Vampires of Eden (Alexander #2)

7. Alexander

CHAPTER 7

Alexander

S ervants glide around the intimate dinner setting like a cast of well-rehearsed performers. Actors in a modernized but classic play where each vampire knows their role by heart. At the same moment that a gleaming plate full of leafy greens and colorful vegetables is set before me, another hand reaches out, effortlessly filling my wine glass to half-full. I don’t want wine, but it’s “un-princely” when I refuse to drink socially.

“Where were you yesterday?” my mother asks between sips of her wine. With her free hand, she pushes the length of her honey-colored hair back past her shoulders. The gesture is casual. Her tone is anything but. “I was told that you cancelled brunch with the Griffins, and you were notably absent during the cocktail party at the Wyndham Clan’s Estate. Several vampires asked me where you were, and all Raphael gave me as an explanation was ‘He had other, unexpected arrangements.’ What exactly does that mean?”

Swiftly, I glance at Raphael, who’s standing behind my mother in the corner and near the dining room doors opposite me.

He rolls his eyes and looks away. No help from him, then.

I lift my fork and tease my salad because I’m not actually hungry. “I was feeling stressed yesterday, so I went for a long drive. That’s all.”

I wish I had something more tangible as an excuse. But for my mother, the truth—that I went to a rundown house in the woods to get told off by a callous first-gen vampire before coming home, crying and binge-watching the first two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer all afternoon and obscenely late into the evening—would be much worse.

Her nose crinkles and her brows furrow as if I’ve said something truly baffling. “You and all your feelings lately. You don’t ‘feel’ well—you were ‘feeling’ stressed. These touchy-human-sounding things mean nothing to vampires in our aristocracy. It only makes you sound weak, Alejandro. Can you please have thicker skin? Everyone is waiting to see what happens with you after this fiasco with the Blakeley boy. They’re predicting your demise, but I expect you to shine and reclaim your status as the most desirable purebred in this realm. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mother.” I want to tell her that I am weak. That I don’t… I don’t know. Something in me is broken. A confidence, or maybe contentment that I’ve always felt in my nature is gone.

I’m not sure if I’m capable of reclaiming anything.

Did I ever even have it? I’m starting to think that it was all a fa?ade. Smoke and mirrors.

“Honey, maybe we should give Alexander a little time to himself for a while?” Hesitating, my bulldog of a father pipes up from across my mother. His airy northern accent adds another layer of genteel to his reasoning. “The circumstance with the Blakeley Clan was challenging. We could let things… temper a bit? Since we’re leaving for the cabin next week, he should recuperate while we’re away.”

My father’s clan is indigenous to Eden. They hail from the northern mountains, where most of the vamps there are burly and pale with deep-set features—I imagine it’s because of all the ice, snow and lack of sunshine at that altitude. Their bodies are built to adapt to and reflect their environment.

“He needs to move forward. Don’t coddle him. You always do this—letting him be soft, like you.” Mother exhales a frustrated sigh, then takes a long sip of her wine. The silence that follows is bloated and uncomfortable. When she finishes, she focuses on me once more. “When are you going to make your public apology to Lord Blakeley?”

Staring at my plate, I use my fork to gently stab at bright red cherry tomatoes. “Soon.” This was also part of the arrangement for setting Oliver free. All of my dowry money, plus a public apology. Just, you know, to add insult to injury.

There’s no official timeline on the apology, though, so I’ve been intentionally avoiding it. Oliver is gone. He’s free and there’s no taking that back at this point. I have no actual plans to say sorry to that asshole. Make me.

“Good,” Mother chirps, tossing her hair back again and picking up her fork. “The sooner the better. Lord Cherrington has requested to spend more time with you. I’d like you to focus on building a comfortable rapport with him while we’re away. Raphael?”

“Yes, my lady?” Raphael lifts his head with rapt attention.

“I expect you to make the proper arrangements within Alejandro’s schedule? Please reach out to Lord Cherrington’s primary manservant. Perhaps a fixed weekly-appointment for the next couple months?”

“Yes, your highness.”

“Lord Cherrington?” Father balks, his eyebrow raises in disbelief. “Isn’t he a little… Honey, he’s older than me . Surely we can find someone closer to Alexander’s age, like he prefers?”

“Coddling.” Mother waves her free hand while munching on her salad. She covers her mouth. “Soft. Lord Cherrington’s offer for Alexander’s hand is three-times as much as anyone else’s.”

With this, my father’s eyes widen. “Three times?”

“Yes,” Mother confirms.

