“What about the legends?” Dara asked. “Will we not turn into vampires by being bitten?”
“No. That’s only in the movies. Vampires are a race of their own. Some say they were here before the first humans.”
“You’re right,” Dara agreed. “I do have a lot to learn.”
Reeva smiled. “Are you ready to go downstairs?”
“No,” Dara replied, “but I’m not going to get any more ready by standing around.”
Reeva took her by the hand. “You’ll understand everything better once you see it for yourself.”
“That’s what Andrei said,” Dara replied.
“Just remember,” Reeva told her. “Most of the companions here were just like you once, and this experience was as confusing for us as it is for you.”
“It couldn’t have been that confusing for you,” Dara replied. “You came as a little girl.”
“It was much more confusing for me,” Reeva told her. “My benefactor told me nothing about where I was going or what would happen to me. She just picked me up and took me without a word.”
Dara’s mouth fell open. “How could she?”
Reeva shrugged. “That was a long time ago, and I’ve been here ever since. So don’t worry too much. If you start to get scared, just look at me. I’ve been here over twenty years, and nothing bad has happened to me.”
“You’ve been bitten … how many times?” Dara pointed out.
“Thousands,” Reeva told her. “The vampires aren’t dangerous, and they aren’t here to kill us or harm us. Every time I’ve been bitten, I have benefited.”
“Everyone keeps saying that, but after Andrei bit me, I felt horrible. I had no strength, I was cold, and I felt like puking.”
“It can be like that the first time,” Reeva said. “Your body is in shock. Now, after I’ve been fed upon, I feel nothing but pure bliss for days. It’s the most wonderful feeling a human can experience. It’s so much better than sex.”
Dara widened her eyes at Reeva.
The handmaid laughed and patted Dara on the shoulder. “This is the way it is in Sanctuary. The relationship between the vampires and the companions is good for everybody.”
Dara shook her head. “It’s just very hard to believe.”
Reeva led her to the door. “You’re here now, and there’s no going back. Now stop stalling and come on. Once you get over your fear and dive in, you’ll feel much better about the whole thing.”
Before Dara could make any more excuses, Angela opened the door and Reeva led her out onto a landing overlooking a grand sweeping staircase. A high-ceilinged foyer stretched out below her at the foot of the stairs. Reeva gave her hand a tug and they started down the stairs.
Dara’s dress spread out behind her and swept over the steps. She looked down at her feet, but her wide skirts covered her down to the floor. It felt like she was gliding over the floor when she walked.
Reeva turned to a door under the staircase and gently nudged Dara to go through it.
Her breath caught in her throat when the room thundered with a deafening cheer. Faces surrounded her on all sides, and the noise of shouting voices reverberated off the ceiling timbers.
Dara teetered on her feet, but at that moment, Andrei appeared out of the crowd. His hand took the place of Reeva’s, and he led her into the hall. The crowd parted to make room for them. Dara couldn’t feel her legs move across the floor, but somehow she made her way through the room without falling on her face.
Andrei stopped at the foot of an enormous stone platform. High above them, two people sat on carved wooded thrones. Their glittering garments spread across the steps and floor all around them, and golden crowns sat on their heads. Dara blinked. She couldn’t force her mind to accept that this was real. This was no fairy tale, and those people up there weren’t human. They were vampires.
Yet they looked exactly the same as any other human beings Dara ever saw. They looked as human as Andrei. She could see only one difference between vampires and humans. Vampires bore no signs of bites on their necks.
The king leaned closer to her, his eyes twinkling.
Andrei urged her forward, and he led her up the steps onto the platform. They turned to face the crowd, and a hush fell over the room.
Andrei held up his hand to indicate he wished to address the Assembly. “This is my consort, Dara. She will be my princess and my queen. I beg you to make her welcome.”
The hall erupted in cheers again. Andrei escorted Dara to an empty chair on the other side of the king and queen, and he took another at her side. Dara’s head swam, and she could scarcely focus her eyes on the faces looking up at her. What did they expect her to do? Should she give a speech?
