“Please, bring the bottle inside my suite,” Neferet purred.

Virgin blood was so very sweet that a bad complexion and sweaty palms could be easily overlooked. After all, she was not going to touch him. At least not very much …

“Is right here fine, ma’am?” His eyes kept flitting from her breasts to her mouth and then back to the bottle he was opening, all the while he reeked of sexual desire, fear, and fascination.

“Right there is perfect.” Neferet ran a long, pointed fingernail down the low bodice of her silk robe.

“Wow,” he gulped, working the gold foil off the top of the champagne with inexperienced, shaky hands. “I hope you don’t mind me sayin’ this, but you’re way prettier than those other vampyres on the news.”

“Other vampyres? News?”

“Yes, ma’am. They’re on Fox 23 late night right now.”

“Turn it on for me!” she snapped.

“But the champagne’s not—”

“Leave it! I am fully capable of opening it myself. Put on the news and go.”

The boy did as he was told and then slunk out, still casting longing glances at her. Neferet paid him no mind. She was utterly engrossed in the scene unfolding before her on the large flat screen television. It was Thanatos, Zoey, and several of her group. They were outside at the House of Night, clustered together and talking easily with the reporter. Neferet scowled. They all looked so normal.

Her lip curled as she heard Thanatos explain away Dragon Lankford’s death as a tragic bison accident.

“That wretched Aurox,” Neferet muttered. “Imperfect, inept Vessel! All of this is his fault.”

She kept watching the interview, smirking at Stark and Zoey, only concentrating when she heard her name mentioned. Neferet pressed the volume button and Thanatos’s voice blared, “… Neferet is a disgruntled ex-employee with no whistle to blow…”

Neferet’s body became very cold.

“She dares to name me an employee!” Neferet continued to watch. Her anger built to such intensity that the glass door to the penthouse balcony burst open, raining shards of crystal across the marble floor.

“We’re sharing Tulsa, and we love it. So, let’s just all get along!” Zoey’s ridiculously cheerful voice grated up and down Neferet’s spine.

“I will not allow you to undo what I have begun, you obnoxious child!” Neferet seethed. When Thanatos announced that the Tulsa House of Night would be taking applications for human professors her mouth gaped along with the reporters. After the new High Priestess’s benevolent, merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again, Neferet watched in disbelief as the news anchors chattered inanely about how interesting all the vampyre interaction was and how great the open house and job fair would be for the city as a still shot close-up of Zoey’s smiling face decorated the screen. She punched the power button, unable to bear one more instant of Zoey Redbird.

From the clever little alcove that was tucked between the living room and the dining room, Neferet’s computer began to ring. On the screen the silhouetted figure of Nyx’s upraised arms flashed and beside the icon were the words: VAMPYRE HIGH COUNCIL.

Neferet walked slowly over to the computer and clicked the mouse to answer, automatically activating the video camera. She smiled coolly at the six somber High Priestesses seated on their carved marble thrones. “I have been expecting your call.”

Duantia, the senior member of the Vampyre High Council, spoke first. Neferet thought she sounded very, very old. There certainly seemed to be more silver than brown in her long, thick hair, and Neferet was sure she could see bags under her dark eyes. “You were summoned to appear before us, yet there you are in Tulsa, and here we are in Venice. What has delayed you?”

“I am busy.” Neferet pitched her voice to sound more amused than annoyed. Or afraid. She must never allow them to believe she feared them, or anyone, at all. “It is not convenient to make a trip to Italy at this time.”

“Then you force us to pass judgment over you in absente reo.”

Neferet scoffed. “Save your Latin for vampyres too old to live in the present.”

Duantia continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Our sister High Priestess, and the seventh member of this Council, Thanatos, has produced irrefutable evidence though a reveal ritual witness by High Priestess Zoey Redbird, her—”

“That insolent child isn’t a High Priestess!”

“You will not interrupt me!” Even through the Internet, thousands of miles away, Duantia’s power was palpable. It was only with a supreme effort that Neferet didn’t cringe from the computer screen.

“Say what you must. I will not interrupt again,” Neferet said emotionlessly.

“The reveal ritual over which Thanatos presided was witnessed by the young High Priestess, Zoey Redbird; her circle, each member of which has been gifted by Nyx with an elemental affinity; as well as several Sons of Erebus Warriors. During this ritual the earth gave record that you murdered a human, sacrificing her to the white bull of Darkness, who appears to be your Consort.”

Neferet watched the High Council members shift nervously, as if just hearing the word Consort associated with the white bull was difficult for them to bear. That pleased her. Very shortly the High Council would have to bear more than simple words.

“Neferet, what do you say in your defense?” Duantia concluded.

Neferet drew herself up to her full height. She felt the threads of Darkness rustle around her, lapping at her ankles and slithering around her calves. “I need no defense. Killing the human was not an act of murder. It was a sacred sacrifice.”

“You dare call Darkness sacred?” the Council member named Alitheia shouted.

“Alitheia, or Truth, as we would say in a language that isn’t dead, I will impart a little of your own to you. The truth is that I am immortal. In a little over a hundred years I have attained more power than all of you in all of your centuries have managed to acquire. The truth is that in another hundred years, most of you will be dust, and I will still be young, powerful, beautiful, and a goddess. If I choose to sacrifice a human, no matter for what purpose, it is sacred and not sin!”

“Neferet, is Darkness your Consort?” Duantia’s question shot through the silence following Neferet’s shout.

“Conjure the white bull and ask Darkness yourself. But only if you dare,” Neferet sneered.

“High Council, what is your judgment?” Duantia asked. She held Neferet’s gaze as each of the High Council members stood and, one at a time, pronounced the same word, over and over, “Shunned!”

Duantia stood last. “Shunned!” she said firmly. “From this day forth, you will no longer be recognized as a High Priestess of Nyx. You will no longer be recognized as a vampyre at all. Henceforth you are dead to us.” As one, the High Council members turned their backs to Neferet, and then the screen bleeped the CALL ENDED sound and the picture went blank.

Neferet stared at the black screen. She was breathing heavily, trying to control the tumult within her. The High Council had shunned her!

“Horrid old crones!” she ranted. Too soon! Neferet had, of course, intended to break with the High Council, but not before she had divided them and set them at each other’s throats so that they would be too busy with the destruction happening within to meddle in the world she was fashioning outside their cozy little island. “I almost accomplished it before—when Kalona was posing as Erebus at my side. But Zoey ruined that by forcing me to reveal him as a fraud.” Unable to quiet her frustration, Neferet stalked from the room, her stiletto heels crunching on the broken glass. She went out on the balcony, pressing her hands against the cold stone balustrade. “Zoey caused Thanatos to be sent to Tulsa to spy on me. And it was Zoey’s mother who was too weak, too imperfect a sacrifice. Had Aurox not been a cracked vessel, the reveal ritual would have been stopped by Rephaim’s death. And now I am shunned by the High Council and viewed as a domesticated ally by Tulsa humans.” Neferet raised her arms to the sky and shrieked her anger. “Zoey Redbird will pay for what she has caused!”