Blood Bound (Mercy Thompson #2)(74)

"What did he tell you?" I couldn't tell by her words if Naomi believed me or not, but it didn't really matter.

"Nothing." I decided not to share what he had said. It wouldn't help anyone here, and it didn't sound as if Rachel had heard him. I got up and opened cupboards at random until I found a glass. I filled it with water and drank, pretending my throat was dry because I was thirsty, not because I was scared. Had the sorcerer really eaten Daniel?

Unwelcome, the memory of Littleton killing the woman at the hotel hit me as a full-throttle flashback: sight, smell, and sound. Just for a moment, but for that moment I was back in the hotel room. I must not have acted strangely, because when I turned back to Naomi she wasn't looking at me like she'd have stared at someone who'd screamed. I set the glass carefully down on the counter.

"If vampires live in their menageries," I said, proud of my steady tone, "who lives in the seethe?"

"Only the strongest vampires can live on their own and survive purely on human blood. All the others live in the seethe. They are the Mistress's menagerie," Naomi told me after a moment.

I worked it out. "She feeds on the vampires?"

Naomi nodded. "And gives them a little, very little, blood in return. Without that blood, the weaker vampires would die-and only the Mistress is allowed to feed other vampires and feed from them. She keeps humans there, to nourish them all, but without her, the lesser vampires would die."

"Allowed to feed?" I asked. "If there is a rule against it, that must mean that she gains something from feeding off vampires."

"Yes. I'm not sure what-strength and power, I think. And the ability to limit the actions even of those vampires she didn't directly beget. She made Stefan, and, I think Andre. But Estelle and most of the others aren't hers. When she quit paying attention to the seethe, Stefan and Andre ran things for her. But some of the older vampires became unruly."

"Estelle and Bernard," I suggested remembering the man in the dapper suit.

Naomi nodded. "The four of them, Stefan, Andre, Estelle, and Bernard are the only vampires strong enough to live outside the seethe. Stefan says that once they can live without feeding from the Mistress, vampires start to get territorial, so they're sent out to gain their own menageries." She paused. "Five, actually. The Wizard lives on his own."

"The Wizard?" I asked.

She nodded her head. " Wulfe. You've seen him because Stefan said he was present at the trial. He looks younger than Daniel and has white blond hair."

The boy who'd worked the magic on the chair.

"While Marsilia wasn't paying attention, Estelle and Bernard managed to make a few new vampires and kept them to themselves."

"They're feeding off the new vamps," I said, following her story. "That makes them more powerful than they otherwise would be."

"Right. This part I'm not certain of."

"Okay."

"There's some reason that Marsilia can't take the new vampires from them. I think it's because once the new vampires have exchanged blood with their maker a few times, they'll sicken and maybe die without the blood of that particular vampire. Vampires reproduce very slowly so they are very careful with new ones-even if it means that Bernard and Estelle gain power that Marsilia cannot afford for them to have."

"So," Naomi continued, "there's dissension in the ranks. Stefan believed that Marsilia is losing her grip on the seethe. No one is in outright rebellion, but the Mistress is not in absolute control either."

"What does the addition of the sorcerer do to her position?" I asked, and she smiled at me like a student who'd come to the right conclusion.

"A vampire is in town causing trouble," she said. "It's a matter for Marsilia to handle-but this one has proven stronger than Stefan. Vampires... the older they get the more afraid they are of death. Stefan told me that he thought the reason she sent only him out after the sorcerer wasn't to punish him-but because she could send no one else because they wouldn't go. Of the five most powerful vampires, only Stefan and Andre are truly hers."

So she really had been desperate when she came to me.

"Why doesn't Marsilia go after him herself. She's the Mistress and the most powerful of them all."

Naomi pursed her lips. "Would your Alpha go after such a dangerous creature when he had warriors to fight in his stead?"

"He already has," I told her. "An Alpha who counts on others to fight his battles doesn't stay Alpha long."

"He's not dead." I turned at the sound of a masculine voice behind me.

The man who filled the doorway looked to be somewhere in his fifties, with an underlying strength buried beneath his somewhat thickened midsection. I glanced at his hands and was unsurprised to see them roughened from a lifetime of hard work. Like me, this was a man who'd made his living with his hands.

"Who's not dead, Ford?" Naomi asked, but he ignored her entirely.

His bright eyes on mine, he took another step into the room. I couldn't look away from his gaze. "He's not dead," he said intensely. "If he were dead, the threshold would be gone. I was here when Andre couldn't get through. Only Stefan made this a home. I'd know if he were dead."