Varian will be getting the brunt of it. This was his favor asked, and I am even more annoyed because it was the first thing he said to me after being gone for a decade.
I was expecting a banquet, frilly flowers, food and wine, my favorite devil, and catching up on all the same bullshit of the last ten years. Instead, I find my friend of over two centuries grumbling and snapping about the Mage Board andbloodsuckers and there’s not even a hug before he asks me to go spy on someone.
Slithering around the corner of the dorm house, I pause beneath overgrown grass and watch as four people make their way out. Three females and a male. Two water mages, a vampyr, and what is supposed to be a vampire.
There’s no way this is her.
The vampire the Mage Board allowed into the school after passing an exam not even I can pass one hundred percent. Who is able to somehow eat regular food and needs sleep but doesn’t have bloodlust despite being turned into a vampire two months ago.
I can scent each of the students. Vampires smell like rot. Like decay, as something that was dead should be, but her. . . she smells like an impossibility.
Maybe Varian is right and she’s a spy. She could be a vampyr or a blood demon, since she needs blood just as much as regular food. Though Varian did say when she was exposed to sunlight she did burn.
I wonder if Thorne has already tried her blood. I haven’t been able to speak to him or Darian yet as I came here right after seeing Varian, but I will need to. Because she does not smell like a vampire.
Following after them, I stick to the taller patches of grass along the walkway and shift my scales to blend in better. I’m sure they’re headed to one of many parties being thrown. It’s a Syngenia tradition. It’s been happening for as long as I can remember, both as a former professor and former student.
Not that she specifically looks like she’s going to a party. Her friends do. The water mages dressed in short dresses and the vampyr in relaxed clothing. Even with it still being warm, she’s wearing pants and a turtle necked long sleeve.
I wasn’t able to see her face when she walked out, but the attire does not scream party. At least not for Syngenia’s standards. But I have been gone for a decade, maybe something has changed.
All of a sudden, she stops. Her long hair that reaches her hips dyed with highlights of dark blue and soft pink swaying with the motion. I stop too, waiting along the edge of the walkway and coiling my body together to keep from being seen.
It must not help because she turns around and looks directly at me. And fucking gods, Varian did not tell me how pretty she is.
No. Pretty isn’t even a good enough description. She’s. . . otherworldly. Captivating, ethereal, magnetic.
Pale pink eyes lock on my golden serpentine ones. Since I had been on the edge of the walkway I had changed my body to a grayish white color to match the stones with ripples of faded green to mimic the shadows from the grass blades.
I wonder how she was able to tell I was here. I don’t give off any energy or aura when I’m shifted as a regular animal, and I’m too small for instincts to feel a threat lurking by.
Her lips part as she kneels down and peers at me. Those pink eyes are framed by black eyeliner and long lashes. There’s a rosy hue over the bridge of her nose and cheeks with a light dusting of freckles. Those lips that had parted are painted a cool toned red and they shift into a soft smile.
“Well, hello there,” her coos. She extends her hand out slowly and cocks her head.
Her friends are looking at her like she’s crazy.
“Uh, Mavyn,” the one with longer curly white hair calls. Varian did tell me that was her name. Mavyn Tsuki. “I don’t know if you know this but snakes in Syngenia tend to be venomous. It would probably be best to leave it alone.”
She hums but doesn’t pull her hand back. Inching forward, I watch each micro expression she makes.
“You forget, Jullia,” she calls softly, “I have literal poison running in my veins. A little venom won’t hurt me.”
Her friend looks like she doesn’t believe her, but intrigue and curiosity peak as I slither up to her. Stopping right before her hand, I lift my head up and rest in a position cobras tend to be in right before they strike.
I wonder what she means by that. Poison running through her veins. Does she mean the vampire’s venom? If so she would have said venom, not poison, and even then she also said my venom wouldn’t hurt her anyways.
She relaxes more as I nudge my nose to her fingers. Flicking my tongue out, I taste her skin and blue belladon explodes in my senses. A flower that can kill even the highest celestials.
Arching over her hand, I begin curling up around her arm. My body gliding easily over the material of her shirt, though I would prefer to have skin on skin contact. I want more of that taste, of that poison that kills all but tastes like magic.
Once the entirety of my foot long body is around her wrist and forearm, she cradles me and stands. Turning back to herfriends – all of whom are watching her like she’s crazy – she chuckles at them.
“Like when an extract of blue belladon is mixed with rucksile to act as a super healing tonic, extracts of straight blue belladon act as taming and calming aromas for some reptiles and arachnids. I had a pet viper at the brothel.”
A brothel?
Had she been working there before she was turned? If she had been turned? I still don’t understand how she can smell this good and be a vampire.
