Then Lady Eris bent over the sarcophagus. With one decisive slash, she severed the ribbon binding Bethany’s jaw shut.

“Now,” she said.

Bethany’s jaw went slack and open, revealing nascent fangs. Two male vampires flanked her, raising her torso from the marble. Her limp spine sagged in their grip, and her slack jaw gaped wider.

Jen looked away, her nails biting into the palm of my hand.

I wanted to look away, too, but I didn’t. I made myself watch as Geoffrey the prat raised the chalice to Bethany’s lips with surprising tenderness, tipping its contents into her open mouth, carefully and judiciously.

For no particular reason, I counted the seconds that passed in my head.

One, two, three . . .

On three, Bethany’s body convulsed. Her spine arched rigidly and her throat worked, swallowing. Her skin flushed in reverse, by which I mean that it turned even paler, taking on a faint luminosity. Her throat worked again as Geoffrey poured the last of the blood from the chalice into her mouth.

With the last gulp, her eyes flew open wide, dark and terrified. Her hands scrabbled frantically at her chest, her upper lip curled to reveal lengthening fangs, and she made a breathless choking sound.

“It’s all right. You’re all right,” Lady Eris said in a soothing voice, laying one hand on Bethany’s brow. Bethany’s terrified gaze met hers. I could feel the weight of vampiric hypnosis emanating from the brood mistress. “It’s the shock of rising, that’s all. Do you remember we discussed this?”

Bethany gave the faintest hint of a nod, drawing in a gasp of air and gagging on it.

“There is no need to draw breath until you’re ready to speak, sister,” Lady Eris continued. “You’re in your new body, your reborn body. Listen. Listen to its silence. Revel in the silence. Listen.”

The panic in Bethany’s eyes began to fade, replaced by something else. Something dark and needful.

“Yes.” Lady Eris smiled. “You begin to understand, to truly understand. When all other needs are gone, only one remains.”

“To feed,” Bethany whispered.

“Yes.” Lady Eris beckoned again. One of the female vampires led John the Baptist to the sarcophagus. “To feed.”

I glanced over at Jen. She was watching now, a look of sick fascination on her face as her sister, still supported by a pair of vampires, reached for John the Baptist’s outstretched arm, sank her brand-new fangs into his wrist, and began slurping down his blood.

Okay, ew. Earlier in the summer, I’d caught a glimpse of exactly how disturbingly erotic it could be to be fed on by a vampire, and let me tell you, that so does not apply to the newly risen. It was more like watching a starving person gorge herself in a particularly disgusting manner.