Cake (47 page)

“
Thanks, Dad,” I said, swirling the amber drink in my glass, wishing it were Type A positive. That would’ve tasted great right then.

A silence hung between us, but it was a companionable silence until finally he sighed, saying, “That means we won’t be getting any little winglets to chase around, doesn’t it?”

“
I don’t know. Mar…” I bit back a sob. Even saying his name hurt. “
He
seemed to think that the Council would make me marry some Blue girl in order to try and revive the House of Von Drachenfeld.”

“
You don’t let anyone tell you who to love, Edward. Your heart is your own special, private gift, and only you can give it away, be it to a boy, a girl, or something else we haven’t seen yet.”

I frowned. How much of a deviant did Dad actually think I was?

“
I did give it away, even though I didn’t know it at the time,” I said morosely. “And…he left it lying there broken when he walked out.”

“
Then pick it up, cherish it back to health, and give it to someone who
will
appreciate the special boy that you are.”

“
Dad, I’m thirty now. I haven’t been a boy in a while.”

“
You will always be my boy,” Dad said proudly. “And be forever grateful that I don’t call you Sigmund.”

Thank God for small favors, eh? Saddled with the name Sigmund because of an old promise handed down through the generations that the first born son would have that name. It was just my bad luck that it had landed on me. But sitting there with my Dad on a warm summer night, knowing that these past four months have worked out more than just how to use my fangs and wings, made it feel like I was alive.

Well, human, anyway.

I’d finished my walk up to the house, and I noticed my suitcase and backpack sitting on the porch. Shade looked up from where she was sprawled around my neck, yawning. I thought I heard her kitty jaw crack.

Looks like we’ve been kicked to the curb.

“
Mom! Dad! You’re kicking me out?”

They were both standing on the porch, waiting for me, Mom holding a smaller toiletry bag in her hands. She came to meet me, her face worried, anxious, and her voice betraying how upset she was.

“
You never really told us what was wrong, when you came here. I just knew that any more pressure on your shoulders was going to break you. We let you find your own way to heal, though for the first month, I didn’t think you were capable of healing yourself. I was so scared for you, baby boy.” Mom’s eyes welled up as she spoke. “Finally, you started to get better. You started becoming my Sigmund again. And then, you started becoming a vampire…a very powerful vampire, discovering your gifts and talents. I want you to stay here forever, Sigmund, but…”

Dad held onto Mom. “The other Hunters can sense you, son. Your vampiric aura is getting stronger every day,” he explained. “They’ve taken a complaint to the Regency Council that we are harboring a vampire, and we can’t deny it.”

“
So, I have to go?” Reason might say that leaving was the logical thing to do, but my battered and bruised heart had just taken another hit.

“
Yes,” Mom answered, “or they will declare us renegades. You know how bad it gets when it’s Hunter against Hunter.”

I nodded glumly. “I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

“
Nonsense, you haven’t caused us any trouble. You were lost to us for an entire year, and I was overjoyed to find you, though…you’ve gotten too damn skinny!” I thought Mom was going to start crying.

Dad stepped up and patted me on the back. “I called Claudius to come and get you,” he said.

“
Come here, baby boy.” Mom gathered me up in her arms. “You watch your back out there. Watch out for those fangs; you never know where they might end up.”

I thought she was going to hug my head off my neck. “I will,” I promised, hugging her back just as tightly.

Mom reached out and scratched Shade’s head. “Take good care of him for us, won’t you?” she said.

As long as he stays off his back, we’ll be fine.

My eyes bugged out at Shade’s answer, and I smiled weakly at Mom.

“
That’s okay, I don’t want to know. Come here.” Mom squeezed me tight again, whispering, “I know you’re pissed at him right now, but don’t give up on him.”

“
Who?”

“
Marcus.” She ignored my flinch. “I saw the look on his face when he came into the police station. You cannot fake that kind of concern and caring,” she told me.

“
He’s the one who walked away,” I said sullenly.

“
Well, go trip him, then. Nobody walks away from a Xavier.”

“
Yes, ma’am.”

The limo pulled up, and Shade jumped off my shoulder as a housecat and landed on the ground as her favorite red panther. Instinctively, I dodged the twitch of her swinging tail.

Ha!

Dad handed me a glossy magazine and then a nylon knapsack. As I took it from him, I looked down as I felt the weight. “It’s nice to have vampiric gifts, but it’s even better to have reliable backup,” he said with a wink.

I did a quick unzip of the knapsack and saw the handles of two handguns, with spare clips and ammo nestled inside.

“
Dad!”

“
Just be safe, boy.”

“
Thanks for everything,” I said. “I’ll miss you.”

