I gave him a sharp smile. “Thanks for the warning, Stevie. I’ll be sure to keep it in mind.”
He grimaced. “Stephen. Please.”
“Right, of course. I’ll have to remember that.”
“What was it like waking up as a vampire and not knowing what had happened?” he asked, his voice filled with idle curiosity.
“Educating.”
Terrifying, lonely. At first, I thought I was going crazy.
“How did you figure out you were a vampire?”
I shifted. He asked a lot of personal questions for someone I had just met.
Liam’s grip tightened on my arm in warning. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Play nice with the vampire who was infinitely more powerful than me.
“Someone in my unit had experience with this world and clued me in on what was happening to me.”
He gave me an intense stare. His eyes somehow too intense. “Too bad they didn’t also report you to the nearest clan. Your life would have been so much easier.”
“Yeah, too bad.”
“What was the name of this person who helped you?”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “It only seems right to thank him for all his assistance. A vampire is a very dangerous creature when we first rise to our new life. It could have been a blood bath.”
“I’ll have to think. That time is very hazy.”
I knew his name. It was listed in my contacts on my phone under Captain, but I had no intention of ever giving that name to anybody. The captain had stuck his neck out keeping my secret and giving me enough knowledge to survive. I had a feeling the vampires version of thank you involved a lot more blood than mine.
“It doesn’t matter much now,” he said. “Your clanless fate will be decided by whoever wins the selection.”
I stiffened. What did he just say?
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You’re the first item on the agenda once the new select takes up their rule,” he explained. “They will address the question of your existence once and for all.”
“I’m surprised I’m on anybody’s agenda. I would think the life of one clanless vampire, not even out of their first decade, would be fairly low priority in the grand scheme of things.”
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re the first vampire we’ve had in nearly one hundred years.” He took a sip of champagne and inclined his head at someone across the room. “Besides, it wouldn’t matter whether you were a unique existence or not. We can’t have unclaimed vampires running around upsetting the order of things. If we let one do it, what’s to say the next vampire yearling doesn’t try the same thing. Next thing you know we’d have a massacre on our hands and the humans hunting us down in our beds.”
Not to mention vampires who didn’t take orders from people out of the dark ages, which I suspected was the bigger problem.
“Interesting take on the matter,” I said, my grip tightening on my champagne glass. “It doesn’t really matter what the new select decides. The sorcerer’s mark trumps vampire interests and will for the next hundred years.”
His eyes dropped to the arm with the mark. The forearm was turned down, preventing him from getting a good look at the tattoo.
“Yes, it’s inconvenient that you managed to get yourself tagged like a dog before swearing to a house, but marks can be erased.” He gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ll probably survive. Though your sanity may be touch and go over the next few decades.”
“Kind of defeats the purpose of conscripting me into service if I’m a drooling imbecile before the process is done,” I said lightly, not wanting to show how disturbed this conversation made me.
He gave a shrug. “Appearances must be maintained, and I’m sure every precaution will be taken to preserve your personality.”
How kind.
