“Your dad’s the Reverent Knight, I’m sure you get an earful about it all the time,” Aleksander remarked.
“Your dad’s the Reverent Knight?” Delaney asked. Reverent Knight Drystan Kempe ruled over the Order of the Fallen Knights, the men and women who were responsible for policing the Council.
“Yep, the Council required a fallen knight to move into D’Vaire when it was created. My dad’s the leader, but I don’t fit the mold of my people. Well, half of my people. I’m half necromancer. The Arch Lich is awesome but no matter how you look at it, I’m a freak,” Trystan replied.
“Each of us is. I think it’s the best part of being a D’Vaire,” Aleksander stated.
“I’m a freak too,” Delaney confessed. “I’ve always felt that way.”
“Then it’s a good thing you became a D’Vaire.”
A rush of emotions flowed through Delaney, a mix of joy and anticipation. He just might fit into D’Vaire. They were not going to overlook his differences and decide he was cool despite them. Everyone in this giant house was like him, and they celebrated it. For the first time in sixteen years, he found a glimmer of hope that he could have a family. Something he’d secretly desired but thought too far out of his reach. “Vadimas told me I should fill out your application. I’m so glad I did.”
“We are too, Delaney,” Aleksander said with a wink. “Welcome to the family.” Greggory gave out a little growl which made Aleksander chuckle. “Same goes to you, little dragon.”
Chapter 5
Present Day
Vampyr Lord Grigori Volkov poured a small amount of crimson liquid into a test tube as he grabbed an eye dropper with one gloved hand. He popped the rubber lid off a beaker sitting next to him and drew two precious drops out. Satisfied he had enough, he carefully placed the top back on and mixed the chemicals together. Through his safety goggles, he waited anxiously to see if the solution separated. He’d been working for years on perfecting his synthetic blood to remove any dependency on the real deal and was getting tantalizingly closer with each new formula, but his progress had stonewalled.
A clear layer nearly invisible to the naked eye formed at the top of the mixture and Grigori swore. It was back to the drawing board. With a sigh, he dumped the contents of his blend out. He was yanking off his gloves when there was a knock on the door. At twenty-six, he was still very much at home in the lab his father created for him when he was a kid. It was the middle of the day; the only people that were home were the butler, perhaps his mate who doubled as his brother’s driver, and whatever security guard was scheduled to be on guard in the home of the Vampyress. They can certainly manage whatever crisis might be happening, Grigori thought as he ignored the rap.
He didn’t take failure well, and Grigori was sure he’d come up with an equation that would finally make vampires independent of humans. It pissed him off, and he was in no mood to deal with anyone. Grigori forgot all about the interruption as he turned on the water and soaped up his instruments. Black brows drawn together in a scowl, he let the numbers dance through his head and wondered where the hell he’d gone wrong this time. It was at that moment that a loud sound thundered through the room.
Whipping his head around, he realized it had come once again from the door. Snapping the water off, he marched across the room, ready to lay into whoever was irritating him in the middle of his damn workday. He might set his own hours and be self-employed, but that didn’t mean his time wasn’t valuable. Another booming knock rumbled through the space, so Grigori yelled. “What?”
“Open this door, Grigori,” his mother shouted back.
An adult he may be, but she was still his mom, and he wasn’t about to disrespect her. She might be interrupting him, but he adored her. Stifling his temper, he pulled the offending door open. Vampyress Irina Volkov was standing there in all her glory.
Her raven hair was piled high, and she wore a stunning gold circlet with a teardrop ruby so large, it covered half her forehead. Her dress was the same slick red as the jewel and flowed down to the floor. To her side was his father, dressed in a silk suit with a collarless shirt open at the neck to reveal the gold collar that told the world he was mated. “You guys are very dressed up for the middle of the afternoon,” Grigori said. “You look really nice, though. What’s up?”
Irina turned to Alexei. “Your son wants to know what’s up.”
“What time do you think it is?” Alexei asked.
“Uh…I haven’t checked my phone in a little bit.” Grigori shrugged. “Maybe two?”
“I’ll eat my shoe if you even have your phone with you,” Irina stated as she tapped one foot.
“I probably have it,” he replied, shoving his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. The phone was not anywhere to be found. A notebook, a couple of pencils that needed to be sharpened, and a stick of gum falling out of its wrapper was tucked away in one. The other was empty. Swinging his head over to the long table he did most of his work on, he didn’t see the device there either. He gave his attention back to his parents. “I guess I left it in my room.”
“Now there’s a surprise,” his mother answered dryly.
“At least you don’t have to eat your shoe,” his father teased. “Grigori, you agreed to go to the fundraiser the Emperor’s hosting tonight. It’s very important that we do everything we can to persuade people to donate money to the Order of the Fallen Knights and the Sentinel Brotherhood.”
“I know, they keep us safe. I get it. That’s next week. I put it on the calendar in my phone.”
“Grigori, it is next week,” Irina countered.
“Are you sure?”
She pursed her lips. “What do you think? This isn’t my sitting-in-front-of-the-fire-and-drinking-hot-cocoa outfit.”
“A cup of hot cocoa sounds really good right now, actually.”
