Page 107 of Promised in Blood

“Your walls are stronger than ever, Alexandros. Have you labored on them all these years?”

I twist my head from side to side. “From the moment I learned how, I have always kept my walls strong where you are concerned, Father.”

He shakes his head. “This is different. You are…” He sucks on his top lip as though deep in thought. “Impenetrable.”

I lean forward and rest my hands on the desk. That he finds my mind impenetrable is surely the best thing he could have said to me and reason enough for me to endure his visit without too much resistance. I can only hope it is as brief as all his others have been these past five centuries. “Why are you here? All the pledges for this year have already been turned.”

He dismisses me with a wave of his hand. “I have no interest in the pledges. Not until you find me one with a little more backbone.”

“That most eighteen-year-old humans are not cruel enough for you to turn is of no surprise to me, Father.”

He shakes his head and snorts. “You have always thought me cruel, yet look at the man you have become. All of this”—he motions at the four walls surrounding us—“because of me.”

“Or in spite of you,” I retort. “And only a moment ago, you were berating me for not being enough.”

His eyes narrow. “You are one of the most feared and respected creatures to walk this earth, Alexandros. Choosing to waste your time as a history professor locked behind these walls does not change who you are. It does not erase your past victories.” His voice is tinged with pride now, and of course it is.

“You speak of victories, but all I recall is vengeance and pain and a darkness that would have surely swallowed me whole had I let it.”

He bares his teeth again, and his fangs glisten in the dim light of the bulb hanging overhead. “You did what was necessary. What I expected of you. What your mother, your wife, and your daughters would have expected of you.”

Anguish threatens to steal my next breath. “Do not speak of them in my presence.”

“I will speak of who I want to. They were my blood too. She was your mother, but she was myeverything!” His roar rattles the arched window behind me.

Fury surges through my veins like wildfire. “You think I do not know what it is like to lose everything?”

He shakes his head and licks his lips, visibly working to control his ire. “Your children were a great loss.”

I leap to my feet. “A great loss? Are you—” I lack the words necessary to convey my outrage, so I grind my teeth together.

He stands too and plants his fists on my desk. “Yes. A great loss. And Elena was your wife. Your bonded mate, but she was not…” The muscles in his throat convulse. “She was not what your mother was to me.”

I struggle to maintain my composure, astounded by his arrogance although I know all too well the man he is.

“Very few vampires have a fated mate, Alexandros. It is a curse I almost wish had never been inflicted upon me. I was never a good man. Born to rule in a time when cruelty and vengeance were the only way of life. And she was the only onewho could unlock the tiny sliver of goodness that I had buried inside my black heart. That she could only bear me two children was not enough to dull my devotion to only her. But she took that goodness with her. I made peace with the monster I am a long time ago.”

I had no idea he and my mother were fated mates, and in the two thousand years I have known him, I have never understood my father more than I do in this singular moment. “Would you change it? If you could?”

“Your mother and I were carved into the fabric of the universe when it was merely a collection of particles. Our story is a fixed point in time. It cannot be changed. It is an inescapable truth.”

Frustration and realization take root inside my core. “But would you change it? If you could go back and not bond with her, would you?”

His eyes darken further, but it is not anger I see in them. “What if you were told that you were merely sleepwalking through your life, but that for a brief period of time, you could awaken and experience everything in its fullest splendor? Everything you tasted and touched and felt would be magnified one million times over, and you would finally know, deep in your soul and down to the tiniest atom of your being, the true reason for your existence. But what if I also told you that this awakening would not last forever? Once you returned to your dreaming state, everything would hurt all the more. But you would be forced to remain in that constant purgatory of a life without her because the netherworld would claim all your good memories, and then you would truly lose her forever. Would you still choose to be woken?”

I can do nothing but stare into his eyes and feel some of the deep-rooted pain he has laid bare before me. I know the answer to his question without having to consider the alternative.

“Well?” he prompts.

“I do not know.” I lie with ease but avert my eyes before he can see what I am hiding. Before he sees my feelings for her and recognizes them.

I drop back into my seat. “What are you doing here?”

He rocks his head from side to side, and his nostrils flare. “You are keeping something from me.”

My adrenaline spikes, but I keep my voice calm and steady as I hold his gaze once more. “I keep many things from you. I have kept myself guarded from you since I was a child.”

He nods, and there is an unmistakable look of pride on his face. He retakes his seat. “You have, but your brother…” He sneers. “Giorgios is not as skilled as you. He never has been.”

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