Cake (46 page)

“
I’m an orphan,” I told him.

“
No, you are not,” Claudius contradicted. “You are my son, to cherish and spoil.” He reached out and tousled my hair and then quickly pulled his hand back, surveying his gooey fingers. “What is this?”

“
I have no idea. I’m afraid to touch it,” I told him. “I’m just hoping it washes out.”

“
I’ll have the jeans and shirts you posed in folded up and packed in a suitcase,” Frederick offered, handing me a scrap of paper. “And I made out this check for the rest of the shoot. Take it. The campaign is going to be big. What do you want to be known as? What will be your modeling name?”

“
Sex,” I answered immediately.

“
Sex?” Frederick’s eyebrows almost hid themselves in his hairline.

“
That is what he said,” Claudius confirmed, bending down and picking up the kilt, wiping his soiled hand clean on it.

I looked at the check, and saw the long length of numbers Frederick had written on it. Holy shit.

“
I, um, think you put too many zeros on here.”

“
Big campaign. Big, big, big,” Frederick responded. “That last set was so hot.” He turned to face the dark haired vampire. “Sorry, Claudius, we made sure your face wasn’t in the pictures, so you don’t get a check.”

“
I can give you one of the zeros from here,” I volunteered, holding up the check so Claudius could read it.

“
I do not need the money, Xavier. Start thinking of your future.” He gave a small bow to Frederick. “It has been an interesting evening, to be sure. But it is time for us to go. Come, my boy. Nightshade.”

Claudius followed the Hellcat out of the makeshift studio, his head held high and his gaze steady. No one would ever know that the floor was littered with the pieces of two fractured hearts. That fucking Marcus.

We were both quiet as we made our way back to the limo, Claudius carrying my suitcase for me. The crowd had thinned out by now, and it was easy to make our way through the smaller throng of people and get into the back seat of the car. I have to admit, one good thing about being a vampire meant I was riding around in style…well, at least while I was with the House of Du Bussey.

As we drove back to the Manor, I watched the city skyline pass by. Bright lights shining for the dead. Well, wasn’t that a morbid thought. Shade rested her head on my lap, but she didn’t say anything in return. I scratched behind her ears, trying to distract myself as I felt my eyes well up. Oh crap.

“
Do not dare cry for him. If I had known what he was doing with you a year ago, I would have stopped him.”

The drive up to that point had been silent. At Claudius’s interruption of the peace, I wiped my face and found it wet with tears.

“
I’m not crying for Marcus. I’m crying for you, because I can’t stay with you, Claudius,” I told him. “I need to get away from both of you. You’ve lost not one but two sons tonight.”

He bowed his head forward. “What about protection?” he asked.

I knew he wasn’t talking about condoms. I was a wanted fledgling, wanted by everyone, except by the one person who had made me. I blinked hard, telling myself not to cry. I would not cry. I dropped my tear soaked hand back down to Shade’s massive head, my fingers fisting in her fur.

I got your back, Sex.

“
Where will you go?”

“
Home,” I replied in answer to Claudius’s next question. “There, I will have a Hellcat, a Regent Hunter, a First-Class Battle Mage, and the hunter heir to the Regency to protect me. I think I’ll be safe enough.”

“
What will you do?”

I had to think about that one before I could reply.

“
A little bit of healing and a hell of a lot of learning on how to be a strong vampire. You know damn well that Armanita is going to announce the Royal Blood Line is back in business. And when she does that, I’d better have a handle on everything, or I’m dead before she gets done speaking.”

Claudius silently stared at me. He didn’t need to say anything. I understood what his expression meant.

“
Don’t look at me like that,” I told him. “I’m not going to be sitting around pining for some vampire who doesn’t want me.”

Yes, you will.

I was grateful that no one could hear the Hellcat but me.

Yeah…I will.

T
wenty-One

Nevernever

I was sitting up in the branches of an old oak tree, breathing in the warm summer night, when a bat flittered past my head. I had to laugh as it squeaked and dipped and dodged, taking off after its insect prey. Speaking of prey…

Scanning the ground below me, I looked for the familiar flash of red that was Shade’s fur coat. My gifts were coming easier to me now. Not without effort, but if I used enough force of will, I could do everything I wanted to do without the blinding agony and having to resort to sucking down a blood pack to feel better. I used one of those gifts now to find her.

There she was.

Standing up carefully, I lightly ran along the branch I’d been sitting on. And when I was sure I would clear the rest of the major branches of the tree I was hiding in, I jumped.

