"No, not anymore," she admitted.
"I"m glad to hear it." He sighed in relief.
Lilith looked up into his face, as if searching for some sign only she could see. "Jules-I saw you with Cally and Bette in the grotto tonight."
"What?" Although he felt sharply annoyed, he tried to keep it from showing in his voice. "You saw us?"
"Jules, how could you? You kissed her hand!" Lilith wailed, her eyes starting to tear. "You know how much I hate that girl!"
Jules kept his face as unreadable as a mask as he cast about for a way out of the situation he now found himself in. At least she wasn"t yelling at him. Lilith was virtually impossible to deal with when she was mad. When she was weepy and emotional, that meant she was feeling inadequate, which meant he could work her insecurity to his advantage by making her doubt herself.
"Lilith, I was just helping out Exo. I realize Vinnie Maledetto and your father have bad blood between them, but I"m not stupid enough to offend one of his daughters. Besides, I didn"t kiss Bette Maledetto"s hand or any other part of her!"
"No, not her!" Lilith snapped. "The New Blood!"
"What do you mean?" Jules said, pretending he didn"t know what she was talking about.
"You mean you didn"t recognize her?" Lilith asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
"I didn"t get that good a look at her in the park," he replied. "I was too preoccupied with the Van Helsings."
"You like her, don"t you? I saw you looking at her when you thought no one was watching," Lilith said accusingly.
Jules laughed and shook his head. "Lili, you have absolutely nothing to be jealous about! I was just being polite, that"s all. The only reason I was with her in the .rst place was as a favor to Exo. There"s nothing more to it than that."
"So, you"re not attracted to her at all?" Lilith asked, her tone more hopeful than before.
"Of course not!" he lied. "Besides, I think Exo"s kinda sweet on her."
"Exo and Cally?" Lilith couldn"t help but giggle at the idea of the two of them together.
Jules brushed a stray strand of hair out of Lilith"s face as he kissed her on the forehead. "You and your overactive imagination! You"re always . nding things to worry about that aren"t really there. That"s why I thought it would be nice to take your mind off things tonight."
"How so?" she asked.
"You"ll see," he said with a mischievous smile. "But you have to trust me .rst. Do you? Do you trust me, Lili?"
Lilith looked into his eyes and smiled. "Of course I do."
Reaching inside his pocket, Jules pulled out one of his father"s black silk handkerchiefs. "Turn around so I can blindfold you."
"How do I know you won"t simply tie me up and ravish me?"
"Like I said, you have to trust me."
"Don"t get me wrong," she said as he knotted the handkerchief over her eyes. "I have no problems with being ravished!"
"That"s my Lili." He chuckled. "Now give me your hand."
"What are you doing?" She giggled nervously as Jules took her hand, leading her from the formal living room in the direction of the stairs.
"It"s a surprise."
"What kind of surprise?"
"If I told you that, then it wouldn"t be a surprise anymore, would it?" He laughed. "Oops. Watch out. Here comes a step. And another."
"Jules, this is crazy!" She reached up and fumbled with the knot on the blindfold. "I"m taking this thing off!"
"Don"t you dare!" he said, pulling her hands back down. "I know you like to be in control of whatever situation you"re in, just like your dad, but you"ve got to learn to just relax, Lilith."
"That"s a sure way of getting me h.o.r.n.y." She laughed. "Compare me to my father!"
"Would you rather I compared you to your mom?"
"Point taken."
A .ight of stairs and several tangled embraces later, they reached the second . oor.
"Can I take this thing off yet?" she asked.
"Just one more second." There was a sound of curtains being pulled back, followed by a gla.s.s door being pushed along its track. "Okay, you can look now."
Jules removed the blindfold from her eyes, smiling expectantly. Lilith looked past him onto the large balcony and saw dozens upon dozens of lit candles arranged about the terrace.
"It"s beautiful!" she gasped.
"Come outside," he said, gesturing for her to follow him. "I have another surprise."
Lilith stepped out onto the candlelit patio. With a .ourish, Jules handed her a small, dark blue box from De Beers.
"Open it, Lili," he urged, eager to see her reaction and reap his reward.
Lilith untied the red ribbon and opened the box slowly. She was thrilled to .nd a slender white gold chain attached to a heart-shaped pendant encrusted with black and white diamonds.
