Blood junkie

I stared at him with one eyebrow lifted and that same wolf smile on my face, waiting for his reaction. He hadn't been talked to like this in a long time, if ever. He might not have much of a coping mechanism for dealing with it. If he didn't, I was going to die really horribly.
He did. He mastered himself, but I thought it was close - and it cost the woman on the altar her life.
He spun and slammed the obsidian knife into her right eye with such force that the blade broke off. She arched her body up as much as her restraints allowed and let out a short, choked scream of agony, throwing her head left and right - and then she sort of slowly relaxed into death. One leg kept twitching and moving.
The Red King ran two fingertips through the blood that was seeping from her eye socket. He slipped the fingers into his mouth and shuddered. Then he turned to face me, completely composed again.
I'd seen behavior like that before. It was the mark of an addict scoring a fix and full of contentment that he had a body full of booze or drugs or whatever, and therefore the illusion that he could handle emotional issues more capably.
That . . . explained a lot about how the Red Court had behaved during the war. Hell's bells, their king was a junkie. No wonder they had performed so inconsistently - brilliant and aggressive one moment, capable of making insane and idiotic mistakes the next. It also explained why there was strife within the Court. If the mark of power was control of one's blood thirst, indulging it only when and where one chose, and not with every random impulse, then anyone who knew about the Red King's condition would know that he was weak, inconsistent, and irrational.
Hell's bells. This guy wasn't just a monster. He was also paranoid. He had to be, because he knew that his bloodlust would be seen as a sign that he should be overthrown. If it had been happening for very long, it would have driven him insane. Even for one of the Red Court, I mean.
And that must be what had happened. Arianna had somehow tumbled to the Red King's weakness, and was building a power base aimed at deposing him. She'd be building her own power, personal, political, and social, inasmuch as the vampires had a psychotic, blood-spattered, ax-murdering version of a society. Dealing appropriately with one's enemies was critical to maintaining standing in any society - and for the Red Court, the only two enemies were those who had been dealt with appropriately and those who were still alive. She literally had no choice but to take me down if she was to succeed. And a Pearl Harbor for the White Council wouldn't hurt her any either, if she pulled it off.
Oh, I had to make sure this little lunatic stayed king. As long as he was, the Council would never face a competent, united Red Court.


Changes Chapter 43, Page 462-465