“The Power of One,” he says.
“But how?” Eloise asks. “Just all of a sudden she has this Power? How? Where did it come from?” She is very suspicious.
Good questions, all. I shrug. “That’s the million-dollar question,” I say.
“We need Corinne,” CK states. “Somehow, we have to find her. Liv, you need to come to Milan immediately. You need to be sworn in, made an official member of The Council and once it’s official, we can try to figure out your Powers and the reason behind them. They’ve been given to you for a reason. We need to know what that reason is.”
I just nod dumbly at his request.
A loud knock at the door startles everyone, seeing as everyone is already here. Eloise smiles seductively and gets up to answer it.
Oh no…that can only mean one thing. I scowl as Constantine and Devon bristle, their Vampire senses going on alert.
She opens the door. “James,” she gushes and pulls him into a deep kiss. He kisses her back with abandon while we all watch in disgust, unable to look away. Pulling back, his bright blue eyes land on me, still scowling at him. James Lake is to Eloise what I am to Constantine. Slightly younger than me, Eloise turned him around nine hundred years or so ago. With his light blonde, spiky hair and intense blue eyes, not to mention cheekbones you could cut yourself on, he’s a looker all right. Of average height and all lean and rippling muscles, he turns heads. Even mine. Much to Eloise’s fury, we were lovers back in Dublin in the 1800s, and again in New York in the ’90s. 1990s, that is. It ended badly, twice, so I am not happy to see him in my hotel suite.
“Liv,” he says my name in his adopted South London accent.
“James,” I say with distaste.
Entwined around Eloise, which actually makes me slightly ill, he strolls into the room and remarks, “Nice digs.”
I throw him a withering look and say to Eloise, “What is he doing here?”
She looks at me innocently. “I invited him. Seems only fair to even the playing field,” she says, referring to CK, Cole, and Devon being firmly on ‘Team Me.’
“Great,” I mutter.
“Constantine and Devon,” James drawls. “Never far from her side. So nice to see you again.” Sarcasm drips from every word.
“And how nice to see you again, James,” Devon responds equally sarcastically, while CK just glowers at him.
“Hm, and you must be Cole?” James asks, his sharp eyes zeroing in on my new charge.
I’m instantly at Cole’s side, not trusting James as far as I can throw him. Well, I suppose technically, as I am older, I could throw him quite far, I’d imagine, but you get my drift.
Cole just stares at him impassively picking up on the oh-so-obvious dislike between us all.
“You must be something else in the sack to keep this one interested long enough to say yes and turn you,” James says insultingly. “I always wondered who it would be that would make an honest woman out of her again, seeing as how these two never managed it. Way I hear it, you have some big shoes to fill, not to mention other things,” he continues nastily, much to Eloise’s delight and my fury. Before I can respond, never mind Devon or Cole, CK has Vamped out and is at James’s throat, pulling him from Eloise as he would a rag doll. He shoves him up against the wall with a growl. “If you want to keep your head, I suggest you do not speak to my family that way again.”
My mouth drops open. Way to go CK! It’s been a while sinc
e I saw this side of him, and it makes my knickers slightly damp. And ‘my family’? That is high praise coming from him. I glance at Cole, whose eyebrows have gone skyward and he steps that bit closer to me. That now familiar burning in my shoulder flares up again and I hiss. Cole and Devon glance at each other. Devon takes a quick peek at my shoulder.
“Yep,” he confirms.
Seems Gregor is right. The strengthening of my bonds with these three men and their bonds to each other is key to this…whatever it is. CK’s declaration of his ‘family,’ the three of us descended from his bloodline, solidifies our commitment to each other.
With a final shove, CK retracts, releases James, then returns to my side. “Keep your boy in check, Eloise,” he orders. She stares defiantly at him for several moments before she submits.
Near as I can tell, as the creation of the Initial Vampires is shrouded in secrecy, Ahmed was the first, Constantine the second, then Gregor, and Eloise last – only by a matter of months, but it still makes a difference to them who is superior.
Pulling him over to the sofa quickly, she tells him to sit and shut up. He pays her no mind, though, and continues to look at us with that arrogant, overly confident glare. “Is anyone going to fill me in on why Liv got the fourth seat? Seems a bit biased to me,” he states.
Eloise makes a noise of agreement, but Gregor speaks up on my behalf, “She is the One. It matters not, why.”
James raises an eyebrow, as surprised as I am with Gregor’s apparent acceptance of me. I say ‘apparent,’ as I don’t take anything he says or does at face value. I haven’t had many dealings with him since I first met him, but the memories of him are etched into my brain with clarity. I first met him when we returned to Italy after the Norman Invasion of England. CK dropped me off and carried on for business in Rome, leaving me alone in the castle. Gregor visited a few days after CK left and he was quite taken with me and wanted to take me as a lover. I was repulsed by him. He was so cold, his eyes and manner dead. He had no heat, no fire, no passion – not like Constantine had, and besides, I still wanted no one but my sire. As a young Vampire, I was expected to fall in line, be grateful for the attention from an Initial Vampire and when I wouldn’t submit, he took me by force. I took it without fighting back as I knew I would have lost. He was much older and stronger than me. He lost interest in me soon after when Constantine returned and as I never gave him what he wanted, neither my willingness nor my fear, I was dismissed. To this day, Constantine doesn’t know. He would blame himself for leaving me there alone and not protecting me and that was something I wanted to protect him from. Sighing at the complexities of sire/charge relationships, I ponder why Gregor never told him what he did. At the time, I wasn’t about to say anything out of fear of accusing an Initial Vampire, a member of The Council, and the trepidation that it would somehow backfire on me. I kept a straight face, having been well practiced in that, and kept my distance until after he left. It takes a strong, established bond to sense fear over distance and ours wasn’t strong enough yet for him to be able to. That usually only develops after a century or so and in exceptional circumstances. We have it now, as I do with Devon, but back then I kept my mouth shut and my head down. It was many centuries later when I saw Gregor again and he acted like it never happened, so I did as well. I was no longer afraid of him and as a result Constantine has never found out.
Having tuned out for the last several minutes, lost in my ruminations, I can hear them arguing about me and I just want out. Too many old and powerful Vampires in one small room together sets everyone on edge and it is getting way too crowded in here. The gods only know how Nico can stand it; it is a mystery to me. Wishing I were anywhere but here, I think of our home in L.A. that Devon and I will share with Cole when we get back. A strange feeling washes over me and suddenly I am standing in my own bedroom.