Chapter 2
After sucking down an energy drink he bought from the hall vending machine, Quentin got to work.
It would take several hours, if not a few days, to carefully pack everything.
The less breakage, the better. As a professor, even a junior one, Quentin could technically keep his workshop space, but a nagging feeling in the back of his mind told him to grab everything that didn’t belong to the college and run with it.
He rarely ignored his instincts. The few times he had didn’t end well.
Quentin suspected his mother had some magic in her family tree because she also had uncanny flashes of intuition.
As far as he’d been able to uncover, the Fae didn’t have that ability.
However, there weren’t many books that mentioned the Fae.
He suspected that the best research sources lay in the Fae realm and beyond human reach.
He didn’t blame them. No one wanted their weaknesses exposed to potential enemies.
However, it did make it challenging to learn about any powers he might inherit.
If more than pretty eyes happened, he’d talk to his mother about contacting his fae king father, Lars.
He didn’t want to bother him over little things.
Despite what Jaks thought, he wasn’t avoiding his father… much.
Lars was a ruler after all. He didn’t have time to stop by to answer his estranged son's random questions.
Two hours after he started, Quentin dropped into his desk chair. A gentle kick sent him spinning around. This was going to take longer than expected. He’d forgotten how much junk he’d accumulated for his experiments.
“And here I thought you stuffy science types used your lab for work, not to play spin-the-chair?”
Quentin dragged his chair to a stop with his heels and gave the interloper a narrow-eyed glare. “Glenn? How did you get in?”
“Rendell’s latest assistant just quit and was more than happy to let me into the highly protected lab. I think he was hoping I was a disgruntled student and planned to trash the place.”
Given that Glenn showed up in torn jeans, a grunge rock T-shirt, and a new nose piercing, he probably had the right of it.
So much for security.
“When did you get the piercing?”
“Last night.” Glenn grinned, a carefree expression Quentin hadn’t seen since his friend had been bitten and changed into a vampire against his will.
“I thought you’d want to avoid this place.” Glenn had been attacked just outside the lab building and transformed into a vampire soon after.
Glenn nodded. “I did, but my new therapist thought it would do me good to revisit the sight of my trauma. Something about confronting my fears and all that.” Dismissing everything he didn’t want to discuss. “What are you working on?”
“I was packing all this up to take with me.” He waved his hand to indicate the partially empty room. “I don’t trust Rendell, and Jaks offered me some space at the manor. I’m going to take him up on that.”
“Good idea.” Glenn turned in a circle to take in the room. “You haven’t gotten very far.”
Quentin sighed. “It’s been a long day.”
Glenn checked his phone. “It’s barely two.”
“Really?”
Glenn nodded.
“It seems later.”
“That’s because it’s exhausting being the hottest new teacher.” Glenn’s mischievous expression had a bad premonition crawling up Quentin’s spine.
“What are you talking about?”
“Before I came here, I was walking around campus. Imagine my surprise when I heard a group of students talking about sexy Professor Heart. More than a few of them talked about the effect you had on their hearts.”
Quentin wrinkled his nose. “Ugh. Just what I need, amorous students.”
Glenn smirked. “They don’t realize your high standards exclude all of them from the running. I mean, if they aren’t a disgustingly rich, supermodel vampire, they don’t have a chance.”
“You aren’t as funny as you think you are.” Quentin nudged a pile of handwritten notes into his bag. It would set him back quite a bit if they were lost.
“Why don’t you just magic everything into your spell balls?”
Quentin sighed. “I was hoping to keep everything organized.”
Glenn’s unimpressed expression had him groaning.
“Fine. But I don’t have a spell ball that can hold all this. They aren’t the Tardis.”
“Really?” Glenn raised his right eyebrow at him. “Because I’m pretty sure they aren’t big enough to hold an entire vampire, either, and yet, you had them do that.”
Quentin froze. His mind went through the calculations needed to use a spell ball for storage.
Could he tweak it so that the orb could suck everything into a compressed space, then reverse the process?
“If I get this wrong, I could lose all my research,” he sulked, biting his lip as he considered the ramifications.
“You have it all backed up, don’t you? I mean, a super researcher like yourself must have saved all their work on their computer at one point.”
