"No. I would do thatforme" he said, peering at her over the large goblet as he took a generous sip of fresh blood. "But the results would be the same. Stupefying."
She began to round the table, and he arched an eyebrow, giving her pause.
"I have to eat."
Lilith stopped walking and stared at him, confused. "The table runs perpetual blood now. What else is it that you need?"
"A steak... rare... unmolested by spices... running blood. I had that on my mind last night, but the primary hunger had been power and you."
"You canstill eat human food?" She weaved a bit and caught her balance on the edge of the table.
His smile widened as he inhaled her shock. "There are some things still necessary if one from our realms wants to sire in the flesh. Didn't Dante share that with you?" Cain chuckled. "Perhaps it had been so long ago that my father forgot how."
Lilith snapped her fingers without taking her eyes from Cain's and made a charcoal-seared slab of meat materialize on a gold platter be�fore him. Manipulating her fingers in the air, Lilith made a two-pronged gold fork appear between them, and she sent a dagger into the bloodied steak with a glance.
"Thank you, my dear," he murmured and leaned forward to in�spect her offering. "From the stock of fattened calves?"
"London's best, grade-A, human stock... the cows have all gone mad. Or would you prefer veal?" Lilith came to his side and then slid onto his lap, handing him the fork. "Name a country and I can bring you a whole child," she cooed.
"This will do... The young ones are more tender, but the bulls have more adrenaline and testosterone in them," he said, leaning around her to cut off a sizeable hunk.
"So wise," she said, melting against him and kissing the underside of his massive jaw as he ate. "What else can I give you right now, lover?" she added in a sexy whisper, writhing in his lap.
"Fallon," Cain mumbled through another mouthful of meat, and then he slurped blood from his goblet.
Lilith immediately slid out of his lap and strode across the floor as Cain watched her. She took a wide-legged stance, closed her eyes, and clapped twice, opening a large chasm in the floor between her and the pentagram-shaped table. Cain continued to eat, unfazed as sulfuric plumes swirled up from the fractured floor. Bored by the floor show, he occasionally tossed bits of fat and gristle up for squealing bats to fetch from the air.
Dozens of Harpies swarmed out of the yawning floor, and they ea�gerly huddled around Lilith's legs.
"Retrieve Fallon Nuit," she commanded in their language, and then she craned her fingers until they became talons.
A black arc zapped from her right hand to her left and soon her soot-covered fist was filled with a damaged, dead heart and broken fangs. Harpies scampered across the floor toward the huge, black-marble, throne-room doors that had been repaired. Bleating screeches made the doors quickly slam open, and the Harpies took off across the bridge that led to the Sea of Perpetual Agony. Now she'd ransomed his attention; Cain sat forward watching with guarded interest.
Lilith smiled as she cradled Fallon Nuit's injured heart with both hands, blowing a steady stream of black breath against it, warming it, massaging it, as she sauntered across the chamber and laid it in the center of the council table. She then set a broken jawbone and bat�tered fangs to either side of it.
"Of all that is unholy," she whispered, cupping handfuls of blood. "Of all that is undead and unclean, I regenerate you from the ashes of incarceration," she whispered, slitting her wrist and adding her own blood to the table's darkening elixir. "From the line of lines, from the first vampire ever made, you have been granted a reprieve to again claim the night by the imperial throne's new heir."
Nothing happened. The heart lay dead and unchanged.
"It will work," she hissed, glancing at Cain and then back down to Fallon's withered black heart. "It is a delicate transformation."
"Fail and you are surely f**ked, and not in a way that you will en�joy"
She glanced at him, nervous sweat beginning to form on her top lip. Returning her black, glowing gaze to the heart, she flicked away the dark perspiration with the tip of her tongue through her fangs.
"I call the power of all dark covens! The power of female darkness to bring forth dark life! Envy, jealousy, rage... spite, vindictive evil, treachery-I own you! I am your master, your consort, your root of scorn! Hell hath no fury the likes of which we can rent! Havoc, I am your lover."
Nonplussed by Lilith's ineffective theatrics and annoyed, Cain fin�ished his meal and wiped the golden plate away from the table with a sweep of his arm, sending it, along with the fork and dagger, clatter�ing to the floor. From the corner of his eye he watched bats swoop down to claim the remains while battling rats that had rushed in to challenge them for the spoils. The squealing aerial contest was more interesting. He leaned forward and made a tent with his fingers in front of him, watching the dead councilman's heart.
"Rivera even neutered him," Cain said in an amused tone. "Unbe�lievable."
Concentrating harder on the task, Lilith didn't respond. Dark beads of sweat had begun to form on her brow as her hands strained to arc enough power for another jolt of black magic. "I'm depleted. I used a lot of energy... may need to feed again before I can-"
"Fail me, and you fail my grandfather," Cain remarked calmly. "Take your pick on which of us you would like to disappoint. Me or your husband, or both?"
Lilith grabbed her goblet, refilled it, and took several deep swallows from it, then set it down hard. Her dark gaze became a black laser as she focused again and intensified the charge within her talons until blue-black smoke began to rise from the center of the dead heart.
As though a black, charred seam was being sewn, the edges of the gaping hole in the center of the damaged organ began to sizzle and knit back together. The moment the wound was sealed, Lilith gently placed her left hand beneath the heart and regurgitated the blood she'd fed on to cover it in a murky, bloody casing.