red eyes.

“You bitch!” he roared.

I had missed.

I was dead.

But as quickly as the realization came, the sight in front of me transformed.

The vampire was pushed aside and rammed into the wall on my left. Towering over him was Raphael, teeth bared.

“She. Wasn’t. Lying,” he snarled.

And then with a twist of his other hand, the vampire’s head popped off the body and rolled across the floor.

Disgust and anger warred inside me. The vampire’s blood spilled out, but only a second later the body decomposed into dust.

My chest heaved from the violent mix of emotions.

And while I composed myself, Raphael watched me.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed. “You… you just killed him.” I wasn’t shedding a tear for the vampire, but the sheer violence of Raphael’s movements, decisive and powerful, made my puny stabbing look like child’s play.

Before, he’d ordered the snap of a neck to make a point.

Now, he’d ripped this vampire’s head off in fury.

“I will kill anyone who lays a hand on you.” His words weren’t composed the way they usually were, not the smooth silk of night sky but a thunderous storm cloud. “Now tell me what you’re doing here.”

The anger from before swelled up, but now, instead of being divided between Latia and the other blood dens and all vampires, it was concentrated solely on their king. “I said I wanted to see a blood den. You all refused.”

Raphael prowled closer, but I didn’t back away. “And this is the one you picked?”

I scoffed. “What, should I have found a less exploitative one?”

Raphael looked slightly affronted. “Exploitative? The humans are paid for their service. They’re here willingly. You may not like their choices, but it doesn’t make them wrong.”

I couldn’t even look at Raphael. “Of course they’re willing. After the first bite, who would say no to a second?” Wasn’t that what Latia had said? I crossed to the other side of the room, away from Raphael and the bloodied bed and the pile of ash-filled clothing.

But Raphael was at my heels.

“You did.” His voice had eased some.

It was on the tip of my tongue to admit I had dreamed of that bite over and over, had imagined asking him to take from me again. Only sheer stubbornness had stopped me from making the request. But that confession would cost me. Giving in to my attraction to Raphael would ruin me. Letting him bite me? It would shred my very soul.

I made certain those emotions were tucked behind my mental barriers and said nothing, eyes weaving over the peeling wallpaper.

“What would you have us do instead?” Now he was at my back. His shadow met mine on the wall. “Vampires need blood, much the same as you need air or water.”

“Why not just take from animals? You did fine when we traveled living like that.”

Okay, perhaps not quite fine from what he had said. But surely that was better. Every vampire had started as a human. Didn’t they see the betrayal in that?

Or were they all humans like Crowley had been, monsters who felt entitled to harm anyone necessary for their own gain?

“Why should we?” Raphael retorted. “There’s an order to things.”

“And that order will always have the weak at the bottom, and the strong taking what they wish from the top,” I snapped, turning around abruptly.

I regretted it. Raphael was even closer than I’d realized. I had to stare up at him.

“I repeat, they are not taken. Every human here is in my kingdom willingly, giving their blood willingly. It could be much worse.”

But it could be better. “And would they do this if they had a better option?”

“Did you serve in Greymere because it was your choice, Samara? Did they pay you a wage?”

I jerked back.

“That was slavery. This is a choice. There’s a difference.”

It was hardly a choice anyone in their right mind would make. The bites were addictive. Of course they stayed and let Latia offer their veins for any vampire with coin. “I never asked my question the other night. You owe me one, Raphael, so tell me truthfully: Do you really think this system is fair? Do you think it’s safe? For all the words about choice, I told that vampire no and he was still going to feed on me. If he killed me, what then? Is it fair that at most he’d just be banned from this den and free to go to any other?”

Raphael was still, yet I swore I could feel the riot of emotions in him. “What he attempted… it will be dealt with.”

“Dealt with?” I flung an arm in the direction of the wall. What had been fear when the vampire stalked towards me was crystallizing now as anger. “Raphael, he’s already dead. And he’s only dead because someone bigger and stronger than him stopped him. Because you took pity on me.”

“Is that what you think?” He cocked his head. “That I pity you?”

I gave that the derisive snort it deserved. “You expect me to believe that’s not what this is? At every turn, I’m weak, and you’re strong. I’m there serving Nelson for years, and one day in, you kill him. I give myself to the Monastery, willing to debase myself for protection, and you kill them all too. Fifth hell, even now I freeze at the sight of blood. I let you feed me, clothe me, like a useless infant. I have no magic, just the barest grasp on a language of a book you don’t even seem to care about. If it’s not pity…” I trailed off. Then what? I wanted to scream.