“
Get me a poster!” Mom yelled. I blinked. Okay. Whatever.

Picking up my luggage, I headed towards the limo. The driver, who introduced himself as Walker, took my bags from me, though I kept hold of the guns and the magazine, and I hopped into the car when he opened the rear door for me.

Claudius was lounging on the back seat, and I noticed that he was dressed atypically. He was wearing a patent leather outfit that looked like it had been painted on. His hair was loose and hung around his features, blending in with the shiny material. The whole look just made you want to run your hand over his body to see if that paint would smear.

I moved up and kissed his cheek before settling down in my seat. “Did my parents call you at a bad time?” I asked. I’d never seen him out of a suit, and this get up was…cool. And hot. And so not like the vampire I’ve gotten to know and Flame with.

“
No. I picked this out after they called,” he said.

I looked over at him again. “Are you drunk?”

‘
No,” he replied. Then he noticed what I was holding. “Ah, I see you have the magazine. Look at the middle pages.”

Turning on a light that was near to my head, I flipped to the center of the magazine and immediately dropped it. Holy crap.

Picking it back up, I looked again at what had shocked me. It was one of the last slut photos taken at Joker’s Wilde. Oh. Dear. God. I looked like a wanton sex god. The gold sunglasses I was wearing made the picture have a surreal feel about it. And with the addition of Claudius’s suited arm draped around me, the picture almost took on a pornographic feel. My right hand was on my thrust out hip, my left hand was on my thrown back forehead, and Claudius’s hand was disappearing into the waistband of the kilt.

“
This looks so…indecent,” I whispered.

“
That is what your brother said too. He called me up, quite incensed over this.” Claudius tapped the magazine.

I glossed over the brother remark. “My mother said something about wanting a poster. What did she mean? Do you know what she is talking about?” I asked, dragging my eyes away from the picture.

“
There is a twenty-foot billboard coming up, just as we enter the city. It shows you being naughty in the suit,” he explained. “That one, in the magazine, is now an art poster for sale. Frederick is making a killing out of the pictures you posed for, and you are too. He keeps sending over checks, and he wants to know when you’re going to be ready for your next modeling session.”

“
How about half past never!” I retorted. “I didn’t think it would be like this, with pictures of me plastered everywhere. I thought they would only be shown in his store. But…that still doesn’t explain the wet-leather look on you,” I said, gesturing in a line with my fingers from his head down to his feet.

“
I am taking you to an orgy.”

“
What? Really?”

“
No,” he answered glibly. “We are going to a rave. While we are there, you are going to eat yourself to Flame. And once you get calm, you are going to eat again. I can smell the weakness coming off of you, Xavier.”

I looked down at my dirty clothes, pulling a twig out of my shirt pocket. Claudius pointed to a bag sitting on the floor by my seat. I opened it up, and bit back a wave of sickness as I pulled out a pair of bronze leather pants and a matching halter-type shirt.

“
Frederick said that it would suit your coloring and build,” Claudius told me. Oh, I had no doubt Frederick would have said that. I gave a weak smile. “In a place like this rave, you need all the help you can get. Not that you need any help, my son, but I am insisting that you feed.”

I caught something in his voice. “What’s wrong?” I asked him.

“
Rumors are circulating about the loss of a Blue Blood. The Council have informed me that one of the twenty known Blues has been assassinated. They are a little upset because no one was even supposed to know where those Blues are.”

“
Is this assassination common knowledge?”

“
No, just speculation outside of the Council at the moment,” Claudius said. “But the experts have confirmed that a professional did it. If it were not a professional, then it was someone who was very skilled.”

I reached into my knapsack and pulled out one of the guns, showing it to Claudius. “I think the Hunters know about it. Otherwise, my dad wouldn’t have given me this.”

“
You know how to use that?” Claudius asked, surprised.

I gave him a mildly disgusted look, while Shade simply lifted her head and snorted before she lay back down on her pet bed.

“
I’ll have you know that I have a wall covered with ribbons and trophies for shooting,” I said proudly. “I could have been a sniper until my vision screwed up on me when I hit puberty. My prescription lenses were so thick, I was lucky I wasn’t declared legally blind…which happened shortly after I graduated high school.”

“
I wonder if your loss of eyesight was because of your hidden genetic heritage,” Claudius mused. “That would be interesting to document.”

“
You know something, Claudius, sometimes you make me feel like I’m just a lab experiment,” I snapped as I pulled my shirt over my head.

“
That is not my intention,” he said softly, reaching up and brushing my cheek with the back of his hand. “How can you function? I do not sense any essence in you at all. Why will you not eat, my son? Blood packs are for survival only.”