Hunger Pangs

by Joy Demorra

  “See how the root goes much farther down than the human one?” Vlad gestured to the preserved tooth and the drawing next to it. “There’s a hollow piece of bone in there, almost like a reed. It releases, well, whatever it is we have inside us that makes people into vampires. I tried extracting some once like they do with snakes, but it doesn’t work—”

  “Interesting,” Nathan said, still staring at the date. “Vlad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How old is Lady Elizabeth?”

  “What?” Vlad’s head snapped around; his face pinched with confusion. “I don’t—”

  “When did you meet?”

  “1760-something, I think. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Fiddildy said you ended up in Court over an illegal transformation.”

  Vlad’s back stiffened, a flush of color rising to his cheeks as he tried to laugh it off. “Ha, yes. That was quite the debacle. Got a severe slap on the wrist for that one.”

  Realization dawned. “Except according to this, you pulled your tooth out a whole century before,” Nathan said, tentative. The color drained from the vampire’s face, confirming his suspicions. “You said you need both lower fangs to turn someone. Meaning it couldn’t have been you who turned her.”

  Vlad watched him for several long moments, his dark eyes flickering rapidly over Nathan’s features. His shoulders sagged, and the tension bled out of him with a soft, bitter laugh. “You know,” he said, sounding exhausted, “hundreds of people have seen this. And not one of them ever figured it out.”

  “You didn’t do it,” Nathan breathed.

  Vlad shook his head.

  “Then… why? Why did you take the fall for something like that when you have proof like this?” He gestured emphatically at the case. “They could have staked you!”

  “I…” Vlad opened his mouth. He looked around the deserted library as though he was afraid someone might hear. “I couldn’t hurt her like that.”

  “Who? Elizabeth?”

  “No! Well, yes, her too.”

  “Then, who?”

  “Lady Margarete.” Vlad sighed, his shoulders caving in even further.

  “What?

  “She was… she and the Count had just married. He brought her to live with us, her and her boys.”

  “Lady Margarete had children?”

  “Two boys. Twins.” Vlad smiled tremulously; his gaze caught on some inner horizon again. “They were fun. Absolute hellions, but sweet about it. I liked them. I liked her.”

  “What happened?”

  “They were waiting on dispensation to perform the bite. Lady Margarete wanted to wait until her boys were grown, but she was already in her forties and the Count was… impatient. And then the sweating sickness came. Someone must have brought it over from the mainland; I never did find the source. It ravaged over half the island. Lady Margarete was fine, but… her boys…”

  Oh no. Nathan closed his eyes.

  “She begged me to try and save them, and I tried. Truly, I did everything I could for them. But the sweat is… there’s no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes the weak pull through and the healthy succumb. The night they died, the Count was nowhere to be found.”

  “Oh no,” Nathan murmured, realizing what must have happened next.

  “I regret many things in my life. You don’t live four hundred years without accruing shame. But Elizabeth is probably my worst mistake. I loved her. I think. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. But when she found out I couldn’t turn her, it was like she became a whole other person. I never thought she’d go to the Count, though…” he trailed off, looking so sad that Nathan twitched, desperate to wrap him in the biggest hug he could offer. But Vlad drew in a shuddering breath and continued, “I shouldn’t have brought her to the castle. I put her directly in his path.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for what he did. What they did,” Nathan said.

  There wasn’t even a trace of humor in Vlad’s laugh. “Oh, but I can. I know the Count, and I know what he’s like. I know, and I did it anyway. I guess I thought since he had Lady Margarete, things might be different. I might be allowed to have something more than just—” he fluttered his fingers through the air “—a passing fancy. But I know better than that, now. Anyway, she got what she wanted. Immortality. Life unending. And the Count got whatever he wanted. Proof that he could still turn someone, I suppose. I was furious when I found out. I didn’t want to look at either of them. I didn’t even really care about myself; it was just… what he did to poor Lady Margarete. That grieving, silly woman who was willing to give up her life for him. And he couldn’t even wait a few more months for her. So, of course, all hell broke loose. We were in the middle of a plague, Lady Margarete was heartbroken, and we had a new, illegally transformed vampire in the castle who just happened to be the woman I loved. What else was I supposed to do?”