“It is not pity.” Raphael took a step forward, and now I inched back, pressed into the wall. “You don’t see the events as I do. Twice, now, you’ve defended yourself from bigger, stronger foes. You work tirelessly to prove yourself. You claim you freeze, but I’ve seen you: when needed, you act. Your mind is always working, solving puzzles at a speed even I marvel at. In the temple, you removed a dozen arrows from my back when I was drenched in blood, so no, you do not ‘freeze.’ Surely food and clothing are the least I owe you for my life. I do not contend you were not afraid, Samara. But you do not let fear stop you.”

He drew closer. I was caged between him and the wall. My heart thundered in my chest, but it wasn’t fear now. Even the anger was distant. The panes of his face were in stark relief, eyes vivid and beguiling. The white strands of his hair fell toward me as he bent his head to look down.

“I do not pity you,” Raphael repeated. “Little viper, I find you irresistible.”

I scoffed. “That’s madness.”

“Because you make me mad,” he growled. His words were like lightning in my veins, electrifying, terrifying. His hand came to my cheek, brushing my hair aside. All my thoughts halted. Moments ago, I’d feared death. Now, I wasn’t sure what to expect. For Raphael to take me back to the castle, or to chastise me for being careless.

What I didn’t expect was for him to kiss me.

He grabbed my cheeks and captured my lips. I stiffened in surprise, unsure and unsteady. I’d never kissed anyone. But Raphael was patient, coaxing. Desire stirred deep inside me, a wick catching fire with every brush of his tongue. He guided me, and my blood warmed, desperation lighting in my veins. His taste was potent and all at once it was everything to me. There was no room where a vampire had been killed, no enemy kingdoms, no spymaster dogging at my heels.

There was only me, Raphael, and this burning tension that had ignited.

Want him. It didn’t matter I only had half a clue what I was doing. He drew me deeper into the kiss, his other hand coming around my side and pressing me against him. He tasted like darkness and temptation. I lifted my hands to his head, pulling him closer. He groaned against my lips at the movement, and I arched at the sound. More. I wanted more of that. My tongue curled in his mouth, a bold exploration.

Then it found the point of his fang. Copper colored the kiss at once.

I jerked back.

Blood.

Raphael didn’t press me into another kiss, but he didn’t move back. His red eyes were lit ruby red, the glow of a vampire who just had blood. Gods damn it. The taste remained in my own mouth. A strange tingle coated my lips, as if I could feel his absence.

Raphael kissed me.

I wanted him to do it again. Before common sense chased away the blissful feeling that had started in my body, before I remembered that the perfect, handsome face before me was normally topped by a crown.

He went still. Waiting. Assessing.

If I reached for him, he’d let me kiss him. Despite all my inexperience, I knew that with every fiber of my being.

“Raphael, you promised me one more answered question. Do you believe this system is fair, with the blood dens and the humans?” The strong ruling the weak?

I wished I could have been surprised when he finally gave his answer.

“Yes.”

There was no more kissing after that.

And as Raphael escorted me back to my chambers—across from his own—I came to another conclusion.

It wouldn’t be enough to translate the grimoire.

I would need to steal it.

The necromancer that Raphael had failed to locate—I’d find them. I’d give them the book.

I’d give the monsters something to fear.

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Chapter Forty-Three

I had lived in rags for the better part of my life at this point. Rags were bordering on an overstatement, actually, since even the most worn material was quickly commandeered by those bigger and stronger. There had been nights I’d wished more strongly for fresh, soft, dresses than I had food.

And I would happily have agreed to never wear anything but those rags again if it meant I didn’t have to endure one more minute of this dress fitting. Between Amalthea’s exacting sense of aesthetics and standing half-naked while two vampires worked to mold the tarps to me, tension had every muscle in my body on the brink of cramping.

“No, that’s not quite right,” Amalthea murmured to the seamstress for what must have been the tenth time since we’d arrived.

The seamstress obliged and moved the bodice a sliver higher.

It was three days after I’d first come here with Amalthea. Three days since I’d been cornered by Titus. Three days since I’d kissed Raphael in the blood den. Now, I was standing on a raised platform like a mannequin. Amalthea went back and forth over hemlines and skirt designs and sleeve shapes and everything else I’d never wanted to know about with the vampiress shop owner and head seamstress, Bertha. At my feet, another vampire was pinning the skirt in place.

