House of Royals

  I take a drink of my orange juice, but it doesn’t taste right. I swear I taste a hint of copper and rust. I look down in my cup to make sure it hadn’t changed to blood.

  “His wife, however, was afraid of what her husband had become. While he was strong, healthy, and incredible, a more enhanced version of his previous self, but he was also brutal, a more enhanced version of his previous self. He’d attacked people, killed them as he drained them of blood.” Rath’s eyes have drawn inward, as if seeing the story he’s painting. “She loved him, despite his flaws. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to be like him.”

  Rath takes another draw of his coffee. “In the end, Cyrus changed her anyway through the same process. What he did not know, though, was that she was with child.”

  Something cold snakes its way up my spine. Something dreadful and so very wrong.

  “Sevan conceived as a human and gave birth as a vampire.”

  “What was the baby?” I ask. I didn’t realize until now that I’m sitting forward, nearly on the edge of my seat. “The baby was born a vampire?”

  Rath shakes his head. “The child was born seemingly human. Ate, lived, looked exactly as every other human out there. Two unique, genesis vampire parents with a human baby. Everything seemed right and natural. Until the child died just after his eighteenth birthday.”

  My brows furrow and the room is so silent, I hear it when Ian scratches at his jawline.

  “They buried their son. Mourned over him. But then, just four days later, he rose from the grave.”

  I swear under my breath. Ian looks over at me, but he doesn’t have that mischievous smile on his lips like what I’m learning is so common for him. He’s as dead serious as that son should have been.

  “The son resurrected as a vampire. Exactly the same as his parents.”

  “That’s why you called me a Born, isn’t it?” I ask as I look back at Ian.

  He nods. “Only a Born could recover from a bite like you did. Anyone else would have turned.”

  “The son resurrected as himself,” Rath continues the story. “And after a few years, they all realized he was not aging. He, too, was immortal. Realizing what he was and what he had defied, he became obsessed with creating others like himself. He took many women for himself. Horrifically, some of them conceived. Not all, but enough. Children were born. And once each of them reached their prime age, he killed them all.”

  “That’s awful,” I say in shock. This man, father and murderer in the same breath. The thought is terrifying.

  Both Rath and Ian are looking at me with a weight I don’t quite understand.

  “The Born were not the only new creature to walk the earth, though,” Rath continues. “Those that Cyrus had bitten and nearly killed turned into something new. Different than Cyrus and his family. They still aged. They craved blood more than the Born. Without it, they withered and died. They were the Bitten. They had never died, but they would. Their lifespans were the same as if they’d lived as a normal human.”

  We’ve been in this room for quite some time now, and I just now realize that not a single attendant has re-entered the room since Rath began his story.

  I’m starting to understand now why they look at me with fear in their eyes.

  “The son had created seven sons of his own and eight daughters. But still he wanted more. He wished for an army to dominate those around him. He was cruel and reckless. Seeing what his son had become and the threat he posed to his reigh, Cyrus killed him.”

  “But I thought the Born were immortal?” I ask leaning forward, my forearms on the table. “How did he kill his son?”

  “A few of the stories you hear about vampires are true,” Ian says, resting his forearm over the edge of the arm of the chair.

  “A stake through the heart,” I say, recalling what Ian had done last night.

  Rath nods. “Cyrus’ son was dead, but the damage was done. There were seven more Born vampires with the ability to create more offspring.”

  “What about the female Born?” I ask.

  Rath shakes his head. “Once resurrected, a female Born can not reproduce.”

  “So a Born can only be created with a human mother and a vampire father?” I ask to clarify.

  “You got it,” Ian confirms.

  “Cyrus is still alive,” Rath says, moving things along. “And he rules as King over all vampires.”

  “The vampires have a king?” I repeat, raising one eyebrow. This all just keeps getting layered deeper and deeper in the crazy.

  “King Cyrus is ancient and thorough. To this day, he and his attendants keep tabs on all the royal male lines.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “That is a story for another day,” Rath says. And suddenly he seems exhausted. It’s a heavy tale to tell and one I think has been weighing him down for a long time.

