Bitter Blood

OLIVER

When Amelie slept, she seemed little more than a child, smal and defenseless, bathed in moonlight like a coating of ice. Her skin glowed with an eerie radiance, and lying next to her, I thought she might well be the most magnificent and beautiful thing I had ever seen.

It destroyed me to betray her, but I really had no choice.

I slipped quietly away through the darkness of this, her most secret of hideaways; it was where Amelie kept those treasures she had preserved through years, through wars, through every hardship that had fal en over her. Fine artworks, beautiful clothes, jewels, books of alldescriptions. And letters. So many handwritten letters that seven massive ironbound chests couldn't contain them all. One or two, I thought, might have come from my own pen. They would not have been love poems. Likely they had been threats.

I moved silently through the rooms to the door, and out into the jasmine-scented garden. It was a smal enclosure, but bursting with colorful flowers that glowed even in the darkness. A fountain played in the center, and beside it stood another woman. I'd have mistaken her for Amelie, at a glance; they were alike enough in coloring and height and form.

But Naomi was a very different kind of woman altogether. Vampire, yes; old, yes. And a blood sister to the Founder, through their common vampire maker, Bishop...but where Amelie had the power to command vampires, to force them to her wil , Naomi had always wielded her power less like a queen and more like a seductress, though she had little interest in the flesh-or at least, in mine.

Amelie appeared to be made of ice, but inside was fire, hot and fierce and furious; inside Naomi, I knew, was nothing but cold ambition.

And yet...here I was.

"Oliver," she said, and placed a smal , gentle hand on my chest, over my heart. "Kind of you to meet me here."

"I had no choice," I said. Which was true-she had taken allchoices from me. I raged at it, inside; I was in a tearing frenzy of rage within, but none of it showed on my face or in my bearing. None could, unless she allowed it; she had control of me from the bones out.

"True," she said. "And how fares my much-beloved sister?"

"Wel ," I said. "She could wake at any time. It wouldn't do for her to see you here."

"Or at all, since my dear blood sister believes I'm safely dead and gone. Or do I have you to thank for the attempt on my life, Oliver? One of you must have wished me dead among the draug."

"I organized your assassination," I confessed immediately. Again, no choice; I could feel her influence inside me, as irresistible as the hand of God. "Amelie had no part in it."

"Nor would she have; we've held our truce for a thousand years. I'll have to think of a suitable way to reward you for betraying that. What does she suspect?"

"Nothing."

"You've gained her trust?"

"Yes."

"You're certain of that?"

"I'm here," I said, and looked around at this, Amelie's most sheltered secret. "And now, you're here. So yes. She trusts me."

"I knew that bewitching you was an investment that would soon pay off," Naomi said, and gave me a sweet, charming smile that made the storm inside me thunder and fury. I hated her. If I'd had the ability to fight, I'd have ripped her to pieces for what she'd done to me, and was doing through me, to Amelie. "She hasn't detected your influence on her decisions?"

"Not as yet."

"Wel , she wil likely start to question it soon, if she hasn't already; my sister has a nasty streak of altruism that surfaces from time to time. Once the humans begin to complain of their treatment, she may think about placating them once again." She ran her fingers over my cheek, then parted my lips with cool fingers. "Let's see your fangs, my monster."

I had no choice. None. But I tried, dear God, I tried; I struggled against the darkness inside me, I fought, and I won a hesitation, just for a moment, in obeying Naomi's iron wil .

And still , my fangs descended, sharp and white as a snake's. There was a single tiny tug of pain, always, as if some part of me even now refused to believe my damned state of being, but I had centuries ago grown well used to that.

The pain she was wringing from within me was much, much worse.

She let me go and stepped back, eyes narrowing. "Your reluctance doesn't please me," she said. "And I can't risk your tearing free even a bit from my side, now, can I? Hold still , Oliver."

And I did, to my shame; I held very still , eyes fixed on the calm flowing water of the fountain as it spil ed tears to the stone. She raised my arm to her lips, bit, and drank. She was a true snake, this one, and poison ran from her bite into me; it corrupted, and it destroyed the tiny pulse of wil I'd managed to raise. She licked the remains of my blood from her lips and smiled at me.

