I scoffed. I couldn’t help myself. Septimus laughed and raised his palm.
“I know. They have quite a reputation. But this seer was trustworthy—while her predictions were somewhat vague, they were never untrue. When she completed her ritual, she was shaken. She told them that their son would either save the House of Blood, or end it. The king was troubled by this news, but the queen was ecstatic. She barely heard the foreboding warning, only the hope for the future. Her son was destined to save their kingdom.”
I stared flatly at him. “So we’re sitting here so you can tell me all about how you’re the destined savior of the Bloodborn.”
The corner of his mouth curled. “You don’t know how to enjoy the twists and turns of good storytelling, dove.” He cleared his throat, and continued. “Months pass, and soon the House of Blood has a new little prince. The king and queen adored their son. They showered him with everything a child could want.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. It was practically unheard of for vampire parents to treat their children with obvious love. I’d witnessed the Bloodborn literally disassemble their opponents in battle. The thought that their leaders could be so softly affectionate… it was foreign to me.
“The years passed, and the boy was raised to be loyal, strong, intelligent, insightful. He was trained in the arts of magic, of war, of battle, of courtly manners. He was… the very best of us.”
Septimus did not look away from the fire. The expression on his face was hard to read—mournful, angry, affectionate, all at once.
The realization fell over me: he wasn’t talking about himself, after all.
“The decades passed, and soon, the Bloodborn prince was ready to take up his mantle as the god-chosen hero of the House of Blood. So he gathered his best general and his best men, and he went off on his mission—to find Nyaxia, prove his people’s loyalty, and earn back her love for the House of Blood.
“He did, in the end, find the land of the gods. And he and his men did complete several trials to earn Nyaxia’s affections, though they cost him many lives. And then he scaled the most treacherous mountains of the gods to find his goddess one final time, to beg for her forgiveness for the sins of his great-great-great-great-grandfathers, to swear his fealty to her, and to free the House of Blood from its curse.”
Septimus’s face had gotten colder, crueler, the smile at his lips looking as if it had been chipped from ice. He leaned closer, the remnants of his last drag blowing in my face with his next words.
“And do you know, dove, what that miserable cunt did then?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.
“She laughed at him,” he said. “And then she killed him.”
The words came down like the blade of a guillotine.
“She left his general alive—though forever tainted—and sent him back to the House of Blood with the prince’s head.”
Septimus’s eyes slipped back to the fire. “I have only heard my mother cry once,” he murmured. “Only once.”
Understanding dawned on me.
“He was your brother,” I said.
“One of them. My parents were unusually fertile for a vampire couple. I had seven siblings. Six brothers. One sister.”
Had.
He let out a humorless laugh. “The sister is alive. Not that that’s much comfort to my parents. Maybe they’re still off in the House of Blood right now, trying to make another male heir. Still hoping that prophecy of theirs might come true somehow.”
He lifted his cigarillo to his lips.
“Do you know what that makes me, dove? That makes me the last resort. So, you see…” A wry smirk, and he let out a long, slow stream of smoke. “I understand what it feels like to not have time. You and I, we don’t get centuries to play our games like they do. And I think it makes us better. More ruthless. More willing to do what needs to be done.”
He moved closer, still—so close that I felt the urge to lean back in my chair, put some more distance between me and the hungry look in his eye.
“And I am willing to do whatever needs to be done.”
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me. I’d learned young to recognize when vampires were looking at me with desire—though this wasn’t about desire for my blood or my body. This, somehow, seemed even more dangerous.
“I should be going,” I said. “Get some rest before—”
I started to rise, but Septimus caught my arm.