The sea of bodies parted once again, and a procession of people filed forward from the back of the hall.
A middle-aged woman dressed in rich garments led the group. Two younger women stood on either side of her. When they reached the foot of the platform, the king addressed them first.
“Madam Trendeaux, the Assembly has heard your petition,” he said. “You have come to us for protection from your former …
business
associates, who wish to end your life. We give our approval for you and your…”
“Daughters,” the madam said, though Dara saw clearly that they were not related.
“…daughters, to make your home in Sanctuary, according to the edicts of our law.”
The two girls burst into tears of joy. One of them clapped her hands, and then covered her mouth with her fingers to stifle her sobs. The other seized the older woman by the arm and jumped up and down. A shudder passed through Trendaux’s frame, and she wavered back and forth, but she never lost her composure. In the end, she merely bowed from the waist.
“In order to ratify this agreement,” the king went on, “you must allow yourselves to be bitten now.”
Madam Trendeaux stiffened, and the smiles evaporated from the girls’ faces.
The king held up one hand. “This is simply a formality to seal your initiation into our society. We cannot accept you until you have been bitten.”
Madam Trendeaux exchanged glances with her girls. Then she stepped forward. Her voice boomed through the hall. “That wasn’t the deal. You said we were to become servants in exchange for protection.”
“And that is how humans serve us best,” the king said. “No human can remain in Sanctuary without offering us their blood. That is our law.”
Dara recognized the look of horror on the woman’s face. If she believed all the stories of vampires, she would expect that their bite would be fatal.
As if to a child, the king explained, “If we allowed you to remain here without giving your blood, your ‘daughters’ would ask for the same consideration. Then their children, and their children’s friends, and their children’s friends’ parents, and their children’s friends’ parents’ associates would want the same. We could not allow that. All of you must offer your blood to us. And the offer to us must begin with you, my dear Madam Trendeaux. We cannot accept any other terms.”
Her voice quavered when she said, “I did not fully understand these terms before I applied to enter your service.”
The king frowned. “I cannot help that. You chose to forfeit your life in the human world for a place in Sanctuary. No one made you take that step. You came of your own free will. But now that you are here, you cannot go back.”
“The Assembly has accepted you, but you must offer your blood to our Kind. There is no other option available to you.”
Madam Trendeaux looked at her daughters, but she couldn’t exactly argue with him. “Your Majesty,” she said, shoulders slumping, “you give me no choice. I submit to you.”
The king regarded her in silence for a moment. No one in the hall moved a muscle. Dara swallowed hard. What would happen?
She couldn’t sympathize with Madam Trendeaux very much, though. She must have known putting herself and her people into the service of vampires would mean being bitten by them. Madam Trendeaux knew a lot more about what she was getting into with these vampires than Dara herself knew before Andrei bit her for the first time.
The king waved his hand, and Andrei stood up.
Dara gasped and tried to pull him back down into his chair. But he pulled his fingers out of her grasp and walked to the edge of the platform.
Madam Trendeaux stared up at him. She tried to put on a mask of determined strength, but her lips quivered and her hands trembled at her sides.
Her daughters sobbed and wrung their hands, but Madam Trendeaux kept her eyes fixed on Andrei’s face. She stood ramrod erect as he descended from the platform and took his place in front of her.
Her daughters fell into each other’s arms in a flood of weeping.
Dara clenched her hands together in her lap, but she couldn’t stop the shudders of anxious horror racing through her. Was this really going to happen? Was Andrei really going to bite that lady?
Madam Trendeaux looked stoic and firm, but underneath, she must have been quaking in her boots. Some forgotten instinct made Dara look at her neck. The paper-white skin throbbed with the pulse underneath. Was Andrei looking at it, too?
They stood face to face for several seconds, and then Andrei darted forward. He moved so fast, Dara saw only a blur.
The next moment, Madam Trendeaux hung limp and helpless in his arms. He buried his face in her neck.
A sigh of relief went through the crowd, and several vampires applauded.
