“So you always have to be tough?”
“The strong survive.” He sounded so matter of fact about his life.
“Do you have a father or mother? Any siblings?”
“My father, Tassos, is a pretty tough guy. He kicked my tail all over the place until I hit my second century. Then we evened out.” Orion grinned, but the expression didn’t seem a happy one. “I fucked him up.” He blinked at her, and she’d swear he would have blushed if vampires could feel embarrassment. “I mean, we fought and I won. But I didn’t want to be our clan’s lieutenant, so they let me become our clan’s enforcer instead.”
“How big was your clan?”
“We had about fifty vampires in all. Sometimes our master would shift members around to even out clan numbers. It’s not easy to do though, because we don’t like those who aren’t kin.”
“You mean those vampires who are from a different clan aren’t kin, right?”
“Yeah. Kin, family, clan. All the same. Just because a vampire is a vryko doesn’t mean he’s kin. Only our master, the vampire in charge of the entire tribe, has the power to shift vryko loyalty. It’s not fun.” He rubbed his scar again, and she wanted to hug him. “When I came here to pay back our clan’s bloode debt, I tried to kill the others on a daily basis.” He seemed happy about that fact as he scrambled her eggs. “It was fun. Still is, but now we just fight to keep up training, not to kill.” He frowned. “But I know I could have ended Varu if Mormo hadn’t put that spell on us.”
She tried to steer the conversation away from Mormo and anything that might be secretive about the Night Bloode. “Tassos is your father. Are you close?” He set her food on a plate before her, and she dug in, surprised at how good it tasted. “This is awesome.”
He smiled. “Good. Eat, mate. You’ll need your strength.” Her flush caused him to chuckle. “So me and my father. Close? What is close? He never tried to kill me himself.” Orion scowled. “He taught me to be strong, to lead by example. And he’s not a bad guy even if he drinks more than he should. But he’s too black and white, and I like living in the gray. I also don’t like commands. Rules are meant to be broken, you know?”
Did she. “So, ah, your mom? Is she still around?”
“No. You don’t know much about vampires, do you?”
“No.” She took a bite of bacon and gobbled it up in seconds. “Do you want some?”
He took the strip of bacon she handed him and ate it. “Not bad. I do like meat.”
“I’m not surprised.”
He leaned back against the counter and watched her. “Anyway, to answer your question, when vampires mate, it’s permanent. There is no other female for them.”
“Oh.”
“We find a female to bear our young, enjoy the getting of that young” —he smiled and licked his lips— “and care for the female. Once she’s pregnant, a vryko will go through hell to keep her safe.”
“That’s nice.”
He shook his head. “It’s nature’s way of ensuring we survive. Our birth numbers are low, and we need more warriors to stay strong. My kin wasn’t so happy when they realized Hecate meant to enslave me here. I was meant to be returned when this is over, but I have a feeling the Night Bloode will stick.” He made a curious face, one she couldn’t read. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”
His talk of enslavement made her feel so guilty.
“Yeah, so the female gives birth, sticks around for another few months until baby vamp is weaned, then disappears.”
Kaia stared. “As in, the baby’s father kills her?”
“What? No. That’s crazy. We respect the mate, but she has no place in the clan. Vampires are bitchy by nature. We’re cruel and possessive. We don’t like to share.” He frowned. “Didn’t you fuck a bunch of lycans a few days ago?”
“What?” She choked on a piece of egg and had to drink down the water he handed her not to choke. “I’m, ah, no. I’m not experienced like that. Macy mentioned my, um, status earlier.”
His expression cleared. “Oh right. Sorry. My mind isn’t right lately. I keep remembering bits and pieces then forgetting them.”
She had the feeling he never would have admitted to a weakness if in his right frame of mind. “Right. So you never knew your mother?”
“Nope. My father and kin raised me. All vampires come together to protect their fledglings. I did have a few good friends though.” He smiled. “Crazy fuckers. They liked to screw with this kraken we had living close. And the monster was so pissy about it. We screwed with mage scholars on a vacation in Turkey. Then there was that school of possessed mermen who thought they ruled our sea. Fun times.”
“If you say so.” She grimaced. “That’s a lot of fighting.”
“Yes, but that’s what we’ve been bred to do.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you know how vampires came to be as a species?”
“Mostly.” She pushed aside her empty plate, feeling full. “Do we have any coffee?”
He smiled. “We do. Fara and Bella seem to really like the stuff, so I tried making it. It’s okay, but not great. Have you ever had elven farewell tea, which is made from the leaves of a plant that devours fae whole? It’s delicious.”
“Ugh.”
He laughed. “I told you we were bred to fight. Ambrogio is Primus, the very first of our kind. He was a regular human and a warrior who fell in love with Selene, one of Apollo’s priestesses. Except she was actually Apollo’s sister, not just a human. Apollo found out about their love, didn’t approve, and cast Ambrogio away, dooming him to forever drink the blood of others, a monster, killed by sunlight.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Gods are dicks.” He nodded. “But Selene wasn’t having it. She fell with Ambrogio, gave him her blood, and they turned into the first vampires. Apparently, and I just learned this, they had a ton of kids, scattering them over the human world. But those kids were powerful, so the gods got together to curse them. Now we can only coexist peacefully in small groups. And we can only bear one child with one mate. No others.”
“Do you only have boys, since there are only male vampires?”
He frowned. “No. We don’t talk about it much, but female children leave with the mother. They aren’t allowed to live with us. Not that they’d fit in if they did. Female children don’t possess vampiric traits.”
“Isn’t that a biological impossibility?”
“We’re Of the Bloode. Regular rules don’t apply to us.”
“You have a point. So all the girls or women leave. Do your kind have any women around when you’re growing up?”
“No. A few magir accepted by the patriarch are allowed to visit. Some like to see if they’re compatible as breeders. It’s good money.”
She gaped. “Your clan pays for females to have children?”
“So what? Humans do it all the time with surrogacy. It’s legal here.”
“Well, I guess.” Actually, a friend of Diana and her dad had hired a surrogate, so she knew people did pay for babies. But the way he talked about it seemed so mercenary, not to bring new love and life into the world. “Do you ever adopt vampires from other clans?”