Blood Enemy by Greg Cox

Author:Greg Cox [Cox, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Media Tie-In, Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780743480727
Google: AsBkvj5LUeYC
Amazon: B0073603P6
Goodreads: 33030
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2002-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

Sunrise was drawing near as Lucian and his fellow servants cleaned up after the banquet. The vampiric nobles, sated on fine food and blood, had returned to their chambers to sleep off their excesses or perhaps indulge in more private pursuits, leaving the industrious lycans to restore the great hall to order.

Tables and benches were carted away until they were required again, clearing the tiled floor of the hall, which was swept clean of the soiled straw. Hungry servants helped themselves to leftover morsels of meat and bone. Trenchers of stale bread, used as plates at the lower tables, were eagerly snatched up, the juicy trenchers being a prized treat now that the bread was liberally soaked with drippings from the vampires’ feast. Leyba, working beside Olga and the other scullions, chortled in glee as she came across a forgotten tankard still partly filled with wine. She avidly gulped down the dregs before returning to her labors. Unbound black hair tumbled past her face as the gypsy wench bent to retrieve a gnawed steak bone that Soren’s hounds had left behind.

Lucian leaned against a stone pillar, lost in thought. Although nominally in charge of the cleanup, he paid little attention to the bustling activity, so heartsick was he at the news of Sonja’s engagement.

He knew it was irrational to despair so. She and I could have never been together, he reminded himself. It was inevitable that she would someday wed another pure-blooded vampire—if not Nicolae, then some other highborn member of the coven. Why, then, should this moment come as such a blow?

And beyond his own suffering, his heart ached for the princess’ own sake, unwillingly given away in marriage to a callous libertine she had every reason to detest. Moreover, in his heart, he knew there was a bond between him and Sonja. He felt it whenever their eyes met. There was a palpable tension in the air each time they were near each other.

But what did that avail him, as long as she was the Elder’s daughter and he was but a half-human animal? The gulf between them was too vast ever to be bridged, no matter how fervently he might wish it otherwise.

I cannot lose what was never mine.

Bells rang high overhead, warning that the sun had risen once more. Lucian looked up to find himself alone in the empty hall. All evidence of last night’s banquet had been carried away. Dying torches sputtered in the sconces. Only the faint aroma of roast meat and cold blood remained in the cool morning air.

But no, Lucian realized. He was not quite alone. A familiar musky scent teased his nose as he heard a pair of bare feet pad across the floor behind him. Lithe arms wrapped around his waist, and an impertinent chin rested upon his shoulder.

“Why so morose, Lucian?” Leyba whispered in his ear. Her hot breath, redolent of leftover wine and blood, warmed his neck. Her full breasts pressed against his back. The smoky odor of the kitchen clung to her rough wool kirtle.

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