“Come, we should not keep our companions waiting.”
Chapter Five
Lord Azad was unlike any vampire host I’d met.
At other gatherings I’d been taken to as a blood giver, I’d all but melted into the background with the others. But as we took our seats at the large round table beneath a glittering chandelier, Lord Azad was in conversation with one of the other humans about his most recent visit to Flourisant.
“How did you find the weather?” he asked the male.
The blood giver smiled widely, a flush creeping beneath his freckles. “It was beautiful, my lord. Much warmer than Oylen, though I have to admit the humidity did not agree with my hair.” He gestured toward his bright red curls.
I expected Lord Azad to give some sort of bland response, but he laughed deeply, the sound so warm my toes curled in my shoes, before he gestured for us to take our seats. One of the males lining the wall stepped forward to pull out my chair while Gerald fell into his.
“Thank you,” I said, giving the male a small smile.
He returned it before picking up a gilded carafe. “Wine, Mademoiselle?”
I hummed, sliding the glass a little closer. “Please.”
Before all the humans, beautiful plates and cutlery were set, the gold winking in the candlelight overhead. Thevampires merely had chalices filled with the synthetic blood the Covenant had developed around the time drinking from a living source was outlawed, though most didn’t appear to touch them.
Lord Azad was seated across the table from us, slightly to the right and just visible through the opulent flower arrangement bursting with white and purple wildflowers.
“Eamon, are these from your gardens?” One of the female vampires—Lady Garnier, I believed—gestured to the flowers.
“They are, yes. Stefan enjoys flower arranging and is quite skilled at it,” Lord Azad said, gesturing to a male with cropped golden hair who stood at the far end of the room.
“Oh, Stefan, they’re lovely,” she said, turning to address the human.
Stefan grinned and bowed. “Thank you, my lady.”
“Charlotte is also quite gifted in arrangements,” Lady Garnier continued, nodding to her female companion.
Lord Azad leaned forward, a smile tugging up his cheek. The warmth in his gaze was extraordinary and I couldn’t blame Charlotte’s blush when his attention fixed on her. “Do you have a favorite combination, Mademoiselle Caillat?”
Servers appeared beside each human as she answered, twisting one of her tight black ringlets around her finger and listing off a few flowers, though I didn’t recognize most of what she said. The food set before me was beautifully arranged, with fanned-out pieces of roasted meat and vegetables curled into blossoms that resembled the ones on the table. I thanked the male again, who smiled so contentedly I couldn’t help but wonder at it.
Gerald took a generous drink of his goblet, his hand sliding over the back of my chair. I stilled at the graze of his fingertips across the back of my neck. But he was deep in conversation with the vampire beside him, Mateo Auguste, who had referred to Lord Azad in passing asuncle.
For vampires such titles were not reserved for blood relations as humans did, but instead in connection to who was made by whom. It meant whoever had made Mateo Auguste had been sired by the same immortal who had created Eamon. But it didn’t surprise me. Lord Auguste was very similar to Lord Azad in temperament; even now he was laughing quietly, pulling a similar sound of good humor from Gerald.
“Ah, yes, thezenyellsare one of my favorites as well.” Lord Azad’s voice was not too loud, but I couldn’t help but attune myself to it. He was resting one arm on the table casually, head tilted to the side as he looked between those he was in conversation with. “Though I admit I prefer theasivaflowers most. When I was human, the village where I lived was teeming with them. We lived at the base of a sizeable mountain and in the spring, it was a veritable jungle of dark blue and white blossoms painted across the side like the night sky.” He swiped his hand up at an angle to illustrate the vastness of it.
“Where was that, my lord?” Gerald asked, breaking away from his conversation with Lord Auguste.
Lord Azad’s smile dimmed ever so slightly. I wondered if anyone else noticed it—the tightness creeping around his eyes and the way his throat bobbed with a swallow. “Kysol, my friend.” Lord Azad spoke the next words quietly in the tongue of his homeland. “Goddess bless the shores.”
“And keep the winds warm at night,” I finished for him without thinking.
Those citrine eyes darted to me, the dimness moments ago vanishing. “You speak Kysoi?”
My cheeks burned, especially as Gerald shifted uncomfortably beside me. “I do.” I paused for a moment, looking for the right honorific. “My…high son?”
A chuckle slipped through his lips and I fought back a shiver. “Almost,” he said in my language before slipping backinto Kysoi. “‘High lord’ would be the correct term, but I would rather you not call me that.”
Damn. I’d known I’d mixed the two words up,syunandsionso similar within the language and dialect I’d learned.
“Impressive, Mademoiselle Valois,” Lord Auguste praised from the other side of Gerald, who was regarding Lord Azad with something like caution. “How did you come to learn Kysoi?”
