But I stayed back, my entire body locking up. “What’s happening?” I whispered. Instincts blazed inside me. Foreign feelings. Awful desires.
I lurched back more, dropping the female, and she fell unconscious to the floor with a heavythump. Horror filled me as her skin paled even more.
“Gods and Goddesses, what have I done? Did I kill her?” My hands shook, and I wanted to help her, but I didn’t trust myself to move because that burning need inside me still flamed. I wanted to drink more, more,more.
I held myself rigid, not moving a muscle.
Arms crossed, my uncle frowned. “I’ve read that vampires who aren’t careful can easily drain their meals dry.” Hetskedand stepped closer to the girl, then extracted a vial from his pocket.
I lunged backward, terror slicing through me at the sight of that small glass bottle, but my uncle merely opened it and poured its contents directly over the female’s open throat.
The potion fizzled on her skin, and her blood vessels closed as the skin slowly began to knit itself back together. With a start, I realized the vial’s contents were an advanced healing potion and not another nefarious concoction derived from the God of Night.
My shoulders sagged. “Thank the Gods. She almost?—”
But I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
“Died?” My uncle arched an eyebrow and recorked the vial. He tucked it back into his pocket. “Yes, she would have, butyou could have saved her. Your saliva now carries venom. Your venom can be used for several things. It can heal your victim’s puncture wounds, but it can also turn others. If done correctly, after you bite a fairy, you can inject your venom into a fairy’s bloodstream rather than drinking from them. Doing so will turn them into a vampire, butyou’re never to turn anyone.Understood, Primelle?”
His command took root, and I automatically replied, “Yes, uncle.” Just as fast, I recalled what Nathaniel had told me of vampires and of what Kole and Gwen had warned me of all those weeks ago when I’d burst into my uncle’s chambers with the Stone.
“It’s not safe anymore to be near him, Prim. They’re saying it’s advanced enough that he can infect us.”
This was what they’d all been talking about. The Imperial Council had feared that Timith would be able to infect others. Nathaniel’s Ironcrest colleague had alluded to the same thing. And they’d been right. In the end, Timith’s condition had grown advanced enough that he carried the venom needed to turn other fae into vampires. And he’d once tried to bite Gwen.
And nowIhad the ability to do what everyone had feared.
“But as for feeding,” my uncle continued, none the wiser to what I’d just realized, “if you extract your fangs more carefully next time, then lick where your fangs cut into your victim, it should stop the bleeding and heal the puncture wounds. And as long as you compel your meals before you drink, as you did to this female, they’ll stay docile and won’t remember the incident or be aware that anything amiss ever occurred.”
The potion’s magic finally closed the female’s throat completely. Once it entirely fizzled away, only faint scars of two puncture wounds remained.
My uncle pointed at her scars. “Unlike potions, your venom will leave their skin flawless. Scars won’t remain if you use yourvenom to heal them. It’s imperative that you do this so as not to leave evidence.”
Once again, his command reared up inside me, and my response flowed from my lips as though spoken from a foreign entity. “Yes, Uncle.”
Fingers shaking, I wiped at my mouth. A few blood droplets came away from it, and the urge to greedily lick them off my fingers had me dipping my fingertips into my mouth. Disgust at what I was doing and what I’d done washed through me, yet the blood tastedaddictive, and a pleasantly full feeling in my belly had my fangs retracting and the ache in my gums abating.
That sensation only made self-hatred roil through me. However, my uncle wasn’t fazed in the slightest, his matter-of-fact persona continuing.
“When you feed back in Whiteolf, you must stop yourself before their hearts fade and then heal your victim’s wounds so they don’t die. It’s important that you don’t draw attention to yourself or that of the authorities. Understood, Primelle?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
He gave me a sympathetic smile. “And don’t be alarmed if you have new...urges. Vampires are very sexual by nature. You may want to fuck your victims while you’re drinking from them. This is allowed as long as no one catches you in the act. But again, you must compel them beforehand so they have no memories of any of it. Understood?”
My eyes widened, and it hit me that what I’d just felt for the female had been exactly that. I’d wanted to ravish this innocent girl, yet I’d never had those types of urges toward females before. My uncle was giving me free permission to takethatfrom my victims too, even though it would be rape.
Revulsion wafted through me, and my thoughts shifted to Kole, of what he would feel if I engaged in such acts with another fairy, male or female.
“Oh Gods.” The whispered statement left my lips in a tortured swell of pain. Despair twisted my heart so sharply, and I fought the compulsion, fought the urge to please my uncle. I didnotwant to hurt my mate or rape an innocent, even though it was likely I would eventually do both.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut.Don’t respond to him. Don’t respond. Fight the urge to submit to him.
All of my muscles tensed as that waffling need to please my uncle rose higher and higher. I battled the instinct, but the need to accommodate him and do whatever he wanted had words forming on my tongue despite trying to hold them back.
“Yes . . . Uncle,” I said through gritted teeth.
He smirked. “Try and fight me all you want, Primelle, but it’s useless. I am your Maker. Iown younow.” He nudged the female with his foot. “Enter her mind and erase all memories of what she saw and felt tonight, including when I contacted her. And if anyone asks her about the scars on her neck, make her believe that she had an accident in the kitchen with a fork.”
