Chapter 18: Beloved Be They Named
Blair stood in the alcove, watching the dance floor spin in its elegant circles. The music swelled and fell, and the candlelight caught the silver threading of her gown as she shifted her weight from one aching foot to the other. The emptiness inside her pulsed with every heartbeat, a hollow that no amount of wine could fill.
"New, aren't you?"
Blair turned. A woman leaned against the marble pillar at the mouth of the alcove, arms crossed, a lazy smile curving her lips. She was tall, willowy, with pale gold hair that fell in waves past her shoulders. Her gown was a deep emerald, cut low enough to show the tops of her breasts, with a slit that ran to her hip. She looked like she knew exactly how beautiful she was.
"I'm Dove," the woman said. She extended a hand, and her nails were painted the color of blood. "I saw you being presented earlier. Lucien and Vespera's new treasure."
Blair took the hand. It was warm, not cool like the other vampires she had met tonight. "Blair."
"Dove, like the bird, or Dove, like the soap?" Dove's smile sharpened. "My mother named me after the soap. She had a sense of humor."
Blair laughed before she could stop herself. The sound surprised her, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to laugh."
"Please do. The court takes itself far too seriously." Dove settled against the pillar, ankles crossed, and studied Blair with open curiosity. "So. How long have you been theirs?"
"A little over two months."
"Two months and they're already showing you off at the ball. That's swift." Dove's eyes flicked to the dance floor, where Vespera was gliding past with a Lord in gold. "The Queen doesn't rush her toys. She savors them."
Blair frowned. "I'm not... I'm their concubine. Not a toy."
Dove's brows rose. "Oh, excuse me. I meant no offense." She tilted her head, studying Blair with new interest. "You talk like you have teeth. That's rare in a concubine. Most of them have learned to keep their mouths shut by now."
Blair's cheeks warmed. She thought of the ballroom, of the woman in the corner, of all the hollow-eyed creatures she had seen tonight. "I'm learning."
"Why don't we get out of this corner?" Dove said. She pushed off the pillar and offered her arm. "There's a balcony that's much more private. The stars are out, and I'm tired of watching the old men try to negotiate blood prices over champagne."
Blair hesitated. She looked toward the dance floor, where Vespera was still occupied in conversation. Lucien was across the room, speaking to a Baroness, his eyes flicking toward Blair even as he talked.
A few minutes. They wouldn't mind.
She took Dove's arm.
The balcony was a small stone ledge wrapped in ivy, overlooking the moonlit gardens. The air was cool and clean, a relief after the press of bodies and perfume. Dove leaned against the railing and looked up at the sky, and Blair stood beside her, letting the silence settle.
"You know," Dove said, "when I was turned, I thought the stars would look different. Brighter, maybe. Or clearer." She laughed softly. "They look exactly the same. That was the most disappointing part of immortality."
Blair's heart stuttered. "You were turned?"
"Seventy years ago." Dove turned to her, and there was something in her eyes, a glint of knowledge. "I was a seamstress in a town south of here. Pretty enough, skilled enough, poor enough. My Lover found me at a market stall, bargaining too loudly over the price of silk. He said I argued like I had never been beaten."
Blair stared at her. She had been so focused on Dove's confidence, her easy smile, that she had not looked closely. Now she did.
Dove's eyes were a soft lavender.
Not the burgundy of the nobility, not the red of the common clan. Lavender, pale and luminous, catching the starlight like a cat's. Blair had seen that color before. In the library, in the old books Vespera had let her read. She had thought it was a myth, a poet's invention.
"Full Made," Blair whispered. "You're a full vampire."
Dove smiled, and there was a sharpness in it. "Most concubines are human. Fledglings, if their masters are generous. Dhampirs if they're useful. But every so often, a concubine gets lucky. She survives long enough, pleases well enough, that her Lover decides she's worth more than a decade of use."
Blair's mouth had gone dry. "And you... he turned you?"
"He did." Dove leaned back, letting her hair spill over the stone railing. "I was his favorite for nearly thirty years. When I started to gray, when my hands began to ache in the cold, he looked at me and saw a thing worth preserving. So he turned me."
Blair could not look away from her. A full vampire. An equal. Not a thrall leashed to her master's blood, not a dhampir half-turned and bound. A true immortal, walking through the court as a concubine by choice, not necessity.
"Don't look so shocked," Dove said, amused. "It's rare, yes. But it happens more often than the nobles like to admit. A good concubine is hard to find. They train them, feed them, shape them to perfection, and then they watch them age and fade in a few decades. Wasteful." She picked a petal off the ivy and let it fall into the dark. "Some of us are kept. Loved. Made eternal."
"And you stayed? After he turned you, you stayed as his concubine?"
"I stayed as his lover." Dove's voice softened. "The title changed. The chains didn't, not entirely, but I chose it. He is my mate, and I am his. We are equals in the eyes of the court, and that is more than most vampires ever have."