Father’s golden-hazel eyes meet mine in a silent exchange. “Even still,” he goes on, “we should check the bylaws for the Royal Order. It could be a conflict of interest to have two members of the board romantically involved?—”

“I’ve checked,” she asserts. “As long as the other board members approve in a formal note of consent, it shouldn’t be an issue. It’ll be fine. I’ll have lunch with Lady Bhaduri and Governor Ellis to secure their votes as we draw closer to the official announcement.”

“Hm…” Father offers a pitying look, as if to say “Oh well, I tried,” then picks up his fork. He stabs his salad and shoves the vegetables into his mouth.

I’m tempted to blurt out that Lord Cherrington licked me. I don’t, though. Because I’m scared that their response to my declaration might be even more disappointing than the physical offense itself.

After dinner, I leave the main house and follow the trail toward the banquet hall that sits at the back of our property. The sun has set, and the evening sky is a crisp and wintery dark blue. A light dusting of snow has settled on the smooth travertine walkway. When the wind blows, the airy flakes swirl and dance around my feet. I didn’t bother grabbing my coat, so I stick my hands into the pockets of my slacks.

The massive fir and pine trees surrounding the glass structure give this area of the grounds a clandestine quality. The atmosphere is mostly silent, but when I stand still, a lullaby of nighttime sounds becomes more apparent. Wind rustling through the dry brush and the tinkering chitter of a barn owl.

Reaching the double glass doors, I pull one open because we never lock them. It’s cold in here as well, but I don’t mind.

A rectangular panel full of switches and corresponding dimmers is just inside the door. I press the one I want and slowly, the icicle lights stretching across the ballroom’s ceiling softly glow to life in the darkness. They glitter and reflect beautifully in the polished wood floors, like a frozen lake mirroring starlight .

My steps echo as I walk across the hard surface and toward the arresting instrument in the corner. Like a visual masterpiece on display at a museum, the concert grand piano sits atop an elevated stage. The twinkling faux icicles above gleam in its smooth ebony finish.

I lift the fall board and watch as the light softly dazzles here too within the pristine ivory of the keys. Not my choice—the ivory. But it is what it is. This is an old instrument and I honor the sacrifices made to construct it.

Carefully, I pull the bench out, then take a seat. The hall is silent. I lift my hands and graze the cool keys with my fingertips.

I take a breath before a tumultuous wave of emotions flow outward. The sentiments burst from me and through me. A wrath of complex sound pours out from my fingers and disrupts the oppressive silence like a cannon ball through a wall of glass.

Grave. In C-minor.

The first movement of the sonata is dramatic and powerful. Tragedy strikes like a flash of harrowing thunder. It is the melodic soliloquy for a broken soul. For a heart on the precipice of its final beat. Leaning into everything that I feel, every humiliated thought and shameful action, the melody transports me. It shrouds me like a dark cloud that lurks, haunting and determined to sweep my body and spirit away.

Just when it feels as if I’ll go along peacefully, the music tumbles down a rapid descending scale and the exposition begins.

Allegro di molto con brio.

My Achilles’ heel. But not today. Not anymore.

The tempo accelerates and fights against the despair and heartbreak. I concentrate and my pulse races. My right hand is like its own creature as it adeptly executes the vigorous melody, wielding my imaginary sword. My left hand holds the tremolo steady. An unbreakable shield.

I lose myself in the complexity of this movement, then, even more so through the depth and beauty of the second movement, adagio cantabile, and into the triumphant third movement, an accelerated rondo .

By the final climactic note, my head is clear. I sit perfectly still in this encased banquet hall surrounded by shadowy trees and reflected lights. My heart beats in my throat as the notes echo in my ears and all around.

After a moment, I take a deep breath and let my shoulders drop. “How long are you going to stand there like a creep?”

Raphael walks forward from the back corner near the door. He claps slowly—but not in that facetious, patronizing way like I’m a jackass. He’s genuinely impressed. “Bravo,” he says. “Beethoven. Sonata Pathétique .”

“Yes.”

“Amazing, Lexie. I didn’t know you could play it by heart. It took you forever to learn it. I remember that much.”

“It took six months to master the first movement. That fucking allegro di molto con brio made me want to tear my hair out—like my hands wouldn’t do what I was telling them to do. After that, it wasn’t so bad.”

At one point, my piano instructor made me keep my right hand behind my back, and all I’d do for the bulk of the lesson was practice the tremolo . He drilled it into me to the point where I’d catch myself bouncing imaginary notes everywhere and anywhere—on dinner tables, kitchen counters or car seats. A couple of times on Buffy, which, she was not a fan of.

Raphael joins me on the piano bench and I slide over, making room for him. “Your father is always running around, looking for new musicians to highlight at the Royal Opera. He really should have you do a concerto.”

