8

The wine splashed in a transparent glass, and the fire in the fireplace made sunbeams jump on its smooth surface. The vast hall was warm and cozy. The cold did not bother the real owners of this ancient castle at all, but its servants - mere mortal people - simply needed warmth in the rooms.

Silent servants scurried around the huge hall with trays, trying to please the visiting aristocrats, whose snow-white skin created an unimaginable contrast with their completely black clothes. Each visitor to the ball was a wonderful example of beauty and elegance. If a random passer-by looked at this ball, he would think that he was at a festival of the gods - everything looked so luxurious and magnificent.

Tristan, dressed in black clothes appropriate for the occasion, sat by the fireplace in a deep armchair and thoughtfully turned a full glass of wine in his hands. Some young girls cast wary, but still admiring glances at him: only a blind or fool could deny the beauty of the young High Vampire. Black velvet hugged the blond's long, slender legs like a second skin, and a linen shirt casually unbuttoned at the collar revealed a magnificent neck. The right foot in a leather boot tapped its heel with a clear rhythm. Tantario's face was frozen with alienation and boredom.

- How did you get admitted to the aristocrats’ ball? – a mocking voice rang out.

Tristan slowly looked up from contemplating the dancing reflections in the glass, and turned his cold gaze towards the speaker. Next to him, with his arms crossed over his chest, stood a short young aristocrat with long, below his shoulders, luxurious red-brown hair and sparkling light brown eyes. Wide cheekbones, a sharp chin and deep-set eyes made him look older and more serious. The narrow slits of the pupils betrayed the extreme anger of their owner.

“I thought vampires had a slightly different understanding of aristocracy,” Tristan answered, raising an arrogant eyebrow.

His interlocutor snorted disdainfully.

“I’m an aristocrat to my fingertips,” the brown-haired man said arrogantly. - I was born into a noble family. Even as a man, I could boast of the noblest blood. Unlike you.

Tristan's eyes flashed dangerously.

- Maybe we can check what color your blood is? I think it's the same scarlet as the others...

- You! How dare you…

- Stop it, Yannin! There wasn't enough fighting this evening! Lord Tantario was invited here by the Lord himself, and you have no right to condemn his decision,” a soft but persistent female voice rang out.

The brown-eyed vampire became embarrassed when he saw the owner of a lovely contralto voice and muttered confused apologies. A short, petite woman of about thirty, with ash-blond hair flowing to the floor, looked at Yannin with a gaze and with a short gesture of her hand asked to leave.

“As my lady wishes,” the brown-eyed young man said, bowing.

Straightening up, the brown-haired man cast a hate-filled glance towards Tristan, who responded with an arrogant smile, and headed into the hall to a flock of young girls and boys dancing to the calm melody of a waltz.

“You haven’t changed at all over the years, Tristan,” the woman said thoughtfully, sitting down opposite the vampire in a chair covered in scarlet velvet and straightening the folds of her luxurious black dress. - Still young, arrogant and hot-tempered.

The blond vampire looked at her with a lazy, dissatisfied look.

- Do you still read instructive lectures, Telvisina?

The second most powerful woman among vampires laughed.

- Don't be such a bore, Tantario. I've always liked your outlook on life. So naive, like a small child.

Tristan gritted his teeth.

- I'm tired of everyone thinking I'm a boy! - he was indignant. - I am the fourth most powerful vampire among ours. Having been converted just thirty-four years ago, I have now been a Supreme for fourteen years. Can anyone boast of such a thing? And after this I am still a boy?

Telvisina tilted her head to the side, her luxurious hair flowing over her bare shoulder and black silk sleeve. Soft dimples on her rounded cheeks made her appearance charmingly fragile, contrasted with plump seductive lips and long dark silver eyelashes. Shiny, yellow-green, cat-like eyes seemed to radiate gentle warmth.

“There are things that can only be achieved with time,” the vampire woman calmly noted. - This is the experience of past years and wisdom. The same wisdom that appears only with awareness of oneself as an individual.

Tristan snorted.

“I don’t understand how someone like you, a kind-hearted and weak-willed woman, still lives the life of a blood-sucking creature who uses mortals for her food. This doesn't fit with your compassionate principles.

Telvisina smiled softly.

- Who are you trying to deceive, my dear? Well, who knows, you know how I live in this world. You lived like this yourself.

Tristan winced.

- I believed that it was impossible to live differently.

- Until Ezelia's husband showed you, right?

Tantario closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, trying to push away the flooding memories of long, very long years.

- No, Tristan, don't! You must leave the person alive,” soft, persistent hands carefully unhook his fingers from the trembling, frightened girl, turning him towards him. Cat's eyes look tenderly and affectionately, like at a mischievous kitten. - Look, she can barely stand on her feet!

Tristan wipes the blood from his chin with the back of his hand and looks groggily at his blood-stained hand. A ringing laugh is heard nearby, like the ringing of bells.

