Chapter 9
Scotty
Running up the stairs to the library, I hoped I’d made it before Lysandro left for Ego’s. Considering it was another hour until sunset, I assumed he’d be here, unless he was taking advantage of the daylight hours to get some rest, too.
My heart sank when I approached the desk at the main hub and was greeted by a white-haired older woman I’d never met as she put on her jacket. Benji, the teenager sorting through books behind her merely glanced at me.
“Hi. Um, is Lysandro here?” I crossed my fingers behind my back, hoping against hope that he was.
“He sure is, sweetie,” she replied with a hurried smile, obviously ready to end her shift and head home. “He’s down in the basement.”
“Oh. Can I—”
“I’ve got this, Miss Irene,” Benji said, stepping around her.
“But he can’t go down there,” she replied.
He bobbed his head, sending his lanky blond hair fluttering around his head. “I know. I’ll have him wait at a back table while I run and get him. This is a friend of Lysandro’s.”
Miss Irene smiled. “Oh, how nice. He needs a life outside of this place.”
The kid grinned at her and patted her arm. “He does. See you tomorrow?”
“You sure will. Bye now,” she said to me before heading out.
Benji gestured me toward the other end of the long desk, so I met him there. “Thank you so much,” I said.
He shook his hair out of his face. “No problem. I think Lysandro was kinda expecting you.”
I bet he was, I thought, following Benji to a discreet door on the side of the library. When I stopped at the table closest to it to wait for Lysandro, Benji opened the door and turned back to me. “Come on.”
“I thought I couldn’t go down there.”
The kid grinned. “You can’t go into The Vault itself, but he’ll meet you in his office. Staff isn’t allowed in there, and I know it kills Miss Irene that she’s never been inside, but he lets me in there after close when, uh, we’ve needed to talk.”
His cheeks pinkened, and I wondered what that was about, but he turned and bounded down the narrow stairway before I could ask.
At the bottom of the stairwell, we turned back under it.
To the left was a room made of glass walls with dim overhead lighting.
I caught a flash of movement inside. “Was that Lysandro?”
“Probably.” Benji grinned over his shoulder. “Come on. His room is at the end.”
His room? That was a curious way to refer to an office, but I continued following him.
When we reached the end of the glass room, we turned left down a small hallway and then stopped in front of a wooden door on the right.
As Benji used a skeleton key to unlock the room, he waggled his eyebrows at me.
Why did he have a key if staff weren’t even normally allowed in here?
He ushered me inside with a sweep of his arm, and as I stepped past him, I gasped.
The room was as colorful as Lysandro. Bright tapestries hung on the walls, and a patchwork quilt was neatly folded at the end of what had to be a king-sized bed that was set up on a riser.
A small kitchenette sat against one wall with a round table for four in front of it.
“This is his office?” I asked incredulously.
Benji snickered. “Sorta. He spends more time here than anywhere else, so he made it homey.”
I whirled toward him. “So he actually sleeps here?”
“Generally,” Lysandro’s amused voice came from the doorway. “Thank you for showing him down,” he said to the kid as he walked in, squeezing his hand as he passed him.
Benji’s cheeks went even pinker than before, and he left without even a backward glance at me.
My eyes widened. Holy shit. I really had thought Lysandro and I were friends.
Finding out he’d never told me he was a vampire had made me question that fact, even when he reassured me last night that we were. But this…
“Lysandro!” I said sharply. “He’s a kid.”
The vampire made his way to the table, pulled out a chair, then hopped up to sit on the tabletop with his feet on the seat of the chair. “You’re so cute.”
He looked so amused, but he had no idea how outraged I was. No matter how much help Ego needed from the old vamp, I couldn’t let this stand. He was taking advantage of a child!
Lysandro held up a hand. “Don’t panic. Benjamin is twenty-seven years old.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “That kid isn’t twenty-seven.”
Lysandro chuckled, shaking his head. “No, he doesn’t look it, does he? That’s why I usually don’t take on donors so young.”
My brain scrambled trying to make sense of his words. The connection seemed obvious, but I was still having a hard time wrapping my head around the vampireness of it all. “Donor?”
“Of course. I’m not a monster, Scotty. I only feed from blood donors.
