Dinner With a Vampire (The Dark Heroine #1)(119)
Author: Abigail Gibbs

‘Why?’ she demanded, turning her attention back to me, her face betraying her confusion and I realized with yet another sink in my stomach, her anger.

‘It’s complicated,’ I muttered, extracting myself from Kaspar’s hold and blushing myself.

‘Really?’ she said, dryly.

‘Yes, it is,’ Kaspar answered, his tone as cold as it had been when I first arrived. At my side I could feel his hands stuffed into his pockets to hide the fact they were clenched into fists and that he was flexing them.

Taken aback at being directly addressed by one of the vampires, Lily flustered for a moment. ‘I wasn’t talking to you, bloodsucker.’

‘My God, there’s two of them,’ Cain chuckled; strolling over with a grin on his face like this was a happy family reunion. ‘Same eyes even,’ he added, leaning forward and peering into her face. She didn’t flinch but blushed as bright as the scarf wrapped around her head, which Cain was trying hard not to look at. If she noticed that his gaze flickered towards the short, almost grey tufts of hair that poked out from beneath the material around her ears, then she chose to ignore it.

‘Feistiness must run in the family,’ Kaspar said. Lily opened her mouth to reply, as did I, but we were interrupted when Valerian Crimson also joined us.

‘I believe you are wanted, Miss Lee.’ He took Lily’s arm and gripped it tightly as she tried to pull it away. Cain, who was closest, didn’t need prompting and wrenched her from his grip as I tried to place a lid on my anger.

‘Don’t touch my sister, Crimson. Don’t even look at her,’ I hissed through gritted teeth, but he wasn’t even fazed. Bending his back slightly to bow, he spoke with all the false civility he was so skilled at using. ‘Of course, My Lady.’

Lily, torn between looking at Cain’s hand, which still gripped her, or Crimson’s retreating back, didn’t comment on the title he had used to address me, but her confused expression told me she had heard. I was glad. I didn’t know where to begin explaining, and knowing that, I was anxious to join the King and Eaglen. I turned to Kaspar, who picked up on my anxiety.

‘They’re in the study. We’ll join you in a moment.’

Cain abruptly let go of Lily’s arm, almost as though he had forgotten he still grasped her and I led Lily towards the main corridor. She followed, silent with her lips pursed. It didn’t seem as though she planned on talking and I stuffed my hands into my pockets, feeling the chill in the air from her distance.

‘You look a lot better,’ I prompted. She had gained weight around her legs, which disappeared behind a pale orange woollen dress that hugged the beginnings of curves. There was a permanent baby-pink tinge to her cheeks too, which were less chubby and swollen than I remembered them. But the scars of chemo were still there. Her eyebrows were not bleached, but nonexistent, drawn and filled in with light brown eyeliner. She still retained the puffy-eyed look of someone who was utterly drained as well.

She shrugged and I could see that she was fighting to not let her eyes roam over the splendour of the Varns’ home, where paintings and marble and old-fashioned lamps lined the walls, and the floor was so polished and smooth you had to fight not to slide over it. ‘I finished the chemo in September. I go back to school at the end of the month.’

‘That’s really great. I was worried about you,’ I admitted.

She shrugged. ‘You look worse. You look more tired than me and I have the excuse of the chemo.’

‘I have been—’

‘Shagging vampires all the time?’ she cut in, her voice full of disdain. I froze in shock, first at hearing my little sister practically swear and secondly at what she was implying.

‘I have not!’

She stopped and crossed her arms, blocking my way in the corridor as I tried to carry on. ‘Dad said this might happen. He called it Stockholm syndrome. I didn’t believe him because I didn’t think you’d ever fall into bed with a murderer, but now I can see I was wrong.’ She huffed and turned on her heel, marching down the corridor with her arms still folded. I darted after her, grabbing her arm and spinning her back around.

‘You have no idea what’s been going on, do you? None at all.’

‘Try me,’ she challenged.

I took a deep breath. ‘Dad ordered the death of the Queen. Their mother,’ I explained, gesturing back towards the entrance hall, trying to keep calm and make her understand.

‘I know. Dad told me everything when I finished the chemo.’

‘And that doesn’t bother you? Not even one bit?’

She shook her head. ‘Why should it? I never knew her, did I? Besides, they’re vampires. Murderers. And I don’t know what they’ve done to you, but you sound like you’re defending what they do.’

‘I’m not saying killing is right, but once you get to know them—’

‘I’m not going to get to know them, Violet.’

Again she marched away, missing the entrance to the King’s study. The ballet pumps she wore were too big and slipped off her feet every time she took a step, the sound echoing around the walls as a ‘flip-flop’. I waited beside the door until she realized there was not a second pair of footsteps behind her. After a while, she hesitated and turned, blushing and hurrying back.

I knocked and the door swung open to reveal the King stood beside his desk, large drapes screening the light from the windows. My father was sitting on the high-backed wooden chair in front and the two other men were perched on the divan sofa a little further away. The vampires that had escorted them in were gathered around the edge, beside the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, which Eaglen walked over to and pulled a large, red leather-bound book from. He looked up and acknowledged our presence as one of the manservants pulled a second chair up for Lily and offered me one, which I declined, preferring to stand as my stomach continued to clench. Setting the book down on the desk in front of my father, Eaglen opened the book, flicking through the pages until he was about a third of the way through.

‘You are familiar with the Prophecy of the Heroines, I presume?’ He pointed to the page he had stopped on.

My father did not look down, resolutely staring dead ahead at the heavy velvet drapes across the windows. ‘Of course.’

‘And again I will presume that you are aware that the first Heroine has been found. It is that in fact that triggered your attempt to get your daughter back today. But I wonder if the Prime Minister knows about this?’ My father said nothing. ‘Well, no matter. What concerns you is that the second Heroine has been found.’