Page 13 of Heir

She glanced at her friend, who was pulling their food order out of the paper bag. The woman shrugged. “Might as well tell him. This can’t get any fucking weirder.”

My mate nodded and focused on me again. She took a deep breath and said, “All hail Omaera Playfair, Queen of the Realm.”

CHAPTER THREE

Lord Drak Ferrin

The scent of blood in the air always soothed me. My nanny used to put a pan of it over the fire in my nursery to help me sleep.

I didn’t want the man in front of me to bleed. I never liked hurting people.

But it was what needed to be done.

It was my job.

My cousin, King Howar Volmark, assigned me as head of his royal guard and made me his primary enforcer.

And interrogation was part of it.

I circled behind the man sitting bound to the chair in front of me. His head hung low, chin to chest, and blood seeped out of his nose and left ear. “At this point, unfortunately, it has come down to a swift and merciful death, or a long and painful one. You will die. But it is up to you how that happens. Tell us what we want to know, and I will put two fangs into your carotid and make sure you feel nothing but happy memories as you drift off to sleep. Ignore my request and we can keep you here for weeks.”

The man groaned.

“Have you ever been bitten by a vampire before?”

The man groaned again.

“Although we are not mind manipulators like demons, when we plunge our fangs into your skin, anywhere, not just the neck, we can unleash an indescribable amount of pain. Or an unearthly amount of pleasure. It is our choice. We can drain you immediately, killing you. Or we can take small sips, for a very long time. Making you weak. So weak you hallucinate and can barely lift your head. You sleep, but we have ways of preventing that too.”

I glanced toward the shadows of the mansion dungeon. Voltan, my second in command and also a vampire, smiled, but all I could see was the glowing white of his fangs.

“Why is there a faction of mages hunting vampires?” I demanded. “Our species have lived at peace with one another for over a century now.”

“I don’t know,” the man murmured.

I nodded at Voltan. He came out from the shadows and delivered another painful beating with the baton.

Our bound mage screamed and whimpered.

I nodded again at Voltan and he stepped back into the shadows.

“You’re nothing but glorified zombies,” my prisoner muffled before coughing up blood. “You’re not like us. Not like shifters or demons. You require others to suffer for your survival. And threatening to drain me of my blood is proof.” He lifted his head and glared at me. “You’re fucking monsters.” He spat a big glob of blood and spit at my feet, narrowly missing my loafers.

“Who is at the helm of this?”

He sneered at me. “I don’t know.”

“You’re just a lackey then? Doing the bidding of some unknown leader? While he sits in safety, you’re out doing his dirty work, chopping off vampire heads?”

“Not a lackey if I believe in the cause. I’m a soldier, fighting for what I think is right.” He coughed up more blood. “Just kill me. You know you want to.”

I didn’t, actually.

Death was necessary sometimes, but it was never something I enjoyed.

This man would have to die though. Because he couldn’t be trusted not to run back to his keeper if we let him go.

With a weary sigh, I circled back behind him, grabbed him by the hair hard enough to make him squawk as I tilted his face to the concrete ceiling, exposing his neck. His pulse thudded hard in his throat. I zeroed in on his throbbing carotid. “You do know that there are two species of vampires, right?”

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