"You're susceptible to compulsion?" Dragon sounded surprised.
"Not anymore. I haven't been since the end of my first year as a vampire. I haven't figured out why, yet, but it's the truth. The other vampires back on Earth still think compulsion works. It doesn't." I snorted a little over that fact. "And they'll most likely kill me if they find out."
"Surely not," Dragon scoffed.
"You don't know them," I said, leaning my chin on my knees again. "They don't know half the stuff I can do. Some of it, they're just too blind to see."
"What else can you do that they don't know about?" Dragon was looking off in the distance, toward the temple. He and I were only killing time, now.
"I can tell who sired whom, as far as vampires, humans and just about any other race goes," I replied.
"Do you know who made Merrill, then? Kiarra has wondered but she won't go Looking, she thinks it would be an invasion of privacy. She likes Merrill a lot." That statement made me laugh humorlessly.
"That's nothing to how Merrill feels about her," I said without thinking. I slapped a hand over my mouth afterward, but it was already too late. Dragon put his head back and laughed. I mean out loud. He then placed an arm around me and squeezed.
"I'll keep that to myself. Do you know who made him?" Dragon asked his question again.
"Wlodek did, only he has no hold over his vampire child. Do you know what a King Vampire is?"
"I have heard that term before. They hold the strongest compulsion and no other vampire can force them to their will. They are generally strong; stronger than most others, even from the start, and the only vampire they cannot control is a Queen."
"Yeah," I said glumly. "Merrill is a King Vampire and even he can't place compulsion on me. The minute they learn they can't control me like they think they can, they'll get Gavin or one of the others to sharpen their claws and I'll be headless and ash in less than a blink. They sort of forced me into an engagement to Gavin and I always worry that Wlodek will just tell him to kill me while I sleep, since he wakes before I do and I fall asleep before he does. One of the drawbacks of being a young vampire."
"You're terrified your own fiancé will kill you while he's in your bed?"
"He was all set to kill me when he dragged me in front of the Council, although he swears he loved me then. Now tell me how that works," I huffed.
"I can't explain that," Dragon sighed. "Have you talked to him about this?"
"Most of the time we don't talk. He yells and I listen. And the yelling is mostly in foreign languages I don't understand. He's insanely jealous, so I don't know what to do or say about Kifirin. Kifirin keeps telling me it won't be a problem, but he's never met Gavin before. Honestly, I don't know what happened with Kifirin—normally I'm able to resist. This, though, I can't explain it."
"The M'fiyah," Dragon said softly.
"Karzac said that word too. What does it mean?" I looked up at Dragon, who was still staring off in the distance.
"It means mate recognition, as nearly as I can translate it from the original Neaborian. Some of the immortal races are predisposed. That means the moment you see your intended mate, or mates, you recognize them somehow. It's nearly impossible to resist them, most of the time. What did Karzac say to you, when he used the word?"
I would have flushed, if I could have. "He, uh, said if he could ask for that, he would consider it."
Dragon smiled at my words. "That is a real compliment, coming from Karzac," he said. His arm was still draped around me and he hugged me closer.
"So, no M'fiyah for you or Karzac, yet?" I asked.
"Sadly, no. But Griffin, who sees farther and better than anyone I have ever met, says it won't be long now. So I am waiting." Dragon smiled down at me.
"Is that what Adam Chessman had with Kiarra?"
"Yes. And it was something to see, little vampire. She was the last person I would have believed to be caught in that net and yet she was landed and gasping like a fish when she saw him the first time."
"So, you think that Kifirin and I?" I didn't finish my question.
"I think so," he nodded. "I can't imagine that one such as he would have been interested otherwise, and as you say, you have fended off others in the past. The M'fiyah is the only explanation I can think of."
I blew out a sigh. Was that it? Kifirin and I were destined to be together? That still didn't help at all with Gavin and what his feelings would be over the whole thing. Honestly, I didn't know what to do about either one of them. I wanted to go to bed with Kifirin, no doubt about that, but I was still waiting to love him, I think. And Gavin? I still cared about him, for the most part. I just needed to stop being afraid all the time. Of him, of Wlodek and the Council, of Merrill, even, to a lesser degree. I knew where that fear came from; it was from my past and I thought I'd beaten it. Becoming vampire had brought it back with a vengeance and I was struggling against it again in my second existence.
"Let's go, little Queen," Dragon said softly, lifting me to my feet. I stood beside him, dusting off my loose pants with a hand before turning Dragon to mist with me.
The crowd was enormous outside the temple; I estimated at least a hundred thousand or more. Karzac told me the total population of the capital city was around three million, but a hundred thousand was a huge number of people. Some of the football stadiums, and that was in the European sense of the word, might be able to hold that many. They were all milling around outside; I saw a few red robes around, passing out slips of paper. I assumed those were the tickets. I misted Dragon and myself next to the temple wall on the back side, in an empty spot where we wouldn't be seen as we materialized. Most of the crowd activity was toward the front. I smelled vampire, too, but didn't go looking for them. Their actions were out of my hands—Gabron was giving those instructions and I was content with that.
Dragon and I made our slow way around the octagonal temple toward the front but it was difficult at times; the multitude was pushing against us as more and more people joined the crowd, anxious to find a priest and receive a ticket for the drawing. I'm thinking about using compulsion like a shotgun, and just yelling for everybody to get the hell out of our way, I told Dragon in mindspeech. He smiled slightly as we were squeezed by yet another knot of people. The noise as we went through the crowd was nearly unbearable, too. All of them were talking; I even heard a little shouting, here and there. I did my best to ignore all of it, concentrating on arriving at the four main entrances into the temple and getting there before everything was scheduled to start. What truly frightened me, however, was the number of parents I saw who'd brought their children. That almost stopped me in my tracks.