“It’s not selfish,” Draven replied stubbornly as he settled himself deeper into the bed. “It’s for the good of the coven. For the good of our kind. For…” He trailed off, and I knew it wasn’t because he was asleep. For Bran, I filled in, swallowing hard so the words didn’t pass my lips.
“True as that may be, it also means we’ve put other business aside. We’ve risked ourselves and others trying to get answers,” I reminded him, unwilling to let him paint our quest as something pure and selfless. The lives we had lost in this pursuit were marked on my soul, and they wouldn’t be the only ones by the time we were done. It didn’t matter that lives might be saved if we succeeded. The blood in the cabinet behind me was proof enough of that. We were blood witches, not white witches—a species that was basically extinct at this point. Pain and blood were a necessity for the work we did, and nothing would erase that. Our magic was twisted. Dark. Seductive. Even thinking it had the lightning rippling under my skin, making me shiver at the pleasure it left in its wake. White magic never felt like this, never made me feel this alive. “When we go back tomorrow, you’ll need to watch yourself. Especially if we run into anyone besides Elsie. She seems pretty easygoing for a vampire, and I think after biting you once or twice she’ll get used to you. The others, not so much.”
“Yeah.” The response was grudging, but I could hear the honesty in it. “I’ll try not to antagonize her, but I can’t promise anything. It’s hard with them and you know it.” Unfortunately, I did. We had every reason to turn our noses up at the vampires, to hold onto the grudges that fueled us.
“Try,” I growled at him. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but you have to try.” For me. For our coven. For our purpose. I didn’t even need to say the words for him to understand.
“She’s just so obnoxious. I want to see what she looks like when she bleeds.” A yawn broke through his words and I chuckled.
“I’m assuming she thinks the same of you. Sleep, brother. Tomorrow will be a long day of research.” He let out a noise of agreement before murmuring the spell that would seal his wound and clean the blood from the room. I settled deeper into my bed, closing my eyes as I attempted to sleep. Elsie danced through my mind and I sighed, tugging the blankets up higher. Well, if I had to dream about a vampire, at least it would be one like her.
Chapter Four
Sebastian
I took the tight, spiraling stone stairs from the servants’ quarters two at a time as I responded to Elsie’s bell. As soon as the other servants had seen my claiming band, word had spread that if her bell sounded, any and all servants would notify me so I could respond. I had barely slept through the night, though I couldn’t blame the chill of my cell-like room or the thin slab of foam that acted as my mattress. Thoughts of Elsie—my mistress—had dominated my mind, refusing to give me the peace of sleep.
I had known before I arrived at the citadel that becoming a pet, or even a meal, was a possibility, but I had managed to avoid either fate in the last three years of my service. Part of that was surely luck, but another part had been my own caution. Most of the servants were divided into two categories—worshippers or cowering mice—and those were the responses that drew attention from the vampires. Most pet owners craved those reactions, whether the unflagging loyalty and flattery of a worshipper or the pain and fear that radiated from the flinching staff members. My refusal to be either drew more attention from the other servants than it did from the vampires who roamed around us. To them, I was simply something to be forgotten until I was needed or until they were hungry, and I was very good at slipping away from the hungry ones.
For most vampires, they began to show signs of their hunger before they lashed out, and as long as I paid attention, constantly on guard for any of the signs, I was able to depart unnoticed, while a more foolish servant ended up becoming the meal. But Elsie, she had seen me. Those blue eyes of hers had seen straight through me, through the shields of professionalism I hid behind. Yet instead of trying to make me a meal, she had claimed me as her own. Not just because of my blood, but because she had wanted me for my mind, and I wasn’t sure how to reconcile that.
I had expected her to drain me immediately, or at least to order me into bed with her. If I was being honest with myself, I wouldn’t have been opposed to sharing her bed. She had the kind of curves that could make a man forget his own name, and her thick, blonde curls would be perfect for a man to dig his hands into as he devoured those lush lips. My body didn’t care that she was a vampire, that she had declared ownership of me. If anything, my body was thrilled with that idea if the steel rod I was sporting was any indication. I should be horrified—I was horrified—at being owned, but I was intrigued as well. Intrigued by this vampire who didn’t act like a vampire, who looked more like one of my mother’s antique porcelain dolls than the monster that was hiding inside her.
I knocked lightly on the door to her room, waiting for her to call out before I pushed the door open. Surprise had me blinking, though I swallowed the confused sound before it slipped past my lips. I had expected to see her still in bed, waiting for me to dress her the way most of the pampered leeches here behaved. Instead, she was already garbed, the sapphire silk wrap dress draping across her curves in a way that drew the eyes while exposing nothing. Her white-blonde curls tumbled over her shoulder, and her brow was scrunched in concentration as she made a note on the paper in front of her before she turned to look at me.
“Ah, Sebastian. Good. Come in.” She waved me forward as the door clicked quietly closed behind me.
“You called for me, mistress?” I forced the words from my lips as I bowed my head, looking up at her through my lashes. There was no question as to why she called me—even from here I could see the blatant hunger on her face, the way her pupils had dilated when I stepped into the room, and the pallor of her cheeks where they had been rosy before I left her last night.
I turned my attention to the books, resisting the urge to fidget as she studied me. Part of me had hoped that after she had questioned me yesterday she truly would use me for research purposes. Reading and writing weren’t opportunities I frequently had, and those occasions had dwindled even further since my time here in the citadel. The books were my drug of choice, an addiction that, if left unchecked, was something as compulsive as the witches’ use of magic. Books were a refuge, an unchecked paradise in this war-stricken world. It didn’t matter the subject—the simple ability to lose myself in the written world, to soak up facts or, far more rarely, to inject myself into the life of someone else, someone whose worries were solvable within the sweetly scented pages—I would read it all.
“You came quickly. A good skill.” I could hear the dark amusement in her tone and fought the urge to bite my tongue. I had learned quickly that habit drew more vampires to me than it shooed away. In this world, you swallowed your words, you didn’t bite them off, unless you were willing to have someone take a bite of you in return.
“As my mistress demands,” I murmured, bowing slightly. Her laugh was light, but there was a strain in her voice that was unmistakable.