Page 61 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

“We don’t love like humans. We don’tfeellike humans in a lot of ways, or behave like humans, for that matter. We don’t have so many emotions, but we have bonds. And sometimes a bond to someone can be stronger than anything else, made for eternity.”

I don’t know what I read in his face, in his aura, in his words. What to make of all the hues there, swirling. Only the bond to Caryan, solid and static, like a golden anchor in their midst.

But his words sober me up. “You liveforever?” The thought scares me.

“Not really. But compared to humans, it certainly seems that way. Some of us reach a thousand years.”

“How old are you?”

“Two hundred and thirty-two,” he says, and my eyes widen. He laughs at my incredulous expression. “I know—immortality and its serene youth. But by elven standards, I’m still young. Now, I think I’ve answered enough of your questions. Let me see to those wounds. After all, I too have someone to obey.” Again, he holds out his hand, ready to receive mine.

“Caryan,” I say.

He smiles at me again, gut-wrenchingly handsome, before he winks at me. “Who else might an elven prince serve?”

I let him take my hand and we sit down again. He opens up the salve tin and starts to gently apply the ointment. I try to sit still, to not pull my hand back, although instinct tells me to do just that. No one ever touched me like this before. He is far gentler than I would have been with myself.

“You said you steal humans away. And… keep them as slaves.”For food. For sex. It gets stuck in my throat before I can say it. I’ve overheard the servants talking about that. Noticed their pitiful glances wherever I went. Heard their uttered words, which they supposed were too quiet for me to catch.Slave. Sex slave. Blood slave. Vampire food. Another stolen one. Poor human. Won’t make it long here.

All those words stalk me. Haunt me. “Is this why I’m here?” I finish. I’ve been dreading this question for too long anyway.

Riven curls his lips slightly, a line forming between his eyes. “It’s true. We do take humans sometimes. As I told you, when we take them, it’s usually because of bargains they made with us. We take them for various reasons, but you’re not here to serve as food.”

“But the Dark Lord drank my blood,” I say quietly.

“I imagine you are rather delectable,” Riven counters in a raw, deep voice that makes me pull my hand back as if I’d burned myself. But he is faster and locks it into place. He laughs softly, and I realize he’s just been playing with me. Just as I played with him before.

To cheer me up.

I throw him an admonishing look. “Very funny.”

“Isn’t it just?”

“Why did he do it? To make me a vampire too?”

Riven lets out a true laugh at that. A sound so deep and rumbling I just watch him. I wonder whether he knows how different it makes him look. How his eyes sparkle even more.

After a moment, he turns serious again. “Oh, those mortal clichés. No, that would require more than just a bite, including a blood exchange and a blood oath. You would need to pledge yourself to him.”

“Why did he do it then?” I look down at my hand, still in his. His fingers have gone back to performing circular motions over my wrists. The wounds there, to my surprise, are almost gone.

“To get a taste of you—literally. He has a special talent all of us lack. If he drinks your blood, he can see everything you are and were and what made you become who you are.”

I stare at him. “What? What does he see? He can’t really seeeverything,can he?”

“It’s hard to explain. He sees incidents that happened to you. In your life. Usually major things or events. It’s pretty much the way your memory works too. The bigger the impression events leave on you, the more alive they still are in you, and the more likely it is that they’ll show. The same goes for recent events. Things that don’t lie too far in the past are more likely to show up. The more intense, the more likely it is that Caryan will see them.”

“He can’t control it?”

“No. I don’t think so. All I know is that it’s random—what he sees in your blood and what comes up. These scenes or sequences come in the form of flashbacks. He sees it the way you saw it when it happened to you, through your eyes.”

That’s why he drank Lyrian’s blood—to see what Lyrian kept from him. I don’t want to know what he saw in my blood.

I stay silent for a long while, unable to put into words what I feel. The Dark Lord has seen me and my life and my most personal moments. I can’t shake off the feeling of embarrassment, shame, andnakedness, as if I’m made of glass. I’m angry, too, I realize. Angry about this intrusion, this uninvited trespass.

He stands up, finished with my wrists, and looks me over one last time. “Sleep now. It’s been a long day.”

He turns and is heading for the door when I say, “Wait. Please.”

---