Now, as I fell from the tree, I angled my shoulders down and streaked towards Shade. About twenty feet from her, I willed my wings out and spread them wide to slow myself. The force of the sudden stop to my descent snapped my legs forward and wrenched my shoulders back, but I was ready for the sensation now, and I bore the pain, grabbing the Hellcat with my arms and legs, holding on tight and hoping to ride her into the ground. Instead, I hit the ground hard and got spun on my back as she flipped me from her easily. Then I felt her fangs at my throat.
You’re dead. Again. I’m getting tired of killing you, Xavier.
“Get off,” I snarled.
Get rid of your wings, and make me. You can’t though, can you? You’re too weak again. You have to eat.
Shade let go of my throat and sat down beside me.
This is getting tiresome. You shouldn’t be afraid of sex. You’re far from a blushing virgin.
Pushing myself up, I rubbed at my throat. Shade didn’t pull any fang lately, her bites were getting harder. I guess I’d just pissed her off again.
“I’m not ‘afraid’ of sex,” I told her churlishly.
Your not eating is affecting my feeding.
“Well, why the hell didn’t you say so earlier,” I replied smartly, earning myself a red-tail flick off the back of my head. “Okay, okay.”
A car is approaching…it is Claudius. Why? It’s not your day for feeding.
Standing upright I made the effort to really concentrate and grinned in relief when I felt that sparkling shower as my wings disappeared. I shook my shoulders to make sure the feathery appendages were really gone, and then I took off running at high speed. I had discovered that this was something I could hold against Shade’s extra two feet…because I cheated. I had learned how to lighten my weight so I could soar into the air when learning to fly, and it hadn’t taken much effort to adapt it to running as well.
I could hear Shade coming up fast behind me, and then I heard that predictable little hitch in her stride that told me she was leaping. I felt a slight breeze shift to the left of me, so I threw my weight to the right, pivoted quickly, and drove her feline body hard into the grass, where we rolled over about three times. I ended up on top of her and grabbed her head as if to snap her neck.
“You’re dead!”
Good boy.
My reward was to get smacked really hard with the end of her panther tail before Shade shrank herself down to the smaller size of a housecat and climbed up into my arms.
“Why is it I have to carry your dead ass back to the barn, but you won’t do the same for me?” I whined.
Because you’re a sucker for a kitty face.
Shade started nonchalantly licking her paws clean.
“Oh, that was bad.”
Setting her up on my shoulders, I walked the rest of the way back to the house. I did feel weak, it was true, but I had a sense of peace within me that I don’t think I’ve ever had. Four months of doing nothing but analyzing what the hell had been going on in my life, I could finally say it now…I am a vampire. I’m also a Blue Flame, though I’ll hold off the Emperor crap for a while. And I’m also gay. I’m working on that one too.
I had sat my father down a couple of weeks ago when I’d figured it out for myself, and I’d told him I was gay and that Marcus hadn’t reset my sexual preferences. In fact, he’d set them free, no matter how much at the time I’d wanted to deny them.
Dad accepted what I said to him, and I started to feel good about myself and what I was, though nothing could ease the pain in my heart that Marcus had caused when he’d ripped it out and turned his back on both Claudius and me.
We shared a brew on the picnic table out back, just us guys bonding. Father and Son. Vampire and Human. Lord Emperor and Regency Mage. I’d never appreciated Dad when I was the fat, blind bastard. I’d never appreciated anything. I’d cut myself off from so much. But you can’t go back and relive it, you can only move forward and build something new. Not long after my confession, Dad brought out the scotch…serious discussion time. I sat there nursing my twenty-year-old whiskey, desperately craving a bag of blood but willing to sit in the growing darkness of evening with my father.
For the most part he’s an easygoing guy, and just by looking at him, you wouldn’t know about the arcane skills and battle abilities he has. When he’s on a job, he’s a different man altogether, but here at home, I was quickly learning that he could call on that battle mage pretty damn easily when anything hurt his children. And Marcus had made his naughty list.
