Thirty years had passed, and I’d missed nothing. I should have expected my mother to blow past normal and go straight to the extreme. But she seemed keen on surpassing even my expectations. She’d been so busy planning that she refused to see me after my arrival in California. She claimed it was her duty as one of the Bay Area’s patron families to host an event to start the season. But I knew what this party was really about: bombarding me with possible matches from every angle.
Sebastian hadn’t shown his smug face since we parted at the island. I had no idea where he’d gone off to, but I knew he would wind up here eventually. The elite rarely missed social season, but no one skipped the Rites. Even me. I recognized most of the vampires in the room, which was in no way a winning situation. We might mingle every fifty years, but the rest of the time we stuck to our own family trees. I swirled the bourbon in my hand and braced myself for the relentless matchmaking about to begin. There were always a few romances during an ordinary season. Some even ended without bloodshed. But enacting the Rites meant something far worse than romance or mating or violence. It was a fate I was determined to avoid, regardless of tradition or my mother’s meddling.
But duty beckoned, so I found myself in the Herbst Theatre, the most intimate building in San Francisco’s Performing Arts Center. The ballroom wasn’t the largest event space in the complex, but it was lavish enough to suit vampire tastes. Gilt flourishes decorated the arched windows and ceilings, complimenting antique crystal chandeliers. Still, with half the country’s pureblood vampires packed inside, it was a tight fit. That’s why I staked a claim at the bar. It was out of the way, tucked into the back of the room. The others were here to mingle and brag, flirt and saunter. Everyone was looking for someone to boost their ego. I was far more interested in being left alone. Outside the soaring windows, city lights punctuated the dark. Night called to me, beckoning me to join it, but I was stuck at a cocktail party.
“Your time is up, my friend!” A pair of blue velvet gloves landed on the wooden bar top next to me with a thwack that dramatically announced their owner’s arrival. The words were spoken by a slight, dark man with a hooked nose and cruel, black eyes. He was undead proof that not all vampires were beautiful, towering creatures like most of the others in the room.
I sometimes wondered who had turned him and why.
“Boucher,” I said by way of greeting, not bothering to raise my voice above a whisper. “Join me for a drink.”
“Perhaps one.” Boucher’s own voice lowered to match mine as he held up a finger. The gesture had the air of someone important, who would never lower himself to look rushed. That was to say, it was very French, and Boucher was every bit the Parisienne down to his neatly polished dress shoes and up to the wool scarf knotted elegantly at his throat.
“You came all the way from Paris for this?” I asked. The vampire I knew hated to leave his beloved city.
“I had a disagreement with the new manager at the opera.” He shrugged his shoulders. The bartender placed a glass in front of him, and Boucher tucked a crisp hundred-dollar bill into his tip bucket.
“Who won?”
“I did.” He smiled, displaying rows of sharp, white teeth. I didn’t bother asking how. If he’d left Paris over it, there had been violence. He’d probably been banished until whatever crime he’d committed faded from the public’s memory.
“I’m lending my expertise to the orchestra here, for the moment.”
“I’m sure they could use it.”
“You have no idea,” he said with a heavy sigh. “When did you arrive?”
“A few days ago,” I replied in a clipped tone. Things were cordial between the two of us, but I’d hardly count him as a friend. It was impossible to trust vampires from other bloodlines. But Boucher and I both loved music, so it was easier to get along with him than most.
“Any favorites?” He eyed the crowd around us, his gaze skipping to the mortal women in the room. “I don’t envy you. I’d never be able to choose. They smell so intoxicating.”
My lip curled at the insinuation. I’d been doing my best to ignore the scent of blood perfuming the air. The mortal men and women present were all from families that dated back nearly as far as the vampires here. Like their ancestors, they had been groomed to be the ideal companion in hopes of making a match with a vampiric bloodline. For humans, they were remarkably attractive. The families of familiars spent years cultivating their best-looking and most talented children to catch our attention. Most matches between vampires and familiars were temporary arrangements that might last years, perhaps decades. But the Rites made things a bit more interesting. These humans were vying for marriage and the chance to help produce an heir.
As if the world needed more vampires.
“Why on earth are we still participating in this cattle call?” I asked him.
Boucher’s dark eyebrows bunched in surprise like two wiggling caterpillars. “Didn’t your mother tell you?”
“She’s been avoiding me,” I told him. I hadn’t seen her since my arrival. I’d been informed of tonight’s event by an engraved invitation and tuxedo waiting in my apartment downtown.
“Sabine does love her games.” He downed the rest of his drink. “A party isn’t the place to speak of serious matters, but the Council has decided an influx of new blood is in order.”
“Don’t you mean babies?” I said sourly.
“Seriously?” he asked. “You sound like you don’t like them.”
“What’s to like? Diapers? Crying?” Pureblood vampire babies only differed from mortal infants in their diet and life expectancy. The rest was grotesquely similar.
“Your mother has her work cut out for her. I don’t think she’s avoiding you,” Boucher said with a laugh. “I think she’s devising her battle strategy.”
Our conversation was interrupted by a group of musicians who stopped a few feet past the entrance to gawk. I rolled my eyes at Boucher who merely laughed as we watched them in the bar’s lighted mirror. A row of bottles lined up like an army of soldiers blocked me from seeing them all. Why did all pretentious bars need a mirror? But the humans didn’t hold our attention. Boucher’s dark eyes moved to follow the more interesting vampires and familiars scurrying behind and between the bottles like a macabre rear view mirror.
“Shouldn’t they be compelled?” I asked him, my mind still on the humans. It was customary to mentally prepare any human attendants before large events. A group of vampires was far too supernatural to ignore.
