The rest of the council meeting of the night continued in the most boring possible way and the worst part was that we still had not gotten to Davidson's bill. I was looking forward to the fun of aggravating him while still upholding my end of the bargain.

I rested when the sun's prominence forced me low and I rose again when it waned. I wandered into the kitchen to find my coffee which Marcel had waiting for me. I took a moment to appreciate that this kitchen was in perfect working order, unlike the one back home that those irritating humans had torched.

Hopefully, it would be mostly restored by the time I got back, and hopefully my human would be back on her feet as well so that everything would begin to run smoothly again. I supposed that the interruption in my daily routines had been a bit interesting, although I had difficulty appreciating such things without my bloody coffee.

Although, credit to my human servants, they certainly did manage to brew me coffee rather quickly, and all without my favourite machine. Perhaps they feared me without it.

Silly humans. The loss of Jamie was much more of a damper on my mood than that situation, and there was sadly nothing they could do about that.

Something rather unpleasant welled up in me whenever I thought about how he was gone. More than once I had questioned if I had been right to let him go. My sporting side assured me that it was correct, but I missed him almost as if he had died. It did not help that I knew he was anxious to throw himself into danger. Did he not comprehend the preciousness of his human years?

Yet, what would have happened to that stubborn spirit that so drew me if I had kept him locked in a cage indefinitely? It would have diminished, surely. I liked that he was feral, wild, and as much as I wanted to break him of his rebellion and have him join me in my cause, I did not want to break him in the process. Properly breaking in humans was such a delicate thing.

My desires were so conflicted. A part of me wanted the wild Jamie while the other part had wanted to tame him. It was impossible that I could have gotten all that I wanted from him, surely.

It was better this way. He was free to do as he pleased, and I was doing an admirable job of not obsessively worrying that some other vampire was going to drain him dry. I should have my humans throw me a celebration in honour of my great achievement.

But something like that would only tip them off as the extent of my peculiar emotions. I could get the same pleasing attention from another training demonstration, but then that thought reminded me of him, too.

Even sitting here in the kitchen where we had talked reminded me of him.

This was worse than the deaths of any of my late husbands. Those moments had been irreversible, but here I sat conflicted with regrets. I scowled into my coffee cup. My face reflected back on the dark surface and I scowled harder. Perhaps she was as reckless a fool as the other vampires.

"Do you need anything, Mistress?" Marcel asked. I glanced up to find his worried brown eyes on me.

"No, human, I'm fine," I said as I tried to look convincingly relaxed. The last thing I needed was them fussing over me more. At least here they had to be circumspect in their fretting, but once we got away from the castle they would be trying to psychoanalyze me with the obsession of Freud.

I would have to pass on that. My fondness had limits, and if they became too overbearing I would simply put my foot down.

Spirits lightened at the thought of getting my way, I warmed up my coffee and poured in some more blood from the creamer. I carried it to my sitting room, and I looked around at my personal space in the council buildings.

There were several paintings on the walls, specifically chosen to give a certain air meant to lend credence to my overall vicious persona. One was of a woman who might be a seducing demon, perhaps a succubus, and I rather fancied that she looked quite a lot like me. I almost believed that perhaps I had fed upon the artist before forcing him to forget and he had brought this masterpiece out of his subconscious memories of me.

It was a shame I had not found it while the artist was alive. I could have shown him the truth in his art.

The other painting was a huge monstrosity of some sort of battle depicting a number of suffering humans. It reminded me a bit of the human suppression wars and it was ugly besides. The only reason I had hung it rather than having it burned was because I was almost certain that other vampires would snoop in my private council quarters when there was no one present to guard them, and I wanted to make a good show of it.

Every time I came, my tech human would spend hours sweeping the place to ensure that there were no bugs or cameras planted to spy on me. There was not much tech left, but the council had some and it was not worth the risk of my secrets being exposed.

I trusted Theo as I had trusted Wyatt, but I was always terribly uneasy for the first few quarterlies after I had to bring a new tech human. I was not looking forward to the time when I would have to replace him in turn.

