“From time to time,” he admitted, “but the real power of French dining is the pleasure of wine.”
I gave him a look. “Uh, rules might have changed since the last time you took a girl out for an evening of revelry or whatever, but I'm nineteen, I can’t drink.”
He patted the tops of my fingers. “While that is true in America, you are old enough to drink in France.”
The meaning behind his words hit me like a ton of bricks. “Woah, wait a minute. What? Are we going to France?” My mouth didn't quite hang open, but it was pretty close.
“I promised you the time of your dreams, ma cher. I boast, but never exaggerate.”
He led me outside, and for some reason, I was surprised to see a red and yellow helicopter there. I don't know what I expected to get to France on. At this point, a carriage drawn by flying horses would not be outside the realm of possibility. Was he serious? Was this actually happening? Also, could a helicopter make it across an ocean? Because I didn't think that was possible.
“Are we going to France in that?”
“Non, we are taking this to the airport, and from there, we are taking my private jet.”
“Of course, we are,” I said as he helped me into the co-pilot's seat, “that's normal.”
He chuckled again, and I decided that I liked amusing him. It saved him from looking too perfect, even though he managed to do it without showing off any fang, unlike the laugh. Was that on purpose? Was he trying to look human? I wished I was comfortable enough to ask him.
“It is for me.”
Now, that I believed. He had probably been born rich in the era when having wealth made you a god among peasants or whatever. French history was not my area of expertise, but they had that pretty intense revolution because the aristocracy got just a little too aristocratic.
“How are you guys so rich? As far as I can tell, none of you work.”
“That is not entirely accurate,” he said as he tapped the door shut and then went around to his side. He hefted himself into the pilot's seat with far more grace than I would have been able to do and handed me a helmet. I was suddenly thankful to my years of fast food that taught me how to handle ugly hats and cute hair. His next comment came through the headset. “Dmitri sells his paintings. They bring in a relatively decent amount of money. I own several of my own businesses.”
“What about Wei?” I couldn't imagine grumpy Wei doing anything but bossing people around.
“He's a carpenter when the mood strikes him.”
I frowned. “Do they make a lot of money?”
Alan shrugged and began messing with buttons until the blades above us started to spin. A heavy breeze puffed through the cockpit. “His last commission went for the better part of a million dollars.”
“Jeez,” I whispered, “I've never made more than fourteen thousand in a year.”
He chuckled. “That's a very American view of you.”
“What?”
“For a land of the free, it has always struck me how expensive it is to live in your country. And never have I been more aware of what the phrase 'earn a living' is than when I have been within your borders.”
That thought kept me distracted as the helicopter lifted up and the world surged away from us. We were twenty minutes up when he asked me if I wanted to drive.
“Oh no, it took me three years to get my license. I'd rather we didn't die in a ball of helicopter fire.”
He laughed at me again. I'm glad I amused him so much. I remember reading somewhere that if you liked someone, you laughed at their jokes more. Some weird little quick of socialization. Maybe he was just crushing on me. Yeah, right.
I was pretty sure me going to France without a passport was illegal, but I was also pretty sure that Alan had pulled some very interesting strings. He handled the helicopter the same way he seemed to handle everything else, with a seamless sort of elegance that I could only dream of having. When we went from the landing pad at the airport to the runway, he strutted around as if he owned everything that he could see.
The jet he led me to was, for lack of a better description, state-of-the-art. It was sleek and white and looked more like a space age bullet than any plane that I had ever seen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A plane of my own design.”
“You design planes?” I asked, wondering if my mouth was actually hanging open or if I just felt slack-jawed. Alan surprised me on a lot of levels.
“It is one of my businesses, yes. I call this beauty the Roc, based on the epic bird of Native American legend. It flies at around two thousand miles per hour. It is not quite as fast as the Blackbird, the military jet, not the creature. Right now, it is too expensive to build and maintain for the average airline, but my people are looking to convert it.”
“Of course, they are,” I said as he led me up the short series of steps towards the jet.
“Hello, Sir,” a snappily dressed man greeted us, “we have already begun preparations and will be taking off as planned. Would you like any inflight beverages?”
Alan looked at me, and I shook my head. All the flying left me feeling a little uncertain in the stomach region.
“No, thank you, James. We will just take our seats.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Alan led me to a plush white seat that made me feel like I was sitting on a marshmallow. I pulled the seatbelt on and, partway through, realized the chair swiveled. A few weeks ago, I had been struggling to pay my phone bill, and now, I was sitting in a swivel chair on a dream.
“I'm dreaming,” I blurted out, “That little magic trick knocked me out, and I am hallucinating this entire thing. I'm almost sure of it.”
