There are mansions. There are palaces. And then there are homes so obscene they could only be called monstrosities. My mother had a taste for the third. Sabine Rousseaux’s Pacific Heights enclave took up nearly a city block. Its size was bettered only by that of a neighboring romance author’s residence. My mother said she preferred the view from her balcony–a panorama of San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge–to the square footage.
The BMW’s engine kicked into third as I made my way up the steep hill my family home sat atop. The house itself was a glorious bastard of design my parents had concocted over the course of a century. There was a revival-style portico mixing with French flourishes around the front. Arched windows sat in its limestone walls. I noticed a bit of scaffolding on the north side. No doubt my mother was still trying to match the original stone with what needed to be replaced following the 1906 earthquake. A twenty-foot-tall wrought iron fence surrounded the perimeter to keep curious tourists from straying into our home, more for their protection than ours. I rolled down my window at the gate and smiled grimly at the security camera. A moment later, it creaked open and I drove into the private underground garage. While my family liked cars a bit too much, it was clear she had guests.
Was this why she needed me so fucking urgently? Did she have a parade of potential familiars lined up and ready to present?
I picked my phone up from the passenger seat. I was not going to spend every second I had in this city making small talk with other rich vampires, their bastards, and a bunch of desperate witches. Navigating to the text messages, I found the last one sent.
This is Julian’s number.
It had to be her. The rest of the messages were marked by name, except for one about my phone bill. There was no response. It must be the one she sent? I was still unclear on exactly how this worked. Was I supposed to wait until she sent a yes or no about dinner tomorrow and why? Was I supposed to ask again on this infernal device? Was it so hard to just answer me in-person? I decided to do it for her. It took me a second to punch in my message on the tiny digital keyboard. When I was finished I had more questions than answers about why today’s people liked these crappy devices. There had to be a better way to communicate. After a few seconds, three dots blinked back at me.
What the hell did that mean?
They disappeared.
I waited, dimly aware that the elevator had arrived in the garage. The three dots appeared again and I ignored whoever had joined me. Another few seconds passed before I got a response.
Okay.
It was a start. Although to what, I wasn’t sure. Stepping out of the car, I slid the phone in my pocket and turned to find my assistant waiting for me across the garage.
Celia greeted me at the elevator. “Sebastian is hosting a party in the opium den, but your mother requests to speak with you in her sitting room before you’re stoned out of your mind.”
I raised an eyebrow, and she held up her hands in apology.
“Her choice of words, not mine.”
I followed her inside the elevator and pressed the button for the second floor. I had no interest in attending Sebastian’s so-called party. I had no doubt orgy would be a better term for it. But I did need to speak with my brother.
“Is there anything I can see to?” Celia asked me as the elevator carried us upstairs.
I was about to tell her no when I remembered that I owed Thea. “Yes, call Ferdinand and find out what cellos he can bring me by tomorrow, and then figure out where the Stradivarius is being kept.”
“Are you taking up a new hobby?” Her forehead wrinkled like she was trying to decide if I was feeling unwell.
“I owe someone a cello,” I said with a shrug. There was no point in telling Celia about Thea yet. Not since I suspected Thea would continue to slam doors in my face.
A smile played on my assistant’s lips. “She must be very beautiful.”
“She is very annoying,” I corrected her, “and as I said, I owe her a cello. Something happened to hers.”
“Were you that something?” she guessed.
“Yes and no,” I said, bracing myself as the second-floor button lit up on the elevator panel.
“Julian,” Celia said my name with a long-suffering sigh, “whoever she is, your mother isn’t going to be happy if you give her a twenty-million-dollar cello!”
“It’s my cello.” I adjusted my cufflinks as the doors slid open. Holding my arm across the elevator’s threshold, I waited until Celia stepped onto the gallery’s landing before joining her. “And I’m not giving it to her. I don’t see why the hell anyone would care if I did, though. None of us play. What good is it doing collecting dust?”
“I believe it’s what mortals call an investment piece,” she said dryly. “Is there a budget for the ones Ferdinand will bring?”
