Page 83 of Only Fangs

“Brothers and sisters. I know you’ve all been hoping for an invitation to the next hunt. Well, perhaps tonight you will get a little taste.” He opens his mouth, tongue running over his fangs.

“No!” I scream.

“No?” He mocks me.

“You don’t believe in the hunt…” but I trail off. Because of course he does. How can I have been so naive? So stupid? So blind to the reality of the man standing in front of me?

Andrei turns to the crowd who vibrate with an energy I’ve never seen in my kind. There’s something primal in the air. A blood lust. He spreads his arms open wide. “Brothers and sisters. Who is the Master of the Hunt?”

“You are,” a hundred voices call back to him.

“Who provides the most delectable prey?”

“You do.”

“No. I won’t let you,” I say, pulling myself up to my full height. In my heels I’m almost as tall as he is, my eyes level with his. But my bravado is just that, an illusion.

“Little girl, do you really think you have any say in this at all?”

“I’m not a little girl,” I hiss, hands curling into fists by my sides.

“Yes, you are.” Andrei cocks his head a little and stares at me. “A little girl who has forgotten her place. Who has allowed herself to be poisoned by the humans, to be convinced they’re our equals.”

“They are⁠—”

But he interrupts me. “I know your upbringing was a little less than traditional about these things. It took a lot of effort on my part to get you time here at Hele after your father decided to turn his back on his kind and run off with some human trollop, but⁠—”

“My mother was not a trollop.” I hiss the words.

Andrei throws his head back and laughs as if this is one of the funniest jokes he has ever heard. “Your mother,” he really accents the word, “was a vampire princess. You see what I mean about forgetting your heritage?” He cocks his head further. “The human whore your father tricked into raising you was not your mother.”

“He loved her. I loved her.”

“Sentimental codswallop.” He steps towards me his face level with mine. “You have a destiny to fulfil.”

He claps his hands together as he turns back to the crowd below us. “Now then. If everyone could take a break for a few moments. I need to take Arianna Grace Haywood, granddaughter of Carmilla…” He pauses for a few moments to make sure everyone in the room appreciates just who I’m descended from. He nods a few times as recognition blooms across the faces of the crowd in front of him. “… for a little private chat,” he finally finishes the sentence. “Drinks will be circulated.” He clicks his fingers at one of the waiters standing to one side of the crowd and the man immediately jumps into action. It’s the same waiter who realised Brody was human last night. Was he the one who outed Brody?

“Come with me,” Andrei tells me as he takes hold of my elbow.

For a split second I imagine fighting him, but I know it would be futile and so I allow him to steer me down the steps, through the crowd and out of the hall. I feel numb. Hollowed out. Like none of this is real, like none of this is actually happening and I’ll wake up to find it was all just a dream, some kind of nightmare that will fade as the sun begins to rise over the horizon.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“My office.”

“Oh.”

He remains silent until we get to the large oak door, the one I remember from when Clara and I were little. We had tried a million times to find the secret route through the castle to the inside of this room, but without success. We did find a spot where you could listen to everything that was said inside, but I had never seen beyond the imposing door. What this room looks like has been a mystery I’ve carried for almost two centuries. I’m kind of disappointed, it just looks like an office. Admittedly a large and well-appointed one, but it could belong to a wealthy lawyer or a gentleman author.

He motions for me to take a seat in the chair closest to the fire. I stay where I am. A small act of defiance but it gives me a sense that I’m still in control.

“You can’t kill him,” I say. But it’s a lie. We all know Andrei could kill him and without breaking a sweat.

He doesn’t even bother to reply. He moves behind the huge mahogany desk and sits down, his elbows resting on the leather inlay, his hands steepling in front of his face.

I hear the door to the office open and then the click of the lock as it closes again. Of course. I turn to discover Benedict has joined us.

“You told him,” I say, all the emotion stripped from my voice. Because of course it was Benedict. And all because I refuse to let him treat me like a toy. Fuck this shit. I feel the rage fill my cold dead heart.