Chapter 4 – Valtu #2
Bitrus brandishes it between his hands, the silver chains glinting red, his way of telling me that he’s going to tie me down and get the others to help if I don’t stop feeding.
He doesn’t have to tell me though, the girl has already collapsed on me in a pool of her own blood that has gathered on my chest and stomach.
She’s barely breathing and I don’t think it’s because I made her come to high heavens.
With a deeper roar that comes from the bottom of my chest, I close my eyes and unhook my fangs. The air in the room feels so cold against them compared to the warmth of her blood and flesh.
Bitrus reaches over and picks the girl off me like she weighs nothing.
I want to ask if she’ll be alright, but I don’t have the ability to speak words at the moment, only communicate through sounds.
I watch as he takes her over to the baths at the corner of the room where two female volunteers take her.
They’ll wash off her blood, clean her up, and on rare occasions they can give blood if too much was taken.
We keep a blood bank for emergencies, if a vampire needs to feed and can’t find anyone, but we all prefer fresh blood, so sometimes we use our stores on humans who have been too depleted.
Bitrus comes back over to me. “You’re in a mood,” he mutters.
I slowly straighten up in the throne, staring down at all the blood on my body. I raise my hand to my mouth and lick the remainder off. It’s already losing vitality.
“I’m fine,” I tell him.
“You’re unsettled,” he comments.
He picked up that word from my mind without me even realizing it.
“What’s unsettling is you accessing my thoughts,” I admit carefully.
Vampires often have the ability to pick up on each other’s thoughts, if not emotions, but I have learned over the centuries to put walls and guards up to shield myself from intrusion.
The only problem is that the walls tend to falter when I’m around people I trust.
“I take it you don’t want to discuss it here?
” he asks, lowering his voice. Normally there would be no point to acting secretive since my brethren have a supernatural sense of hearing but right now, with all the moaning and groaning and sounds of skin slapping and fucking that’s happening in this room, no one is paying us any attention.
“Another time. Drinks at my place soon,” I tell him, getting to my feet. “I have to get to class.”
He smirks at that. “It’s a dangerous habit, Professor ,” he says, mocking my title. “Feeding before class…”
“Means I’m better at my job,” I tell him with a wink.
I walk across the room past the writhing bodies to the private bathroom at the back, the dark hallway flanked by two vampire guards.
I nod at one of them, Dessoude, who was my personal bodyguard when I was going through a period of upheaval after I was involved with the death of the king and father of all vampires, Skarde.
I had become a wanted man, an enemy for too many, all of whom lurked in the dark with veiled threats.
But some time has passed and it turns out the vampire world was grateful that Skarde had fallen. He was too powerful and too linked to our past, when all vampires want to do is keep moving forward into the future. For many of us, the past can be a tomb.
I step into the bathroom and take a shower, washing the blood off, going over every inch of my body with scented soap.
Even though humans’ sense of smell isn’t as good as ours, I take no chances.
When I step into my professor role at the conservatory, I step into the role of a man, a human, and keep my vampire nature behind a mask.
Which might be one reason why I’m feeling unsettled.
It started a couple of weeks ago, just this buzzy undercurrent that seems to be flowing through the murky canals of this fair city.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, it’s just a feeling that there’s a change in the air, and that something is coming or is already here, hiding in the shadows.
And considering I’m what’s hiding in the shadows, that makes it rather disconcerting.
I rub my hands over my head, hoping to eradicate the feeling of tension, but it’s there.
The fresh blood from that girl should have put a spring in my step, dissolved my headache, but it hasn’t.
I turn off the water and step out of the shower.
I dry off and dress quickly in black jeans and a black dress shirt.
I push my dark hair back, a scruffy five o’clock shadow on my face, then take a hard look at myself.
I should look the same as I always have, ever since that terrible day when I changed at thirty-five.
Even my hair is the same as it was. And yet, even though I don’t have any grays, or any new lines, there’s age in my eyes.
