Page 66 of The Blood Witch

Alastair didn’t wait to hear his father’s response. He simply turned on his heel and left.

Chapter 29

FEY

Fey blinked, stunned, and Callum sighed.

“I guess Alastair never told you that, either, huh?” He drank the last of his wine and set the glass back on the table in front of them. “Okay… well, you ever wonder where my father’s money comes from? Where all of this”—he motioned at the room around them, the mansion around them—“comes from?”

Fey shook her head. She hadn’t, not really. The Vampire Faction having riches beyond imagining was just a universal given. Like how the sky was blue, and the sun rose in the east. It wasn’t something she had ever bothered to question.

“Our family is responsible for almost all the drugs circulating through the city, Fey,” Callum said sadly. “Devil dust, delirium, haste, you name it. Our father is the one who oversees all manufacturing and sale, throughout all eight octants of the realm.”

“Holy shit,” Fey whispered, thinking of all the time she’d spent as a Blade trying to fight that very specter of drug dealings. That all of it, all of that seemingly endless stream into the city, came from one source?

“Yeah,” Callum said, tucking a lock of his hair behind his ear. “After Delilah started using… Alastair blamed our father. Tried to force him to stop, to put an end to the business.”

“And he wouldn’t?”

“Couldn’t, if you believe Father. Wouldn’t, if you believe Alastair.”

“And who do you believe?” Fey asked.

Callum groaned. “You know how to cut right to the bone, don’t you, love?” he asked, giving her a lopsided smile. Then he grimaced, rubbing his face. “Alastair. I believe Alastair, I suppose. Father could do it if he truly wanted to. He could put a stop to it, as the family patriarch. He has the power to make us all fall in line, so who could stop him, really?”

“So that’s why Alastair hates your father?”

Callum nodded. “They fought about it constantly, but then Delilah died and… that was that. Alastair made one last attempt, demanding he stop all manufacturing and sales of any drugs everywhere in the realm. Father refused, and Alastair left. They didn’t speak for years after that. Tonight is one of the few nights they’ve even agreed to be in the same room together, you know?”

Fey considered this. Considered what Alastair had put himself through to bring her here tonight. “When did Delilah die?” she asked finally, taking a sip of her wine to wash the taste of this new knowledge out of her mouth.

“Oh, fifty or so years ago…”

Fey spat out her drink. “Fifty years ago?”

Callum smirked at her. “I take it you have no idea how old my brother is, then?”

“He told me he was still young, for your Faction, but… How old is he, Callum?” Fey asked. She felt a little dizzy.

“Oh, he is young, for one of us. That’s not a lie,” Callum assured her. “He’s just barely over two hundred.”

“I think I’m going to faint,” Fey whispered, and Callum threw back his head and laughed. “I had no idea… wait—you said I was the first woman he’s brought to meet your family?”

“I did, yes,” Callum said, grinning. “And that’s true, Fey. Two hundred years, and what I can only imagine was countless women from the rumors I’ve heard over the years, and you’re the first one, in all that time, he’s actually seemed tocare about.”

It was almost sweet, Fey thought, hiding her face from Callum and taking another deep breath.

“I had no idea your family was so long-lived,” she admitted.

“Understandable,” Callum said. He stood and walked to the bar to grab the bottle of wine, pouring himself another glass and refilling hers without asking. “We do look good for our age, don’t we?”

“I know your father is old,” Fey said. “He was there for the War of the Fallen. That’s not just a myth, is it?”

“It is not a myth,” Callum answered, smirking.

“He’s over three hundred years old, then,” Fey said, breathlessly. “I knew, but it never really… sank in.”

Over two hundred. Alastair was over two hundred years old.

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