Jealousy

Talk about an uncomfortable thought. The fang marks on my wrist throbbed a little, but I ignored the feeling. I was getting good at ignoring stuff. If there was an Olympics I’d probably qualify. I’d go for the gold.

“After a certain amount of time, every ephialtes will question why he is killing his brothers. And what will eventually happen to him once his masters tire of him, no matter how useful he is. Scarabus questioned, and he turned against them. Normally he would have been hunted down by every ephialtes and wampyr his masters could induce to do such a thing. But Scarabus had an advantage.”

Leon stirred restlessly behind me.

Beaufort finished his last slow turn, and his eyes settled on me. “He had a sister.”

A ripple went through the room. A few of the boys, unable to help themselves, actually glanced at me and away quickly.

Great. I sank back into the couch, wishing for some of Leon’s wallflower juice.

“Scarabus’s first act of disobedience was taking his infant sister and hiding her. Their human mother died in childbirth, and Scarabus must have told his master that the child had died as well. Such things being common in antiquity. Nothing more is known until fifteen years later, when the sister was on the verge of blooming. He could no longer keep her a secret, so he drank her dry.”

My stomach turned over hard. “He what?” It burst out of me.

Beaufort actually winced. “He, ahem, killed her. Drank past the point of bonding, past the point of the blood- dark, past the point of crippling. He absorbed his sister. And used the strength in her blood to become something the wampyr could not stand against. At least, something the taproot of their species could not stand against. Without that taproot—”

“Whoa. He ate his sister?” It was the guy in front of me. I was feeling kind of glad someone else was having the same reaction. Guess chivalry isn’t dead.

Beaufort sighed. It was a Dylan-class sigh, but without the shades of patient aggravation Dylan could have put into it. “Essentially, yes. He absorbed her essence and used the resulting aura-dark to strike at the Vampire King. Who was, incidentally, Scarabus’s master for most of his life.”

“Wait. The aura-dark.” I remembered that term faintly. “What is that?”

Nobody breathed or moved for a long few seconds. I was getting used to that, whenever I asked a really basic question. They took all these things for granted, since most of them had been raised djamphir . It kind of made me wonder what I’d be taking for granted if Mom was still alive.

Now there was an uncomfortable thought.

Beaufort looked up over my head, and a faint tinge of pink touched his cheeks. “It is what happens when a djamphir drinks blood. After a certain point, the, ah, the nosferat part of our heritage rises to the surface. We gain more strength, more speed— and less ability to withstand sunlight. It burns us just as it burns them, when we give in to the craving.” His mouth pursed. “We’ll cover more of that later, Milady. With your permission?”

So that was why Christophe had hidden from the sun after biting me. I nodded, pulled my jaw back up. Closed my mouth with a snap. Gee, I was just learning new things all over. I wished I had my hoodie on. Gooseflesh crept up my arms, spread down my back.

“Without the King, the Court scattered and gradually lost their ability to walk during the day. Which brings us back to the point of this lecture. Why do you suppose Scarabus had to hide his sister?”

I just knew I was going to say something snide. “For snacking later?”

There were a couple of gasps, one horrified chuckle, and several snorts. A few of the boys looked down at their notepads or books, one or two of them with bright crimson cheeks.

I never used to wise off in class. Things were just changing all over.

If Beaufort’s mouth could have turned down any further, he would have looked like a commercial for bitter beerface. “No, Milady. Because the thing that allowed the Vampire King—and therefore the rest of the wampyr—to walk during the day was regular ritual infusions of svetocha blood. Which is, incidentally, what makes svetocha such high-priority targets for both us and them.” The grimace eased up into a mirthless grin, one that showed his white, white teeth as the aspect ran through him again. The fangs look different when they’re exposed and lengthening. Thicker, with a distinctive curve. “Svetocha have become increasingly rare ever since, for reasons we’re still working to understand.” He finally turned away from me, his eyes roving the class. “Over the course of four centuries after the killing of the King, the Court scattered. Human populations were also on the move, and a pale copy of the original Court settled in Greece, since Egypt and, by extension, the Hittite empire proved . . . unwholesome. Unfortunately, though, Scarabus and his followers could only train so many djamphir; casualties were high, and the wampyr had the upper hand until fairly recently, when the Treaty with the wulfen was made.” He glanced at the clock over the door. “I think that’s enough lecture for today. Open your books to page 285, please, and—”

I dug for my book, but the roaring in my ears drowned out most of what he said next. The marks on my wrist had mostly healed by now. They were just two innocent little bruised-looking divots, right where the radial pulse beat. Marks from Christophe’s teeth.

I didn’t take. I only borrowed. Remember that.

He could have killed me. I remembered the ripping, tearing, awful sensation as something more than blood was pulled out of me. And that was only three long, hellish gulps. And after that he’d called up fog to shield us and hunted the vampires chasing us and—

“Milady?” Beauforte’s voice. “Be so kind as to read us the first passage on page 285.”

“Yeah.” I flipped two more pages. “Sure. All right. Two eighty-five.”

My eyes wandered and I had something caught in my throat. But I got through three paragraphs on something about the patterns of vampire migration during the Peloponnesian War and wasn’t called on for the rest of the class. I made it through by just putting my head down and staring at the pages, my eyes blurring. I’d catch hell for it on quizzes next week, but Jesus. Remembering someone sucking your blood—and soul—out of you isn’t comfortable.

What would it be like to have that happen until you died?

I shifted uncomfortably every time I thought about it, and by the time class was over I was so ready to get the hell out of there. So it came as a complete surprise when the silk-button-down boy in front of me turned around and leaned over the back of his couch. “Hey.”

The book went jammed back into my bag. I grabbed my hoodie, shrugged into it. “Yeah?”

So I didn’t sound very welcoming. So what?

“You, um, wanna have some coffee? Sometime?”

What? I stared at him like he was speaking a foreign language, and the shuffling noise in the room as everyone got ready to go crested. Then I realized what he was asking me, for whatever reason.

Words finally occurred to me. “I guess so.”

Now why did you say that, Dru? Like you’ve got time for a coffee klatch. But hell, it was the first time someone had said anything to me that they didn’t absolutely have to. And yeah, I was the new girl. Always be cautious of the first guy who talks to you—that’s the rule for new girls. I could have recited it in my sleep.

But it had worked out fine last time, with Graves. Or not so fine, considering he’d kissed me once and decided he didn’t want to go further. And this guy looked so hopeful, and his blue eyes were warm and shy.

“I mean, sure,” my mouth replied independently of my brain. “Like when?”

He looked surprised but covered it well. “Um. Huh. Well, when are you free?”

Leon made a stifled noise behind me. I ignored him. “Weekends, mostly. Except this Saturday, I’m, uh, busy. So, um, Sunday? Like around one or so? We can meet in the caf.”

Way to play hard to get, Dru.

He looked like I’d just given him Christmas. “Yeah.” He stuck his hand over the back of the couch. “I’m Zeke.”