Page 139 of Vampire so Virtuous

“Indeed. Each vampire is created by a sire. You know this, correct?”

“Yes.”

“D’accord.Legend says the first vampire spawned seven more, each inheriting a portion of his power. Each vampire, therefore, has its own bloodline—particular abilities, some unique—passed from sire to spawn. I can taste your power, but most vampires cannot. They would need to be powerful.” She waved a hand. “It is possible some of the Curia might sense it if given the chance. But even Antoine—who, of course, is of my blood—is not yet strong enough.”

Cally frowned. “Wouldn’t they notice the power gain?”

“Doubtful,” Belle said. “If they feed often, they will notice their powergrow, of course. But a taste?” She shook her head. “Alas, the one sip of your delicious blood has not materially affected my own power. Besides, they would need to feed, and Antoine has marked you. It would be bad… etiquette.”

That didn’t stop you, and it was rather more than a sip.“So they can’t tell I’m a witch,” Cally breathed in relief.Can I trust her? Would she lie?“Wait, doesAntoineknow?”

Belle tilted her head, as though acknowledging Cally as a particularly precocious student. “Such an interesting question,but one we shall, how do you say,parkfor the time being.Now, it is prominent in our laws that a vampire may not feed on another vampire, ensuring the bloodlines remain pure and unmixed—and that vampire does not hunt vampire. After all, there are rather fewer of us then there are humans.”

Cally fought to keep her expression neutral, but Belle missed nothing.

“Yes indeed,ma fillette.He has been averynaughty boy.”

It was difficult to reconcile a three-hundred-year-old vampire with the image of a ‘naughty boy,’ but Belle had also called him her pet, her love. Cally wondered what other names she had for him.

“So it’s not just about me being a witch, is it?” Cally said. “He fed on Minh, and now—”

“And now,” Belle interjected, “the symbiosis between witch and vampire, combined with the unpredictable power of mixing bloodlines, has awakened your dormant witch blood.”

Cally blinked. “One more time?”

Belle gestured airily. “The blood of witches is heavily diluted from interbreeding with chattel. Yet it still remains in some, and few places more so than here, in your tea-party Boston, where witches have gathered for centuries. Your mother was no witch, I assume?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Yet her blood carried the dormant lines, as did her mother’s, and so on. When Antoine fed on Minh, crossing the bloodlines, he grew stronger. In turn, he awakened your own power. And so the circle is formed: he powers you; you power him.”

“Uh-huh,” Cally said thoughtfully. But what Belle said was wrong: even before Antoine had fed from her, there’d been hints of magic. Eve had been convinced of that, even if Cally hadn’t believed her—or couldn’t, at the time. Now, with Belle’s truths, there was no escaping that magic was real. Hell, the existence of vampires alone proved it.

She’d been a witch before Antoine had fed, which meant Belle’s theoryhad more holes than the ‘chattel’ they probably kept in the basement of this house.

But the foresight spell—her vision—was undeniable magic, and far stronger than anything Eve claimed had come before. Yet it had been after Antoine had fed, so maybe there was something to her stories.

But if what she says is true, how can I have magic at all?

“Is a vampire bite the only way to awaken dormant witch blood?”

Belle gave an expressive shrug. “We are discussing matters from centuries ago. These days, the magic is so weakened that it requires, how do you say, jump starting? Logically, nothing else would work save for the power of the vampire bite.”

“There must be loads of women with witch blood.” Cally frowned. “Wait, no men?”

“Witchcraft is the magic of women; there has never been a male witch,” Belle said. “And you are correct that many carry the dormant blood, yet in most, it is too faint to awaken. Not only that, but as chattel age, their connection to magic fades, and their cynicism grows. For this reason, in centuries past, witches were trained from an early age. A woman such as yourself is less inclined to believe in magic and ghost stories,n’est-ce pas? So the vampire must be of sufficient power to awaken what has been left unused all your life. When you consider that the chattel must also survive the feed—which is rare enough when my kind hunts—it becomes a highly unlikely combination.”

Tension coiled in her chest. The more she thought about it, the more unsettled she felt. Antoine’s bite hadn’t triggered her magic—she was sure of that—but Belle’s words made her wonder if there was something deeper at play: a connection, a spark she hadn’t recognized before. It felt almost like a truth buried just beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to break free.

If this was such a gift, such a rare and powerful thing, why wouldn’t Belle want it for herself?

Cally frowned, the question slipping out before she could stop it. “You’re strong enough to do it. Why don’t you?”

“You flatter me,ma fillette. Perhaps I could awake a witch’s blood. The notion is tempting. But here we reach another snag. Those powerful enough, me included, have no desire to bind themselves to a witch—even one as tempting and as tasty as you.”

A cold weight settled in her chest. “Bind yourself?”

She inclined her head. “I have said it is symbiotic, but it is more thanthat. The historical term is ‘fatum coniunctum’—a shared fate. Or symbiosis with co-dependence, if you prefer. In short, within a few feeds, the vampire becomes addicted. He can feed on no other—a sacrifice few are prepared to make. Were the witch to die, for example, the vampire would have no source of food.”