Page 95 of Taste of Forever
“Imightbe able to ID it by sight. Is that connected to the internet?” I nodded at the laptop on a small desk, the only other piece of equipment in this little cubicle.
“It is. Help yourself.”
“Thanks.”
I pulled up the best images of red blood cells I could find and started comparing, going back and forth from the computer to the microscope and mentally eliminating the ones that didn’t match.
Someone without a biology background but a keen sense for matching details could probably do a visual comparison successfully, but I wanted to be absolutely sure. I thought back to the thousands of blood samples I’d tested, all the identifying characteristics of cells unique to certain species.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but a headache began to throb at my temples and my eyes felt strained from looking through the microscope over and over. Black dots danced in my vision when I switched it off and turned around. Laith had joined Novak waiting patiently outside the cubicle. If the two of them had been talking, I’d been too focused on my task to hear them.
“Okay,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “From a visual comparison, the best I can tell you is the blood comes from some sort of canine. A dog or a wolf, most likely.”
Laith looked at Novak. “It’s gotta be a werewolf, then.”
The longer-haired vampire chewed his lip with a fang, brows knitting together. “So the werewolf blood bonds with the draitrium molecule and creates side effects of extreme strength and aggression. I wonder how they discovered that.”
“Someone who profits from draitrium probably also deals in illegal blood.” Thorne stood by a cracked window, exhaling red smoke to the outside air. “It’s not a huge stretch by any means.”
Rhain went to stand by the same window, lighting up his own cigarette. “They probably started mixing to dilute each product while keeping profit high. Once they saw what it did, I bet they started using it on their fighters to gain an edge.”
“The Marrower attack may have been a test,” Cyan suggested, wandering closer to join Laith and Novak. “To see what would happen if they started dealing this mixture to the public.”
“Wait, there was an attack?” My voice raised with alarm. “Where? When?”
Cyan turned toward me. “It was a few months ago. A group of Marrower vampires, high on draitrium, attacked Sapien, the all-human settlement.”
“It was how Amy became a brusang,” Novak added softly. “She lost her human life in the attack, but Cyan and Tavia managed to bring her back with his blood.”
Cyan waved off the heavy look of gratitude Novak leveled at him. “You must have missed it by a few days,” he said to me.
“Yeah, I definitely had no idea.” Now that I knew that my capture in Sapien had been for my own safety, from the citizens’ perspective, I felt a lot more sympathy for those people.
“Regardless, we are not letting another attack happen.” Red smoke curled around Thorne’s lips as he snarled.
“I mean, the damage has already begun.” Des shrugged at the glares everyone sent his way. “Those Marrowers hurt the human settlement and our credibility as the ruling clan who protects everyone. Carpe Noctem sees that as a win, I’m sure. What’s to stop them from doing it again?”
I lifted my hand as if I were in class. “Would someone mind giving me a brief rundown of what Carpe Noctem is?”
The vampires all exchanged a brief glance, and I got the sense that humans, blood mate or not, were not usually privy to these discussions.
“Carpe Noctem is one of the oldest, richest, and most powerful clans in Sanguine,” Laith explained. No one tried to stop him from talking, so he continued. “They’re extremely archaic in their views. To them, humans, female vampires, and anyone below an aristocratic class are meant to be subservient. Their few stints at being ruling clan in the past have been extremely oppressive. They’ve been overthrown by a rebellion every single time, but their wealth and resources run deep. And they’re obsessed with sitting at the top, no matter who they step on to get there.”
“Blood til Dawn is a clan of working class vampires,” Rhain supplied. “We’ve always been mechanics and builders. So Carpe Noctem is especially pissed off that we’ve been the ruling clan, peacefully I might add, for the last fifteen years.”
“They’re also the ones who took Kalix prisoner,” Cyan added. “They were the ruling clan at the time, about five years before we took power.”
“Whoa,” I said when the guys fell silent. “Yeah, fuck those guys.”
A frustrated growl of agreement came from Thorne as he stabbed his cigarette out violently in an ashtray on the windowsill. “Carpe Noctem needs to be dismantled. They’ll destroy vampires as a whole and thousands of humans along the way if they’re not stopped.”
“Or,” Novak piped up. “We can try to make Inessa the head of Carpe Noctem. She’ll steer the ship in a much better direction.”
Thorne paused like he was considering that. “That’ll be difficult and dangerous in a whole host of ways. Carpe Noctem won’t support a woman as their head.”
“Not without reason. She’ll have to prove herself.”
The room fell into plans and discussion of vampire politics and things that went way over my head. My headache was increasing in intensity and I was becoming fatigued. I plopped down in a chair at the laptop desk, rubbing my temples.