  Is Rath a Born vampire?

  Or an all too well informed human?

  “Wow,” I say, feeling overwhelmed and a bit like everything I’ve just learned is going to fuzz my brain out. “Okay. There’s complicated history in the vampire world. And I know there’s some deep history to this house. But, Rath, I have to ask. How did my father really die?”

  “I think we’d all like to know the answer to that question.” Ian finally sits upright, leaning forward, elbows on the table, fingers tightly locked together.

  Rath’s eyes grow distant and dark. There’s anger there. Hate. Regret.

  “It was just as the sun was coming up,” he begins. “Your father was preparing to go to sleep. I was just waking, still in the workers house.” He stops talking for a while. Takes a few slow breaths. “Someone broke in. Got past the security systems. They staked your father and drug his body out into the sun as he lay dying. I arrived at the scene as he took his last breath.”

  Rath holds a fork in his hands, and he’s now bent it completely in half.

  “I should have chased the attacker down, ended them. But I was…not in my right mind, after I found Henry. They got away.”

  “Who was it?” Ian asks. His voice is low and serious. “Someone from the House?”

  Rath shakes his head. “I did not recognize the attacker. The fact that they were able to take Henry down so easily says a great deal, though.”

  He suddenly slaps the destroyed fork on the table, and I jump violently.

  The message is clear. We are done talking about my father’s death.

  “Okay,” I say, because it is obviously time to move onto something new. “Um…what about the turning into a bat thing?”

  “Rumor,” Ian tells me with a slight roll of his eyes. He too seems to understand that the previous conversation is finished. “A seriously stupid one.”

  “Okay,” I say with a nod of my head. “You said the stake through the heart is true. The beheading thing has to be, as well.”

  Ian nods in confirmation.

  “What about the sun?” I ask. “Do they really burn up in the sun?” I try not to think about how the attacker dragged my father out into the sunlight and what must have happened to him.

  “Not like you’d think,” Rath says with a bit of a sigh. “The vampires have an extreme aversion to the sun because when they turn, their eyes change. We do not understand the science behind what the King put in his concoction that created the species, but it is a mix of predator DNA. They take good and bad traits from many different hunters. Vampires do love the night particularly because their eyes stay almost completely dilated. You could compare them much to a bat, I suppose. They can see almost perfectly at night. But because of the dilation, their eyes can not stand much sun.”

  “They can go out during the day,” Ian says. “But not without some serious shades and a killer headache.”

  “But no burning skin?” I ask.

  “No burning, flaming bodies,” he says, that mischievous smile returning as he shakes his head. “They’re fast, strong like a bear, tough as a rhino, and quiet as cats. They really are the evolution of the
perfect predator.”

  I nod, feeling like I’m starting to get a small grasp on this whole thing. “Okay, so the Born are immortal, the Bitten age as normal. Both can be killed with a stake to the heart or a quick beheading. There’s a King who sounds pretty badass. My father was a Born vampire, my mother was a human, which means when I die…” My words slow as all the puzzle pieces start falling into their right order. “I’m not really going to die…”

  I say this last part slowly because it’s only now that I’m starting to realize the impact of what I just said.

  “I’m going to be a vampire someday,” I breathe.

  “I’m afraid so,” Rath says quietly.

  But it’s Ian who surprises me when I look up. His eyes are intense and dark and conflicted.

  There’s so much to him that I don’t understand.

  “Alright,” I say with a deep breath. “Anything I’m missing?”

  This brings the smile back to Ian’s face. “Oh, baby doll, we’ve barely scratched the surface.”

  “THE BAGS ARE PACKED,” BETH, one of the housekeepers, interrupts the all too quiet dining room. I turn to see her not quite looking at any of us, holding a packed suitcase in her hands.

  “Thank you,” Rath says. She gives an uncomfortable smile, leaves the bag on the floor, and leaves.