  “You could have told the truth.” Nathan’s heart ached for the man in front of him. “You could have told them who really committed the crime.”

  Vlad shook his head. “I couldn’t do that to Lady Margarete. She’d already suffered enough. I wasn’t about to take her husband from her as well. Besides,” he cracked a half-hearted smile, “it all worked out in the end. And no one else got hurt.”

  Except you, Nathan thought, eyeing the vampire sadly as Vlad’s familiar, flippant persona slid back into place like donning a mask.

  “Well, that was delightfully morbid.” He laughed, and Nathan smiled sadly in return. “I’m afraid our chess game got away from us. I’d offer to reconvene tomorrow, but I’ll understand entirely if you plan on being on the first ferry out of port in the morning.”

  Nathan frowned at him. “It’ll take far more than that to drive me away. Besides, I was winning.”

  “The hell you were.” Vlad scoffed, falling into step beside him as they made their way back to the abandoned chessboard. “Oh, before I forget, Lady Margarete asked me to make sure you got your invite to the Hallows’ Eve Ball.”

  Nathan nodded. It had arrived the day before, a black card trimmed in so much gold he could use it as a paperweight. “I did, yes. I’ll be there. Though I’m not sure what to do about a mask… Would it be too clever to go bare-faced and say I’m pretending to be human?”

  Vlad’s mouth quirked to the side. “Afraid so. Not to worry, you’ve still got plenty of time. Speaking of which…” He pulled out his pocket watch. “I suppose we should call it a night.”

  “Probably,” Nathan agreed, though he made no effort to move; his hand rested on the back of his empty chair, the chessboard between them.

  “Or… we could finish the game?”

  Nathan thought about it. He really ought to go to bed; work was going to be hard enough to get up for in the morning as it was. But somehow, he just couldn’t bring himself to care.

  “Sure.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Later Autumn, 1888

  “Yes, Swithin? What is it?” Vlad asked as the thrall sidled apologetically into Vlad’s bedroom. He always knew when Swithin was bringing him news he didn’t want to hear because he always brought coffee with him.

  “News from Ingleton, sir,” Swithin replied, setting a cup of black coffee on the arm of the couch. There was a single dark chocolate gingersnap balanced on the side of the saucer.

  Vlad snatched his spectacles from the end of his nose. “Oh Gods, who died?”

  “No one I’m aware of, sir. Only I thought it prudent to inform you there are reports of more riots on the mainland.”

  “In Hartford?”

  “Hartford, Bellmare, and Tethermore,” the thrall said.

  “Ye Gods, that’s every major port along the east coast!” Vlad exclaimed. “What happened?”

  “No word yet, sir, but there are rumors of soldiers on horseback.”

  Vlad put his head in his hands. “Oh no, not horseback. What a stupid thing to do.”

  “Yes, sir,” Swithin agreed mildly. T
he thrall kept his opinions to himself, which was probably his best feature. A vampire thrall didn’t live for four hundred years without knowing when to smile and nod and keep their mouth shut. It was practically a prerequisite.

  “Was there anything else?”

  “No, sir. Although, it is a tad late to still be awake. Perhaps you ought to retire. The Hallows’ Eve Ball is—”

  “Tonight, yes, yes, I know.” Vlad waved him off. “Thank you, Swithin. I’m almost done here. You can take the figures.” He gestured to the paperwork spread out everywhere, which Swithin dutifully started sorting.

  Vlad stood, turned to face the open door of his balcony, and gazed out at the sea beyond. The night air was chilly, and the thin shirt he wore did nothing to shield him from the cold. He wrapped his arms around himself, bouncing uneasily on his heels. It had to be an omen, three riots on the eve of Hallows’ Eve. Change was coming; he could feel it in the air. It tingled across his skin like the prickle before a lightning strike.

