“Bezio,” Mircea said grimly.
“They wanted the sensation,” Paulo said, looking up with a frown. “What else?”
Mircea didn’t say anything.
“And you,” the cook turned beady brown eyes on Paulo. “Go help in the dining room.”
“Don’t we have people for that?”
“Yes, you. And take him and his clothes with you.” She pointed the spoon at Mircea.
“He isn’t working tonight,” Paulo protested.
“I didn’t ask you to have him do cartwheels. But he can set the table, can’t he?”
Which was how Mircea ended up dressing outside the dining room upstairs, while Paulo retrieved the beautiful maiolica dishes used for company. They were exquisite work, blue and gold on a white background, depicting various frolicking goddesses. They were the sort of thing that most people, had they been able to afford them at all, would have displayed proudly in the main hall, where they could be seen as soon as anyone entered the house.
Here, they were just stacked in a chest.
Mircea shook his head, amazed as more and more of the expensive stuff was added to a cart. He tried to help as soon as he was dressed, but the area around the chest was small and Paulo just waved him out of the way. “Stand over there,” he said sourly. “And answer my question.”
“What question?” Mircea said, pressing back against the wall to avoid a line of servants, who came by bearing cloths for the table and the great salt.
“Why you don’t seem to know that vampires bite during intimacy.”
“I—” Mircea stopped, not wanting to discuss this. But not really knowing how to get out of it.
But it seemed that silence wasn’t the solution, either.
Blond eyebrows came together. “Don’t tell me that was your first time—”
“Of course not.”
“Since the Change?”
Mircea sighed and leaned back against the wall. “Then we don’t have much to discuss, do we?” he admitted.
Paulo paused to glare at him. “Why the devil didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I didn’t think it relevant. I’m hardly a virgin—”
“From our perspective, that’s exactly what you were!” Paulo banged some expensive dinnerware onto the cart, more forcefully than it deserved. “I can’t believe—”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“It matters!” He stopped and took a breath. “Do you remember my telling you where Martina found me?”
“You were in a tavern.”
“And why was I there?”
“You said something about getting drunk. Or trying to.”
“Yes, trying to. Only it’s not so easy anymore, is it? Not for us. The only way to get the same effect is to drink from a human who has had too much. The blood magnifies the alcohol, allowing us the same escape they have. Well, it does if you take enough.”
Mircea frowned. “So I feel this way because of what happened last night?”
“Feel what way?”
Mircea waved a hand helplessly, unable to put into words the strange sensations he’d experienced since waking up. And still was. “Like the fact that the birds on the dish you’re holding look like they’re moving?”
Paulo looked down at it, and frowned. The birds following some goddess about didn’t seem to like that, with a few fluttering off to the plate’s border to chirp quietly to themselves. He looked back up and tried the expression on Mircea, who didn’t like it any better. “What?”
Mircea sighed and gave up. He would have to hope it just wore off in time. “I haven’t been feeling myself today,” he settled for saying.
“Obviously,” Paulo said dryly. “And that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“That taking blood while doing anything heightens the effect. You’ve been a vampire for two years; don’t tell me you haven’t noticed!”
“I’ve noticed that my senses get better after feeding,” Mircea said slowly. “But that’s because I’m stronger.”
“And more emotional?” Paulo asked archly. “You didn’t have a master, so you don’t know. But there are certain things young vampires are taught. You don’t take blood when you’re depressed, or you might just walk out into the sun in the morning. You don’t feed right before a battle, or you’re likely to try some damned fool stunt and get killed. And you don’t exchange blood when you’re intimate unless you want to end up besotted!”
“But I didn’t take blood,” Mircea pointed out. “They did—”
“And they damned well knew better! I thought you’d agreed! I thought you’d permitted it, and they just took too much. But you didn’t, did you?” Paulo glared at him. “Did they even ask?”
“I—no, but—”
Paulo slammed the chest, hard enough to rattle every plate on the cart. Mircea put out a hand, afraid they were about to have to explain the loss of a fortune in tin-glazed pottery. But thankfully, everything stayed put.
“I’m a little confused,” Mircea told Paulo, after a moment.
“Then allow me to clear it up for you,” the blond said, starting to push the cart down the hall. “Older vamps—some older vamps—have a problem experiencing emotions. It’s like with us and alcohol—the old methods just don’t work for them anymore. The only way they feel what they used to, the only way they experience anything with intensity, is if they feel it through somebody else. And the younger that somebody is, the closer to human, the better.”
Mircea frowned and hurried to keep up. “Then why not just use a human?”
“Some do. Those who don’t mind a fleeting sensation. Or leaving a trail of bodies behind them.”
“A trail of—”
“Could a human have lasted as long as you did?” Paulo demanded. “Could they have taken as much blood without killing him?”
“But they only fed from me for a short time. A moment—”
“They only fed for a short time that you noticed.”
“I think I would have noticed a room full of vampires biting me!”
“Those at their level don’t have to bite, Mircea. They can draw blood to themselves through the air, in tiny pieces too small to see. Too small for the victim to even notice—”
“I wasn’t a victim!”
Paulo looked at him, and then swiftly looked away. “I didn’t say you were. Not in the usual sense. But they were riding your emotions, which meant they were feeding from you, whether you knew it or not. And blood exchange creates a bond, if only a temporary one.”
Mircea stopped, and swallowed. “They . . . felt everything I did?”
“Yes.” Paulo shoved the cart roughly around a corner.
“But . . . I wasn’t feeling love. Even passion . . . well, not at first. It was a tangle—”
“All the better for them. A veritable feast!” The cart hit the dining hall, where it click-clacked over the separations between the tiles.
Mircea lagged behind, trying to comprehend what he’d been told. That he’d served in the place of a drunk human to allow a group of bored women feel something again. Only they hadn’t received what they’d paid for, had they? Most of the time, he hadn’t been feeling passion, at least not primarily. He’d been wondering who he was. Where he fit in now that his old life was gone, and the new one seemed so strange, and so unforgiving.
Only, suddenly, it hadn’t, had it?
Suddenly, it had seemed wonderful.
“Were they influencing me?” he asked, catching up with Paulo.
The blond paused by the table, his shoulders tight. “No. Not . . . exactly. You felt what you felt sincerely. But as I said, they magnified it. Broke down walls, brought things to the surface you might not have wanted to face, forced you to look instead of turning away. Because they received more of a response that way.”