I thought Benjamin was a little too young, but he frequented my favorite vampire bar in New York City.
He was there—willingly, I might add—every time I went, and he approached me several times.
” He flicked his hand to the side. “Always prattling about how it would be an honor to feed someone of my stature.”
Vampire bars existing where I’d grown up was enough to blow my brain, but right now, I was more interested in Lysandro. “What does that mean? Your stature?”
He gave me that same fond smile I’d grown accustomed to on all my nights studying here. “I’m very old, Scotty. Many would consider me an elder amongst my kind.” He shrugged.
“So Benji?” I prompted.
“He wore me down.” He rolled his eyes theatrically. “He’d already been donating his blood to others for a couple of years, and appeared to be around twenty-three at that point, so I figured, what the heck? His age reversal was probably complete. But alas…”
Age reversal? “I’m so confused.”
“Hmm. Yes, you would be. When we feed upon a human, we close the wound with our saliva.”
“So they don’t really walk around with scars like in the movies?” I asked, unable to stop my curiosity.
He huffed. “How would we keep our secret if a bunch of people were walking around with a collar of fang marks? Such a ludicrous notion. Although…” He trailed off.
Wandering over to the table, I pulled out a chair and sat down, leaning forward, eager for more information.
“Well, I guess, one swipe of the tongue would close the wound, but wouldn’t be enough to heal the skin.” He shook his head. “That would be dangerous business, though. We’re very careful about those in the know.”
Gah! I had so many questions, most of them about Ego, but I really needed to make sure Benji was safe before we moved on. “So Benji…”
“In the months it took him to persuade me to feed from him, we became friends. He’s a very smart young man.
And like me, he enjoys books for the sake of knowledge and for entertainment.
I ended up using him as my donor three months in a row, and voila!
” He entwined his arms in the air dramatically, like a dance. “His youthful appearance became…”
“Like a teenager,” I supplied.
Lysandro grimaced. “Yes. I suppose. Anyway, the owners of the bar worried continuing to grant him entrance would draw the attention of the authorities since he looked so young after our sessions, and other vamps felt like I’d staked some kind of claim.”
He shook his head like the mere idea baffled him. “So here we are. I’ve moved him to Willowhope, let him take over my house, and I’ve given him a job here. It’s been more convenient than I would’ve expected, especially since needing to stay in town with Ego’s needs.”
“So you and Benji are living together?” I asked, trying to piece his explanation together.
“Goodness, no. I already had this room, so I’ve moved all the way in here.”
“So he stays with you here?” Seeing the protest on his face, I rushed on, “Because he said he meets with you here sometimes.”
“Well, of course. To feed.”
That…actually made sense. “Okay. If he’s twenty-seven, then I guess he’s old enough to make his own decisions.”
“Considering he’s older than you, that’s very generous,” he teased. “I’m sure you’ve come to see me with more pressing needs, though.”
I huffed. “Is Ego in danger?”
He tilted his head. “After the way he got in your face last night, I’d expect you to be more concerned if he’s a danger to you and others.”
I shook my head. “No, not at all. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m worried about him. He seems so…”
“Depressed,” Lysandro said. “Had I not felt the presence of another of my kind in my territory and gone to him, I fear that he’d have already slipped away or gone mad.
Leaving him the way he did, his Maker essentially murdered him in the slowest and cruelest way possible.
It would’ve been more of a kindness to rip his throat out. ”
The idea of Ego dying in a blood bath at the hands of such a monster made bile rise up my throat. I gagged it back down. “What does he need?”
“The support of his family and friends, and to listen to me.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. We both knew the chances of either of those happening any time soon were zilch. “That’s not likely.”
I thought about how upset Sky had been this morning when he came in from yoga. He knew something was wrong with his cousin. Their bond was more like twins than cousins, so Ego wasn’t nearly as slick as he thought he was. “You have any other ideas?”
“Could you talk to him?”
I barked out a laugh. “I’m not sure if you caught it, but I’ve never much cared for the popstar diva, so I wasn’t exactly nice to him. I’m not sure I’m the one to reason with him.”
Lysandro smiled slowly. “Then what do you think about pissing him off?”
Intrigued, I said, “Do tell,” then sat back and schemed with my newest friend—the old vamp.