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His nose flares at my insistence that he continue. My guess is that Julian is not used to being ordered about. Regardless, he continues.
“My mother at the time was carrying triplets. It’s believed that when she went through the change, our fetuses did as well.”
“Oh my God. How in the hell did she survive that?”
“She didn’t. She died during childbirth.”
I bite my lower lip, feeling horrible for not remembering. I visited his mother’s memorial. He told me himself that she died during birth. How cold am I not to have remembered that? I want to ask how she was able to die given he said she had the gene, but I don’t. It feels insensitive to pry into such a clearly painful thing, and in the end it doesn’t matter. She’s dead.
“I’m sorry, Julian. My mind has been on so many things, but I should’ve remembered.”
A horrible sting rips through me. I feel like shit. For all the things he’s done for me, I continue to stomp all over him.
“I don’t expect you to remember the cause of her death, Marina. You’ve endured a lot.”
Worse. I feel worse because he continues to be so kind, when I don’t deserve it. When he doesn’t have to be. The bottom line is, he holds the power, yet he keeps giving it all to me. Why?
“Continue, Julian,” Stacey says, giving me the stink eye. I deserve it.
“A century later, dysentery swept through Sweden, and another family of vampires rose to power. To this day, only three families have been born, not bitten. The descendants of these three families were thought to be immortal. No blade, gun, poison, or arrow ever did the job.”
“Not even a stake through the heart?” Stacey asks.
Julian rolls his eyes. “Definitely not a stake through the heart.”
“Are those families the Council?” I ask, trying to piece everything together.
“Some of them. Over the years, other families have made alliances, and gained power and influence in the meantime.”
“So you’re a Born,” I say out loud, still trying to work everything out.
He nods.
“The new vampires are called...” Stacey waits for an answer.
“New bites.”
“Original,” she says sardonically.
Julian laughs for the first time since we started this conversation.
“We were not the most innovative, I suppose.”
“I’d say,” Stacey laughs, and we all join her.
She sits back, clucking her tongue several times. Julian and I watch her, looking to each other in question.
“Let’s play a game,” she says, and I groan in response.
The last time she suggested we play a game, I came face to face with a dead body.
“I’m intrigued,” Julian lies. I can tell by the way he cringed when she suggested a game.
“It’s simple. Never Have I Ever.”
It’s my turn to cringe at the memory of the last time I witnessed this game take place. It
only further shows how different Stacey and I were before we were taken. She’d definitely fit in with my old friends, but we’d be unlikely friends for sure.
