"But I feel like I could pop out of it."

She chuckles softly. "You won't."

The deep purple material makes the blue of my eyes brighter. They also appear more almond-shaped, exotic. Faith did that, with liner and shadow. My lips are a glistening vibrant red as though they are waiting to be kissed.

"I don't know, Faith."

"Trust me. Victor won't be able to take his eyes off you."

Faith is right. When we enter the dining room, Victor looks as though he's never seen me before. He strides over and gives me an appreciative smile. "You looka""

"Like Old Family," Faith says quietly.

We both jerk our head toward her.

Faith shrugs. "She wasn't nearly as difficult to clean up as I expected."

My face heats with embarra.s.sment.

"Dawn is always beautiful," Victor tells her, then winks at me. "Even when she's wearing a hoodie."

Faith growls low, but with his words, the warmth turns to pleasure. I've never had to pretend with him.

Like Xavier and Richard, he's wearing a black dinner jacket that's long in the back. Swallow-tailed, I think it was called. His white shirt is pristine and he has a red cravata"an old-fashioned tiea"around his neck.

"Faith, you look magnificent," Xavier gushes.

She bats her lashes at him. "You're so sweet."

"Come, a quick meal and then we shall dance."

"Xavier, we don't have time," Victor tells him.

"An hour, no more, I promise. You must indulge me. I'm so lonely here in this dank, dreary manor."

"We promised, Victor," Faith reminds him, and then lets Xavier lead her to the table.

"You promised," Victor mutters before offering me his arm.

"I guess this is the way vampires usually entertain," I say as we walk over to a ridiculously long table.

"We can't do anything simply."

Xavier sits at the head of the table, while Victor and I are on one side, Faith and Richard on the other. I can't complain about the food. I'm served steak and various vegetables. Everything is delicious. While vampires derive no real nourishment from food, they do enjoy the sensations of taste.

I glance over at Richard. He's not enjoying anything. Not eating, not drinking, not joining in on the conversation. Probably because no matter to whom Xavier is talking, his gaze is always honed in on Faith.

"The Council just didn't give any thought to the inconvenience of putting humans within walled cities," Xavier says before sipping from an ornate silver goblet that I'm pretty sure doesn't contain wine. "Someone has to watch them. But there is nothing except desolation around the cities. No one comes to see me. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I've seen an Old Family female? How can I court? How can I bond?" He takes Faith's hand and presses a kiss to it. "How can I entice her into being my mate?"

"Have you explained all this to your father?" Faith asks. "Maybe he can send one of your brothers to watch over the territory for a while."

With a pout, Xavier sits back. "I have. He doesn't seem to care. I simply wait around for the sun to rise, the sun to set, and blood to be delivered. Night in, night out. Week after week. Month after month. Boring."

"Do you get enough blood?" I ask.

He jerks his gaze to me as though he'd completely forgotten that I was there. He furrows his brow. "You allow your diva to speak?"

"She's very knowledgeable," Victor a.s.sures him. "I'd like to know the answer to her question."

"Not as much as we used to. I shall have to punish them soon. But I don't want to think about that now. Let's dance." He gets up, goes to an old phonograph sitting on a table, cranks it up, and sets a needle on a disc. After a few moments of static the room fills with scratchy music. Xavier rushes over to Faith, bows slightly, and holds out his hand.

"Xaviera"" Victor begins.

"I know. You must leave. But what is three more minutes?"

Faith places her hand in Xavier's. "Yes, Victor, what is three more minutes? Dance with Dawn."

She goes with Xavier to an empty s.p.a.ce on the other side of the room, and they begin to glide over the floor with graceful movements. It's very different from the way I dance at parties. Xavier has a hand on her waist. Hers is on his shoulder.

Victor stands and extends his hand to me. "Dawn?"

I gaze at him, standing there, looking incredibly handsome, so enticing. "I don't know how."

"Just follow my lead."

I can't deny that I've always wanted to dance with him, to have a moment that seemed normal. I follow him to the uncluttered area. Taking me in his arms, he sweeps me over the floor.

I want to laugh with the joy of it. Gazing into his eyes, I can almost forget that the world around us is such a mess. It's only the two of us, keeping in perfect rhythm, even when the music skips and plays over, skips and plays over. A broken record.

I feel elegant and beautiful in this gown. I've never worn anything this elaborate before. If this were a fairy tale, I'd be a princess. But I stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.

"You're so beautiful," Victor says quietly. "I wish I could give you more moments like this, when there is nothing but the music and the two of us. No worries, no evil, no problems."

"Is this what Old Family life was like before the war?"

"We had b.a.l.l.s and dances almost every week. But we had orchestras playing the music. Not scratchy old records that grate on the ears."

"Do you miss it?"

"I miss the peace of it. The laughter. The happiness. Everything changed when we came out of the shadows. We couldn't hold on to this any longer."

"Xavier is trying to."

"Yes, many do."

They hate technology and modern conveniences. I try to envision what it was like back then, but I'm distracted by the candlelight in the chandeliers as the flickering flames cause light to flutter over Victor's face. The shadows ebb and flow. It's magical, lures me in, and I realize that I'm nearer to him than I was when we started. My skirt brushes against his legs. My hand has moved from his shoulder to his neck. I can feel his warm breath on my cheek. I could fall into the blue depths of his eyes. I wish we could stay here, constantly moving in a circle over the polished hardwood floor.

