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“Exactly, and she is made the queen.”
“And they all lived happily ever after,” I said like I was reading the end of a story. “So funny enough, the story only became more realistic with time. I’m not sure who would ever believe an eagle would drop your sandal into the lap of your one true love.”
“I am sure you would most definitely believe it,” he replied.
“And you know me so well, how?” I shot back defiantly.
All he did was nod to the book in my hands. “Firstly, your entire home is completely and utterly filled with stories or paintings that require you to suspend belief. Secondly, you are a creature which is even less likely among humans to exist than an eagle who delivers slippers. Finally, how often do you explain yourself in firsts, seconds, and lasts?”
He was teasing me!
Glaring, I placed the book inside the doorframe of my apartment. “How about we just skip to the story where you explain…Oh, I don’t know—everything—like you promised. No more avoiding it.”
“I wasn’t avoiding it,” he lied, and I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew.
“Yes, you were, so out with it old man.”
His jaw cracked the side as he huffed a bit. Shaking his head, he glanced back up at the moon over my shoulder. “How much do you know of being a vampire?”
“You’re avoiding my question with a question.”
“I am not.” He shook his head sincerely. “But in order for me to explain, I need to understand how much you already know of what it means to be a vampire. What it means to us.”
No one had ever asked me that, but it had been something I had wanted to ask so badly. What did it mean to be a vampire? What were the rules? Where was the line? What next? I so badly wanted to ask but never really felt like I could. It made me feel like the dumbest kid in the middle of the class, asking something that was obvious.
I turned my body, moving to sit beside him and not across from him, so I could avoid his gaze. Instead, I looked at the moon. It looked like a glowing plate in the night sky. One of the things I loved about living in Washington D.C. was the fact that it was a big city that didn’t look like a big city with massive skyscrapers.
“Now whose avoiding questions?” he asked softly.
“I know almost nothing,” I whispered back. “I was human; I got into a car accident, and some vampire changed me. I woke with the need to drink blood. My senses: hearing, sight, smell, everything was heightened much more than humans. Once I realized what I was, I realized that the sun does not burn, and I can see my reflection just fine in a mirror. I don’t sleep in a coffin—I don’t need sleep at all. I know that witches are also real, and they hate us, so I should avoid them because witch fire is deadly…oh and mating rituals. That is about the extent of my knowledge.”
“And you have survived the last twelve months on only that knowledge?”
I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t look back. “Yes, it wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t it impossible, either.”
“Didn’t your family notice?”
It was only then that I looked at him, and even though I knew he was staring, his face was a bit closer than I expected. I didn’t want to back down and let him know I was in any way unnerved by him. “I’ve answered your questions. Now explain.”
“I warn you, what I say will shatter everything you think you know—”
“Stalling,” I almost sang. His lips made a straight line, and I felt this urge to reach up to poke his cheeks. Why, I had no idea. “Well shatter my mind then.”
“Very well.” He nodded, and I gave him my undivided attention. “Then you should know that if the sun does not burn you, Druella, then that is because you were never human to begin with.”
“What?” There was that question again.
“Long ago, before me, before everything you see now, there were witches, and there were humans. The humans outnumbered and hunted the witches, and so the witches needed weapons to fight back. Someone took humans and turned them. Some turned themselves into new creations…vampires, us.” He didn’t stop there. He lifted his hand, turning it. “If you are a vampire who does not burn in the sun, who does not go mad with blood lust, who sleeps in the day, you have witch’s blood in you. You are considered a Noble within vampire society.”
“But I don’t sleep at all,” I said, quickly trying to separate myself from anything Noble.
“Not yet.” He shook his head. “You are young still, but by the time you get to my age, sleep will come as naturally as it did when you were a living child. You will enjoy it, too, as I do. Resting one’s mind is the comfort you forget about over the years.”
“So…” I said slowly, trying to understand. “You were a witch before your change? But I’ve never casted spells or anything like that while I was alive…or not vampire alive.”
“The witch gene can be like other genes and be recessive, meaning you could have lived on thinking and acting as a mortal without ever noticing. Though, I am sure you never got very ill as a child.”
I thought back over my childhood and nodded. “I used to have to pretend to get sick to fit in.”