Defeated.

And then she put her lips close to my ear and said, "I owe you something for that bit of wil , don't I? Very well . I want you to feel pain. I want you to burn."

It started slowly, a sensation of heat sweeping up from my hands, but it quickly turned into the familiar bite of sunlight beating down on me...but where age had given me armor against such pain, I had no defenses from Naomi's witchery. It was like being a newborn vampire again, tied down for the noontime glare, with my blood boiling and burning its way through my flesh, exploding in thin pale flames, flaking my skin to ash and roasting nerves....

I clenched my teeth against the pain, then whimpered softly at the extreme of the agony. Let me die, something in me begged. Just let me die!

But that, of course, was not her plan. She had done me no physical harm, none at all. It was only the memory of fire, the sense of it; my blood was cool and intact, and my skin unmarked.

I only felt as if I were a torch set afire.

When she finally released me, I fel to my hands and knees on the soft grass, sucking down cold night air in panicked breaths as if I were no more than a human. I didn't need the air, but I craved the coolness; the dew of the grass felt like a balm on my still -sizzling nerves, and it was allI could do to stop myself from pitching facedown to its embrace.

But I would not give her that. Not until she demanded it.

She did not. I calmed myself and climbed to my feet, and wished to heaven I could rip her apart, but I knew better than to even attempt it. And I was rewarded with a slow, calm smile. Above it, Naomi's eyes continued to watch closely for any hint of rebel ion.

"Now," she said. "I have a job for you. I wish you to find the vampire Myrnin, and kil him."

Not that I hadn't often wished to do just that, but I hated the thought now, knowing that it was her driving me to it, and not my own wil . "Yes, my lady," I said. The response was automatic, but it was also wise.

"That's my lovely knight," she said, and her eyes flashed red. "And inevitably, you wil have to do the same to my sister, for my own safety. When we're done, we'l rule Morganville together. You can take your sport where you wish; I care not. That's what you've always wanted."

"Yes," I whispered. No. Not at this cost. And not with her.

I had never expected, after allwe had endured, to be undone at the lily-white hands of a maiden. Myrnin might possibly have been able to find a way to stop it, and her. That was why Naomi wished him gone, of course.

And why I'd have no choice, none, but to do her bidding, until she finally had no more use for me at all. allvampires had some measure of control of others; it was an instinct that made us effective hunters, but in some-like Amelie-that trait was very strong, a hammer blow that could be wielded against other vampires. Naomi's ability was a whisper, not a shout, but it was just as powerful. I had never suspected she possessed such skil s. She had always seemed so...innocent. And kind. I ought to have known better; vampires are never kind, not unless that kindness buys us something.

"Tel me," I said. "Tel me why you're doing this. Why now?"

"I did not come after you," Naomi pointed out, and raised an eyebrow. "I am not my father, Bishop; I had no need to rule until it became plain that Amelie was...incapable. I would have been happy to see her healed and whole again, even then. But you had to come after me, Oliver. So it's entirely your fault that I am driven to this extreme."

Naomi's chin suddenly rose, and her eyes dimmed to a pale blue. "It seems I must leave you now, Oliver. She's awake," she said. "You know what to do. And remember, if you fight me, I'll make the punishments I've given you already seem like a caress."

She vanished like smoke. Surviving my attempt to destroy her, in the chaos of the final battle with the draug, had made this one stronger, faster, more coldhearted than ever.

I waited until I sensed Amelie's approach, and then I turned with a false but convincing smile; it ripped at me like razors to betray her so, because even after allour years of rivalry, I had finally come to realize her worth, and now...now the smile was no longer mine. It was a lure, a lie, and it sickened me to see her return it.

She walked on bare feet down the path, hands stroking the petals of flowers as she came; her thin white gown blew like mist in the moonlight.

She was beautiful, and desirable, and I despaired inside as her hands touched the bare skin of my chest, because I was going to be the death of her.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing at all. I wanted to warn her, to tel her how dangerous I was to her now. How destructive.

"You strayed," she said, and kissed me very lightly.

"Yes," I said, and felt myself smile that warm, chal enging smile that had charmed her into trust. "But I'll never go far."

Until I killlyou. God forgive me.