Page 34 of Blood as Sweet as Roses

Crimson

They just don’t smell the same.

On the dance floor below, one of the new donors oscillates her hips in perfect time to the music, her chestnut hair grazing the trim of her violet dress.

And I just don’t care.

What is wrong with me?

With a frustrated growl, I move my gaze away, and take a heavy swig directly from a bottle of distilled blood.

Usually, I have a rotating cast of breathers that I drink from, ensuring that I don’t weaken or drain any of them, carefully doling out my affections without singling out any of them or neglecting them.

But ever since Paige entered the mansion, I haven’t been able to get her scent out of my head. None of the other donors compare. I can’t get her out of my mind.

Could she be…

No. I’m not going down that road. She’s a breather like any other.

She just has particularly delicious-smelling blood, and a sweet nature that I’m very fond of.

It’s nothing more. I’ll continue to drink from her, but it would be wise to add a few more into the mix, so it doesn’t seem like I’m focusing my attention on her alone.

I’ve just decided on a tall, leather-clad donor, who’s eying me fiercely from their standing table by my throne. I’m about to call them over when a vampire appears out of nowhere beside me.

“Hi, Crimson!” he says, a little more loudly than is necessary.

“What is it, Alin?” I snap, annoyed at being interrupted right before a meal.

To my dismay, Alin holds up a thick, overstuffed binder.

“My king, I’ve been working on the proposal for creating our own supply chain of glow!

” he tells me, proudly. He pushes a strand of pale hair out of his face as he opens the binder, showing me the many charts and diagrams he’s prepared.

“I met with some of the local independent witches, the ones we don’t believe are allied with Cedric.

I even took the liberty of bringing on some Artemis witches with backgrounds in potion-making and blood magic… ”

I’m already tuning him out. The donor gives me a heavy-lidded stare from across the room. “That’s great, Alin. Why don’t you put that on my desk and…”

“Did you know that there are ways to add additional elements to magical enhanced drugs?” Alin asks, his grey eyes brightening.

“For example, some witches can make the substance binding to a particular vampire, or can heighten its addictive quality. I think we should do the latter, while decreasing its likelihood to render a magical coma. It’s tricky, but… ”

“Ok, did you review all of this with Murad?” I ask, not wanting to get into the details of his plan right now.

Alin flips to a separate section in the binder.

It’s covered in bright red and purple sticky notes, highlighted to an obnoxious degree.

“Yes, sir, I met with him several times during the drafting process!” he says, pointing to one of his tabs.

“He provided some excellent feedback, including suggestions for how to scale once we get our production line up and running…”

I raise a finger to stop him, but he’s already going at full steam, describing his business proposal in detail. I massage my temples. Nobody mentioned this part of running a vampire clan.

But suddenly the strong, heavy smell of aspen and smoke fills the lounge. I sit up on my throne.

“Alin, that’s enough,” I snap with a frown. “We’ll discuss this matter at another time.”

The younger vampire blinks anxiously, then follows my gaze.

A dozen shifters, in their human forms, stride confidently into the lounge.

Even if you couldn’t identify them by the smell of their shifter blood, it’s obvious by their bare feet and the easily-removable clothes they wear.

I recognize the central figure, a pale woman with silver hair braided down her back.

Her presence sends a chill over the room.

She has piercing, yellow eyes, and a distinctive scar running from her neck down along her chest. It disappears under her loose, linen shirt.

The vampires and breathers immediately notice the unusual guests, and they quickly part to allow them to pass. The shifters, led by the woman with silver hair, head directly toward my throne.

“Fuck,” I mutter to myself as I get to my feet. “Alin, stay close.”

“Yes, sir,” he says, slipping the heavy binder under the throne.

Several other Night vampires read the situation accurately, and they also position themselves beside me, their hands reaching for their stakes.

“Easy,” I hiss to them. I don’t want things escalating because the shifters think we perceive them as a threat.

But from the look in their eyes, that ship has already sailed.

“Good evening, Nella,” I say, trying to keep my tone as light as possible while maintaining the upper hand. “To what do we owe this unexpected visit?”

The leader of the eastern shifter alliance eyes me with suspicion. Her voice is crackling, husky. I know they must be pissed, if they’ve traveled all the way here to confront me in person.

“I’ll get right to the point,” she says. As though shifters ever beat around the bush. “We have it on good authority that you’ve been commingling with the mermaids of the Crystal Cove.”

Goddammit. I’m going to stake Kai. Luckily, I can’t smell their merman in the lounge. That would have been a terrible strategic disaster. But I think I can rectify this situation.

“We have no formal alliance with the mermaids,” I reply, firmly. Shifters appreciate clarity and brevity. I don’t need to mask my meaning in euphemisms or veiled threats. “We never have, and we never will. Our allegiance is with the eastern shifter alliance, as we have always maintained.”

“Don’t lie to me, bloodsucker,” the shifter growls. “My wolves have informed me that they’ve seen mermaids coming and going from your mansion at all hours of the night.”

My lip twitches. Most of our daytime magical staff are shifters, typically mountain wolves from the same pack as Nella. We need them to cover the shifts from sunrise to sunset, but it creates a lot of inconvenient moments, like this one.

“Our vampires sometimes enjoy the company of various magical partners,” I respond, finding it difficult to keep my tone level.

I don’t like her accusations, and I strongly resent being called a bloodsucker by an ally.

But shifters and vampires rarely get along, even if we do work together sometimes.

Right now, I have to convince her that there’s no reason for her paranoia. And my response is true.

The shifter wrinkles her nose in disgust. “I find it hard to believe that mermaids would choose to associate with your kind,” she says.

“And even harder to believe that I can trust you on your word, Roslyn Night. Just because the shifters allied with your clan in the past, doesn’t mean that our allegiance is unbreakable. ”

Now I can’t stop the red from flooding my eyes. I flash her a glimpse of my fangs.

“I will not be disrespected in my own territory,” I declare to her. “The Night clan values your partnership, and we have no reason to break it. We are not consorting with the mermaids, and you have no cause to distrust us.”

“Fine,” the wolf concedes, with a shake of her head. “But if we hear any suggestion that you’ve betrayed us, vampire, we will not hesitate to break our pact. We owe you nothing.”

“Fine,” I echo, crossing my arms.

She gives me one final, withering glare, before turning back to exit the lounge.

Her shifters follow her obediently, although I notice one or two glancing shyly at the vampires around them.

Nella might not believe that shifters or mermaids would spend an evening with a vampire, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Much more often than they would ever admit to their Alpha.

I don’t mind sampling a wolf from time to time myself.

A little woodsy, but it’s an acquired taste.

I turn to Alin, frustrated. “Go find Kai, and if they’re with that merman, ensure that he is discreetly escorted off of our property and back to the Crystal Cove. This has gone far enough.”

“Right away, my king,” the young vampire replies. Then he hurries out of the lounge.