Novels by Vivian Obiefuna

He looked up.The corner of her mouth moved. Not quite the shadow of a smile this time, but something a degree more definite."You look at it the way you look at something very bright," she said. "Not directly. From the corner of your awareness. You let yourself know it is there without making it the center of your attention. You feel it the way you feel your own heartbeat, present and consistent and not requiring constant monitoring.""And then.""And then we learn its edges," she said. "How far it extends, what it responds to, what it does not respond to. Every session, more information. No rushing."He absorbed this."You've done this before," he said."I have studied the historical accounts of it," she said."Twice in three centuries the original bloodline has expressed in a carrier. Both times the process was mishandled. The first carrier was given no guidance and lost what they were before the power could be integrated. The second was given too much intervention, too fast, and t

Seraphine was already in the training room when he arrived.He had expected a room that looked like a training room. He had spent fifteen years in training rooms and had a clear internal picture of what they required, open floor space, enough ceiling clearance for a shifted wolf, surfaces that could take impact without damage, adequate light.The room Seraphine had brought him to had none of those things.It was small, smaller than his quarters. The walls were close enough that he could have touched both sides simultaneously if he stretched, which he had no intention of doing but the option was there and the room made sure he knew it. The ceiling was low. The floor was stone, smooth and cold. There was one sconce on the far wall burning its blue-white light. There was nothing else in the room except Seraphine, standing at its center with her hands clasped behind her back and her crimson eyes on him with the particular attention she gave to things she was about to take apart and study.

Klaus did not sleep.At first, he did not think much of it. New place, new silence. The inner sanctum was too quiet, in a way his body was not used to after years of constant background noise. He had always been a light sleeper. Training had made it worse, not better.He stayed still, and waited.Then something in his blood moved.Not like before. Not violent. This was quieter, slower, like something close to the surface, pressing gently but steadily, waiting.Klaus opened his eyes.Amber.He saw it reflected faintly in the tapestry across the room. His eyes were glowing. Not bright like before, but clearly there, alive in a way he did not understand.He sat up and breathed, waiting for it to pass.It faded a little enough.He lay back down.Sleep almost came this time. His body started to relax, his thoughts softening.Then the power moved again. This time, it was stronger.His eyes opened, already glowing.He sat up again.His feet on the floor. Hands on his knees. Slow breathing, c

The formal meeting ended.Dorian stood to indicate it and the room responded to him the way rooms responded to Dorian, immediately and without discussion. Corvus gathered his papers with the energy of someone mentally reorganizing his question list. Seraphine rose with the particular efficiency of someone who had been in a great many meetings and had developed a reliable method for exiting them.Klaus stood.He was still processing the arrangement. The word asset sitting in the back of his mind in the specific way that words sat when they were true and uncomfortable and you were going to need to decide what to do with them. He was also very tired, in the way he had been tired since the attack in the clearing, the specific exhaustion of a body doing significant repair work while also being asked to function.He was heading for the door when Dorian spoke again."There is one more thing."Klaus stopped, and turned.Dorian was standing beside the table with both hands resting on its surfa

The meeting room was underground.Klaus could feel it, the specific quality of air that moved differently when it had no sky above it, when every breath had been cycled through stone and old building materials rather than open atmosphere.The room was large, larger than his quarters, with a long table of black wood at its center and chairs enough for perhaps twenty people, only three of which were occupied.Dorian at the head.Corvus at the far end.Corvus was not what Klaus had been picturing. He had been picturing old, and Corvus was old, but in the way of a vampire whose age showed not in physical deterioration but in the specific stillness that centuries produced, the quality of someone so accustomed to time that they had stopped being rushed by it.He had also been picturing measured, and Corvus was not measured. Corvus was a narrow man with deep-set amber eyes, a shade lighter than gold, and the energy of someone who had been thinking very fast about something interesting for a

Seraphine brought the food.Klaus had not expected that. He thought it would be a servant, one of the quiet vampires who moved through the lower levels doing their work without drawing attention. But instead, it was her.She carried the tray easily and set it down on the small table. Then she stepped back, hands together, watching him the same way she had been watching him since the forest."Dorian sends food and you bring it yourself," Klaus said."Dorian sends food. I came on my own." She sat in the chair Dorian had used, much more casually. "I wanted to talk to you before the meeting later.""About what he said.""About what he left out." She nodded toward the tray. "Eat. I'll talk while you do. You will need your focus, and you cannot do that hungry."Klaus started eating. The food was good, much better than what he had been living on. Real food, properly made. He kept watching her as he ate."The inner sanctum," she began, "is not for guests. It is not for refugees. It is for thi