Page 25 of The Vampire King's Victory

Elizabeth’s eyes flashed, too. Not red, but steely. “This wasn’t what I hoped for my son or Julian. But if I ever thought that becoming Vampires was a worse choice than staying human you’re starting to change my mind!”

Henry’s brow was furrowed. “Fear is blinding you to the possibilities. Think of everything we could learn from them. The history they’ve seen. The things they can tell us. The possibilities of even becoming one of them.”

“Just before they rip our throats open and drink a geyser of our blood,” O’Connor muttered.

“If you really think that, why on Earth are you saying it out loud?” Seeyr asked. “Do you want to encourage us?”

“He can read minds!” Steven pointed at Balthazar. “So what’s the point in lying?”

“How refreshing, but you’re still lying,” Balthazar said. “And I’m not the only one who can read minds here.”

That had the three humans gazing about the room nervously. If they thought that by knowing who could do it would allow them to stop it, that fallacy was blown away now.

“We’ve lived among you for thousands of years,” Rajani said. “We haven’t destroyed humanity yet. You’ve done quite a bit of that on your own.”

“Oh, so Hitler wasn’t a Vampire?” the colonel asked.

Rajani looked pained and said as if to a small child, “No, of course not.”

“Why, of course not?” Katherine asked.

“Because you’re not only our food supply--so why would we kill you?--but also wecomefrom you,” Rajani reminded them.“The Immortals are different, but every Vampire was a human once. We don’t breed like you, but we do create Children and all of those, of course, come from humanity, too. The kind of destruction that a Hitler or a Stalin or a Mao Zedong committed against humanity would never be our way. We would be destroyingourselvesin the process.”

“So you’ll put us in camps and bleed us?” O’Connor snarled.

“Again, have we done that so far?” Seeyr turned her bandaged eyes upon him. “The fastest way to foment a rebellion is to do as you suggest.”

“Don’t you feel anywonder?” Julian asked as he studied each of their faces. “Even when I thought I hated Vampires, there was a sense of wonder about them and what their existence meant. Doesn’t any of that occur to you? We have Vampires who can raise the dead! We have Vampires who can communicate with spirits! Forget all the other things we can do,thosethings should make you pause and… and just consider! But you would have destroyed all that.”

“We would--will--study you and keep ourselves safe,” Katherine stated.

“So not even a question of co-existence?” Elizabeth looked ill. “Just cut them down or cut them up?” She shook her head. “That’snotwhat the people of this country or the world would want you to do!”

“People often don’t know what’s good for them,” the colonel stated. “Can you honestly tell us that we are wrong to consider you enemies? That we are not in danger from you?”

Daemon spoke for the first time out loud, “You are only in as much danger as you choose to be.”

“So if we bow down to the king, we’ll be just fine?” The colonel gave a colorless smile.

Daemon inclined his head regally. “You would be under my protection then. You are under it now, but you do not yet have certain rights.”

“We’re United States citizens, we alreadyhaverights that you are currently violating by keeping us here,” the colonel stated stiffly.

“I don’t know. I pretty much think we can argue self-defense,” Balthazar muttered. “And we have plenty of lawyers and judges in our pocket to make that work. But I don’t really think that you want this out in public.”

“You don’t,” Julian realized as thoughts bubbled to the surface. “Elizabeth is right. You know that the majority of people won’t want Vampires harmed!”

“They think Vampiressparkle,” Katherine said with a flattening of lips. “They’d give you talk shows and make movie stars out of you. They wouldn’t understand the danger you pose.”

“We alreadyarein those professions!” Balthazar snorted. “We are beautiful. And we are deadly. We drink your blood and we want to turn some of you. The public knows all that and isokaywith it. In fact, they’rethrilledat the idea.” Balthazar spread his arms wide. “I can hear their thoughts. The thoughts of this entire city and I can tell you that they cannotwaitto meet us!”

Eyros, bring Elgar now,Daemon stated.

“As I was saying, you do not yet havefullrights under my rule. Your actions have been in bad faith,” Daemon told the three of them simply.

Katherine’s right hand drifted to her throat. “What--what are you going to do?”

O’Connor hissed, “You won’t get away with this!”

---