“He hurt you,” he thundered. “There is still a wounded look in your eyes. In Lord Claudius’s too. I will not forgive him for that.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, swirling the amber drink in my glass, wishing it were Type A positive. That would’ve tasted great right then.
A silence hung between us, but it was a companionable silence until finally he sighed, saying, “That means we won’t be getting any little winglets to chase around, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Mar…” I bit back a sob. Even saying his name hurt. “He seemed to think that the Council would make me marry some Blue girl in order to try and revive the House of Von Drachenfeld.”
“You don’t let anyone tell you who to love, Edward. Your heart is your own special, private gift, and only you can give it away, be it to a boy, a girl, or something else we haven’t seen yet.”
I frowned. How much of a deviant did Dad actually think I was?
“I did give it away, even though I didn’t know it at the time,” I said morosely. “And…he left it lying there broken when he walked out.”
“Then pick it up, cherish it back to health, and give it to someone who will appreciate the special boy that you are.”
“Dad, I’m thirty now. I haven’t been a boy in a while.”
“You will always be my boy,” Dad said proudly. “And be forever grateful that I don’t call you Sigmund.”
Thank God for small favors, eh? Saddled with the name Sigmund because of an old promise handed down through the generations that the first born son would have that name. It was just my bad luck that it had landed on me. But sitting there with my Dad on a warm summer night, knowing that these past four months have worked out more than just how to use my fangs and wings, made it feel like I was alive.
Well, human, anyway.
I’d finished my walk up to the house, and I noticed my suitcase and backpack sitting on the porch. Shade looked up from where she was sprawled around my neck, yawning. I thought I heard her kitty jaw crack.
Looks like we’ve been kicked to the curb.
“Mom! Dad! You’re kicking me out?”
They were both standing on the porch, waiting for me, Mom holding a smaller toiletry bag in her hands. She came to meet me, her face worried, anxious, and her voice betraying how upset she was.
“You never really told us what was wrong, when you came here. I just knew that any more pressure on your shoulders was going to break you. We let you find your own way to heal, though for the first month, I didn’t think you were capable of healing yourself. I was so scared for you, baby boy.” Mom’s eyes welled up as she spoke. “Finally, you started to get better. You started becoming my Sigmund again. And then, you started becoming a vampire…a very powerful vampire, discovering your gifts and talents. I want you to stay here forever, Sigmund, but…”
Dad held onto Mom. “The other Hunters can sense you, son. Your vampiric aura is getting stronger every day,” he explained. “They’ve taken a complaint to the Regency Council that we are harboring a vampire, and we can’t deny it.”
“So, I have to go?” Reason might say that leaving was the logical thing to do, but my battered and bruised heart had just taken another hit.
“Yes,” Mom answered, “or they will declare us renegades. You know how bad it gets when it’s Hunter against Hunter.”
I nodded glumly. “I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”
“Nonsense, you haven’t caused u
s any trouble. You were lost to us for an entire year, and I was overjoyed to find you, though…you’ve gotten too damn skinny!” I thought Mom was going to start crying.
Dad stepped up and patted me on the back. “I called Claudius to come and get you,” he said.
“Come here, baby boy.” Mom gathered me up in her arms. “You watch your back out there. Watch out for those fangs; you never know where they might end up.”
I thought she was going to hug my head off my neck. “I will,” I promised, hugging her back just as tightly.
Mom reached out and scratched Shade’s head. “Take good care of him for us, won’t you?” she said.
As long as he stays off his back, we’ll be fine.
My eyes bugged out at Shade’s answer, and I smiled weakly at Mom.
“That’s okay, I don’t want to know. Come here.” Mom squeezed me tight again, whispering, “I know you’re pissed at him right now, but don’t give up on him.”
“Who?”
