Dinner With a Vampire (11 page)

‘I refuse to speak directly with anyone other than your ambassadors or the King,’ Lee eventually replied, coolly.

‘Well, you are out of luck then, Lee. I’m heir and any business of my father’s is mine too. If you have a problem with that, take it up with my father’s advisors. Oh, wait, that’s me.’

I imagined the cogs turning in his head. Sky’s wife, Arabella, took both their children, the eldest only two, into her arms and out of the room, muttering something about disliking the politics. She had made her stance on Violet quite clear – she disapproved of the whole thing; so much so, she had initially refused to visit with Sky from Romania.

‘Then you will do,’ he mocked.
He sounds like the girl.
‘You know of John Pierre, I presume?’

John Pierre? Yes, I know him all right
.

‘Of course.’

‘And I will assume you are aware that it was his son you killed in Trafalgar Square?’

‘Clearly.’

‘Then I am sure it will not come as a surprise to you to hear that he is not particularly pleased.’

No shit, Sherlock
. ‘No surprise whatsoever.’

‘Men fuelled by revenge are the most dangerous. Watch out, Varn,’ Lee snarled.

The whole room stared at me, my father’s gaze the most prominent, listening, waiting for my reaction. ‘That’s not much of a threat, Lee. You are aware that our Kingdom could halve the population of this country in a day, aren’t you?

Tick, tick went the human mind. ‘You might be a leech, Varn, but somehow I don’t think you’re cut out for genocide.’

‘Perhaps not, but I would happily make a start with your daughter.’

The words had hardly left my mouth when Sky held his hand out for the phone, obviously deciding I had done enough damage. I gave it to him gladly and he continued the conversation, Father diverting his attention to him. Jag sauntered up and nudged me below the ribs.

‘Look at you, little brother, talking politics. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you have had a personality overhaul.’ Then he lowered his voice and turned so he was no longer facing Mary, his girlfriend. ‘Nice catch for a human.’ He winked at me and left to shower Mary with compliments.
So he hasn’t changed in the time he has been away then.

I slipped from the room, tired of the talk. Girly sat curled on the bottom step, her head buried in her arms. I couldn’t hear sobbing, although as she raised her head her eyes were still red and blotched, but gleaming with a hope that changed to an accusing stare once she realized there was no phone in my hand. She scrabbled up and backed into the banister as I passed, her stare following me as I thought I heard her mutter that I was a jerk.

Hours merged into days, every day as insignificant as the next, time passing in a blur, nothing standing out.

I spent almost all of my time cooped up in my room, amusing myself as best I could. It had been a week exactly since that short phone call, and it still troubled my thoughts. I had hoped that I would be able to call my family again, but had given up on that. Nobody talked to me, apart from the occasional, brief exchange.

It would be my birthday in thirteen days. I would turn eighteen a hostage. My fingers tightened into a ball as I felt a familiar lurch in my stomach and my throat closed up.

A brisk knock at the door interrupted my thoughts and I quickly wiped my eyes, just in case they looked teary. Without waiting for a reply, the person entered as I was standing up. To my surprise, it was not Fabian, who seemed to be the only one interested in me, but Sky.

He cleared his throat, filling the room with a definite awkwardness. I shifted from one foot to the other. ‘You’re wanted downstairs. Now.’

‘Why?’

As he left, his gaze glided up and down my body, taking in my attire – a scruffy pair of Lyla’s old pyjamas. ‘You have two minutes.’

His deliberate avoiding of the question unnerved me, but I was already in the wardrobe when I heard the bedroom door close. I grabbed something a little less inappropriate and changed.

I left the room, wondering what the great urgency was. I had never been requested to be ‘seen’ in the fifteen days I had been here and Sky had never spoken directly to me.

The eldest Varn child was much older than the other five: a thousand, Fabian said, but he was not the heir to the throne. No,
Kaspar
was heir. Sky was married to Arabella, a few years his junior and they had two daughters. They lived in Romania mostly, as did Jag and Mary; I suspected it was my arrival that had prompted their visit.