Blair's mind raced. Equals. The word was a bright, impossible thing, a coin she had never seen before. All night she had watched concubines kneel and crawl and tremble. She had watched them be used and discarded. She had thought her own fate, however gentle, was the same.
But Dove had clawed her way out.
"Most of the court will never have that," Dove said, as if reading her thoughts. "They will take a dozen humans, drain them dry, toss them aside. And the humans will let them, because they don't know better, or they think they deserve it." She turned to Blair, her lavender eyes serious. "But the ones who are chosen, truly chosen, they become something else. They become the exception."
Blair swallowed. "Do you think..." She stopped, the question too fragile to voice.
Dove waited.
"Lucien and Vespera," Blair said, and the names felt strange in her mouth, intimate and terrifying. "They keep telling me I'm treasured. That I'm not like the others. That I'll be fed and kept and never discarded. But they're a king and a queen married for politics. They don't love each other. They barely seem to love anything."
Dove's smile turned knowing. "No. They don't love each other. That's the tragedy of their marriage, and also its strength. They have turned their union into a partnership, a shared rule. And now they have brought a third into their bed."
Blair felt her cheeks burn. "That's not."
"Don't be coy." Dove laughed, bright and unashamed. "Half the court heard you scream through the solar walls last month. The other half has guessed."
Blair pressed her hands to her hot face. "Oh, gods."
"Own it." Dove's voice was warm. "You are the king and queen's concubine. That is a position of staggering power. You have access to their ears, their beds, their decisions. If you play it well, you will be set for life. And if they decide to turn you, you will be set for eternity."
Blair's heart hammered. "They wouldn't."
"They might." Dove shrugged. "They have been married for two hundred years and taken no other permanent lover. I have watched the court, little one. I see how Vespera looks at you. I see how the King stands at your back, marking you. You are not a passing fancy. You are a project."
A project. The word wrapped around Blair's throat. She thought of the feeding, the training, the hours of pleasure and punishment. She thought of the hollow ache in her empty cunt, the hunger in her belly, the way her body had learned to crave them.
"Do you want it?" Dove asked. "Eternity?"
Blair opened her mouth. The honest answer rose in her chest, tangled and bright and terrifying. Yes. She wanted to be fed forever, to be filled forever, to be held and claimed and never released. She wanted to know she would not wither and die in a few decades, leaving Lucien and Vespera to find another toy.
But she was human. Frightened. Small.
"I don't know," she whispered. "I don't know what I want."
Dove's smile softened. "That's honest. The best ones are honest, at least with themselves." She touched Blair's wrist, light and warm. "If they offer it, take it. A life like mine, a lover who sees you as his equal and his treasure, that is the rarest thing in the court. Rarer than blood wine, rarer than a firstborn's winter coat. If they mean to give it to you, don't throw it away out of pride."
Blair's eyes stung. "You don't even know me. Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I was you, little one." Dove's gaze was steady. "Seventy years ago, I was a seamstress with a sore back and a faded face, kneeling at a market stall and wondering if I would be dead before winter. I was lucky. I was loved. I want you to be lucky too."
The door behind them opened, spilling gold light onto the balcony. Blair turned, and Lucien stood in the doorway, his dark eyes flicking from her to Dove, his expression unreadable.
"There you are." His voice was velvet and iron. "Vespera was beginning to worry."
Blair's heart seized. She looked at Dove, who gave her a small, knowing nod, and then she crossed the balcony to Lucien. His hand found her hip, hot even through the silk of her gown, and he pulled her against his side.
"Dove," he said, his tone polite but edged. "I did not realize you were acquainted with my concubine."
"We just met," Dove said, unbothered. "She was looking at the stars. I was looking for conversation. We found both."
Lucien's smile was thin. "Delightful." His hand tightened on Blair's hip. "Come, little maid. The night is drawing to a close, and Vespera has plans for you."
Blair's mouth went dry. Plans. The word was a promise and a demand, and her body responded, heat pooling low in her belly, the hollow ache between her legs sharpening into a hunger that demanded filling.
"Goodnight, Dove," she said, and her voice came out soft, almost shy.
Dove smiled, and her lavender eyes glinted in the starlight. "Goodnight, little one. Consider what I said."
Lucien led her back inside. The ballroom was thinning, the nobles drifting toward the doors, and Vespera stood by the fountain, her burgundy gaze fixed on Blair as she approached.
Her smile was a blade. "Time to go home, little rose."
Home. The word wrapped around Blair like a blanket, warm and strange and terrifying. She took Vespera's hand, letting the Queen lead her out of the ballroom, and she did not look back.
But Dove's words echoed in her chest, a bright coin she did not know what to spend.
If they offer it, take it.
Blair's hand moved to her belly, where the hollow still pulsed, hungry and empty. She wanted. That much she knew. Whether she was brave enough to want forever, she would have to learn.