“Uhg! Fine.” I threw my hands up. “But only because I'm hungry—not because you used that cheeky grin on me.”
“Okay.” He cocked his head, winking. “I won’t tell anyone you can’t resist me—it’ll be our little secret.”
“You wish.” I punched him softly in the arm.
“Hey.” He grabbed my wrist. “When did you last have blood?”
“Just after the attack—a few hours ago. Why?”
“See this?” He ran his index finger over my vein. “See how it’s raised and the smaller veins around it are purple?”
“Mm-hm.”
“It means you’re blood-thirsty.”
“Already?”
“You must have used a lot to heal.”
I ran a finger over my wrist. “I guess so.”
“I’ll call up a Sacrificial.” He went to walk away.
“No. Don't. I’ll just starve.”
“Why?”
“I really hate those guys. They’re so impersonal.”
“That's the idea, kiddo.”
“I know, but…I don't know. Maybe I'm more like you guys than my kind.”
“What do you mean? You want to kill?”
I sighed. “No. Not kill. But…I like the bite—the intimacy. Drinking from some man in a suit, who looks away while I suck his arm, is like washing chocolate down with a glass water, real quick, so you can eat a plate of broccoli.”
Eric laughed loudly, rolling his head back; his pointy fangs made me miss my vampire so, so much. “Here. You’ll just have to drink from me then, until David can come back.”
“Are you immune?”
“Yeah. Mike’s been tipping his blood into a cup for me.” He made a face like he was grossed-out.
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“And that makes you immune to my venom, too?”
“To all venom, including Created.”
I took his hand in a delicate grasp. “I really hope you’re right about that, Eric.”
“If not, guess we’ll find out the hard way.”
“And…” I looked at his wrist, then his caramel eyes, all smiling and knowing. “What about the lust?”
His brow arched high. “Amara, I think we’re a little past all that now. Just drink.”
* * *
“Well, the prophecy child is no longer an option!” one person said sternly; I rolled my eyes, walking into the Great Hall.
“I disagree. There is nothing to say it must be conceived with a firstborn son of Knight.”
“Right, and if it was, Arthur is a firstborn anyway, so he could impregnate her.”
I looked right at Arthur when I heard that, my lip turned up; he closed his eyes, shaking his head as if to say ‘sorry’.
“Look, right now, we need to focus on catching Drake,” Mike cut in. “We can debate the prophecy after that.”
Everyone stood suddenly, conversations ceasing as I pulled my chair out. I held the urge to swallow in the silence until, as I sat down, everyone else followed, making quiet chatter again.
“We should be focusing on the coronation,” Portly woman said.
“Yes. Steps. We must look at this in steps. The coronation needs to happen.”
“Why?” I said, unfolding my napkin.
A few people shook their heads, a couple of eyes rolling.
“It’s a sacrificial right,” Arthur said. “It completes the process of your transformation.”
“Into a Lilithian?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Like a person being baptised,” he said.
“Baptised? But I don't believe in God.”
“That is irrelevant,” Arthur’s tone was a little harsher than usual.
“Yes, see, Your Majesty, that Stone has power,” Moustache Man said with a bit of a stutter. “It is said to be the scale that measures balance between all living things.”
“And when you make a promise to assist it, you become a part of Nature’s army,” a woman in a pink blouse said, “like a bee or a seed, helping keep things in greater order—all life.”
“What, like, I can make a plant grow by touching it?” I half laughed.
“It is not just the plants you will command,” Moustache Man said, “but the animals—all creatures that walk this earth.”
“All living creatures,” someone corrected.
“Yes,” Moustache Man amended.
“Well, what un-living creatures are there, if vampires aren’t undead?”
The room grew silent. Everyone seemed to have an answer but no one wanted to say it.
“Ghosts?” I asked, smiling under high arched brows of sarcasm.
“The issue at hand here is not what you will rule, but what you must do before you can,” Arthur said.
“And, so, I’ll be a complete Lilithian vampire when I make my oath on the Stone?”
“Once the full ceremony is complete, yes.”
“I don't really understand how a simple coronation can change things.”
“Again, like making your Confirmation in God’s church, you will be bound, the slit of which your purity and your power enters and leaves your soul will, essentially, be sewn shut—set in stone. You will be one with Mother Nature.”
“Cool. So, if Drake’s destructive and cruel, not really balancing things, how come the Stone lets him rule? Can't it just do some mumbo jumbo magic and get rid of him?”
“The Stone is not there to maintain balance. It is a gateway—an energy point that connects the earth and all living creatures to the human world. It has no power to change things itself,” Morgaine said. “It needs…assistants. Bodies connected to this realm, of which can do its bidding.”
“Like me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And, so Drake was, what, fired?” I asked.
“No. Drake never made an oath on the Stone. He commissioned the monarchy and the laws, and is deemed ruler by law, by vote, but it is the one who Nature deems worthy that counts. He can remain on the throne of the vampires, but once you make your oath and prove your worth, Mother Nature will deem you the only ruler—like Lilith before you.”
“Right, and with Her backing,” Portly Woman said, “Heaven help any who try to get in your way.”
“So, do we really need to catch Drake and let this prophecy child kill him? Can't we just coexist, you know, he can rule the vampires and I rule all else?”