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The hall was a sensory overload. Vampires fighting and feeding and fucking on every square inch of the place. But Nadja could only look at her.
The one in the dead center of the room, dressed in billowing white. Her blonde curls were wild and loose. Blood dribbled out of her open mouth and down the front of her gown, though if she noticed she didn't care. There was a man on her left side, a woman on her right, and two more figures at her feet. Nadja couldn't tell if they were worshippers or corpses.
The woman caught her staring. From underneath a feathered mask, two bright eyes put Nadja under a spotlight. Something tightened in her chest, but she held the gaze. She raised her chin and tried for defiant, but the woman only smirked and gave her an appraising glance. Nadja felt like prey. New blood burned in her cheeks beneath her own mask. A lazy tongue ran over the woman's fangs: an invitation. Nadja felt herself move forward without willing it, before an instinctual part of her brain screamed at her that sometimes the old ones eat their young.
She turned at the last second, ducking her head and slipping back into the crowd. The woman's brow furrowed for an almost imperceptible second before she threw her head back and let out a laugh. Nadja had expected it to be sinister, but it was more like a scream of guttural joy, a complete surrender to the moment. It almost made Nadja want to turn back, to willingly become her meal. But she pushed through the sea of bodies until she reached the wall. She was thankful, for the moment, that she had worn black, allowing her to take refuge in the shadows.
Nadja had entered the chamber directionless. A thick, metallic scent in the air made her head throb, and there was so much heat for a crowd that was mostly cold-blooded. So new in her own power, so dazed by the largest gathering of her own kind she had ever seen, Nadja had half-regretted coming. But things were slotting into place. It was abundantly clear now that in the room full of bloodsuckers, not a single one mattered except the woman in white. In their nocturnal world of heightened senses, to be decadent and adored was the only goal worth pursuing. Nadja wanted to be her. She would be her. She would observe with a patience that wasn't in her nature, she would learn and imitate, until she could perfect the art of being a spectacle.
The woman grabbed hold of a fleshy neck and attacked it with fervor, as if the line between lover and victim didn't exist. Nadja bit back her own hunger— and watched.