"You don't smell like it. You don't smell at all." The vampire overlord tilted their head while licking my blood from their lips. "How it happened?"
"I bit a vampire."
"Bit?! Why?!"
"I tried to save my life - he bit me, I bit him back."
"Him...?"
"Uh... Sorry... Them. I bit them."
"How was it?"
"What?"
"The taste."
"Oh, it tasted liquorice."
She looked at me puzzled.
"It's kind of spicy and bitter... I... Don't know how to explain..."
"Our blood is bitter." She licked my wrist with her long bumpy tongue. "Yours too."
"What about the knights?" I moaned.
"Are you willing to feed them too?!"
"Well... It is my job..." I sighed. I took a glass of water and chugged it down. "So?"
They smirked, snapped their fingers and turned to the knights:
"Help yourself, moonshards."
Glacial knights moved and in a second ended up at my right arm. Their spikey teeth bit into my flesh. I squeaked.
"I thought you like pain." Smiled the vampire.
"It depends on the circumstances." I laid my eyes on them. The clothes she wore were soaked in blood. The blood dried up and I thought of how it must be uncomfortable to wear it. "You should change your dress."
"No. I shouldn't. They should acknowledge me. Acknowledge the Bloodlake." They waved their eyes.
"Is it what it represents? The lake of blood on the snow?"
"Yes."
The knights stopped sucking on me. One of them said "thank you" in a hushed voice, and after that they returned to their place.
We were sitting on a broad sofa surrounded by pillows of different sizes and colours with a canopy on top.
Suddenly the overlord leaned back. She looked around, huffing, then gazed at me:
"Come here."
"Ha...?"
The second I turned, she grabbed my cravat and pulled me closer.
"Why?"
"Hm?"
"Why did you kill them all?"
"I did what they did to my family."
"It makes you the same as them. It makes you a murderer."
"I..." She zoned out. I eyed her bewildered. Her eyes were of dark red colour, so much that they were almost black. Her pale skin was silky to the touch. I was lying on her chest, on that blood-soaked robe, and listening to her heart beating. Calm.
We were like this for some time, but then the starlings' delegation came to our place, and the vampire awakened:
"What do you need, star children?"
The ambassador Ha-na cleared her throat and started a diplomatic conversation:
"We would like to forge an alliance with you. We were unable to do so with your predecessors." She run her hand through her "hair" and moved on. "I know how it looks, but I don't really care. We need your help, and are willing to work with your administration. And I consider you are not worse than the late Consulate."
"Oh, now you want an alliance, but what about me, ambassador?"
"I don't know what are you talking about, I'm sorry." The ambassador maintained well. "Do we have an alliance?"
"No. Not now. I have nothing established. I became the ruler only several hours ago. I will convene a meeting with the heads of great families, then we decide together."
With that, the delegation bowed to the vampire and got away.
"I still remember your body." Said the vampire with a grain of self-satisfaction.