I’d soaked the fabric of my back with how much I was sweating, but I endured it. Apparently there were no human dressmakers to help. Thea is here. I repeated those three words over and over again like a spell. Thea is here, Thea is here. She wouldn’t let anything happen. And maybe I wanted to prove Titus wrong. To prove myself wrong.

When Amalthea had proposed dress shopping… it wasn’t that I wanted for clothing by any stretch, but I hadn’t wanted to disappoint her. Friendship was a foreign thing for me. The closest I’d come was a relationship with my half-brother, but that had been secret.

“Maybe a jot lower,” Amalthea mused, and once again the shift was adjusted. “Sam, what do you think?”

I thought I’d rather skip whatever event this dress was intended for, but that would hurt Thea’s feelings. Instead I said, “I’ll defer to you.” Because I couldn’t tell the difference between this position and any of the past dozen.

The witch nodded.

A sharp pain hit my calf. “Ouch!”

“Oh, my lady, I’m… sorry…” The seamstress pinning my legs trailed off, seeming transfixed. She’d accidentally stuck me with a pin.

She was still, in the way only vampires could be, staring at the spot of blood that had spilled onto the fabric.

I was frozen like a rabbit that had realized it was all too close to a hungry kobold.

“Be more careful,” Amalthea snapped. Her tone was harsher than I’d ever heard, but already the tingle of magic lit around me, the slight pain disappearing. In her hand was a now-blank card that must have contained the healing magic. She’d activated it almost immediately.

“Oh, my lady, I am so, so sorry,” the vampire at my knees stammered. “It was an accident, I swear. Please don’t tell the king!”

Bertha pushed the girl away. “My sincere apologies, Lady Samara. I assure you, I do not tolerate this sloppiness in my shop. I’ll see that the girl is dealt with.”

I stiffened at the tone in the seamstress’s voice. “What do you mean by that?”

“A proper beating, I assure you. Something that will make an impression no matter the immortal healing. And of course, I’ll pull out her fangs.”

I stared at Bertha and her certainty faded a fraction. “I can pull the fangs out again if that’s not to your satisfaction. Or would you like to administer a beating of your own as well?”

For a moment, I was so angry I was struck still. Always with this brutal, barbaric form of justice. When the shop owner parted her lips again to add whatever else to the girl’s unending list of punishment, I found my voice.

“You won’t be doing any of that.”

The girl cringed.

“Of course, Lady Samara, I didn’t mean to imply I would take away this privilege from King Raphael. If he prefers to take his justice personally, I would never dream of interfering.”

Whatever the girl thought Raphael would do, it had her shaking. After what I’d seen in his court, I understood why. I’d never seen a vampire so afraid, not even Janessa when Raphael had ordered her lover’s death. I thought of them as fearsome, near all-powerful creatures.

But looking at her peering up at me with beseeching eyes, lip quivering, all I could think was that I had no doubt looked the same way at Nelson more times than I cared to remember.

“To be clear,” I said slowly, “in your view, justice for mistakenly pricking my skin with one of the several hundred pins currently wrapped around me warrants beating and mutilation.” Before I could be misinterpreted again, I added, “Or worse. To you, that’s fairness?”

Bertha clearly had no safe way to answer. She thought I wanted retribution, so she’d piled on as many horrors as she could manage. Telling me she wouldn’t do anything went against all she knew.

“Of course, I am responsible for my staff.” Her voice was considerably quieter now. “I will also submit myself to the will of the king. Even if he wishes to flay me—”

I winced because my back still bore the scars of those memories.

I cut her off: “None of that is going to happen. It was an accident. What’s your name?” I asked the girl.

“J-Josephine,” she whispered.

I nodded. “Josephine apologized. Amalthea healed me. That’s all there is to it. There will be no beating, no defanging, no firing, no flaying. Is that understood?” I wasn’t sure where this imperious tone had come from. Gods knew I’d never spoken for myself that way, but seeing Josephine… I straightened my spine as I stared at the shopkeeper.

“Of course,” the shopkeeper said with considerably less enthusiasm than what she’d used to describe the punishment.

I’d have been more skeptical, but vampires couldn’t lie.