"Oh, Jules! It"s gorgeous!" she exclaimed.
"Do you like it?"
"Like it? I love it! Here, help me put it on!" She pulled her silky blond hair up and turned around so he could fasten the chain around her neck. Once the latch was secure, she quickly turned back, peering anx-iously into his cat-green eyes. "How do I look?"
"You look beautiful." He smiled, gently caressing her cheek with the back of his hand.
Jules was congratulating himself on pulling it off when Lilith"s smile suddenly .ickered and disappeared, like a .ame caught in a strong draft. "I know this sounds weird, but if our families had never promised us to each other, would you have picked me on your own?"
"Of course," he replied with all the conviction he could muster.
"What if your father told you that the marriage contract had been changed? That you were to be prom-ised to someone else? Would you do as you were told or would you stay with me, even if it meant surrender-ing your bloodright?"
"That"s wild," Jules said with a laugh. "What"s the point in worrying about something that couldn"t possibly happen in the .rst place? Why not ask me if we"d still be together if I looked like Exo and you weighed three hundred pounds?"
"Yeah, I guess you"re right," she said. "You know, Tanith once told me I was lucky that I was promised to you. I thought she just meant you were good-looking. But now I realize it was more than just that."
Jules took her hands in his and brought them to his lips, kissing them as he had Cally"s. "I"ve got some AB neg laced with bourbon warming in the kitchen."
"Yum. My favorite."
"I aim to please." He smiled as he headed back into the penthouse. "Why don"t you just enjoy the view while I go get us something to drink? I"ll be back in a couple of minutes."
Lilith walked to the edge of the terrace and looked out at the concrete spires and canyons of the city. The wind from the river played with her hair, gently spin-ning it around her head like a spiderweb made of gold. She glanced down at the sparkling diamond pendant resting against her breastbone and wrapped her . ngers about it possessively.
When Lilith had .rst crossed the New Blood"s path, she had felt a deep and instant hatred. Most of the time when Lilith didn"t like someone, it was because they were boring or weren"t willing to do what she wanted. But the animosity she felt toward Cally was fueled by something far more primal: threat.
At . rst she couldn"t understand why she should feel so intimidated by a mere New Blood, stormgatherer or not. After their .ght in the grotto, she knew the answer to that question, and it did nothing to a.s.suage the fears that had been haunting her.
Like all vampires, she could identify the blood of a kinsman by taste, even if it was no more than a pin-p.r.i.c.k. The moment Cally"s blood .lled her mouth, Lilith was so shocked she dropped her guard, allowing her foe to get the upper hand. She had fully expected Cally to kill her then and there. But when she"d spared her life, Lilith realized that the other girl had no clue about what was going on.
One of her father"s favorite sayings was the one about knowledge being power. Now, after all these years, she was .nally coming to appreciate what that meant. She had no intention of telling Cally the truth, and she wasn"t going to let her father .nd out that she knew. She would use his secrets against him, just as he had planned to use them against her. She would have to be far more careful in the future, though-she didn"t want to tip her hand by attacking again until she had .gured out her father"s agenda.
Looking out at the twinkling lights of the city, Lilith felt her own power surging. When the time came to act, she would do so-without mercy.
The marriage contract that Victor Todd had taken out with Jules"s family was a simple one. All that was required was for a son of the de Lavals to marry a daugh-ter of the Todds. And since there was only one son and one daughter, there had never been any doubt about what their destiny would be.
But now, where once there was one Todd daughter, suddenly there were two.
Ever since she was a little girl, Lilith had dreamed of the day when she would .nally become the awesome real-life princess she always deserved to be. Being super-rich was one thing, but being an actual member of the Old Blood aristocracy was a totally different kind of power. Once she and Jules were married, her control of everyone and everything in New York City would be complete and unchallenged. After all these years, there was no way she was going to allow her storybook ending to be ruined.
She heard Jules"s footsteps coming closer as he returned with their drinks, and she tossed her . ne hair de.antly. She was going to live happily ever after, d.a.m.n them all; n.o.body had better get in her way- including Prince Charming!
Glossary
BEREFT: Vampires who have had their bloodrights usurped are bereft. They have the choice of agreeing to serve as va.s.sals to the usurper of their bloodright in exchange for protection, opting to start fresh as New Bloods, or becoming an instructor at one of the private schools.