Alan smirked at me, taking the seat to my right. “What makes you say that, Lorena?”
“This is the kind of thing that only happens in my dreams or very particular daydreams. Some hot immortal dude with a zillion dollars swoops in and treats me like some princess. I mean, that doesn't happen.”
He lounged comfortably in his seat, curling his fingers beneath his chin and eyeing me in a way that I could only describe as careful. He reminded me of a cat, cautious and sleek. “It's happening now.”
“Yeah.” I blew out a deep breath. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“Is something wrong?” His voice was completely empty of emotion. His lips formed a line that would have been a smile were it not for the polite emptiness of the rest of him.
“I'm gonna screw this up,” I blurted before I could stop myself, “I've been on dates before, don't get me wrong, but this is...dude, this is something else.”
“Did you just call me...dude?”
“See!” I cried out, tossing my hands into the air, “I am not a cool and proper princess who knows how to handle herself on fancy dates. Heck, my date to prom took me to Taco Bell. I don't know what to call you or what to talk about or...I don't even know where we are going. The only place in France I know about is Paris.”
His lips stayed fixed in that empty smile, and I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. He remained quiet for a full minute, looking at me as if waiting for me to do something. His eyes were blue. I hadn't noticed before. The rest of him was so damn pretty that sometimes it was hard to notice the eyes. They were the softest shade of blue with tiny flecks of gray and silver in them. They were different from that time he had almost ensnared me with his vampire magic.
“I intimidate you,” he said after a moment.
I blew out another breath. “A little.”
“We aren't going to Paris,” he told me, “Is that disappointing?”
“No, not at all,” I promised. I meant it. The idea of going to that really big city with all of those tourists just didn't interest me at all. I wouldn't call myself an introvert or anything, but large groups weren't my thing. Large groups while I wore a fancy dress and was out on a first date with the hottest dude ever, trying desperately not to spill anything on myself, was a whole category of “please don
’t.”
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“A little town just outside of Marseille called Alluch.”
I struggled with the names. I really should have taken French in high school. “Okay, why there?”
He hesitated for second and then said, “It is where I was born.”
Shock rendered me speechless. Why was he taking me there? It seemed very...intimate. I closed my mouth and then opened it several times until I felt like a fish.
He laughed. It was a loud and rolling sound, so unfettered that I saw the fullness of his fangs. He laughed for a full minute before he finally began to ease. “Do not look so stricken, ma Cher, I will not be introducing you to my mother and father. I assure you that they have been gone for quite some time.”
Well, duh. I didn't say it, but I was sure I thought it loud enough that he could see it on my face. His grin remained large enough that his fangs were sharp points at the corners of his lips.
“Were they the lords of the province?” I asked, trying to do anything but sit there and stare at him dumbly.
He shook his head and straightened his jacket in a gesture I might have called nervous with anyone else. I couldn't imagine Alan feeling anything as mundane as nervous. “Non. My father was a fisherman, and my mother was a laundress.”
I blinked. Apparently, my moments of being shocked were just beginning tonight. We were both quiet as the plane began the final take-off procedures. We didn't speak again until the jet, whose engines sounded like a billion tigers roaring, settled above the clouds. Alan was back to looking like a mildly bored cat.
“I didn't...” I fumbled, “Dude...I do not know how to talk to you.”
He reached across the space between us. His pale marble-like fingers slid across my warm ones. He turned my hand over until my palm was upright, and pressed his palm flatly to mine. “You talk well enough with Dmitri.”
I flushed deeply. “He's easy to talk to.”
Alan nodded, his gaze not meeting mine. “He is. And beautiful, too. The sweet-faced artist with the intoxication of a creative temper. It is a heady comingling of personality. He is, I think, everyone's favorite. Including my own.”
I tilted my head. There was something about the way that Alan spoke about Dmitri. It wasn't the typical kind of bro talk I was used to one guy using for his best buddy. It was...gentler than that. A thought hit me, but I couldn't bring myself to ask, at least not yet.
Instead I said, “We have a lot in common.”
His fingers slid back and forth across my palm, tracing the natural lines there. “Ah yes, books have long bridged the gaps between people. I have always thought that bibliophiles shared their own language, a secret language of a people who partook of the same daydreams, who lived the lives of the same characters.”
It was poetically accurate. “It does help. Do you read?”
He shook his head, his lips tilted in sadness. “When I was alive, really alive, books were a thing that only the wealthy might have. And my first few years as one of the creatures of the night were...difficult.”
“Why?” I asked.
