Page 17 of Vanquished Gods
“Well, yes, but you need a lady-in-waiting, of course.”
I clutched the blanket around myself. “Well, thank you, I’ll take it from here.”
“Mistress Adeline said I’m to help you, and that it’s a great honor. And I do what she says, even if she’s only a mortal.” She giggled. “No offense.”
“…Right.”
Rowena flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I understand you’d like to keep covered up. Adeline said you’re a spinster, and I don’t remember what it means very well, but she said it’s when mortal women can’t find a husband, and they grow old without having ever been touched.”
“Do weneedto talk? Is that part of being a lady-in-waiting?”
“Adeline said that human spinsters stay very buttoned up. But things are a bit different here, and we don’t hate our bodies, though I can see how if someone were mortal and growing old, she might hate hers.”
“I’ll be fine getting dressed on my own. Just tell me where to find the lunarium.”
She laughed, and her pale blonde curls bounced. “Oh, not to worry, I’ll take you there when you’re dressed. This is fun, isn’t it? Getting to wear beautiful clothes? We want you looking lovely. Even if you’re an elderly virgin.”
“I’m only twenty-nine. And I’m not…” I cleared my throat. “This is me asking again if the conversation part of your job is necessary?”
“I can see why you wouldn’t marry a mortal. Centuries ago, a human man named Jaggard was courting me. Before I got married to my sad husband, and before Sion turned me, and do you know what Jaggard said to me? ‘I need a real woman,’ he said. As if I weren’t one! So, I told him, ‘You know what? I’m gonna find a real man. Not like you.’ And it took me a while. I had a really sad marriage, but eventually, I found Sion. And when he turned me into a vampire, do you know who I went to see first? Jaggard and his slowly decaying body, that’s who.” She giggled. “Only, he never got old, did he?”
She had my interest now. “Did you kill him, Rowena?”
She beamed at me. “I did. Boy, did he regret his words.”
“Okay, just because I feel the need to clarify, I don’t cover up because I’m an old virginal spinster. I mean, technically, I’m a spinster, yes…but anyway, the gloves and leather clothes are because I kill people with my touch, and I try to avoid that.”
“Yes, of course, Underworld Queen. It’s a glorious power you have. But we’re already dead, so you can ease up on that. Adeline and the thralls are alive, but they know the risk they take coming here. So, you can relax a little, my lady, and just try to look nice for the handsome vampires. All right? You are so lucky to be in their company.”
Was I being patronized by a woman who’d just lit herself on fire by failing to follow basic directions? I think I was.
I grabbed one of the dresses from the bed—ivory with silver stitching—and headed back into the bathroom. I closed the door and dropped the blanket. The last rays of the dying sun slanted into the room through the towering windows, washing my naked body in crimson.
I pulled on the exquisite dress, and the expensive material felt divine against my skin—a fine silk that brushed over my hips and thighs as I slid it over me. It shimmered, almost, like motherof pearl. I had to admit, it wasreallynice in this place. The dress was pure opulence.
I pulled the bodice on over it, finding it more comfortable than I’d expected, as if someone had taken my measurements and designed it exactly to fit my rib cage. When I was fully dressed, I stepped back into the bedroom.
Rowena beamed at me. “You look so beautiful. I’m jealous, really, of the blush in your cheeks. I had that once. But let’s fix that sad hair, shall we? We could use some of the flowers! I always wear flowers in my hair. Sit,” she commanded with surprising ferocity.
I dropped into a chair by the window.
She grabbed a lock of my hair and started tugging at it with the comb. “Don’t you want to become one of us? Godlike?”
“Um…is that how you’d describe vampires?”
She tugged hard at my hair. “We are godlike, yes. Strong and beautiful and graceful, blessed by the goddess of night, immortal. King Sion doesn’t think the gods exist, but none of us can know for sure. And if they do exist, they’re like us.”
“Violent?”
“Of course the gods are violent. The world wouldn’t be the way it is if they weren’t. And have you ever seen a vampire when we’re unleashed? That’s what we call it here when our eyes go black and we just want to fuck and kill, or both at the same time.”
She flashed her fangs in the mirror, and a chill rippled up my nape.
I swallowed. “I have seen it.”
“You know when Maelor is unleashed, it’s like he’s totally gone. He’s an absolute beautiful beast, gods bless him. An unleashed vampire goes into a place beyond language—one of hunger and lust, from a time when we lived as animals in the woods, from the primal age of the gods who now lie buried in the earth. The forgotten gods. And I don’t think the gods speak,either. Language is a human thing. The gods are both mute and indescribable. I think they’re… what’s it called?”
“Ineffable? Numinous?”