Page 124 of Vampire so Virtuous

“Well, I understand wanting to keep him safe.” Cally fell quiet, the weight of his words settling in. “Are your thralls like mindless zombies? Do you control them? Do they still feel?”

“No, they’re not mindless. And please remember that I find the necessity as distasteful as no doubt you do.” He winced, his shoulders hunching as they flew over the rooftops below. “There is nothing I can say that will justify what I have done. Only that I have chosen those who had no life, and tried, at least, to give them a better one.”

“As your slaves.”

“I could argue we are all slaves to some force or another, but I will not. It is as you say. They are my slaves.”

Revulsion warred with the possibility of necessity—and that he hadn’t tried to defend himself. “Will you free them when the Curia leaves, and Minh is defeated?”

“Hmm, an interesting question,” he said with a hint of surprise, as though the idea of freeing slaves was a novel one. “I don’t know if it’s possible. I’ve never heard of it happening, but… perhaps there could be a way.”

“Would you? If there was?”

“Yes, I would,” he replied. “There would be some considerations regarding staying in the… regarding what knowledge they retain, but in principle, it would be my preference.”

“You said you have done without thralls for many years. But what about Marcel?”

“Marcel is no thrall. He is as human as you are.”

“Is he marked?”

“No. I did offer, but no. It is complicated.”

“Oh?”

He grunted, a rueful sound. “On reflection, not all that complicated. Marcel is stubborn, and I chose to respect his wishes.”

“No wonder Minh thinks you are an outcast,” Cally said.

He tensed again, and his tone, when he spoke, was guarded. “Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know many vampires, Antoine, but giving a human a choice? Freeing thralls? Avoiding killing your prey? You may have to work harder to keep your reputation as a monster.”

He gave a dry chuckle. “Careful,ma chérie. One might think you do not hate me quite so ardently.”

“I don’t hate you.” She said it out of instinct, then realized it was true. When had that changed? Had she everhatedhim? Feared? Maybe once—but not anymore. Despised? Yes… yet that, too, was fading.

It was, as he would say, complicated.

“Then this is a good time to tell you we have arrived.”

He landed and came to a stop, his shadows dispersing like a wisp of smoke in a breeze, and he set her down on her feet with a graceful movement. They were on the roof of his house at Fisher Hill, the gardens on one side, the fence and the gate on the other. A very modern-looking skylight waited a few paces away.

Home?

“I’ll get an Uber.”

“I could have a thrall drive you, if that would be acceptable,” he suggested. “But you’re also quite welcome to sleep here tonight.”

He was trying so hard not to stare at her too intensely, but he was only partly successful. The hunger in his eyes betrayed him.

“Do you need to feed?”

“No,ma chérie. Unless something happens, I will be fine for a few more nights yet.”

A different type of hunger, then.

He was waiting for her answer, standing gorgeous and tall and making no attempt to pressure her. Like a gentleman, not a vampire. A gentleman who would consider freeing thralls when no other vampire would, and whose loyal human friend had described him as a man in pain.