"There's no need to be worried," Drak told me in what was probably supposed to be a soothing tone.
Instead of scowling at him like I wanted to since he would take it as confirmation of his erroneous assumption, I pasted an extremely satisfied smile onto my lips. "I'm not worried, Drak. I'm bored. I dislike waiting more than anything, and it's so much worse when I know something good is coming."
He did not look like he believed me, but he did not question me further.
I was back at home in my favourite chair, in my favourite sitting room, holding a steaming cup of my favourite beverage, but I was missing my favourite human.
Sadly, there was no way I could stop him without exerting my influence, and if I tried to manipulate him into staying where it was safe, he would only rage and resent me.
It was better that he went along for the sake of the cause and not only because he was a very capable human, but he was also rather inspirational for the humans who wanted their revenge against their vampiric oppressors. I had intentionally nurtured that reputation, but the consequence of that was that he was going to go and throw his frail human life straight into the path of dangerous predators.
I certainly hoped that everything was going fine. I took another sip of coffee and tried to look dismissive of Drak's mushy suspicions.
I certainly was not worried. I merely had a healthy appreciation for the potential risks that my fledglings and humans would likely be facing at any particular moment. They were just so horribly breakable.
But I did not want to talk about my feelings about sitting around waiting while my humans and former humans were running around doing dangerous daytime missions, so it was time to change the subject. To keep Drak off balanced, this time I would say something nice to him.
But before I could properly begin to torment him, there was a knock on the door. I motioned to Dean to open it, and another human walked in. "Lights were spotted in the security footage, Mistress. They're back."
"Oooh, are they?" I asked, trying to keep my nervous expectation from my voice. I wanted to run out there and meet them and see for myself that my favourites were alive and well. I glanced at Drak from the corner of my eye and saw him looking at me inquisitively.
I settled myself back in my chair and tried to look relaxed. "I do hope they brought me back something nice."
Hopefully, Jamie and the others were not injured. I took another sip of coffee to hide my face from my friend's irritating speculations.
"We could go and see if they're al...if they brought you back something nice," Drak commented dryly, setting his cup down.
"It's no rush," I lied. It was not a good sign if Drak was starting to play along with my pretense.
"Well, I'm going to see," he announced, standing up.
I frowned. "Well, I might as well come along with you then, I suppose," I said as casually as I could manage. I got to my feet painfully slowly. Drak stood at the door, looking impatient.
"Come, come now, Drak. We've got all the time in the world, don't we?"
"You're as excited to get out there as I am."
"Just keep telling yourself that."
Now that I could tell Drak was getting annoyed by my dragging, I had an even better reason than usual to go about it. I smiled sweetly as I walked as slowly as vampirically possible.
"You've made your point, I'm sorry for rushing you," he said.
"Whatever do you mean?" I asked and batted my widened eyes a couple of times in his direction.
Drak simply threw up his hands in exasperation. Having won his vexation and proven my point, I decided to pick up the pace.
"Are you two, or two thousand?" he asked.
I gave him a dirty look. "I'm offended. You know I'm not that old, Drak."
"You've never told me how old you actually are," he pointed out.
"As I've already told you a hundred times before, it's rude to ask a lady's age, Drak, but if you must know, I've been nineteen for a very, very long time."
"Sure. And I'm still twenty-four."
"Maybe I would be less of a pain to you if my sire had let me get a few years older before he turned me," I pondered. "I mean, think about it. My mind was not fully developed before he ripped me from my lifecycle. Maybe if more vampires were turned when they were older, they wouldn't be so flighty. What do you think I would create if I were to turn an elderly person?"
"You're not going to do that, are you?"
"No, I'm just pondering. I'm only turning people for the good of the fight right now. I can't start turning everyone for sentimental reasons. Or for curiosity, no matter how tempting."
We reached the flow of people who had come out to wait for the returning fighters and went with them out to the yard. Most of their families were at the other locations, but there were a few worried expressions on human faces. I was not particularly worried, now, because if they were already back it seemed likely that my humans had managed to take care of everything in the daylight without needing to rely on the vampires' strengths. I watched as the first few vehicles came in through the main gate and pulled to a stop.