  I turn questioning eyes on Rath, who stares at me for a bit longer than he should to be innocent.

  “Mr. Ward and I talked last night while you slept and came to a decision,” Rath starts. He places his elbows on the table and laces his fingers together. “As he mentioned last night, there is no way the House won’t hear about your attack. They will come for you and while I don’t believe it will be to the extreme that Ian does, they will sway you with you being so uninformed, and I know your father wouldn’t have wanted that.”

  “What do you mean by house?” I ask, every survival instinct in me perking up. I don’t like where this is heading.

  “Ian will educate you as you start training,” Rath says. He snaps his fingers and attendants flood into the room to begin clearing breakfast. “But for now, we both feel it best that you stay away from the Conrath Estate until you are ready. You will be going to stay with Ian.”

  My head whips to look at him, and I’m sure a sour expression dominates my face. “You’re kidding, right? We’ve already established how he tried to kill me, and you want to send me off to live with him?”

  “Mr. Ward will bring you no harm,” Rath says as he stands. Ian and I do at the same time, as well. “He didn’t know the circumstances at the time, and he did what he thought best. Trust me, no one will be more skilled in keeping you safe until you are ready to make your own decisions.”

  “Decisions about what?” I demand. I back toward the door. I don’t know what I’m going to do: run, hide, head back to Colorado—but I don’t like feeling like I do.

  “The decision about whether you want to join the House or not,” Ian says impatiently. He walks around the table and grabs the bag from the floor. “Can you just take my promise that I won’t hurt you and get going? We really don’t have a whole lot of time. It’s already uncomfortably far into the afternoon.”

  I look at the clock hanging on the far wall and realize that despite having just eaten “breakfast,” it is four in the afternoon. Rath really was going to let me sleep all day.

  My eyes flick between Ian and Rath and back again.

  I don’t know what to do.

  I barely know these men. I don’t know whom to trust.

  But there’s an echo in the back of my head saying that this is what my father would have wanted. And even though I didn’t know him at all, I feel like I would have wanted to.

  “You’re not really giving me a choice, are you?” I ask, feeling the fight seep out of me.

  “Not when you don’t understand the big picture yet.” Ian’s eyes are begging me to trust him. And there’s something there in the purse of his lips, in the tenseness of his shoulders, in the readiness of his stance that makes me think I can.

  “Let me go get dressed,” I say resentfully.

  Stranger danger is screaming at me the whole time I’m getting ready. But it’s a tiny thing pushed into the corner by an attack last night and a very big story told over breakfast. So I slide into shorts and a t-shirt, and knot my hair on top of my head. Lastly, I slide the unopened letter from my father into my back pocket.

  “We should get going,” Ian says as I come down the stairs. He’s already waiting by the front door, keys in hand, my bag in the other.

  I nod and turn to Rath.

  “I’m putting a lot of trust in you,” I say. My eyes are begging for him to say I can stay, to take everything from the past twenty-four hours back. Somehow I feel like he should have that power. Even though that’s stupid.

  “I know,” he says. And to my surprise, he wraps his arms around me in a brief hug. “This is for the best.”

  When I let go of him, I don’t meet his eyes. I turn for the door, open it, and walk straight out.

  Ian’s van is one of those utility kinds with no windows in the back. It’s black and covered in mud and grime. I’d wager it’s got traces of blood on it somewhere—likely some of my own.

  I open the passenger door and climb in.

  Ian throws my bag into the back where, only last night, I had lain bloody and muddy and climbs into the driver’s seat. Without a word, he turns around and starts down the drive.

  When we pop out onto the main road, we take a left instead of a right into town. Ian slips out his phone and dials someone.

  “Hey, Phil, it’s Ian,” he says as he takes a right and we’re heading south. “Yeah, I’m not feeling so hot today so I’m going to need someone to cover my shift tonight. Yeah, I know this is the second time this month, but what can I say? You get around a lot of sickness, you tend to get sick. Yeah. Gotcha. ‘K, thanks.”

