Cake (28 page)

“
Oh? So why did Claudius have to go get take-out for me and Marcus then?” I frowned, catching myself doing so and arching my eyebrows up. Oh, look at me. Geez.

“
Truthfully, sir?” Chesterton stopped and turned toward me.

I halted and looked up at him, taking another sip of that hot steamy redness from my mug. “Honesty is the best policy,” I quipped.

Chesterton nodded in my direction, and then he hit me with the brutal truth. I could do nothing but stand there and reel because…it was the truth. “You’re too young. You have no control of your fangs or your gifts, and you are a security risk. If you had drunk too deeply yesterday, it would have been easier to bury the body of a stranger than a friend.”

That really stung. “Point taken,” I said, feeling abashed. “Keep my hands and fangs to myself.”

He heard the hurt in my voice, and hastened to appease me. “No, Master Xavier, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“
Chesterton, I’m not exactly Einstein at the best of times, and right now, there’s so much going on up here, I am not thinking straight, and the fact that I
know
I’m not thinking straight is scary. Just, spit it out. Say what you do mean.”

“
Yes, sir. Please keep your fangs away from my staff, sir.”

“
I’ll work on it,” I promised. “Why aren’t you running away like the rest of them?” I asked him, gesturing to the moving shimmers around us.

He looked at the walls and frowned, arched an eyebrow my way, and then turned to lead me further down the corridor. “Lord Claudius has asked me to chaperone you,” he said as he walked.

“
Meaning, stop me from doing something stupid. How would you do that?” I was curious. A year ago, I would have really liked to have known how to take down a rampaging vampire. I blinked now as Chesterton showed me a stun gun he had clipped to his belt. “That thing works?” I asked, not really wanting to test him to find out.

“
I know that it has brought Master Marcus down when it was required. I don’t know if it would affect you though, sir. In fact, it just might enrage you even more. In all my years of service, I have never seen a vampire with wings, and you are so small and so young.”

“
Don’t look at me for explanations,” I told him. “I’m in the dark myself. And for future reference, I am
not
small.”

“
Of course, sir. Shall I take you to the councilor?”

“
Lead on, MacDuff,” I answered, catching sight of a slight smirk on his face before he turned back into being the proper vampire’s butler. I think I liked him a lot for that smile.

I had been right in thinking that Marcus was rich. While the halls and corridors weren’t lavishly packed to the gills, the items decorating the lower levels below Sanctuary were classy, and elegant, and sparse, therefore…expensive. I continued to sip at my mug of blood as we walked, me barefooted, padding along behind the well-dressed, well-shod man, and then a chilling thought passed through my mind as I stared at him.

“
Chesterton, did you know that Marcus had me up there, before he called you on the intercom that first time?”

“
Sir?” His shoulders stiffened, but his stride didn’t falter.

“
What did we say about honesty, Chesterton?”

“
Yes, sir, I knew you were up there,” he admitted, his reply low and reluctant, almost apologetic.

“
And you knew what Marcus was doing to me?” My hands tightened around the mug.

“
Yes sir. The upper level is wired for surveillance.”

I was horrified. “You
watched
what he did to me?”

“
Oh, no, Master Xavier!” This time Chesterton stopped in his tracks and looked at me, his face clearly upset. “We were instructed to only use surveillance when Master Marcus was not present, to make sure that you didn’t harm yourself, like you tried to in the beginning. If the truth be known, sir, there were many times that I and the other staff wished to intervene when Master Marcus was…ahem, training you. We took our concerns to Master Claudius, but he assured us that you were dead to the outside world, and it would be your decision if you wanted to be dead in this one as well. Many times I, personally, could not listen to your cries, and I would turn the sound off.”

I was pissed. He had known that a rape-fest had been going on upstairs, and he’d just turned off the monitor so he didn’t have to witness it. “Thanks for the comfort,” I grumbled.

“
But you are happy now.”

The way he’d said that made it sound so simple. Yeah, I thought as he began to lead the way again, I survived a year of sexual and psychological torture, and now I am deliriously happy that my rapist has decided to ask permission before
fucking me. Whoo hoo. Oh, and by the way, thanks for eight hundred times of nothing. I sucked down to the dregs of my mug of blood. Bitter, Xavier, you’re getting bitter.

“
Here you go, sir.” Chesterton gestured towards a set of closed doors. “You
are
happy, sir, are you not?” he pressed, uncertainty playing in his eyes.

“
Honestly?”

“
It is the best policy, sir.”

“
I don’t know,” I answered with a resigning sigh.

Chesterton’s master butler expression faltered at my admittance, and turning away from him, I looked down at the empty mug of blood. A couple of days ago, it would have been simple coffee that filled it. Now it was blood that I had just drunk. Blood, which I had swallowed down as if it had tasted like Columbia’s finest mountain grown. Maybe it was. I didn’t really care where the blood had come from. I was trying to cope with the feeling of being a little annoyed about the news that no one had tried to rescue me, despite knowing what was going on.

“
Marcus has trained me to be his lap dog,” I said slowly. “Am I supposed to be happy with that? Aside from those two big vampires upstairs, I haven’t had much experience in anything else here. I don’t know if I’m happy. I really don’t know. Maybe I am, as long as Marcus wants me. A dog can only have one master, right?”

