‘Handmiss,’ Abraham slurred.
Frowning, I offered it again and Abraham dipped a finger in the water-dish, reached out and brushed my palm with a butterfly’s touch, so light and quick that I almost didn’t feel his sharp claw slice my skin. He pressed the seal into my blood, then leaned drunkenly forwards and stamped the form next to my/Minnie’s signature.
I stood looking at the neat diamond design he’d cut into my palm, stunned and amazed at how fast he’d been, and at what he’d actually done. ‘Okay,’ I said slowly, ‘since when did you start using blood along with magic to seal the forms?’
‘One of the vamps thought it’d be a good gimmick, and the members love it,’ Gareth said, picking Abraham up and strapping him into a child’s high chair next to his own seat. He held up his own hand; a similar diamond shape glowed blue-white on his palm. ‘Invisible ink’s made from tonic water, the UV lights make it glow, and a spell tags it in place. It’s like getting your hand stamped with that indelible ink the other clubs use, only some members don’t want nobody knowing they’ve been to a vamp club’—his lip curled with contempt—‘so it suits all round.’
Crap. ‘How long does it last for?’
‘Long enough, Ms Taylor,’ a deep voice said next to me.
I jerked round at the voice, my pulse jumping in my throat, wondering for a mad moment if it was the dog speaking.
A vampire was standing a couple of feet away, an avuncular smile on his handsome fortysomething face—a fang-free smile, of course, a neat trick the older vamps practise: Fyodor Andreevich Zakharin, head honcho of the White Diamond vamps.
Chapter Twenty
I gave Fyodor a narrow-eyed once-over: long silver-white hair, long-skirted coat covered in military-looking braid sewn with diamonds, waistcoat and breeches tucked into high soft leather boots. His clothes were all white other than his boots, which were gleaming black. His white silk cravat was stuck with a diamond tie-pin so enormous that it would make a goblin queen drool with lust. The white outfit sparkled in the UV lights, giving him a glowing nimbus, like I guessed an aura would, if I could see them. Next to him sat the dog-tagged wolfhound, tongue still lolling, silver-white coat looking not unlike the vamp’s silver-white hair.
‘Let me guess,’ I said, pleased my voice came out calm, ‘you’re either going to a naff elf-themed wedding, or you’re shooting an advert for soap powder that can really make your whites sparkle.’
The dog growled low in its throat, and was answered by more rumbling growls. My stomach clenched with apprehension as I flashed a look around me. Gareth was blank-faced, mind-locked—not that he’d be any help, even if he wasn’t—and the goblin was snoring softly in his high chair. And half a dozen more huge wolfhounds ringed the entrance hall, standing between me and the exit. Great, a doggy ambush.
‘Genevieve is our guest, Max,’ Fyodor, the sparkling vamp warned, drawing my attention back to him as he patted the dog’s head.
I dipped my shoulder and caught my backpack by its handle. The three bags of blood inside it weren’t heavy, but the couple of bricks I kept in it were, and they made it a handy weapon. Malik might’ve given me protection, but it still pays to stay alert. You never know when some vamp’s going to develop a superiority complex, or think he’s found a get-out clause that’ll let him keep his head attached to his shoulders.
‘Guests usually get to leave when they want.’ I had a moment’s regret that I’d used the last of my Security Stingers on Sylvia the dryad. ‘Oh, and there’s the other thing: didn’t you swear an oath to your liege lord Malik al-Khan not to approach me?’
‘Please, Genevieve, put away your fear.’ He held his hands out in welcome. ‘You have no need of it here. We acknowledge Malik al-Khan’s protection over you. We also offer you the hospitality and protection of White Diamond blood while you are with us.’
I relaxed. Slightly. Offers of hospitality and protection were all good, even if I’d rather he hadn’t spoken to me in the first place.
‘But even were it not for these assurances, you are safe,’ he carried on, smiling like he was about to tell me I’d won a prize draw, ‘for you are among your true blood-family now.’
I held up my hand. ‘Wait just one minute. My father might be White Diamond blood, but I’m not a vampire, and there’s no way I’m admitting any connection to you through blood.’ Not when I don’t know what sort of trouble it could get me into.
‘Genevieve, please, I assure you I mean you no harm. Our blood connection is not only through our vampire lineage, but we are also kin through our human bloodlines. Allow me to introduce myself.’ He smacked his booted heels together and executed a bow. ‘I am Fyodor Andreevich Zakharin. Your father Andrei Yurievich Zakharin honoured me with the Gift, but more than that, he is my patrilineal ancestor: my great-grandfather, to be precise. So you see, we are cousins, Genevieve Nataliya Zakharinova, cousins twice removed. You are indeed among your true family.’
Just what a girl doesn’t need: long-lost vampire relatives.
His smile widened, and this time I caught a glimpse of fang. ‘I was privileged to be at your christening, although you would not recollect that, but you should recollect meeting me at your betrothal to the Autarch. I asked if you’d be kind enough to call me Cousin Fyodor.’
A flash of him smiling in just the same way, saying just the same words, with my father standing at his side, lit my mind, then it was snuffed out by the gut-churning fear any memory of that night brought me. I stared at him, a voice inside irrationally screaming, If he was family, why hadn’t he helped? Anger and disbelief that he hadn’t—and now he expected me to remember him—burned the fear away. I glared at him. ‘Are you trying to be funny or something?’
He frowned in what looked like genuine puzzlement. ‘Why would I try and make you laugh?’
‘Oh, well, let’s see: my wedding night, that was when I was paraded like a prize heifer in front of more than a hundred vampires I’d never met before, and then my only faeling friend was tortured and killed by the Autarch, all while he happily told me her death was a wedding gift to please me. While all of you watched!’ I spat the words out, trying to get rid of the foul taste of bile and terror in my mouth. ‘And you ask why I don’t remember meeting you!’
A loud growl came from the dog.
‘Shh, Max.’ Fyodor absently stroked its head, his smile dimming. ‘I can understand why you may not value the Autarch’s concern for you; these modern times are more lax when it comes to dealing with such insults. But the girl was an upstart.’ He waved a conciliatory hand. ‘She tried to usurp your place, and the Autarch’s authority, Genevieve. What else could he have done?’
‘Sack her, send her off with a flea in her ear, maybe? Anything but what he did do.’ I clenched my fists, gently swinging the backpack, wanting to smash it over his obtuse, old-fashioned head. The dog gave a warning bark. ‘Oh, and just so you know, Cousin, his was the insult, not hers: she was seventeen, only three years older than me, and he’s the prince, the god you all bow to. What was she supposed to do when he started giving her jewels and fucking her? Say no?’
The dog leapt, jaws opening wide, and Fyodor’s shout of denial was lost in its loud barking.
I threw myself backwards, jerking the backpack up to shield my throat. I hit the thick-carpeted floor with a thud that knocked the air from my lungs and the rage from my mind. Stupid, to let my anger get the better of me! Adrenalin flooded my muscles as the dog snarled, and rough hair brushed my hands as the backpack was wrenched from my grip. The dog gave a series of high-pitched yelps and I brought my knees up, tucked my chin down and rolled back and away, expecting to feel its teeth in my flesh at any moment.