Humans spilled out as soon as they stopped. It was quite easy to pick out the newly liberated humans from my own, because they were in dismal condition. If I had felt even slightly bad for having Tory killed while she was vulnerable at rest, their dismal state would have completely erased it because she was clearly a waste of blood.
I just could not fathom it. What possessed that sort to want to feed from stringy, filthy humans? Simply because we were unhuman monsters did not mean to them that we had to be inhuman monstrosities, did it? I rather thought I was quite enchanting and Drak was like a giant handsome marshmallow.
Drak had left my side and hurried over to the wretched humans. It was interesting the way he managed to approach them quickly without terrifying them. If I went over so quickly, they would shake in terror.
I was not complaining because I enjoyed their mild unease, but I was curious how he managed it. Was it that Drak simply wafted drafts of mushiness that made the humans relax in his presence? Whether or not he was good at fighting, I supposed I could find a use or two for him in other ways. And at this point it hardly mattered if Drak could keep a secret or not, since pretty soon everyone would know what I had been up to all this time.
The council vampires were going to be so hilariously angry when they finally understood what fools they really were. A few more vehicles pull into the yard. A couple of them were new, clearly spoils of war. I grinned. We had been building up our fleet for some time, but a few more could not hurt, although like the poor starving humans, these newly acquired vehicles would need some maintenance work before they were anywhere near up to my standards.
"They finished everything off before the sun even went down. Didn't even get a chance to try against a vampire," Marcel complained as he made his way through the crowd, speaking to Raoul. I smiled and nodded as he walked up to me.
"So it went well?"
"Sounds like it. I woke up on the way back." He sounded adorably disgruntled. My first fledgling had been dying to get a chance against a vampire and was probably terribly disappointed.
"Don't worry, there're plenty of enemies to go around."
He nodded, although he still looked a bit frustrated that he had missed out. "I need a drink."
"Well, don't let me stop you." His eyes flitted to one of my best medical humans, Kasha. "Only if she's willing," I reminded him.
"I know," he said, sounding a bit vexed.
"And you should probably take the edge off your hunger, first." I had vague memories of my own sire cautioning me about maintaining my control, although things had been very different then.
Marcel frowned at me as he began to walk over to the blond. "You don't have to worry. The last thing I want to do is hurt her." Was he interested in her as more than just a meal? I had not noticed them talking before, but it was true that I had been rather preoccupied with Jamie since I had first found him.
As if merely thinking of Jamie summoned him, through a gap in the crowd I saw him jump out of the back of a vehicle. He stretched for a second before he started moving, talking to someone still inside before he began helping Jeffry drag a bound human along between him.
I slipped through the crowd in their direction. I was curious about this human who seemed displeased to have been freed from their bondage to Tory. Had he been truly loyal to that vile vampiress? How incredibly odd.
Learning more would also be an excellent excuse to talk to Jamie, and I was not about to waste it. I was getting close, when I was intercepted by Tiberius calling my name. I stifled a dramatic groan. The human probably wanted to report to me about what had happened, and the world was so terribly disordered that I supposed I would have to deal with business before pleasure.
I pasted an attentive expression on my face and turned to him. "Tiberius. Did everything go smoothly?" I hoped it went so well that this would be an incredibly brief report as I watched Jamie and Jeffry move further away out of the corner of my eye.
"It went as well as could be expected," he said, looking very pleased with what they had accomplished while he rambled off a list of damage that had been sustained, supplies that were seized, and humans who were liberated. It was quite impressive and exactly the beginning we needed to the hostilities.
"We thought that they would all stop fighting once the leeches were dead, and most did, but there were a few who are still resisting even now."
"I can't imagine that Tory had any human supporters. Are they still compelled? I was under the impression that our control on humans ended with death, but perhaps carefully worded influence could stretch even beyond that."
Tiberius frowned. "That sounds like trouble."
"Not too much. It would take quite a lot of energy for anyone to do anything that intricate over and over. At most I would suspect a few humans that deeply compelled from only the most ancient among us." Not only was this new problem fascinating, it also provided me the perfect out of the conversation so that I could go and find my human.