“Marcus.” She ignored my flinch. “I saw the look on his face when he came into the police station. You cannot fake that kind of concern and caring,” she told me.
“He’s the one who walked away,” I said sullenly.
“Well, go trip him, then. Nobody walks away from a Xavier.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The limo pulled up, and Shade jumped off my shoulder as a housecat and landed on the ground as her favorite red panther. Instinctively, I dodged the twitch of her swinging tail.
Ha!
Dad handed me a glossy magazine and then a nylon knapsack. As I took it from him, I looked down as I felt the weight. “It’s nice to have vampiric gifts, but it’s even better to have reliable backup,” he said with a wink.
I did a quick unzip of the knapsack and saw the handles of two handguns, with spare clips and ammo nestled inside.
“Dad!”
“Just be safe, boy.”
“Thanks for everything,” I said. “I’ll miss you.”
“Get me a poster!” Mom yelled. I blinked. Okay. Whatever.
Picking up my luggage, I headed towards the limo. The driver, who introduced himself as Walker, took my bags from me, though I kept hold of the guns and the magazine, and I hopped into the car when he opened the rear door for me.
Claudius was lounging on the back seat, and I noticed that he was dressed atypically. He was wearing a patent leather outfit that looked like it had been painted on. His hair was loose and hung around his features, blending in with the shiny material. The whole look just made you want to run your hand over his body to see if that paint would smear.
I moved up and kissed his cheek before settling down in my seat. “Did my parents call you at a bad time?” I asked. I’d never seen him out of a suit, and this get up was…cool. And hot. And so not like the vampire I’ve gotten to know and Flame with.
“No. I picked this out after they called,” he said.
I looked over at him again. “Are you drunk?”
‘No,” he replied. Then he noticed what I was holding. “Ah, I see you have the magazine. Look at the middle pages.”
Turning on a light that was near to my head, I flipped to the center of the magazine and immediately dropped it. Holy crap.
Picking it back up, I looked again at what had shocked me. It was one of the last slut photos taken at Joker’s Wilde. Oh. Dear. God. I looked like a wanton sex god. The gold sunglasses I was wearing made the picture have a surreal feel about it. And with the addition of Claudius’s suited arm draped around me, the picture almost took on a pornographic feel. My right hand was on my thrust out hip, my left hand was on my thrown back forehead, and Claudius’s hand was disappearing into the waistband of the kilt.
“This looks so…indecent,” I whispered.
“That is what your brother said too. He called me up, quite incensed over this.” Claudius tapped the magazine.
I glossed over the brother remark. “My mother said something about wanting a poster. What did she mean? Do you know what she is talking about?” I asked, dragging my eyes away from the picture.
“There is a twenty-foot billboard coming up, just as we enter the city. It shows you being naughty in the suit,” he explained. “That one, in the magazine, is now an art poster for sale. Frederick is making a killing out of the pictures you posed for, and you are too. He keeps sending over checks, and he wants to know when you’re going to be ready for your next modeling session.”
“How about half past never!” I retorted. “I didn’t think it would be like this, with pictures of me plastered everywhere. I thought they would only be shown in his store. But…that still doesn’t explain the wet-leather look on you,” I said, gesturing in a line with my fingers from his head down to his feet.
“I am taking you to an orgy.”
“What? Really?”
“No,” he answered glibly. “We are going to a rave. While we are there, you are going to eat yourself to Flame. And once you get calm, you are going to eat again. I can smell the weakness coming off of you, Xavier.”
I looked down at my dirty clothes, pulling a twig out of my shirt pocket. Claudius pointed to a bag sitting on the floor by my seat. I opened it up, and bit back a wave of sickness as I pulled out a pair of bronze leather pants and a matching halter-type shirt.
“Frederick said that it would suit your coloring and build,” Claudius told me. Oh, I had no doubt Frederick would have said that. I gave a weak smile. “In a place like this rave, you need all the help you can get. Not that you need any help, my son, but I am insisting that you feed.”
