▪︎ Chapter 114 ▪︎ “No, I don’t.”

Lavinia rubbed the washcloth slowly along her forearm, eyes closed as warm water streamed over her skin and carried away the last stubborn traces of the night's violence.

Warmth was strange now.

She could feel it perfectly. 

The water was pleasant against her skin, its temperature obvious enough that she could distinguish every slight change when the shower fluctuated, yet there was no underlying cold for it to drive away. 

Her body wasn't warming beneath the stream. She wouldn't begin shivering if she stepped out and stood dripping in the bathroom afterward. 

The warmth simply existed as a sensation, tangible and enjoyable without fulfilling any biological need.

Lavinia liked it anyway.

Her pointed ears twitched beneath the water, scattering droplets as she tilted her head and worked the cloth over her shoulder. 

Most of the blood and gore had washed away almost immediately. 

One advantage of being a vampire was that filth didn't seem to cling particularly stubbornly to her skin or hair, certainly not the way she remembered it doing as a human.

Her clothes were another matter.

Those were disgusting.

Her dress had survived perfectly in the structural sense. 

Every puncture, tear and cut inflicted throughout the Tide had already repaired itself, leaving the black fabric as intact as it had been before the battle. 

Unfortunately, self-repair apparently didn't include cleaning. Blood had soaked into it. Mud coated the lower portions. 

Green fluid from the Behemoth stained broad sections of the fabric, and Lavinia was reasonably certain the smell alone could qualify as a weapon.

Her socks and boots weren't much better.

Violetta had promised that she'd make sure everything was thoroughly cleaned, which meant Lavinia had temporarily suffered one of the great indignities of vampirism.

Human clothing.

She'd survive.

Probably.

Lavinia placed the washcloth against her opposite arm and gave it another pass before setting it aside. 

Then she stretched beneath the water, arms rising above her head as her spine arched slightly. 

A contented exhale escaped her while steam drifted around her body and condensed along the bathroom mirrors.

The hotel bathroom was enormous, thankfully.

Violetta had secured several rooms for everyone rather than immediately returning them to the safehouse, partly because the group desperately needed somewhere to clean themselves and partly because nobody wanted to bring half the battlefield home.

Lavinia lowered her arms.

Clean.

Finally.

She no longer smelled as though she'd fallen into a swamp filled with blood, guts and pulverized spider. 

Her golden hair had taken longer than the rest of her, but even that now felt clean beneath her fingers.

She should get out.

Lavinia made absolutely no effort to do so.

The water felt nice. The bathroom was quiet. Nobody was biting her, tackling her, pinching her ears, stealing something from her or making commentary about her greatsword.

Peace.

Lavinia ran one hand idly along her side, beginning at her waist and moving upward until her fingers stopped beneath her right breast.

Nothing.

Hours earlier, an enormous spider leg had punched straight through her torso. Later, antlers had punctured her in several places as well. 

Her skin gave no indication that any of them had happened.

No scars. No tenderness. No lingering weakness.

Vampires really were magical in every meaningful sense of the word.

Lavinia's ears twitched.

Her eyes opened.

Footsteps.

Several sets.

She recognized the cadence of some immediately.

"No."

The bathroom door opened.

Gwendolyn burst inside wrapped in a towel, white hair still slightly damp. 

Valerie followed directly behind her, carrying her own towel over one shoulder rather than wearing it. 

Rosaline came next, then Evangeline, Adelaide, Cordelia, Evelyn and Celestine.

Ophelia entered last.

Her long dark-purple hair was damp and loose rather than arranged in its usual partial braids, the lighter ends sticking slightly against her back. 

Her empty red eyes moved curiously around the bathroom before settling on Lavinia.

Lavinia stared at all nine of them.

They stared back.

Some wore towels. Others robes. Valerie appeared to have decided that possessing a towel was technically sufficient preparation for entering a bathroom.

None looked remotely presentable.

"You already showered."

Valerie smirked and leaned slightly closer. "We forgot something."

"What?"

"Something important."

Lavinia narrowed her eyes. "What?"

Rosaline's hand wandered toward Lavinia.

Lavinia smacked it away. "You have your own."

Rosaline withdrew her hand with exaggerated offense. "I wasn't doing anything."

"You were absolutely doing something."

"Can you prove that?"

"I watched you."

"Circumstantial."

Lavinia stared at her.

Gwendolyn giggled and squeezed past Valerie. "The water's still warm!"

"You have your own bathroom!"

"We like this one."

"It's the same hotel!"

Celestine wandered toward the enormous tub occupying one side of the bathroom while Evelyn followed more cautiously. 

Adelaide leaned against the counter, green hair damp around her shoulders, and Cordelia inspected the various bottles lined up near the sink as though she'd never encountered hotel toiletries before.

Within thirty seconds, Lavinia's peaceful bathroom had ceased to exist.

Voices overlapped. Someone turned on a faucet. Gwendolyn complained when Rosaline flicked water at her. 

Evangeline discovered another stack of towels and threw one at Valerie, who immediately threw it back. 

