Drink, Slay, Love

Chapter Thirty

On the dais, the king raised his hand.

The music ceased, and every dancer froze. No one spoke. No one even breathed. Pearl shot a look at the stairs. She could reach them in three strides, but they might as well have been three miles away. If she ran upstairs, the vampires would follow her, and the humans would die. She couldn't let that happen.

I'm not going to make it, she thought. She hadn't realized until that moment how much she'd hoped to escape and survive the night. It hurt to release that hope.

"You," the king said. He levelled his finger at Jadrien. "Speak."

Jadrien threw himself down in a prostrate bow. His face touched the stone floor. "Your Majesty, please forgive-"

"Tell me what you said." His voice was like molten stone, dripping and burning where it touched as it oozed across the cellar.

"She has a reflection," Jadrien said quickly. He didn't even hesitate before condemning her. "I saw it in the chalice. I see it now in the polished stone beneath us." She couldn't blame him-he'd always looked out for himself first, like any good vampire-but she still wished she could kick his ass across the cellar and pound his head against the lovely, clean stone wall.

The king fixed his burning eyes on Pearl, and Pearl was suddenly grateful that she didn't need to breathe. She felt as if all the oxygen in her lungs had ignited. His eyes were intense enough to scald. "I drank your blood tonight," the king said.

"Yes," Pearl whispered. Her voice carried in the silence. She hoped the evacuation was moving fast. It was only a matter of time now. Given how quickly the king had killed when he first entered the ballroom, she estimated her life expectancy was about five seconds.

"You begged me to drink my fill. Yet you are no vampire."

Pearl's tongue felt thick as she tried to wrap it around her words. "Yes, I am." Her eyes slid to Mother. His eyes followed hers.

To Mother, he said, "You allowed this . . . this abomination . . . into my Fealty Ceremony." His voice dipped lower, slithering through the room as if it were a snake. Pearl felt her skin crawl.

"You were informed of the feast," Mother said, her voice shockingly calm. "She is the author of it. May I present my daughter, Pearl, true child of my body and the jewel of our Family. She will bring honour to you-"

The king asked Pearl, "Child, have you seen the sunrise?"

"Yes," she said, wishing for even a third of Mother's poise.

Silence punctuated her answer.

"She is our miracle," Daddy said, breaking the silence. "She has proven her worth and loyalty through the feast that she has delivered to us. Above, four hundred young bodies await us."

"Check the upstairs," the king ordered his guards. Two of them strode toward the stairs, so fast that the air rippled around them.

"No, wait!" Pearl said.

The king commanded, "Hold." The two guards halted. They looked as if they'd suddenly transformed into stone. "Speak, day walker."

All eyes turned toward Pearl. She reeled back, the power of all those ancient eyes searing into her skull, and then she forced herself to stand straight and focus on His Majesty. "The feast . . . if we don't spring the trap carefully, they'll suspect. They'll flee. If any of them escape, it will ruin us! This will only work if we catch them all."

Mother bowed. "Of course, the insolence of her manner of speech will be punished severely, Your Majesty. But in essence, she is correct. This hunt must be executed with precision."