by J. J. McAvoy
“Where is she? Isn’t she your mate?” I asked, frowning.
Taelon, composing himself, forced a polite smile, if only he knew how much I hated those. “It is not appropriate for her to be with us at this time. She will meet us in Montréal.”
“What do you mean not appropriate?” I questioned.
“Druella,” Theseus said softly. “She is a Lesser blood.”
Taelon drank.
“So?” I pushed him. “She can’t sit with us, either, and she has to find her own way because she is a Lesser blood?”
“Exactly,” Taelon said with a dark, bitter laugh. “Sort of juvenile, isn’t it?”
“It is a law of your land, is it not?” Theseus asked him.
Taelon’s jaw tensed. “Is it any better in Ankeiros?”
“There are no laws forbidding the mating between Lesser and Noble bloods in Ankeiros,” Theseus replied.
“Ah, but there is no law here. It is the treatment and consideration of them that is the issue,” Taelon challenged back.
“Wait,” I snapped at them both again and pointed to Theseus. “I have only known you for about five minutes,” I pointed to Taelon; “and you for a half a second. The one person I do know is Mrs.—is Lucy. She’s my friend, and I don’t care about whatever laws you may or may not have; I want her here.”
But of course, the moment I said it, the pilot took the plane into the sky.
“It seems like it will have to be another trip. You can visit her at our home near the city. She’ll be there,” Taelon muttered, looking out at the sky as the snowy rain came down.
I could see the concern, guilt, and pain in his eyes as he glanced down at the window. It tugged at my own cold heart.
How did I fail to notice she wasn’t here? I was just talking about her.
Loyalty. Just this morning we were talking about it. And here I was drinking out of a crystal glass without her. Watching Taelon looking out for her as if he could see her through the wet clouds brought to mind all of those times I’d seen Lucy watching those romantic dramas.
“Who wants a complicated love story?” She had asked me that, but now I realized, she was saying, she had one, and I should be thankful I didn’t in her view. Here I was easily able to sit and talk to Theseus. Yet someone she’d known for years was forced to go without her because of some stupid rules and prejudices. Human history was full of those stupid rules and prejudices, and they often affected people that looked like me the most. I should have noticed.
Closing, I inhaled anger at myself. I should have said something earlier.
“May I offer any either you anything to eat?”
At his voice and question, my eyes snapped open, and I whipped my head to him. Taelon was nodding toward the stewardess to come forward again. I glanced down at my hand, and the glass I held was gone. I checked out the window, and we were still on the ground again.
“Druella? Are you all right?” Theseus questioned, noticing my panic and that I hadn’t answered Taelon’s question.
“Yes,” I said, slowly sinking back into the chair as the woman held out the cup of blood. “I mean, yes to the blood, but no, I’m not alright,”
I bent over the chair to look down at the cockpit. “Mr. Pilot, please don’t take off yet. We’re waiting for one more person.”
“We are?” Taelon question confused as the plane came to a stop on the runway for takeoff.
I nodded. “Lucy.”
“Druella,” Theseus began, but I shook my head.
“I asked if you would still mate me if I were a Lesser blood, and you said yes. Would you allow me to be treated like we’re treating Lucy?”
“As his mate, Druella, even if you were a Lesser blood, you would be a Thorbørn, and no one dare disrespect you,” Taelon said with deadly seriousness, and I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I could feel a bit of jealousy in his voice. “This is not the same.”
“I will say it again. Lucy is my friend,” I snapped at him, unsure why he was protesting and turned to Theseus. “Friend of the woman you want to mate. She took care of the woman you want to mate, helped me…and on occasion gave me a good discount. If you’re rude to her, you’re rude to me.”
He reminded me carefully. “This friend of yourself has been keeping secrets from you.”
“Who here is not keeping a secret from someone else?” I questioned, and no one answered, not even the stewards pretending not to notice. I saw they were listening, and they didn’t seem impressed. “I’m sure you have secrets. Should I judge you on keeping them?”
“Very well, if it is what you wish, I have no objections,” Theseus said and looked over to Taelon, who still hesitated.
“She is young, Taelon; she does not know—” He stopped himself. “Lucy is a friend of my mate; therefore, she is a friend to the Thorbørns. I will handle whatever consequence may come,” Theseus assured him.
Taelon finally relaxed and stood up, placing his glass on the table before rising. “Thank you, Theseus… you as well, Druella.”
Theseus nodded to him as he walked to the plane door. I felt Theseus’s eyes on me, and instead of annoyed like the stewards, he seemed amused.
“Am I breaking like every vampire custom right now?” I asked gently.
“Not all of them.” He chuckled and drank.
Holding my glass, I drank, too. The taste of the human blood soothed the dull ache I had all but gotten used to in the back of my throat. Before I realized it, I was lifting the cup all the way up and drinking every drop.
“Better than your deer and forest rats?” Theseus teased.
“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”
“Me,” he mused. “Never.”
I bit back my laugh at the expression on his face and looked at the door as I smelled her walking. Taelon glanced down at Lucy, and she looked up briefly before keeping her head bowed. When he moved to let her walk in first, she honestly looked like she didn’t know what to do. For the first time ever, she looked awkward and uncomfortable.
