Free Bitter Blood by Rachel Caine Page B

his head. “Founder.”
    “I see you’ve been recently injured,” she said. “How?”
    “It’s nothing.”
    “That doesn’t answer my question.”
    “It’s my problem. I’ll handle it.”
    Amelie sat back in her chair and cast a glance upward at Oliver. “See to it that Henrik understands I do not condone this kind of behavior within these walls. Michael, you’d do well to answer my questions when I ask them next time.”
    “Since you already knew the answer, I don’t see the point.” He was almost as good at hiding emotions as Amelie. “If you really cared about stopping him and the others like him, you’d publicly acknowledge our marriage and put a stop to it.”
    “You didn’t obtain permission from me, and it’s my right as your blood sire to give or withhold it,” she said. “I don’t have to acknowledge anything you do without my blessing. And we’ve traveled this road before, to no good purpose. What brings you here, then?”
    Claire cleared her throat and took a step forward. “I—”
    Oliver interrupted her. “Greet the Founder properly, or you’ll not utter another word.”
    Amelie could have quelled that; she could have just waved it away as she normally would have…but she didn’t. She waited, her gaze on Claire’s face, until Claire swallowed hard and bent her head forward just a little. “Founder,” she said.
    “You may speak, Claire.”
    Gee, thanks,
Claire wanted to say with a liberal dose of sarcasm, but she managed to choke it back. Shane would have said it, which was why she hadn’t let him come along on this little venture. “Thank you,” she said, and tried to make herself sound truly grateful. “I came to talk to you about the identification cards.”
    Amelie’s face did show emotion after all—anger. “I have heardall of the arguments that I am prepared to endure,” she said. “The measure ensures that all Morganville residents have proper care in case of emergency, that their Protectors are properly identified, that they can be found in case they go missing. Whatever resentments you have come from a false sense that you are free to do as you will. You are not, Claire. No one is in this world.”
    “I thought you took Sam’s goals seriously. You told me you’d make humans equal partners in Morganville, that we had rights just like vampires. You
told
me that!”
    “I did,” Amelie said. “And yet I find that where humans are allowed a little freedom, they will take more, until their very freedom destroys our way of life. If it comes to a choice, I must choose the survival of my own. Yours are certainly far too numerous as it stands. What is the count now, seven billion? You’ll excuse me if I believe we might be at a slight numerical disadvantage.”
    “Is that why you’re allowing hunting again?”
    Oliver laughed. “A tempting side benefit, but no. Hunting is buried as deep in the vampire nature as the need to reproduce is in humans. It is not simply a thing we can turn off. For some, hunting allows them to control a dark and violent side that would be much more damaging. Think of a dammed-up river, with a flaw in the structure. Sooner or later, that torrent of water will break free, and the damage it does will be considerably worse than a slow and controlled release.”
    “You’re talking about water! I’m talking about people’s lives!”
    “Enough,” Amelie said flatly. “This is not a human concern. You and your friends need have no fear; the law does not touch you. The things you’ve done in Morganville have ensured my personal patronage for you, as you can see on your cards. And any vampire is free to refuse to hunt. Michael has done it. No doubt many will do so.”
    Somehow, relying on the goodwill of individual vampires wasn’t what Claire could see as a positive solution, but it was pretty clear that Amelie wasn’t interested in her opinions. “Then the humans need to know,” Claire said. “They need to understand that going