He’d been sitting with his head on his clasped hands like I’d found him the previous night in Henry’s room. When he lifted his head at my question, the pain I saw there nearly broke me. He leaned back against the couch cushions, his hands now resting limp on his thighs.
And I realized he wasalreadybroken. It took every ounce of my willpower to keep my feet planted where they were and not go to him.
“We all have a choice,” he explained. “Leave and become nomads, never planting roots, never experiencing the security and safety of the family, changing our identity at more frequent intervals. Or leapfrog with the others, growing old until it was time to be renewed. My father liked to mix it up to keep things interesting.”
“Renewed?” I repeated softly, still refusing to connect the dots he was laying out for me.
“We need blood to survive and stay young,” he said. “But if we choose to grow old, consuming enough blood erases decades. My father discovered quite by accident that the blood of pregnant women or recently pregnant women was far more potent than the blood of others. The renewal was so much quicker, so much more invigorating withthem as the source.”
“My God.” I took an involuntary step back, my hand covering my mouth to keep the rising bile from escaping.
“Originally, my father had only resorted to this in the most extreme cases,” Whit continued as if that somehow excused my former benefactor’s actions. “Horrific injury, starvation, when massive amounts of blood were needed. But with the renewals, he’d found a whole new way to preserve his legacy and his stranglehold on the family. Not only would he be sowing his seed like he always had, but he’d also be ensuring the survival of his existing family.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, the horror of everything he’d told me fully sinking in. “What are you?” I croaked, finally working up the courage to ask the question that burned on my tongue. “Witches? Vampires? Demons?”
Whit held my gaze, the light I thought I’d seen before—just a reflection, a spark of passion—shone there like a predator’s eyeshine in the darkness. “None of these. And yet all of them.” He shook his head. “We are who we are, Zellie. History and folklore have called us many things.”
Part of me wanted to scream at him to stop telling me these outrageous lies. Part of me wanted to run. But another part of me, the part that had loved him so completely, still refused to believe Whit could be part of such a horrific legacy.
“I’m not like the others, Zellie,” he assured me, his expression softening. “I chose to be a nomad, sticking to the shadows, trying not to be seen. I’ve lived so many lives, never taking more than I needed to sustain me. I wouldneverharm you or Henry—I swore that to you, remember? What I am changesnothing.”
“How can you say that?” My voice was infuriatingly faint. It should’ve been stronger, more forceful. But as much as I wanted to hide the fact that I was terrified, there wasn’t any point in trying. Whit could read me. He knew better. Why pretend?
He set his glass aside and spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Because it’s true. That’s all I can say.”
A sudden, heartbreaking thought occurred to me. “Kitty? What happened to her and her child? Was she one of these sacrifices?”
Whit didn’t immediately answer as if wondering if he should tell me the truth. But I saw in his expression the moment he decided that he had to tell me everything, no matter the cost.
“Not intentionally,” he said. “Most of our children don’t survive long because of the anemia that basically causes us to cannibalize our own blood. And the mothers have an even harder struggle. June was right, Zellie—our unborn leech so much from the mother’s body, and keeping the infant healthy once it’s born is a difficult balance that isn’t always successful.”
“That’s why Kitty was so sickly,” I guessed. “And her crying?”
He nodded. “Kitty was born one of us, so she knew the risks, recognized that she wasn’t doing well despite all of June’s remedies. She told the family that if she didn’t survive she wanted to give her blood for renewal so Billy Wayne could claim it as his sacrifice and would finally get his chance to become one of us. He’s human. I guess you’d call him a Renfield in pop culture parlance. Becoming will be his reward for his many years of service to the family. I’d have slit the bastard’s throat years ago for his repeated infidelity to Kitty—withIris,of all people, for fuck’s sake. But Kitty wouldn’t allow it. For some reason, she still loved him.”
“Who received her…blood?” I asked. But before he could respond, I realized the answer. “Mr. Dean. Carter Dean is Old Man Dean.”
Whit nodded. “His and Netty’s renewal were delayed—Carter’s by request so he could age with his partner. Netty’s was by design, punishment from my father for letting Alice die. But I felt sorry for her, hated how my father had cursed her, letting Merilee renew, forever young, as her sister grew older and older, refusing to let her die. I promised Netty I’d find a way to help her.”
I was afraid to find out where this was going, but I had to know everything. And I could feel him holding back, the worst betrayal yet to come. “How would you be able to do anything?”
“Short of allowing there to be a sacrifice for her renewal, I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “I was going to try just feeding her more, maybe reverse her aging over time. But it would take a while. And it wasn’t something I’d be able to do with my father’s spies here at Dawes House, that’s for damned sure.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, trying to process that absolute madness of it all. “How do Henry and I factor into any of this?”
“I told you before that my father is obsessed with his legacy,” Whit reminded me. “We are expected to create a life, take a life, give a life once we become adults as a pledge of loyalty and obedience.”
“What the hell does that even mean?” I demanded.
“I refused,” Whit assured me. “It was an antiquated tradition, my father’s way of ensuring his dominance, keeping everyone in check, offering them eternal life for their fealty to him and his dark lord who’d ‘blessed’ us with immortality.”
I felt for the couch, sinking back down onto it in a daze. My mother’s words echoed in my head:Your devil’s found you.
“I thought I could thwart that obligation,” Whit continued. “He let me live despite my rebellion because I was one of his few surviving biological children and one of the only ones strong enough to take over for him from time to time. That’s another reason I’m not exactly everyone’s favorite. But I was determined. I even refused to have a relationship with a woman beyond an occasional encounter for fear of getting her pregnant and having to fulfill my obligation to the family. Until one day, I stopped for coffee at a little café in a shitty neighborhood near one of our properties.”
My blood went cold, all the warmth draining away in an instant. “What are you talking about?”
“You quotedHenry V,” he said.
