"Your ring, Gabron," I handed the envelope to him when Wylend cut off the images after a while. "Desire is in a cell in my dungeon. You have passage booked to Refizan tomorrow, and a note of deposit will be handed over to you when you leave. The amount has been increased to cover the fair price for all your brothels. You may take any or all of the workers with you." I stalked out of the room.
* * *
"You have made my granddaughter a laughingstock across the Alliance," Wylend stared at Gabron. "Whether this was your intention or not, I do not know. This will follow her for years, vampire. I very much want to kill you, but she forbids it. What have you to say for yourself?"
Gabron folded the envelope carefully in his fingers. "Tell her I am sorry," he said and rose from his seat. Tony and Gavin followed him, to make sure he left the palace. Additional guards fell into place as Gabron walked away.
* * *
Arvil San Gerxon strode into his study the following morning, reading a few messages on his microcomputer. Therefore, he was unprepared for what he found sitting behind his desk. Desire, the spy he'd sent to Le-Ath Veronis, sat naked in his chair, her wrists and feet bound and tape across her mouth. A sign hung around her neck. Try this again, it read, and your death will be swift.
* * *
Gabron boarded the starship docked at the space station orbiting Le-Ath Veronis. A private compartment had been reserved for him, with enough space for twenty more people. He was alone. A valise had been handed to him when he'd arrived and he didn't bother to check the contents. Sitting heavily in one of the well-padded seats, he stared at the vid screen mounted on the wall before him. Images of Lissia were being shown. A statue of Lissa, erected in the main square had been defiled. Whore Queen had been painted across the base in tall, white letters. Other graffiti ridiculing Lissa marred the bronze surface.
"She is not the whore," Gabron whispered softly. "I am."
* * *
Flavio wanted to speak to every Council member before the meeting, but knew he couldn't. There wasn't any way to protect Lissa. None at all. The media had also arrived in great numbers. Lissa said to open the wound and let it bleed. She was suffering and there wasn't a damn thing anybody could do about it. The Larentii had to place her in a healing sleep at night. She wasn't allowing any of her mates into her bed and Karzac threatened to administer transfusions if she continued to refuse meals. She disappeared for two hours after waking every day and none knew where she went.
The meeting went quietly for the most part and then Lissa, flanked by Gavin and Tony, went out to speak with the media.
* * *
"Are you angry? I thought vampires killed over things like this." A tiny microrecorder was shoved in my face.
"Our laws prevent that kind of indiscriminate killing," I replied. I felt weary. Bone tired. It probably showed in my face. I no longer looked at my image in the mirror; I allowed Giff to have her way with my hair and clothes and ignored it all.
"Didn't you want him dead? Where is he now?"
"I didn't want him dead and he was sent home."
"Where is home?"
"I will not reveal that; he has a right to privacy." Gabron's right to privacy had been violated in the ugliest possible way. No, I wasn't going to take him back. He'd had a chance—a good one—at making amends. He hadn't taken it by failing to come see me, talk to me or offer an apology after Roff was attacked. Instead, he'd chosen the brothels over me. Not surprising, that's all he'd known for thousands of years. I was the upstart. The latecomer. I snorted at the thought. Whatever I was to him, I hadn't been important enough.
"How does this make you feel?" The reporter stood behind those pressing against the barrier and had to stretch to make himself visible.
"You want to know how I feel?" I snapped. He swallowed uncomfortably and nodded. "I feel betrayed by a man I loved," I said. "That's how I feel. I feel as if I've been punched in the stomach and then kicked a few times. I can't sleep and I can't eat. That's how I feel. A former mate is splashed across all your vid screens while he's screwing one of his employees and you call me the whore. You laugh at me because I was foolish enough to trust him. To believe in him. To think that he cared about me. Well, as you all have so eloquently put it, too many times to mention, in fact, I was gullible. That's how I feel. Gullible. Dumb enough to love somebody. And stupid enough to stand there while he threw it back in my face. That's all for today." I turned and walked away from all of them.
* * *
"They're reappearing on many of the worlds we've cleaned out already." Kiarra wanted to tug her hair out by the roots. "Where are they coming from? How are they getting there? This is driving me insane."
* * *
"Roff, shouldn't you be at home?" I was sitting on the domed roof of the palace, too tired to get off. He'd flown past and then circled around to land and sit near me.
"Flavio says you are harming yourself." His honey-brown eyes displayed concern.
"Flavio means well, I know. But there's no way I can act differently right now."
"What would make this stop for you?"
"Unless you can turn back time for three hundred years or so, I don't think there's anything."
"I can fly you down, if you'd like. Perhaps you will consent to have a bottle of blood substitute with me. There is a lounge nearby, owned by my sire."
"A lounge?"
"Flavio calls it that. It is a place vampires go to socialize while having their evening meal. Or they go there if they need more blood. They stock blood substitute, warm or chilled. And they serve food there, if some of the comesuli come with their vampires. You may even order blood substitute mixed with alcohol if you want, but Flavio says I cannot do that unless he is present."
"What do they call this place?" I smiled for the first time in a long time. Flavio had owned El Diablo on Earth and it was pretty much the same thing. This was a good idea, I think.
"He calls it New Fangled."
That made me laugh. Leave it to Flavio to come up with something like that. "If you feel up to flying me there, then I'll go," I agreed, still smiling. Roff gripped my arms tightly as he lifted off the roof. It wasn't like flying as mist; Roff's wings lifted and lowered us as he flapped along through wind currents. He set us down right outside New Fangled just as rain sprinkles came. New Fangled was spelled out in red and purple neon across the building's facade and the business was quite tastefully constructed. The interior was even nicer, with tables in the center or more private, circular booths lining the walls. The place was nearly full and there were comesuli there, accompanied by vampires. They were eating and talking with the vampires while the vampires drank bottles of blood substitute.