It was a poorly taken photograph of a crowd of people—a number of them Drake vampires given that they were all wearing well fitted suits. It looked like the other half were wizards based on their coats and the smudgy crests emblazoned over their coat pockets.
Standing at the center of the photo was—I suspected but couldn’t know for sure due to the poor quality of the photo—Killian and a short blonde haired human woman wearing a wedding dress.
Is this his wizard, then? His One that he’s been desperately hiding from me since I arrived?
Given our long lives, love was a fleeting thing for vampires. Relationships—particularly ones in which you were supposed to be affectionate—took work and effort to maintain and opened you up to a plethora of weaknesses. When the bleak possibility of centuries upon centuries stretched out in front of you, it was often easier to just fall into something easy like bitterness or hatred.
A vampire’s One, however, was the person they declared as the being they’d love for the rest of their days. Even after the One died and months, years, and eventually centuries passed.
It wasn’t something stated easily, and often vampires died when their “One” did.
Killian, the most competent and sly of the Dracos children, would have been the last vampire I’d expect to make such an insane decision. But here we were.
I leaned closer to the photograph trying to make out the blonde’s pixilated face. She was short but her smile was big and full of all the hope only humans—wizards included—were oblivious enough to have.
“Considine.” Killian called from farther down the hallway.
I wasn’t surprised by the sudden appearance—he seemed to have a sixth sense whenever I stumbled upon anything to do with his One.
I straightened up, tucked my hands into the pockets of the suitcoat I’d swapped to after leaving Jade at that odd book shop, then smiled—something I knew Killian would find annoying.
“Killian, you finally greet me. How delightful.”
Killian scowled as he stalked up to me. “You slipped past my guards and didn’t announce your presence.”
“I was testing them for you,” I said, filling my voice with false humility. “I know you train them so, and that you’re obsessed with making them into warriors. I thought I’d made it through unnoticed, but it seems one of them must have caught on?”
“My First and Second Knight saw you on a camera,” Killian said.
I sighed. “Alas, I’m losing my touch. It’s the old age that eventually gets you.”
“You say that, except you waved to the camera.” Killian’s frown grew deeper and a touch sour, as if my presence was putting him out.
Boo-hoo for him.
Killian continued, “My siblings have gathered in a sitting room.” He looked down the hallway, his disgust still in place, which probably meant I wasn’t the only one responsible for his dour mood. “Are you ready to face them?”
“I didn’t think I could avoid it any longer,” I said. “Who came?” I started my stroll again, and Killian waited to fall in line with me—keeping his pace as slow as mine.
“Margarida, the twins, and Baldwin.”
“Baldwin?” I asked. “What is he doing here? I bankrupted him and cleared out all his personal funds less than five years ago. He shouldn’t have two coins to rub together.”
Maybe I really was losing my touch.
“The twins brought him,” Killian said. “In their private jet.”
I groaned. “Of course, they did.”
“You haven’t visited the twins in a while. Maybe they’re about due.” Killian stopped outside a wooden door.
“Nice try. You won’t be getting rid of me that easily.” I eyed the door. “This is it?”
“It is.”
I adjusted the gold ring ornamented with a red garnet that I wore on my index finger. The ring had belonged to Ambrose Dracos, Killian’s long dead sire. “Right, then. Let’s get this over with.”
Killian opened the door and stepped inside first, prowling like a jaguar. I took my time, swaggering because I knew that would annoy the snake-brats.
“Hello, children!” I smiled wide. “Uncle Maledictus is here! And I’m-oh-so-touched you all came here to see me.”
Margarida—the youngest female of the Dracos line—stood up from where she was perched on an embroidered armchair.
Today, she was wearing the traditional clothing of her home country of Portugal with a thick bright red skirt adorned with thin stripes, a white chemise with blue embroidery serving as a blouse, and a red and black bodice that had even more embroidery.