Victor lowers his head. His lips graze my ear. His voice is low, mesmerizing. "I'm sorry we can't have this forever."

My heart gives a little lurch. Is he answering my earlier question when I asked what would become of us? Or is he simply referring to the fact that it's as though we have no cares?

"What exactly is this, Victor? What can we not have forever?"

A hideous screeching fills the room and the music stops. I glance over to see Richard standing by the phonograph, holding up the needled arm.

"Hate to break up the party, but if we don't get on the road soon, we're not going to get to the capital before the sun rises," he says.

Victor steps away. I want to clutch him back to me. I want to keep dancing. I want to pretend that no dangers exist in our world. But these few moments were only an illusion.

"Stay the night," Xavier says. "Go tomorrow."

"We can't," Victor tells him. "Richard's right. We have to go."

Xavier turns to Faith. "Stay with me."

Faith smiles and pats his cheek. "I wish I could, but Victor will be taking his place on the Council. I must be there to give him my support."

"Afterward, come back. You'll never want for anything. I'll make you happy. We can dance every night."

Leaning in, she brushes her lips over his. "We'll see."

With that she turns from him, marches across the room, grabs my hand, and begins pulling me toward the door. "Come on, Dawn, we can't travel in these clothes."

It seems the moment of pretending all is right with the world has pa.s.sed.

Half an hour later, we're hurtling through the night, Victor at the wheel. The tension in the backseat is so thick that I could pierce it with a stake.

"Richard, don't pout."

"I'm not pouting, Faith."

"Then don't be angry or whatever it is, because I don't like it."

"I'm not angry, either. I'd just forgotten, that's all."

"Forgotten what?"

"That you're all about flirtation. A new guy steps into your path and off you go."

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it, Faith? In Los Angeles, I thoughta"" He sighs. "Never mind. We have larger issues. I intend to focus on those."

I dart a glance back to see Richard staring out the window. I can't blame him for being upset. I know he and Faith have some sort of past. I know he cares about her. While we were in Los Angeles, they actually had a date. I thought maybe they were becoming a couple. I think Richard thought the same thing. Guess we were both wrong.

"This system that VampHu set up doesn't seem to be a good thing for anyone," I tell Victor. "It isolates humans and vampires."

"All humans, not all vampires. We travel as we please, and Old Family tend to socialize with one another whenever we get the chance."

"If they're not forced to watch over humans. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the walls came down?"

He glances quickly over at me. "You're thinking of Crimson Sands."

I sigh. "Yeah, I am."

"Their way isn't practical on a large scale."

"I think it is."

"The Council will never go for it. VampHu, the walled cities, they are here to stay."

"We'll see," I murmur.

Chapter 9.

The sky has turned from pitch black to shades of blue, signaling the sun's rise. It's a familiar color to me. How many nights have I seen it, waiting on the balcony for my parents to come home from Valentine Manor? I always held my breath when I saw the carriage coming down the street, heading home.

Now, I hold my breath again. Through the fading shadows, I can't believe what I'm seeing. I've only ever heard of this place, never seen a picture. The tallest tower looks as though it could pierce the moon and make it rain blood across the gray city. A place made like this, of stone and mortar, of towers and walls, would take decades if not centuries to build. Yet it's been completed in only a few years. And as we approach along the road, which has turned from mere dirt and gravel to deeply inset cobblestone, I see how this monolithic city was made. Those who crafted the stone march across the fields, an exhausted race of enslaved Lessers. Dawn is approaching, and their slumped shoulders and dragging feet indicate a need for blood. But where is it? This is the capital, New Vampiria. Shouldn't it be the most affluent of all?

Then, as we draw closer to the wall, my expectations of a Victorian era reborn are quickly dashed. The wall isn't a wall at all, but merely the outcropped buildings of the city, small cottages made of ill-fitted stone. Is that where the Lessers live?

In the blink of an eye we're inside the city itself, the road turning into a street that shoots straight to the ma.s.sive tower in the center. On all sides we're surrounded by gray buildings, weathered far beyond what should only have been their short life. Trash litters the street, nothing like the clean upkeep of the Valentine house that I'd expected. Instead of well-dressed vampires, the envy of the Lessers that surround Denver, I see bedraggled vampires looking at our car as though it may offer hope in this place. When we zoom past them, their stares continue to be reflected in our mirrors.

"Not what you expected?" Victor asks, my silence telling him everything.

"It looks . . ."

I struggle to find the words, so Victor does it for me. "Pathetic."

"Yeah. Not at all like I'd imagined. I mean, it's the vampire capital. Where's the grace and elegance? Where's the spoils from the war that they won?"

"When we talk to the Council, you'll see why some of them consider the war a defeat instead of a victory."

"That's ridiculous," I say, angry that the vampires would be so arrogant that after nearly wiping humanity off the map they claim it wasn't enough. Did the VampHu, which my father helped create, not go far enough in giving the vampires everything they wanted?

"Look around you, Dawn," Victor says. "The world of isolated, walled cities is a strange one for humans. But a world running rampant with Lessers is stranger still for vampires. Now you'll see that our grip on humanity is not as strong as we'd like you to believe."

We pa.s.s under arches that connect buildings, walkways that act as tendons bringing the city together. But even from here, at this speed, I can see the cracks forming.

Victor turns down a street, away from the tower in the center.