“So, I’m guessing I’m not going to get my dry cleaning back?” I asked her, waving her to sit in the chair Taelon was sitting in across the aisle from me.
“Our business is never late on an order,” she said, taking a seat.
“Our?” I asked, looking over to Taelon, and before my eyes, he shifted into this old man—short white hair, a chin beard, and wrinkles all over his white face—the same old man I remembered ironing clothes in the back. “Mr. Ming?”
He laughed, nodding and changing back into his youthful self. “I’ve wanted to let you know for so long that the secret to the stains is just baking soda, vinegar, salt, and steam.”
By the look on Lucy’s face, I was sure she was using all of her energy and composure not to throw the glass of blood in his face. But she said nothing.
“It’s his gift. It allows him to shift into older and younger versions of himself. He can do this to others as well.” Theseus sounded as if he was telling me, but I thought he was asking.
I looked at Lucy. “So, he made you look like an—”
“An elderly woman, yes. It makes more sense for the business, and the elderly are less threatening to humans,” Lucy said gently. Her eyes drifted to the glass in front of her, and I noticed her hand ball into a fist. She was trying to hide her nails.
Taelon took the blood, finishing it off, quickly. I had seen her drink before, but then again, it was only as the older version of her. Maybe it hid how she looked as a Lesser blood.
“Druella, did my old friend get to tell you how we met?” Taelon asked me, clearing changing the subject.
“Friends?” Theseus eyebrow raised.
Taelon grinned. “Aren’t we? Can’t you remember what you told me all those decades ago?”
“Actually, Theseus explained in the car, although he said you
weren’t friends, but rather you just bothered him long enough.” I sat up, and Theseus’s eyes shifted on me. This was my chance to discretely tell him I’d used this gift of mine again. “He told me he came here a hundred years ago, pretending to search for someone who’d offended his family. It took you fifty years of annoying him before he finally told you the truth.”
“Annoying?” Taelon scoffed in fake hurt, looking to Theseus. “I truly hope her politeness will rub off on you.”
“In return, I shall make sure my temper rubs off on her,” he said, his eyes not leaving mine.
“She has enough of one on her own,” Lucy muttered, drawing Theseus’s cold eyes to her. “Lord Thorbørn.”
“You can call him Theseus,” I said to her and offered him a glare, challenging him to say otherwise. “At least when we are all together like this. For my sake. This lord stuff is weird to me. What do they call you? The fifth?”
“Exactly or Mr. Swan when I am the only one of my family present.” He relaxed back in the chair as the plane took off. “My job is not as important as my siblings to be called Sir and Madam.”
“What is your job? Outside of getting stains out of my shirt,” I joked.
“Recordkeeper of the land,” he answered, and when he realized I didn’t understand, he went on. “How many new vampires were created in our lands, new families, gifts of those families, how many covens there are, how many circles within those covens, and such.”
“You gather all of that information?”
“Now you understand one of the reasons I like the comfort and simplicity of a dry-cleaning business,” he joked before looking to Theseus. “Though I cannot be ungrateful. It was thanks to my work I was able to meet her. She was young too—”
“I was not as young as her,” Lucy interjected quickly. “And you don’t have to tell her our whole story.”
Taelon pouted, and for him who looked almost as rugged and strong as Theseus…almost; it was amusing. He quickly let her be and glanced over to Theseus. “Now that she is leaving, may I ask who it is that changed her, for our records? Of course, you do not have to tell us, but it has been one of my biggest mysteries this year.”
“You are asking me this because?”
Taelon eyebrows dipped in confusion. “Because I assumed you were the one who had someone change her? Just as you left, she was turned, with no connections to anyone. I wondered, but now that you are back and here with her, claiming her as your mate and not your daughter, I need to ask. Did you have her changed?”
I looked at him, and he stared back at me with tension on his forehead as he tried to remember. But he looked back at Taelon. “When I returned, she had already been reborn. Why would I leave her alone for so long had I orchestrated her rebirth?”
Taelon sighed deeply. “Your family’s always been so untrusting of others, so I thought you had wanted to keep her a secret from us.”
“I told you that you were reading too much into her,” Lucy whispered.
“So, you’ve been watching me, too?” I cut in.
He shook his head and nodded over to Theseus with an exasperated expression. “Your mate here, went through the extra work of hiding his locations. He rarely stayed in any one place for long. He carried on as if he were still searching until last year when he left, then there was your rebirth. I was almost certain that you two were linked…I was correct. But now I was stuck once again. Who could have changed her? I spoke to every Noble family in these lands, and none have a new child or grandchild. And to even suggest that a Lesser blood…” He drifted off, looking to Lucy, and she gave a tight smile back.
“What he means is it would take a very strong and rare Lesser blood to not kill a mortal, witch, or human while drinking from them, and even rarer for them to make a child that has great blood. When I found you, barely any blood had spilled. So, it could not have been my own kind.” That had been the most she had said since she’d gotten on the plane.
“In a year, you’ve found nothing?” Theseus pressed, and Taelon frowned, shaking his head.
