The bell rang, the sound reverberating through the silent room.
Toru stayed on one knee, his chest heaving, sweat dripping from his chin. When he finally looked up at me, the anger was still there, but so was what I needed—a begrudging recognition of my place above him, where I’d always be.
I could keep him down, assert the reclamation of my spot more definitively. Show every one of these grunts that they couldn’t mess with me.
Instead, I offered him a hand. He hesitated at first but finally took it.
“Welcome back,” he muttered, wiping his brow.
I stepped out of the ring, the watching men parting without being told.
“Thanks. Still hate it here,” I said quietly, not looking back.
39
Dinner and a Show
Sage
The rest of the evening went by in a languid haze.
When Noctis had started requiring blood tithes from non-cits, drinking straight from other Magiks became taboo, almost like a kink. Something a vampire would do only with a lover, behind closed doors. Certainly never in public—at least for high society.
And so the vampire fetes of old, filled with half-naked omega Magiks draped over furniture—pale, wanton, and lethargic—had become relics of the past. Curious old customs forgotten in favor of propriety.
But now that Victor had found a loophole in the Blood Consort practice, it seemed like the vampires really had just been biding their time until they could reclaim their roots, because all pretense of civility was now gone, and dinner wasrevealed to be me and a half dozen other omegas with no objection from the guests.
The sheer overlay of my dress had been ripped to shreds and removed, leaving me in a satin slip, half conscious as Victor played with me on his lap, taking sips from my throat in between conversations with the rest of his council.
When I had the energy to let my eyes roam the room, I stifled a delirious giggle at how the omegas and I resembled water pipes at a hookah lounge.
Accalia had long since left, but Vorthain remained, silently observing from a corner in the room.
“What are you?” I whispered as I stared at him, Victor’s fingers running up and down my arms, more as a gesture to mark me as his possession than to offer me any sort of comfort.
Vorthain smiled, his fangs gleaming in the shadow of his hood.
One of the other vampires rang a small bell. “Refresh!” she cried, licking the blood off her lips as a glassy-eyed merfolk omega lay across her lap, his breath slowing.
A few of the guards came in, picking up the “used” omegas and ushering in new bodies, giddy and ready.
I, however, remained.
A blonde seraph sat next to us, cozying up to Victor. “She looks like she could use a break, don’t you think, sir? I’m more than happy to take her place.”
Yes, please, I thought.
But Victor growled a low warning, causing her to cower and scamper to another vampire’s waiting arms, her wings beating slowly behind her dejectedly.
“Victor…”
He looked down, the crimson of his eyes nearly eclipsed by his pupils, mirrored voids I saw myself slipping into.
“Yes, darling?”
“I’m… I’m so tired…”
His fingers finally found my pulse, and he vocalized his disappointment. “Let’s get you some Sanguis Vita, then.”
