Vampires of Eden (Alexander #2)

15. Alexander

CHAPTER 1 5

Alexander

H esitating, I change positions and fold my leg onto the couch as I gather my thoughts. Daniel seemed closed off from answering my questions before. This offer is a surprise.

When I’m settled and it’s so quiet that I can hear the rain softly pelting the window, I look over at him and decide to try. “Why isn’t your body able to regenerate quickly?”

Wrapping himself up tighter in his blanket, Daniel takes a visible breath. “Because I’m malnourished. I made some poor choices and became heavily dependent on a particular feeding source, then that source cut me off. It was a very… manipulative situation. Cruel, looking back on it. I couldn’t see the truth until it was too late.”

“When we were sitting on the porch last weekend, you told me that you had a situation where you thought you loved someone, but you were wrong about it,” I recall. “Is this the same circumstance?” That moment stuck with me because it’s the only time he’s ever revealed anything about himself.

He sits back, sinking lower into the cushions. “Yes, it’s the same situation. I was young and very stupid. Arrogant. She made a lot of promises and I… had this vision in my head of what we wo uld become. I clung to it and let go of everything else, regardless of what my family or anyone else said. I believed in the fantasy, but in the end, none of it was real. The reality was much darker and more painful.”

Nodding, listening, I try to imagine what he’s telling me. A young Daniel, na?ve and recklessly falling for some vampire that ends up manipulating him. It’s difficult to envision, to be honest. The Daniel that I know is guarded and razor sharp. Hard on the surface like an impenetrable stone or metal.

I may not know much about love, but I know that it takes vulnerability. You have to be willing to look like an idiot, and it requires a certain softness and openness. Like you part the heavy, protective veil to your heart and open it wide to someone, showing them what you are and praying that they don’t stab it with a sharp object.

I’m having a hard time picturing him like that. Willingly exposing himself.

“If she cut you off, why can’t you find another feeding source to nourish you back to full health?” Even as the question leaves my mouth, it feels moronic. Obviously, there’s something I’m missing, because he would have done that already.

Daniel sighs, flickering his eyes toward the fire. “Finding what I need isn’t easy. Moreover, I’m not sure that I want to subject myself to that again. Maybe I don’t want to be dependent on another vampire. It made me feel desperate and trapped—like I was a slave to her blood.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“It was pretty damn awful. Especially being cut off. But in the end, I’m glad. Leoni gave me some tough love and got me out of that situation. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably still be there, half-dead and begging for scraps.”

My mind boggles as I process. It’s like he responds to one of my questions, and then I have five more based on his answer. “What does Leoni have to do with it? She knows this vampire? ”

Daniel huffs in his slouched position. His bun is lopsided and coming undone. “Of course she does. It was her sister.”

I freeze. My back stiffens because this means that his source was a purebred vampire. Wow. He was feeding from a purebred. There aren’t many purebreds in Eden that would offer…

I frown, distracted by a specific point and narrowing my eyes at him. “ Which sister?”

“Josefina.”

“Oh fuck. Fucking hell , Danny.”

He chuckles at my response like this shit is amusing. To me, it’s definitely not. I feel as if I’ve been prodded with a red-hot poker. “Are you kidding me?” I screech, unable to hide my shock. “No offense, but Josefina is a literal monster of a purebred. She’s a nightmare.”

He grins, all nonchalant like we’re discussing the weather. “I don’t disagree with you.”

“That purebred—Do you know, she used to terrorize me when we were children?”

“Really?”

“Yes, in lots of ways. Her main feature—the thing that got her famously cursed out by my mother at a family dinner—was telling me that I was adopted. Most vamps in my mother’s clan look like Leoni, you know? That dark wavy hair and olive-brown skin tone. Josefina used to say that I was pale and blonde because they found me orphaned in a cave in the northern mountains. They took pity and adopted me—but it was a huge secret, allegedly, so I couldn’t tell anyone that I knew ‘the truth.’”

Shaking my head, I scoff at the memory before I go on. “She used to call me ‘the little misfit’ when none of the adults were around. And I’m an only child, so it was definitely like, ‘one of these things is not like the other’ when I was with my cousins.”

