Renie

It didn't take me long to find my way out of the north wing – all I had to do was follow the faint sound of heartbeats.

I hardly cut an imposing figure in my black pyjamas, but the two donors I encountered pressed themselves against the wall as I stormed past, staring at me with huge eyes and open mouths. I didn't know what rumours were flying around about Edmond and me. I didn't know if anyone actually knew what had happened, though I suspected they did, judging by the stares of those donors. I was an anomaly in this House, something that should never have happened, and I could only imagine what everyone was saying about me. But I didn't care.

I sharply rounded a corner and a young donor coming from the opposite direction almost walked into me. Her eyes widened and she took an involuntary step backwards. Her heartbeat was a hammering noise in my ears, inviting my eyes to the shape of her throat, the veins that ran beneath her skin. With a jolt of horror, I realised I was thirsty. I wanted to bite this girl – bite her and drink her blood.

She shrank back even more, and I wondered what I looked like to her. Were my eyes glowing red? Could she see my fangs? It was safe to say I hadn't mastered the art of vampire inscrutability yet, so the donor would be able to see how angry I was.

I wanted to snap at her not to look at me like that. Since I was a pretty girl, I was no stranger to being stared at, but this was different. I didn't like being looked at like I was some sort of freak. I didn't like that as the girl's heart beat faster, the scent of her blood filled the air, tempting me.

Pushing past her, I hurried down the corridor. Was this how it would always be? Would I feel that temptation every time I was around a human being? Or would the urge to bite and drink fade with time?

When I reached Ysanne's office, I didn't knock like I usually did. Instead I marched straight in.

There'd been no guarantee she would even be here, and I was relieved to see her sitting behind her polished black desk. I don't know what I'd have done if she hadn't been there. I would still have looked for her, but the anger would have built and built inside until it choked me.

Ysanne lifted one blonde eyebrow as she saw me, the only sign that I had caught her by surprise. Considering how impassive she usually was, the lifted eyebrow was probably the Ysanne equivalent of jumping out of her skin. I couldn't help a tiny glimmer of satisfaction that she couldn't hear my heartbeat anymore, and therefore wouldn't know when I was coming.

"Renie. To what do I owe this pleasure?" The weary note in her voice suggested she knew exactly why I was here.

"You're punishing Edmond for saving my life?" I said, my voice trembling.

"No, I am punishing him for breaking the rules," Ysanne said.

Was that how she saw the world? As rules to be upheld? Was there no room for compassion or humanity?

"The turning of humans is a very serious offence. When the Council banded together to create the donor system as you know it, we agreed that creating new vampires would be an emergency-only situation," Ysanne said.

"It was an emergency. I was dying!"

Ysanne simply looked at me. "To vampires who have lived hundreds of years, and to the fragile balance that exists between humans and vampires, the life of a single human girl is not worth much."

She rose to her feet, placing her palms flat on the desktop. I had experienced firsthand the power in those pale, elegant hands. Ysanne hadn't held back from hurting me when I had been human, and there was nothing to suggest she would hold back now I was capable of weathering more serious damage. Maybe I should tread carefully, but it was hard to think clearly through the rage and desperation clouding my brain.

"Humans vastly outnumber vampires, and they have the power to wipe us out if they so desired. Do you remember what I told you about the balance between humans and vampires the last time we had this discussion? Edmond has broken one of our most important laws. He must be punished so the Council sees how seriously I am taking his transgression, and so that other humans will realise we are not ruled by our baser instincts. Must we go over this again?"

I hadn't forgotten what she'd told me last time. It was vital that humans continued to see vampires as beautiful, mysterious, and immortal – somehow more than ordinary people. If the world was to catch too many glimpses of the dangerous beast that lurked beneath the polished veneer of each vampire, they might not be so enamoured of them. And if human favour turned against them, the donor system would disintegrate and the Houses would collapse. Vampires would be driven back into the shadows.

"There are exceptions to every rule," I insisted.

Regardless of what Ysanne said, what was Edmond supposed to have done – watch me die when he knew he could save me? If someone dying wasn't an emergency in the eyes of the Council, what the hell was?

"Perhaps," she conceded. "But vampires are predators; they can smell weakness. If I am seen to be weak, if I am seen to allow my vampires to walk all over me, then other vampires will be tempted to challenge me as Lady of this House. They will be tempted to try overthrowing me so that they may rule in my stead." Her voice turned hard and cold. "I will not allow that to happen. It is easy for you to march in here with your self-righteous attitude and your childish view of the world, but there is far more at stake here than your life."

Her voice cracked the air like a whip, and despite myself I flinched. Ysanne gazed at me, and the anger seemed to fade from her face. She sat back down, almost slumping into her chair. "I have done all I can for Edmond," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Edmond must be punished for illegally turning you – there is nothing I can do about that. But I was merciful enough to hold off his punishment until he had helped you through the turn. It was only when we were sure that you were no longer in need of his assistance that I had him removed."

