Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
He stares at me for a few moments, eyes narrowing. “That’s it? Feed and fuck and make some magic?”
“That’s literally it.”
“And Ryet has never been here? Or done anything like this?”
This is Kael’s fatal flaw. Jealousy. He hates Ryet. He’s always hated Ryet. He wants to be my blood lover. My one and only. Not because he loves me—Kael here is a psychopath, he’s not capable of love. He wants to be my one and only because he has grand dreams of usurping me.
Which is ludicrous. I have more Darkness in a single strand of hair than he does in his whole body. But you don’t know what you don’t know, so I can’t fault him for dreaming big. And anyway, these big dreams of his are the whole reason he’s going to say yes to this offer.
“Is this guy a vampire?” Kael nods to Joshua.
“No. He’s a witch.”
Kael snorts. “A witch, huh? Aren’t witches women?”
“They can be. But mine are men. They’re more… agreeable when it comes to the blood loving. Easier to convince, if you will. More inclined towards the debauchery that comes with it.”
He huffs. “Debauchery. What a word.”
I smile patiently. “So. Are you in?”
He side-eyes me. “Fuck yeah, I’m in.”
I pan a hand at him and grin. “See? So easy to convince.”
We follow Joshua out of White River and turn onto a little gravel road that leads up the mountain. Everything is wet and muddy with snowmelt, so it takes a while to weave our way through the forest, but eventually we arrive at the top where there is a collection of charming A-frame houses and buildings reminiscent of Old Europe and all made of wood hewn from this very forest, as if Zecharyet Wagner handcrafted this village himself.
I love it mostly for this reason. It reminds me of Ryet.
Of course, he’s never been up here. He will never come up here. Even if my plans had worked out and he and Syrsee had stayed in White River for their transformation, he would never have seen this place.
Because he was meant to die in a grand scheme of world domination and not some simplistic sex ritual to make a potion or a pudding. And that’s the only reason a scion of mine would ever come up here.
To die.
There are lots of people around when we get out of the truck. All the women and girls are wearing long, linen dresses with a traditional feel to them. Mostly light blue—they love that color for some reason—but there are several dozen wearing undyed off-white or mustard-yellow dresses as well. A small handful of them are wearing peach, which only started showing up a few years ago when Emily took over, so it must be a special dye she cooked up.
All the men are wearing brown trousers and blue or undyed work shirts with suspenders and boots.
Only Joshua, and Kael, and myself are wearing outsider clothes. All of us in jeans, boots, and flannel shirts.
It’s very charming, but it has to be, doesn’t it? I mean, this is a place of dark death and I want my scions to feel comfortable when I kill them to cook up the kitchen magic.
Kael comes around the truck to stand next to me. When I give him a sideways glance, I find him leering at the women. “You like them?” I ask.
“What?” He’s not even paying attention to me.
“The women? You’d prefer one of them?”
He looks at me now, suspicion on his face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m asking you a question about your preferences, Kael. Clearly, you like women.”
“Of course. But if you’re asking if I want to trade one of those stupid whores for your blood, the answer is no.”
That wasn’t what I was asking, obviously. But I don’t bother explaining. Kael here might be cunning, but he’s also very primitive and I’m kind of in a hurry, so not in the mood to humor him. “Take your pick,” is what I say as a reply. “Which one do you like?” I point to a young woman who was much younger the last time I was here. Rachel, I think her name is. “I’ve had my eye on that one there for years now. How about her?”
Kael looks at the woman with a critical eye. She’s in her early twenties and wearing one of the peach dresses and it’s got a yellow apron, so she’s festive. Her face is round and welcoming once she realizes we’re looking at her. She’s got dark hair, so she comes from the oldest line of breeding, but while she’s nice to look at, she’s not much of a cook. Which is fine. Emily’s our chef so this one’s only job, literally, is to tantalize. And she does it well, cocking a hip and her head as she lifts her chin up, daring someone to approach.