Page 46 of Winterfall Destiny

"Hmm." A smile snakes across the creature's face. I tense as she steps closer to me. "Vitlak."

"There's no family with that name," says Dorian. "I'd know because I've researched everything. That's how I know the story that these vampires exist."

"How much do you know about your ancestry, Tobias?" the First asks, ignoring him.

I swallow hard. "Which one?" Andrei frowns at me. "I had other families. One who produced me, the others who raised me."

"Seems a common theme amongst us all," says Dorian, and I slice him a look. Not time for joking.

"The ones who bore you, blood-born child—did you keep their name?"

"Yes. Whitlock. And later I lived with a different family when I was a kid. Then they gave me to another. And another."

"Why?" asks Andrei.

I shake my head. "Because of what I was then. The other families created who I am now."

The First mocks a yawn, hand patting her mouth. "This isn't the story I'm interested in, Tobias Whitlock."

Dorian suddenly barks out a laugh. "Oh! Bloody hell, Tobias. That's your elder."

Bewildered, I focus on the vamp Dorian points at, as the First pats Dorian's cheek, a move that sours his face, but he remains still. "Everything about you is perfection, Dorian Blackwood. How silly of your creators not to consider they'd produce something with a superior mind."

Well, that compliment will cheer Dorian up. Andrei scoffs quietly, and he and Dorian exchange a look.

"I still don't understand..." But I do. I'm descended from the man in front of me, who's stuck in a timeless life beyond immortality. How?

"Vitlak. Whitlock," says Dorian with a hint of smugness.

The First claps her hands. "Well done!"

"How did I not know this? I've never heard of the family name," I protest.

"The family went into hiding after I extracted their elder." She indicates the man second from the left dressed in a navy silk shirt and fitted black pants, his midnight brown hair hanging to his shoulders. "Few Vitlaks survived the Purge by the humans, and afterwards the family adopted a Western name that's less obviously hemia. The Vitlaks became the Whitlocks."

I hold fingers against my mouth, mind reeling. "And the reason we're here is because we share these hemias' bloodlines. What are you planning?"

Andrei stares at me, his weird new eyes glinting further, an edge of worry to his expression.

"These three men and the woman are the reason hemia can't daywalk and why the race developed a bloodlust that overrides their thinking," the First says casually. "I cursed them. These vampires serve as a way for me to control those who thought they could outdo me." She gives a tight smile. "Just something for you three to bear in mind."

Dorian's cockiness slides away. "I'm not a threat. Andrei definitely isn't."

"Uh. Thanks, Dorian," I say and watch the First warily.

She scratches her head. "Hemia are stronger than other vampire-kind, as you know, and the original lines doubly so. They lorded over the lamia and pneuma—so superior, so clever. Well, so stupid."

"You're the reason hemia can't daywalk?" asks Andrei quietly.

"Yes." The First wanders around, stroking each of her captives' heads. "Hemia aren't so superior now are they, skulking in the dark?"

18

TOBIAS

I can barely look at the four again. Were they dressed this way when the First brought them here? Or did the creature put the sapphire jewelled headpiece on the woman's sleek black hair?

"Would you wake them?" asks the First. "Or kill them?"

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