The entrance hall was a frenzy of activity when I reached the top of the staircase. It seemed as though most of the household had gathered, all wearing long black cloaks, even tiny Thyme. Servants rushed about, passing various objects around, before hastily bowing and darting off to their next task. I spotted Annie, who gave me the smallest of smiles.

‘It’s like trying to get an army on the move,’ Fabian said, coming up to greet me, grimacing at the bickering of the Varn siblings below. Unlike the others, he wore normal clothes.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, leaning over the banister.

He grimaced again. ‘It’s a hunt.’ My lips pursed and I swallowed back a gag, realizing why Sky had avoided my question a moment ago.

‘A hunt for what?’ He shot me a look that said, ‘As if you don’t know.’ I closed my eyes. ‘But what do I have to do with that?’

‘They’re going for the weekend, so I’m staying to keep an eye on you.’

Below, Kaspar and Cain snapped at each other, unbothered by what they were about to do. ‘I don’t need babysitting. What the hell would I do? It’s not as though I could go anywhere.’

He shrugged, heading down the stairs. ‘You tell me. But it could be worse. Kaspar could be staying.’ He gave me a knowing look.

That is true.
I would be an idiot to trust Fabian, but he was a lesser of two evils when compared to Kaspar.

The King strode forward and, as he did so, the butler rushed forward, swinging both of the enormous doors open. He disappeared down them and one by one, the others filtered after him. Kaspar, however, hung back, waiting for Fabian at the base of the stairs. We both descended.

‘Don’t let her out of your sight.’ He jerked his thumb towards me and I dropped my gaze to the floor.

‘I am perfectly capable of looking after a human, Kaspar,’ Fabian replied testily.

‘Perhaps.’ He went to leave but I dived forward and grabbed his wrist in a sudden burst of energy as my heart leapt. The floor squealed beneath his boots as he swung back around; his cloak slung away from the loose linen shirt he wore underneath, revealing a coat of arms emblazoned on the breast: a black rose, dripping a drop of blood into a large ‘V’ below.

‘Please, don’t kill anyone,’ I whispered.

I thought I saw his eyes soften for a moment. But he tore his wrist from my grip like I was no more than a child, which I realized I must be to him.
A child.
He walked down the steps after the others, who were already halfway across the grounds, stopping once he reached the lawns, turning back towards me as I stood watching from the open doorway, inhaling the first fresh air in weeks.

His eyes rose from the floor to meet mine. He held that gaze for a moment, before he pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, casting all into shadow, save for his glistening emerald eyes. His dark figure lingered for a little longer, until he swept around into the sunset that had bathed the world in pale gold. As he reached the other cloaked figures, they all sped up, becoming a dark blur on the landscape, running into the falling sun and on the hunt as they had been the first time I had set eyes upon their kind.

The moon soon replaced the sun and stars dotted the clear night sky, untainted by the orange glow of the built-up areas. Somewhere, a clock chimed, telling me it was getting on towards midnight.

‘There’s far more to this world than humans think, isn’t there?’ I asked, turning to face Fabian from my window seat.

His face was framed by the dancing fire, which roared in the hearth. It was eerie, watching the orange flames light up his pale skin, lapping at it as though it longed to burn his unnatural presence away.

‘Far more. This is just one royal family of many,’ he continued. ‘But you don’t want to know more. Ignorance is a blessing. Treasure it.’

I nodded.
He’s right
.

Unfolding my legs, I slipped off the seat and moved myself to one of the armchairs. He looked up in anticipation, by now used to my quizzing.

‘What happened to the Queen?’

I instantly regretted asking, because whatever it was, it had stirred some deep, forgotten emotion in him. He sank back into the chair and his blue eyes flashed to black, and then to grey, where they remained. They were pitiful, lost of all the life they usually contained. If colour could drain from his face, it would.

‘I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,’ I stammered. His eyes glazed over and he didn’t move. ‘Fabian?’

His head snapped up and the greyness in his eyes seemed to melt away, returning to their usual sky blue. His stiff body loosened and he ran a hand down the back of his head.

‘I’m sorry, but when you know someone that long … you …’ he trailed off. ‘I will tell you on the condition that you never speak a word of it to anyone but me.’