BLOODRIGHT: The ability to control all the undead created by a particular bloodline is the bloodright. When the head of a vampire family dies, he or she pa.s.ses along this bloodright to the appointed heir. To inherit, the heir must drain the blood of the dying patri-arch or matriarch just before death, reducing the body to dust. Some bloodrights date back as far as ancient Sumer. This is how a vampire who might be only a hundred years old (or even younger) can end up controlling vast legions of undead. The heir also gains command of all the humans under his or her parent"s mental control. However, should vampires battle each other in hand-to-hand combat, the loser"s bloodright can be taken or usurped. A bloodright also includes an increase in certain powers.
BOUND: Being bound is the equivalent of being married in human society. Vampire couples are bound rela-tively young, although their peak childbearing years are between 100 and 350. Childbirth is still a dan-gerous proposition for female vampires, and many of them still die in labor. Multiple births are rare, and few can produce more than two children in a lifetime. Of course, most male vampires remarry and reproduce more children after the death of a spouse. Old Blood marriages are arranged between the heads of the families as a means of consolidat-ing power.
CELLAR: Living, captive donors are harvested in the cellar. Slang for a private blood bank.
CHTHONIC SCRIPT: The written language the original Founders of the vampire race brought with them from their home dimension is known as chthonic script. It is the written language of h.e.l.l.
CLOTS: If you want a derogatory term for humans, call them clots.
DEMI-SIBLINGS: Vampires who share one parent in common are demi-siblings. Given the high infant mortality rate and incidences of death during childbirth, it is common for vampire males to have a number of brides during their lifespan. Demi-siblings decades apart in age are common.
DONOR: A captive human who is used to produce blood on a daily basis, utilizing modern blood-banking tech-nology, not unlike a milk cow.
EMPTIES: Depleted donors are empties.
FLEDGLING: A young vampire who has yet to fully mature. A vampire is a .edgling from birth until he or she is capable of creating undead, roughly anywhere from twenty-one to twenty-.ve years of age.
THE FOUNDERS: Venerated by their descendants as demi-G.o.ds in a form of ancestor worship, these are the original thirteen founders of the modern vampire race. The Founders were batlike demons born of h.e.l.l who were summoned to this dimension by a wizard over twenty thousand years ago. When the wizard died unexpectedly, they found themselves stranded on this mortal plane. At .rst numbering a hundred, the "brothers" soon warred among themselves to decide who would become king of their new home. When only thirteen were left, they declared a truce and scattered to various corners of the globe so as not to compete with one another. Eventually they became the progenitors of the entire vampire race.
HALF-BLOOD: A true-born vampire who is of mixed-caste parentage, having one parent who is Old Blood and one who is New Blood.
HYBRID: The product of a human-vampire mating is a hybrid. Hybrids are distrusted by true-born vampires, as they are often used as living weapons by professional witch .nders and vampire hunters, the most infamous example being the hated Pieter Van Helsing.
LACED BLOOD: Blood that has been taken from humans kept on a continuous feed of alcohol or drugs.
MINION: A weaker, less powerful vampire who attaches him- or herself to a more-powerful vampire in hopes of protection. Unlike va.s.sals, minions have not been usurped and have willingly chosen to serve their liege lord.
NEG: Slang for negative blood type.
NEWBIE: Old Blood slang for New Blood.
NEW BLOODS: Those true-borns descended from vampires who have had their ancestral bloodrights usurped by outsiders and have chosen to try to rebuild their legacy from the ground up. Although they might have compara-tively weak powers, New Bloods aren"t necessarily poor; indeed, some are extremely wealthy. They simply don"t have the millennia of pa.s.sed-along genetic/blood-based power and bloodright that the Old Bloods enjoy.
OLD BLOODS: Those true-borns with long, unbroken bloodrights, some of which extend all the way back to original demon ancestors. Old Bloods command vast legions of undead servants and have powers that can include stormgathering, beast mastery, shapeshifting, and mind control as well as innate magical abilities that enable them to cast spells and make potions.
OLDIE: New Blood slang for Old Blood.
POZ: Slang for positive blood type.
PRIVATE STOCK: Blood "made to order" to suit the tastes of a particular client.