Chapter 7
There’s no stopping the laugh that comes out of me as I stare at Devon’s serious face. “Just like that?” I ask and then start laughing again.
“Yes,” he replies, looking annoyed at my humor. “It’s my duty to carry on the Malus line.”
“Okay,” I say sarcastically. “Malus means ‘bad’ in Latin, you know. It’s not a real surname.”
His annoyance grows. “It is now.”
Lots of vampires just picked names when they registered, as there was no way to verify someone’s identity from hundreds of years ago.
I would pick a cool name, too. “Well, if that’s really the case then you’ve messed up.
The Order doesn’t have records of me like they do the others.
I’m a witch. Also, I have an IUD so even if I was okay with this, it’s not like you can just knock me up. ”
He opens his mouth and then closes it again, slowly shaking his head.
Emotion crosses his face and I get a sense of his energy, and dammit, I recognize something within him.
It’s fear, not of me or of what the vampires will do to him, but of letting them down and being a disappointment.
There’s a longing weaved in his heart to belong. To fit in.
To be part of the family.
“You want to say something.” My expression softens. “But you don’t think you should.”
“There’s a way we’re supposed to do this.”
Biting my bottom lip, I stare at him for a moment and then nod and go over to the tray of food. I pick up the plate and a fork and go back to the bed, sitting on the edge as I eat the eggs.
“I’ll find out soon enough, right?”
“Yeah, you will.”
“How many children have you, uh, fathered so far?”
“None,” he says quickly. “That I’m aware of, at least.”
I just nod and take another bite. “What happened to the last girl who lived in this room?”
“I don’t know,” Devon tells me, and I’m fairly confident he’s telling the truth. “I…I don’t remember.”
“Oh,” I say, not needing to say more. He was held spellbound and his memory was wiped.
Seems pretty shitty to do to your “brother”.
I take a few more bites of my food, trying to buy myself some time to think about how to question Devon more and learn about this so-called family.
“How many humans live in this house?” I raise my eyebrows.
“I’m going to find out,” I remind him. “And I could cast a truth spell on you.” I can’t really. But I can make a truth potion.
“There’s me. And now you. There’s staff here during the day.”
“How many?”
His brows furrow. “Why do I feel like you’re plotting something?”
“Because I am.” I shovel another forkful of eggs into my mouth. “So how many kids do you need to pump into me before you’re allowed to be turned?”
He frowns and moves away from the window, coming over and sitting next to me. Taking the bacon from the plate, he lets out a sigh. “Three or four is ideal.”
“What happens to the kids?”
“They’re given a good life,” he says and it feels like he’s talking about puppies going to good homes. “We want what’s best for them. Good education, lots of traveling and experiencing the world. Basically the life of a trust-fund kid.”
I nod again and then start shaking my head.
“This is insane. How the hell does anyone go along with this?” I ask but don’t need him to answer.
Because I already know: the women are held spellbound, making them think this is what they want.
But what I don’t know is what happens to the mothers. And right now, I’m too scared to ask.
“Okay,” I start, willing myself to stay calm. The more I understand, the better exit plan I can make. “Are we making the baby the old fashioned way?”
“That’s how it was done before.” His eyes meet mine only to look away. The unspoken words hang heavy in the air. I can’t be magically convinced that I’m in love with Devon. No vampire can compel me into thinking I want this and that I’m honored to be part of carrying on the Malus family line.
“What’s our timeframe?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure, but it is realistic.”
“What does that mean?”
Getting up, he goes back to the window. He’s uncomfortable, torn between being a decent human being and wanting to honor his family in the most fucked up way imaginable.
“It means we know how important health and wellbeing are in terms of a healthy pregnancy. There’s been a lot of new research that supports making sure both parents are overall happy and healthy. ”
“So you’re going to enroll me in a Pilates class and do pottery on the weekends?”
“If that’s what you want, sure.”
“Really?” I ask and cut into the pancakes.
“Yeah.” He shrugs. “A stressed out mother is less likely to produce a healthy baby.”
I wrinkle my nose, hating the way he’s talking about this.
He hates it too, though his end of the deal doesn’t seem too bad.
But then it hits me. He doesn’t have a choice in this either.
He was one of those “trust fund kids” he was talking about.
Born only to be shipped away, raised by strangers more concerned with making him a well-rounded and cultured individual than being with his loving parents.
Anxiety starts to creep over me again and I have so many questions for Devon. Mostly...what the fuck happened to his mother? He hasn’t mentioned her. Or the man who knocked her up.
“You don’t need to worry,” he goes on. “You’ll be treated well and no one is allowed to hurt you. You’re, uh, pretty important to carry on the line and all.”
“So do I get my Handmaid’s outfit now or later?”
“Huh?”
I shake my head and let out a heavy sigh. “Nothing.”
A few moments of awkward silence pass by between us before Devon speaks again. “You’ll be given a few days to settle in. Then you’ll meet with our family physician to, uh, go over your health history and stuff like that.”
“I don’t have a health history,” I remind him. “I’m not a Russo. I don’t know anything about my real parents other than they were killed by monsters when I was a baby. Vivian Russo found me and took me with her. I was raised as their own, but I am not part of the Order like the others.”
He looks at me like he’s waiting for me to laugh and say, “just kidding!” because I really am a Russo and he didn’t royally fuck up by choosing me over Larissa because he liked the way I looked better.
“I didn’t know my parents either,” he says. I didn’t expect the conversation to take that turn. “I’m sorry you lost your family when you were young.”
“Me, too.” I take another bite of the pancake and get up, trading the plate for the coffee. It’s cooled off by now, so I hold my hand over it and use magic to warm it up until it’s steaming again.
“Whoa,” Devon exclaims and takes a few steps closer, eyes wide. “Did you just use magic?”
“Yeah, that was pretty simple magic too,” I say with a shrug.
“What else can you do?”
“I don’t have a magic wand I can wave around and do party tricks,” I deadpan. I’ve lost count how many cocky Order members have tried to downplay my abilities, coming up and demanding I “show them” some sort of trick.
“I didn’t think you—” He cuts off when, without warning, the metal blinds on the bedroom window start to unroll, and the metal-on-metal screeching startles me. The light above us turns on, and an automatized click comes from the door.
Holy shit.
This isn’t just some modern-day smart home. It’s customized to vampires, especially ones who keep prisoners and can use an app to lock and unlock the freaking doors.
I don’t need to look at Devon to know what this means: Xavier is coming.