“Julian?” Thea held up her mask. “Can you help me?”
I took it with a grim smile. “Of course.”
Thea turned away from me and I placed the mask over her eyes. She reached up and adjusted it carefully. I’d discounted the effect seeing her at a blood orgy might have on me. I’d expected it to be a test we faced weeks from now at the earliest. After I’d introduced her to sexual pleasure and sated my desire for her. I could stop myself from claiming her virginity under normal circumstances, especially if I was allowed to have her in other ways. But blood orgies were designed to arouse, every element an aphrodisiac meant to encourage blood-lust.
Generally, the wilder parties were reserved for smaller groups or held much later in the season, after more matches had been made. Hosting an orgy this early meant the event would live up to its name. Usually, couples paired off, preferring dark corners and privacy for their mating rituals. Tonight there would be no such courtesy.
I tied the mask around her head. The ends of its ribbons slipped through my fingers as easily as my chance to be the one to educate Thea about her body. Thea moved to face me, her green eyes catching the light reflected in her mask’s gold flourishes. She didn’t look human. She would easily pass as a familiar with her dazzling beauty and easy grace. But that was a different problem altogether. A human might find herself lured into becoming a snack. I was prepared to face that danger. But if others believed she was a familiar, they’d also assume she was eligible.
I brushed a gloved finger over her lips, trying to decide what to do. I couldn’t let her walk in there alone, even for a few minutes. Hopefully the scent lingering on her from my jacket would be enough to keep any overly eager parties away. But there was only one way to mark a human or familiar as off-limits–and I’d sworn I wouldn’t do it.
I’d have to improvise.
I ran my tongue over my teeth as my fangs lengthened. There wasn’t time to explain the stakes to her, so I hoped she would forgive me. And if she didn’t? Maybe it was for the best. If the Rites meant hosting orgies a few days into the season, I wasn’t sure she could survive the next eleven months.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a quiet voice, hoping the vampires at the door were discreet. I couldn’t imagine they’d been employed in such a position if they weren’t. Moving closer, I angled my face over hers. Venom pooled in my mouth the closer I got.
Thea gazed up at me, mistaking my intentions. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I’ll just find a bunch of humans on my side, right?”
I paused and considered her point. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Yes, it would be imperative to reach her as soon as the party started and the groups began to intermingle. But she wasn’t in danger of falling into another vampire’s hands before then. Not that familiars couldn’t be as vicious as my species.
“Still,” I said tightly, “don’t get too friendly.”
The last thing I needed was Thea to spill any juicy details to someone else. If anyone found out that she was a virgin, heads would roll. Quite possibly my own. And there was no way my mother would buy that I was in a serious relationship with her.
She grinned at me, her eyes dancing behind her mask.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re very overprotective,” she whispered. “It’s kinda adorable.”
Adorable? Adorable was one word that had never been used to describe me. Apparently, I needed to rip a few more people apart in front of her. The sooner she dispelled any romanticized notions about me, the better.
“Pet, I am a goddamn Neanderthal, remember?” I growled. “Stay out of trouble.”
“Or you’ll punish me?” Did I detect a hint of hopefulness in her words? My cock twitched in my pants as if expressing its opinion.
“You’d like that,” I murmured, moving closer to her in the darkness. “Just remember that if you’re in trouble, I’m likely to behead whoever’s standing between us.”
She gasped, her eyes widening. Thea didn’t say anything as she processed how serious I was about this.
“I’ll behave,” she murmured dutifully before drawing an X over her chest. “Cross my heart, I won’t flirt with any other vampires.”
Something rumbled in my chest and I barely contained the jealousy vibrating inside me at her playful suggestion.
“Julian, I–”
The arrival of another party interrupted her and we stepped to the side. The newcomers chose their masks and hurried into the party.
“Sir,” the elderly attendant said, “guests should be inside by now.”
“I’m not a guest,” I growled at him.
“I’m aware of that, which is why the festivities are on hold.”
“Hold?” Thea repeated in confusion.
“They can’t start without us,” I told her, gritting my teeth so hard that a fang sank into my lower lip. My mother wasn’t just having a party. She was putting me on display for every eligible familiar to lust after. The sooner I showed them all that I was spoken for, the better. “We should go inside.”
Without thinking, I leaned down and kissed Thea. I’d meant it to be a gentle parting and one more opportunity to plant my scent on her. But she responded with an urgency that left me questioning if she was more scared than she let on. I took her mouth roughly, forcing my tongue past her lips, and reminding her exactly what I’d promised her later tonight. She’d be rewarded as many times as I could manage for playing along with these silly vampire traditions.
When we broke apart, she smiled dreamily at me and then slipped away toward the entrance reserved for attending mortals.
The male vampire at the door cleared his throat and stepped to the side to allow me passage into the other wing of the house.
I stalked toward the entrance, getting more annoyed with him by the second.
“Enjoy yourself this even–”
He choked as I lifted him by the throat off his feet and slammed him into the stucco facade. “Try to manage me again, and I’ll rip your heart from your chest and feed it to you.”
I released him to his feet. He caught himself easily and pinned a blank look on his face. “Of course.”
There was more he wanted to say. I sensed it. But whatever orders my mother had given wouldn’t extend beyond her exact demands. He wouldn’t dare speak freely with me about anything else. Whatever the old human had overheard me discussing with Thea had probably given him a few opinions. I wasn’t interested in any of them. But even compelled servants talked, so I hoped my threat would keep him from sharing my private business with anyone else.
The opium den had been added to my parents’ San Francisco home in the late nineteenth century before it became hip among the humans. Vampires and Sumerians had discovered the drug around the same time and were most responsible for the dens that sprang up in cities around the world. A den was an easy way to find fresh blood. Humans flocked to them willingly, and vampires enjoyed the delicacy of dining on the rich, opioid-drenched blood. Naturally, that had gone wrong quickly. It had been an ugly affair with humans using the drug and its highly addictive nature to vilify minorities and working classes. Who would believe the dens were the invention of vampires? The Council had intervened, outlawing the entrance of humans and familiars into opium dens. Only a handful of open dens remained, although all the richest families had at least one somewhere on their various properties.
Ours was inspired by Venice. My father had taken a trip there while the estate was being built. It was a far cry from the back-alley haunts used to lure humans. The den itself could better be described as an opium parlor, seeing as it took up nearly a quarter of the first floor. Tonight it was nearly full. Vampire families crowded the space, leaving hardly any room to move.
