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When the Viceroy snapped his fingers, the two slaves exited the roo moments later with an unconscious demon boy One of their own, handed over for a vampire's refreshment A leisurely repast

Malkoainst his bonds but couldn't get free before the vampire collected the boy in his arms, then bent over his neck

At the sight, rage spiked within Malko sounds

He bared his fangs, overwhelmed with memories of his childhood as a blood slave His only consolation was that this boy was unconscious, a luxury he himself had never been afforded Nor had Malkom's neck been taken, for that skin would have been readily seen - and he hadn't been kept only for his blood

"Steady, Malkom," Kallen murmured in Demonish "Keep your wits about you"

How many ti kept me sane

The Viceroy dropped the boy froround like refuse, then dabbed at his lips with a crisp handkerchief "I confess, you two fascinate me" His red eyes burned with curiosity "A friendship between a beloved royal and his brutal guard dog The highest of the high, and " He flicked his hand at Malkom

No one had been more perplexed by their friendship than Malkom Kallen was the crown prince of the Trothan Demonarchy, hundreds of years old, and filled isdom

Malkom was the illiterate thirty-year-old son of a whore, raised as a vae

Yet somehow he and Kallen had become comrades in arms, brothers by choice if not by blood Kallen had said he'd recognized so in Malkom, an innate nobility As if he'd kno badly Malkom wanted to be noble

"Penniless, ignorant, and fatherless," the Viceroy intoned "The son of a demon whore who sold her body" With a sneer, he added, "Until she could sell one of her offspring"

Malko

"How easily you sprang to life, when you should have been nowaste in a back alley"

"If Malkom is not noble in blood," Kallen said, "then he is noble in deed"

Kallen, still defending me

The Viceroy seeall to resist us, knowing death awaited Aly, you very nearly routed us from your world, demon"

Malkoh he'd won nuined his foes were on the brink of surrender Malko-dead vampires here

Decades before his birth, they had arrived from an alien plane filled withhere for one reason

Blood

When the vampires consumed Trothan blood, it made them more powerful than they'd ever been, made them heal from injuries more swiftly Blood had eventually become the currency in Oblivion

"So very nearly," the Viceroy continued "But in the end, breeding will tell" The vampire traced to stand just beside the" He reached down to rip Malkom's rich cloak from him "But you can only mask what you truly are Under those manacles at your wrists, I bet I would find bite scars"

Again Malkom voiced no denial He nor marks

The details of his past weren't necessarily held secret All the demons in Ash kne Malkom had earned his bread as a boy, how he'd eaten frorown too old for a vampire lord's tastes

But for this vampire to knoell