“Fantastic. Now. If you would.” Anton motioned at the girls.
In the last one hundred and twenty-five years, Takashi had only made seven vampires. The first had been his mortal niece. She had found him, discovered the secret of Taliville, and begged him for eternal life. His second had been a nurse who had grown sick with the Spanish Flu. The third and fourth had been lovers who he’d foolishly believed he might have a forever with. Theywere still on decent terms, but their love had faded. His fifth had been an artist who still toiled away at his craft in the mountain forests around Taliville. His sixth, a young lover dying of AIDS in the 1970s who was now an ambassador in Seattle, and his seventh, a darling musician who was certain that with enough time, he could create the perfect symphony.
Unlike him, they had all known their choice. They had understood what being a vampire meant before he turned them. Mortals were for feeding, and transcending one to the existence of a vampire was no easy decision.
Takashi centered himself and stretched out his ability to sense the girls’ fears and desires. A screaming panic formed a strong wall, but each had cracks, and Takashi slipped into them.
The girl with a copper and red tie was in denial. She wanted to wake up from the nightmare with nothing changed. The girl with the black-and-green tie was seething with a desire to burn both Anton and Takashi to ashes. Her hatred was in her eyes.
The third one, with her blue tie, had an emotion that Takashi recognized from the night he fell from the trapeze. The spark of yearning for immortality. Finding it was like discovering a note in perfect harmony to a song almost forgotten. Mortals as young as her didn’t often understand what forever might truly involve. But as Takashi met her gaze, she took a deep breath. She had cried at some point, but she’d also stopped long enough that her tears were dry. She gripped the armrests of the chair she was bound to and continued watching him.
She looked young, but Takashi had seen younger vampires. Her brown hair was a mess of curls that had likely been mussed further during her kidnapping. She had a layer of makeup that her tears hadn’t completely smudged. But underneath her pale olive foundation, he noticed a smattering of freckles.
Mage students were often taught ballroom dancing as part of their instruction, but she had an athlete’s physique. A gymnast,Takashi was guessing. Or perhaps he was hoping he might have something more in common with his soon-to-be fledgling other than being stuck in the same hellish prison.
“Her,” Takashi whispered.
“I knew you’d choose Katie.” Smoothly, Anton moved back to the couch.
While Takashi had made other vampires, he’d never had an audience for the act. He pushed his awareness of Anton out of his mind and focused on the girl, Katie, in front of him. Slowly, he undid the gag around her mouth and then the ropes binding her to the chair.
“Will I lose my magic?” she asked in a rough whisper.
“I don’t know,” Takashi replied gently. “There are vampires capable of wielding arcane magic. Anton is one of them. But not every practitioner who becomes one of us keeps their craft.”
Takashi stood and held his hand out to her. After a brief hesitation, she put her hand in his and let him guide her up to her feet. She was about his height, less than two inches shorter than he.
Just as Takashi was steeling his nerves, she tilted her head to the side and swept her hair off her neck. Of all the things the girl could do, she was inviting him. Takashi put one hand on her shoulder and the other on her cheek. But he sensed no outside influence on her emotions. Her fears had cooled and fallen away behind a jumping hope of getting something wonderful.
She has ambition. He couldn’t fault her for that, not when his own was pulsing behind his tongue and molding this moment into opportunity.
He soothed her fears further and drew her into his arms. He bit into her neck, and she gasped, leaning in toward him. Cinching his arm around her, he held her close and drank deeply. Warm, wonderful, chaotic blood spilled over his tongue and into him. After a week of paltry offerings, Katie’s blood wasastounding. He groaned as he swallowed yet another delicious mouthful.
Even with a slow bleed, her heart eventually pounded fast and fiercely. Her emotions funneled downward into one blazing desire:live. The taste of her blood sweetened, but Takashi pulled himself away before claiming her final moments. She swayed on her feet, and her eyelids drooped. Without intervention, she was as good as dead.
Takashi bit his wrist and held it up to Katie’s lips. She roused from her growing stupor and licked the blood from his wrist. She gasped. Then she latched onto his wrist and drank. Each sucking pull drew more of the liquid coolness that kept Takashi moving. He offered that strength up to her, let the numbness in his limbs grow. She’d need every bit he could afford to spare in order to keep up with them.
Takashi’s legs were threatening to give out. He started to collapse to the floor only to find Anton steadying the two of them. Warm, gooey happiness filled Anton’s red eyes, and he pressed a kiss to Takashi’s temple. “More than enough.”
The confirmation hadn’t been necessary. Still, Takashi waited for Katie to take one more long draw before he yanked his wrist clean of her mouth. She began to whine and reach for his wrist.
Then the magic took root.
She buckled, and Takashi held on to her tightly so she wouldn’t drop to the floor immediately. With a scream from her and a shout from him, they started to sink, and Anton eased them down. What he’d given her spun and settled inside her. Her heart stopped, but he felt the thread binding them together. She’d rise in a few nights’ time.
“Beautiful,” Anton murmured in Takashi’s ear.
Some part of him believed Anton right. Another part warred within him to claim that this was too much to take. But thatthread binding him to Katie was a connection he hadn’t felt in decades. The nature of his work had kept him from bringing his other sirelings with him, and they’d been able to move on from him within a few short years. The thread to the others had always thinned so quickly.Will it be the same with her? Or will she need me longer?
Gently, Takashi laid her on the floor. “I want to be there when she wakes.”
“Of course,” Anton replied softly.
“She’ll have her own suite?”
“I’ll have one set aside tonight.” Anton nudged Takashi. “There is one that isn’t far from yours and Zack’s.”
“If she decides she wants to be away from me?—”