Chesterton’s face looked alarmed. “Sir!”

“
Sorry, Chesterton,” I said, forcing my tone to take on a lighter note. “Marcus changed the routine today. I didn’t get fucked this morning, and that’s probably what’s gotten me in this melancholy mood.” I handed him my empty mug. “Don’t worry about me…I’m a survivor.”

Pushing past him, I opened the doors and entered the drawing room, looking for the blonde-haired woman. I saw her leaning against the mantle, her eyes immediately flicking towards me as I came in, and she flinched at the sight of me, though she tried to mask it with a welcoming smile. But she had, she’d flinched. And I felt better for seeing it. I hadn’t gotten the etiquette required from Marcus on how to address a council member, so I winged it. Hahaha, I could still make a funny.

I bowed slightly in her direction. “Councilor Armanita.”

“
My Lord Emperor.”

We watched each other from across the vacant room. This was just awkward and weird. I mean, what
do
you say to someone that recently tried to kill you?

“
You seem to have recovered quickly,” I said politely.

“
And you.”

Awkward, awkward, awkward.

“
Marcus said that you would be the best one to talk to about…these things.” I gestured to the lack of wings.

“
Yes. I would be an expert on that subject.” There was sadness in both her face and her voice, and for a moment she looked lost in far-off memories. Then, shaking her head she asked, “What would you like to know, My Lord?”

“
Where the hell did they go?” I blurted.

“
The wings you have are a sign of the Royal House, as is the Hand of Light you displayed. You are descended from the Emperor’s House…Von Drachenfeld. You are of Royal Blood,” she told me.

“
That still doesn’t tell me where my wings went.”

Armanita stepped towards me with her hand outstretched, as if to touch my face. I backed the hell away from her. She’d gotten all the coppy-feely she was going to get from me, yesterday. Her arm stilled, and regret slipped down over her young woman’s features.

“
The wings have been absorbed into your body through the dual scars on your back. Once the Emperor’s wings have emerged, the scars become like wing flaps. When you call on the wings, they will emerge from those scars easily, and you will never again bleed such as you did on that first occasion,” she began, explaining. “In time, and with lots of practice, your wings will obey your command, but until you gain mastery over them, they will, just like your fangs, continue to respond to strong emotion, such as anger or fear. When you are calm or at rest, the wings will dissolve, returning to their original dormant form inside your body, waiting for your call.”

“
Are they functional?” Even though this was the bitch that almost took both Marcus and me down, I was as excited as a kid at Christmas by what she was telling me.

“
Explain, please.”

“
Flying. Can I fly?” Isn’t it every boys wish to fly like Icarus, without having the inevitable crash and burn and death awaiting him?

“
Yes. You can fly with the Emperor’s wings,” Armanita admitted, adding, “Though I would recommend lots and lots of practice first. The ground is still very hard. You can get…hurt.”

There had been a deliberate pause. She was obviously waiting for me to make some sort of remark about yesterday. She probably wanted an apology for taking a spike through the shoulder. I narrowed my gaze. She was the one that started the stabbing. She could be the one to kick in with the apologies first.

“
So what happens now?” I asked. “You believe I’ve got a Blue Flame, and you think I’m Royal Blood. From the little I understand, that’s not a good thing, since all the Blues were wiped out centuries ago.” I crossed my arms in front of my chest, trying to look intimidating. But it’s hard to look like that when you’re dressed in fuck-me-now clothes, with boy-toy Rapunzelesque style hair, and showing bare toes. I still tried, though.

Armanita gestured to one of the leather sofas, and crossing from the mantle place, she went and sat down. “Not all Blues were lost to the cull, just most of them. The few Blues that have survived are in hiding. However, they are not of the Blue Line.”

Ignoring her offer to join her on the sofa, I sat myself down on a wingback chair across from her instead. It was far enough back that I would be able to scramble out of her way if she started getting stabby again. At least, I hoped I could. I mean, she had been fast. Really fast.

“
So, why are you calling me Lord Emperor, when you know damn well the rest of the Reds aren’t going to like seeing something dead and forgotten resurrected?”

“
You are wrong in that regard,” she replied. “The fall of our Emperor was not done by vampire hands, and there are many who long for the return of the Emperor.”

“
How many?” I trusted her about as far as I could throw her, which yesterday proved to be only about ten feet.

“
Most of the Ancients, and older vampires, and the heads of the various Red Houses,” she informed me. “You would only need to proclaim your heritage, and you would have all the Houses swearing their fealty to you.” I thought I saw a glint of zealot madness in her eyes as she spoke.

“
You want to wage a Holy war while screaming my name?”

“
It is your birthright. You are a Von Drachenfeld!”

This blonde, cheerleader-looking woman was freaking me out badly. I jumped to my feet, putting even more space between us. “I was born a human. I was never called Lord Emperor then.”

Her head cocked to one side. “We should see if the rest of your family is of the Blue line as well then or find out if you are a genetic throw-back. It could be just happenstance. We will have to bring them in for testing.”