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“I would like to think that I have that kind of self-control.” His eyes fixated on the page. “But I cannot imagine that I do. How could I have not spoken to you at least once? You, who I had spent so long waiting for, spent so long searching for; there you are in front of me, and I do not approach? It is unlike me. I would need to hear your voice, see you look at me. If not, you would have felt me looking. The living have a way of knowing when they are being watched, and their instincts tell them. For me to be around and for you not to notice, on top of the fact that I have lost all of my memories of these times, does that not seem strange?”
He had just told me there were vampire nations, that he was the son of one of the most powerful and oldest-ruling families. We were sitting in a Japanese-styled penthouse in the heart of a Montréal cityscape as guests of the American president, after escaping a murderous coven of witches…And he thought the fact that I did not remember him stalking or staring at me was strange?
Seeing my expression, he forced himself to smile, shaking his head. “Never mind—”
“Please don’t do that.” I quickly grabbed his wrist when he moved to the maps. “Don’t ever force yourself to smile for me. I hate when people do that. Whatever face I’m making that made you do it, I’m sorry. It’s just that everything is strange to me. So, I can’t tell you what is strange. If you had told me last week that I’d be unemployed, sitting next to a vampire I barely knew but for some reason was attracted to, I would have told you that you were insane. Whatever you’re thinking, tell me, and I’ll make a face, but still tell me, okay?”
He twisted his wrist around to take my hand, grinning. “You are attracted to me?”
I fought the need to roll my eyes. “Seriously? That’s all you’re going to focus on?”
“It is a very big revelation.” Theseus kissed the back of my hand. “What else have you discovered of your feelings toward me?”
I pulled back my hand. “Don’t you want to go back to showing me these pretty maps?”
“So stubborn. So beautiful,” he muttered, giving me a glare, though a smile was on his lips. A real one. “Shows you are perfect for me for I like a good chase.”
“What is the capital of Ankeiros?” I side-stepped his comment like I never heard it, lifting the map of his home. Though I did feel the urge to smile.
“There is none. My mother thought it would be ridiculous to just have one centralized point.” He sat up a bit. “My family has homes throughout the nation. Sometimes we stay as one family until we are all tired of each other, and then we all live alone in the places we are most comfortable. When I go, normally I stay in Olympia, Athens, or Thessaloniki when I wish to be alone. I cannot wait to show you. It is not as beautiful as it was in the past, but it is still a sight to behold.”
A vision of me walking through Greek ruins with him began to form in my mind, but I pushed it back. “How many siblings do you have?” I asked.
“Four. All male. You did not have any?” he answered and asked back.
“When I was among the living? No, I was an only child. Now in my rebirth, I have no idea if do or not.”
“Do you wish to find your maker?”
“Doesn’t every vampire wish to know where they belong?” I muttered just reading the maps, the dates, and everything before me. “Though seeing as how they haven’t been here, maybe it’s for the best that I don’t see them. I’ll survive.”
“You do not ache?”
“Ache?” I didn’t understand.
“Yes, I have seen vampires who were abandoned, pardon my words for I have no better one, and they were…aching.”
At that, I stopped and gave him my attention. “Explain, I don’t really understa
nd.”
“From what I was told, it was like an emptiness. A hole in them that drove them mad with sadness, and they roamed the earth to find their maker. Most go mad. And yet, you have not broken down, nor lost your joy. It is almost as if you would be perfectly satisfied if you never met them.”
“Of course, I want to find them.” Though I had never really thought to look. Why? Why hadn’t I thought to look? I had eternity. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I never clung to the idea of being a vampire very much. Part of me knew it, understood it, but I still felt like me, just hungrier…prettier. So instead of looking, I just wanted to get back to my life.”
“You are not upset at being reborn?” he frowned, and I saw something, like a brief moment of pain in his eyes.
“Sometimes, but—I don’t know what to say. It was just a new normal for me. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. It was just the reality of my situation. I was alive. To stay alive, I needed blood and money. So, I hunted and went to work.”
“How can someone who lives between the covers of romance novels and ancient paintings have such a scientific view of your rebirth?” he chuckled.
But I just shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just how I am. Why? Did you hate your rebirth?”
“I did.” He frowned, and he reached up to twirl one of the ends of my hair. “I had a life, a wife and two children. I was a droungarios.”
“A what?”
He smiled. “It was a title given to a commander of a formation known as droungos. Essentially, it was a unit in the Byzantine army. We were military units detailed to the mountainous areas in Greece. I worked my whole life to rise above my station. To be something worthy of honor and respect. I received it. I had four hundred men under my command. For a bastard son from Athens, later an orphan, it was as if I had become king. I never lost when we invaded from the north or when the east descended. I was fair when judging men and women in my city. And do you know who betrayed me?”