Dara swooned, and she cradled her head in her hands. Suddenly, she couldn’t watch.
Soon, Andrei would be coming to Dara for another feeding. How could she let him do that? Like Madam Trendaux, did she have any choice in the matter?
Chapter Three
Dara turned over on her bed.
The sun had moved to the other side of the palace and no longer shone through her window. The chill of evening crept into the stone walls of her room.
She ought to close the window, but she still couldn’t get used to the absence of bird calls outside. She listened and listened and couldn’t stop listening.
Voices rang up from the stone courtyard, and the sounds of work and play reached her ears, but nothing could comfort her in place of the birds. Nothing meant home to her so much as the sound of birds outside a window.
Would she ever hear birds again? Andrei told her she would never choose to go back to the human world once she came to Sanctuary. Did that mean she wouldn’t be allowed to go if she decided she wanted to? Was she a prisoner here?
She closed her eyes and buried her head in her pillow. She couldn’t get the image of Madam Trendeaux out of her mind.
It wasn’t the sight of Andrei biting and bleeding her, though, that disturbed her so much. It was the expression on the older lady’s face when she stared into Andrei’s eyes and knew beyond doubt what was about to happen.
The memory of Andrei’s bite came back to her and she shivered again. She couldn’t deny the truth of his words, though. He had surprised and frightened her that first time, but the bite itself didn’t hurt. Before it had happened, her desire for him had been intoxicating. It was only how she felt afterward that made her shiver.
Reeva said she now felt pure ecstasy for days after being bitten. Would Dara feel that bliss the next time? That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?
She kicked herself. How could she justify it that way? She couldn’t let herself get used to being nothing more than livestock for the vampires.
Sighing, she started to sit up when the door opened again.
“Doesn’t anyone around here knock?” she was about to ask, but closed her mouth when Andrei appeared in the door.
“Were you asleep?” he asked.
She sank back down on her pillow. “I couldn’t sleep, not after what I saw.”
“What bothered you?” he asked. “Seeing Madam Trendeaux receiving her initiation?”
“Is that what you call it?” Dara asked. “Is that the initiation you give all your … your servants?”
Andrei nodded. “All of them—even you.”
Dara sat up straight and glared at him. “What do you want?”
He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I wanted to see you. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
He stroked her cheek. “Are you still mad at me, Dara? I thought you were happy with your place here. You did very well in the Royal Hall today. You’re going to make a splendid queen one day.”
She turned away. “What exactly does a queen have to do? The queen just sat there through the whole affair.”
He laughed. “That’s about it. Her position is mostly ceremonial.”
“When do you become king?” she asked. “I guess you can’t just wait around for the old king to die.”
“No,” he replied with a smile. “But the king has been on the throne for a long time now. He’ll step down soon, and then you and I will take over.”
“How long is a long time?” she asked.
He looked up at the ceiling. “The king has been on the throne for about three hundred years. Some serve more; some less.”
Dara gasped. “Three hundred? What will they do after they step down?”
“They’ll go back to their ordinary lives,” he told her. “I don’t know what they’ll do, but I’m sure they’ll think of something to keep them occupied.”
“Won’t they stay in palace anymore?” Dara asked.
“Why should they?” he asked. “They have their own homes to go back to. They’ve had enough of royal life, and I can understand that.”
“What about you?” she asked. “I’ll be long dead by the time you finish being king. You’ll have another consort, another queen.”
He took her hands in his. “My dear, I already told you: you are my true consort, and you will share in my immortality. The current queen is human, like you.”
Dara turned away. She didn’t know if she believed she was going to become immortal. “I don’t understand any of this.”
He laid his hand against her cheek and turned her head to face him. His eyes burned into her heart. “If you don’t understand anything else, understand that I brought you here because I love you. I couldn’t stand to leave you behind in the other world. You belong here.”
“Am I going to have to go through what Madam Trendeaux went through?” she asked. “Will I have to be bitten in front of everyone to prove my submission? I don’t think I can do that.”