Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
This question begins an hour-long interrogation, all of it conducted with him pinning me beneath him. My hate grows as my tongue recounts everything I’ve done in his absence. The library, my irritation with David, my time in the garden, my conversation with Fatima. He listens raptly, only asking questions when I stop speaking. When I repeat the part about Gregor dying, his eyebrows move up a hair, but he gives no other reaction.
When he’s caught up to this moment, he grins as I tell him how much I hate him, how badly I want to knee him right in the balls.
“On that note, I must dash.” He stands, his gaze raking over me as I still lay on the bed. “Humans to kill and all that. But I’ll return in a few days for Whitbine’s visit.” His murderous glee subsides a little as he mentions the torturer’s name. “Until then, I suggest you continue your studies, such as they are.” He gives a snide glance to the library book. “Best of luck reading ancient Romanian.”
When he’s gone, whatever compulsions he forced on me finally begin to fade. I roll to my side and curl up, my fingers grazing across the wound at my throat, now closed. Violated again, I don’t even feel like crying about it. There’s no point. My tears have never gotten me anywhere, not in this dark place, and I’m certain they never will.
I’m sitting at the top of the stairs munching on some questionable crackers—they’re stale, but not stale enough to deter me—when David appears on the piano landing below me.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I call.
“What?” He’s always varying shades of grumpy. But he’s not vicious about it, not the way Valen is. He’s more … I guess I’d say, he’s disgruntled. It’s wild how quickly I’ve gotten used to it.
“If you’re Corvidion, why are you here? The three Bloods are all very territorial.” I tap the library book in my lap. “There’s some particularly gruesome woodcuts in here from something called the Sanguine Wars. This was 452 BC, and Dragonis killed so many Corvidion that—”
“That we were nearly wiped out forever. Yeah, I know. Those are bedtime stories for Corvidion vampires.”
“Bedtime stories?” I grimace and munch another cracker. “Twisted.”
“History.” He shrugs.
“From what I saw at the ball and what I’ve seen in all these books, not much has changed. So why would you be the housekeeper—” I smile when he groans. “—for a Dragonis?”
“Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment.” He leans on the stair rail. “Maybe this is a whole new era for vampire cooperation now that the humans are going tits up.”
I stop chewing. “I know you think that’s a cute taunt. Like ‘haha we’re murdering all of you.’ But it’s really fucked up.”
He shrugs. “I just told you my childhood bedtime stories were about genocidal war.”
“I guess you have a point there.” I chew again, then barely manage to swallow the dry puck of cracker. “Still fucked up,” I mumble. This is my life now, a prisoner whose jailor makes flippant jokes about the systemic elimination of everything I hold dear. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking dark.
Then another idea hits me. “What if a Corvidion and a Tantun have a baby? Can that vampire fly and have acid blood?”
“The Bloods can’t interbreed.”
“Huh? But I’m assuming you’re all the same species. I’d have to do DNA analysis to know for sure, of course, but—”
“You going to do that here?” He looks around. “Got all the equipment you need, Doctor?”
“I didn’t specialize in DNA.”
“Right, you focused on blood,” he snorts a laugh.
“Why is that funny?”
“It’s just, I don’t know, ironic, I guess.”
“That’s not irony.”
“Well, whatever it is, it’s funny.” He uses the talon at the top of one of his wings to scratch the back of his head.
“Okay, whatever.” I wave a hand at him. “So you can’t have a vampire of more than one Blood?”
“Correct.”
“Then how did Gregor have a child with a human, which once again, I’m assuming is a different species?”
“I don’t know.” He seems particularly disinterested in any line of scientific questions. I’ve learned that about him, too.
“It’s not unheard of. I mean, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were breeding. Same genus, different species. The Neanderthals eventually died out and humans became the dominant organism.” My thoughts darken at the current ‘dying’ breed. Mine.
“Uh huh.” He isn’t listening.
Just about every conversation we’ve had goes in a similar fashion. I ask questions, he answers a few, and then he zones out. He may be in his fifties, but he’s more like one of my college students. Nineteen and clueless. Maybe vampires develop at slower rates because of their long-lived nature?
“Hey, do you know if you age at a slo—”
“Shh.” He puts a finger to his lips.
“What?”
He glares at me and presses his finger tighter to his lips.