I shook my head. “But I prefer something Italian.”
“You always have.” Celia walked with me toward Sabine’s rooms. Her eyes wandered over the paintings lining the walls, widening every now and then when she spotted a Cézanne or a Van Gogh. Sometimes I forgot how much younger she was than me. Mostly, because she spent so much time mothering me.
“Care to join us?” I asked when we reached the oak double doors that led into my mother’s private wing of the house.
She rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll sit this one out.”
She was too smart to get in the middle of a family disagreement, especially when it involved me and my mother.
“I’ll let you know what I find.” She paused. “Shall I have whatever Ferdinand finds delivered and save you the trouble? I’ll just need the musician’s name.”
“I’ll handle it.”
She inclined her head in deference to my wishes before moving to leave. As she turned I caught a glimpse of unmistakable satisfaction on her face. I opened my mouth to clarify again that this was simply an issue of courtesy, but she sped down the hall before I could.
I watched as she disappeared into the servant’s corridor, deciding to let her think what she wanted to about the matter. I knocked softly on the door and waited until I heard an imperious “come in” from the other side.
Striding into the sitting room, I found my mother lounging by a marble fireplace, dressed in a silk dressing gown embroidered with large fuchsia blooms. The fire danced over the goblet in her hand, the glass reflecting the flames. Another filled glass sat on the eighteenth-century coffee table in front of her. She twirled a finger lazily in her own drink before lifting a blood-soaked finger to her mouth and delicately sucking it clean.
It was an old habit of hers, to think over a warmed serving of O-negative. In my younger decades, I came home to find her in a similar state frequently, usually the result of worrying over some mischief caused by one of my brothers. It had been years since I’d seen her like this, not since…
“I’m sorry for this evening,” I said stiffly. She’d called me here to tell me off for speaking so openly in front of a human. An apology would minimize her concerns.
She lifted blue eyes to stare at me, studying me with silent judgment, before she pointed to a plush chaise lounge across from her.
I might be the heir to the Rousseaux name and fortune, but my mother held a firm grip over me and the rest of our family. That was natural, given that vampires were matriarchal in nature. A male vampire’s job was to marry, produce heirs, and contribute to the betterment of society during times of peace. When war was called for, we were well-trained to protect our mothers, sisters, and wives. It was a skill we learned during friendly skirmishes at home and honed on real battlefields. A male vampire always stood ready to protect the females he served, even if most of them didn’t require much protection. At least, I’d been raised with those traditional values. Even the wildest of my siblings fell into line where our mother was concerned. For the most part, she respected her adult children, but every now and then one of us disappointed her.
I had never been the one to do that before tonight.
Taking the seat across from her, I waited for the lecture I knew was coming.
“You knew this was coming,” she said softly. She didn’t need to raise her voice. That was the power of a vampire queen. She knew just how strong she was and where she stood as leader of the family. “When Camila died…”
She trailed away for a moment, the slight flare of her nostrils betraying the grief she hid like an old scar.
“I understand,” I said, wanting to spare her the pain she still felt over my twin’s untimely death.
Sabine’s eyes flashed to mine, and I realized too late that I’d said the wrong thing. “You cannot understand the death of a child,” she stormed, “until you have one of your own, and, by the way you’re acting, I assume you never will!”
“There’s an entire year for–”
“Who was that mortal?” she interrupted. “The pretty, little human in the cheap dress?”
“No one of consequence.”
“Oh?” She reached for the phone in her lap where it lay hidden amongst pools of embroidered silk. “But you felt the need to dine with her?” She held it up to showcase a photograph of me and Thea at the diner.
“That was your man?” I fought to suppress the rage boiling inside me at this revelation.
“That one was,” she said sharply. “Who knows who else saw?”
“And who cares?” I challenged her. “So, I fed her. She’d had a rough evening.”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” she hissed, slamming her glass so hard on the coffee table’s marble top that its stem shattered. She groaned and caught the globe in her hand before a drop was spilled. A second later her own blood trickled down her wrist from the broken glass. If it hurt, she showed no sign of it. “This is not just any season–”
“The Rites have been enacted,” I cut her off. “I know.”