“It’s a hundred degrees outside,” Alexei retorted.
“Winter went by so fast.”
“That’s because you never leave this room,” Irina argued.
“Not true,” Grigori replied as he shoved the safety goggles he’d forgotten were still on his head out of the way. “I went to a cocktail party like a month ago.”
“It was two months ago,” Irina corrected. “I don’t have time to argue with you. Please go get dressed. Your brother’s going to meet us there.”
“Could I just—”
“Grigori Alexei Volkov, no you may not ‘just’ do anything. You’ll wind up with your face buried in a notebook for the next three days. Now march yourself down the hall and get dressed.”
“Sorry.”
“I know you’re sorry, you always are. You have a beautiful heart, my love, but you have zero concept of time. Now please, go put on a suit and run a comb through your hair. We’ll have a wonderful evening, then you can come home and do whatever you want,” his mother’s voice had softened, and Grigori was glad he hadn’t fully pissed her off. He hadn’t meant to ruin her evening or force his parents to hunt him down because he was incapable of keeping himself on any kind of a schedule.
Offering her a sheepish smile, he said, “I’ll just go dig out a suit.”
“Don’t worry, Tigglesworth has already laid one out for you.”
“What do we do when he’s not here?” Grigori asked as he slipped out of his lab coat and hung it on the peg next to the door.
“Curse your brother for bringing the most capable butler on the planet into our lives, then deciding to take him and Charlie with him whenever he has to spend a few months in whatever town he feels Umpyr requires his special attention like we always do,” Alexei replied.
“Exactly,” Irina agreed. “Five minutes, Grigori. We’ll meet you downstairs in the car.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After his parents disappeared down the hall, Grigori jogged down to his room and quickly changed from one ensemble to the next. He always felt awful when his parents had to hunt him down, and he did try to remember there was a world outside his lab, bu
t it was difficult. Grigori loved what he did and most of the time couldn’t care less about what else happened to be going on.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family or that he hated the few functions they required him to attend; he just got lost in equations. Rearranging numbers and letters in such a way that they improved people’s lives was an almost euphoric feeling. Ever since Grigori was a teenager, his innovations had been filtered through his brother’s company, so it was not adulation he craved. It was the challenge of discovering something new and knowing it had the ability to profoundly affect the future that fueled him. In turn, he drove the people around him insane with his single-minded focus on his experiments.
Grigori pulled on his suit jacket and spied his phone lying on the nightstand. Picking it up, he shoved it into his pocket with a roll of his eyes. He grabbed a small notebook from his desk and a couple of pencils and stuffed them in there alongside it. Wherever he was, he kept something with him to jot down whatever popped into his head.
Growing up with modern technology, he could have typed into the phone he was always losing, but he preferred a more old-fashioned method. It allowed him to easily scribble it, strike-through, and finagle when the juice was flowing through his mind. Not wanting to get distracted, he forced himself out of the room. He waved at Tigglesworth, who nodded somberly as Grigori sped toward the front door.
If things went well, the night would be over quickly, and he’d be able to get some time in his lab before he had to go to sleep. When his stomach rumbled, he remembered that he probably hadn’t eaten since morning. He would have to binge on hors d’oeuvres while he mingled. A bag or two of blood might not be a bad idea either, he decided since he couldn’t recall exactly when he’d last fed. It was a sad state when the youngest child of the vampire rulers forgot to drink the one thing he needed to sustain life.
One of his parents’ security guards, Sebastian, fell into step beside him as he walked out of the condo he shared with his family. “The Vampyress is waiting,” Sebastian said as he tapped the elevator button.
“I know, I’m always making her wait.”
“You’re a good son, you’re just absentminded.” Sebastian had been employed by his parents for over two thousand years, and he generally held nothing back.
“It’s not like I do it on purpose.”
“We all know that. Are you planning on going out after the Emperor’s event tonight?”
Grigori’s brows drew together. “Where would I go?”
“You’re a young man with needs. It’s been awhile since you went out alone.”
“Oh. Sex. Right. I think I’ll pass.”
“Grigori, you haven’t been out in over a year.”
“It’s really been a year?”
“Over a year. You went after your twenty-fifth birthday party.”
Grigori tried to think back; then the memory slammed into him. He recalled going to a vampire club and finding a hot guy who wanted a quick fuck. The guy was super impressed to be asked to retreat to a private room with the Vampyress’s son. He’d campaigned to perform together in front of everyone, as was allowed in vampire establishments, but there was no way Grigori would ever agree to that.
He didn’t have a lot of experience with sex, and being around strangers made him nervous. At social events, it was easy enough to hide it under a bright smile and try to make small talk but one-on-one was a whole other story. As he always did, he’d sweated profusely and gotten tongue-tied. The more flustered he’d gotten, the more difficult it had been to stay in the moment. His erection had died.
The man wasn’t impressed and made it clear that he thought Grigori was an awkward freak who needed to work on his bedroom skills. Sebastian and everyone else might have believed Grigori had sex that night, but the sad truth was, it’d probably been closer to two years since someone else had made him come. “I think I’ll pass on going out.”