I’m expecting him to laugh, but his face is serious. “That’s needlessly cruel, but not surprising of her character.”

I shrug. “Exactly. I came home crying enough times that Raph finally pulled it out of me—and until this day, he digs around in my business to make sure I’m not hiding anything from him. I get where he’s coming from and why he does it, but boundaries, for Christ’s sake. Anyway.” I wave a hand because that’s an entirely different issue. “He told my mother and she went ape shit on Josefina. I’m talking eyes alighted, fangs bared and using words in Spanish I had never heard before. Josefina never mentioned it or called me that again.”

“How long did you believe the lie?”

“Hm, I don’t know. Maybe a year?”

“A year ? Holy shit, man. That’s terrible.”

“Yeah, it was pretty bad—I think I was six or seven at the time?” Pausing, I fold my hands in the gap of my thighs. Wanting to redirect the conversation. “How long were you feeding from her?”

Daniel rests his head to the side and exhales. “Almost six years.”

“ Six years drinking an evil-fucking purebred’s blood. Traumatic.”

“Yes, it was. But, in the beginning, I was truly captivated by her. Josefina is very beautiful and she…” He pauses, straightening his spine. “I’m not defending her. I just… For a long time, I was under the impression that we had something special. Something that defied the archaic systems and inflexible roles of Eden. That’s how she spun it to me.

“Plus, I grew up with the example of my mothers, you know? One being purebred and the other, first-gen. Ranking never mattered in our household. I thought Josefina genuinely loved me, but really… she loved having an obedient vampire that was wholly and deeply devoted to her. Her own personal vampire who depended on her blood—who needed her blood.” Daniel eyes me as an ironic smirk spreads across his lips. “The perfect pet.”

I shake my head, unfazed. “Nah. As someone who owns a proper pet, I would never treat Buffy the way you’re describing. Not ever. I love her and I have no reason to hurt or manipulate her for my own gain—she’s just… there. Fluffy and wonderful. I don’t need anything else from her.”

Without question, I understand why he hates purebreds now. God…

If I had to spend even twenty-four hours in Josefina’s presence, I’d hate her, myself and all the rest of us. He was literally entangled with the worst of the worst of purebreds—not unlike Lord Cherrington. An arrogant, classist, pushy and manipulative traditionalist.

“Buffy is lucky to have you,” Daniel says, watching me with a lazy expression. “And you do look like them, by the way.”

“Them?” I ask, confused. “Them, who?”

“Leoni and her family. Your hair and skin-tone are different, but the eyes are the same, the straight line of your nose—and certain aspects of your character remind me of Leoni all the time. Josefina was wrong to say that to you.”

Frowning, I shrug. “Fine, but, I’m over that?—”

“But you do, Alexander. Really.”

“Well, thanks,” I say, feeling awkward. “I mean, anyway, my father’s clan is from the northern mountain region and clearly, his genes are fucking strong. So it wasn’t that far-fetched of an anecdote.”

Daniel chuckles. I’m trying to move on, but I’m still reeling inside.

Josefina.

Yikes, times one thousand. It explains so much. It’s like if I had been in love with Oliver, but Oliver was evil and held real biological and social, manipulative power over me. Yet, I didn’t realize these things about him. Christ… Daniel has lived through hell.

I’ve heard of this in passing via scandalous rumors. Murmurs at private parties or whispers in heavily cloaked cigar rooms. Purebred vampires who assume a ranked vampire as a kind of concubine. Someone they might regularly sleep with and keep hidden away in their bedroom or private quarters. Both willingly and not .

Either way, there’s never any true intention to bond with them. It’s more like having a consort at your beck and call.

I know that these things are happening in our aristocracy, but I rarely ever come fact-to-face with them. I’ve always had my head stuck in my lofty Oliver cloud, so those things don’t necessarily concern me. The strange details coloring the underbelly of our culture.

“You’re quiet,” Daniel says, calling to my attention.

“I was processing,” I say honestly.

