Chapter 12
Did any of Earth's legends still apply out here, in a system where even the sun was different?
And while her thoughts were drifting, the light in front of her was blocked by an enormous shadow.
A cloak carrying a cold fragrance wrapped her from behind, and silver hair lifted on the wind from the window and brushed her cheek. A solid body arrived against her back, and a man's low voice came down from above her head. "Running?"
Mary went rigid.
She hadn't understood the word, but she recognized that cold scent. It was the man from the coffin, the one who had been holding her while she slept.
Judging by the possessiveness in the way he was holding her now, and by the breath currently moving toward her neck, the situation was very, very bad.
She clapped a hand over her own throat and tried to curl herself up small inside the cloak — and was pinned in place at the waist, easily, by one arm.
The hand uselessly covering her neck was pulled away with something like a cold laugh, and then the fangs went through her skin, cold entering warmth, and blood full of living heat began to be drawn steadily out of her.
It was the first time she had been fed on while fully conscious.
Looking at the toothmarks on her neck before, Mary had assumed that being bitten must hurt a great deal.
In the event, she found there was no pain at all.
Instead a strange numbing sweetness spread out from the sensitive skin of her neck and traveled through every vessel in her body, dropping her into a comfortable haze somewhere between sleeping and waking.
Colors and images seemed to detonate soundlessly inside her head, lines of every shade tangling together, and there was nothing but pure and frankly alarming pleasure climbing her spine, so that she curled her toes and narrowed her eyes and produced a small uncontrolled sound in her throat.
This is probably... what sex feels like?
The thought surfaced in Mary's head unbidden.
Given that Mary possessed no practical experience whatsoever in this area, the above conclusion was purely theoretical.
Later, once she had experienced the real thing personally, she would never dare imagine it that way again.
By the time Anthony finished feeding, Mary was dizzy enough that she could barely stand.
The moment he let go she slid toward the floor as though her bones had been removed.
Her vision went dark in waves and her heart was going hard enough to come out through her ribs.
This was bad. Extended starvation plus significant blood loss really did have consequences.
Was she about to die like this?
Mary thought hazily that so far the only energy she'd taken on board was a single nutrient injection Patricia had risked giving her.
As for actually feeding her, given that essentially nothing on the human menu existed on this planet, substitutes would have to be found.
Patricia had said she'd need to go and research it.
Mary, having slid down onto the carpet, was caught by the wrist and hauled up.
The man took her chin between his fingers and studied her for a moment, seeming finally to register that he had overdone it somewhat this time.
He let out a small sigh, gathered the boneless Mary up crosswise, swept his cloak around, and walked out of the room.
The window Mary had worked so hard to open dropped shut behind him with a snap and sealed again.
...
Anthony carried her all the way to a spacious hall resembling a dining room before setting her in a high-backed chair.
He walked to the other end of the long table, sat down with considerable elegance, and lifted a hand slightly toward the seat opposite. The meaning was clear enough: sit.
Seeing her comply, Anthony raised his hand and clapped twice, lightly.
Instantly, all eight of the doors set evenly around the circular hall slid inward without a sound.
Innumerable servers and maids in immaculate uniforms, all thoroughly drilled, appeared as though out of the walls, pushing gleaming silver carts through every entrance.
Mark, the butler with the severe haircut whom Mary had met before, was among them.
He laid down a white napkin, produced a flawless crystal glass, slowly poured half a measure of a pale pink liquid the consistency of wine, and set it in front of her.
Mary looked at the strangely colored liquid, then glanced up the length of the table at Anthony with some confusion.
His face carried no expression at all.
Returning to the glass, she found Mark had thoughtfully laid an embroidered napkin on the table for her.
So this glass of whatever it was, was her food?
She picked up the crystal glass hesitantly and swirled it. No unusual sediment.
She leaned in and smelled it. No unusual smell.
Mary steeled herself, tipped her head back, and took a large mouthful.
Then she sprayed all of it back out.
God, that was foul.
What in the world was this — watered-down industrial pigment blended with rust and rotting vegetation?
Fishy and astringent at once. Deeply disgusting.
And this was the thing that required a production of that scale to bring to the table?
"Pah! Pah!" Mary had coughed tears into her eyes and was frantically trying to spit out what was left of the taste, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand in a thoroughly undignified way, retching in waves.
Every server in the dining hall froze where they stood.
Mark's eyes went wide as he watched this human spray his priceless glass of Mannati mermaid blood across the room like mouthwash.
He didn't even notice the several pale pink droplets landing on his own clothing. He simply looked up, hurriedly, to check Prince Anthony's expression.
Prince Anthony's expression was very, very bad.
To be found disgusting so openly, so completely without mercy, and to his face, was in all likelihood a first for Lord Anthony, who had spent his existence being held aloft at the top of everything.
Anthony's face went from white to green and then began, faintly, to darken.
Fortunately an aristocrat's training held. He simply waved a hand, indicating that the servants should bring a different delicacy.
What arrived this time was a blue liquid in a glass inlaid with what appeared to be sapphires, exquisite enough to qualify as an art object.
However, as far as Mary — currently conscripted as a taste tester — was concerned, it could be as beautiful as a diamond. If it tasted bad, it tasted bad.
Having learned from the previous round, she was smarter this time.
She didn't drink it. She extended the tip of her tongue and licked it, very carefully.
Then her entire face folded up into an expression that communicated, roughly: My God, this is essentially poison, you people actually swallow this, watered-down sports drink would be a hundred times better than this, have you seriously never in your lives had anything genuinely good to drink, honestly, I feel sorry for you, I really do.
That look of profound pity carried Anthony's expression from iron-green onward toward outright black, the temperature in the room dropped several degrees, and every server present stared rigidly straight ahead.
When the third glass arrived, this one a turmeric yellow, Mary nearly cried.