Ophelia remained near the edge of the chaos, watching everyone with an expression caught somewhere between curiosity and disbelief.

Lavinia stood beneath the shower and mourned.

She had been excited about silence.

Actual silence.

She looked around at the smiling faces filling the bathroom.

Her lips betrayed her.

A reluctant smile appeared.

Lavinia immediately looked away before anyone could notice and resumed rinsing her hair.

She managed perhaps fifteen seconds.

"Lavinia."

"No."

Gwendolyn was behind her.

"I didn't ask anything."

"The answer is no."

"Okay."

That was suspiciously easy.

Lavinia turned.

Gwendolyn pounced.

"GWEN—"

They went over the side of the enormous tub together.

Water erupted outward as both vampires plunged beneath the surface. Lavinia's long golden hair spread around her in a floating halo while Gwendolyn clung to her with absolutely no remorse.

Lavinia surfaced first, hair plastered across her face.

"There was still stuff in the water!"

Gwendolyn emerged beside her laughing. "You're clean!"

"That doesn't mean the water is!"

Valerie appeared above them.

Lavinia looked up.

"Don't."

Valerie smiled.

"Valerie."

She jumped.

Lavinia barely had time to make an offended noise before Valerie crashed into the tub and drove her underwater again.

From there, any remaining possibility of order vanished.

The bathroom filled with high, bell-like laughter as vampires piled into and around the tub. Water splashed across the floor. 

Someone shrieked when a towel was stolen. Rosaline attempted to drag Evangeline into the water and was pulled in instead. 

Celestine wrapped both arms around Evelyn from behind and carried her toward the tub despite Evelyn's laughing protests, while Adelaide wisely remained far enough away that nobody could easily reach her.

Ophelia lasted nearly a minute before someone caught her wrist.

Her expression of betrayal immediately before disappearing into the chaos made Lavinia laugh so hard she briefly forgot she'd wanted peace.

Perhaps silence had been overrated.

───

Lavinia sat on the edge of one of three king-sized beds, rubbing a towel vigorously through her long golden hair.

She looked profoundly unhappy.

She wasn't.

But she wanted everyone else to believe she was.

The hotel suite was large enough that ten vampires and one Thrall could occupy it without literally sitting atop one another, although several seemed determined to do so anyway. 

Clothing and towels had accumulated across chairs, bags sat against the walls, and hair dryers hummed from multiple parts of the room.

The combined scent was ridiculous.

Heat from the dryers warmed everyone's hair enough to intensify their natural fragrances, and with ten vampires packed into a single suite, Lavinia could barely separate them anymore without deliberately concentrating. 

Tangerine and honey mingled with roses and caramel, cream and fresh leaves, cocoa and cherries, lavender and chai, taffy and honeysuckle, vanilla and chocolate, black cherries and red wine, orchids and cinnamon, and her own berries and pine.

"This room is going to smell like us for months."

Valerie lay on her stomach across one of the beds, feet kicking idly behind her. "Good."

"The hotel might disagree."

"They'll charge Violetta."

Lavinia paused.

"Good."

Valerie giggled, then rolled onto her side. "You looked really cool with the sword, by the way."

Lavinia resumed drying her hair with considerably more focus.

Gwendolyn immediately looked over from where she sat cross-legged nearby. "She did! Especially when she fell out of the sky and stabbed the huge spider."

Lavinia's lips twitched.

She rubbed the towel harder.

Valerie noticed. "She's pretending she doesn't like hearing it."

"I'm drying my hair."

"You're smiling."

"I'm not."

"You are."

Ophelia, seated nearby while Diana carefully combed through her long purple hair, looked between them. "How long have all of you known each other?"

Adelaide answered from the opposite bed. 

She had changed into a hotel robe, though it sat loosely around her body and had partially opened near the top as she reclined against several pillows. 

Her long green hair fell over one shoulder, giving her an unintentionally languid appearance.

"Since a day or two after the First Divergence, mostly."

Ophelia blinked. "That's it?"

Adelaide considered the timeline. "It's only been a few weeks."

"You behave like you've known each other for years."

Evelyn, sitting close enough to Celestine that their shoulders touched, reached out and lightly caught Ophelia's hand. "You're part of it too."

Ophelia looked down at their joined hands.

Something softened in her expression.

"I only arrived yesterday."

"So?"

Ophelia looked at Evelyn.

Evelyn smiled.

Ophelia's lips curved faintly in return. "Fair enough."

Adelaide shifted against the pillows. "I killed more than nine hundred animals."

Everyone looked toward her.

Adelaide seemed pleased with herself.

"Nine hundred?" Gwendolyn asked.

"Somewhere around there." Adelaide turned her empty red eyes toward Lavinia. "How many did you kill?"

Lavinia stopped rubbing her hair.

She looked at Adelaide.

Her gaze wandered for a moment.

The robe really wasn't doing much in terms of protecting her modesty.

Adelaide either didn't notice or didn't care.

Probably didn't care.

Lavinia pursed her lips and forced herself to consider the question. "Around a thousand? Maybe eleven hundred?"

She tilted her head one way.

Then the other.

"Somewhere around there."