“Right… I probably look quite different to you after this confession—now that you know I’m basically some purebred vampire’s rejected, blood-obsessed sex toy.”

My shoulders tighten as I meet his gaze. “Is that what you feel you were? Is that how you see yourself?”

Blinking, Danny takes a breath. “No…”

“Then, why say that?” I ask seriously.

“Because that’s how society at large would judge me?—”

“So what? You just told me that you thought the two of you were in love. If that’s how you see yourself and the situation, fuck whatever society says.” My phone buzzes loudly in my pocket. Daniel jumps, then sinks lower into his corner and looks away.

I read the screen. “It’s Raph. Hold on one second, sorry.” I swipe my finger across the phone to answer. “Yes?”

“Are we having fun?”

“I’m fine, Raph—what do you need?”

“Your parents changed the time of your video call tonight. They moved it up an hour.”

I sigh, annoyed as I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Can we do this tomorrow instead?”

“Are you seriously asking me to cancel and reschedule with your madre at the last minute? What do I say when she asks why? Should I tell her where you are?”

Groaning, I drop my hand. “Fine, I’ll be there. Shit.”

“Put me on speaker.”

I start, blinking. “What? ”

“Put me on speaker. I want to meet him.”

“No.”

“Lexie—”

“ No .”

“Is something wrong?” Daniel speaks softly, cutting into the conversation with his head lazily rested against the couch.

Ah fuck. Fuck fuck. “Raphael wants to meet you… he wants me to put him on speaker.”

“Alright,” Daniel says, unaffected. “I’m fine with that.”

I don’t say it, but I’m confused as to why the hell he would be fine with this. Reluctantly, I change the setting so that Raphael is on speaker, then hold the phone out. What is happening right now? “Raph, you’re on speaker.”

“Hi Daniel!” Raphael’s cheerful voice floats into the room like a true interloper. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

Daniel pulls himself up and sits forward. His insanely messy half-bun flops even further to the side. “Hello—it’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Lexie was really worried about you, so it made me worry. Are you feeling alright?”

God. I roll my eyes hard and shake my head.

“I’m okay—thank you for worrying. That’s kind of you.”

“Of course, of course,” Raphael responds. “I’ll let you two go, but can you make sure to send my little rabbit back home by three o’clock? Lately, he’s having too much fun with you and he loses track of time. Will you help me out please, so his madre doesn’t tear my head off?”

He doesn’t need to worry about my mother, because I’m going to strangle him when I get home. He’d better hide.

Daniel smiles, leaning a little further toward the phone. “I will, I promise.”

“Okaaay, you two enjoy! I’ll see you at home, Lexie. It was nice to meet you, Daniel. Take care of yourself?”

“Thank you, I will. You too. ”

I tap the phone hard to end the call. How humiliating. Why is he like this?

“So, that was the manservant-best-friend-brother?”

“Yes,” I groan. “Soon to be departed.”

“He seems nice. You have so many nicknames. He called you ‘Lexie’ and his ‘little rabbit.’ Leoni calls you ‘porcupine’ in Spanish.”

“Oh,” I chuckle. “That’s just the tip of the ice berg, vampires call me all sorts of crazy things. My friend Sebastian calls me ‘Aleksey’ with a terrible Russian accent. Another friend calls me ‘Goldie’ and my mother calls me ‘Alejandro.’ Hardly anyone says my actual name.”

Daniel sits back, comfortable as he shifts and folds his legs beneath his blanket. “I think abbreviated names and nicknames are nice. It’s a sign of affection. Basically, lots of vampires feel affectionate toward you.”

“I suppose,” I say, dubious. “That’s a positive way to look at it.”

He hesitates, then meets my eyes. “So, what did Oliver call you?”

This makes me laugh. “Oliver didn’t call me anything—he barely ever said my name. It was always more like, ‘Go away,’ or ‘Leave me alone.’ ‘What do you want?’ Stuff like that.”

We both laugh outright because it’s truly pathetic. “Yeah,” I say in-between breaths. “He really disliked me.”

When you scrape all the top-level details away, here we sit, two vampires who loved two creatures that did not love us back. Both me and Daniel were busy chasing after some far-flung dream. Some imagined, self-indulged future that would never come.

