Page 49 of Vampire Savage

Soft, gooey chocolate and toffee bursts on my tongue and I groan, unable to stop the sound.

Eloise and Deidre laugh, and I blush, looking at the woman standing next to her king. She holds up her own half-eaten cookie. “I know, right? Joséphine’s cookies are the best.”

“We’ll get the blade for you,” Ashe announces, as if my distraction with the cookie never happened. From my angle, he has an almost manic expression, and it hits me that this must be the first time he’s been this close to getting his wife back. He whirls to me, desperation making his golden eyes wide. “You can get it, right? We could go tonight.”

I force down the bite of cookie to answer, but Lan does instead.

“No,” he commands, his voice and expression daring Ashe to challenge him. Ashe looks as if he almost wants to, his hands clenching into fists. “If she retrieves the blade too soon, it’ll make Benoit go into lockdown.” Lan looks past Ashe to Malachi. “We need a plan that allows us to corner Oberon Benoit and retrieve the celestial blade for Eris. I’ve confirmed I have access to Oberon’s secure personal network. If it’s on there, I can find anything.”

I continue to eat the cookie, using the touch mouse pad to access the network listed as my father’s. “How’d you manage this?” I’m more curious than shocked, as I start to look at folders I’ve never had access to before. My father has an entire drive I never even knew about.

“I hacked your computer that night while you were in the shower and installed a worm that would duplicate a program that would create an undetected backdoor to his computer. I just needed you to visit his penthouse and your phone to connect to his Wi-Fi.”

I pull my eyes away from the PDFs of historic newspapers and look at him. He’s watching me, waiting for my reaction. A part of me is irritated, but I already knew he’d planned to use me. I let out a harsh breath and point a finger at him. “No more hacking me, understand, Landon? Next time, you’ll explain first and then ask.”

Joséphine makes a happy sound and I look over at her, blushing as I take in her thrilled expression. She reaches over and squeezes my shoulder affectionately before standing and clapping her hands together.

“It sounds as if you will be spending much of the night in here,” she says and strides towards the door, but not before pausing to pat her son’s chest approvingly. “I will go get tea and have the night staff bring up refreshments later. As for you, my son, I like her. You’ve done well.”

Landon leans forward and presses a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you, Matka.”

She leaves, and then the vampires get down to business. I’m distracted by exploring my father’s files, absorbing the evidence of Lan’s words—that my father is much, much older than I ever believed. It’s all here in these files. Different lives in different cities, all across the world. I’m not even his only child, though from what I can guess, I’m the only one currently alive. At one point, Eloise extracts a promise from me to go to brunch with her and Deidre before the two women retire.

Lan refills my tea, a black mango tea that is perfectly balanced, as my cup empties or cools. All the while, masculine voices fill the room as they debate the merits of planning the death of my father and the procurement of Eris’s celestial blade. I’m not sure when the demon disappeared but my eyes are burning from exhaustion and I’m pretty sure I’ve been too shocked to blink as I comb through the secret past of my father.

I move to a more recent folder, since I’d started with the oldest first. I recognize my mother’s maiden name and click on the file. It’s a damn brief on their relationship. How my father met my mother, how he’d decided to pursue her once he’d researched her lineage and bloodline, he even had a damn report on her mental health and an evaluation by a psychiatrist who determined that she was impressionable and had no further goals than falling in love and raising a family. She came from a wealthy family and had her own accounts and investments, all of which were signed into joint ownership after they were married.

Her pregnancy appointments are recorded in detail, and when I was delivered, there is a picture of me sleeping in a hospital bassinet, swaddled in an elephant-printed blanket and wearing a pink cap. There are the standard details recorded at the time of birth, then a note that he’s started my own file after an unspecified blood test confirmed his “hopes.”

Horrific fascination grips me as I scroll faster, through the few years of my life my mother was alive, until I reach the second to last page.

There’s another picture of her, but she has a wild expression on her face. The date on the photo is the same day she died. Heart pounding, I read my father’s notes.

Saoirse is ready, eager to complete the ritual that will grant me eternal life. For the last year, I’ve been grooming her for this moment, and in the event that tonight fails and she does not love me as she claims, I will have the child Wren to focus on next. Regardless of tonight’s results, I will at least renew the spell for another forty years, giving me ample time to make arrangements in the future. For now, I believe I am safe to remain as Oberon Benoit.

Below that:

Once again, the ritual sacrifice of a loved one and the imbibing of their blood has failed to accomplish my goal. After so many centuries, I must consider if the obsidian chalice was harmed in the explosion caused by the soldier Polastri the night I retrieved it. If he is to blame for this failure, I would wish him still alive so I could kill him myself. Alas, he burned with the rest of them. It is the child I must focus on now. Perhaps the love of a child is more potent than the shallow emotions from a woman.

My mind is silent, blank, thoughtless, as I navigate the newest folder. I have my own brief, just as the annotation said. I scroll through it, pictures and notes flying by. I think Lan says my name, but I can’t look away. I have to know.

I made it to the final page.

Wren continues to seek my approval, aiming to be the perfect daughter. She has even foregone sexual relationships and all relationships, as I’ve groomed her to remain pure until marriage. That being said, she’s beginning to pull away and question my commands both with her personally and with the business. I cannot chance losing her affections, so the ritual must take place before her thirtieth birthday. I’ve decided to use the same strategy as I have in the past. However, she will be marrying Miles, rather than myself, of course. She’s already agreed and accepted his proposal this night. I will gift them the use of my private jet and pay for their honeymoon. With today’s technology, it will be more difficult to fake their deaths, but not insurmountable.

Once they are married, I will finally achieve eternal life.

A hand turns my head away from the computer, and Lan’s thumb swipes over my cheeks. Only then do I realize I’m crying.

“Oh, baby girl,” he says, his voice quiet and almost kind.

“He wants to kill me.” My voice is raspy and barely audible.

Lan crouches in front of me, cupping my face in both his hands. His eyes are fierce and burning. “I will not let that happen, Little Bird. You are my mate, and I’ll tear him apart, piece by piece, if he tries to take you from me.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

LAN