Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(52)

Just as she was going to ask what Carling and Tiago were both doing in Tennessee of all places, Carling said, “Of course it wasn’t called Memphis then. That came much later. Then it was called Ineb Hedj. It was the capital of the entire world, and at dawn the sun would shimmer on the Nile like a sheet of hammered silver overlaid on jade and lapis lazuli.”

Niniane caught her breath. “You met him in Egypt.”

“Yes, a very, very long time ago. Tiago was a god, and I was a commodity. I was young and still human, taken out of poverty and the river mud because of my looks. I was given to a god to entice him to stay with our people. I was entirely desperate, but he did not even look at me. He left and I was punished for it.”

Niniane had gripped her hands together at the small, dry telling of the ancient story. She said, “That’s horrible.”

“It’s ludicrous,” said Carling. “I didn’t want him. I was just a child with a pretty mouth, and he terrified me. I was glad he left.”

Niniane forced her hands to relax. “What happened after that?”

Carling’s lush lips pulled into a smile, as if she were the Mona Lisa of demons and had just swallowed a soul. “I clawed my way to a better life,” the Vampyre said. “I learned poisons and warfare and sorcery, how to rule over others, how to destroy my enemies, and how to hold a grudge with all of my heart. Then I discovered the serpent’s kiss that turned me into a god as well, and no one ever took a lash to me again.”

Serpent’s kiss. Niniane stared at her. “You’re talking about the time when you became a Vampyre.” Carling inclined her head, and Niniane saw in the gracious, imperial gesture how much Rhoswen imitated her mistress. Niniane asked, “And Tiago never realized what happened or who you were?”

“No.” Carling’s expression turned wry. “But when I look at him, I want to strangle him all the same.”

“I’m so sorry,” Niniane said.

“Child,” Carling said. The Vampyre’s dark gaze was quizzical, somewhat bored.

“I don’t care if it did happen eons ago,” Niniane told her on a flash of ferocity. “I don’t care if there’s a more sophisticated way to respond or if it doesn’t matter to you anymore. I am sorry for what that girl went through. I’m sorry for what the girl I was went through. We may not be those girls anymore, but their ghosts live on somewhere inside us, if only in the memory of what happened, and someone ought to say it: those children deserved better.”

Carling’s gaze dropped. The graceful wings of her eyebrows pulled together. She said, “You are right, of course. They did.”

Niniane had slept too long, and none of it had been refreshing. Her eyes felt dry and scratchy. She dug the heels of her hands into them and rubbed. “It happened so long ago, and Tiago didn’t mean to do anything wrong. You do realize that, don’t you?”

Again Carling gestured with a few fingers. She made poetry of the movement through a couple inches of space.

“Do you think you could try to set aside your grudge?” Niniane asked. “I’m asking that you do this as a favor to me, in the interests of building an alliance between us.”

“You care about him.” Carling spoke as if she savored the words, even as she stared at Niniane with intense curiosity.

There wasn’t any point in denying it. She said, “Yes.”

“Even after he withheld the truth from you about the second attack?”

She sighed. “Yes.”

A shadow of a scowl crossed Carling’s face. The youthful, impetuous expression was a startling incongruity amid such disciplined, mature perfection. The Vampyre said grumpily, “Oh fine. I won’t do anything to him as long as he doesn’t try to do anything to me.”

Niniane sagged in her chair. “Thank you,” she said. “That means a lot to me.”

Carling gave her a hard look and said, “Perhaps it means too much to you. You should be careful where you step next, Niniane, and in whom you place your trust. You are in a fragile place right now.”

Niniane’s spine stiffened. “I am well aware of the place I am in.”

The Vampyre’s expression softened. “I know you don’t want to believe that Dragos had anything to do with the assassination attempt. I could feel the struggle in you earlier.”

She was startled by the context of the conversation. “You can . . . feel my emotions?”

“Yes, of course. As Vampyres grow older our senses become more acute. The eldest of us eventually lose our taste for blood and we feed on the emotions of those around us. I have not partaken of human blood for several centuries now.”

Good grief, Carling was a succubus. Niniane said, “You sense what other people are feeling.”

Carling shrugged. “I sense the feelings of those who are alive, at any rate. Other Vampyres are of no use to me when it comes to sustenance.”

What an intrusive ability. Niniane’s forehead wrinkled. Well, that explained how glossy the Vampyre had looked at various times today. Niniane wondered what the jagged landscape inside of her tasted like to a succubus. Could it taste as bitter to Carling as it did to her?

If she asked, would Carling tell her what Tiago felt about her? Would the Vampyre tell her if that sadness she thought she had seen in his eyes just before he left had been real or feigned? She clenched her fists and jaw so tight her teeth ached, in order to keep herself from asking the pathetic question.