I noticed that Ian was giving me sidelong looks as he went around pretending to do some chore. Was he dusting? I rolled my eyes. I knew as well as they did that other than donating blood, standing guard, and a few tasks for their own maintenance there was not usually that much required while we were in the capital. Apparently their idleness gave them time to worry about my mental health.

Had I been so obvious with my attachment to that particular human?

Once we were well out of earshot of the capital, I would order them to stop this nonsense. All it did was remind me that I could potentially be sad. The next human I caught hovering after I ordered otherwise would be dressed in a garish jester suit and forced to juggle or something. Perhaps before a fighting demonstration so that there would be a good crowd for their well deserved public humiliation.

I decided to get away from all the tiptoeing. I drained my cup and announced, "Now, humans, I'm going out to speak with those who deserve my presence. I expect everything to be perfect upon my return."

With that, I swept from the room.

I regretted it almost immediately.

Magnus was walking down the hall, and it seemed too much a coincidence. Had he been skulking about outside my private chambers?

I pasted my most patient yet elevated expression on my face. "Councillor Magnus, good day to you."

He shot me an extremely angry expression. "What was that, yesterday?" he hissed.

"Whatever are you talking about?" I asked.

"Interfering with my bill, Vienne? Are you still holding it against me that we voted against yours?" he spat.

I gave him a pitying look that would only anger him further, but I could not quite resist. "Of course not. We made a contingent deal and I carried it out as per our agreement. I simply disagreed with your bill of yesterday, because it was too imprecise. Bring a better one next time and I shall vote differently. It was not terrible in essence, but there were too many ways it would be open to abuse."

My words did not calm him, which was not surprising since I had not been trying to. I knew Magnus was a creature of emotion and passion, and he was already quite put out. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead he spun on his heel and left like a petulant child.

I imagined he would cause me trouble in the future, but when I pictured the tantrum he would throw when he finally knew the truth, I could not help but be amused.

* * * * *

I arrived earlier than usual for the council meeting and I had the opportunity to watch the other councillors walk in, instead of strutting in near the last minute with the intention of drawing all eyes to myself as I normally did.

Whitmore came in, and she nodded politely at me as she took her adjacent seat.

"And how are you doing, Councillor Vienne?" she asked.

"Quite well, and yourself?"

"Good. I was considering bringing forth a bill next quarterly. It is related to blood security, so can I count on your vote?"

I smiled politely and I actually meant it, because she was one of the few councillors I actually respected. "I believe you know my policy on making promises ahead of time, but if it's for the sake of blood security, I imagine you can guess what my vote will be."

She nodded.

I continued observing the vampires as they came into the room and took their seats. Magnus came in with the other two and I noted that none of the three looked particularly happy, although who could say with Katter? I resisted my eye roll. Apparently they had no ability to be gracious losers, and if they could not even manage that, what good could possibly be said about them?

It was yet another reason I could not help but enjoy Davidson. He took his hits and came back swinging.

The magistrate brought us into session, and I watched as Davidson took his place in the centre of the room. I listened to his expanded version of what he had already proposed to me and his arguments for stricter enforcement of hunting violations.

Again, I marvelled at the fact that he could make such good arguments, but somehow miss the interests of his audience so terribly. If the room were filled with people like Davidson who weighed ideas more dearly than emotions, he would win every argument, but he continued to try to reason fruitlessly with the unreasonable.

I was certain he had Whitmore's vote and a handful of others, but as usual, likely not enough to win.

After Davidson was finished, a couple of councillors went up and argued about vampiric freedoms and the cost of enforcement or something like that. The first was at least passionate in his stupidity, but the second droned on as if he were trying to waste all my time.

Naomi went up next and emphasized Davidson's points. She did a pretty good job of reminding everyone of the better points of the bill, but the downside was that everyone knew that she and Davidson were in bed together—perhaps even literally—so her words held less weight.

A couple more counterarguments ensued, and finally I volunteered myself to speak. I strutted to the center of the room, enjoying the same rush that I always got from the attention. I smirked at Davidson and he looked like he was entirely regretting asking for my support, if he had not been already. My pleasure doubled.

"Honourable councillors, normally I would not bother to speak about a bill of such little consequence."

