Chapter 36 Vesper
Vesper
By week two, I knew we weren’t going back to the palace.
At least not for a while.
I wasn’t sure if Aurelia knew, but neither Cedar nor I mentioned it.
Time was weird with vampirism. We didn’t need to sleep. Didn’t need to eat, except for blood. So it was really easy for us to get lost in the days passing and in each other, not really noticing just how long it had been since we left in the first place.
And Aurelia… she was starting to live.
There were no royals to entertain. We bounced from city to city, stopping by the various vampire covens and families as we found them, many of them still treating Aurelia as the princess she had once been, offering us meals and lodging.
They had made their feelings on the now dead Castle king very clear, but now, without the pressure of royal customs, they were much more open and friendly with us.
“What? You didn’t know?” Elora said with a scandalous gasp. “Your husband is using the last bit of his inheritance to open a… sex club.”
The last bit was spoken in a whisper, likely afraid her own husband would overhear. But he was in the other room, and standing by her side was a tall, stoic guard—a masculine woman, bulky, with a shaved head and tattoos on her face, dressed in an all-black guard uniform.
She was very attentive to Elora, and it made me wonder if that was the reason her husband had been treating her so differently.
The first time I’d seen her, she was a shell of a vampire, with her husband keeping blood from her to make her compliant and submissive. But she looked positively lively now.
Aurelia, Cedar, and I were sitting in her parlor, drinking blood and relaxing as they chatted when the topic of Caspian came up.
“Ex-husband,” Cedar and I said together.
Elora laughed behind her hand, her guard’s lips twitching ever so slightly.
“Of course he did,” Aurelia replied with a huff and took a sip of her blood.
“The other one just doesn’t feel right now.” Elora grimaced. “No one really has the energy to play those silly political games anymore.”
“It was a stupid idea in the first place. An excuse for unhappy vampires to let loose.”
“Is that not what this new one is too?’ Cedar asked.
Elora lit up.
“No! It’s better! Invite only, and they accept everyone—humans, witches, and vampires alike. I even saw a few of those shifters there.”
Interest leaked through the bond.
“We may have to pay them a visit,” Aurelia said as she stood in a swift motion. “But first, I think we have a few hunters waiting for us, don’t we?”
Anxiety ran through my chest as we all stood and started to say our goodbyes. It had been a few months since I’d seen my brothers, and I was both excited and nervous.
Especially since the last time I saw them, they’d been searching for our mother.
Cedar squeezed my arm, and I sent her a smile.
You have them. It will be okay.
“You’re getting taller—again,” I grumbled as Tate gave me a side hug.
I said nothing as he slipped a small box into my pants.
We met just a few miles away from our next destination, since Gabriel’s band of hunters had also been on the move over the last few months. It wasn’t easy to plan, but we were finally close enough to meet.
“That’s what happens,” he said with a smirk. “We humans grow.”
“Quarter humans,” Aurelia corrected.
Tate rolled his eyes and pulled away. “Think fast.”
He grabbed something from his belt and threw it at Aurelia, who caught it with ease. The glint of metal told me what it was.
When she opened her hand to look at it, surprise and something a little heavier settled in the bond.
Cedar looked over her shoulder to see what it was.
“The feather?” Cedar asked. “I thought it exploded.”
“You’re looking at the hunters’ first magical artifact and weapon apprentice,” Tate said with a bow.
Pride welled in my chest. I didn’t agree with the hunters, but I was happy to see Tate excel in something. I already knew about his work. The thing he slipped into my pocket had been one of the first things he told me he’d work on.
“Thank you.” Aurelia fastened the now mostly metal feather to her neck. “I really appreciate this.”
He met my eyes and gave me a not-so-subtle wink.
“Anything for my sister.”
“Hey! What about me?” Cedar gave him a teasing pout.
“In due time,” he said and looked over as Gabriel met us.
“How’s life after the fall, Castle? Or are you technically still a Hart?”
She huffed.
“Once a Castle, always a Castle.”
He gave her a shit-eating grin.
“So you never changed your name?”
Aurelia let out a playful growl, and Gabriel chuckled before looking at me, turning serious.
“We found her.”
My chest constricted.
“Where is she?”
