Meredith is a hot mess’s Reviews > Darkness, I: Book 3 of The Blood Opera Sequence > Status Update

Then,' she said, 'I can tell you one last thing.'
He waited.
'She is white as snow, but the child in her womb is black. Black as coal.'
She lifted her head and added, to the silent entity of the room:
'A new darkness.'

Can Malach die?' she said.
'Oh, yes. Each of us can do that. But I shall let Malach live. I'll let him live with the memory of you, and how you told him to go away from you.'
She said, 'I'm afraid of boredom.'

lol Anna has no mercy for Malach.

Will you drink my blood?'
'Yes, Ankhet Persephone.'
'Then am I yours?'
'From the beginning, you were. But we'll seal it.'
'Are your gods real?' she said.
'I have no gods.'
He moved in her like thunder.

If they had lived so extensively, those centuries, and where they had not continued in one body, had returned, reborn, half remembering, how had they come to this pass? This utter stupid littleness?
They could have been gods, almost.

Then I'll be petty. I'll be so petty and so mean and so changed. You won't know me. Then you can go away.' ...

'No,' Anna said, 'it isn't all I want. Cain, take him somewhere for me. Tie him up and hurt him. For me. I want him to suffer now. I want him to suffer very much.'

The first time I read this I was shocked at this decision, but I have to say right now I'm loving how vengeful Anna has become

Ruth, come here to me. Come and taste the blood, Ruth'
And Ruth turned about and went to him, to Cain.
'It won't be as you remember,' he said. 'This will be sweet. Better than strawberries. Better than wine.'
And she walked to the corpse on the pillar and put her lips against its shattered neck, the mess of glands and veins and meat, and sucked the blood. It was sweet. It was better.

Wine can conquer all.
She drank. As usual, there were several more bottles ready in the fridge.

I love how Rachaela's 'vampire' gift is being able to drink unlimitless amounts of wine

'Why do you want me?' she said again.
'Do I want you?' he asked. His voice was playful. He looked, she thought, very young, innocent, happy, at peace. No one in the world but they.

The cold came. He sent the cold away.
He kissed her lips, quietly, without any thrust of sex, like warm snow falling, like a mother. Like the first father she had ever had.

'Long ago,' he said, 'we were so young.'
'You called me a child.'
'You're my child.'
'No.'
'Yes. Mine.'
Mine echoed from inside her brain.
His arm was warm, as if great fires burned in him against the cold.
Anna half closed her eyes. It was like a dream.
He said, 'You and I have died. You and I have lived. I can love you like no other.'

But Cain held Anna's hand and he spoke to them.
'Here is my daughter's daughter, Ankhet Persephone.'

'Then you're my - grandfather.'
'Yes, if you like. Do you think I'll do?'

😂 Oh, the incestuous Scarabae. Love Tanith Lee's humour.