His fingers laced with mine. They were growing warmer, or maybe I was just growing used to their cool temperature. “The Change is very painful and...jarring...for some of us more than others.”
“I'm sorry.”
He shook his head, and started to pull his hand away, but I put my other one on top of it. He went very, very still. It wasn't the kind of stillness that a human being had, where they breathed or blinked or other micro-movements that we didn't really pay attention to. It was the kind of still that a doll could have or a dead body. I was reminded, quite suddenly, that he wasn't human. I was also reminded that he had been around, if not alive, for more years than I would ever see.
“Will you tell me what it's like? Becoming a vampire?”
He gave me a grin that lacked any amusement. I had never seen so many kinds of smiles on a single face. “Are you thinking about becoming one of the undead?”
I shrugged. It was close enough to the truth that I shifted in my seat. “I dunno. I mean, according to the Prophecy, I'm supposed to have the child of one of you three. And I'm sorry, but I'm just not going to have a kid with a guy I don't totally love. So...like...here I am with all these mixed feelings about being some girl of prophecy, but I know for sure that if I fall in love with one of you that means you guys are going to live forever while I grow old and die.
And like, what about this prophecy kid? What if they don't wanna bring magic back into the world? What if they are so magical that they grow super quick? Or what if they don't grow at all? Like...what am I supposed to do?”
He curled his fingers around my hand. “You ramble when you are nervous.”
“You should see me try to talk in front of a group.”
“Is it that bad?”
“Hindenburg bad.”
His grip tightened ever so slightly. I think he was trying to be comforting. “In order to be turned, a single vampire must drain a living person to the point of death three times. And then, when the third moment comes, and the heart beat is so slow that it is nearly nothing at all, the near-dead must drink over the course of three nights from the vein of Vlad himself.”
I blinked. “So, you guys couldn't make me a vampire?”
He shook his head. “Not that I am aware of. Only Vlad and his brides have that ability.”
I frowned. “Wait...how many vampires are there in the world?”
He thought about that. “There is Vlad himself and his three brides; Anja, Genevieve, and Yasmina. Each of the brides has a daughter. I believe their names are Aelwynn, Rehema, and Kateri. There is myself, Wei, and Dmitri. There are some mixed feelings about Zane and whether or not he lives.”
He stopped. I waited for him to go on, but he didn't. “Wait, there are only eleven vampires in the whole world?”
“You have been told that magic wanes, have you not?”
I had, but I didn't understand what that had to do with such a low vampire population. “I thought vampires fed on blood, not magic.”
“We survive on blood, the way you survive on food. But the lines of magic are more like...air. Right now, the air is very thin, thin enough that it cannot support others.”
“What about other creatures? Werewolves and such?”
“There is only one clan of shape-shifters. Some of them are wolves. But there are also bears, swans, tigers, and panthers. I think they number in the fifties. They share a trailer park near the Canadian border, I think, though they also have a place in South Africa.”
I was fascinated. “And witches?”
He smirked at me, and it was right around then that I realized that Alan used smiles the same way that other people used blank-face. It was his go-to expression when he wanted to hide what he was thinking; a mask of amused politeness. I wondered how I was going to learn more about him if he kept hiding behind the smirk, but I'd save that for later. It didn't feel like first date conversation.
“More of those, but not many. There are several families of witches, such as the Quinns and the Greens. But any person may become a witch should they learn how to tap into the Weave.”
“Are all witches female?” I realized I hadn't seen a boy-witch, or even heard of one.
“Witch is a term without gender, though there was a time in which any wise woman might be labeled a witch, which is where we get the prejudice, I believe.”
I opened my mouth to ask another question, and then snapped it shut. “I'm sorry.”
He raised a single brow up his forehead that was the most honest expression I had seen him make so far tonight. Well, that and the laughing. The laughing had been excellent.
“What exactly are you apologizing for, ma cher?”
“Here we are, supposed to be on our way to the romantic date to end all romantic dates, and I'm over here pestering you with questions, showing off my complete lack of magical education or whatever.”
“Firstly, let me just say that I believe that you and I might define 'pester' differently. I was under the assumption that we are having a conversation. As for the lack of magical education, as you so quaintly dubbed it, the fault cannot be pinned upon you. As far as I can tell, Lorena, you have a zest for understanding, one that I am...enthusiastic of.”
He said enthusiastic the way other guys said horny. A new tingle surged up inside all the places I was too embarrassed to name. I looked down at our hands. I had almost forgotten that they were still linked together. “I asked 'why' a lot as a kid. I annoyed my father with it.”
House Of Vampires (The Lorena Quinn Trilogy Book 1) Page 9