  Something was coming. Something big.

  He only wished he had the gift of foresight to see what it was. “Send a message to Parliament along with those figures conveying my regrets at my absence but offering aid where we can. Grain, medicines, that sort of thing.”

  “Not weapons, sir?”

  Vlad spun to look at him. “We don’t make weapons here, Swithin. You know that.”

  “Very good, sir.” Swithin bowed deeply, then vacated the room.

  Left alone with his thoughts, Vlad mulled over the situation. Realistically, there was little he could do, but that didn’t make him feel any better. It was all just so frustratingly simple. The government needed to stop levying crippling taxes on the lower classes, they needed to stop waging wars they couldn’t win, and they needed to focus their efforts on relief aid. It was plain as day. They needed to just… do the right thing. The problem was, they just kept choosing to do the wrong thing, over and over, and then they had the audacity to act surprised when the working classes kept finding novel ways to liberate the ruling classes of their heads.

  Shortsighted. It was all just so bloody, mindlessly shortsighted.

  With a heartfelt sigh, he stared longingly at his bed. He still had work to do, but he was suddenly so very weary. His eye caught on his attire for the Hallows’ Eve Ball hanging on the opposite wall, and Vlad felt a wave of preemptive exhaustion wash over him. Technically, all he had to do was perform the welcoming speech, and he’d be home free. He could scarper up to the gallery and get blind drunk if he wanted to. There was a certain appeal to the idea. Or he could retreat to his tower and lock the door and refuse to come out until spring. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept through the remainder of a year… But he supposed squeezing a nap in before he had to get up and put a mask on wouldn’t hurt either.

  Stripping down to his drawers, Vlad crawled up the length of his bed and face planted into it. He burrowed under the covers, burying himself under a mountain of blankets and pillows, the added weight softening and muffling the world around him until his disjointed thoughts gave way to disjointed dreams.

  His brain was halfway through reworking fragments of memory into nonsensical sequences when the dream solidified. The fantasy unfolded itself in lewd detail and transformed the warm weight around him into a body: powerful and broad, pinning him in place. Vlad awoke with a gasp and writhed against the mattress. He tried to still the needy grind his hips had started while he’d slept, but the pull of the dream was too strong, fueled by the countless waking hours spent daydreaming about piercing blue eyes and firm hands shoving him face down into the mattress.

  It was a fantasy that had worn many faces over the years, but there was something about the quiet authority within Nathan that made it fit so well. It was all too easy to imagine him sizing Vlad up with that razor-sharp stare, picking him apart bit by bit until there was nothing left to hide behind. Just the needy ache at his core that made him weak at the knees with wanting.

  And Vlad wanted so many things.

  He whimpered as the fantasy took another turn, borrowing from reality as he imagined Nathan watching him, eyes narrowed and tsking disapprovingly in the way he did whenever Vlad lost another game of chess—too distracted by the man in front of him to think straight.

  Somehow, I expected better, the fantasy said. Vlad let out a low, pitiful sound as his hips stuttered to a halt, his length trapped between his belly and the mattress, shame and arousal twisting up inside him as he came.

  There was a dizzying moment of bliss where all his thoughts went quiet, and then the same shame that had driven him to completion came crashing over him, drenching him in self-loathing. He shuddered and curled inward, the shame seeping through his pores, turning the warmth in his veins to ice. He was an awful person; Vlad had always known that. But he still felt a stab of guilt at using Nathan like that, even if the other man would never ever know.

  He was just so pathetically weak…

  Downstairs, something thudded against the floor of the ballroom, and Vlad realized preparations for the dance had started without him. Groaning, he rolled out of bed, staggering on unsteady feet to the water closet to draw the hottest bath he could muster. His entire unlife might be a disaster with the world falling apart besides, but at least he could be well-groomed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  The party was well underway by the time Nathan arrived. He stared in wonderment around the packed hall, marveling at the array of costumes on display. At least, he assumed most of them were costumes. It was hard to tell with some.

