Lazarus #2
I want to hold her broken pieces until she’s ready to mend them. And if she doesn’t, I’d hold them forever. Even if those broken pieces make me bleed.
This feeling, this drive, the possession inside of me to just exist with her burns through my soul. Women like Calliope Cantemir require men like me, vampires like me, to handle them with complete care. For eternity.
And I pissed her the fuck off.
Leaning against the elevator wall I drop my head to my hands and scrape my nails down my face. Just to feel the pain of what I did to her. I can’t allow myself to dwell too long as the doors open again.
“Oh, you,” she says in that bored tone, stepping in. Her fingers hover over the fourth floor before choosing the first. I think she did it just so she wouldn’t have to ride with me too long.
Cheeky thing.
“You, again,” I reply in the same bored tone.
I don’t know why I say it. Just to antagonize her. Tease her? What’s the point but I did it anyway and now she’s standing rigid with her hands clenched at her sides.
“Calliope,” I try. But she whirls around on me.
“Oh hell no.” My gods she says it with fire. Fire I want to feel. “I’m mad at you.” She settles back on those ridiculous heels. They aren’t even high, but she hates them. I can tell. She damn near growls at them every time she puts them back on. That’s why they’re ridiculous.
“I can see that.”
“Good.” She steps back a frown on her face.
My gaze snags on the little freckle that isn’t a freckle on her neck. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before. Or maybe I just dismissed her. Her interview was short and quick, I remember she wore a turtleneck that day and I just… dismissed her.
I had an ulterior motive, one she may one day hate me for, but I didn’t know she was a bride. I didn’t see her. All I saw was a woman about to uncover our Goddess and I couldn’t let that happen.
“Let me make it up to you.” There I said the thing and it made me, nervous.
“Ew, no.”
I can hear laughing coming from my chest. I should have muted him.
This isn’t going well and the doors are opening. “Calliope.”
“If you want to make it up to me you know how.” She throws over her shoulder walking out of the elevator.
I do?
I hear laughter again and she’s gone. “Soren.”
“Oh that was special.” He tries to hide his laughter, but it spills out anyway.
And another voice in the background.
“I don’t know how this spun so out of control.”
“When was your last girlfriend?” He laughs. “Because I’ve known you for two hundred and seven years and no girlfriend.”
It isn’t me who answers. “He was twenty-nine.”
My fucking brother. “Leif.” I cut him off. “To what do I owe the pleasure.”
“Oh, see you soon.” I can absolutely hear a struggle for the phone before a click.
I glare at the screen. Family is, complicated. They exist to bother you, poke all your buttons. And add in the fact that you’re immortal.
It’s downright awful.
There are four of us.
Were. There, were.
Now it’s just us three. Leif is the eldest, then me, Lucien, and then there was Leviathan. Well, Levi. Born vampires in the house of Dagon.
We all descend from one of Sophia’s sons. Dagon. Nergal. Crowley. And Asmodeus.
Ding.
The elevator doors open to my brother Leif, standing there with a shit-eating grin on his face. I want to punch it off of him, but his bodyguard is giving me the evil eye behind him.
One thousand and a bastard.
“How did you even remember Aeri.” I sure as fuck didn’t.
“Because you had fuck-me eyes for her the very moment you met her.” He laughs. “And you never shut up about her.”
“How is Aeri?” I step into the hall with him. We are about the same height, same stride.
“Mother said she took another head off a lover.”
“That’s what?”
“The eighth.”
I whistle. Aeri is one of the few born female vampires. They’re considered royalty and Aeri was a spoiled princess from day one.
I was just young and dumb and thinking with my dick.
“Why are you here, Leif?” I shoulder my way into Soren’s office. Outside the sun beats on the windows but there’s a protective film over them so it cannot touch me or any fledgling.
Not for me. For the ones I love.
I may only feel weaker in the sun. Soren will weaken quicker because I steal his strength.
He is only ever as alive as me.
The older a made vampire, the stronger he becomes. He holds the strength I did as a youngling. He’ll grow into my strength. Only ever becoming as strong as me. But it is earned.
