Until then… I’d survive.
The door opened, a familiar security detail entering my house.
“Goodbye, Ethan.” Padding barefoot over cold marble floors, I made my way through the beautiful penthouse my father made me live in, and left Ethan to Malcom’s daylight team.
It took twice as many hours to apply my makeup, my cheeks embarrassingly wet.
Chapter Seven
Sundays, from sundown to sunup, belonged to the Cathedral. Ethan had always believed I’d attended evening Mass, that I escorted my infirm, eccentric father to take the Eucharist and drink the blood of Christ. The boy had found it equally hilarious and appalling that I kept to my family obligations in such a way.
I, the sexual deviant and sinner.
And never questioned why he wasn’t invited.
The man would joke that he’d rather be beaten within an inch of his life than attend church—that even his senator uncle had never made such demands.
More than once I’d been beaten within an inch of my life. So faithfully, I arrived on time to my father’s seat of power and left thoughts, regrets, agitations, and dissatisfaction at the door.
No savior carried the weight of my sins here.
There was no worship on site, not of God anyway. A great deal of sacrilege took place in its stead.
Ethan would not have survived five minutes under these ancient, hidden spires. Buried at the blackened heart of the city, an entire block wasn’t what it appeared. Innocuous row houses, well-kept and quiet. Picket fences and garden pots. Cars parked on the street.
No human soul would be the wiser of just what haunted the shadows here… just what was tucked behind those houses.
I preferred to access the hidden Cathedral through a less conspicuous entrance than a magicked portal into the warded entrance hall. A cab down tree-lined streets, a regular key on a Tiffany’s keychain, a modestly decorated façade of a foyer, and a contract bound, recently changed servant waiting with modernity’s tablet in hand to greet those granted access through my favored private entrance.
Heels clicking over waxed wood floors, I stripped off my coat, handing it to an unfamiliar fresh-turned, without breaking stride.
Fumbling fox fur and hand-held device, a pretty brunette whom I suspected had been chosen for her particularly stunning eyes, made a noise of impatience at my rudeness.
I never came home to make friends with new and very expendable servants. And hungry, I was in no mood to try as I might have decades before. “Is there anyone set for execution? If so, send them to me.”
“Excuse me?”
Blowing over her non-question, I tried to shake off the itchy feeling this place pressed upon me. Impatient, I snapped. “The conservatory. Send me something to eat.”
Having made my way through the townhouse, I reached the end of what hid my father’s fortress from a city of cattle. Hand to a spike-riddled door more ancient than this country, I pushed the weight no human might shift alone. Hinges groaned, and candlelight waited.
We did things the old way here.
Well, it might better serve to say we blended some human novelties with beeswax, scented lamp oil, slavery, and the distant sounds of screams.
Many of those echoing shouts were of ecstasy. Not all though.
In my father’s expansive region, it wasn’t considered tasteless to fuck what you fed from. After all, how else was his flock to make new little vampires with pretty eyes and bad manners? It was best to woo them first. Those always made the best contract servants. Forced changes rarely ended well. More to the point, if you’re signing away your life to practical slavery for three hundred years, it was best to at least get an orgasm out of it.
Besides, sexual procreation was difficult, and wars that ate up fresh meat were always fought between ancient rivals and their flocks.
This time of dusk, few lurked around the Cathedral halls, the ritual of preparation to be seen so deeply ingrained in many of those who ranked highest here, that it might as well have been the court of Versailles. Like the others of my station, I too had spent an inordinate amount of time dressing.
I had to be perfect.
My father expected it.
A princess was a reflection on her king, wasn’t she?
Even an outraged one.
Immaculate, coiffed, makeup flawless, and a new a glittering reminder that I’d get my Ethan back clinging around my throat, I looked the part. More care was taken with the choice of sapphire blue cocktail dress than I might spend on the red carpet for the Met’s outrageously ostentatious annual costume gala.
Hair gathered back from my forehead, sleek and long, it hung from a ponytail so my throat might be bare. A subtle fuck you to my father’s people—vampires who went to outrageous lengths to keep their weak points concealed with jewelry, collars, ruffs, turtlenecks.
Yes, I was physically weaker than even the freshly-turned, pretty-eyed female who still stalked behind me asking questions I ignored. Yes, I feed from immortals who could snap me in half on a whim. But none would ever dare.