LITMIR.BIZ

      SEVENTEEN

       Kaspar

      Council meetings really are the best fun one can have, I thought bitterly, staring out the window at freedom. I sat at the far end of the table, hardly listening as my father debated with Ilta Crimson over something or other. His whole family were swindlers. They thought the sun revolved around them, but Ilta was the worst. Quiet, calm and controlled, he was always the charmer. It wasn’t hard to see how Girly was fooled by him. He was a snake. He would slither in, hiss at you until you were lulled and then he would rise up and bite you. Especially if you were much younger and female.

      I suppressed my thoughts as the meeting progressed. My only consolation was the firm grasp on my leg, which came from Charity, who sat next to me. She looked up at me with adoring eyes, batting her eyelids, giving me the occasional seductive wink.

      She began stroking the inside of my leg and I shuddered, enjoying the feelings of lust gushing through my system. I shuddered again, as her hand reached for the fly on my trousers.

      ‘Ghost pass over your grave, Kaspar?’ Ilta sneered from the other side of the room, false concern in his voice. His dark blue eyes were crinkled with amusement.

      I snapped back from my trance. ‘No, quite fine, Ilta,’ I answered.

      My father turned to glare at me. He gave the tiniest shake of his head and I knew he was perfectly aware of the whereabouts of Charity’s hand. I discretely slipped one of my own hands under the table and moved hers back down to my knee. She looked up at me for a moment and feigned hurt. But I knew she was faking it. She always faked it.

      ‘How do we even know Lee will retaliate with the help of the slayers? Until then, I refuse to even consider a plan of action,’ Lamair declared, placing his hands on the table as though that was that.

      I sighed. We had been over this twice already.

      ‘My dear Lamair, as I said before, we have reliable sources,’ my father said.

      Mutterings erupted throughout the room and I resolved to stare at the bookshelves of my father’s study, desperate to entertain myself. I wonder how long it would take to read all of them?

      A while, my voice answered.

      I gritted my teeth. Nobody asked you.

      But you’re still talking to me, it sniggered, which always beat me. Voices aren’t meant to snigger.

      Well, you get used to it after eighteen odd years, I finished and it fell silent. It never had an answer to that one.

      ‘Well then, I say we just kill her. That way all our troubles our over.’

      ‘No, Lamair. That will cause problems with the human government. We have to be diplomatic.’

      ‘Surely—’

      A vampire I should probably know the name of cut in on him. ‘Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I don’t understand why we are risking the Kingdom for the sake of one human girl? She is not worth a fight with the slayers and a possible loss of good relations with the human government, is she?’

      There were several calls of ‘hear, hear’. I noticed Eaglen was unusually quiet. He leaned on his hands thoughtfully, but almost as soon as I looked at him, he raised his eyes to mine and I turned away.

      ‘This is the daughter of one of the greatest antagonists vampire kind has ever faced. We cannot afford to be rash, for fear of starting something we will long regret,’ my father explained. That one crucial fact – who she was, or rather, who her father was – still didn’t seem to have sunk into their thick skulls. My father turned to Eaglen. ‘You acted as one of our ambassadors to the human government most recently. What is your opinion?’

      Eaglen sighed. ‘The government’s and, crucially, the Prime Minister’s stance on us is a no intervention policy – in other words, they turn a blind eye. The PM refused to

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