When Damien’s eyes opened onto the darkened room later, he had no sense of how much time had passed. He lay on Rapture’s bed, still fully clothed, but drained in a different way. He’d let her feed off him in the past, little nips here and there when they’d come to some agreement, and then when he was really desperate, deeper drinks. Those had been low points, disgustingly vulnerable both before and even worse after, but she and her kin had always proved trustworthy enough, not attacking him when he was weak. Their laws didn’t exactly protect blood mages, but it would be stupid to kill him off, he reckoned: once he was gone, the well would be dry.
A new, corked bottle of deep crimson was sitting beside Rapture’s carafe on the bar, and she was lounging alone on her sofa again, as disinterested as always after she was done with him.
Damien rubbed his neck and sat up, the marks there already healed but the pain remaining. When administered with no other distractions, her bite left quite the sting.
Rapture’s eyes were even more vibrant than before, flicking up to him quickly, impatience floating in them. “Finally feeling better?”
“Good enough.” His head only spun a moment, and he yawned.
“I’ll convene with the elders over your request tonight, and I’m sure they will want to hear from you tomorrow. You’re welcome to stay in the den, of course.” She licked her lips. “And if you’ve changed your mind, you can stay right there and wait for me to return.”
He snorted, even that making him woozy. “I think you’ve depleted my ability to be much more use tonight.”
Chuckling, she led him to the door. “I had a room prepared while you were napping, just in case. It’s beside the one they put your human in.”
“Amma.” He hadn’t considered recuperation time along with negotiations. “How long was I out?”
“Oh,hours,” she said a bit too gleefully. “But not to worry, just a small warning: she did have a teeny, tiny accident.”
His eyes went wide as he followed Rapture into the hall. He had to grab the doorway to remain steady. “Where is she?”
“Calm down, Lord Bloodthorne, you don’t want to swoon out here now, do you?” She chuckled again. “There wasn’t even much blood, I’m told. And we were sure to clean up every drop.”
Damien pushed off the wall, dagger sliding down into his palm. “When did your laws change?”
Rapture brought a claw up to his face, its sharp point pressing against his cheek not in reassurance but in warning. “They haven’t. You can see for yourself. Second hall that way, third door on the right.”
“If anyone has touched her—” Threats left unsaid were often more daunting than those well-defined, but Damien swept away from Rapture and followed her directions without another word because his worn mind simply did not have the ability to come up with one. Resheathing his dagger, he staggered bleary-eyed the way she’d said and slammed the door open. “Amma?”
“Damien!” The pile of blankets on the bed exploded, and a small figure jumped out of them. From behind the sheer curtains hanging around the four-poster bed, arms moved about like that of a feral animal, searching for a break in the drapery. She was frantic, but she was alive.
“Thank the dark gods,” he muttered, falling against the door as it shut behind him, head spinning.
“By Osurehm,” she said, finally finding where the curtains met and ripping them apart from one another. Her hair was mussed, and her tunic was askew, falling away from a shoulder. She was trying to climb off the bed but getting tangled in the many blankets she’d apparently been hiding beneath. “Did you know that—ah!” She finally managed to free herself, but it was as much a surprise to her as it was to him, and she toppled right off the edge of the bed to the floor.
Damien straightened, too dizzy to have caught her. She had none of the exhaustion or pain of someone who had been bitten, but all the coordination of a victim completely drained.
Amma growled, flipping onto her back to kick the last blanket off then tipped her head to eye him upside down. “Did you know that these women arevampires?”
Damien blinked. “…yes? Did you think I didnotknow this?”
“I don’t know!” She scrambled up onto her knees. “Because you brought me, a human, here. You know vampires eat humans, right?”
He squinted out into the room she’d been put in, well furnished with a fire lit for warmth that the rest of the den was missing. A comforting sort of drowsiness crawled over him, even with her excitable exaggeration in the middle of all of it. “Well, these ones have a certain code, and really, they only drink blood; there’s no ingestion of flesh.”
“What’s the difference?” she squeaked, finally back on her feet.
“You get to live afterwards, usually. And it can be quite pleasurable if you’re in the right mood.” His vision evened out as he looked her over. She’d taken off her boots, that tight vest from around her middle, and abandoned her weapons too, so he assumed she couldn’t be that rattled by the whole thing, but she was breathing rather hard, and then he remembered Rapture’s warning. “They told me you were injured. What happened?”
“Injured? No, I, um,”—Amma took a big breath, her frenzy reining itself in—“Well, I did sort of pass out when I saw Ivory munch on somebody, and I scraped my elbow a little.”
Damien rested his head against the door again. “So, I don’t have to kill anyone for biting you?”
She looked about the room like the answer might be in there with them then shrugged. “I guess not.”
He nodded to himself. “Of course not—they would be fools to do so when you’re…”
Mine. The word echoed into his mind. She wasn’t meant to be, and he’d only just promised that he would return her to Faebarrow, but the desire to keep her still ate at him, the word so eager to be free from his throat that it burned.
