37

37
TESSA'S POV

The third-floor supply closet in the vampire palace was our unofficial headquarters for all things resistance-y, which tells you something about how efficiently we were organizing. Six of us huddled in a compartment meant to hold ceremonial chalices, ancient blood wine, and gossipy novices beneath the steady whispering that we should overthrow centuries of vampire rule, while someone waited for patrols.

“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” Marcus whispered, a fledgling vampire who hadn’t been bitten two years ago. "My daddy's going to kill me if he learns I'm taking part in supernatural-ethics discussions.”

“That’s just it,” I said, attempting to project the confidence I spotted in Kayla even though I knew I was carrying on like a phony. “We should be prepared to ask ourselves if genocide is the most efficacious way of managing inter-species conflict.”

"But the queen says—"

“The queen has been saying these things for eight hundred years. Maybe we should start asking ourselves if, perhaps, eternal wisdom is actually just eternal stubbornness.”

Elena, who used to be a philosophy professor before her turning, shot up her hand as if we were in an honest-to-goodness classroom. I've been studying these failed culture assimilations and statistically speaking, collaboration looks better in the end than extermination.

“Are you seriously using academic studies for a thing about vampire politics?” another member asked.

"Why not? Just because we’re immortal doesn’t mean that somehow our intellectual growth was stymied.”

Our uprising was less “storming the palace” and more like “very concerned book club with vampire tendencies.” But to see Kayla stand up to Prince Darius and Queen Morvana had shown me that bravery didn’t always look like violence. Sometimes it seemed to be asking difficult questions and resisting easy answers.

"What do we actually want?" Marcus asked. "Like, specifically. Are we trying to cast the queen from her throne, or merely persuade her to change course, or...?"

I knew those answers didn’t account for my not planning ahead like that. “I think that we've become a society in which we want the choice to figure out our own path of what is right or wrong, not just follow tradition. To ask whether predation is the only choice, and other species might be a possible partner in cooperation.”

“That was pretty ambitious for a closet meeting,” someone muttered.

“Every revolution begins with a few,” Elena noted. “The enlightenment was born in salons and coffee houses. Why can’t vampire ethics reform begin in a supply closet?”

The absurdity of us measuring ourselves against philosophical movements that revolutionized the history of human thought wasn’t lost on me, but there was something incredibly empowering in taking our narrative back. We were not monsters doing what we’d been programmed to do in the distant past — we were humans trying to figure out how to be something other than what had been shaped into being.

It was my vampire side versus the semi-social-anarchists! The bloodlust, the knee-jerk vision of other species as prey, 1,000 years’ worth of social conditioning telling me that cooperation was weakness — all screamed at me that I was betraying my kind.

But then I thought about Kayla, how she had shown me friendship without requiring it in return. On how she’d treated me like a person, not a monster; how she’d believed I could be better than what others had put into me.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about how I never finished my nursing degree,” I confessed to the group. “I wanted to be able to help people, save lives. Now I’ve been made into something that is meant to end lives. And I spent three years asking myself the same question.”

"What changed?" Elena asked gently.

"Meeting another human being who couldn't conceive that her nature was destiny. Who knew I had the power to still do good instead of harm.”

The door to our clandestine closet rebellion headquarters creaked open, and we stood silently, frozen in place like little kids caught raiding the cookie jar. But it wasn't vampire enforcers who entered, but Kayla, who looked curiously entertained by our cramped quarters.

"This is your secret headquarters? I’ve been to more intimidating girl scout meetings.”

“We’re dealing with very limited resources,” I defended. “Anyone know You come here?”

"Please. for days, I’ve been creeping through vampire palaces here.”

Her presence was invigorating to our little group in ways I never expected. Kayla’s rebellion just had a way of seeming practical instead of terrifying, achievable instead of impossible.

“Say what you told me,” she instructed me. “About your vampire rehabilitation program or whatever it is that you want to start.”

My pale cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "It's just an idea. Probably stupid—"

"It's brilliant," Kayla interrupted. "Tell them."

Drawing a breath I didn’t actually require, I explained the idea that had taken root with me. “What if vampires who aren’t interested in murder could find a career in supernatural medicine? When properly utilized, our blood can heal us. We could be healers, not predators — using our nature to nurture, not destroy.”

The other vampires looked at me as if I’d just proposed that we all take up interpretive dance.

"That's..." Marcus started, then paused. "Actually, that makes sense. Why didn’t we think about doing this earlier?”

“Because the queen’s cultural story is a story of predation as self and that provides us with no avenue to explore other uses of our skills,” Elena said, scribbling notes. "But from a medical perspective, vampire blood's regenerative capabilities could change supernatural health as we know it."

The conversation turned from the abstract to the concrete, and I began to feel something of a twinge of hope. We perhaps couldn’t overturn eight centuries of vampire culture overnight, but we could begin to imagine alternatives to predation.

The peace was shattered by alarms sounding throughout the palace — not the discreet chimes of standard security protocols but the kind of emergency “we’ve got trouble” klaxons indicating that some body important had found something they shouldn’t.

“They know,” I added in a whisper that had ice sounding my soul. “The queen is aware of our rendezvous.”

Kayla’s hand found mine, and held it with comforting warmth. "Then we deal with it. Together."

But as there were vampire guards in the hallway outside our closet, I knew that facing Queen Morvana’s anger wasn’t going to be something we could manage just by staying together. The door creaked as the queen herself opened it, and her ancient eyes appraised us with cruel mirth for our small rebellion.

"Such sentiment," she spoke loud enough that all of us could have fallen to our knees on command. “Young vampires playing at revolution in my own house.”

"Sire" I choked out, nearly going onto grovel on the Floor. "We were just discussing—"

“I know just want you were talking about, Tessa. Do you think I would not see when one of my own takes to corruption others with seditious ideas?”
She climbed up into the closet and predator as she was, beneath she was all on display right now. This was Queen Morvana at her finest—elderly, super-geezer-tough, and heartless toward all who dared to oppose her dominance.

"You see, darling child, you get to choose. Prove your loyalty to the vampire race, by killing the werewolf who bit you. Kill Kayla right here and now, and I’ll forget what you’ve done as reckless youthfulness.”

“No,” I replied right away, before I could think about it.

"No?" The queen's brows shot up in real surprise. "Then maybe what you need to is some more motivation. For each vampire who spared the life of a werewolf, for any fool foolish enough to think he or she could reason with these…- -these abominations: I will personally execute them. You start with your friends in this closet.”

“Be over there to Marcus, Elena, and the rest of them skulking by shelving. “You’re going to get them killed, Tessa. Show them that you know who they should really be loyal to, and voila, you save them.”

A wicked looking silver blade popped into her hands, all curlicues and death, obviously meant for a ceremonial kill. It was extended before me, waiting for me to take it.

I glanced at Kayla, whose eyes found mine and agreed. She wouldn’t plead for her life or appeal to me to kill others on her behalf. She was ready to die for her ideals, which in a way made the decision still more difficult.

“I cannot,” I whispered, tears rolling down my face. "I can't kill her. She's my friend."

“And then see your friends die for wanting you.”