The Black saw me standing by the door and waved. He detached himself from Chauncey and Morton and moved to me, “So it would seem you have gotten away with murder.”

I shook my head, “I didn’t do it, Rupert. I’m not stupid enough to make such a spectacle and disrupt the opening entertainment.”

He laughed, patting me on the back, “I had guessed as much, Avery. Your face was the most surprised and shocked one there. I think the Elders could tell you had nothing to do with it, but they had to make a show of questioning you anyway.”

That made me feel better. If only because he was naïve.

He ran a hand under my chin and tugged me closer. I leaned against his chest, aware that I was letting him push the boundaries of my safe-zone. I didn’t hug him. It wouldn’t have helped. And I didn’t want to hug him. I wanted to hug Caine. Caine hated hugs.

“So, what now?”

I sighed into his chest, leaning my painted face against his shirt, behaving as the hurt, confused, and sad little vampire I looked like. The truth was, I felt jaded. I did not need to be comforted and hugged and petted. Black forgot I was older than he by several hundred years.

“Now I need to find a new patron,” And to figure out what had happened to the last one. Hopefully it was not contagious.

Black grinned, “I’ll be your patron, Avery, but I can’t guarantee that your cute little ass won’t get a long workout every night for the next hundred years.”

I echoed his lecherous look, “Whoever said I’d be the one on the bottom, kid?”

His eyes widened at that implication, and he bent over me, pouring his tongue into my mouth. I could feel the desire, the denied need in his kiss.

Rupert kissed me like he wanted to eat me; I sucked on his bottom lip, wanting to be eaten. But our tryst had to stop there.

I pushed him away and grunted. My face-paint had smeared onto his jaw.

“Go clean your face, Black.”

I saw the smallest hurt look pass over his face- that I teased and prodded and enticed‒but he trudged away.

There were rules, rules he knew I would not break‒rules he did not know why I had.

I hugged myself, arms easily crossing over my flat chest. I’d smeared blood all over his tux.

I had been turned as something of an accident. Oh, the Impaler had meant to turn me, but he had not realized that I was a woman until he had tossed me on the bed, stripped off my clothing and stared.

His exact words had been, “You’ve got no tits!” That had been all well and good for him, but I had not realized there had been a ‘mistake’ until a few nights had passed. He had fallen for my brother, a rather good-looking young man.

My brother had been sick when he was supposed to give the local lord a private performance—neither my brother nor I had known it would involve getting turned into a vampire at the time—and I had substituted. Like all attempts to make a vampire, there was about a ninety-percent chance of failure.

Some could survive the change; some could not. My brother had not; I had.

There was no bitterness in me; seven hundred years was enough to come to grips with my lot in life.

It was easy for the men to like my cute, boyish features; I was easy to be mistaken for as a boy and wanted as a man. But, as a woman, I would get nothing but the hungry ones. Having a female in your retinue looked good—it showed status and power; you could protect the fair, you could soldier the weak, and win hearts. There were romantics amongst the men, but for the woman, it meant being an object— a trophy.

Better to be loved as something I was not, then to be tossed around like a slave or property to be had and traded.

I decided to mingle because waiting for the Black was too depressing, but mingling did not last long. I had contracted the vampire equivalent of the plague and no one wanted to talk to me. I found myself hunting down the Musician and comparing songs to duet.

“Andre, you don’t call, you don’t write…” I greeted him.

The Musician turned and smiled, “A pleasure… Avery, now isn’t it?”

Vampires change names like some folk change underwear.

I nodded, “I’m afraid so.”

“How have you been?”

“Still around, did you finish the concerto?”

By the time the Black came back, I was deep in conversation about my six-stringer and the difference between the tuber’s base sounds and what vampiric lungs could make of it. The Musician glanced as the Black came up behind me and rolled his eyes in a dramatic fashion.

“Fuck off, he’s mine.”

The Black’s eyebrows shot up, “Excuse me?”

“We’re talking here. You had your chance to win his attention, now I get mine.”

I could not help the childish grin that spread over my face at this, “Gentlemen, please. There’s more than enough of me to go around.”

“That’s not what I hear,” Andregrunted, talking his glare off the Black for a moment.

“Oh?” I was curious what rumours were being spread about me. Aside from murdering Caine.

“You’re going to Capita, as the Spider’s new guest. That’s pretty isolated, and he doesn’t allow many visits from travellers.”

I stared at him dumbfounded, “Truly? Who told you that?” I glanced back at the Black, seeing the pained look on his face, “You heard this, too? Bullshit, that’s a new one.”

“So, it’s just a rumour?”

“Well, yeah—I mean, I hadn’t even planned on leaving Jarlsberg anyway—” No sooner had I said it than I regretted the words.

“You’re putting in a bid to hold the city as the King’s replacement?” The Musician spoke loudly enough for a few heads to turn in anticipation of juicy gossip.

I held up my hands defensively, “No, no, no, no, no! I mean, before that. I wasn’t planning a move this decade.”

“Why not take over, though? He has four followers, and his money and holdings are yours now, anyway.”

“Actually, they go to his mortal wife—and I couldn’t hold a city! Honestly, Andre, I’m not the Dominus of flame or death. What would I do if someone challenged me, scare them to death?”

The Black crossed his arms, “You’re still a Dominus—still seven hundred years old. Surely you’ve held a city before.”

I shook my head, “No, I don’t have the strength for that. Besides,” this conversation was dangerous, people weren’t making a show of not listening anymore, “I wouldn’t want to hold a city. What if a werewolf attacked, or a creature from the black lagoon rose out of the sea? Can you see me in that type of situation? You can’t have a city ruled by someone who just freezes in emergencies.”

“So, you are going to Capita?”

I flushed, shaking my head, “Guys, I don’t think the Spider would want me in Capita —maybe you, Andre, but me? Half of the undead population hates me, the other half doesn’t know what to do with me,” It was how I liked it. I folded my hands so I didn’t keep making ‘foul play’ motions with them, “Besides, that’s just a rumour—no real truth to it.”

The Musician laughed, “I don’t think he’d like me, I hear the Elders like to be on top,” He leered, “And I’m a little too forceful… if you get my meaning.”

I did. I had seen the rope burns on his little harem. He had good luck when it came to the creation of new blood. Maybe it was something about the rough play.

“And you think that I’m not an on-top kind of boy?” I grinned, flashing fangs like a child.

The Black rested his elbow on my shoulder, mimicking the Musician’s leer, “Let’s just say that a top can tell another top. You, little clown, would make such a delicious bottom that it would just be a crime to let you on top. Besides, you’re short.”

“Height doesn’t matter when you’re on your knees,” I punctuated this by knocking his knees out.

He caught himself from the full force of the fall and grabbed my leg, lightning quick. I yelped as the Black’s vampiric strength pulled me down with him; I smacked less-than-gracefully into the floor.

He leaned over me, dark eyes burning with an intensity brought on by hunger and hunter’s instinct. He had my braid pinned under his hand, my legs on either side of his hips. His tongue ran over his lips, tasting the air and the sudden breath I let escape me.

“You were saying?”

I could not think of a damn thing to say.