Free Silken Rapture: Princes of the Underground, Book 2 by Beth Kery

delicately, not sure what else to call the energy field that surrounded him. “I can see that you aren’t mortal. How old were you when you became so?”
    “Nineteen, Miss. I was turned at the same time most of the Literati were. I’m not one of the Literati—not really—but I served Aubrey Cane, and he valued me. After my master was turned, he embraced me so that I could continue to serve him.” His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. Isabel realized too late she was disturbing him by her nearness and she took a step back.
    “Embracedyou?”
    “He took my blood, Miss.”
    “Were you made this way against your will?” Isabel whispered.
    Jessie blinked. “Against my will? No. It was my greatest wish to continue to serve my master. He was—and is—the greatest genius of the age. Besides, I did not want to submit to the plague.”
    “The plague?”
    Jessie nodded earnestly. “The Great Plague of 1665. We had avoided it by evacuating London. Many of the brightest scholars of the age who either lived in London or were visiting there from various countries fled first to Oxford. We feared the plague would follow us there, and it did. My master—Aubrey Cane—became the leader of a select group of men, all of them made outcasts by the plague, all of them brilliant in their own right. The group became known as the Literati. We traveled from Oxford to the north, and eventually to Scotland. By a series of circumstances, Delraven befriended Cane and some of the others. We took refuge at Delraven’s estate. The plague was present in the country as well, though, and my master began to show signs of having contracted the illness. So did several other members of the Literati. By that time, Cane understood what Delraven was, and he begged him to make him immortal—to save him from death and a life wasted. Eventually, Delraven agreed, and it is that core group that survives today, each loyal to Lord Delraven and his fight against Morshiel and his band of Scourge revenants—the walking dead. We have had new members join us over the years—brilliant scholars who have been diagnosed with mortal illness. Aubrey occasionally approaches them, and gives them the choice of joining our small army, if they choose it. The Literati have lost many of their number to Morshiel and the Scourge over the years. We shrink in number, while their population grows, so we must fight harder and smarter than ever.”
    “Are you saying that Lord Delraven was the one to make all the Literati into…vampires?”
    “We are more than vampires, Miss. That is a term that comes from folklore. We crave vitessence and need it to survive.”
    “And vitessence is in the blood,” Isabel said slowly, recalling her earlier conversation with Margaret.
    “It can be found in bodily fluids most associated with human emotion—sweat, tears—” Jessie flushed again when he noticed her narrowed eyelids. “You spoke of the life force earlier, Miss. Humans are energy beings. We need that energy to survive.”
    “And this energy can be found in its most concentrated form in the blood?” Isabel murmured as understanding dawned. Somehow it made intuitive sense to her.
    Jessie nodded. “We do not take enough to harm the mortal, Miss. We are not like Morshiel and his revenants. They take pleasure from draining a human’s vitessence until death. They drink the very soul. Such taking is considered taboo by us. Lord Delraven has taught us to control our hunger.”
    Isabel straightened, staring at Delraven’s painted crest, her curiosity for the leader of such a strange, powerful group of creatures mounting by the second. “Delraven said Morshiel was his clone. How did the two come into existence, Jessie?”
    “I don’t know, Miss. None of us knows, save perhaps Delraven himself, and if he does know, he doesn’t share that secret with us. Perhaps he does with Aubrey Cane. They are as close as brothers. We only know how much Delraven strives to control