Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Jack
I could do this. I was a big badass monster hunter. I could have a heart-to-heart conversation with my dad. My no-nonsense leader of the vampire council dad.
Still, I didn’t move from my place in front of Antoine’s office door. I’d been trying to give myself a pep talk for the last twenty minutes and so far I had gotten so far as to raise my hand to knock before dropping it.
This was ridiculous.
If my mom could do it, and she’s the biggest spaz in the world, I would be able to easily. Was I really going to let some old man who doesn’t even dress himself freak me out?
“How’s it going?”
I gasped, a hand to my chest as I spun around to face my mom. When she started laughing, I swatted at her. “Do not do that.”
Leaning against the wall beside Antoine’s office door, she beamed at me. “It’s not my fault you were so caught up in your spiral that you didn’t hear me.”
I scowled. “I was not spiraling.”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured, crossing her arms over the t-shirt covering her chest. She must not have any meetings to attend if she was dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, which didn’t bode well for me.
When my mom wasn’t busy, she got nosy. Fast.
Curling and uncurling my fingers at my sides, I searched for an explanation to give her. “I was… gathering my thoughts.”
“And what thoughts are those?” Eyes full of mirth, my mom tilted her head slightly. “Your dad isn’t going to bite. You can tell him anything.”
I snorted. Antoine was not exactly the cuddle type. I couldn’t imagine spilling my guts to him about boys and other mushy topics. “Easy for you to say. You’ve got him wrapped around your little finger.”
My mom threw her head back and laughed, her golden blonde hair glinting in the light. “Oh, no, no no,” she cupped my face with a wide grin, “you have no idea how wrong you are. Your dads don’t give me what I want all the time. You, my sweet girl, have had them whipped since the day you were born.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” I grumbled, looking away from her.
She stroked the sides of my face. “Just because they worry about you doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t face the sun itself to make you happy.”
I scuffed my foot against the carpet of the hallway. “I guess.”
“Besides,” my mom pressed her forehead against mine, “I have it on good authority that he feels bad about pulling you out of school after we hounded you into it.” She winked and released me, grinning as she walked toward the stairs.
Sighing, I turned my attention back to the looming office door. There was no point in waiting any longer. He likely heard us out here and was becoming impatient.
I did not want to deal him when he was in a good mood, let alone in a bad one.
I knocked on his door and waited a moment for his permission to come in before stepping into the room.
For once, Darren wasn’t at Antoine’s side. That didn’t stop the office from being just as intimidating as it had always been since the first time he called me in here when I was in trouble.
Mahogany bookshelves lined the walls, filled to the brim with books that I knew were mostly first editions.
Two chairs sat before his desk. I knew that, while they looked like they might be comfortable, they were not.
I had a theory that he purposely picked uncomfortable chairs so that people wouldn’t be tempted to overstay their welcome.
Behind a large mahogany desk, in a high back desk chair, sat my dad, Antoine.
His silvery white hair hung loose around his face and down to mid chest. The suit he’d chosen — or rather Darren had probably chosen — was a midnight blue with a matching tie and a pristine white shirt beneath it.
His icy blue eyes didn’t look up from the papers he was reading in front of him.
Closing the door behind me, I took one of the seats, knowing to wait until he was finished to address him. I only had to wait a few minutes before he sat the packet of papers down and lifted his gaze to mine.
“Jaquelynn,” he said in his cultured European accent, he never could tell me exactly where it came from. He always just said that he traveled a lot when he was alive.
Though, the fact that he still had an accent after hundreds of years told me that he purposely refused to assimilate to the American one, which honestly was completely on point for him.
He laced his pale hands in front of him on the desk’s surface and watched me carefully. “I wondered how long you would loiter outside my door before coming in.”
I shifted in my seat. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t be here at all if I didn’t have to be.”
“I see,” he said smoothly, not a hint of emotion in his voice. He paused for just a moment. “You are still angry with me.”
It was a statement, not a question. One that I couldn’t rebuke, even if I wanted to.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I bent my knee over the other one. “Of course, I am. You took away my only reason for being over one mistake.”
“Jaquelynn,” Antoine sighed, his expression softening. “That right there is exactly the problem.”
I glared at him.
“You act as if hunting is all you are good for. That it is the only worthwhile achievement in life.” He spread his hands out in front of him on the desk. “But there are so many more possibilities, if you would just let yourself embrace them.”
“Like you’ve embraced them?” I snorted. “When was the last time you experienced anything outside of these four walls? I’ve only ever known you to work, work, work. So don’t preach to me about exploring the world when you aren’t.”
My dad steepled his fingers together. “You forget, Jaquelynn, I have several hundred years on you. I have lived my mortal life and then several other lifetimes after I became a vampire. I have had plenty of time to explore the world and then settle down with a house, a career I enjoy, and the family that I love.”
“So?” I shrugged. “I have plenty of time for that.”
His eyes narrowed on me, his voice hard.
“Not at the rate you are going. These new powers are certainly a surprise for sure, but we do not know if that makes you immortal, like your mother and Darren. You may heal faster than the average human servant, but you can still bleed. Or have recent events not reminded you that?”
My mind drifted back to when I was attacked. Delirious and weak, I had barely made it to Kyren’s before I passed out. Thankfully, he had been able to feed me his blood so that I healed quickly, but if he hadn’t been home or had refused to help me? I would be dead right now.
“I remember,” I murmured, my arms loosening around me.
“Jaquelynn, I do not wish for you to squander your precious days on hunting down monsters. There is a whole world out there waiting for you.” He paused for a moment and then looked at me with a small tip of his lips.
