Page 102 of Mortal Blood
“Are you ready?” he asked, getting to his feet.
Never.
“Yes,” I whispered, and he pulled me against him, wrapping his arms around me.
“You’ve got this, princess,” he murmured into my hair as I inhaled the scent of him. “And I’ll be waiting for you when you’re done.”
“You better be in your shifting assessment when I’m done,” I warned him, arching a brow. A shifting assessment, that, by some unusual stroke of luck, the council had determined I didn’t have to take. Dhampirs couldn’t shift, and I was registered as a dhampir right now, which meant I couldn’t be assessed as anything else—much as I was sure Astor was trying her damnedest to change that. Though honestly, I’d rather be taking a shifting assessment with Cole than this feeding control assessment. Shifting I was actually capable of. Kinda.
“Fine. After that. And you can tell me how stunned they all look when you breeze through their test.”
I snorted. “Right. I’ll tell you all about the flying pigs at the same time.”
Part of me wished I had longer—I’d appealed to Astor but she was adamant I needed to take the assessment by the end of theacademic year—but the rest of me would just be glad to have it over with, one way or the other.
I kissed Cole goodbye and managed to extract myself from the room before either of us got too distracted—no easy task—then headed for the feeding den where I knew Demir would be waiting—along with every vamp in my year. It was hard to say which of them was rooting for me to fail more, but fuck all of them. I was going to give it my best shot. At least Demir wouldn’t let me kill anyone—out of concern for the effort it would take to replace the unfortunate human more than anything else, but I’d take it. The worst I could do today was completely humiliate myself.
With that cheerful thought rattling around inside my head, I lifted my chin and strode through the double doors of the feeding den. It looked like the rest of my year was already here—guess Cole and I had gotten a little more distracted than I thought—and snickers followed me as I made my way across the room to my usual spot by the far wall.
“Good of you to join us, Ms. Ellis,” Demir said, his lip curling in a sneer as he looked me up and down. “And there I was thinking that you’d do us all the decency of failing to show and saving us squandering our time on you.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I said, holding his eye.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure we won’t be disappointed for long. After all, I’ve been overseeing your training, and I’m certain you haven’t been feeding elsewhere, seeing as it’s forbidden toborrowhumans from this den for the purpose of feeding.” His eyes glittered coldly. “They’re not library books, after all.”
A few cold laughs echoed through the room, but my heart thudded painfully. He knew. He knew about my private sessionswith Ling and Cole andSamin the library. That alone was enough to land me in some serious trouble.
“Still, it’s important to make allowances for lesser species,” he said, with one last malicious smirk before turning to his audience at large. “Domina Astor did so by allowing the abomination until the end of this year to pass this most basic of assessments that all of you passed within months of arrival, so we must follow our esteemed leader in her clemency. So we will not deny the dhampir her opportunity to…dazzle us with her supremacy.”
My stomach turned over. There was no way I could do this, and he was going to let everyone watch while I made a complete idiot of myself. I glanced hopefully down at my feet, but nope, the floor was not making any move to helpfully swallow me.
Guess this was Demir’s revenge for me sidestepping his rules. And, probably, for interfering with the humans and getting them better living conditions. Whatever. It was worth it. And it wasn’t like these people could hate me any more than they already did. There wasliterallynothing I could do to make myself lower in their eyes.
It should have been a liberating thought. Maybe it would have been, if I hadn’t lifted my eyes at that exact moment to see Thaden’s heated stare boring into me from across the room. My heartrate spiked and my cheeks flushed, and a flash of heat pooled in my core as I recalled the things he’d done to me.
Dammit! How could he still have this effect on my stupid, traitorous body? He treated me like shit, no, worse, he treated me like I was invisible, even when he was feeding from me.Howcould my body still harbor that kind of thought about him? How couldI? Ugh. Stupid body.
I forced my gaze away from Thaden, skin still tingling with heat, and focused on Demir—which was enough to drive the lingering trace of arousal far,faraway. Good. I needed to focus, not to be thinking about Prince Asshole Thaden.
Demir held out a sheet of paper to the nearest student, Lucia.
“Fetch these humans for today’s feeding assessments,” he ordered.
“Yes, Instructor,” Lucia said, and hurried off, list in hand, to the small, plain door that led to the human quarters. She didn’t cross the threshold—vamps didn’t sully themselves by mixing with their food source, or some such elitist shit—but knocked once and thrust the sheet at the person who answered.
A moment later—I might have managed to improve their living conditions, but they were still conditioned to obey, and quickly—a dozen humans stepped through into the feeding den. I saw a few faces I recognized…Nikki, Celeste…and Sam.
I felt a rush of hope at the familiar face, because maybe—just maybe—I had a shot at getting through this after all. Because I’d done this before, and okay, maybe I hadn’t been able to stop without Ling’s help, but Ihadstopped. And Sam would do everything he could to help. Just knowing it was him would help push back the bloodlust enough to give me a shot.
Demir’s malicious smile made my heart sink even before he spoke. “Number 22-017, come forward. You’re the dhampir’s test subject for her assessment.”
Numbers. Right. Because Demir would never lower himself to acknowledge the humans had names, far less actually take the trouble to learn them. And then a blonde woman bowed her head respectfully to Demir.
Celeste. One of the few humans here who might actually hate me more than the vamps did. Just great.
She shot me a scornful look, lip curling, as she stepped forward to the stool Demir had indicated. My palms grew clammy. Of all the humans here, she was guaranteed to make this difficult for me.
I moved to stand before her, trying to quiet my nerves. I could do this. I had to do this. Because my future didn’t depend on it—but Cole’s did.