Somehow, though, these revelations make the truth of it hurt a little less. It could be that misery loves company? I’m not sure. It’s nice that I’m not walking alone with this load anymore. It feels as if we’re kind of sharing the burden and carrying it together.

“It’s Oliver’s loss, though, isn’t it?” Daniel asks .

“Not really. If only I’d been about five inches taller, seventy-five years older and an international designer with the visage of a perfectly bronzed Greek God. I had no clue that I was so out of my depth with him.”

Daniel frowns. “You don’t need any of those things, Alexander. You… you’re fine, just the way you are.”

“Right, coming from another vampire who definitely doesn’t like me. I’m fine—translation, mediocre. Plain vanilla.”

I chuckle. Daniel exhales a heavy sigh.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Yeah but I get it. Don’t worry. Anyway, what is today’s shirt? Can I see, please?”

Daniel grins and sits straighter. Slowly, he parts and opens the blanket to me, like a flasher exposing themselves to their prey.

Except, instead of being horrified, I beam, sincerely amused. His shirt is black, but just across his chest, there’s a silhouette of two crows siting on a branch. Above them in typewriter font are the words, “Attempted Murder.”

I laugh. “Very nice. What makes a murder? Three?”

“I have no idea.” He closes the blanket and snuggles back down. “You checking my shirts so intently is giving me a complex. I’m going to wear a repeat someday soon and disappoint you.”

“I won’t be disappointed,” I assure him. “I’ll just see you and it’ll make me smile again. I mean the shirt—not you, obviously.”

“Why not me?” Daniel asks, his gaze opaque. “Is it impossible that I might make you smile?”

The fire crackles softly as we sit frozen and watching each other. I have no idea what he means, and the weird rush of electric tingles that I usually ignore is more intense now as it creeps up my arms and floods my chest. “I… don’t understand?—”

“Never mind,” Daniel says, flipping so that his legs hang over the edge of the couch. He likes to wear these tapered sweatpants that make his legs look long and athletic. Today’s pair is light gray. “It’s nothing. I… Shall we watch an episode or two of Buffy ? We don’t have a lot of time left since I promised that I’d send the little rabbit home by three.”

Attempting to brush off the confusion and rogue tingles, I reach for the bowl of strawberries. “You definitely don’t need to call me that.”

“I like it—that one suits you the most because you’re jumpy and skittish sometimes. Goldie is nice, too…” Daniel reaches over toward my lap and grabs a strawberry half from the bowl. He brings it to his mouth, then pauses. He glances at me from the corners of his eyes. “Or do you like it when I say your name? Is that better for you, Alexander? Is that what you want?”

The rogue tingles intensify, concentrating in my belly and groin. Threatening to make me hard.

What the fuck is going on?

I take a breath. “You can call me whatever you like. Just, maybe not Alejandro, because then I’ll think that I’m in serious trouble.”

Daniel laughs in a throaty sound and wraps his lips around the strawberry to take a bite. I look away from him because my body is doing perverted things that make absolutely no sense.

No damn sense at all.

“Hello honey—how are things? Are you spending lots of time with Lord Cherrington?”

Sheesh. Just… straight to the point. All in one breath.

“Hello Mother, Father—things are fine. Yes, I saw him last week.”

“Last week?” She frowns, her perfectly made-up face is flawless on the tablet screen. Her rich honey-colored hair is tied back, but the length of it hangs over her right shoulder like a horse’s tail. “What about this week? Are there plans?”

“I’m… We’re working on them.”

We are not .

“I’ve been told that he owns a cabin here up north,” she goes on with her eyebrow raised. “Maybe we should invite him? You could come, too, and we could all spend time together?”

Please God, no. “I’m busy with attending events here and representing the house in your absence. I think it’s best if I stay?”

I’m playing with fire, because if she finds out about the multitude of events that I’ve ditched in the past month, in combination with the fact that I’ve only seen Lord Cherrington once since they’ve been gone, I’ll be a dead vampire.

