Finding Blood (City Underdark #1)

The Scent

Barmond woke up in a bad mood, as he did when he was hungry.

Yoven wasn't there when he awoke, probably gone to get dinner. Barmond could hear the sounds coming from the main room downstairs, where the humans were eating. He would have to think of his own nourishment soon.

Maybe he could sneak out and find someone else then Yoven. He considered it, for a moment, before discarding the idea as foolish. This was a tiny village, not some city where he could easily hide among the numbers. If anything went wrong, that could put the entire mission in jeopardy as he was chased out at pitchfork's end and called a demon.

He knew he would have to look elsewhere eventually. A single human couldn't possibly sustain a vampire for very long, even one with an appetite as light as Barmond's. In fact, the first thing Barmond had tried to estimate when he was turned was how many retainers he would have kept just so that he wouldn't need any outside donation, and the number he had come up with was two, maybe three if he wanted to keep them healthy - and those numbers were light compared to others. A full-blooded vampire needed one meal a night to survive, and that didn't even count if they were using any of their powers regularly. That often placed them at five to ten retainers.

But he'd think about the next meal later. Right now, he knew that Yoven would come back to him after dinner, and then he would have to find a way to break it to him. It wasn't going to be easy.

He was a little scared. He knew he wasn't going to hurt Yoven, not even make him feel pain beyond a brief flash of it when he pierced the skin. But there would be more consequences than just pain. He knew, better than anyone, how vulnerable a vampire could get when they had red retainers. They were the one that could hold one by the feelings. He had always been so careful not to create a link with a human, always distancing himself from the people he drank from, always leaving them behind and avoiding them for a while. Even when he had lived at Schwertzwald had he kept away from picking a favourite. Of course, that had partly been because Otto would have been against it. But it wasn't the whole truth.

Could he really allow Yoven to come this close to him?

Right as he asked himself that question, he heard the sounds of footsteps in the hallway. Yoven's footsteps. Since when could he tell them apart from others just by hearing them?

He got up and walked to the window, opening the curtains. Their room had its windows oriented towards the back of the inn, towards the building that served as some sort of stable. There was a young boy still working in them, at the light of a lantern, shoving away the manure in a barrel. Barmond, in the dark of his room, focused his attention on him.

It was in vain. When Yoven walked in, the delicious smell of a living, breathing human obsessed him immediately.

"Oh," said Yoven. "You're awake. You could have turned on the light."

Barmond didn't answer. He was still pretending that he was very interested in the stables but he was so, so aware of the other moving behind him, how close he was coming.

Yoven didn't let his silence phase him. He walked to their dresser and fiddled with the tinderbox and the candle on top of it. Seconds later, light came from behind Barmond, light from a tiny flame.

"Are you all right?" asked Yoven.

Barmond closed the curtain and turned around. Yoven was standing there with the candlestick in his hand, the pale flame illuminating his face. He had undone the thin scarf that he used to tie his collar and now it was slightly loose. Was he even aware of how the sight of his half-hidden neck tortured Barmond?