Smiling weakly, my face warms. “Nah. I’m not bad, but there are a lot of vampires who are way more musically gifted than me.” One such vampire immediately comes to mind, but I squash that thought because he’s a mean and haughty asshole. “Plus, Madre would murder Father if he even thought about pulling me into the arts with him. ”

Raphael clears his throat, then lifts his hands above his head to dramatically flex his fingers. He brings them down to the keys, rolls his shoulders, then proceeds to play Mary had a Little Lamb , hunched and with his pointer fingers. This makes me laugh so hard that I almost fall off the bench.

He stops playing and grins. “I’m glad you’re still capable of smiling and laughing.”

“Thanks for that,” I say, wiping the corners of my eyes. “I needed that.” A soft silence falls over us and I catch my breath. A long beat passes before I speak again. When I do, my voice comes out quiet. Resigned. “I give up, Raph. I’ll… I’ll just do what they want. If Lord Cherrington wants me, that’s fine. I’ll play along.”

Raphael exhales a sigh that could sail ships. “I had a feeling you might say that.”

“It’s just the way it is,” I tell him, feeling my throat tighten. I clear it and swallow. No more crying and wailing. Mother is right. It’s time for me to move on. “I’m okay with it. Maybe… I deserve it.”

“You do not ,” he says fiercely. “You can lie to yourself, but don’t lie to me. Nothing about this situation is okay and you know it.”

“Raph, we have to?—”

“No. If it’s your choice to go through with this insane plan, I’m with you until the end. You know that. But let’s not pretend like we’re cool with it. We are not and you deserve much, much better than this.”

A familiar melodic buzzing emanates from Raphael’s hip. Shifting my gaze down, I grimace. “Why the fuck do you have my phone?”

He looks at me, sweetly batting his heavy ginger lashes the way he always does when he knows he’s out of line. Guilty as a fox. “Well…”

“Raphael—” He slips out of the bench and stands, moving away before I can strangle him. “Did you read my messages? How many times do I?— ”

“I know, alright?” Nervously, he slips his fingers through the short length of his coppery hair, but uses his other hand to remove my phone from his pocket. “But you’ve been a sneaky little rabbit lately and you won’t tell me where you’re going—then you came back yesterday utterly depressed and you still wouldn’t talk to me. So, I needed to know why.”

He pauses and looks at me with his doe eyes. “I mean, honestly? This is your fault. Look at what you make me do.”

“Oh, you can go fuck yourself.” Unbelievable. “ Boundaries , Raph.”

He waves a hand and leans on the piano with his elbows. Focusing, he punches the security code into my phone. The light illuminates his freckled face in the dim banquet hall.

“Yes, right, going forward, boundaries,” he says. “But also going forward, communication . Who is ‘Kathryn’ and why are you ignoring her messages? Why is she pleading that you come back to the house? What house, Lexie? Why don’t I know any of this?”

I can’t believe this creature. One minute he’s making me laugh, the next, I want to send him flying across the room with a roundhouse kick.

Lifting a hand to the back of my neck, I massage and close my eyes. “Kathryn owns the safe house that Oliver escaped to.”

Raphael brightens. “Ah, the safe house for ranked vamps. I remember. Why are you going there?”

“Because they need help renovating the house and I wanted to try something different. I don’t know… I-I desperately wanted a change of environment.” I intentionally leave out the fact that Oliver told me to do this. Knowing how Raphael feels about Ollie, that single bit of information will make this conversation a thousand times worse.

“Fine, but why hide this from me?” Raphael asks. “It’s better if I know things, so I can cover for you.”

“Yeah, ideally. But sometimes you buckle under pressure and tell my mom shit that I would rather you didn’t. ”

Raphael straightens. “Your mother can be a very intimidating vampire.”

“Exactly. I didn’t want you to slip up and tell her about this.” Sighing, I open my eyes and drop my hand. “It doesn’t matter now. It’s over. I’m not going back.”

No change of environment for me.

Deeper into the abyss I go.

“Why?” Raphael asks, lifting my phone again to read my messages with the same ease that he’d use to read his own. “Kathryn says, ‘Daniel won’t be here next time, I promise.’ Daniel? Is this the same Daniel that’s living with cousin Leelee at the vineyard? First-gen, piano Daniel? Daniel Lim?”

Why does he need to say his fucking name so many times? My face is fixed like something smells bad. “Yes.”

“The one you used to have a huge crush on?”

Every muscle in my body tenses and my eyes go wide. “I-I did not have a crush on him.”

I absolutely had a crush on him.

Back then, my dreams were consumed with him in this fourteen-year-old fever-pitch, raging hormones, waking up sweating and panting kind of way.

But I’m not admitting that out loud.

Ever.

Raphael laughs. “Yes, you absolutely did! You started learning the piano because of him. You learned the Sonata Pathétique because of him and you’d blab on and on about how incredible he was to anyone and everyone in the house that would listen!”