- Wow, my angel! You still haven't learned to behave neatly at meals.

Tristan flinches and hurries to take cover behind Telvisina. His sad blue eyes look warily at the tall girl standing in the corridor.

“Ezelia, I asked you not to come during his dinners,” the High Vampires says tiredly, waving her hand to call away the human girl, who is staggering from weakness. - You're embarrassing him too much.

The blue eyes of the interlocutor sparkle in the twilight of the corridor, betraying the threat of their owner.

“Telvisina, this is my vampire, do you hear – mine,” Ezelia’s somewhat childish face takes on a dissatisfied expression. - I miss him so much...

- But not me! - shouts the indignant Tristan, having overcome the numbness that has gripped him and clutching his hands to the fragile shoulders of the ash-haired woman standing in front of him. - I hate you! And I will always hate you for what you did!

A slight smile touches the lips of the blue-eyed vampire.

- From hatred to love there is one step, my angel. You will not be able to resist me, your Master.

- We'll see!..

“I don’t want to kill, Telvisina,” sad eyes the color of the summer sky are full of tears. Not much time has passed since his conversion, and much remains of human habits. The high vampire, wiping away the thin, wet tracks of tears on the young man’s cheeks with her fingers, sighed heavily.

“I don’t kill anyone, although I have lived for more than seven hundred years.” This is not necessary,” she smiled to reassure her charge a little. -You are very kind, Tristan. I believe in your pure heart.

The young man grabs her hand.

- But she said she would make me kill! She said that I’m still not going anywhere!

- You must agree to her terms.

- But I do not want! I hate the thought of it!

The woman smiles bitterly.

- Truly an angel. Noble and chaste angel,” she shakes her head. “I’m very sorry that you got in her way, my boy, but I can’t do anything.” She already gives up her vampire pride, leaving you the right to choose.

“What a choice,” Tristan notes bitterly, “to be a murderer or... the lover of a murderer.”

Telvisina embraces the young man, trembling with fatigue, in a tight embrace, stroking his long blond hair. Her hands, despite the coolness, give the young vampire much needed affection and warmth.

- Everyone has their own destiny, my dear boy. And we can only come to terms with it.

He abruptly breaks out of her embrace and freezes tensely. Telvisina notices with surprise how cold and angry his eyes are.

- It will not happen. I swear I will change my destiny...

…Scarlet blood. Warm, sweet. From the fear and horror that permeated the victim, it becomes even sweeter. And he didn’t even know...

- Why, Tristan, why?! – yellow-green eyes look with disgust at the bloody picture in front of them.

The blood-stained lips of a blond man with eyes the color of a summer sky are touched by an insane smile.

- You do not understand. It's sweet. So sweet…

- Stop it! You are crazy!

- I will kill her. I must. For this I need a lot of strength... - his hand reaches out to another trembling person, but it is intercepted by thin female fingers.

- Stop it, otherwise I...

- What are you? – the vampire asks mockingly, jerking the miniature woman towards him. - Will you kill me? Ha ha! You're too merciful for that, Telvisina. Come home and don't stand in my way. Otherwise I’ll forget how kind you were to me,” your fingers thoughtfully slid over the white skin of your neck.

The woman backed away from him, breaking contact.

- You're crazy, Tristan.

- Yes, it's possible. But I will cure my madness...

“Her death won't change anything. You won't become human!

An evil laugh that chills a woman’s body to the bones.

- Don’t you understand yet? I don't want to be human. But I am still subject to my Master,” his sky-blue eyes are clouded with a scarlet haze. - I will fix it…

Tristan shook his head, pushing away the uninvited memories, and looked expectantly at the petite woman sitting opposite him.

- Why did you come to me, Telvisina? Try to pull me out of the abyss of... madness again ? – at the last word the blond grinned disdainfully.

“I wanted you to return to my castle,” the woman suddenly declared.

But the young High Vampire did not seem surprised.

“You know that’s impossible,” Tristan replied, taking the first sip from his glass. - I am the head of the clan. I cannot live in another clan while I have my own “children”.

- That's not the point, is it? You just hate me.

“And you are perceptive,” Lord Tantario chuckled.

Telvisina shook her head, lowering her eyelashes.

- You're predictable. You shouldn't meet with the Lord. Leave. I'll explain everything to him.

Tristan's eyebrows involuntarily shot up.

- Why such mercy?

- You're crazy, Tristan. But this madness shouldn't harm you. And if you continue to leave bloody trails behind you so carelessly, it will end badly.

“So that’s why they called me,” the young man said understandingly, taking another sip and putting the half-empty glass aside. - I am dangerous for our games of hide and seek with the Inquisition.

“The Inquisition is now much stronger than you think,” the Supreme One said warningly.

Tristan involuntarily remembered the energy barrier in Kermalan, which struck him with an unprecedented powerful Force. The vampire stubbornly shook his head.