That damn prophecy again.
It’d been said for centuries as seer after seer predicted the end of days—me being the star of the entire fiasco. It was said that I’d ruin us all, and likely by them seeing the press conference yesterday promising that vampires would no longer be treated as lesser beings, that now had them all freaked out.
Caius was my friend. He had been for a very long time.
But he was also in the council, and I was not.
He was a member of the council not because he was older, smarter, or more respected, but because I just didn’t want to deal with their shit. I wanted to be my own man. I didn’t want to be dictated by their laws. I wanted to live my own life, with my own people, and be left the hell alone.
Caius understood that. The others did not.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before they tried to step in, but I wouldn’t let them. Fox. Pavlov. Abraham. Render.
Anybody that was in my inner circle would help me defend my territory, and I wouldn’t stop or hesitate, even for the fucking council.
I was done playing fetch. They needed to realize that I was a power in and of my own right.
“I’ll return,” he said, stepping away from me with a clap to the back.
He was almost to the door when I said, “Dad?”
Caius, a man I never called dad unless we were in the privacy of his or my home, stopped and turned. Funny enough, both of us had been turned against our will, by the same man, who hadn’t realized our connection.
“Yes, son?”
Caius was my actual biological father and not my maker. He’d been made by the same douchebag that’d made me, Carrion.
“I think it’s time to stop being their puppet.”
Caius, my father, grinned.
“Why do you think I stay in the council?” he asked. “It’s surely not because I enjoy it. Information from a secondary source can’t be trusted. If you want the best, you have to do it yourself.”
Then he was gone, and I was left grinning.
I heard Acadia tiptoe to the edge of the hall and smirked as she listened for more sound.
When none was forthcoming, she peeked around the edge of the doorframe and blushed the moment her eyes caught mine.
“Have I done something bad?”
I grinned and dropped my head, shaking it with amusement.
My hips were resting against the edge of my desk, and my arms were crossed tightly across my chest as I waited for her to come to me.
“I’ve been on the highway to hell for about five hundred years,” I answered, holding out my hand. “Why get off now?”
She walked to me.
The moment she came into my arms, I breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted her in my arms until she was there, burying her face into my neck like a contented kitten.
The pulsing throb at the back of my head, the wanting need that had assaulted me since I’d left her, was soothed—all just by having her in my arms.
“There’s something going on with my head,” she told me.
I grinned.
“That’s a bond,” I told her. “It’s not usually this strong, though it’s always there when one vampire makes another.”
She shivered.
“I don’t feel any different,” she admitted.
I squeezed her tighter.
“It takes about three months to fully come into your powers. Not to mention your wounds were extensive, and they are still focusing on your healing.”
“My head no longer has a hole in it,” she pointed out.
I let go of her and leaned back, studying where the bullethole had previously been.
“If you hadn’t taken so much of my blood into you before that, you’d be dead right now,” I admitted to her. “I’ve never once been so happy that I’ve had sexual relations with someone in my life.”
She started to giggle.
“Me neither,” she whispered. “But what I was getting at is that I don’t have anything left to heal. Why is it such a long process?”
“But you do.” I ran my fingers along the dark circles that ringed the bottom of her eyes. “You’ve got twenty-something years of damage to heal. Sun damage. Bone damage. Your heart.”
I placed my hand over that heart and grinned when I still felt it beating.
“Not everybody’s heart continues to beat after they are turned,” I told her. “Some do, and some don’t.”
Her eyes widened.
“Why?”
I shrugged. “We’re unsure. Just like we’re unsure why some vampires go clinically insane and have to be executed. We’ve found a way to circumvent that somewhat, but not the actual cause of it.”
“Do you have vampire scientists studying it?” she asked curiously.
I nodded. “We do. But it’s been a lifetime and they still haven’t found anything.”
“What happens to the crazy ones?” she wondered. “Do you give them a chance?”
I shook my head.
“We’ve tried in the past, and they only end up suffering more. They kill indiscriminately, don’t have morals, and literally self-destruct. It’s not a good sight.”
She bit her lip.
“What?” I asked, realizing that she had something on her mind but was reluctant to say it.
“Were you worried about me going crazy?”
I saw no reason to lie. “I was.”
Her eyes closed.
“What would you have done had I been… you know?”
I let her see exactly what I would’ve done.
“You would’ve protected me?” She gasped. “But, Constantine!”
I shrugged unrepentantly.
“I’m in love with you,” I told her bluntly. “You can’t really expect me to do anything differently. I know that you wouldn’t.”
I could read the truth in her eyes, and it caused me to grin widely.
She dropped her head to my chest and closed her eyes, causing me to feel content for the first time in well over twenty-four hours since this entire mess had started.
“I love you, too, you know,” she whispered into the quiet.
I squeezed her tighter.
• • •
“How does that work?” she asked, voice scratchy. “I thought you weren’t dead when you were turned.”
I rolled over in the bed, allowing my eyes to fall closed despite Acadia’s best effort to wake me up and keep me awake.
“You don’t have to be,” I admitted. “But in this case, and Chen’s case, you both had just imbibed on my blood the day of and the day before. Had you not done so, it wouldn’t have been possible.”
Her eyes widened. “So am I different than a regular vampire?”
I nodded.
“I had to will a lot more of my power into you than I would’ve done to any other vampire. You’re more like me, and a lot less like a newly formed baby vamp,” I admitted. “You’ll have more affinity for the sun at first, and by the end of your first year I’m sure you won’t even have a problem standing out on the beach once it’s all said and done.”
“What, exactly, happens to you with the sun?” she asked warily.
I grinned.
“Nothing.”
She blinked.