Page 48 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

His creator.

The words dropped over me like a premonition, making the skin of my neck crawl. “I thought it was forbidden.”

“It is. Tieran is an exception.”

“How so?”

“Roan and Tieran got married three years ago, while Tieran was still a human. He was a physician, and at the time he was treating a patient with a rare lung disease. It proved infectious.”

I cupped my mouth, stifling a horrified gasp.

“Tieran was dying, and he was dying horribly. So he asked Roan to turn him.”

“And why didn’t he?”

Hector’s gaze fell away from mine. “He loves him. Who would condemn someone they love to this life?”

“Hector,” I sighed, my heart sinking. “You’re not damned.”

“Of course I am,” he said very quietly. “We’re all born godless and cursed. That is the substance of our condition. But for the turned ones, it’s even worse. The balance between man and creature is more unstable. So Roan refused him, and Tieran,desperate to stay by his husband’s side, turned to Camilla for help.”

“And Esperida allowed her to turn him?” I asked, unable to hide the accusation in my voice.

“Mother only had one weakness,” whispered Hector.

“Love,” I realized.

“Love,” he echoed. “Tieran was willing to do anything to stay by Roan’s side. Even curse himself. Mother could not find it in her heart to refuse him.”

“But why is Camilla still doing this to him?”

“It is rare, but sometimes turned vampires become addicted to their creators’ venom. Tieran is in constant pain. Her bite is the only thing that soothes him. Of course, rehabilitation is still possible, but Camilla has made sure Tieran needs her more than he needs his next breath. She’s fixated on vampire blood, and no one is going to be more willing to indulge her obsession than her own turned one.”

I recalled the look on Tieran’s face when Camilla sunk her fangs into him, pleasure and agony strung together. No wonder Roan looked at Camilla with such blatant hate in his eyes. Not only had she turned his husband into a vampire, but she had also turned him into an addict.

“Why did Roan drink from him too?” I persisted, hopelessly trying to understand things that seemed to hover just beyond my reach.

Hector shrugged. “I’m sure Tieran drinks from Roan as well. It’s very common between vampire partners.”

My face warmed as I imagined Hector with some faceless woman in his arms, drinking from her neck in a blissful stupor. Reflexively, I traced my fingers over the side of my throat. “If you bite me, will I become addicted to the venom?”

He smiled a little at my curiosity. “There are humans who actively seek out the bite, but research has proven this is dueto an addiction to adrenaline rather than the venom itself, considering how unstable vampire urges can be. Actually, I attended a lecture on this while I was visiting Kartha.” His tiny smile turned tender, his eyes as soft as dappled light. “I was astonished by how many people were there, and I ended up writing to my parents about it. I’m glad I got to tell them one last time how proud I was to be their son. They planted this seed, and now the roots of knowledge are spreading all across the Realm. ”

“There is so much I don’t know about you,” I murmured, hugging my knees to my chest.

He didn’t pretend it wasn’t true. “You were always here, but you were never really…”

“A part of your world.”

For a moment he was silent, pensive. “Does it disgust you? My world?”

He asked it so gently, with such profound understanding in his voice, that I could not believe I’d spent the past four years thinking he hated me. I could tell Hector the cruelest things, and he still wouldn’t know how to hate me.

“Sometimes,” I answered truthfully.

“Does it scare you?”

It did. I couldn’t help it. Humans were designed to be afraid of the things they didn’t understand. But perhaps we were also designed to overcome them. “Tell me,” I prodded, staring at his parted lips, his fangs that gleamed pure white in the daylight. “What is it really like? Being a vampire, I mean.”

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