Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(36)

And yet…here I was.

“Oliver,” she said, and placed a small, gentle hand on my chest, over my heart. “Kind of you to meet me here.”

“I had no choice,” I said. Which was true—she had taken all choices from me. I raged at it, inside; I was in a tearing frenzy of rage within, but none of it showed on my face or in my bearing. None could, unless she allowed it; she had control of me from the bones out.

“True,” she said. “And how fares my much-beloved sister?”

“Well,” I said. “She could wake at any time. It wouldn’t do for her to see you here.”

“Or at all, since my dear blood sister believes I’m safely dead and gone. Or do I have you to thank for the attempt on my life, Oliver? One of you must have wished me dead among the draug.”

“I organized your assassination,” I confessed immediately. Again, no choice; I could feel her influence inside me, as irresistible as the hand of God. “Amelie had no part in it.”

“Nor would she have; we’ve held our truce for a thousand years. I’ll have to think of a suitable way to reward you for betraying that. What does she suspect?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve gained her trust?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain of that?”

“I’m here,” I said, and looked around at this, Amelie’s most sheltered secret. “And now, you’re here. So yes. She trusts me.”

“I knew that bewitching you was an investment that would soon pay off,” Naomi said, and gave me a sweet, charming smile that made the storm inside me thunder and fury. I hated her. If I’d had the ability to fight, I’d have ripped her to pieces for what she’d done to me, and was doing through me, to Amelie. “She hasn’t detected your influence on her decisions?”

“Not as yet.”

“Well, she will likely start to question it soon, if she hasn’t already; my sister has a nasty streak of altruism that surfaces from time to time. Once the humans begin to complain of their treatment, she may think about placating them once again.” She ran her fingers over my cheek, then parted my lips with cool fingers. “Let’s see your fangs, my monster.”

I had no choice. None. But I tried, dear God, I tried; I struggled against the darkness inside me, I fought, and I won a hesitation, just for a moment, in obeying Naomi’s iron will.

And still, my fangs descended, sharp and white as a snake’s. There was a single tiny tug of pain, always, as if some part of me even now refused to believe my damned state of being, but I had centuries ago grown well used to that.

The pain she was wringing from within me was much, much worse.

She let me go and stepped back, eyes narrowing. “Your reluctance doesn’t please me,” she said. “And I can’t risk your tearing free even a bit from my side, now, can I? Hold still, Oliver.”

And I did, to my shame; I held very still, eyes fixed on the calm flowing water of the fountain as it spilled tears to the stone. She raised my arm to her lips, bit, and drank. She was a true snake, this one, and poison ran from her bite into me; it corrupted, and it destroyed the tiny pulse of will I’d managed to raise. She licked the remains of my blood from her lips and smiled at me.

Defeated.

And then she put her lips close to my ear and said, “I owe you something for that bit of will, don’t I? Very well. I want you to feel pain. I want you to burn.”

It started slowly, a sensation of heat sweeping up from my hands, but it quickly turned into the familiar bite of sunlight beating down on me…but where age had given me armor against such pain, I had no defenses from Naomi’s witchery. It was like being a newborn vampire again, tied down for the noontime glare, with my blood boiling and burning its way through my flesh, exploding in thin pale flames, flaking my skin to ash and roasting nerves….

I clenched my teeth against the pain, then whimpered softly at the extreme of the agony. Let me die, something in me begged. Just let me die!

But that, of course, was not her plan. She had done me no physical harm, none at all. It was only the memory of fire, the sense of it; my blood was cool and intact, and my skin unmarked.

I only felt as if I were a torch set afire.

When she finally released me, I fell to my hands and knees on the soft grass, sucking down cold night air in panicked breaths as if I were no more than a human. I didn’t need the air, but I craved the coolness; the dew of the grass felt like a balm on my still-sizzling nerves, and it was all I could do to stop myself from pitching facedown to its embrace.

But I would not give her that. Not until she demanded it.

She did not. I calmed myself and climbed to my feet, and wished to heaven I could rip her apart, but I knew better than to even attempt it. And I was rewarded with a slow, calm smile. Above it, Naomi’s eyes continued to watch closely for any hint of rebellion.

“Now,” she said. “I have a job for you. I wish you to find the vampire Myrnin, and kill him.”

Not that I hadn’t often wished to do just that, but I hated the thought now, knowing that it was her driving me to it, and not my own will. “Yes, my lady,” I said. The response was automatic, but it was also wise.

“That’s my lovely knight,” she said, and her eyes flashed red. “And inevitably, you will have to do the same to my sister, for my own safety. When we’re done, we’ll rule Morganville together. You can take your sport where you wish; I care not. That’s what you’ve always wanted.”