  He hangs up and slides the phone back into his pocket.

  “You have a job outside of vampire hunting?” I ask skeptically.

  “Of course I have a job,” he says, giving me an offended look. “You think it pays the bills to keep vamps off the streets of Silent Bend? I gotta’ eat, just like all the other ignorant people.”

  “Sorry,” I say, holding my hands up in surrender. “It’s just…mundane, hearing that someone like you has a job. What do you do?”

  “I’m an EMT,” he says as he looks out the front window. The trees get thicker and heavier around the road. I have the feeling we’re not too far from the swamps I so pleasantly got to visit last night.

  “Also surprising,” I say with a nod. “Though I have to say, knowing you’re tangled up with vampires kind of makes me wonder if you’re some kind of supplier of blood to them.”

  Ian cuts me an ice-cold look. “I’d never.”

  “Sorry,” I immediately apologize. It’s going to take me some time to learn my boundaries with Ian Ward.

  He doesn’t say anything else as we continue our drive.

  I was right. This seems like swampland, and I’m sure that at any minute, we’ll be sloshing through water and have alligators jump out at us from the stagnant swamps.

  But we stay on the road and turn off onto an even scarier-looking one.

  The trees with endless amounts of moss hanging from them threaten to swallow us for a minute, almost totally blocking out the sun. But suddenly, we break out into a clearing. No swamp, just well-trimmed grass and a little yellow house with flower gardens out front.

  It’s picturesque.

  “This is your house?” I ask in shock.

  “It’s my grandmother’s house,” Ian says as he continues on the little dirt road stretching to the side of it. We continue on for a while longer, back into more trees, and stop in front of what looks like a tiny cabin or a shed. It’s rustic, and looks like it’s been put together in stages, but it has a certain manly charm to it. “This is my house.”

  Ian turns off the engine and climbs o
ut. He grabs my bag from the back as I climb out and marvel at the complex beauty around me.

  Massive trees dot the landscape here and there, blocking out the sun with their giant leaves. Spanish moss hangs long and thick from the branches. Undergrowth hides unknown trails. The sun trickles through to dot the tin roof of Ian’s house. I look back at the yellow house. It’s so charming and bathed in sunlight. Like something out of a fairytale.

  The two houses are polar opposites.

  “Alivia?” Ian calls from his front porch. “You coming?”

  “Yeah,” I say quietly. I turn and follow him inside.

  The walls are all wood and everything looks used or salvaged. I’d honestly be kind of shocked if Ian didn’t build this place with his own hands. A small living room with a worn-out couch and a rocking chair occupy the right side of the space. To the left is a small simple kitchen. Straight ahead I can see into a bedroom and there’s a bathroom.

  This is almost exactly the same size as my apartment in Colorado, and I find it oddly comforting.

  “It’s not much to look at, but it’s my own space,” Ian says as he walks back from the bedroom where he’s just set my bag on the bed. “Started building it when I was only fifteen. Finished it a few years back.”

  I was right.

  “It’s a far cry from Conrath Estate, but the House will never come looking for you here.”

  “Right,” I say as I wander to the bedroom. There’s a queen-sized bed with a worn-out blue comforter on it. A dresser is pushed up next to the closet and that’s all that occupies the space. The bathroom isn’t any bigger than necessary to cram in a shower, toilet, and sink.

  “Don’t worry,” Ian says as he stuffs his hands in his pockets and observes me. “I’ll take the couch.”

  My polite instinct is to say that he doesn’t have to. It’s his house and his bed, not mine. But then again, this was his idea, and Rath’s, and if not for that idea, I’d be sleeping in my suite and not putting anyone out.

  “Okay,” I say simply.

  I jump pretty violently when there’s a knock on the closed front door before it opens.

  I turn to find a pretty, young blonde girl staring at me with startled eyes. “Oh,” she says. “I’m sorry, I uh…didn’t realize Ian had company.” The shocked and confused tone to her voice tells me how rare of an occasion this truly is.