“You could use a social life. How are you going to meet your mate?”
“I’m twenty-six. I have zero concern about meeting my mate at this point.”
“There’s no age requirement.”
“I’m immortal. Fate’s not going to waste her time matching me up right now.”
“When he does show up, do us all a favor and make time for him outside your lab.”
“Mates come first.”
Sebastian grinned as the elevator doors slid open. “I didn’t realize your lab would share you so easily.”
“You’re making my lab sound like my lover.”
“I know.”
Grigori rolled his eyes as Sebastian opened the limousine doors. He clambered into his parents’ vehicle and smiled. It was not often that he thought about mates—or at least not his own. His parents were a beautiful example of two people who shared every aspect of their lives together. So were their butler and his other half, who were more like family than employees. To pair himself up with a man who would understand him fully and be willing to overlook his quirks was beyond even his intelligent brain.
No such creature could possibly exist, and Grigori couldn’t live with himself if Fate put him in a relationship where neither person was happy. But if Fate were listening somewhere, what he truly wanted was someone who could be his best friend. Though he was blessed in the family department, he didn’t have any confidantes. There was no one to call when he had a crazy thought or new idea. Grigori’s aptitude in school had set him apart from the beginning, and it had only gotten worse as he moved from grade to grade.
Deciding he might as well make a wish list, he added smart and handsome. With a mental shrug, he decided he didn’t care if it sounded greedy. Wishes were supposed to be ambitious, and he wanted a wonderful man who Grigori could talk to easily. Wrapping up his request, he added that he did not want a vampire. The ultimate partner for his people was one you could feed from, and one vampire could not do that for another. As scary as it was to consider being with a human, since most of them disliked vampires, he wanted something beyond his own race.
Scrunching his nose, he stared out the window of the car as they whisked past a few buildings, he asked Fate to please not give him a shifter. From what he’d heard, their blood tasted weird, and it was an acquired thing to get used to. If he was being choosy, he might as well break all the rules and ask for magickind. Sure, sorcerer blood was addictive and had a different effect on each vampire, but he’d always liked a challenge. Shaking off his crazy thoughts, Grigori set the mate idea aside. He easily had several thousand years before he would find out if Fate listened to forgetful scientist vampires.
Chapter 6
“Is it going to work?” High Arcanist Idris D’Vaire asked. His indigo eyes were full of curiosity, and his brown hair was a full riot of curls Delaney secretly wished he had.
“I guess we’ll find out. Dark sorcerers need better ways to heal.”
“A stone’s a good idea. You and Dre’Kariston were really smart to think of it,” Delaney’s best friend told him. They met at the age of sixteen after Idris was conned into helping an evil warlock named Latarian into kidnapping two of the D’Vaires. Unlike the fantastic education Delaney had, Idris hadn’t known how to cast the most basic of skills when he arrived. Vadimas sent him off to the same school Delaney had once lived in and at twenty-one, the two ascended to High Arcanist together.
Idris’s arrival into Delaney’s life changed his goal of finishing at nineteen. It’d been too tantalizing to join the leadership of the Spectra Wizardry with another High Arcanist, so Delaney had eagerly allowed Idris all the time he needed to get caught up. Idris wasn’t just another caster either—they were both orphans and had clicked as soon as they met at the D’Vaire household. They’d been close ever since, and Idris hadn’t kept anyone waiting long to reach his potential. The sorcerer exceeded all expectations and managed to learn all ten magical levels in five short years.
“Well, if the Cwylld elves could find a stone to diffuse magic, why not make a D’Vaire one to heal?
” Delaney replied with a shrug. The idea was to infuse a rock in the rich colors of Aleksander’s dragon with the light healing power, then have Idris twist the dark magic of Delaney’s or Dre’Kariston’s around it. They were still in the planning stages, but the simulations were promising.
“Where are all the warlocks anyway?” Idris asked. When Delaney first arrived at D’Vaire, there were only three known to be living plus two familiars. After Idris stumbled upon Latarian and their plan was set in motion, the female warlock was killed by Gavrael’s dagger after she plunged a knife into Dra’Kaedan’s heart. Thanks to Idris’s ingenuity and the quick thinking of Dre’Kariston and the Arch Lich, the Grand Warlock’s life was spared.
After her death, Dra’Kaedan’s cousin was found, he and his familiar also called D’Vaire home. A fourth sorcerer was located at the former home of Dre’Kariston’s mate. Wullem didn’t have a great deal of power, so Dra’Kaedan recently built a spell to funnel enough power into him to summon a familiar named Leopold. Like Wullem he was on the shy side, but Delaney found both to be extremely kind. There were others out there, but they’d yet to locate them.
“No idea, maybe with T’Eirick and Saura?” Delaney responded.
“It’s been so nice having Dra’Kaedan and Dre’Kariston’s parents here.”
“Yeah, I’m glad they agreed to be temporarily resurrected.”
“I wish they’d stay with us forever. You think they’re all in Aleksander’s office?”
Delaney gave Idris a knowing glance and patted Greggory’s head. “What’s next? You going to ask me where Roger is?”
Becoming D'Vaire (D'Vaire, Book 11) Page 4