He pointed at Glenn. “Your sarcasm isn’t appreciated.” He groaned. Damn, he was becoming as dramatic as his students. “Most of it is saved,” he admitted. “Maybe I could put a few more folders in my bag, just in case.”
“Whew! I was worried for a minute they gave you a vanity degree.”
Quentin threw a stress ball at Glenn that he’d gotten at the last spell design conference he’d attended as a key speaker.
Glenn dodged. “Vampire speed is good for something,” he beamed.
“Idiot,” Quentin taunted. “How is that going?”
“How is what going?”
“Your adjustment to being a vampire. Drinking blood and all.” He’d only heard vague reassurances from his mother, but Trina Heart didn’t like sharing bad news and often glossed over negative subjects.
One of the many reasons he didn’t quite trust that his father had tried too hard to see him over the years.
“As well as can be expected. I haven’t attacked anyone recently, if you were concerned about that.”
“I wasn’t, but maybe I should’ve been.” He cast a wary eye at the red tinge in Glenn’s eyes.
Glenn laughed. “If your lover wasn’t the leader and more than happy to rip out my fangs, I might be tempted to take a little sip. I hear fae blood is delicious.”
“I’m only partly fae, and Jaks never said anything about my blood tasting any better than anyone else’s. I think he’s worried I’d take offense if he compared my blood to others he drank from.”
Glenn nodded. “Makes sense, it’s like comparing you to previous lovers. No one wants a critique even if it’s positive.”
Quentin laughed. “True.” He grabbed a fresh spell orb from his desk drawer and began programming it for transport to his mother’s living room, well, his now.
Damn, he’d packed up his apartment the hard way.
Maybe he should’ve consulted with Glenn before.
It would’ve saved him the time of packing everything.
Luckily, Jaks had loaned him a few vampires for an afternoon and got all the boxes and furniture from his apartment stored in the house attic until he decided what to keep.
His mother had given him the house as a doctoral graduation present after she moved into the vampire mansion. She wanted to live with her new clan but didn’t want to sell the house. The property had been in the family for centuries and rested on a ley line.
He almost had to sell it to pay her medical bills, but luckily, Jaks had covered them before Quentin could put it on the market.
He’d never been so happy to be a procrastinator before or since.
Especially after he found out that, magically, he can’t sell it.
The family magic was bound to that small bit of land wrapped in ley lines.
“You also might want to research whether fae blood is addictive.”
Quentin blinked and took his attention off the newly programmed ball. “What?”
“Some blood can be addictive. You don’t want your boy to get drunk off your blood. Best find out if he can, half-fae or not.”
“It can? I didn’t know that. None of the books mentions anything about blood type affecting vampires.” Maybe he should put some effort into contacting his father after all.
“I’m sure it’s because vampires, like the fae, don’t advertise their weaknesses.”
“That’s probably true.” Quentin pointed at Glenn.
He’d only done minimal reading for the creature class he’d attended and then again for the bounty hunters, but that information would’ve stuck out.
Now that he thought about it, the information on their habitat and feeding habits hadn’t been detailed.
Mostly, ‘keep your neck out of their mouths.’
Super helpful.
“Yeah. I can ask around for more information if you’d like, but I don’t want to tip anyone off. There aren’t a lot of fae around here, and not everyone knows you have the blood.”
He bit his lip, tugging at the peeling skin with his teeth. He really needed to get some lip balm. “Maybe hold off for a bit if you think it’s dangerous. I’ll talk to my mom. We never discussed my heritage before. Maybe Lars left her some information.”
“Sure thing, Q. Just let me know if I need to start chatting up hot vampires for information. Anything for a friend.”
“Will do. I appreciate the sacrifice,” Quentin said, amused. He began piling his papers into subject-organized stacks. “I’m afraid.” He finally admitted after ten minutes of silence. “I’ve fallen for him hard, and if my blood is addictive, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Talk to him. I’ve heard communication is the key to a healthy relationship,” Glenn preached in a snooty tone as if he were imitating someone.
“Is that what you heard?” He smiled at Glenn’s accent. Glenn might appear flighty to some, but his sunny personality always cheered Quentin up when he began to spiral.
“My therapist is big on self-awareness and communication, not to mention that fancy necklace Jaks gave you screams commitment.”