Lying, sneaking around and being disobedient to my parent’s wishes… I’m never like this. Generally speaking, I play by the rules and do everything I’m told (excluding the time I snuck a stray kitten into the house—but Buffy deserves to be an exception to the rules). My life is not a bad one by any means, so I try to be respectful of what my parents provide for me. I’m grateful for it.

But this terrible mess with Oliver—and now thrusting me toward Lord Cherrington? I can’t. Something inside of me has shattered and I don’t want to play this game anymore. I complied with the aristocracy’s terms. I conformed, but they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain.

Now, I can’t help but question the system and its bizarre rules.

“Well, maybe we can find an opening in the schedule?” Mother pushes. “I’m sure we can make it work—even a quick trip would be nice. We’ll need to make the announcement of your pairing before summer, Alejandro. You two should be well acquainted by then.”

“I’ll talk to Raph about it,” I say, desperately wanting to end this topic of conversation. I have something on my mind that’s a bit risky, but… I know my father and I want to try. “Father, do you remember taking me to see that pianist at the álvarez Estate when I was fourteen? His name was Daniel Lim?”

My father had been silent up to this point, letting Victoria run the show, as always. But his golden-amber eyes perk up and he smiles. “Yes, of course I remember the son of Lim Ming Tao— world renown composer and one of my favorite classical violinists.”

“Really?” I say, genuinely surprised by this information. “I didn’t know that.”

“Yes, yes,” he goes on, brimming with interest. “The Lim family lived in Eden for many years. I believe Daniel was born and raised here, but his mothers eventually found our culture to their disliking. Such a shame. They moved to America—California. I had assumed that the son left as well. He was wonderfully talented. Why do you ask?”

Look at that. I got an entire backstory from a simple question. “Because he’s still here. I recently ran into him and… he doesn’t play the piano anymore, I don’t think. But he is living in Eden.”

“Where did you run into him?” Mother cuts in, frowning. “Why have I never heard of this vampire? Is he purebred?”

“No, darling,” Father responds. “Ming Tao is purebred, but his second mother is first-generation. He is first-generation.”

My mother’s face contorts as if she’s swallowed something sour. “Wait… I do remember this name—Why are we talking about him? Wasn’t he a servant in my sister’s house?”

Welp, this conversation is officially hurling toward a cliff.

“Darling,” Father pleads, patient as a stone. “He was not a servant, per say. He is the son of a prominent, internationally celebrated classical musician. Daniel himself was a prodigious pianist. He’s the reason why Alexander began playing the piano?—”

“I said I remember him. I’m asking why he’s being brought up again . After all this time.”

Her tone is sharp. Threatening. The pause that follows is stiff and uncomfortable between the three of us. I roll my shoulders. “My apologies, Mother.”

“Don’t do this, Alejandro,” she scolds. “Don’t use this mess with Oliver as an excuse to start grossly fixating on some washed-up, first-gen vampire who doesn’t even exercise his primary skill anymore. I’m so very repulsed by this conversation. I’d like to move on, please? Not another word. ”

Father clears his throat, then asks me how the proposal for the board is coming along. To which, I don’t have a satisfying answer, since I haven’t thought about it at all.

My parents are like night and day. Ansv?d Kendrick is a music and arts aficionado first and foremost. None of the other bullshit about vampire ranks and houses matters. I know this about him, so I also knew that he’d be excited to hear about Daniel.

Victoria, though? My mother wholly subscribes to Eden’s snooty and classist culture. Purebreds are the ruling class. Anyone else exists on a level far beneath our magnitude. Period.

I disagree with her. Similar to other Eden purebreds born in her generation, it’s as if she has no concept of the outside world and other aristocracies. Communities where vampires thrive and interact freely, regardless of their rank or “nobility.” Most have done away with royal titles altogether. In Eden, we’re still holding onto them with a bloody and bruised fist.

Underneath the glittery fa?ades and superficial interactions, it only serves to make everyone miserable.

More and more, I’m beginning to understand why Oliver hated this place and why he wanted out. I didn’t get it before, but lately, I do.

I think, in some important ways at least, I have Daniel to thank for that.