"You don't know?"

"I wasn't counting."

Vampire memory was extraordinarily good. 

If Lavinia truly wanted an exact number, she could probably reconstruct most of the night and count each kill individually. 

She remembered the animals she'd cut apart, the ones she'd struck with the flat, the creatures killed during broad swings and the things she'd crushed or otherwise finished.

She simply had no desire to spend an hour mentally replaying the entire battle for the sake of a score.

Celestine lowered the hair dryer she'd been using. "I saved a few soldiers."

Evelyn smiled at her.

"One had been mauled by a bear," Celestine continued. "One of the really large ones. I thought he was dead when I found him."

Rosaline rolled onto her back and shifted until her head rested comfortably against Cordelia's stomach. "I'm surprised he wasn't."

Cordelia began absently smoothing Rosaline's long red hair.

Lavinia opened her mouth wide.

Then closed it.

Valerie immediately noticed.

She leaned over and placed both hands on Lavinia's thigh. "What was that?"

Lavinia looked down at her hands.

"What was what?"

"You opened your mouth like you were tasting the air."

"I practically am anyway."

Valerie tilted her head.

Lavinia gestured around the room. "There are ten vampires in here. Ten. Everyone's hair is warm, everyone smells stronger, and we're all packed into one suite. I can almost taste you."

Valerie smiled.

Her hands shifted slightly higher along Lavinia's thigh.

Lavinia gave her a warning look.

Valerie smiled wider.

Across the room, Cordelia continued running her fingers through Rosaline's hair. "Violetta said we need to be ready for the ceremony."

Lavinia prodded Valerie's wandering fingers and pushed them back toward her knee. "Doesn't Violetta feel like our mother sometimes?"

Several vampires laughed.

Lavinia continued, "She always fixes everything. Something happens, Violetta handles it. We ruin our clothes, Violetta gets them cleaned. We need somewhere to stay, Violetta gets rooms. There's apparently a ceremony, and Violetta knows what we're supposed to do."

"She does feel dependable," Ophelia admitted.

Unlike the others, she didn't laugh.

Her tone was sincere.

Diana leaned slightly over Ophelia's shoulder while continuing to comb through the damp purple hair. "All of you have your charms."

Evangeline immediately lifted her head.

"Exactly."

Diana looked toward her.

Evangeline sat a little straighter. "I'm charming and beautiful."

Rosaline giggled.

Evangeline's head snapped toward her.

"What was funny?"

Rosaline immediately tried to suppress her smile. "Nothing."

"What was funny?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Evangeline vanished from where she'd been sitting.

A moment later, she was above Rosaline.

Cordelia barely had time to move her hands before Evangeline straddled Rosaline's waist and pressed both hands against her shoulders, pinning her into the mattress.

Rosaline's eyes widened with theatrical innocence.

Evangeline leaned closer. "Explain."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You laughed."

"I laugh all the time."

"At me."

"Near you."

"Rosaline."

Rosaline's lips twitched.

Evangeline narrowed her eyes.

Lavinia watched the scene.

Her gaze lingered for a moment.

Well.

That was certainly nice to look at.

A hand moved against her thigh again.

Lavinia slowly looked down.

Valerie smiled innocently.

Lavinia lifted one foot and planted it against Valerie's stomach.

She pushed.

Valerie slid several inches across the bed and gave a soft groan of disappointment.

Lavinia simply stared at her.

"What?" Valerie asked.

"You know what."

"I wasn't doing anything."

"Why does everyone say that immediately after doing something?"

Valerie reached for Lavinia's ankle.

Lavinia pulled her leg away before she could catch it.

"I think you've become mean since getting your sword."

"I was mean before, wasn't I?"

"That's true."

Lavinia threw the towel at her.

Valerie caught it while laughing.

On the other bed, Evangeline was still interrogating Rosaline while Cordelia had apparently decided this was no longer her problem. 

Gwendolyn had begun arguing with Adelaide about whether kills from a single wide swing counted individually. 

Celestine returned to drying Evelyn's hair, despite Evelyn being perfectly capable of doing it herself, and Diana continued combing Ophelia's with a patience Lavinia suspected Ophelia had grown accustomed to over their travels.

Lavinia looked around the room.

A few weeks.

That was all.

A few weeks ago, none of this existed.

She had been human. Valerie had been human. Gwendolyn, Rosaline, Adelaide—all of them had possessed completely separate lives that hadn't included empty red eyes, pointed ears, blood, sunlight being lethal or enormous supernatural weapons hidden beneath distant manors.

Now the room smelled overwhelmingly of vampires.

And that felt normal.

Lavinia's expression softened.

Gwendolyn noticed immediately.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're smiling."

"No, I'm not."

"You are."

Valerie lowered the towel Lavinia had thrown at her. "She does that and then lies about it."

"I hate all of you."

"No, you don't," Valerie said.

Lavinia stared at her.

Valerie smiled knowingly.

Lavinia sighed.

"No, I don't."

That earned another ripple of laughter from the room.

Lavinia reached for a fresh towel and resumed working it through her still-damp golden hair.