"That's good."
I nodded. "I find myself incredibly curious about these stubborn humans, though. I really must examine them properly. Do you know where they're being taken?" They certainly would not be down in the dungeon cells, considering that there were vampires residing there now.
"No, sorry, I—"
"Don't fret. I'll simply ask Leif. Thank you for the report and for overseeing the attack, Tiberius. You did very well."
He straightened, clearly pleased with the acknowledgement of his efforts. "Thank you, Vienne."
It was always good for human morale to acknowledge competency.
I slid away into the crowd. It took me only a minute to find Leif, and a few more to reach the chamber that had been converted into a holding cell for the humans. I wandered inside, but was disappointed to find that Jamie was already gone. I supposed there was so much to do he had no time to be standing around.
Unfortunately, my presence had been immediately remarked by a few of my humans, so I walked inside and observed what they had set up. Most of the furniture had been removed, and several makeshift cells had been constructed using solid beams of wood. I vaguely recalled Leif telling me of plans to do this, but I had spent so little time at home I had missed all the construction efforts.
I walked to the first structure and looked at the two humans inside. I had the guards open the door and I looked towards one of the humans, a thin black haired man with a blank gaze.
"Come with me," I commanded him. He followed without fight or question. I dragged him into a feeding room, although I had a very different purpose in mind for this particular unappetizing human. He was just so stringy, and dirty besides. I would have to order that these humans be cleaned up later.
"Sit down," I said, and he swiftly did so on the floor, as if there were not perfectly decent furniture options. It was likely what he had been trained to do by Tory and Liam.
I took a seat in a chair opposite where he sat uneasily on the floor and inspected his terrible condition. Besides being little more than skin and bones, there were also a couple of obvious scars from former feedings, one on his neck and one on his wrist. It rather angered me to see the damage. For creatures who professed to adore blood, they certainly treated the containers abominably. He had not been my human at the time, but this broken man was now and it irritated me that they had been so rough on him.
"What's your name?"
"Forty-eight, six hundred and fifty-five."
"Did they seriously call you by your stock number?" I rolled my eyes. She had certainly taken all the conventional human oppressing wisdom seriously, if nothing else.
"Yes, but usually they didn't call me anything at all."
"Ugh, that's so tedious. And lacks a certain creative flair. Even if I didn't call my humans by their actual names, I would come up with something better than the number they came with."
"Yes, Mistress."
"What was your purpose under your previous mistress' control?" I asked him. "You seem slightly less diminished than many of the other humans who were brought back here."
"I helped maintain the premises," he said simply.
"I can also see that she used you as a feeder," I commented lightly.
He nodded.
"So, what I want to know is why you and the others continued to fight against my humans when it's so obvious that there's nothing left to fight for. Tory and Liam are gone, and you're here now, in a place where humans are clearly treated far more humanely."
He paused and looked confused. "Gone?" Apparently he had not realized the truth of it.
"Yes. It's no secret that my humans staked them both and burned her to ash in the sun. Do you bear such loyalty for your abusers that you won't give up your chains even now?"
His eyes darted around the room as his strange calm fled. There was nothing that could be done to change what had happened, and no one in their right mind would possibly wish for the return of such foul creatures, and most especially not the humans they had preyed upon.
"I don't..."
I used my power in my words. "Human, listen to me well. Were you and the others compelled to loyalty to your mistress even once they were destroyed?"
He shivered and I could have perhaps felt bad if what I was doing was not entirely necessary. I needed to figure out if these humans were a threat to my goals or just victims of more vampiric manipulation.
"I don't know. I think so." His brow furrowed and he looked down at the floor.
That was close enough for me. I strode to the door and looked at my guards standing outside, trailing me around as if I could not keep myself safe and as if they did not have better things they could be doing. "Take this human back to where I found him. I shall deal with these ones later."
Figuring out what was happening in their minds would be an interesting challenge for me to unravel. I rather looked forward to it, but there was one person I simply wanted to find first.