Free Blessed by a Demon’s Mark by E. S. Moore

everyone telling me I need to go hide away somewhere.”
    He closed his eyes and remained quiet for so long, I was starting to think he might have gone to sleep. Finally, Mikael opened his eyes and stared directly at me. It felt like he was dissecting me, bit by bit, churning through my every memory, my every thought.
    I couldn’t help it; I looked away.
    “Her name is Countess Baset,” he said. “She was once the head of a Royal House, but something happened and she fell down the ranks. I don’t know what caused her fall and I don’t care. Baset is still a Major House, an extremely dangerous one. No one messes with her and survives.”
    The name was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. I’d known all the names of the Major and Royal Houses before, but things often change, new powers come into play, and they all had started to meld together in my head.
    But to have once been a Royal House and to have fallen without being destroyed was a major accomplishment. Normally, a House that high up would need to be destroyed before they’d ever settle at becoming something less than they once were.
    “You must be aware of the danger,” Mikael said. “She is not to be trifled with, yes?” He looked at me pleadingly. “You must leave, must not come back. Countess Baset will kill you, and everyone you have ever had contact with will suffer.”
    “Why is she after me?” I asked, firmly. I was not going to run away. I’d run enough already.
    Mikael stared at me long and hard. The music blaring over the speakers drowned out the other conversations around us. No one was paying us any mind and I was really starting to wonder if it was natural. You’d figure someone would be curious once in a while. Even I hadn’t paid much attention to the guy Mikael had been talking to earlier. Hell, I couldn’t even remember what he looked like.
    “Listen to me, Lady Death.” Mikael spoke slowly, as if he was desperate for me to understand exactly what he was saying. “You cannot win this.”
    “We’ll see.”
    “No!” he said, slamming his fist onto the table. “Listen to what I say. You will not survive if you stay here. Baset is no longer what she once was.” He said it like I should know who or what she had been, other than a Royal. “The meaning of her name no longer applies. You must not stay.”
    “Tell me why she’s after me and I’ll decide whether or not I should run away like everyone keeps telling me to.” There was a bitterness in my voice that surprised even me. This whole thing was really starting to get to me.
    Mikael sighed. He leaned back and looked around the room as if checking to make sure no one was listening. I followed his gaze to see that not a single eye had turned our way despite the raised voices.
    “It’s simple,” he said. He licked his lips and swallowed, hands shaking on the table in front of him. “You killed her lover.”

7
    I absorbed that for a few seconds, not quite sure what to make of it. I’ve killed lots of vampires. It’s hard to say who had been Countess Baset’s lover, though I didn’t recall killing anyone so high up in the vampire ranks. I was pretty sure an ex-Royal wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone too far beneath her in the ranks. It just wouldn’t be proper.
    “Who?” I finally asked, stumped. The closest name I could come up with was Count Tremaine, and it was highly unlikely he’d been her lover. I’d seen nothing that would indicate he had any affiliations with anyone outside his own House, especially since his own had been so recently crippled.
    Mikael smiled. It wasn’t pleasant. “I’d think you would know,” he said. “Countess Telia created such a problem for you before, it would seem you should remember her.”
    “I didn’t kill her.”
    “No one knows that but a handful of people, yes?”
    He had me there. “But I thought you said it was Countess Baset’s lover I’d killed. Or am I missing something here?”
    Mikael laughed. “No, you are