Page 68 of Claimed By Blood

“I canfeelhow satisfied you are to be waking me up, you bitch,” Immy complains, rolling over until she’s nothing more than a mass of ginger curls against the white pillowcase. “Gimme fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready for whatever schemes you’ve cooked up.”

“I wanted to explore this place. It’s huge.”

“Can’t we explore when the sun is fully set?” she complains, her voice so muffled by the pillow that it’s hard to tell what she’s saying.

“No way,” I retort, slyly grabbing a pillow from the other bed in the room and raising it above my head. “When did you get so boring?”

“Don’t you dare pillow fight me,” she grumbles, pushing to her elbows on the mattress, and I roll my eyes. “I can feel your sneaky feelings, remember?”

Shrugging, because pretending that I’d forgotten can only give me the advantage, I chuck the pillow back onto the other bed and bounce to my feet. “Come on, I bet there’s plenty of stuff here and we’ve barely wandered farther than the end of this corridor. I—for one—want to know what that language is they all speak. I’ve never heard it.”

“Coptic,” Immy grumbles as she swings her legs out of bed. “Fayyumic dialect, I think. It went extinct a long time ago, so I don’t remember much of it.”

I’ll take her word for it. She was always much better at languages than I was.

“I’ll meet you in the hallway in ten minutes,” I say, levelling my best playful warning glare at her. “Don’t be late, or the pillow fight is happening.”

Leaving her alone to dress, I close the door and run straight into Noha.

“You never came to find me,” she explains, at seeing my startled expression. “I figured you were probably tired, but I wanted to invite you on my trip to the town later tonight.”

“Sure,” I reply, easily. “I didn’t realise you left here so often.”

Noha chuckles. “My husbandwisheshe could keep me locked away for my own safety, and I think Bakari would sell his soul for any excuse. But we can’t live in total isolation. Our vampires make regular trips into the cities to collect blood for the rest of us, and other things. If you come with me, we can get whatever you need to be more comfortable here. Even if that’s ear-plugs.”

I stare at her blankly, and she giggles. “Come on, six men and you’re telling menoneof them snore? Samuel sounds like a freight train most days.”

Snorting, because she’s not wrong, I reply. “A few of them do, but I don’t mind it so much.”

In my younger years, I spent a lot of time living amongst Cain’s soldiers, on trips to hunt ghouls or defend our lands from lycan threats. I grew used to sleeping wherever and whenever I could, no matter how noisy it was.

“You’ll have to tell me your secrets,” Noha winks, just as Immy leaves her room, already dressed. “Are you two off somewhere?”

“Evie dragged me out of bed to explore,” Immy yawns, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “But if you want to rescue me…”

Noha shakes her head. “Come on, I’ll give you the tour. You can grab breakfast in the dining hall with the rest of us.”

I’m about to refuse—because just the thought of feeding from anyone other than my thralls has become nauseating—when Finn pops his head through the door.

He looks adorably sleep mussed with his glasses askew and his eyes still blurry as he stumbles towards us. “I’m coming too,” he grumbles. “Too much testosterone in that room for me to handle.”

Raising a brow—because Finn never seemed to have a problem with the pack’s testosterone before—I shrug. “The more the merrier.”

Noha leads the three of us through the tunnels, pointing out the different rooms with their different coloured door frames as she goes.

“Yellow are private rooms,” she explains. “Blue are for our security force, so best not to wander into those either, and white are public spaces.”

“What do you all do down here all night?” Immy asks, peering into one of the public rooms curiously.

“A lot of us work in technology or investments.” Noha grins. “We can’t make too much money or it would draw Cain’s attention, but we keep ourselves comfortable. Outside of that, there are plenty of recreational spaces, and the occasional trip to town—provided those who go keep a low profile when they’re there.”

“Sounds pretty idyllic,” I mumble. “I still can’t believe you’ve kept all of this a secret all of this time.”

Noha shrugs. “Samuel believes Cain knows we exist, but not who we really are. A small vampire enclave keeping to themselves and not actively increasing their numbers doesn’t cause him any harm, so he leaves us alone. The moment we see signs of him encroaching on our territory, or trying to infiltrate our ranks, we’ll leave.” She sighs. “Though I don’t want to go. This is my home.”

That makes no sense. The existence of any enclave not under his rule is an obvious threat to Cain. Our sire’s power comes from the fact thatallvampires are unified solely under his rule. If other vampires heard of this place…

Schisms would form in Cain’s Court. The old and powerful would undoubtedly seek to create their own kingdoms. Cain would be forced to spend too much of his time and resources putting all of them down, which would inevitably give the packs and humans the free reign to cause their own brands of chaos.

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