I didn’t hesitate. ‘I won’t say a thing.’

‘I will start from the very beginning. It’s a long story.’

I shifted a little, trying to make myself as comfortable as possible, never taking my eyes off his saddened face.

‘Vampires have been around for millions of years. We lived alongside nature without any conflict and drank the blood of any animal we could lay hands on. If the theory of evolution is indeed correct, then when humans appeared, the vampires first met their match. But we treated them like we did any other – we continued to hunt them and quickly developed a taste for their blood.’

‘How can you know this if it was so long ago?’ I asked.

‘I’ve already told you, the oldest vampire is, well,
old
,’ he answered. ‘As I was saying, the early humans eventually learned to fight back, and the vampires realized their mistake. The most powerful vampire family, the Varns, ordered all vampires to go into hiding. They were to try not to kill humans when they fed, and to hunt at night wherever possible. It was a drastic attempt to prevent the destruction of both species.’

I nodded. ‘But I don’t get what this has to do with the Queen?’

‘It will all make sense in a moment. Humanity was growing, and fast. Forced by the humans’ relentless fighting, the Varns and a few hundred others fled to Romania. They took advantage of the unsuspecting people of Eastern Europe, unaware of the threat living in their lands. Around the same time, it was discovered that humans could be turned and the Varns’ ancestors ordered a mass turning. Thousands became vampires in just one night. Stronger, more confident, they branched out.’

He paused for a breathy sigh, which I realized he hadn’t been taking.

‘But the old rules still stood and, unseen, the vampires were gradually forgotten, and stories told by fathers to sons turned into myths and legends. But there were always those who never forgot. These are the humans that became the hunters and the slayers, and they vowed to protect humanity. They succeeded somewhat, by driving the Varns from Transylvania about three hundred years ago.’

‘King Vladimir, the current king, has ruled for millennia now. But when he was just a Prince, he met a vampire who lived in what is now Spain. She was called Carmen Eztli. Over time, they fell in love and married a century later. The match was perfect and together they ruled for almost ten thousand years and had six children.’

He rested his chin in his hands. ‘She was the perfect antidote to the King’s pessimism and temper and, in turn, he tamed her sharp tongue. You don’t find love like that every day.’

I couldn’t help but notice that he kept using ‘was’, but it seemed as though he was about to explain that.

‘Just over three years ago, a new human government came to power. Outwardly, they seemed more sympathetic to our cause, so the Queen, seeing an opportunity, quickly sought the passing of a new treaty to update what had already been signed. The government agreed on the condition that their slayer allies, the Pierre clan, would also sign it.’

He didn’t seem to notice me slipping onto the coffee table as I tried to catch his hushed words, which were becoming quieter and quieter.

‘The Queen went on a state visit to Romania to open up discussions. She went to the Pierre’s ancestral home in Romania, and before she could even … they had leapt on her …’ He was choking up, sobs escaping his lips but no tears falling. ‘They leapt on her, and pushed a stake through her heart!’

My hands flew to my mouth and I took in a sharp breath. ‘She was murdered?’ I didn’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t
that
. I felt something wet drop into my lap and, astonished, found tears falling from my own eyes. I glided to his side and hovered beside the arm of the chair, hardly knowing what I was doing.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered. ‘I shouldn’t have brought it up.’ He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his head against my stomach. I tensed at the sudden contact but he didn’t seem to notice how uncomfortable he was making me.

‘It’s okay,’ he murmured back, ‘You couldn’t have known. It was two-and-a-half years ago now but for us that feels like yesterday. It ruined us. She was so loved. Thousands went to her funeral.’ His sentences were disjointed and clipped, his pain at recounting what had happened clear. ‘It was the worst day of my life. So many people cried and, Violet, vampires don’t give up their tears easily. But they did. It was awful. I’m used to people dying, but this … this was different. It was like I had lost a part of me, like half my heart had died.’

I nodded, knowing the exact feeling.

‘Afterwards, everything changed. Nobody was ever the same. The King moved out of the main bedroom and Kaspar had it instead. He died along with his wife.’