Page 21 of Tainted Blood

“I’m distracted,” I said quickly. “Do you want some?” I motioned with the glass I held.

“I don’t need to feed tonight. I’ve been feeding more frequently recently and need to make sure I don’t indulge too much.” He pulled away first, probably not even realizing how he had set parts of me on fire. I hadn’t started feeding yet, so my heart was very sluggish, which was a blessing.

“Okay.” Deciding to take my glass to my room, I walked away before the early evening conversation turned awkward, or more awkward, depending on how I looked at it. As I went, I saw a file sitting on the coffee table. I resisted the urge to stop and look at it, knowing I had limited time to finish getting ready, but it was curious. As I left the room, he grabbed it and took it to his bedroom, not the office between us.

He must be looking into something personal, I guess.

I finished my meal while doing my makeup. My hair was easy to manage because I decided to let it fall over my shoulders in its natural curls. I was ready in thirty minutes and found Alexius ready as well when I went back to the main room.

“What was the file? Anything I need to know or look out for? Need me to help with something?”

“No, not at all,” he said as he fiddled with a cufflink. “It's only an old file from Jacob’s nest I was reading. Isaiah has all of them here, and I requested that one for when we arrived. I didn’t think he would keep us busy the entire night, so I stayed up to read it.”

“A file from the nest I used to work at, and you don’t want my input?” I was a little surprised.

“It was an old file, long before you would have been concerned with the nest in an official capacity. And surprisingly sparse for my son. He kept notes on everyone and everything concerning the nest, but that one…” He frowned as he stopped messing with the cufflink. “He must have destroyed everything in it long ago. I can’t help but wonder why.”

“Perhaps I can help?” I was seriously fishing now, curiosity burning through me as I wondered what he wanted to know and what Jacob had possibly destroyed.

“I don’t think you can, truly. It’s nothing important to why we’re here.” He motioned to the door. “Don’t concern yourself with it. It was my own curiosity at something that convinced me to ask Isaiah for the file, to begin with, but it was a personal inquiry, nothing to do with what we’re working on.”

“So, there won’t be any hints about who wanted him dead or anything like that?” I crossed my arms, staring him down as I kept my feet glued to the spot.

“If there were hints or clues in that file, they are long gone, but I wasn’t looking for that.”

“Can you be any more vague?” I snapped, frustrated with how he was dancing around the discussion.

“I could tell you it’s not your business and to drop it, but I felt you deserved more than that,” he retorted, not reacting to my frustration with him, keeping the mild conversational tone he had since I asked him about it. In fact, I was certain he was about to smile. “It’s nothing, Everly, but I’ll tell you more if it might appease your curiosity. He had helped many vampires through his nest. Some decided to stay permanently, some he returned to their households and nests, and some he found new homes. This was just about one of those vampires, and I wanted to know how Jacob felt about said vampire. He didn’t record much about that vampire, so the file is mostly unhelpful.”

“I didn’t know he kept so many notes.” It was just another one of those things I maybe should have known but didn’t. I hadn’t been curious as a human, not when it came to other people.

“Most of them should have been passed to Edwin since he took over the nest, but when Isaiah went to destroy the building after what you and I discovered, he said they appeared to be untouched. Now that the nest is gone, Isaiah is keeping them for archival.”

“Is that normal? Do all Masters and Mistresses keep notes like that to be archived later or passed along?”

“No. That was something Jacob did for himself and because of the type of nest he ran. They’re being archived because Isaiah and I don’t want to lose them. Normally, when a new Master or Mistress claims a pre-established nest, they completely restructure, leaving those sorts of documents unnecessary after a certain point. By the time you reached out to me, Edwin was already in the process of attempting to do the same with my son’s legacy. I should have kept a closer eye. Isaiah knows he should have as well, but neither of us was thinking during those early months.”

“You were grieving,” I reminded him. While I could resent him for not taking on the nest as Jacob had wanted, I knew all too well how hard it was to clean up everything after someone died. I had done it with my mom’s things. “So was Isaiah, I bet, and he sits on the Tribunal and rules over the entire supernatural world as well as his own nest.” His dark gaze stayed on me as I spoke, his expression as soft as I had ever seen it. His eyes slowly closed as I continued. “It couldn’t have been easy for either of you to deal with anything related to him.”

“Thank you for understanding.” He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again, and I got the idea that he had mentally shaken off whatever he was feeling. “We can’t keep Isaiah waiting. The others will begin arriving any minute now.”

I followed him out of the suite, heading through the lounge to find Isaiah waiting at the bottom of the stairs, talking to another vampire with dark hair and a crisp black suit. He was a little taller than Isaiah and looked a little like Alexius.

“The blood is ready for tonight, correct?” Isaiah was asking him as we went through the double doors.

“The blood is ready,” the man said with a smile and exasperation as if he had been asked several times already. “Isaiah, I’ve helped you prepare for these things for years. Everything is ready.”

“Of course…” Isaiah sighed, then patted the vampire’s shoulder. He used that touch to turn the vampire to look at us. “Since I have you and you didn’t come to see us last night, let me remind you that two of our guests are already here.”

“Alexius, it’s good to see you again. I was busy when you arrived and didn’t want to waste your time while you were getting accustomed to the grounds or spending time with Isaiah,” the vampire said with ease, not nervous at seeing Alexius at all.

“It’s good to see you as well, Marcus. Allow me to introduce Everly, the new vampire of my household,” Alexius replied, and I felt the proverbial spotlight turn on me.

“Nice to meet you,” I said quickly, bowing my head a little in respect for Isaiah’s second-in-command.

“Nice to meet you. I heard you’ve met Corban. You have my sympathies.”

“Ah, yes, remind me how much you don’t like him,” Isaiah muttered. “Can’t miss a chance to do that.”

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