‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll—’
‘Right, snake boy. Spill the beans,’ Sadie interrupts. ‘Hester has given us the basics of what happened in 1560.’
Her piercing gaze skewers me, and the others look ... knowing. If vampires could blush, I’d be beetroot right now. I glance at Hester, and she avoids my eyes.
‘So ... so you know about the night she turned me?’
Sadie waves a hand. ‘Cock sucking, neck biting—the usual. I’m surprised you got off that easily in the 1500s.’
I cringe. Looks like Hester has indeed given them a brief rundown of events. Did she mention Darius? He was involved after all ...
‘This isn’t an ambush, Will,’ Elliott says pleasantly from the kitchen table. ‘We’re just surprised to find out about you and understandably curious to know more about your history.’
‘What do you want to know?’ Shit, maybe I should have slithered out the window rather than staying here for an inquisition!
‘Like why you’ve been shielding that you’re a vampire from Hester, for starters,’ says Sadie. ‘Why not introduce yourself, like I did with Floss in 1921?’ She juts her chin forwards and points at Floss. ‘Hey, vamp girl. I see you there, shaking that ass.’
Floss giggles. ‘You are so ridiculous.’
Sadie shrugs. ‘I’m not shy. We hung out and had a lot of fun...’
‘Yes, well, we don’t need to go into that,’ says Floss hurriedly. ‘Will might not have felt as comfortable as you did making himself known. Especially if Hester is his sire. Is that the case, Will? Did it feel a bit weird bumping into heragain?’
I nod, thinking it best to agree and go along with it. ‘Yeah, really weird. I thought she might not want to be reminded of me. Especially as she’d been told I’d been taken care of.’
Yes, Darius certainly took care of me. He dragged me to his chamber; and when I’d fully transitioned, he let me drink his blood, then gave me clothes and a warning: he would allow my vampiric existence as long as I left Hester alone. From that, I assumed he had made his claim on her. So I promised I would and slowly made my way back to Cumbria, leaving a trail of destruction behind me.
‘But what have you been doing since you were turned?’ asks Damian, sliding his arm along the top of the couch and twirling a finger in Floss’s hair. ‘It’s a hell of a long time.’
No kidding!If he only knew. I tried my best to keep my promise to Darius, I really did, since we ended up becoming friends when I returned to court forty years later. I kept my stalking of Hester to a minimum and only went to one of her plays (that fateful one in 1752). However, when I found Darius lying under the bed in 1758, I muttered a quick apology as I slid him into the Thames—and immediately started stalking Hester with a vengeance since there wasn’t a reason not to anymore.
But as the years went by, it was harder to thinkrationally with hate and desire always warring. One day, I would tell myself to kill her; the next, I would convince myself to wait because I liked looking at her. I fell into a habit of watching and waiting, and before I knew it, the twenty-first century had arrived. Then she joined my acting class, and things started getting interesting ...
But I can’t tell Damian all that. Best to keep it vague. ‘Oh, I was ... around,’ I say. ‘I went to sea for quite a few years.’
‘What do you mean “went to sea”?’ asks Hester.
I clear my throat. ‘Ah, it was when my wife, Grace, started aging. And I didn’t.’
Hester’s shoulders slump. ‘Oh, you got married ... like afterwards?’
God, this is awkward. And so fucking long ago it doesn’t even matter anymore. ‘Yes, about a year after you turned me. By that time, I was aware of my powers, and I was managing OK to keep them hidden. I suppose I was play-acting at being normal. But I found out pretty quickly I had another ability on our wedding night. When Grace and I began to get ... intimate, I changed. As you can imagine, it was pretty terrifying, for her and for me.’
‘Not exactly her idea of a trouser snake,’ quips Damian.
Everyone sniggers, and I smile too, feeling a bit more comfortable with them. I like how they bandy jokes around. ‘Yeah, you could say that.’
‘But surely, you got to bang her at some point? I mean you’re not exactly ugly. She would have been gagging for it,’ Sadie remarks.
‘Sadie!’ Hester sounds horrified.
But I smile at her. ‘It’s OK. Grace and I didn’t exactly have a conventional marriage. How could we? She knew I was a vampire, and we ... coexisted quite happily for years. And when it started becoming too obvious I was her toy boy, we parted ways, and I travelled. When I finally returned from my fortieth sea voyage, Grace had departed this earth.’
‘Oh, Will.’ Hester’s eyes are sad, and no one says anything. Not even Sadie.
‘So I came to London again and met up with Darius,’ I continue, looking at Hester. ‘He got me a part in Shakespeare’s newest play, as I told you this afternoon.’
‘Wait,’ says Sadie, leaning forward, her eyes wide. ‘Whodid you say got you the part?’
