Updates roughly every other week. UNEDITED DRAFT. Content notes apply only to this part.
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Callia took his hand as Draven departed, squeezing lightly. “I’m going to speak to Sophie,” she said, and despite how gentle her voice sounded, Imriel could hear the steel in her thoughts. “I’d like you to come with me, Imri. I know it has to be difficult, hearing what everyone around you is thinking, but I would be grateful to you if you would help me make sure the rest of my household is safe.”
It was more than that, but Imriel refused to think about it. He’d wanted to be useful, and it wasn’t like he had the skills the rest of her pets did. But he could do this. He nodded.
“Thank you,” Callia said, brushing her lips against the corner of his mouth. “Let’s take care of this unpleasant task, and then we’ll see to breakfast for you.”
Imriel wasn’t sure he could eat if he wanted to, not with his thoughts racing over everything that had happened. “Okay,” he agreed, only managing to get the single word out before falling in step behind her.
Callia smiled at him as she turned, offering her arm to Imri. “None of that,” she chided him, drawing him close when he took her arm rather than letting him walk behind her. Imriel felt his heart skip a beat, heat rising in his cheeks as she strolled down the hallway.
By the time they got down the stairs, Imriel’s heart was racing. He liked Sophie; she had been kind where the others had been dismissive. Callia had taken what he’d told her well, but he had known from the edge to her thoughts that she hadn’t been happy. And he understood that an unhappy Elder was not be a good thing.
Callia released his arm, and as she leaned up, he automatically lowered his head to meet her halfway. She kissed him, and while it started out chaste, it deepened into something that had Imriel squirming. Callia drew back, her fingers lightly running along his lips, and she promised, “Soon.”
Imriel blushed, averting his eyes as Callia knocked on the door. When the redhead answered, Imriel could hear the way her thoughts turned into something guilty, and he only barely kept himself from flinching.
“Sophie,” Callia said with a smile on her lips, reaching out to brush her fingers along the young woman’s cheek. The Elder was very tactile, and yet Imriel couldn’t help but be wary at that particular touch. “I’d like to speak with you for a few moments, darling.”
Sophie’s eyes flicked to Imriel and then back. “Of course, Mistress,” she said, dipping her head in a nod as she stepped aside. He had never been in anyone else’s room before. Hers was the same size as his, but it looked more lived in; there were pictures on the walls and art supplies strewn across the desk, with bright splashes of color added to the decor from pillows and decorative curtains.
Callia gestured to one of the chairs in the room, and Imriel sat without being told after closing the door behind them. Callia looped her arm in Sophie’s, guiding her to the edge of the bed. It was as though Imriel ceased to exist then; the Elder’s attention focused on the human, the smile on her lips seeming every bit as genuine as it had been with Imriel — but her thoughts were anything but. They were cool and assessing, and Imriel was taken aback even though he should have known better.
It was a shock to his system, and he wondered which was the genuine Callia Odessa — the playful, sensual woman who had taken him into her bed, or the cold, appraising Elder who studied a potential traitor.
Could she be both? He didn’t know.
Sophie fidgeted, and Imriel wished he could warn her. But he only sat there, head ducked as he studied his hands in his lap.
“Why are you nervous?” Callia asked Sophie, brushing a few strands of the redhead’s hair behind her ears. “I know we haven’t spoken in some time, and I apologize for neglecting you.”
“You haven’t,” Sophie said, the panic in her thoughts making them chaotic and difficult to follow. One thought stood out among the rest, though: she knows.
It didn’t surprise Sophie, somehow, and Imriel understood that not much got past the Elder — least of all in her own home. Of course, he hadn’t heard of many people upsetting her, either. He had to fight to catch his breath as the wild thoughts from Sophie and the assessing thoughts from Callia coalesced into something he had a difficult time understanding.
They wound together, and his head began to ache as he struggled to really listen and follow what was being thought as well as what was being said. It was awkward; he was eavesdropping on something private when he usually worked to keep it all out, and he couldn’t ignore his own guilt.
But he wanted to show her that he could be something more than a plaything, which meant making himself useful. For a witch who’d never been more than mediocre, he didn’t exactly have many options on what he could do.
“Amory tells me you’ve vanished the last few times he’s taken you shopping,” Callia said, her voice sweet as honey despite the rage making her thoughts feel like daggers against his mind. He winced, but he didn’t dare look up or interfere. “I’m a bit disappointed in both of you. You know he accompanies you for your safety, darling. He wants only to protect you.” Disappointed didn’t even begin to cover it.
“I…” Sophie squeaked.
Imriel wanted to urge her to just tell the truth, sure that Callia would go easier on her if she did. He wished that he wasn’t in the room, that he could deny the vampire’s act. He had been happier without seeing this part of the Elder.
Callia waited, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her reach out to smooth her fingers through Sophie’s hair as she had Imriel’s. It was terribly intimate, and he felt like an outsider. His eyes flicked toward the door and then back down, and he went still as though that might help him vanish.
“I’m sorry, Mistress,” Sophie whispered at last. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” That much, at least, was true. He could hear that in her every thought, though her fear broke them up into something that was difficult to follow. He knew she was torn between loyalty to her mistress and the bonds tying her to her family, and he felt sorry for her.
If he had the chance to help his own family, he didn’t know if he would or if he’d bury his head in the sand and pretend that they were safer if he behaved. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.
“Then I suggest you make it up to me, darling,” Callia murmured, the sharp edge of her thoughts never reaching her voice. “You know how I feel about lies.”