“I had thought you were heading in the right direction when I heard you were entertaining the werewolf and even making friends at the academy.”
His lips dropped into a deep frown. “Then Julian reported the attack, and I saw that you had not learned what is most important in life yet.”
My foot bounced over my knee the more he spoke. I knew what he was saying was true. I had been focusing on hunting and nothing else for the last ten years or so. My relationship with Julian was really the only time I’d ever given my time and energy to anything else.
Now, if I was honest with myself, I’d admit that I enjoyed attending the academy. I liked the comradery, the classes, going to the cafeteria, even the coed showers. It gave me a sense of normality I’d only ever seen on television.
And I admit that it was nice to have friends outside of hunters. Someone to talk to and go to parties with who wasn’t talking about the latest new handgun or inventions to make killing monsters easier.
Still, to have my dad point those things out felt like a blunt blade had been plunged into my stomach.
“We’re getting off topic.” I dropped my foot to the floor and leaned forward. “Tabby says I need to ask you about your powers in order to learn how to control mine. So here I am, asking.”
For a moment, I really thought he’d refuse to tell me. That he’d hold his knowledge hostage unless I gave him what he wanted. Then he stood from his desk and made his way around the room to sit beside me on the other chair.
Mimicking my position, he leaned forward hands between his knees. “I came into my powers quite quickly for my age. As a vampire, that is. Most vampires do not acquire… abilities such as mine until they have seen a few decades. I discovered mine within days of awakening.”
“How did you discover them?”
I feared asking, since my own powers awakening had been such a traumatizing thing for me. A part of me needed to know had it been just as bad for him or worse. Like somehow it would make mine experience less terrifying.
His eyes slid from his hands to meet my gaze.
“You must understand, Jaquelynn. Back then, I was a different person. My sire, Boris, was not a good man. He collected vampires to serve his agenda. Whether that meant whoring them out to politicians or the nobility, whoever he needed to win over, for land or power or using their strength to bolster whoever’s army he was backing that century. ”
I’d heard about Boris a time or two before. Only in passing really. None of my dads ever wanted to talk about him. When I’d asked my mom once, she told me he looked like an old raisin, with flopping pointed ears and clawed hands.
One thing they made sure that I knew was that he was dead and gone. Never to bother us again.
“Boris,” my dad continued, “did not only collect those that were strong and attractive. He collected those with powers.”
“Like all of you, right?”
He nodded. “We did not all come to Boris at the same time, and none of us were there of our own free will. He found us one by one — aside from Allister and Drake, who he acquired together — collecting us for his pleasure and his never ending desire for power.”
I thought about it for a moment. I could almost understand his reasoning.
If we had hunters with half the powers my family possessed, then it would make finding and detaining monsters so much easier and with far fewer casualties.
Still, the thought of my dads under Boris’s thumb forced to do his bidding made me sick to my stomach.
“When I came into my powers, Boris had one of his other fledglings teaching me the ways of being a vampire. How to feed without killing. How to hide those we did kill.” He huffed a harsh laugh.
“Back then, we did not have all the technology we have now. Hiding a murder was as easy as dumping a body in the woods for the animals to eat.”
My nose wrinkled. “Ew.”
“Some say those were simpler times. In reality, they just miss the freedom of no consequences for their actions.” His gaze slid to mine a serious look in them. “And there were none. Least of all for people like me.”
Part of me wanted him to hurry up and get to the point, but another part was enjoying listening to him talk. We rarely got to sit together and chat. I think the last time we did it was when I was ten, shortly after the incident with Kleon. Then my focus had understandably shifted elsewhere.
“Boris wanted me to seduce this woman, a duchess I believe,” he continued, his eyes taking on a faraway look to them. “He wanted part of her lands or something or other. I do not recall now. Except when I went to see her, she had two other men with her.”
He paused, anguish barely hidden in his face. “You must understand I was new to the vampire life and had barely been with a woman, let alone entertained the idea of being with a man, so when they tried to touch me, I panicked.”
I reached my hand out and placed it on his. He glanced down at it, but did not remove it, allowing me to comfort him as he relived his trauma.
“I shouted at them, demanding they stop and release me. And they did.” He met my gaze. “They froze in place. At first, the duchess and I thought it was some joke, but then, when they didn’t move after a few moments, she started screaming calling me a witch, demanding I leave.”
“And here I thought my first time was bad,” I muttered, thinking about how I would have felt had someone besides Tate had been there.
It was bad enough that I had been freaking out, but to have someone else yelling at you, calling you all sorts of names, likely throwing things at you, I couldn’t imagine how that felt.
Then I had a thought.
“So, yours started out of emotion then too, right?”
My dad cleared his throat, standing as he straightened his jacket. “Yes, well, at first. It took me weeks to figure out how to control my powers outside of getting upset. Which you will, as well. It just takes time.”
“But what exactly triggers it, if not emotion?”
Antoine sat back behind the desk, the open and vulnerable man gone replaced by a high-powered executive. “Intention. You have to mean it. You cannot simply tell someone to jump off a bridge and have them do it. If you do not have intention, then it will not work.”
Intention.
I was afraid of that.
I had hoped it was something as simple as bringing up a happy memory or even something traumatic so that I became emotional like Tabby mentioned before but no such luck. Still, it was more than I had before, and I’d done what Tabby wanted me to do.
“Okay, thanks. I’ll pass the information along.” I pushed to my feet and worked my way to the door.
“Jaquelynn.”
I paused, twisting to look back at him.
“Remember, you are my daughter. I have little doubt that you will learn to control this.”
I nodded, not answering.
Me? Learn control? Yeah, right.