“I am still working on solving this mystery. The fact that your maker created and abandoned you, let alone in Omeron territory, is a crime,” Taelon said harshly.
“This Omeron coven is powerful,” Theseus made a statement, but I felt like he was questioning it.
“The most any of us have seen in ages.” Taelon frowned. “I am sure they are sending out hunting parties to kill our kind.”
“Wait,” That didn’t make sense. “Didn’t you say you had a treaty?”
“They are killing Lesser bloods,” Lucy whispered, looking out the window.
“Lesser bloods aren’t protected in your treaty?” I demanded angrily of Taelon.
He shook his head. “They are, all vampires are. It’s just...”
“No one cares if it is them,” Theseus finished for him. “Noble bloods have big families, which is why they left Druella, and Lucy is connected to you. However, all the others are most likely alone or wander in small groups. They are not often invited into society, so no one would even know if they existed or not.”
“Exactly.” Taelon hung his head in shame. “They hunt in circles, roaming throughout the forest to kill them.”
Theseus met my eyes, and I remembered the witches we had encountered the night we’d met. If they hadn’t come across Theseus, they would have found someone like Lucy to kill. “But it’s your land, isn’t it? They are our kind; we should defend them—”
“You wish to convince my father to go to war with one of the most power covens we have ever come across to defend Lesser bloods?” Taelon snickered. “I wish you luck, young one. He would even hesitate if they killed one of his children.”
“They are so strong, yet,” Theseus interjected “there is something wrong with that head circle witch, Simone. She smells of nothing; thus, her powers should be bound, and yet, she still uses magic.”
“You call that using magic?” Lucy asked, and I was happy she was speaking up, much bolder and herself. “Simone Ward was one of the most powerful witches of the coven. And yet, today all she could really do was get her fingers to spark. Had it not been for the others she’d brought with her, you could have snapped her neck with little effort.”
He did. I remembered the now-altered version of events that took place.
“What happened to her?” I questioned.
“Another mystery,” Taelon grumbled and glanced over to Theseus. “All of a sudden, the Omeron witches were attacked last year. Some of their most powerful witches were bound and their oldest spell books burned. Their coven head, Axel Omeron, is now paranoid of every vampire. The kills were bad before, but it was only around their territory. They are traveling across the country now.”
“That’s another reason they left you, Dru; you were reborn at that time,” Lucy informed me. “They were watching to see if maybe your maker was the one that did this to them, maybe it had been their gift.”
“Besides you have a close relationship to the Simone Ward, do you not?” Taelon asked, and though I came to ask them questions, it now seemed like I was under a light.
“We were never close. More like rivals. We were both interested in the same things, and for some reason, we always butted heads and competed with each other. I never realized she was a witch though,” I muttered, playing with the rim of my glass.
“Hmm,” Both Taelon and Lucy said. They glanced at each other with a small smile on their lips.
I looked at Theseus, and he was still fixated on me. I wanted to know what was on his mind, what he was thinking. But we couldn’t talk here. He reached out, laying his hand on the glossy wooden table for me, and I took it.
“Who would have guessed the Prince of Night was such a romantic?” Taelon said in an unnecessarily loud and boisterous voice.
“No more than you.” Theseus kissed the back of my hand
, which I was getting used to at this point.
Déjà vu. It seemed like no matter how the conversation went, some things just had to be said. As if I had to know, Theseus was a romantic, too.
Chapter 12
“You look like a small child.” Theseus smiled, and so did I.
“I can’t help it; I’ve never traveled out of the states before, and the first place I come is here.” I grinned, staring out the window.
Montréal was magical. I could feel it. The lights of the city, the giant Ferris wheel, it was all captivating. It was set on an island in the river, with a triple-peaked hill at the heart of the city. The trees were every color of fall; orange, burnt red, and specks of green. But it was slowly being covered by the snowfall.
“The three hills are called Mount Royal. The hill is part of the Monteregian Hills situated between the Laurentians and the Appalachian Mountains. The humans have their own history for it, but it was named for the first royals that lived on this land,” Theseus explained, looking over the view as well.
“The first royals?” I couldn’t even imagine anyone in America or Canada being part of a royal family. “Montréal is part of Quebec, so the French had it. Those royals?”
“No, the true royals of the land,” Taelon said from behind me. “The Pahana of Kahnawá:ke tribe were the first royals here. You and your father were friends with one of the early kings.”
“King Desagondensta,” Theseus answered and frowned, looking to me. “It was long before the outsiders came to these lands.”
I wanted him to tell me what would count as an outsider, but I left it alone. “What happened?”
“The same thing that happened among the humans,” Theseus said, looking out the window. “Mount Royal was the first place in which I had seen humans, witches, and vampires working together. They lived together in harmony. The witches and humans would offer blood, and the vampires would hunt for them in the winter months. They even married amongst themselves. It was odd yet fascinating to live among them, in a culture, and in a kingdom with no secrets, no fear of one another, all of them thriving in union. Then the witches of other cultures and lands came over to their new world to escape their own persecution only to persecute others. Those that were brought over also added to the growing divide.”