Every few feet, a gas torch would come to life, brightening the path before another flared with a slight hiss. Kaj continued with one foot in front of the other, breathing in and out in an attempt to clear his head before he saw his daughter.
He ground his back molars together as he recalled the conversation he’d had with the archangel.
“Kaj Courtenay, you are not only the Alpha of your species, you are the father of the female who shall mate the original vampire.”
“Wait. Huh?” Kaj stared at the archangel. “My daughter is to mate the original vampire. Not to sound all Adam-and-Eve oddity or anything, but exactly how does one mate one to whom she is related?”
“There are no direct descendants of the original vampire,” Michael stated, as though that made all the sense in the world.
“No?” Kaj motioned to himself. “Exactly how did I come to be without the original vampire breeding?”
Those strangely colored eyes remained on his face. “The original vampire did not mate, nor did he breed.”
Okay, so clearly they were getting nowhere fast. “You lost me.” He waved a hand. “But it’s all moot anyway. The original vampire is dead.”
“Quite the opposite. He is very much alive, merely … preoccupied at the moment.”
“Meaning…?”
“I’ve kept him hidden for his own protection.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“For seven hundred years?” Kaj got the feeling that didn’t mean he was being locked in a cage somewhere. For one, Khari was far too powerful. He would’ve easily broken free. “Where is he?”
Michael took a deep breath. “Khari is currently in a human vessel.”
Unable to help himself, he laughed. “A human vessel? The original vampire is sporting a human meat suit? Tell me, what poor sap is giving the male a ride?”
“You know him as Oliver Calazans.”
Kaj’s smile fell instantly. He stared at the archangel, slack-jawed and dumbfounded. “What did you say?”
“Do you really need me to repeat?”
That damn archangel had laid a whopper on him, and Kaj had yet to figure out how to share the information without inciting a riot. So many were affected by the outcome of Michael’s fate-weaving exercise—Obsidian, Penelope, Oliver, Bijou, the Fae—and yet the archangel didn’t seem eager to spread the word.
Hell, just the thought of his daughter being mated to the original vampire, of all males, was enough to make Kaj see red. Something instigated by the archangel, no doubt. As for Michael’s reasons, Kaj wasn’t privy to them. Not surprising. The male who led them all around by the nose was selfish when it came to his secrets, parsing out only what he had to in order to get his way.
According to Michael, a ten-thousand-year-old vampire whose soul had been bouncing from one human vessel to the next for God only knew how many centuries was going to be his son-in-law, to use the human terminology. All the effort to shield the vampire had been because Bijou hadn’t been in existence yet. Now she was, which meant Khari could be resurrected, his soul dumped back in his original body. Wherever it was.
But Kaj’s biggest issue was the prearranged mating. He’d mistakenly thought they’d done away with that centuries ago. Unlike angels and humans, vampires didn’t have predestined mates. There were no amsouelots, no destined souls.
No, vampires had their own unique method to mating: mielix zan was the term in the ancient language, which loosely translated to sexually imprinting. And they only did it once, if they were lucky to find their life mate at all. Hence the reason many vampires simply settled down with a mate who made them happy. They were similar to humans in that regard, wanting to couple because the endless days and nights were more bearable that way. As for mielix zan … if and when they were affected, the option for mating anyone else went right out the window, as the humans liked to say.
He got the feeling Michael didn’t understand that.
What if his daughter thought the male unworthy? It wasn’t like Kaj could simply force the mating upon her. He hadn’t raised Bijou. Her mother had done that without a lick of help from him because the female had felt it unnecessary to mention she happened to be having his offspring. Twenty-six years later, Bijou popped up on his doorstep with a hey, surprise! I’m your daughter. Kaj had known the moment he’d looked into her green eyes that she was his, but that didn’t make him a father by any stretch of the imagination. Had they developed a relationship since? Yeah. He’d like to believe they had. It had taken effort on both their parts, but they seemed to be making it work.
Didn’t mean he could resort to the old ways and pass her over as though she was a piece of property. The vampires had shed that tradition with the modern ages, and Kaj was quite fond of the select who you want to spend your time with process. Even without the lifetime connection of mielix zan, he still believed in choices.
As he strolled through the tunnels, Kaj tried to imagine the original vampire being trapped somewhere inside the body of Oliver Calazans.
How the fuck did that even work?
Oliver Calazans strolled through the game room, pausing near the iron railing that overlooked the main floor below.
He did a quick visual sweep of the area, relieved when he saw no signs of Bijou. It meant he could sneak down for a bite since he’d purposely skipped the morning meal. Then again, he’d purposely skipped every communal meal for the past … fifty days. Wow. Nearly two months now that he hadn’t sat with his fellow … with the angels for their twice-daily chow sessions.
Made him feel like a bit of recluse, more in line with the Oliver who had been hog-tied and dragged here than the one who’d come to enjoy the sense of belonging he’d found with a bunch of holy motherfuckers.
However, there was no way around his bob-and-weave exercise. Ever since he’d witnessed Bijou feeding from Madok, that lucky bastard Fae with the magic blood, he hadn’t been able to so much as look at her. It hurt too damn much to think about, so he’d gone back to his old, grumpy ways, hiding out when he wasn’t in the war room using those fancy systems to hack whatever the angels needed access to.
With his path clear for the time being, Oliver hurried down the front staircase to the main floor, strolled down the wide hallway, over the fancy blue rug, past the weird lobby/living room that no one ever mingled in, then on to the kitchen, where he found Emily, the heurosp who’d just magically arrived with about a dozen others in the past month. Oliver had no idea where they came from, but they’d integrated right into the day-to-day, helping out with the many goings-on at both Angel Central and the Lair.
“Hey,” Oliver greeted with a half-ass wave as he made his way to the pantry with the fancy opaque glass and the curly-cue etching that announced what was discreetly hidden behind it.
“Sire,” Emily said softly, ducking her head.
“Oh, no,” he corrected, gripping the knob and twisting. “I’m no sire. Just a plain ol’ boring human.”
Who couldn’t feed a vampire, thus sending that vampire to bite the neck of a male worthy of her.
Oliver shook off the thought.
“Shall I prepare you a meal?” Emily offered, her kindness exactly what he expected from those who worked in the mansion.