"You call that being merciful?"

I expected her to react with fresh anger, but instead she just sounded tired.

"Yes, Renie, I do. It is far more than anyone else would have given him. You think I do not know the anger that is driving you? You think I do not understand why you react this way?" She shook her head, not a strand of blonde hair moving. "I understand far more than you think. You are the one who struggles to see past the end of your nose."

I didn't know what to say to that. I wanted to shout and rage that she was wrong, to overturn her stupid desk and rampage through Belle Morte until I had found and released Edmond. But that wasn't the way the world worked. There was a bigger picture here, and maybe I needed to learn to see it.

That didn't mean I wasn't steaming mad over what had happened to Edmond, but yelling at Ysanne wouldn't help matters. I needed to start understanding how the vampire world truly worked, because I was a part of it now.

And yet . . . I wasn't the only one who needed to see the bigger picture. Ysanne was so focused on the bloody rules, that she wasn't considering that sometimes they did need to be broken.

I swallowed my anger and tried to speak calmly. "What do you think would have happened to the balance between humans and vampires if Edmond had obeyed the rules and let me die?"

Ysanne stared at me.

"June was murdered and turned without you knowing. Melissa's dead too. None of that is going to help the balance, and if Edmond had refused to help me? If he had just watched as I died in the snow? That would have made this whole mess worse. You say that my life isn't worth much in the greater scheme of things – okay, fine. This whole situation with June is already a complete clusterfuck, and you're the one who kept her hidden away in the west wing. You didn't kill her, but you still don't know who did, and when this all comes out, someone is going to need to take the blame. As Lady of the House, that someone is you."

Ysanne's jaw tightened but she didn't deny it.

"How do you think it would look if, on top of the people who have already died, Edmond let me die because you wouldn't allow him to save me? You can't honestly think that that would help this balance you're so desperate to preserve."

For a long moment we stared at each other over the desktop.

One thing that Belle Morte had taught me was that my tendency to view the world in black and white was naive at best, but Ysanne did it too. She just didn't realise it.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Entrez," Ysanne said.

Dexter Flynn entered the office. A small white dressing was taped to one side of his head, bright against the darkness of his skin, but other than that he looked much the same as ever.

He smiled when his eyes landed on me, and despite my lingering anger, I couldn't help smiling back. I liked Dexter. When I'd chased June out into the snowy gardens on the night that Belle Morte was attacked, I had found Dexter's unconscious body slumped in the doorway. He'd been incredibly lucky that June hadn't slaughtered him, and I was glad to see him back on his feet.

"Good to see you're still with us," he said.

He didn't react at all to the fact that I had come into this House as a human and now I was a vampire. I could have hugged him for that.

Dexter turned his attention to Ysanne. "The Council is assembled in the dining hall," he said.

Ysanne nodded, dismissing Dexter with a flick of her hand. He smiled at me again before leaving the office.

"The Council's here? Why?" I asked.

The last time Jemima, Lady of the House Nocte Filii had visited, it was to discuss the possibility of a new vampire reality TV show with Ysanne. Somehow I didn't think that the rulers of the vampire Houses were here for something so trivial this time.

"How much do you remember of the events that led to your death?" Ysanne asked.

I cringed at the casual way she said it. Just because I was trying to think positive about the whole vampire thing didn't mean it didn't come as a shock each time I remembered that I had actually died. And something else occurred to me for the first time.

June had stabbed me.

Not bitten me or savaged me with her nails, but stabbed me. I knew where she'd got the knife – either from Dexter or from the young guard she'd killed in the gardens – but that didn't explain why she'd used it. Unease curdled in my stomach but I put it aside for now, and focused on answering Ysanne's question.

"There was an attack," I said. "Strange vampires broke into Belle Morte, and someone set June loose. She...she killed me."

"With a knife," Ysanne said.

"She shouldn't have done that, should she?" When June had first escaped, she had rampaged through the mansion, killing with fangs and claws. Why had that suddenly changed when it came to me?

"No."

"So why did she?"

"I don't know." Ysanne's mouth twisted as she said it. The vampire Lady really didn't like being left in the dark. "There's more."

I waited, bracing myself.

"June is still missing."

With a start, I realised I hadn't spared any real thought for my sister up until now. I had rushed after her that night because I was afraid that she was going to escape the walled grounds of Belle Morte and rampage through the streets of Winchester, killing indiscriminately. My foolish attempt to save lives had led to me losing my own, but since waking up as a vampire I hadn't even thought about what had happened. June could have made her escape and massacred hundreds of people by now, and I hadn't even thought about it. In my defence, I had died, but even so, I couldn't help a sharp stab of guilt.

"She cannot have escaped the grounds of her own accord otherwise human casualties would have occurred. The most likely explanation is that someone took her – probably the same person who released her in the first place," Ysanne said.

