Still, to have my dad point those things out felt like a blunt blade had been plunged into my stomach.
“We’re getting off topic.” I dropped my foot to the floor and leaned forward. “Tabby says I need to ask you about your powers in order to learn how to control mine. So here I am, asking.”
For a moment, I really thought he’d refuse to tell me. That he’d hold his knowledge hostage unless I gave him what he wanted. Then he stood from his desk and made his way around the room to sit beside me on the other chair.
Mimicking my position, he leaned forward hands between his knees. “I came into my powers quite quickly for my age. As a vampire, that is. Most vampires do not acquire… abilities such as mine until they have seen a few decades. I discovered mine within days of awakening.”
“How did you discover them?”
I feared asking, since my own powers awakening had been such a traumatizing thing for me. A part of me needed to know had it been just as bad for him or worse. Like somehow it would make mine experience less terrifying.
His eyes slid from his hands to meet my gaze. “You must understand, Jaquelynn. Back then, I was a different person. My sire, Boris, was not a good man. He collected vampires to serve his agenda. Whether that meant whoring them out to politicians or the nobility, whoever he needed to win over, for land or power or using their strength to bolster whoever’s army he was backing that century.”
I’d heard about Boris a time or two before. Only in passing really. None of my dads ever wanted to talk about him. When I’d asked my mom once, she told me he looked like an old raisin, with flopping pointed ears and clawed hands.
One thing they made sure that I knew was that he was dead and gone. Never to bother us again.
“Boris,” my dad continued, “did not only collect those that were strong and attractive. He collected those with powers.”
“Like all of you, right?”
He nodded. “We did not all come to Boris at the same time, and none of us were there of our own free will. He found us one by one — aside from Allister and Drake, who he acquired together — collecting us for his pleasure and his never ending desire for power.”
I thought about it for a moment. I could almost understand his reasoning. If we had hunters with half the powers my family possessed, then it would make finding and detaining monsters so much easier and with far fewer casualties. Still, the thought of my dads under Boris’s thumb forced to do his bidding made me sick to my stomach.
“When I came into my powers, Boris had one of his other fledglings teaching me the ways of being a vampire. How to feed without killing. How to hide those we did kill.” He huffed a harsh laugh. “Back then, we did not have all the technology we have now. Hiding a murder was as easy as dumping a body in the woods for the animals to eat.”
My nose wrinkled. “Ew.”
“Some say those were simpler times. In reality, they just miss the freedom of no consequences for their actions.” His gaze slid to mine a serious look in them. “And there were none. Least of all for people like me.”
Part of me wanted him to hurry up and get to the point, but another part was enjoying listening to him talk. We rarely got to sit together and chat. I think the last time we did it was when I was ten, shortly after the incident with Kleon. Then my focus had understandably shifted elsewhere.
“Boris wanted me to seduce this woman, a duchess I believe,” he continued, his eyes taking on a faraway look to them. “He wanted part of her lands or something or other. I do not recall now. Except when I went to see her, she had two other men with her.”
He paused, anguish barely hidden in his face. “You must understand I was new to the vampire life and had barely been with a woman, let alone entertained the idea of being with a man, so when they tried to touch me, I panicked.”
I reached my hand out and placed it on his. He glanced down at it, but did not remove it, allowing me to comfort him as he relived his trauma.
“I shouted at them, demanding they stop and release me. And they did.” He met my gaze. “They froze in place. At first, the duchess and I thought it was some joke, but then, when they didn’t move after a few moments, she started screaming calling me a witch, demanding I leave.”
“And here I thought my first time was bad,” I muttered, thinking about how I would have felt had someone besides Tate had been there. It was bad enough that I had been freaking out, but to have someone else yelling at you, calling you all sorts of names, likely throwing things at you, I couldn’t imagine how that felt.
Then I had a thought.
“So, yours started out of emotion then too, right?”
My dad cleared his throat, standing as he straightened his jacket. “Yes, well, at first. It took me weeks to figure out how to control my powers outside of getting upset. Which you will, as well. It just takes time.”
“But what exactly triggers it, if not emotion?”
Antoine sat back behind the desk, the open and vulnerable man gone replaced by a high-powered executive. “Intention. You have to mean it. You cannot simply tell someone to jump off a bridge and have them do it. If you do not have intention, then it will not work.”
Intention.
I was afraid of that.
I had hoped it was something as simple as bringing up a happy memory or even something traumatic so that I became emotional like Tabby mentioned before but no such luck. Still, it was more than I had before, and I’d done what Tabby wanted me to do.
