not been so lucky. He had been taken by a mob in Paris and delivered to the Inquisition. They had tortured him for well over a century, until, when Mircea finally found and freed him, he was dangerously mad. Radu had been locked away ever since.
"It was constant war once," Mircea continued, as if he knew what I had been thinking. "Between us and the humans, between families of vampyre, between us and the mages, and on and on. Until the senates rose, until they said enough, or we will destroy ourselves in the end. No one wants to return to that, especially the conflict with the humans. Even if we won against the billions who would oppose us, we would lose, for who would feed us if they were gone?" He looked at Pritkin. "We do not wish for huge numbers of us, running wild, with no supervision and no hope of secrecy, any more than you do. We bite to drain a subject in an execution, or to frighten as with the captives today. But for a normal feeding," he said, returning his attention to me, "we prefer a gentler method." He smiled, and it was like the sun broke through the clouds after days of rain. It was breathtaking.
"What are you doing to her?" Pritkin looked around Tomas' shoulders. "You're not doing anything." He sounded almost disappointed.
Tomas reached out and removed Mircea's hand from my face. "Leave her alone."
Mircea regarded him with amusement. "She offered, Tomas; you heard her. What is the trouble? I have promised to be gentle." Tomas' eyes flashed and his jaw clenched. He did not look appeased. Mircea's eyes widened slightly, then sparkled wickedly. "Forgive me; I did not understand. But surely you cannot begrudge me one small taste?" He stroked my face, a lazy caress, but his eyes were on Tomas. "Is she as sweet as she looks?" Tomas actually growled at him, and this time he flung Mircea's hand away.
I wished Mircea would get on with it. I wanted to question Pritkin, and I couldn't while he was on his vampire fixation. "Can we just do this?"
"I will do it, if it must be done," Tomas said and bent his head towards me.
I immediately pulled away. "Uh-uh. I never agreed to that." I owed Tomas a few things all right, but a feeding wasn't one of them.
Mircea laughed again, a rich, mellow sound. "Tomas! You did not tell her?"
"Tell me what?" My mood was not improving.
The glint in Mircea's eyes was pure mischief. "Only that he has been feeding from you for months, dulceaţă, and, as often happens in such cases, he has become… territorial."
I looked at Tomas in shock. "Tell me he's kidding."
The answer was on his face before he spoke, and I felt the world tilt. In vamp circles, feeding has strict rules. Even the same norm can't be fed from regularly, as it creates a feeling of possession in the vamp involved and can lead to all sorts of problems because of jealousy. But taking blood without permission from someone connected with our world is considered even more of a violation. That's not only because of the often sexual by-product of the feeding process, but also because anyone recognized as part of the supernatural community has special rights. Tomas had just broken a whole group of laws, not to mention betraying me yet again. So everything about him had been one vampire trick or another, from the way he looked to the way I'd felt. I might have eventually been able to forgive him the deception, but not this. I couldn't believe he'd done it, but looking at him, I knew he had.
Tomas licked his lips. "It was not frequent, Cassie. I had to know where you were at all times, and regular feedings create a bond. They helped me keep you safe."
"How very generous of you." I could barely get the words out; it felt like someone had hit me.
I started to rise—I'm not sure why—when Mircea put a restraining hand on my shoulder. His expression was suddenly serious, as if he realized something of how much the news had affected me. "You have every right to be annoyed with Tomas, dulceaţă, but now is not the time. It is my fault; I shouldn't have teased him. I will refrain, if you will please let it go for the moment. Otherwise we will waste the day in arguments."
"I don't want to argue," I said, and it was