He turned to face the edge of the forest. I hadn’t heard my mother come up, but she was there, waiting for us. Seeing her was like a shock to my system. Anger. Pain. Rage. Sadness. I didn’t know what to feel.
My lovers came up to my side, both holding onto me.
“You don’t have to meet her if you don’t want to,” Aurelia said.
I gritted my teeth at the look Gabriel gave us.
Do I want to?
“If it makes you feel better, she wants to apologize.” Tate moved closer, grabbing my hand and forcing me to look at him. “She would like to hear about what happened.”
I looked back at my mother, who was now looking at her feet.
“Okay,” I forced out.
Tate gave me a beaming smile.
“Great! We prepared blood, just in case!”
I let myself be pulled into their hunter camp, my mother lingering at the side, waiting for us to get settled.
Gabriel and Tate were talking my ear off about all the places they’d been and what they’d been doing, but I drowned them out. The only thing I could think of was my mother.
“We will wait outside,” Cedar said, her hand lingering on my back.
They got me and my mother to sit at a table inside a tent for some semblance of privacy, with blood already ready for me.
When we were finally alone, I spoke.
“Does it hurt?”
She looked up at me.
“What?” she asked, her voice much weaker than I remembered.
We humans age. I became acutely aware of that fact when I saw the wrinkles on my mother’s face. Maybe they had always been there, but I was just now noticing them.
“To look at me,” I replied, twisting to the side so she could see my slashed-through tattoo. “My scars. How I changed. The realization that you failed your own daughter and put her through hell.”
The words spilled out of me like they’d always been there, just waiting for this moment.
“Yes.” I was suddenly hit with the smell of salt water as tears gathered in her eyes. “It hurts more than I can ever explain. Vesper, I’m—”
“I don’t want your apologies,” I spat, my fingers digging into my thigh. “You were complicit in it all. Your apology is just to make yourself feel better, and I want nothing to do with it.”
She pressed her lips together.
“I’m glad you found somewhere you belong. Where people love and accept you.”
“He died because he couldn’t bring himself to kill me.” She met my gaze. “Father.”
Her face tightened.
“I know,” she said. “He knew he wouldn’t be able to. That was why he sent me away.”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t know what to say to her. In all truth, I wanted nothing from her.
“Do you think you deserve the forgiveness my brothers have given you?”
A tear fell.
“No,” she whispered.
Good. But a part of me still felt bad for being so harsh to her.
“I am happily going to spend my life with them. I won’t think about my past, and especially not about you or what Father did to me.”
She nodded. “I accept that. I deserve it.”
I wanted to scream at her, but I swallowed it.
“I loved you, and you hurt me.”
Her tears were falling freely now. “I regret it all and deserve this.”
“And I can’t help but still love you, even after it all,” I said, blood filling my eyes.
She gave me the most heartbreaking look.
“A child will always love their parents, no matter the horrors they put them through. I just hope one day I can earn a place in your life. I would…” She swallowed a sob. “I would like to see how the three of you end up.”
The box felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket. I stood up, unable to stay in the suffocating tent any longer.
“There is nothing more to say.” I turned around, heading for the door. “I’m going to say goodbye to Tate and—”
“I’m sorry, Vesper. I love you, and I will spend the rest of my human life trying to show you I mean it.”
The image that came to my mind felt like I was being hit in the face with an iron bar.
My mother, old and gray. Me, unchanging.
In a flash, I was by her side, holding her to me in a hug. Hesitantly, she returned it. When she did, she squeezed me as tight as her arms could manage.
“I’ll be waiting,” she said. “And good luck.”
“He told you.”
I pulled away as she wiped her tears.
“He showed me. I couldn’t be happier for you, Vesper. I mean it.”
“Until next time,” I said, pausing at the exit. “Maybe if I can find it in me, you’ll be invited.”
“I’d like that.”
I stepped out, my lovers the first thing I saw. Cedar had her arms around Aurelia, holding her close as Tate showed them a sword he made. Gabriel was off to the side, talking to some of the other hunters.
When Cedar and Aurelia looked at me, the weight on my chest lightened. My fingers found the box in my pocket.
Forever. With them.
I couldn’t help but smile.
It sounds perfect to me.