“Being seen with a female during the Rites signals unavailability. You know this!”
“I do,” I said coolly.
“I don’t understand.” She drained the rest of the blood in a single swig and tossed the broken glass into the hearth. “What did I do to deserve this? I gave some of the best years of my life to raising my children and now? If your father were here…”
“It’s good to see your theatrical side is intact,” I said flatly, “and speaking of which, where is my father?”
“Vienna.” She dismissed the details with a flick of her wrist. “Or Venice? It’s not important. We needed a little space.”
In my parents’ case, they often needed to put an ocean or two between them after an argument. I decided not to press her for details. It would either distract her or make her madder. It was hard to tell.
She pinched the bridge of her nose before calmly continuing, “You have to be more careful. What would happen if you were linked to someone right now? It could hurt your marriageability. I won’t live forever.”
“Promise?” I grumbled.
“That’s a terrible thing to say to your mother!” She clutched her chest as if I’d physically wounded her, and I murmured a quiet apology. “The point is that someone has to be ready to take my place.”
“When?” I cut her off. “A couple hundred years from now? A millennium? We’re not in a rush, exactly.”
“Julian, we must protect our way of life and the family name. I don’t want people to get the wrong idea about you. Not now.”
“And what idea would that be?” I slung an arm over the back of the chaise and lounged against it. “I’ve never hidden my disinterest in marriage and all of that other shit.”
“All of that other shit,” she repeated, fangs glinting as she spoke, “is tradition, and you can scoff at that all you like, but a girl like that could never be part of our world.”
“Is that what you think?” I asked quietly. I thought of Thea’s face after I’d put a stop to our reckless kiss. She hadn’t been simply disappointed. She had looked rejected.
“There are lovely, accomplished familiars that were waiting to be introduced to you this evening, but you were too busy with…”
“Thea,” I offered her.
“Whatever. The point is that you can’t waste any more chances, and you can’t risk being seen with her.”
I got to my feet. I’d heard enough of this conversation. “I had no idea that you were so prejudiced, especially after all the lovers you’ve taken over the years.”
“A lover is one thing. Take as many of those as you want after you’re married and after you’ve produced an heir.”
“How romantic,” I muttered. “Is that why dad is abroad? Did he catch you with your latest boy toy?”
“Your father and I are very happy with our arrangement, and if you’d just be open to meeting someone, you could be one day, too!”
It was the vampire way. Find a match that stroked your ego or your alliances or your bank account, spit out a kid or two, and then go on with your lives. Make a few more vampires the easy way. Take a few more lovers. Get a little richer and a whole lot snobbier. I’d been stuck on this hamster wheel of privilege long enough.
Sabine mistook my silence for compliance. A smug smile settled on her face. “I knew you would see it my way. Now, you should go join Sebastian in the den. He’s invited the Bennett sisters and the Fairfields. Lovely girls. Sarah just graduated from Yale. I’m positive one of them can make you forget about whatever her name was.”
Thea. I wanted to shout the name at her, but I bit my tongue.
I’d stopped myself from propositioning her to play the part of my girlfriend earlier. She was too innocent, too naive, too human. But she was more than my mother saw. She was a talented musician. She was brave. She was curious. The familiars downstairs were only after one thing, even Sabine wouldn’t deny that. And why would she? To her, it was perfectly natural to marry to strengthen relationships between the mortal witches and our kind. But I wasn’t interested in a life of duty. I didn’t want to go downstairs and find some sycophantic familiar to fuck. Even if I did, I doubted it could erase Thea from my mind. I doubted anything could. Not until I tasted her and given the situation that was impossible.
“Julian.” My mother’s voice coaxed me from my thoughts. “Just be more careful who you are seen with. We wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.”
I glared at her, realizing I had nothing to lose but a spot participating in this season’s cattle call. “That could be a problem,” I murmured, enjoying the way her shoulders tensed, “because Thea is my girlfriend.”