“What are you all ogling at?” Amalthea snapped. I turned and saw every vampire was staring at me with that same stillness, the scent of my blood drawing their attention. I hadn’t noticed, being so focused on the girl. “It’s as though you ladies have never smelled blood before. Go to a blood den and stop acting like fools.”

The onlookers collectively turned away at Amalthea’s command.

I wanted to go home, but I had a point to prove. “Josephine, would you mind finishing pinning the hemline?”

Josephine’s head bobbed up and down with vampiric speed. “At once, my lady!”

As much as I wanted to leave, I wouldn’t let the shop owner blame Josephine for us leaving sooner than planned. I cast Amalthea a look to try to gauge what she thought of how I’d handled it, if I’d overstepped, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face.

“It will be magnificent,” the shopkeeper assured me when the draping was finished. I dipped my head in acknowledgment and finally stepped off the platform. Despite my brave front, I hadn’t wanted vampire fingers on my skin any longer. I went behind the curtain and pulled on my dress from before. When I returned, a trio of vampire nobles tittered on the edges, eyeing me.

I looked from them to Amalthea, who heaved a beleaguered sigh before slightly turning her body towards them while still maintaining eye contact with me. “Ladies, surely you have better things to do than blatantly gossip all day.”

“Perhaps we only wanted to get a glimpse at the fashion the king’s Chosen has selected,” one vampiress retorted.

“Perhaps,” Amalthea echoed.

Perhaps was an easy enough way around their inability to lie.

“I’m sure it’s nothing more interesting than any other ballgown,” I said, coming to Amalthea’s side. It was a little dismissive of Bertha, but I wasn’t exactly feeling charitable.

“Is that not the gown she will wear for the Tri-Lunar Eclipse?” the same vampire said. She responded to Thea, not me, however.

The term… I’d heard it before. At the first ball. The vampire that had clung a little too closely to Raphael had mentioned the same event. Amalthea cut the conversation off by hooking my arm with hers and leading us from the shop. Once we had gone half a block, I finally asked her for details.

“Why is everyone so focused on me attending the Tri-Lunar Eclipse?”

Thea wove us expertly through the crowded streets. It was the middle of the night, which was effectively midday for vampires. “Who is everyone? Those ninnies?”

Okay, everyone was an exaggeration. But I spoke to hardly any vampires, and twice now it had come up. “Them, others,” I said vaguely. “It seems important.”

“It is,” Thea admitted slowly, still shepherding me along. “It’s a rare event. Eclipses hold particular significance in vampire culture, and the tri-lunar one is rare enough it’s seen as quite the event. There’s a whole assortment of customs, speeches given, and so on. Honestly, I think the vampires just want something to make a fuss about given their overly long lives.”

It sounded like any other ball. But there was something a little too casual about her explanation. “That doesn’t explain why they’re so focused on me specifically,” I pressed.

Thea didn’t seem to want to answer based on the long pause before she spoke again. “As I said, there are customs. And one of them revolves around the king drinking from his Chosen. There’s a whole lot to do with the symbol of power, prosperity, and on and on.”

I stopped in the middle of the street, feet suddenly rooted in the spot. Thea halted abruptly with me since we still had our arms linked. “Raphael intends to drink from me? At this ceremony?”

“It is the custom,” Amalthea said, voice carefully neutral. “Besides, being bitten isn’t unpleasant, is it?”

I flushed. Worse than that, it was the opposite. “Raphael never said anything about this when he decided to claim me as his Chosen.” He’d told me he wouldn’t drink from me. But now he’d put me in a position where he had to. “If those are the terms, he should just unclaim me.”

Amalthea rolled her eye. “Samara, I promise you wouldn’t find that status preferable in the slightest.”

I frowned. “Why not? You aren’t his Chosen or anything and no one bites you.”

The oracle barked a laugh and tried to tug me forward. “Oh, there are a couple reasons for that, but that’s a conversation for another time. Suffice it to say, you will remain Raphael’s Chosen. He’s not wrong that it’s the best way to keep you safe. There’s little to be done to sway the king from any course of action that he believes is done for your protection.”

“I don’t want him to drink from me. I won’t let him.”

“You will.”

I flinched at the certainty in her tone. “I won’t.”