“Yeah, shouldn’t you be looking for your bride you lost?” I poke at him. His bride, Hadley, took off to clear her head and decide if this is something she even wants.
“I didn’t lose her,” he grumbles and I lock the door. This isn’t a conversation for the humans I employ. “Callie?” He smirks at me. “I had no idea she was a bride. But then again, I only had eyes for Hadley.”
“We didn’t know either.”
“Which means,” he draws out. “You took on a fledgling.”
“We have a third,” Soren corrects while shoveling popcorn in his mouth. That’s his hyperfixation food this month. Popcorn. It isn’t even real but that fake puffed shit.
“When do I meet him?”
“Never,” I spit out.
“Now,” Soren says.
“What?” I swing on Soren just as I hear a knock at the door.
“Don’t.” I look at Leif. He’s going to be furious with me.
A little frown forms between his brows. “What did you do?”
Vex knocks again.
Leif opens the door.
“Ugh, give me that bag.” Vex pounces on Soren stealing the bag. He’s like a goddamn cat.
Soren laughs flying backward.
I turn to watch Leif. His hand is still holding the doorknob. His grip going white. In fact all of him is going white.
Enzo is the first to react, his bodyguard. His lover. He gently pries the knob from his fingers and his hand falls to his side.
“Leif.”
“You don’t get to talk right now.” He’s staring at Vex who now has acquired the bag and is shoving as much as he can in his mouth. “He’s.”
I can’t watch. But I have to. I have to force myself to stand through this. Because I changed him. I put him through this and now I have to face the consequences.
I just didn’t think Leif would react like this.
“He’s.”
Vex finally notices Leif. He rolls off of Soren and holds out his hand. His cheesy, greasy hand to Leif. Who slowly looks at it in shock.
“Oh shit sorry.” He wipes it on his corduroy pants. Then holds it back out. “You good?”
“Mother will kill you.” Leif jerks his head to me. “She will kill you.”
“Well shit then I’d die and I’m liking my new self.” Vex does a little twist that has Leif choking back a sob.
“What did you do?”
Soren finally reacts. He didn’t know. How can you know a person when I’ve only talked about him a few times. “What is it?” He comes around the desk. Past Enzo who also looks like he may take my head off.
He’s the only one old enough here to understand.
Vex tosses popcorn in his mouth.
“How can this be?” Leif reaches out and Vex swats his hand away. “He’s just—”
“Like him,” I answer for my brother who is swiping away a tear he doesn’t want anyone to notice. “I know.”
I blow out a breath. “In my defense. I didn’t know.”
“What did you do?” Soren asks, looking at me all judgmental.
Vex chews louder than him.
“He looks exactly like our dead baby brother.” Leif’s voice goes to gravel. “Leviathan. Levi.”
The name shuts the room down.
Even Vex stops chewing.
“Doppelg?nger,” Vex says around the last of it, and swallows. Then he turns to me. “Question.”
Don’t embarrass me. “Yes, Vex.”
“Exactly like him,” he states instead of a question. “I look exactly like him?”
“Mostly,” I answer.
Vex asks between chews. “One bride?”
“Where is this going?” He’s going to say something dumb. I can feel it.
“And all three of us, you know, fuck her.” He looks at me pointedly.
“He’s not on his game today,” Soren supplies.
“She really has him twisted up,” Leif adds.
By the door, Enzo grunts. Arms crossed, unmoved. It’s all that man ever does.
“And I look like your dead little brother.” He snorts. “How weird will that be?” He pops a popcorn in his mouth. “You know with all the dick touching and shit.”
“Oh dear.” Soren gag-coughs.
I close my eyes and try to just breathe through this.
“He’s got a point,” Leif says and I pop an eye open. “Mother is still going to kill you.” He shakes his head. “How in all of the world did you find the one human who looks exactly like Levi. Well now that, that is a question for the Goddess.”
And that, is why I changed him.
If only Vex could remember what she said to him at his changing. But made vampires are built to not know.
Until they get older.