"The same person who killed and turned her?" I asked, rage sliding along my bones as I realised that that person was still free and unpunished.

"Perhaps. As of now, my main concern is that June is being used as a weapon, a mad dog on a leash. I do not like not knowing where she is."

"Who attacked the House?" I asked.

Everything was connected – it had to be. I just didn't have a clue how, and I wasn't sure Ysanne did, either.

"The bodies of the invading vampires killed in the fight have been identified, and it transpires that they come from all of the Houses in the UK and Ireland."

"So this wasn't an attack specifically directed by a rival House," I said.

"The vampire Houses are not rivals."

"I'd believe that more if we hadn't just been attacked."

Ysanne didn't say anything to that.

A long pause passed before she spoke again, and when she did, it was in a quieter voice than I was used to hearing from her. "Two of the attackers were my own vampires. I believe they may have been the ones who let the enemy forces into the House in the first place. What I do not know is what they hoped to gain from this treachery, or why a contingent of vampires from each House banded together to carry out this attack."

"And there was me thinking you knew everything."

"I am not omniscient, Irene. More's the pity."

I didn't ask which of her vampires had betrayed us; I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Despite my initial determination to distance myself from these people, I now realised how attached I had actually become to them – not just to Edmond, but to Ludovic, Isabeau, and Etienne. My heart told me that none of them had betrayed me, but that still left Gideon, Phillip, Rosaria, Benjamin, Catherine – all vampires that I knew by face. I may not have got to know them personally, but they were people I had become familiar with during my time in Belle Morte. They were faces I recognised, and I couldn't bear to think that any of them could be responsible for the carnage I had seen on the night of the attack.

"Since the invading vampires came from each of the Houses, we are left with no clue as to the true culprit. We are also left with no real motive behind the attack. That is why the Council is here – to try and get to the bottom of this mess. There hasn't been an incident like this since the Houses were established, and Belle Morte and everyone inside it are right in the middle of everything," Ysanne explained.

She leaned back in her chair and though her expression – or lack of – didn't change, she suddenly looked very tired. "Investigating the attack is not the only reason they are here. They know by now that I have been harbouring a rabid. I will be held accountable for those actions. As you said, someone needs to take the blame."

As far as other vampires were concerned, rabids were a threat that needed to be eliminated on sight. They were simply too dangerous to be allowed to live, and after having seen June in action, I understood why.

But Ysanne had tried to do something that had never been done before –reversing the blood-madness and restoring the mind of a person turned rabid. After someone in the House had killed and turned June, inadvertently turning her into a rabid, Ysanne had imprisoned my sister in the west wing. She had brought me into Belle Morte under the guise of being another donor, when really my purpose here was to try and help June remember who she used to be. Ysanne's hope was that if June could be brought back, then there was hope for other vampires who teetered on the brink of becoming rabid.

But I had failed. Despite my best efforts, I had not been able to bring June back, and then someone had released her into the House to butcher anyone who got in her way.

Melissa.

I closed my eyes, sparing a moment to grieve for the girl whose only crime had been to adore vampires. But there was no time to wallow in that grief. When I first found out what had happened to June, I'd been furious. But now I understood why Ysanne had kept her alive. I'd seen Edmond beaten bloody for breaking the rules, and Ysanne wasn't above those same rules. She had committed a serious offence by keeping a rabid here, but I didn't know how serious it was.

For pretty much my entire time here, I had hated Ysanne, but now I felt a spark of sympathy. I didn't understand the pressure that was on her shoulders, but nothing was as simple as I'd once thought.

I might not agree with Ysanne's methods, but her intentions had been good. I wasn't so sure the Council would see it that way.

"Let me talk to them," I said impulsively. "I can explain exactly what we were trying to do with June. You were trying to save rabids so no one else would ever have to go through that."

"The gesture is appreciated, but they are already waiting to meet you."

"They . . . why?" I faltered.

"They don't care about your connection to June, except for the fact that she turned rabid and they are concerned that you could go the same way. But their main concern is that you are an illegally turned vampire."

Unease slithered through me. I'd been so busy thinking positive and wallowing in impotent fury over Edmond's imprisonment that I hadn't considered how our decision was going to impact me. If my very existence was a serious breach of vampire law, maybe they wouldn't allow me to continue existing. Could they do that?

"They can't . . . I mean, they can't . . ." My voice trailed off. "What's done is done, right? I'm a vampire now, and they can't do anything to change that."

"No, they can't," Ysanne said. "But that does not mean they will turn a blind eye to the situation. We spent years establishing a balance with the human world, and as far as they are concerned Edmond may have jeopardised all that for some stupid donor girl."

Refusing to back down, I faced the other vampire and calmly said, "I'm not a donor anymore. I'm a vampire."

Ysanne pursed her lips slightly. "Yes, and now you have to show the Council what sort of vampire you are." Her eyes bored into me. "They may not be able to change what has happened to you, but if they think that you are a threat, they will destroy you."