My words were unpleasant, but Davidson's foes were more likely to vote in favour of his bill if they thought it was not very important.

"But, as I was listening to the arguments and the counterarguments, it occurred to me quite suddenly that this bill will help counteract our weakening feral feeder population.

"Like the rest of you, I do delight in the misery of those lesser beings, but the thought is also never far from my mind that those lesser creatures are the source of the energy that sustains us. Without them, we should starve into madness and death. There is little doubt that the feral population is unsteady, and since it is our main source of new feeders, measures to increase their numbers will only benefit us in the long run. It is in these sorts of small measures that we might find our way to blood sustainability.

"Although it will take time, this bill will allow nature take its course and give the ferals time to increase their numbers, which will have exponential effects on population growth over time. I recommend, in the future that we take other measures, including perhaps reconsidering lightening the restrictions on human breeding, but this is a small first step. As an ancient Roman vampire I once spoke to confirmed, Rome truly was not build in a day."

It would be wonderful if the council would get off my back about the breeding matter. Although I had been furious with Lucas for his incaution, it was in truth the council's punitive nannying rules that had forced me to pretend I had killed him and hide him at New Haven.

Plus, the comment would make the human breeding faction consider that Davidson's bill might be in their favour and he absolutely needed all the help he could get.

"Now, some of you will no doubt be concerned that passing this bill will be overreach on behalf of the council," I began as if any of them had ever demonstrated any real concern about such matters previously, but I ignored my displeasure at their past foolishness in favour of hopefully gaining their present support.

"But this will not truly affect the wise among us, only punishing those who already are breaking the law and harming our blood security. Those of us who already follow the rules will not suffer. Why should we diligently follow the letter of the law only to have poachers harming the population? This is not justice for the law abiding vampire, and that is who this council should seek to protect, not by protecting the criminals in our midst by turning a blind eye to such crimes.

"I am well aware that the councillor presenting this bill frequently demonstrates an unbelievable naivety almost to the point of foolishness when it comes to matters of the vampiric world, but for once it seems that he's actually put forward a solid bill. Although it rather goes against my inclinations, I shall not let politics and my personal opinions get in the way of supporting what appears to be a quite reasonable proposal, and I hope you'll join me in doing the same."

I smiled sweetly and nodded to the magistrate and then to Davidson who looked slightly less frustrated with me than was normal before taking my seat. I listened to the rest of the arguments. Willow took the final spot and I regretted my keen vampire hearing while she snivelled her complaints.

She seemed rather invested, which only made me imagine that she or the other two were probably involved in illegal human hunting. I would not put it past them.

I wondered idly if it counted as illegal human hunting when I or my humans found free humans off season and convinced them to join my cause. I was hardly going to ask for clarification.

My smile stayed firmly hidden inside as we voted on the bill and I did not even let it peek out when Davidson's bill passed with a five vote margin, something he rarely experienced.

I did smile as I voted in favour of a passed bill that would give a break on the human head tax for those who had humans who were bred from their own humans. It did not lessen the irritating restrictions, but it was another small step. I personally found the idea of directed human breeding tedious and distasteful, but I would vote for such bills when it pleased me to do so.

We voted on a couple more bills that had been kept open for deliberations and thankfully the one that wanted to force vampires to reregister their slaves every five years was defeated handily.

Afterwards we moved on to debating the nitpicky ins and outs of all the bills which would be the business of the remainder of this quarterly. I often hated this part, but I had learned to pay attention because if not ridiculous rules would get snuck in. After my brilliant feral branding measure some fool had actually tried to argue for standardized placement of feral brands which would have really screwed up my plans, but I had managed to argue it down in favour of the artistic integrity of the branding vampires.

Even I had trouble believing that I had managed to make that bit of fluff work.

Still, if I had a human for every time I managed to stop some idiocy from getting through at the later stages, I would own the entire remaining human population and all the other vampires would starve to death.

A nice thought, but I supposed it would be boring if it were so easy.

When I finally started my revolution, I was going to light the pyres of my enemies with printed copies of their own overbearing rules.

I smiled at the deliciously bloodthirsty thought.