I'm not old enough for this shit
“Ezra, it’s your responsibility as my oldest pure-born son to assume this role and I’m tired of you fighting it.” My father, William Clarke, sighs and taps his fingers on the base of his wine goblet.
I narrow my eyes on the detailed etching in the glass, trying to see if I can mentally place in what decade it was made. “Is that Cristallo?”
Another sigh, then, “Ezra, be serious.”
“I am. I think it’s Cristallo, but I’m not sure.”
My father rolls his eyes and slides the glass toward me. I’m right. It is Cristallo. I can’t stop the smile from breaking out across my face.
“I acquired it in 1505.” He humors me.
“It’s old, then.” I pick it up and watch the light sparkle off the quartz-like patterns in the stem.
“Hardly.”
“Older than me.”
“Lots of things are older than you.”
I give the glass back to him. Therearelots of things older than me. Not many people, though. I am a baby, just over two hundred, but I was turned when I was twenty-three years old, so…
I’m twenty-three forever.
Which has its pros and cons.
“You know, Henry is actually really interested in running Wildemount.”
My father pours the contents of the wine goblet down his throat and shoots me an annoyed look. There’s blood on the corner of his mouth and I gesture at my own with a swiping motion. He reaches to his lips and wipes the blood away, sucking his pinky into his mouth and letting it go with a juicy soundingpop.
“Henry isn’t pure. Wildemount isn’t his right,” my father reminds me. I’ve heard the spiel so many times I can repeat it verbatim.
Wildemount is where we live. It’s a decent-sized city with a minimal vampire population. By minimal, it’s us—my parents, my two brothers, and my brother’s best friend. Sometimes we get travelers passing through, but they don’t stay long and that’s fine. It makes keeping everything in line easy. But that’s where easy ends.
Wildemount is one of seven cities in Carver County, and each city has its own ruling family. The heads of each family all sit on a county council and, either by luck or by fate, the Clarke family is head of the council. I’ve always assumed it was because our town had such a low vampire population, but I’ve never asked.
Because I don’t care.
Even before I was turned, I never cared for politics or the social status that comes with it, and I find I care for it even less now. Henry, on the other hand, he has a taste for it, and he’d excel far better than I would.
As it stands, once I take a mate, I replace my father on the council. One time I asked him what would happen if I didn’t. It’s not like Henrycan’ttake over; it’s just if he does, we’re no longer head of the council. I asked, once, what if the Clarkes just…resign? But he assures me there are things I don’t understand and that cannot be done. He shut me down pretty quickly so I, of course, skulked off and didn’t talk to him for three days.
Because I’m going to be twenty-three forever.
I purse my lips. He’s right about why Henry can’t assume the council role because he thinks it’s important for us to have this position of power, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop trying to get Henry into a role of responsibility. He wants it. He deserves it. He’d be good at it. I wouldn’t be. My other brother Jedidiah would be better at it than me, too.
It’s ridiculous to me that Jedidiah can’t because he’s younger than me, and Henry doesn’t get a chance because he was turned by only my father. The way vampirism works isn’t anything like people believe. It’s not like the movies.
Well, it’s kind of like the movies, but it’s way more classist.
Henry, for example, was turned by the bite of one vampire. My father. So he’s, like, a fledgling, but not really. It’s just considered less, even though the majority of vampires have the single bite deal. Then there’s me and Jedidiah, my full-blood brother. We were both turned by simultaneous bites from a mated couple.
My father and mother, of course.
That makes us full-blood and, as the oldest, leaves me in charge. Diah is only seventy-five, so he’s second in line if I don’t ever breed an heir, and Henry is older than all of us, but he doesn’t count because politics, and it’s just so fucking stupid.
“I’ve been doing this a long time, Ezra. Your mother and I want a break.”
