Taken aback by his son’s bitterness, Vaughan stopped pacing the floor of his own bedroom. “That isn’t true.”
“Oh, come off it! I’ve seen you twice since you made me move here.”
Why, the ungrateful punk! “Made you? May I remind you that you wanted to come to England? You jumped at the chance.”
“To be with you! To find out what it’s like to have a father!” Michael shouted. Standing in the center of the room, Michael was so furious he didn’t realize his legs had stopped shaking, his stance was firm, stronger than ever. “But you’ve done nothing but treat me like somebody on your payroll!”
Vaughan ran his fingers through his hair, stopping only to hit himself in the forehead several times for being unable to control his son. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Michael. I’m doing the best I can.”
Howling with laughter, Michael reached for the bathroom doorjamb with his free hand. “Seriously?! Well, I got a newsflash for ya, Dad. Your best really sucks.”
“What did you say to me?”
Still laughing, Michael replied, “You might be a brilliant businessman, but as a father you totally suck.” Michael turned off his cell phone and paced the room again, mentally adding his father to the list of people who were gone from his life, not that he was ever really in his life to begin with. When Michael thought about it, examined their relationship, he found it hard to keep laughing. Vaughan never wanted to be a father. Getting Michael out of Nebraska, away from his mother’s family, was merely a business coup, something that made him feel like he won a deal. No, for better or worse, Michael had no family. For the rest of his life, he could very well be alone. For the rest of his life—or in other words—for infinity.
“Damn it!!!” Michael roared, flinging his cell phone across the room in frustration. He grabbed the bedspread and yanked it off the bed. It floated to the floor slowly and by the time it fell in a clump next to Michael’s feet, he was already finished kicking the end table. He didn’t stop because he was tired or because his aggravation was quelled; he stopped because he saw something familiar.
Bending down, Michael picked up the drawings, variations of the ones Ronan had made of Michael months earlier. They had fallen out of a book that had been hidden underneath some other papers in a drawer of the end table. Pushing the drawer to the side, Michael realized the papers had fallen out of the oversize red book that contained page after page of Ronan’s unmistakable handwriting. It was Ronan’s journal.
Sitting on the floor amid the debris, his back against the bed, Michael began to read, and slowly his anger and frustration were replaced with a kind of peace.
No such luck for Vaughan. He tried but was unable to find peace with his son, himself, or his current situation. Failure was becoming an all-too-common occurrence in his life. He had failed at his marriage, he had failed at being a parent, he had even failed in his attempt to secure his own future by uniting Michael with Brania, the daughter of the most powerful man he knew. “My son, it seems, is quite cross with me.”
“Sons usually are,” Brania said, zipping up her skirt. “The relationship between a father and daughter is much more satisfying.”
Vaughan grabbed the zipper and started to unzip it. “So too is the relationship between a father and the daughter of his business associate.”
Slapping his hand away, Brania slipped her feet into her black patent leather pumps. “I have a headache.”
“Oh, come on!” Vaughan protested. “You can come up with a much better excuse than that.”
No, he definitely wasn’t as handsome as his son. Or as interesting. “Of course I could, but I don’t feel like making the effort.”
Vaughan slammed the door shut before Brania could leave. “Don’t be such a cheek. You know how much fun we have together.”
Suddenly, Brania found this man standing in front of her, blocking her exit, revolting, and most important, no longer useful. “Michael is now a water vamp, Vaughan, and probably at this very moment locked in a sweaty, passionate embrace with Ronan, his boyfriend and creator,” Brania goaded. “You have alienated your son and as a result he wants nothing to do with you. So therefore, neither do I.”
“Brania, wait!”
On the other side of the doorway, she paused and turned back to face this arrogant lackey. “You really should have chosen Edwige. She’s far more desperate to have a man in her life than I am.”
This was unfathomable, losing twice—first Michael and now Brania—no! That was absolutely unacceptable. “After everything I’ve done for you and your father, you can’t just walk out on me.”
Brania sighed. It was time to take a short vacation from the opposite sex. “If you don’t want le petit Edwige, perhaps you should call my father. I know he’s quite grateful for everything you’ve done.” Buttoning a button that had come undone on her silk blouse, Brania added with a lascivious grin, “And He fancies the company of both genders.” When the door slammed behind her, it only made Brania chuckle even louder.
Nakano found nothing funny about Brania’s comment. He might be a vampire, immortal, preternaturally powerful, but he was still sixteen, surly, and very serious. “What do you mean Michael’s not here?!” Nakano shouted, though Ciaran didn’t even flinch. “Where the hell did he go?!”
“Ronan took him.”
This human was really getting on his nerves. “You mean you let Ronan take him.”
Unhurried, Ciaran finished the paragraph from his chemistry textbook, then placed a bookmark between the pages. When he looked up, his face was calm. “And what was I, a mere mortal, supposed to do to prevent one vampire from leaving this room with another?”
“You’re resourceful, Ciaran! You could’ve thought of something.”
And then the calmness disappeared. “I’m always thinking of something!” Ciaran bellowed, losing control. “I gave you an alibi so no one would find out the truth, that you killed Penry.”
Like I needed your alibi, Nakano thought. What can the police possibly do to me? “I don’t care about that and I never asked you to lie for me! What I want to know is why’d you let Ronan take Michael away from here?”
It was hard to believe that Nakano, thinner and shorter than Ciaran, was so much more powerful, but that was the truth. Luckily, Ciaran was more cunning than he was strong. “What would it have mattered? Even if I could have prevented Ronan from taking Michael, it would only have prolonged the inevitable,” Ciaran said while walking toward Nakano. “He would have come back tonight or tomorrow or the next day and eventually Michael would be in his arms again just as he is right now.”
Pushing that image from his mind, Nakano focused on the boy in front of him. He wasn’t nearly as handsome as Ronan. Well, he was completely different, but he was better-looking than Penry. And Penry had really good-tasting blood, so Ciaran’s had to be that much more delicious. His mouth watered as Ciaran got closer. “The only way I can really help you, Kano, is if I had more power,” Ciaran said slowly. “If I was more like you.”
Standing an inch away, Ciaran ran his fingers down Nakano’s arms, his soft nails gliding over even softer skin. He tilted his head and lengthened his neck so it was within reach of Nakano’s mouth. All Kano had to do was allow his fangs to descend and bite down. “I thought you weren’t interested in boys?” Nakano asked, a bit out of breath.
Pressing Kano to his body, Ciaran whispered in his ear, “I’m interested in power.” He didn’t even try to slow down his racing heartbeat. He wanted Kano to feel it thump, thump, thump, and for him to imagine his blood flowing through his veins. It was working. Ciaran felt Kano’s body pulse with desire and his fangs graze his neck. Finally, finally he was going to join his family. He may not become exactly like his mother or Ronan, but it was close enough. It would have to do.
Unfortunately, it was not to be.
Stop! The word thundered in Nakano’s brain and involuntarily his fangs throbbed in protest. Do not take Ciaran. Father says he is worth more to us as a mortal. He wanted to betray Brania’s command, he wanted to take Ciaran from humanity to satisfy his own hunger and to spite Ronan, but he couldn’t. He heard something in Brania’s voice, a tone he had never heard before, and he knew that if he went against her wishes again, he would be destroyed. He hated caution, but he had no desire to die.
“Do it,” Ciaran pleaded, cringing at the sound of desperation in his voice. He pushed his neck into Nakano’s mouth, but all he felt were lips, dry, uninterested, like Ronan’s. “Take me!”
