Ghost Town

program as it is, with a limited number of licenses, and the university remains protected ground.”

Oliver laughed. “Are you listening? They won’t obey you for much longer. They’ll do as they choose, regardless of the law. They’re angry, Amelie. You’ve allowed humans to kill vampires and walk away. If you choose to punish vampires for following their natures, you’re as stupid as you were when you thought you could manipulate your way onto a throne as a girl of twelve. You never did reach that goal, did you? I’m sure dying a mere princess never sat well with you. That must be why you appointed yourself queen here.”

Amelie stood up, and the room went very, very quiet. Claire no longer felt the urge to try to talk. She felt the urge to crawl under the table. It was as if she, Richard, and Hannah no longer existed, at least to Amelie and Oliver.

“Are you telling me that you no longer want to serve as my second?” Amelie asked him. “Because that is what I hear.”

“Amelie . . .” Oliver’s voice was full of angry frustration. He, at least, hadn’t forgotten the presence of others, and glanced quickly aside at the humans. “Send them out. We need to settle this. It’s been a long time in coming.”

“Richard and Hannah are equal members of this council. I will not dismiss them like servants.”

He laughed, and Claire saw the sharp glitter of his fangs. “Equal? How long have you been deluding yourself like this? You think any of them are ever equal to us? You are ceding control of this town to fools and mortals, bit by bit, and we are all going to suffer for it. Die for it. It cannot go on!”

“Sit down,” Amelie said. “Now.”

“No. You are destroying us, Amelie, and I can’t—I won’t permit it to continue.”

They froze in place, staring at each other, and Claire hardly dared to breathe at all.

Oliver didn’t blink. He finally said, “Your human pets are turning on us. They’re turning on you. The boy in the cage down there is proof enough of how much in contempt the humans hold your rules, and you. And they’re not wrong, because we are killers, and they are our natural victims. If we let them have control, they will destroy us. They have no choice.”

“That’s not true,” Claire said. She hadn’t exactly meant to say it, but now it was out, hanging in the air, and Oliver’s attention was on her like a freezing blanket of snow. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

He whirled to face her, and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “So what is your solution, little Claire? Keep us in zoos, the way you keep other predators who threaten you? Exterminate those you can’t control? That’s what humans do. We know this. We used to be just as flawed, just as human.” Oliver looked back at Amelie. “I’d have wiped all vampires off of the face of the land, in my breathing days. If I could have managed it.”

She smiled thinly. “I know very well what you would have done,” she said. “You did the same in your day with humans who worshipped differently from you and yours. But not all humans are as genocidally inclined as you.”

He hit the table so hard it vibrated. “I did what was right!”

“You did what was right for those who agreed with you, and that is all in the past. We are talking about our future. Oliver, we cannot live as we did. We cannot hide in the shadows and run when discovered, like rats. In this modern age, there is no hiding among the humans, not for long. And you know it.” She hesitated, and then said softly, “You must trust me, as you once did.”

He laughed, a rusty, raw sound, and turned to go.

Amelie flashed around the table in a white blur and put her back to the door before he reached it. He paused just a step away from her. Seeing them that close together, Claire realized how tall he was, and how he towered over her. Amelie looked fragile, suddenly. Vulnerable.

“Don’t make me do this,” Amelie said. “I value you. Don’t destroy the peace we have.”

He reached out and fastened his hand on her arm. The guard moved toward them. Amelie shook her head, and the guard stopped, but stayed ready to jump. “Out of my way,” Oliver said. “This is useless. I’ve bowed to you for too long, and if I continue to do it, we will all suffer. You can’t change us, Amelie. You can’t change me. For the love of God, stop trying.”

“Sit. Down.”

“No. I’ve been your trained dog long enough.”

She broke free of his grip and slapped her hands on both sides of his face, freezing him in place. Her eyes . . . her eyes went white. Pure, cold, icy white. Claire looked away, because what howled through the room just then was a feeling of wild power nothing like she’d ever felt from Amelie before. Hannah and Richard had moved out of their chairs and were pressed against the far wall. Even the guard was backing up.

“Do not defy me,” Amelie said fiercely. “I don’t want to destroy you, but I will rather than allow you to hunt and kill as you wish. Do you understand me?”

It had to be impossible for Oliver to do anything but agree. Claire felt the pressure in the room increase, a kind of heavy psychic weight that made her gasp and want to curl into a ball—and it wasn’t even aimed at her.

Amelie opened her mouth, and her fangs slid down, elegant and slow. She was no longer vulnerable. Not at all. She was . . . terrifying.

Oliver had to kneel to her. He had to. Claire could feel just the edges of what Amelie was doing, but the pressure on Oliver must have been like the weight of the ocean, driving him to submit.

He took a deep breath and brought his arms up sharply between hers, and knocked her hands away from his face. Amelie’s eyes widened in surprise, and then he reached out and put his hands on her face.

Amelie’s eyes faded back to gray, then turned very dark. “No,” she said. “No.”

“Yes,” Oliver said. “I warned you before. I won’t be ruled. Not even by you. I don’t wish to do this, but you’ve left me no choice.”

Amelie was shuddering now. Power was pouring out of Oliver, and unlike Amelie’s cold control, his felt hot, blood-hot, pounding like a pulse. Overwhelming. Claire’s head was splitting from the pressure, and she saw that Richard and Hannah were feeling the same pain.

“Submit,” Oliver said. “Submit and I’ll spare you the humiliation of kneeling.”

“No,” she whispered, but it was weak. Only a thread of sound. Her eyes had turned black. “You will never have me, Oliver. Never.”

“I already have you,” he said.

“No.”

“This has been coming for so many years. You knew it. Let go. Amelie, I don’t want to hurt you.”

It seemed to take everything Amelie had, but she struck his hands away from her face, just as he’d done to her. Her eyes paled back to gray. She was breathing, visibly breathing, which for a vampire meant she’d just done something extremely hard. “I will never be your creature, Oliver,” she said, voice trembling. “I will accept you as an equal. Never as a conqueror. You should know that by now.”

He stared down at her, and Claire felt the pressure in the room slowly bleed away. She should have felt relieved, but instead she just wanted to collapse and sleep. Hannah and Richard were holding hands, she noticed. That seemed odd. Maybe they were just as freaked-out as she was.

“Equals,” Oliver said. “How could we ever be equals, do you imagine? We aren’t made for such things. We both need to rule. It’s in our natures.”

“Then force me to submit. Or walk away.”

Oliver shook his head, and Claire thought he started to turn, but then his right hand shot out and closed around Amelie’s throat, slamming her back against the wood. She tried to speak, but his grip was cutting off her voice.

“We can’t be equals,” he said. “I’m sorry. I never wanted it to come to this.”

And he bit her in the throat.

Claire screamed.

Oliver was drinking Amelie’s blood. Amelie was fighting him, but he was too strong for her, and her guard . . . her guard wasn’t moving.