The room came back into focus, sounds sharper than they should be. The flow of ink from the doctor’s pen as he wrote. Loose strands of Crake’s hair rubbing against one another. The slow scrape of Louis’s blink.

“What the f**k?” Ophelia gasped, her tongue thick and her eyes darting, colors far more vivid than they had been. Bright, everything was too damned bright.

“Welcome back, Ms. Diamondé. Disorientation is a normal side effect of transitioning,” the doctor said absently, busy making notes. “Rest assured, any increased sensitivities you may be experiencing will lessen over the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours as the virus continues the reanimation process.” He stabbed the pen against the clipboard, finished with whatever he was writing, and set it aside with a wide smile. “Now, let’s see where we’ll be sending you, shall we?”

Crake wheeled over a tray. The doctor snugged his gloves before taking a pair of hemostats from the nurse and dipping a wad of gauze into a yellow solution. He dragged it across Ophelia’s brow, then discarded it almost immediately for another, the tiny pad thick with gore.

Ophelia winced at the rough drag of it across her skin. Jesus Chri—

Agony flared through her skull, and she cried out. The doctor hummed above her and swapped out the gauze again. “You need to put a call in to Vesper,” he murmured.

“Vesper?” the nurse spat out behind him, incredulous. “Are you sure?”

“Mmm” he hummed again, swabbing. “The tatuaj are gifted as the Great One wills, and whom are we to judge which tribe she’s been deemed worthy of?”

“But—” Crake pushed forward, her eyes narrowing above pinched lips. “I’ll alert the court.” She scowled and left the room. Louis raced after her, his face white.

“What—what’s happening?” Ophelia lisped, her tongue fumbling against sharp incisors. A terrible thirst had overcome her, making it hard to think. She licked her parched lips, the acrid taste of her own sweat roiling her stomach. Vesper? She couldn’t remember a tribe called Vesper.

“Your transition may have very well just signed the death warrants of everyone who witnessed it,” the doctor said, snapping off his gloves. “Prince Kremlyn suffers no rivals for his concubine’s attentions.”

What? Ophelia’s mind raced. No. She couldn’t be a—Deo. The wedding. She’d left her engagement ring by the sink. That last fight they’d had. He’d think she abandoned him, that she’d run. “No, no. I-I’m not a concubine, I’m an attorney—”

“You are whatever the tatuaj has decreed,” the doctor said firmly, moving to the door. “Someone will be in to take you to seclusion. Whatever call to vampirism you felt, I very much hope it keeps you warm at the citadel. You won’t be leaving it.”

The door shut behind him with an ominous click, and Ophelia’s breath stuttered. The citadel? No, that was impossible. What had she done, what had she done? Oh, God—

Agony bloomed through her skull at the word, and she whimpered, tears tracking from the corners of her eyes. The awful reality of her actions crashed down around her, and an insatiable thirst gnawed at her hollowed insides.

The names of the women she couldn’t track down—the two who had disappeared—flitted through her mind, along with a very bad feeling that she’d be joining them.

AK Nevermore enjoys operating heavy machinery, freebases coffee, and gives up sarcasm for Lent every year. A Jane-of-all-trades, she’s a certified chef, restores antiques, and dabbles in beekeeping when she’s not reading voraciously or running down the dream in her beat-up camo Chucks.

Unable to ignore the voices in her head, and unwilling to become medicated, she writes Science Fiction and Fantasy full time.

She pays the bills editing, wielding a wicked hot pink pen and writing a column on SFF. She also belongs to the Authors Guild, is a chapter treasurer for the RWA, teaches creative writing, and on the rare occasion, sleeps.

~~~