I had miscalculated such a jump once before. I stress it only happened once. I’d ended up crashing through the branches like George of the Jungle. Clumsy and ungraceful. And talk about hurt. I think I broke every single rib in that fall. And I’d gotten about as much sympathy as any idiot deserved who injured himself in that manner.

Look before you leap. Any child knows that. Now, get up. I’m not dragging your dead ass back to the barn.

That was the limit of sorrow Shade felt for me, and the cat then turned away and left me there, alone and hurting, until midnight, when she’d come back with my Dad and a wagon. Let me tell you, a Hellcat truly earns its name.

Now, as I fell from the tree, I angled my shoulders down and streaked towards Shade. About twenty feet from her, I willed my wings out and spread them wide to slow myself. The force of the sudden stop to my descent snapped my legs forward and wrenched my shoulders back, but I was ready for the sensation now, and I bore the pain, grabbing the Hellcat with my arms and legs, holding on tight and hoping to ride her into the ground. Instead, I hit the ground hard and got spun on my back as she flipped me from her easily. Then I felt her fangs at my throat.

You’re dead. Again. I’m getting tired of killing you, Xavier.

“
Get off,” I snarled.

Get rid of your wings, and make me. You can’t though, can you? You’re too weak again. You have to eat.

Shade let go of my throat and sat down beside me.

This is getting tiresome. You shouldn’t be afraid of sex. You’re far from a blushing virgin.

Pushing myself up, I rubbed at my throat. Shade didn’t pull any fang lately, her bites were getting harder. I guess I’d just pissed her off again.

“
I’m not ‘afraid’ of sex,” I told her churlishly.

Your not eating is affecting my feeding.

“
Well, why the hell didn’t you say so earlier,” I replied smartly, earning myself a red-tail flick off the back of my head. “Okay, okay.”

A car is approaching…it is Claudius. Why? It’s not your day for feeding.

Standing upright I made the effort to really concentrate and grinned in relief when I felt that sparkling shower as my wings disappeared. I shook my shoulders to make sure the feathery appendages were really gone, and then I took off running at high speed. I had discovered that this was something I could hold against Shade’s extra two feet…because I cheated. I had learned how to lighten my weight so I could soar into the air when learning to fly, and it hadn’t taken much effort to adapt it to running as well.

I could hear Shade coming up fast behind me, and then I heard that predictable little hitch in her stride that told me she was leaping. I felt a slight breeze shift to the left of me, so I threw my weight to the right, pivoted quickly, and drove her feline body hard into the grass, where we rolled over about three times. I ended up on top of her and grabbed her head as if to snap her neck.

“
You’re dead!”

Good boy.

My reward was to get smacked really hard with the end of her panther tail before Shade shrank herself down to the smaller size of a housecat and climbed up into my arms.

“
Why is it I have to carry your dead ass back to the barn, but you won’t do the same for me?” I whined.

Because you’re a sucker for a kitty face.

Shade started nonchalantly licking her paws clean.

“
Oh, that was bad.”

Setting her up on my shoulders, I walked the rest of the way back to the house. I did feel weak, it was true, but I had a sense of peace within me that I don’t think I’ve ever had. Four months of doing nothing but analyzing what the hell had been going on in my life, I could finally say it now…I am a vampire. I’m also a Blue Flame, though I’ll hold off the Emperor crap for a while. And I’m also gay. I’m working on that one too.

I had sat my father down a couple of weeks ago when I’d figured it out for myself, and I’d told him I was gay and that Marcus hadn’t reset my sexual preferences. In fact, he’d set them free, no matter how much at the time I’d wanted to deny them.

Dad accepted what I said to him, and I started to feel good about myself and what I was, though nothing could ease the pain in my heart that Marcus had caused when he’d ripped it out and turned his back on both Claudius and me.

We shared a brew on the picnic table out back, just us guys bonding. Father and Son. Vampire and Human. Lord Emperor and Regency Mage. I’d never appreciated Dad when I was the fat, blind bastard. I’d never appreciated anything. I’d cut myself off from so much. But you can’t go back and relive it, you can only move forward and build something new. Not long after my confession, Dad brought out the scotch…serious discussion time. I sat there nursing my twenty-year-old whiskey, desperately craving a bag of blood but willing to sit in the growing darkness of evening with my father.

For the most part he’s an easygoing guy, and just by looking at him, you wouldn’t know about the arcane skills and battle abilities he has. When he’s on a job, he’s a different man altogether, but here at home, I was quickly learning that he could call on that battle mage pretty damn easily when anything hurt his children. And Marcus had made his naughty list.

“
He hurt you,” he thundered. “There is still a wounded look in your eyes. In Lord Claudius’s too. I will not forgive him for that.”