Sophie knew. Her thoughts flashed to someone else who had lied to the Elder, crashing into something completely overwhelmed by her emotions. It might have been a relief if he didn’t want to prove his worth to the Elder.
“I… I can’t,” Sophie said miserably.
Callia’s thoughts spiked into something dark and furious, and Imriel barely kept himself from clapping his hands over his ears in a vain effort to keep them out. He bit his lip to keep from whimpering, doing his best not to draw attention to himself. “You will.” There was no mistaking the iron authority in her voice.
“Mistress, please,” Sophie begged, the wild edge of her thoughts creeping into her voice.
“Tell me where you’ve been going, Sophie,” Callia said, her words soft despite the command evident in every syllable. “Tell me what you’ve been doing.”
The words left Sophie in a rush despite the way her thoughts stuttered as they fought the command. “I’ve been meeting my sister Savannah in a safe house near the edge of the market. I’ve been talking to her about informing on you to the Rebellion or running away.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, letting out a quiet, strangled sound, and Imriel looked up in time to see tears welling up in the redhead’s eyes.
Callia reached out, tenderly brushing them away, and she leaned in, resting her forehead against Sophie’s. “Ah, darling… If only you’d told me sooner,” she said.
“Please,” Sophie whispered. “I don’t know anything else. She won’t tell me anything because of… this.”
“Give me directions to where you meet her, Sophie,” Callia said, and Imriel realized the vampire was forcing her like she’d forced him to settle with her words the night before.
Sophie stammered out the way, and her thoughts were anguished as she fought it every step of the way. But there was no sense in resisting; no matter how hard she tried, the vampire’s will overwhelmed her own.
“Good girl,” Callia soothed, drawing back and meeting Sophie’s eyes. “That wasn’t very difficult, was it?”
Sophie sobbed, and Imriel felt his stomach turn.
“Imri?” Callia inquired, looking at him with an arched brow, and he flinched under the intensity of her gaze.
“She’s telling the truth,” Imriel whispered. “There’s nothing else.” Nothing else that he could see, at least.
Pity. The thought seared into his mind, and he trembled beneath the force of it.
Callia cupped Sophie’s cheeks, the blonde looking at the redhead almost like one might inspect a lover. Assuming, of course, one of those lovers had been scorned and was now plotting revenge despite the sweetness of her voice and words.
Callia’s thumbs ran along the woman’s cheeks.
“Mistress, please, no,” Sophie begged, shaking her head frantically as she grasped Callia’s hands beneath her own. “Please. I didn’t tell her anything!”
Callia regarded her for a moment, and a chill ran through Imriel at the sight of the girl’s pale face and the sound of her desperate voice. It hit him at once, the knowledge of just what the Elder did to those who betrayed her, as the reality set in.
“I do not keep slaves I cannot trust,” Callia replied, not moving Sophie’s hands away.
Because that was what they were. They weren’t friends or even pets, not really. They might be treated well, but in the end, they could be bought and sold like cattle.
“Please don’t,” Sophie whispered.
“Hush,” Callia said, finally shifting to draw Sophie’s hands down. The young woman fell silent, and Callia’s fingers carefully exposed Sophie’s throat.
When she bit, Imriel felt the way Sophie’s thoughts drifted, the frantic echo fading into something languid and peaceful. He couldn’t look away, not even as those thoughts stuttered and slowed.
He’d never felt someone die before.
He was going to cry.
He was going to get sick.
He was going to get dragged down with her thoughts, pulled under the surface as Callia coaxed Sophie closer and closer to death. He wanted to. He wanted to lose consciousness, to be blissfully ignorant of what Callia was doing.
Instead, Imriel couldn’t look away as pleasure chased Sophie into oblivion, refusing to relinquish its hold until unconsciousness overtook her at last and her mind was so silent it was deafening.
Callia’s was nightmarishly calm.
It wasn’t until Callia — no, the Elder — lowered Sophie’s still form onto the bed that he was able to rip his gaze away, and he wiped blindly at the tears in his eyes. This was the woman who had showed him just how much pleasure she could bring him, the woman who had convinced him she wanted him.
But he’d seen her turn on one of her own just because the slave could have betrayed her, and now he didn’t know what to think.
He felt the weight of Callia’s gaze on him, and he cowered, afraid. She rose, crossing the room to him, and she rested her hand on the back of his neck as she brushed her lips against his forehead. “I said you were safe, Imri,” she said softly, and he flinched despite the way her thoughts echoed her words.
He knew the truth, though. He wasn’t safe because of who he was. He was safe because of what he could do. You killed her, he thought, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak the words aloud.
“Ah, Imri,” she said, shaking her head. “I know you can’t understand, not yet. But you will.”
He knew. He could hear the way she justified it — that she couldn’t have a potential traitor in her household, that she had to protect the rest of what was hers, that it was foolish to sell a slave who could babble all her secrets, that to sell Sophie would have been to send her to a fate worse than this gentle death. He heard it, but he didn’t believe it.
He swallowed hard, but he didn’t speak.
“Come,” Callia told him, offering out her hand. Imriel looked helplessly at it, but what other options did he have? If he didn’t cooperate, she didn’t have any reason to keep him alive any more than Sophie — and he knew she’d never allow a telepath to go to anyone else. His heart raced as the shock of what she’d done hit him all over again.
It had been one thing to suspect, but it was another entirely to know. He wished he hadn’t watched. He wished he’d run away when he’d realized what she was going to do.
It was too late, and now he had to live — or die — with what he knew.
He took her hand.
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