Page 13 of What Fools These Immortals Be
“What?” I say. “You can’t talk about it?”
He doesn’t answer. Merely looks at me, grey eyes betraying nothing.
I wave him off and shake my head. “I’ll talk to Sam all the same,” I say to Afsaneh. “Whatever the vampire fed on, we don’t need the risk. Make sure all your vampires know not to feed outside of authorised donors or blood.”
“Of course, crai. Do you need anything else?”
“Not tonight.”
She looks at me for a long moment. “I mean it, Njáll. I know things will be easier once we have a new chieftain, but even then… I can take on more work. I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“I know you have.” I fiddle with my glass. It’s still mostly full. “Thank you, Afsaneh. I’ll let you know if there’s anything where I require your help.”
I mostly mean it. She nods—to me and Maurice both—before she crosses the room and lets herself out.
Maurice drops back onto the sofa, this time lying lengthways. He crosses one ankle over the other, his boots heavy and black against the burgundy of the upholstery. “I thought they might never leave,” he says.
I clench my jaw. “Are you going to share your suspicions about what the vampire fed on?”
His eyes meet mine, and he smirks in a way that immediately irritates me. “Are you going to share why you’re trying not to feed?” His gaze falls pointedly to the glass in my hand.
I bring the glass to my lips and knock back the rest of the blood in one go, fighting a grimace. Maurice holds my gaze the whole while and doesn’t look as though he has lost.
No, there’s a gleam of triumph in his eyes.
“No,” I say.
“Then you’ve got your answer, crai, haven’t you?”
Chapter Five
Maurice
Thatvampirethechieftain,Briar, mentioned…
I need to find out more about just what she encountered.
The odds of the vampire having drunk from a mage are low. I was up in the Highlands during the mage wars, that being more a matter for the Guardians to handle, but news of it reached us all. Family against family, and for what? For one mage to try and seize power. For a high fae to meddle where he did not belong.
A mage would have little to gain from being fed on. And their blood affects vampires, being fae-blessed as it is, but it wears off fairly quickly. All it would achieve would be to expose them, and why would any surviving mage want that?
But with all the fae activity we’ve seen recently… The chances of a vampire accidentally feeding from one of them seem more likely, at least to me. They’re mischievous by nature, and itwould amuse them. Expose them too, but not all are shrewd enough to care.
And if they figure out they can get away with it, then that only heightens the danger for these vampires.
I trail Njáll around for the rest of the night—much to his chagrin—and then, once he tells me tersely he is going to spend the final few hours in his rooms, I seek out someone else.
The vampires are suspicious of me, but the donors are easier to befriend. They’re more used to being around the unknown; they’re living with vampires, after all.
Bel is just where I expect to find him. This clan house has a huge library, and I found Bel sitting in one of the comfortable armchairs on my first night here. After the party, in fact, which he did not attend.
He glances up when I walk in but otherwise does not react. There are other people in here—other donors, other vampires, and all eye me warily, attuned to my every movement.
Several leave when I take a seat. Bel hums and turns a page of his book.
He’s in his late forties, to my eyes, grey streaks in his dark hair. His eyes are dark, too, and always moving, always finding something to focus on.
He is also far more level-headed than I ever was at his age—though at his age, I think I was going through the first few decades of my vampire transformation and therefore was full of bloodlust.