“The Council is getting progressive,” he told me. I could tell what Boucher thought of this by the distaste coating his words. “Compulsion should only be used in extreme cases.”
I grimaced. “Next, they’ll cut off our balls.”
“No one will let it come to that,” he said darkly. But before I could press him for more information about the Rites or Council’s sudden humanitarianism, he picked up his gloves. “I’m afraid I need to make the rounds. You won’t hide here all evening, will you?”
“I expect at some point, I’ll leave,” I said as he drew the gloves back down his fingers. I pulled my own leather ones from the interior pocket of my jacket. It was a necessary precaution in mixed company, but I hated wearing them.
“It wouldn’t kill you to have some fun,” Boucher reminded me while he finished adjusting his cuffs. He left me to join the throngs chatting and fawning over one another.
It wouldn’t kill me. That was the problem. It was merely torture with no end in sight. But Boucher was right. I could have fun in San Francisco–as soon as I left this boring party. I made up my mind to find my mother and get her lecture about family duties and obligations out of the way so I could leave. Turning, I deposited my glass on the bar, dropping the gloves, to reach for my wallet. The bartender stared as another large bill made its way into his bucket. It was too easy to forget that small amounts of money to us were much bigger to mortals. In the past, compulsion had eliminated any curiosity on their part regarding this. But now there were new fucking rules that made no sense. It was just like vampires to change the wrong behavior to be on the right side of history.
But before I could turn around, a scent rose like a warning in the air.
Blood. But not just any blood.
I smelled her before I saw her.
Crushed rose petals drifting over Marie Antoinette’s dinner party. The burnt sugar and velvet of violets dabbed on a porcelain neck. The warmth of a fire blazing in a Venetian hearth. The sweet almond scent of a woman’s thighs wrapped around my neck. It was as if my life had been marked by her absence as much as this moment was marked by her presence. It took effort–more than I had exerted in centuries–not to turn to trace the path she made through the room. Patience was not one of my defining characteristics. But following her would imply interest, and I couldn’t allow that.
Her scent grew stronger, and I cursed myself for bothering with a drink. I should have left here before now and avoided all of this. Was this part of my mother’s schemes? Had Sabine Rousseaux finally succeeded in securing a familiar I couldn’t possibly resist?
My fingers sank into the polished bar top as if it was carved of butter, my gloves lay forgotten on the counter. The bartender’s eyes widened even more than they had at my tip, and I groaned. Later, I needed to ask Celia what qualified as an extreme enough scenario to warrant compulsion. For now, I was pretty sure sticking my hands through solid wood counted.
“You’re getting me another drink,” I told him, and he went still as our eyes locked. “You found the counter with these marks, but you didn’t worry about it. You were too distracted by the huge tips you’re making this evening.”
He nodded and turned to pour another Scotch in my glass. Behind me, music began playing and I relaxed momentarily. Withdrawing my fingers from the wood, I studied the gouges I’d made in the antique wood. I made a mental note to ease my guilt by making a sizable donation to the arts center in the morning.
I pulled my gloves on quickly before I accidentally maimed something else and accepted my fresh drink. Another round would take the edge off. Whoever’s scent had caught my attention would be gone by the time I was done, along with the familiar herself, lost amongst the many scents mingling in the room.
But when I turned around, the scent hit me again. A dark urge swelled inside me, something primal taking over as my eyes searched the room for its owner. I dared to take a step toward the crowd, only to find my attention pulled away from the mass of partygoers. I turned instinctively, and my gaze landed on the string quartet. I barely noticed the male violinists. Even the voluptuous brunette playing the viola hardly registered. Instead, I found the source of my sudden, predatory urges tucked in the back of the group. She sat at an angle, cello between her legs. Her dress was worn and shabby, and she lacked the polish of the other woman in the quartet. Her head remained tilted in concentration, preventing me from getting a good look at her face. But a single strand had escaped the tight knot of hair perched on top of her head. It curled at the nape of her neck unwilling to be held captive. She struck me as equally unmanageable. Historically, that was a dangerous sign in a woman.
Altogether there was only one word to describe her: human.
She was definitely not the result of my mother’s matchmaking schemes. But her blood was potent. Others would smell it. She’d be lucky to get out of here missing a few pints of blood and suffering from short-term memory loss. Customarily, vampires didn’t kill people, but there was a tendency to cut loose during the social season.
I lost track of how long I stood and considered what to do with the fragile creature. The longer I stood the more I became aware of something else. Her talent. Unlike the others, she played with her whole being, and all of that would be lost if the wrong vampire got his hands on her tonight.
I hated my whole bloody species. I hated the posturing around me. I hated that I’d been dragged out of my self-imposed exile to join them.
And I hated her, most of all, for forcing me to stay at this party. Because there was no way I could ever let her out of my sight.
I was still watching her when the group announced they would take a break. No one in the room seemed to notice or care. The other three musicians exited quickly, but she lingered as if stuck in the sheets of her music. Weren’t humans supposed to have some sense of self-preservation? How could she sit in a room of vampires, unguarded, like a snack? Couldn’t she sense the danger?
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and looked directly into mine. Her mouth formed an O and I heard a gasp only audible to my supernatural ears. It wasn’t the first time a human had reacted that way when encountering our kind unexpectedly. I narrowed my eyes, determined to scare her away. She had no business being here. I glared until blood pooled in her cheeks, locking my legs to keep myself from moving toward her. She turned away to gather her things and exposed her slender, bare neck in the process.
My body interpreted the movement as an invitation–an invitation I was already moving to accept.
Whoever she was, it was too late for her now.