  “Captain Northland!” Kitty Collins called. She swished over to him in a black velvet gown that twinkled in the light with a matching set of cat ears atop her pretty head. “My, what marvelous ears you have!”

  “I could say the same to you,” Nathan replied, reaching up to touch the pointed ears of the wolf mask obscuring the upper half of his face. It was a silly, ornate thing that Fiddildy had procured for him, the whiskers and ears brushed in gold to match his uniform buttons. It was a poor facsimile of the real thing, but Nathan supposed it would do.

  “Do you like my dress?” She twirled for his perusal.

  “Very pretty,” Nathan agreed. “Though you appear to be missing a tail to go with those ears.”

  “Captain!” Kitty exclaimed, faux-scandalized. “You’re not supposed to look at a lady’s bustle!”

  With a chuckle, Nathan crooked his head to the side. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

  Kitty giggled, unable to maintain a straight face for long. “Lady Riya says this style of dress will be the height of fashion soon.”

  “I’m sure if Lady Riya says so, it will be.” Nathan knew little about fashion; it was hard to get excited about clothes when the prospect of too many buttons became claustrophobic once a month. But he knew what looked good, and Kitty looked good. The diamond-studded choker at her throat didn’t hurt either.

  “What’s your trick for the evening?” Kitty asked, and Nathan looked at her quizzically. “You know, trick or forfeit?”

  Nathan didn’t.

  “It’s sort of a party game,” Kitty explained. “If you perform a trick you get a treat, but if you don’t you have to do a forfeit instead. That’s the rules. Everyone has to have one. Although some people prefer to pull pranks instead.” She wrinkled her nose. “But nobody likes those people.”

  Nathan thought for a moment. “How about this?”

  Kitty gasped and clapped as he made his eyes glow yellow. It was a paltry feat for an accomplished shifter with blue eyes, but humans always seemed to get a kick out of it. “That’s wonderful! Much better than my card trick. Can you do that all night?”

  “Probably,” Nathan replied. The wolf receded to the back of his mind; his senses dimmed. “But it makes the light hurt.” He gestured to the flickering candles around the room, the flames tinged green by some alchemical trickery.

  “Shame. You looked positively frightful.”

 
; “Thank you, I think.”

  She leaned closer to him with a hand on her chest. “I can’t believe you didn’t know about trick or forfeit. Do they not do this sort of thing in Lorehaven?”

  “No, not really,” Nathan replied, rubbing the back of his neck. “We light candles in windows, but…” he trailed off, realizing he might cause offense by saying they lit candles to keep the risen dead away from their doors. Not welcome them in as seemed to be the custom here. The whole of Eyrie had transformed overnight from a sleepy seaside town to a carnival of ghoulish delights, the sounds of piped organ music and laughter echoing through the streets. Hallows’ Eve, it seemed, was a truly gay affair.

  “There you are,” Lady Riya called.

  Turning, Nathan blinked, momentarily stunned. Her gown was similar to Kitty’s—cut in the same modern fashion, the green shimmering fabric neatly fitted to her willowy frame and flaring out at the back. There was a vaguely insectoid quality to the shape; an effect aided by the jeweled butterfly mask covering her face and the plethora of silk flowers woven through the thick cloud of her curly black hair. She looked like a walking piece of art.

  “Lady Riya.” Nathan reached for his forelock, feeling compelled to bow properly.

  Kitty gasped. “Riya, you look…”

  “Fabulous, I know.” Riya grinned, plumping up her curls with a sweeping touch of her hand. “I don’t suppose either of you have seen Vlad?”

  Nathan shook his head; Kitty did the same. “Oh, bother.” Riya’s shoulders slumped. “He always does this. He knows he has to give a speech. We can’t start properly until he does. Mother is getting anxious.”

  “Perhaps we could look for him,” Kitty said, taking Riya’s hand with familiar ease. “I’m sure we could find him.”

  Something caught Nathan’s eye along the upper gallery. “Uh…” He nodded upward. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”