Page 12 of House of Crimson Hearts
“Why? The only time Mother summons us to a dinner like this is when she’s planning war games, imposing another rule or regulation on us or there’s bad news.”
“Well, if you played by her rules, perhaps we would need fewer dinners,” she snaps.
And there is the truth of it. This is why she’s Mother’s favourite, because despite all her strength, she doesn’t have an original thought or backbone in sight. Instead, she placates our mother by being her lapdog. It’s pathetic.
I can’t even bring myself to respond. I hand the reins to a stable boy as a butler opens the enormous arched oak doors and we enter. Our feet clack against the cold stone slabs as we make our way through the hallways. The walls are lined with a timeline of art through the ages. Every style from the last thousand years. A handful of the paintings are portraits, some of Cordelia, some of my siblings, two of them all—none of me.
Dahlia catches me looking at the portraits, the many that hang of her and Mother and our other siblings.
“When are you going to get over it? You didn’tactuallykill his daughter.”
I ignore her. She wasn’t even alive to remember the pain.
When I was a child and Mother was busy taking over the city, she would take me on her work trips. She would meet and greet the city’s people. One day I was playing with another little girl while Mother mingled with the city’s people.
Two days later, we found the man defacing the first portrait we’d had of us together. Mother, furious, demanded to know the problem.
His daughter had died the same night she’d played with me. We knew so much less about the biology of our kind back then. We didn’t have a way to prove that I hadn’t given her some disease or illness.
The man returned with his friends, they tried to take me, steal me away to hurt me. Foolish really, they didn’t understand what I was, how strong I was.
Mother started it. As is the way of her cruelty, she wouldn’t stand for their attack. She sank her fangs into one of the men, draining him where he stood. Being the naive child I was, I joined in. And so, at the end of the slaughter, an eight-year-old stood in the midst of a circle of bodies at her feet. Severed limbs in her hands, blood streaking her dress and cheeks.
Cordelia made sure the dead girl’s father lived to tell the tale. Her warning to the city. Only her cruelty twisted the message.
It became a myth.
I became a monster.
And the city never forgave me. Now, I don’t allow portraits of myself. Only two artists have tried, both human and so had to have an extensive preparation period to even be comfortable in the same room as me. Both made me look like a monstrous demon. It didn’t happen again.
Dahlia leads me to the grand dining room. Mother is already sitting on her elaborate throne at the end. She stands and opens her arms.
We have an uneasy sort of relationship. As her adopted daughter, she’s always had some level of power and command over me. Something that, as I matured, didn’t sit well. I am one of the original three. By rights, I am her equal. Some years ago, I broke away and carved out my own territory and dominion on the other side of the city.
“Sister,” Gabriel says as I squeeze his shoulder and walk past. He’s leant back, his long, lithe legs kicked up on the table, a book in each hand as he speed reads across both of them.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Gabriel without reading material in his hands. The faded red leather of the tomes’ covers matches the intense rouge of his suit—something else I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without.
Dahlia takes her seat on one side of Mother. I take the same seat on the opposite side. Xavier is already sitting in the chair to my left.
Xavier leans in, whispers in my ear, “Good evening, Favourite.”
I smile and kiss his cheek.
Sadie, it seems, is late as always.
A slew of butlers sweep in, depositing trays of bloodied steaks and goblets of warm blood.
“Honestly, Mother, I don’t know why you persist in this charade of dinner. You know we’d all be happier with donors at our feet.” Dahlia grimaces as a butler deposits the rawest steak I’ve seen on her plate. She nudges it away, her lips pinching. Xavier tucks in immediately. Gabriel shoves his plate away but pours himself a goblet of blood-wine and passes the decanter across the table to me, which I gladly take.
I pour a goblet and drink several sips. Then, reluctantly, I pick up my knife and fork and cut the thinnest sliver of steak. I chew and swallow, wishing it were bloodier and warmer.
Cordelia glares at Dahlia. “We will have dinner like a civilised family.” Mother is in a sweeping gown this evening, her hair swept into an up-do, the only hint of her age a silver streak running through one side of her parting.
“I’d hardly call us civilised,” Xavier says, chewing his steak and picking up his goblet. He takes a huge gulp of blood-wine. “Or did you forget the last dinner we tried?”
My mouth quirks. He’s talking about the dinner massacre of six months ago. Things got… out of hand. Mother had arranged for several house donors to attend. One of us, I forget who, though I suspect it was Dahlia, lost control, and so ensued a blood frenzy.
