Nightmaster. Susan Krinard

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Chapter 2

      Ares had expected nothing like the woman in the center cell.

      It wasn’t only that she was beautiful. That was clear at first glance. The display at the top of the cell marked her as a healthy female of twenty-nine years, free of disease or obvious defect. Further description indicated that she was well educated in her own Enclave, fluent in the Opir tongue and several ancient human languages. Her hair, a rich coppery-brown, fell just past her shoulders. Her striking eyes were brown rimmed with green.

      Those eyes gazed at him unflinchingly, as if she thought nothing of her near nudity and her pitiful situation. That was unusual in a new serf put up for Claiming. They were usually frightened and confused, rarely defiant.

      Not this one.

      Ares rested his chin on his fist, suddenly aware of all the sounds and scents and small movements in the room. He had come to the Claiming because Lady Roxana had convinced him that it was well past time for him to reinforce his rank as a Bloodmaster. He preferred keeping to himself and appeared in society only as often as maintaining his status made necessary.

      But suddenly this ritual seemed far less pointless than he had expected.

      He signaled to Daniel, who stood attentively behind his chair. Most of the other Bloodmasters and Bloodlords in the room had brought several servants, some merely as decorative accessories, some to provide fresh blood should their masters develop a thirst during the Claiming. Ares had far better control, and he believed in self-discipline, like the philosophers he admired.

      “Wine,” he said. Daniel stepped away and returned with a cabernet bottled at Ares’s own vineyards to the north of the Citadel. The serf poured it into a crystal glass and offered it to his master.

      “What do you think of her, Daniel?” Ares asked.

      “Beautiful, my lord. Will you bid?”

      The other Bloodmasters and high-ranking Bloodlords around Ares studied each serf with varying degrees of calculation, determining which might be an asset to his or her Household. But most Opiri were eager to claim the most attractive humans, and Ares could see that the woman had captured their attention as much as she had his.

      Shifting in his seat, he realized his body was responding to the subtle curves of her figure and the warm scent that escaped through the ventilators in her cell. The blood beating just under the surface of her skin smelled of wine and wildflowers, sparking a need that surprised him.

      Daniel knew him far too well. Ares was aroused as he had not been for some time, in spite of the excellent services provided by his Favorite. He took Cassandra’s blood and body because his physical needs had to be met. But it was never like this.

      For the first time in years, Ares found himself considering making a claim.

      That didn’t mean he would do so. It was one thing to admire the female, and quite another to let lust and hunger lead him around by the teeth.

      So he waited, observing silently as the first of his prospective rivals rose to examine the serfs more closely.

      “Palemon,” Daniel whispered.

      Lord Palemon, Bloodmaster, Ares’s equal in wealth and status. Like Ares, he had walked the earth for centuries before the Awakening. He was a vicious killer and one of the leaders of the Expansionists, the Citadel’s war party, allied with equally malicious Opiri who scampered at his heels like hyenas after a lion.

      Dripping with jewels and furs, the Opir lord moved casually toward the female’s cell. He paused to look over the serf in the cell next to hers, a boy just entering manhood as humans reckoned such things. The boy trembled and refused to look up from the floor.

      Palemon turned his attention to the woman, who met his gaze through the transparent barrier without a hint of submissiveness. Palemon looked her up and down with careless disdain, as if he had no interest in her at all.

      No one, least of all Ares, was deceived by his playacting. Palemon’s mouth twisted in a smile of haughty amusement. “This claims you are a scholar of some kind,” he said to the woman, briefly gesturing at the display above her. “A historian, well versed in the arts and sciences of previous eras.” He glanced back at Ares with deliberate mockery. “How extremely dull.” His smile vanished, and he turned to the woman again. “Remove your shift.”

      The female heard him well enough, but she didn’t move. Almost immediately one of the black-robed Freeblood attendants entered the cell from the door behind and repeated Palemon’s command. She pulled on the ties at her neck and waist and the shift fell around her shapely ankles.

      Several Bloodlords moved up СКАЧАТЬ