Abruptly his disquiet turned to disappointment and anger. He snapped, “Have I given you any reason to believe you are in danger from me? Have I not done the exact opposite, and tried my very best to make you feel at ease here, in my own home?”
The look in her large, dark eyes turned wry. She didn’t hesitate, but approached him at the same, steady pace as she had entered the room, even though her heart rate sped up even further.
When she reached the empty armchair, she sat and folded her hands together in a deliberate mimicry of his position. “What does reason have to do with fear?”
That drew him up short. He stared at her, eyes narrowed, while a muscle bunched in his jaw. Moments ticked by as they regarded each other. Her expression was resolute, her gaze steady. Raoul had the right of it; she was tenacious.
He did something that had become completely unnecessary over the last several hundred years, once he had died as a human man. He drew in a breath.
Abruptly, he grew aware of his own uncharacteristic loss of temper, and his anger turned onto himself. It had been a mistake to try to see her tonight, when he had only just returned.
“My apologies,” he said, his tone abrupt. “I should not have sent for you tonight. I’m tired and low on patience, and I should have known better.”
Startlement flashed in her gaze, and she lowered her eyelids. “It isn’t your fault,” she said. “It’s mine. I’m sorry.”
Was it her fault, he thought bitterly, when she faced a predator that could overpower her completely and feed on her until she died?
Or wasn’t her fear the most reasonable reaction after all?
EIGHT
He couldn’t remember the last time he was so irritated with himself. Slicing his hand through the air, he rejected her words with the gesture. “We should start over. Or better still, we should meet on another night.”
He watched her lovely mouth compress and counted three of her quickened heartbeats. Then she said in a measured, courteous tone, “How did your trip to New York go? Good, I hope?”
Coming from her, it was a major effort at conciliation. Just as abruptly as his temper had flared, it faded completely. “It was good, thank you. How has the training gone these last six weeks?”
She glanced at him from underneath her lowered lids, a sly, wary look. “It’s been eventful. A lot of hard work.”
His mouth twitched. Watching her attempt polite conversation with him was rather excruciating, and he didn’t know whether to be amused or irritated by it. “I’ll have the real truth now, if you please.”
“It’s been bloody awful,” she confessed in a rush. “I know he’s a friend of yours, but Raoul is a sadist.”
His eyebrows shot up. Whatever he had expected from this conversation, this wasn’t it. “He is?”
She nodded. “Ibuprofen has become a staple in my diet, but I can now run for a full hour, although I slow down quite a bit toward the end. I can also strip and load four different guns, and hit the bull’s-eye on the target nine times out of ten. And I still have no idea what the daggers at dinner mean.”
He repeated, “Daggers at dinner.”
“You know, the little ones that are set at the twelve o’clock position at each dinner plate on a formal table setting.” She glanced with undisguised longing at the opened bottle of Chateau Sauvignon sitting on the table beside her chair.
He pinched his nose and smiled. “Do help yourself to some wine. I’ll call for a fresh glass.”
She sat straight and reached for Raoul’s wineglass. “Thanks, don’t bother. I don’t mind using this one. It’s not like anybody at the estate is sick.”
“True enough.” He watched her pour the wine into the glass. Its color wine was lovely in the firelight, red like rubies, like blood. “I’ve asked Raoul to prepare his phlebotomy equipment. It’s past time you offer blood. Unless, of course, you wish for me to take it from the vein.”
She drank half the glass at once. “If you’re leaving the option up to me, I would rather not yet.” Her dark gaze regarded him around the edge of the wineglass. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”
“I do not change my mind about things such as this.” He watched her for the tiny tells, and they were certainly there. The slender muscles in her throat flexed as she swallowed, and the way she held her mouth changed. Her expression seemed too complex for mere relief, but perhaps contained a hint of disappointment as well.
Was she disappointed that he did not live down to her worst expectations, or was she disappointed in herself for not agreeing to a direct blood offering? Given her tenacious nature, she must be battling a serious revulsion for the act. Troubled, he frowned down at his clasped hands.
“The daggers at the dinner settings is a very old Vampyre custom, dating back to the early Roman Empire,” he said. “It is meant as a gesture of courtesy from the host.”
“But what does it mean?”
“Often weapons were forbidden in palaces when a ruler was in residence. The dagger was a symbol of trust, a way of saying to the guest, you may go armed in my presence, and we are still at peace.”
She nodded slowly. “So it would actually end up being a really terrible thing to pick it up. Kind of a betrayal against the host?”
“Yes, except on one occasion. The dagger was also used by the guest to prick herself to offer blood in a show of fealty to a Vampyre lord. At large gatherings like a banquet, it simply wasn’t feasible for the host to take a direct blood offering from everyone personally. This way, a cup was passed from guest to guest. They could prick their fingers, add a few drops to the cup and pass it on. At the end of the round, when the cup had made it back to the Vampyre lord, he would take it and drink.”
She frowned. “Was this a ritual for humans, or for Vampyres?”
He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “It was for both. For example, Julian could insist on a blood fealty from all the heads of the Vampyre houses along with human officials that live within his demesne, but the ritual is no longer enacted. Still, the dagger is laid out in formal situations as a tradition. In some households, quite a bit of money is spent on the daggers, encrusting them with jewels and gold. They’re pretty baubles, nothing more, and are usually about as dull as a letter opener.”
She had listened intently, her eyes wide with fascination. “Thank you for the explanation.”
“De nada,” he said. When she lifted the bottle of wine and looked at him in inquiry, he gestured for her to help herself to a second glass.
Silence fell between them as she did so, and they sat for a few minutes, each wrapped in thought. He noted that her fear had subsided somewhat as they talked, and he watched the flames in the fireplace as he considered that.
Finally he stirred and sighed. “You present some interesting challenges, Tess Graham.”
She straightened in her chair. “I’m sorry. What can I do to make it better?”
“That is what I am trying to decide.” He set his empty glass aside. “I’ve already told you that you must make a proper blood offering freely and willingly by the end of the trial year, and that is not an arbitrary requirement. There are reasons why it is necessary.”
“I think I understand,” she said. “Without your bite, I can’t give as much blood as the others, or as often. Also, it would give me increased speed, strength and healing capacity, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, among other things. Regular blood offerings also establish a connection between us—it’s nothing like telepathy, mind you. It just increases my awareness of where you are in a crowd, which can be a handy safety measure.” He rubbed his forehead. “But I’m afraid your capacity to give a blood offering won’t be enough.”
Her expression turned wary again. “What do you mean?”
Meeting her gaze, he said, “You have to do more than confront your fear. You have to conquer it.”