It was easy enough to avoid her, but he’d have to get used to being in the same room with her if she went to Mordnik, and being able to offer dragon blood was a huge perk, even if it was from a level one.
Not to mention she had some serious acting skills, though that presented another problem because it would put them both on stage at the same time, and not merely in the same room.
But he was millennia old. He’d deal with a twenty-three-year-old dragon.
Later, after Lucien had fed from and thoroughly tortured one of the flock masochists, the two met in the statue garden to watch a contest between two of the lesser vampires. Not really a hierarchy competition, because that low in the coterie, exact numbers weren’t important, and yet, it would mean something to the two vampires.
Zander put them in a circle that would keep them from drawing on his power, made sure they understood the rules — no claws or teeth, no major injuries — and went to sit with Lucien.
I still feel as if we should consider alternating years for Concilio and Senatus vampires. We invite trouble by having both there at the same time. It’s too late to make changes thisyear, but we should consider announcing the rules during this season, to prepare everyone.
Lucien shook his head.A dozen vampires have reservations every third year, the most often your predecessor allowed them to return. There are contracts.
Zander sighed. Vampires had to sign a contract in blood to not engage in hierarchical displays or contests, and to get along without discord, but he still foresaw problems.
You’re right, of course. However, if there are problems, I’ll have recourse to make changes to future contracts.Zander glanced at Lucien and then back to the two vampires wrestling on the tile. Zander preferred fists, but however they wanted to do this was fine within the rules.We can’t keep the two factions separate in the public areas, but let’s put them on different floors on the guest levels.
Lucien inclined his head as if acknowledging a move in a long game of chess. “Practical. Keeping the hours they’re together down can only help. I’ll see to it.”
Thursday afternoon, Emmy lingered after class to discuss a paper recently published by the idiots working on DNA recovered from frozen tissues they claimed dated back to the Cretaceous. The boneheads had visions of bringing dinosaurs to life à laJurassic Park.
It was a productive conversation. Not only did Professor Chen offer to let her view some unpublished lab notes from a rival team, he also invited her to sit on a debate panel around ethical lines in emerging, transformativetechnologies the following semester. They had several bioethicists on the panel, but the professor thought a panelist who could speak to the whole CRISPR subject from the viewpoint of someone who’d used it would be beneficial.
Emmy told the professor her sister was a surgeon currently implanting synthetic biology, so she could speak to that as well, and she would love to participate — assuming the date was before she left to go north on her winter expedition.
Zander had written a letter explaining she’d be on an expedition to gather field data on the impact of extreme cold and light-cycle variation on mammalian biological rhythms. He’d said they needed her experience in field collection and biological sample preservation under difficult conditions in order to preserve data integrity, and that her real-time observations and early-stage analysis would be considered valuable.
It was all bullshit, of course, but it’d done the trick, so she had permission to handle her classes and thesis work over the internet, and would check in via video calls every other week, or more often if necessary. She didn’t need actual rabbits just yet. She had all the cell samples and DNA sequences she needed to begin the process, and would hopefully be ready to begin breeding actual rabbits by the time she returned.
While they were talking, she asked the professor a question about her thesis topic, and the two talked for fifteen minutes about chromosomal divergence and gene splicing ethics.
“This could be a publication,” the professor said finally. “If you keep this level of rigor, you’ll be presenting at national conferences.”
Emmy felt a flush of pride. “That’s the goal.”
Delaney was waiting for her just outside the classroom, and the two walked toward the exit together.
“We have an hour and a half until I meet up with Rhea and the others,” she told her guard. “I’m guessing you don’t want to do a food truck. We mostly like the same kind of food, and you know the off-campus options better than me, so you pick the restaurant.”
“There’s a great barbecue place between here and the park. Decent brisket, smoked pulled pork, ribs.”
“Sold, lead the way.”
“You really aren’t the pain in the ass everyone warned me about. Thanks for that.”
Emmy sighed. “In part, that’s because you aren’t a pain in the ass, but it’s also because I mostly get enough sex at home these days, so I’m not out looking for it in frat houses, and ditching my security so I can have fun.”
She blew out a breath. “Also, my security when I first went away to college were all my dad’s employees, and I knew they reported shit back to him. I was fourteen, so I pretty much had to ditch them to have fun. Zander can’t get into my head, but he can get into the heads of everyone around me, so he can pretty much see what he wants, whether I ditch you or not.”
“I love your logic, and I’ve come to respect your outlook on life. I’m glad the situation has worked out so we can work together to keep you safe.”
“Mostly, I’m strong enough and smart enough to defend myself, but I get that there are vulnerabilities, especially the poison thing, and bullets from a mile-plus away.”
“In this city, they’d be more likely to come from less than a quarter mile away, but it’s believed the greatest threat would be in kidnapping you rather than killing you, at this time.”
Emmy nodded. “Unfortunately for them, my parents aren’t throwing any more money my way, so I doubt a ransom would be paid.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that. Not giving you money to party with isn’t the same as not doing whatever is necessary to get their oldest daughter back, who happens to be next in line to the throne.”
