Blood Ex Libris by Raven Belasco

Author:Raven Belasco [Belasco, Raven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2020-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

As we got to a doorway, I remembered my call of nature, and, profoundly embarrassed, mentioned it to Astryiah. “Oh, that.” She laughed. “You won’t miss that when you become am’r, chamuda. Mmmmm, where did you ‘go’ last?”

“It was a room off Sandu’s suite. I’m afraid I don’t remember where it is.”

“Never fear, chamuda, I know how to get there. We take this way.” This left me uncharitably wondering how she knew where Sandu’s rooms were.

We found the nasty little latrine, and Astryiah waited well down the hall from where I was doing my business.

It was humiliating, being the only person who needed to, well, excrete, in a group of people who were beyond such things. Centuries beyond. There were some real downsides to being am’r-nafsh. On the other hand, to get to the next stage, I was pretty sure I would have to, well, to kick the bucket, and I was not prepared to look into that option just yet.

We met Daciana in a hallway on the way back, and we walked together in the direction I assumed was the onsen Sandu had mentioned the night before. It was not a comfortable thing to be following two vampires I hardly knew. Underground, disoriented, and lost to all sense of direction, I was taking it on faith we were going where I thought we were going. It might be a final, fatal assumption.

Am’r didn’t go in for small talk, it seemed. My companions didn’t chat with me on the way. Which was fine. I had a lot to process. They walked fast. I liked women who walked fast. I happily kept up the speed and the silence.

After turning down one passageway, it started to get muggier and smelled of minerals and steam. I wasn’t surprised when we turned a final corner and were in a series of rooms decorated in the unfinished cave style, thermal pools steaming gently within. There were columns made by stalagmites that had grown up to meet stalactites, and more of each that were planning to become columns when they grew up. The green lighting came from under the water in this room, the curving ceiling and walls and columns decorated by the swaying reflected light.

Astryiah and Daciana had their clothes off before I looked back at them. I decided modesty was superfluous here and shucked mine with relief. Even with my reduced sensitivity to temperature, the humidity was making wearing clothing annoying.

I climbed awkwardly into the same pool into which they’d slid splashlessly. I had thoughts about choosing a different pool and keeping my tempting am’r-nafsh perfume out of temptation distance, but then I thought it probably would have been ungracious, if not downright rude. This is supposed to be a friendly bathe, all of us girls together.

The water was almost too hot—that is, just perfect. We all made little sounds of pleasure as we settled into it, and I almost forgot I was around vampires and just felt like I was around people who were on the same page as me.

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