Amalthea faced me, but her gaze went foggy as if she wasn’t really aware of her surroundings. “Samara, I see his fangs at your bare throat in the gown that was pinned today. The sky is lit above from starlight where you’ve bent your neck for him. He will take from you.” She blinked and gave me an apologetic smile. “I don’t like to do that, but sometimes there’s comfort in knowing what’s coming to pass.”

I swallowed, my throat tight. So I was to accept it was a forgone conclusion?

“What about another donor? Couldn’t he take from them?” I was desperate.

She shook her head and gave me a final, insistent pull. I no longer had the energy to force us to stay. “I told you what I saw, and I’m never wrong. That’s one reason my kind is so hated.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said quickly. The opposite. Thea hadn’t just looked after my safety, but she’d worked hard to be my friend even though I was only here temporarily.

Even though I was going to betray all of them when I took the grimoire to the necromancer.

Thea gave me a sad smile, her remaining eye softening with sympathy. “If he took from another, it would be a grave insult, hurt your standing here permanently—Raphael doesn’t drink from living donors anyway, so it’s you or no one.”

Was it really such a forgone conclusion? Raphael hadn’t said a word. Did he expect to break his vows so easily?

“If I wasn’t here, then he would have to drink from another,” I protested.

“Sam.” I hadn’t heard Amalthea’s voice so soft. “Raphael does not tolerate the bonds he forms with those he drinks from. The only time he drinks from a human is at the eclipse.”

“So he can just not bond with them like in the past,” I insisted.

She shook her head. “No, Sam. If he drinks another human, he makes sure there’s no bond. He drains them completely.”

The implication of her words hit me like a blow. Part of me wanted to lower my mental shields and push my displeasure towards him. Instead, I turned it inward, walking with Amalthea without really being there. Maybe Titus was right. I’d lived my entire life knowing vampires couldn’t be trusted. Any so-called status I had here hinged on letting Raphael do anything he wanted to me, apparently.

I didn’t belong here.

“He didn’t tell me any of this.” It hurt, like a twisted knife.

Amalthea increased our pace. “Perhaps he would have if you were not avoiding him.” There was the barest note of something in her voice. Censure?

“I’m not avoiding him,” I lied, even as I admitted to myself she might have had a point. Ever since he found me in the donor den that night, I’d taken care to avoid encountering Raphael. I took meals in my room, and insisted on having Amalthea walk me back to my rooms.

My cheeks heated at the memory of the night, part blush and part fury. I refused to meet the sidelong glance she cast my way. I wasn’t fooling either of us, but unless her oracle vision had shown her what happened between the vampire king and me, I wasn’t saying a word.

Amalthea seemed inclined to say more, but something caught her attention. She startled and tried to usher me down an alleyway.

“This is a better path,” she said urgently.

I frowned. “But we’re nearly back—”

My words broke off as I saw what Amalthea had tried to spare me. A small cluster of Damerel’s denizens lingered around a corner, a few pinching noses. Two legs were splayed out on the ground, visible.

I was already moving, Amalthea’s urging to not look barely registered as I walked closer.

There, on the sidewalk, half in an alley, half out, was the mangled body of a girl. Her throat had been torn wide open, her head barely hanging on by the slightest tendon. Her entire front was painted red with blood, the scraps of fabric that had once been a sheer dress ripped to shreds.

I’d seen this girl. The one who’d been weak in bed at the donor den.

She was dead. A vampire had done this.

I’d seen this before.

Blood and blood and blood. A woman’s flesh, torn apart. An arm flung to one edge of the arena, the arterial blood cascading through the air. The cries for mercy cut off as her corpse is shredded by the vampire’s ruthless fangs. He’s not biting her, he’s mauling her. The once fine brocade of her gown is soaked through. When he drains her neck, he moves to other arteries, trying to pull more from her body. He rips apart her limbs like he’s trying to crack open her body for any spare drop of blood. When he’s done, my world has ended. There is no more of the woman who birthed me, who raised me. Just pieces of skin scattered in all corners of the arena. The others are cheering. All I can do is stare.

I keep staring. The two scenes overlapped in my mind. She’s dead because of me. The accusation echoed through me. I wasn’t even sure which woman I mean. Both? If I had told Raphael what I had seen more precisely, would he have been able to make sure she was safe?

Or was this every human’s fate at the hands of vampires?

Dead. Not just dead, but destroyed. Devoured.

For what? For some animal’s snack?

Her sightless eyes met mine, accusing.

I have to get the necromancer the grimoire.

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