Page 19 of Mortal Blood
I swallowed hard and tried to blink away the heat behind my eyes. Like I cared what any of them thought of me. I hated them. I hated every last vampire in this whole place, and they could all burn for all I cared. I’d light the damn match if I had the chance.
“What else?”
My mouth almost popped open. There was more? Of course there was more. Arrogant fangs.
“They don’t have our immortality.”
“True,” Demir agreed. “If we wait long enough, our little problem will take care of itself.”
“How long do they live?” a sneering guy with amused eyes asked.
“Excellent question, Sebastian,” Demir said. “There are few documented cases of these creatures dying natural deaths—one doesn’t keep records of vermin, after all—but estimates assume just a couple of hundred years.”
A couple of hundred years? My eyes widened, and then slid shut. A couple of hundred years of being treated likevermin.I was worse than a human, as far as they were concerned. At least a human had a purpose, served a function. I was…what had Demir said? Pointless.
“Oh, it would seem we’re boring the dhampir. Can’t have that.”
A few chuckles sounded and I forced my eyes back open just as Demir spoke in my ear, making me jump.
“Don’t worry, Ms. Ellis, I’m sure you’ll find this lesson very…enlightening.” He lifted his chin and raised his voice to address one of the other students.
“Sebastian, go and fetch some humans for anyone who needs one. I want to ensure everyone is well fed before we move on to the next part of the lesson. After all, we wouldn’t want to have any mishaps with our little dhampir.”
Somehow, I didn’t think anyone would be all that cut up if there happened to be anymishapsinvolving me, but the student hurried off to the plain wooden door set into one wall of the otherwise opulent room. I’d been through that door exactly one time—it led to the human quarters, and the vamps guarded their humans jealously. It was only a deal I’d struck with Thade’s twin sister, Thessalia, that had allowed me in there, and there’d been enough resentment amongst the vampire faction about that.
Sebastian tapped once on the door and it opened immediately, the pale figure in the doorway nodding quickly in response to whatever he said. A moment later, a dozen humans hurried through, as though they’d been standing around waiting for the summons—which they probably had. That was essentially their life here, waiting at the beck and call of the vampires who fed on them. I’d negotiated for better living conditions for them, but it didn’t change the reality of their situation. They’d each struck a deal, and they were here until they worked off their debt. Some of them actually seemed to enjoy being here—and more power to them, I guess—but the rest…well, I didn’t get the sense whoever recruited them had been all that transparent about the cost when they’d preyed on their desperation.
The humans stepped into the den with their heads bowed and their eyes carefully averted, and I doubted whether any of the vampires noticed—or cared about—the resentful stiffness inthe posture of one guy. Sam. I’d spoken with him last year, and done what I could to lessen his sentence here. But I doubt that deal still stood, with the revelation about my heritage. I quashed my own resentment before it could show on my face. Demir was still lurking nearby, no doubt watching my every movement and reaction. I wasn’t about to give him any more sticks to beat me with. I was pretty sure he had plenty, and I was feeling black and blue already.
As if sensing my attention from across the room, Sam lifted his head a fraction and glanced my way. Our eyes met and his widened before he wrenched them away and quickly ducked his chin again. A female vamp—Lucia—snapped her fingers at him and his shoulders grew even tighter before he seemed to visibly make an effort to force the tension from them, and crossed to her. She muttered something in his ear that made one of his shoulders twitch, then he dropped onto his knees and lifted a hand, presenting his wrist to her.
She took hold of his arm without any gentleness and lifted it to her mouth. Her lips peeled back and my eyes jerked away from the macabre scene. Despite how many times I’d been fed on unwillingly myself—or maybe because of it— I couldn’t watch her draining his blood, couldn’t watch his resentful submission to her as she took what was rightfully his.
“Problem with something you see?” Demir asked in a callously amused voice beside me.
“No, sir,” I said, keeping my voice neutral through sheer determination alone. “I was just wondering if there was any point to this little display of yours.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” he said, his mouth pinched in disdain. “The students have their needs, and this little ‘display’, as you call it, is for the sole purpose of ensuring there areno lapses in control that might lead to one of them fouling themselves with your putrid blood.”
Right. Of course. My putrid blood. I couldn’t win.
“What do you want from me?” I demanded, a note of despair working its way into my voice.
He sneered. “What I want is for the council to remove the stain that is your life from the face of the earth, preferably someplace far from here, so I never had to lay eyes on your abhorrent face again.”
“Why? I haven’t done anything to you, and I haven’t done anything to them.”
“Your very existence flies in the face of everything I stand for. You should not exist, and that the council has seen fit to send you here, and the Domina insist you attend lessons with me as though you were a real vampire, is offensive to me. Your very presence is an insult.”
“Well,” I retorted, trying to keep the tremor from my voice, “being here isn’t exactly a barrel of laughs for me, either. In fact, this is about the last place on earth I want to be, and if I could be anywhere else, I would. But apparently I’m stuck here, and we’re both going to have to get used to that fact.”
“You will watch your mouth, dhampir, and pay me the respect I’m due.”
“Or what?” Getting into a verbal war with a several hundred year old vampire who pretty much held the power of life and death over me wasn’t exactly my smartest move, but right now I was beyond caring. And it seemed to me like there wasn’t much else he could do to make my life worse than it already was—because it seemed like he’d been trying pretty damn hard for thelast half hour.
“Don’t think I don’t know that you are the one who’s been causing disruption in the living conditions of my humans,” he said, his voice dangerously low as his eyes pinned me in place.
“Yourhumans?” I spat incredulously.
