Page 49 of Forged in Blood

Her expression takes on that excited quality she gets when she’s learning something new, and I struggle to keep myself from getting caught up in her enchanting web of enthusiasm. “So what happens? If he dies, you’d just drop dead too?”

Malachi takes this one. “Not immediately. We’d grow weaker over time. Older, more powerful turned vampires can survive for up to two years without their master. With younger vampires, it can be a matter of days.”

“So it’s like the master vampires like Alexandros have their own personal armies?”

Malachi grins at her, and I roll my eyes at his eagerness to please her. “Exactly. And so the oldest and most powerful vampires have generations at their disposal. Back then, each of the turned vampires would turn their own armies. All those vampires are bound to their own sire, who in turn is still bound to the bloodline vampire. To survive, they all must protect that single bloodborne sire.”

“Wow! So vampires can be turned or born. And you can turn vampires of your own?”

Malachi nods. “Physically we are capable, but it’s been forbidden for hundreds of years. Any vampire who breaks that law would be executed.”

“Who forbids it? Is there like some sort of vampire police?”

Vampire history has never interested me. I know my life before I was turned—a miserable pit of despair—and I know my life after. Whatever his reason for doing so, Alexandros rescued me from hell when he turned me, and that was all I ever cared about.

Until now. For once I’m paying attention because now our sire is keeping secrets. I suspect at least some of those secrets have something to do with Ophelia Hart, and perhaps there’s something to be gleaned about who she is from our history.

“All vampire lines can be traced back to four houses—Drakos, Chó_ma, Elira, and Thalassa,” Malachi says, the register of his voice lowering into his teaching tone. Of all of us, he’s the most likely to follow in Alexandros’s professor footsteps, and I’m not entirely sure why he hasn’t already. “Each of those houses has a corresponding society, and each is bound by ancient laws and is responsible for their own governance. To not enforce the ancient laws could result in the destruction of the entire bloodline.”

“By who?”

Malachi shrugs. “There are higher powers that most of us younger generations know nothing about. And despite my best efforts, it’s a question I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of.”

She’s unusually silent for a moment, like she’s digesting everything he said. “It all sounds very elitist to me.”

I snort a laugh. “Then it’s no different to humans, is it?”

She gives me a wry smile. “I guess not.” She’s quiet again for all of two seconds before she’s back with more questions. “Okay, so how are vampires born? Can you all have kids?”

“I don’t know how they’re born.” Malachi frowns, and I stifle a snicker. The smart fucker isn’t used to not having all the answers, and he hates it. “But turned vampires can’t have kids, and a bloodline vampire hasn’t been born in over half a millennium.”

She gasps again. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow, this is all so fascinating, can you tell me how…”

The rest of her question is drowned out by Alexandros’s voice in my head.Escort her to her dorm and break off whatever this thing is that you’ve started with her.

Yes sir, I answer.

Malachi protests, but the professor cuts him off.She is not to set foot in this house again. You are not to see her again.

Malachi tries again.But?—

She is not to come seeking you out either. She’s already too fixated on all three of you. So make it brutal. Make her hate you.

Malachi’s pain washes over me, and the professor sighs.Let Xavier handle it.

I give him my assurance that I will take care of it, and Malachi offers no further resistance. He knows better than to argue a lost cause.

Ophelia chatters the whole way to her dorm, and I notice how Malachi slows his pace so he can spend more time with her before we break her heart, but I allow it. I think I’m going to miss our little pink-haired question monster too, although I’m not nearly as attached as he is.

We get to her building, and Malachi looks at the ground instead of at her face.

She glances between us, nervous energy radiating from her. Tonight probably meant something to her, even though we didn’t fuck her.

Pity.

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