I caught something in his voice. “What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“Rumors are circulating about the loss of a Blue Blood. The Council have informed me that one of the twenty known Blues has been assassinated. They are a little upset because no one was even supposed to know where those Blues are.”
“Is this assassination common knowledge?”
“No, just speculation outside of the Council at the moment,” Claudius said. “But the experts have confirmed that a professional did it. If it were not a professional, then it was someone who was very skilled.”
I reached into my knapsack and pulled out one of the guns, showing it to Claudius. “I think the Hunters know about it. Otherwise, my dad wouldn’t have given me this.”
“You know how to use that?” Claudius asked, surprised.
I gave him a mildly disgusted look, while Shade simply lifted her head and snorted before she lay back down on her pet bed.
“I’ll have you know that I have a wall covered with ribbons and trophies for shooting,” I said proudly. “I could have been a sniper until my vision screwed up on me when I hit puberty. My prescription lenses were so thick, I was lucky I wasn’t declared legally blind…which happened shortly after I graduated high school.”
“I wonder if your loss of eyesight was because of your hidden genetic heritage,” Claudius mused. “That would be interesting to document.”
“You know something, Claudius, sometimes you make me feel like I’m just a lab experiment,” I snapped as I pulled my shirt over my head.
“That is not my intention,” he said softly, reaching up and brushing my cheek with the back of his hand. “How can you function? I do not sense any essence in you at all. Why will you not eat, my son? Blood packs are for survival only.”
Tell him.
Shade…
Tell him, because I’m hungry too.
Claudius took hold of my chin and tilted up my face. I couldn’t look at him, averting my eyes from his. “You have gotten good with your shielding,” he said, studying me intently. “I cannot walk in your thoughts any more.”
Xavier.
Don’t push me.
“Why will you not eat, my son?” His arctic blue irises pinned me, demanding an answer from me. And when I complied my voice was low and tinged with a touch of shame.
“I keep seeing that vision I had, of you and Marcus. That image of you whipping him
is burnt into my head because it is what he needs to feel love. You hate what he craves, and you hate yourself for doing it.”
“What has happened between Marcus and me has nothing to do with you,” Claudius said abruptly, tightening his fingers as I tried to pull away from him.
“Really?” I shot back at him. “What about your ‘I will do as you ask, because I love you’ speech? That hurt you, didn’t it?” I softened my voice. “My deviant needs fall beyond your scope of comfort, Claudius.”
My head rocked with the hard slap it received. Holy crap, that hurt.
“You deliberately starve yourself because you do not want to hurt me?” Claudius sneered. “That is the most asinine thing I have ever heard.”
Told you.
Not now, Shade.
“Never think that I am a martyr, Xavier. I am a very selfish man,” Claudius continued. “I will do what I have to, if that is what you need. Then I get what I require out of it, after you are sated.” He climbed up on my lap, and pressing me back against the seat he whispered, “Trust me when I say I get my rocks off. I just prefer giving gentle kisses…like this.”
He proceeded to plant his sweet kisses on my neck. There was a hint of fang as he sucked on the tender spot behind my ear, and then he licked it, moving his tongue down to my earlobe. I shivered all the way to my toes.
“I’m sorry. I thought I was protecting you,” I told him, catching his head in my hands and stroking his long black hair.
“Who is the fledging here?” Claudius teased as he caught his fingers in my hair and dragged me up to meet his mouth. He was in no hurry whatsoever, and I thought that I could get used to this. I felt…savored. I closed my eyes and opened my mouth fully to him as he coaxed my tongue into a slow dance. His hand moved over the front of my pants, lightly stroking, trying to arouse. He didn’t have to try too hard; I was excited enough, and it showed.
I got the impression that someone was looking at me, and when I opened my eyes, Shade was staring me right in the face.
Cake: A Blood Nation Novel (Volume 1) Page 30