I look into my eyes and I see the eyes of an old man who has done too much and seen too much and who, deep down, just needs some fucking rest, a deep and uneventful sleep, but can’t stand to admit it to himself.
A man who is also a monster, and that monster is losing its edge.
I stare at myself, wondering what it must feel like to be human and see the rest of your face change over the years.
Or is the change so gradual that it feels a lot like this?
Is their face always familiar to them no matter who they become or how many years have passed?
Do they look at old photos and think of the past them as another person entirely?
I try not to have many photographs of myself around, but I wonder if film had existed in the 1700s if I’d see myself as someone else.
I inhale deeply and shake out my shoulders. No point brooding over this when I’ve got a job to do.
I have class with the organists next. Aside from my history of music class, I’m teaching only two practical classes this semester.
One is piano, which is jam-packed full of students, as always.
And the other is the organ. Last year we didn’t have any organists for either semester, so the fact that there are four this year is like a surprise.
The biggest surprise is one of the organists herself.
I’m not usually one to be all that taken with humans.
I have learned in the past that they only bring you tragedy and heartache.
They’re only good for fucking and feeding, if I wanted some sort of companionship or relationship I would look to a vampire.
But the truth is, in all these years, neither companionship nor a relationship have appealed to me.
It’s too much complication in an already complicated life.
But while all that stands, there is something about the organist in my class that has me looking twice.
She’s not the most beautiful woman in the world by conventional beauty standards.
She has a strong chin and nose, eyes on the smaller side.
But there’s something about her that stirs something inside me.
A hunger, of course, it’s hard to look at an attractive woman and not want to taste their blood.
Same goes for wanting to fuck them. But there was something else about her that had me on my toes.
I felt like I knew her from somewhere before, or had at least seen her.
With her ancient features, pale skin, scattering of freckles, and long red hair, I feel like she could have been anyone I’ve crossed paths with and yet I can’t bring up anyone specific.
It’s just a feeling in my gut that she’s someone I need to keep an eye on, for better or worse.
Just then the air fills with the scent of jasmine and my hackles raise.
“Valtu,” Saara says as she steps into the bathroom. “I thought I smelled you.”
Her reflection comes behind me in the mirror.
Saara is a vampire, all long limbs, honey-colored hair, built like a Russian supermodel turned influencer.
She and her brother Aleksi have a stronghold over the vampires of Venice.
Actually, it goes beyond just vampires at this point.
They have influence over all the lawmakers, businessmen and socialites as well.
They have lived here for a long time, though they moved elsewhere for a while and recently came back.
Regardless, this fabled city is in the palm of their hands.
But they aren’t in the palm of mine.
“I was just leaving,” I tell her, turning around and she’s just inches away, smiling through red shiny lip gloss.
“Where are you going at two in the afternoon?” she asks, her blue eyes sharp. “To teach a class? When are you going to give up this charade, Professor Aminoff?”
“And what might this charade be, hmmm?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest. “I am a professor. Qualified by numerous universities. I get paid an acceptable wage. My students graduate and go on to do either wonderous or mundane things, but they do earn a degree that I, in part, taught them. There is no charade with me.”
She rolls her eyes and twists a long piece of amber hair between her fingers. “The charade that you’re a human.”
“No different than your charade,” I tell her.
The corner of her lip curls into a snarl, making her look most ugly. “It’s very different, Valtu. I don’t pretend to be anything I’m not. You’re getting paid to be a teacher when you don’t need the money. It’s gross.”
Saara knows that all the money I make from my job, even though it’s not much by old-money standards, is donated to various charities.
“Then perhaps I’m doing it for kicks,” I tell her. “Impressionable young men and women walking through my doors every day. Blood can’t get any fresher than that.”
She lets out an acidic laugh. “If I didn’t know you, I’d believe you. And to think they call you Dracula.”
I raise my hands in protest. “I didn’t ask for the title. I can’t help if Mr. Stoker was besotted with me.”
“You think the whole world is besotted with you, Valtu.”