“No, I was fourteen and I just thought he was cool—there’s a difference.”

“Fine. So, he’s not cool anymore?”

“No. Hell no.”

“Then what is he now?”

Raphael grins, unreasonably amused by this stupid ass conversation. I want to punch him .

“I don’t know what he is now,” I say, scowling. “Something else entirely.”

“Mmhmm… very interesting.” He stands straight, then saunters over to the bench. He sits down beside me, facing away from the keys this time. “I think you should go back.”

“Unfortunately, nobody asked you what you thought.”

We stare at each other. Me with my eyebrow raised and him with his face flat. His hand darts out like lightning and pinches the weak spot on my waist and I crumble, hitting my forehead on the open fallboard ledge and my elbows on the piano keys. It all results in a calamitous and comedic sound from the instrument. “Jesus Christ you son of a?—”

“If you like going to the house and need the change, then go, Lexie. I’ll cover for you, I promise. Plus, your parents will be at the cabin up north for their annual bourgeoisie ski-holiday for the next couple months. You’ll have lots of time to do whatever you want.”

Rubbing my forehead, I consider.

Usually, I’m expected to go with them. This year, though, I was supposed to have been mated with Oliver, and that meant we could finally make our own plans. The only reason my mother isn’t dragging me up there is because she wants me to spend time with a rich and lecherous old vampire instead.

“What about Lord Cherrington?” I ask. “Madre expects me to be sitting in his lap while they’re gone.”

“Blegh, ugh.” Raphael coughs and makes dry heaving sounds, then bends forward and holds his stomach. This makes me laugh, too. When he’s done, he turns his head to the side, still bent over himself. “Never say that sentence to me again. Forget about that for now. Just… do what you need to do, okay? Let’s focus on laughing and smiling more. Explore and see what’s out there.”

“There’s nothing to explore.” Standing, I stretch my side after the uncalled-for assault. “You sound like one of those beige decorative pillows that aunt Gabriela has shipped from America. Live, Laugh, Love . ”

“This is going to be great,” he says, watching me. “I have a very good feeling about this.”

“You’re being weird.”

Raphael shrugs, smiling like he knows something that I don’t. “I’m just saying. I like it.”

“Fine. Give me my phone.” I hold my palm flat and he sits up straight, then plops it into my hand. “Stop unlocking my phone and reading my messages.”

“Stop making your passcode some variation of Oliver’s stupid birthday. Not to mention the fact that you still haven’t asked me to find you a new feeding source. Lexie, he’s not even here anymore?—”

“Goodnight, stalker. I’ll find Buffy myself.”

As I cross the gleaming floor of the hall, Raphael shouts after me. “It’s my literal job to stalk you!”

I swear to God, he always needs to have the last word. But as I push through the glass door and out into the blustery night, I don’t care. He can have it.

Once I’m showered, in my pajamas and sitting on my bed with Buffy making biscuits on my thigh, I open and look at my unanswered text messages. There are four from Kathryn.

In general, she’s asking if I’m okay and assuring me that I’m welcome at the house. Like Raphael told me earlier, she promises that Daniel won’t be there the next time I come—that I just so happened to come on the days when he was there. Lucky me.

There’s also a message from Leoni, which is unusual. She and I have always gotten along well—much better than I have with her horrible monster of an older sister. Leoni and I seldom talk outside of family functions, but we’ve been in touch more as of late because of Ollie.

[Hola, Puercoespín. ?Cómo andas?]

The message is simple, so I send a quick response .

[Hey. Estoy bien. ?Y tú? ?Qué onda?]

I’m about to put my phone down, but I’m surprised to see that she’s already typing another message. A moment later, a series of texts come through in Spanish.

[Nada. Todo tranquilo.]

[I was thinking, I need some help with vineyard stuff in a couple weeks.]

[I’m going to Seze.]

[They have a weekend market there and I wanna sell some wine.]

[Would you come with me?]

Looking down at the phone, I frown. “This is random.”

Why is she asking me?

Well, a large portion of the population in Seze immigrated here from Spain. Maybe she wants another Spanish speaker? The dialect of Seze Spanish versus my natural diction is different, but I can mimic Spain’s style pretty easily.

I’m tempted to ask her if Daniel will be there, but the question feels cowardly. Or like I’m avoiding an ex after a nasty break-up… which is an utterly ridiculous analogy.

While I’m contemplating, another message pops up.

[Please? It’ll be fun!]

Buffy bumps her fluffy head into my side, cuing me to pet her and settle into bed already. I feel squeamish, but I send Leoni a simple response.

[Okay.]

I send a similar message to Kathryn, then cross my fingers that I won’t run into a certain asshole who seems to hate me for no apparent reason.