Page 5 of Becoming D'Vaire
“He seems happy enough,” Vampyr Consort Alexei Volkov replied.
“He spends all his time in that lab you built him,” she accused as she brushed out her long hair. After another hectic day as leader of the Vampyr Clutch, she was glad to be home and to have the damn pins that kept her tresses in place out. She’d dealt with one poking her in the skull since noon.
“Grigori loves science. He’s a bright boy, so was his brother.”
“Yes, but Nikolai grew up a thousand years ago. The world was much different then.”
“Tell me about it. How did we survive without indoor plumbing?” Alexei teased. Although she loved him with all her heart, his attitude toward their youngest child was grating on her nerves.
“Alexei, we have to pry him out of that room.”
“He’s a wonderful student. All his teachers tell us that, and there hasn’t been a single assignment in his life that he’s scored less than perfect on. They’ve been begging us for years to advance him by a few grades.”
“He’s already in classes meant for boys three years older than him, and look at his life. He has no friends. All he does is schoolwork, then closets himself in that lab. Grigori’s fourteen. He should be flirting with girls and going out to the movies.”
“Nikolai didn’t flirt with girls.”
Irina gave the love of her life a baleful stare. “That’s because he’s gay.”
Alexei shrugged. “Maybe Grigori’s gay.”
“How could he know? He’s not likely to find a cute boy sitting in the lab.”
“Irina, what do you want me to do? Drag him out kicking and screaming? He loves being in there, scribbling formulas and experimenting. I go in and I don’t have a clue what the kid’s talking about. Grigori’s brilliant. Of course he’s going to be different.”
“I don’t care if he’s different. I want him happy.”
“I assure you he is.”
Irina wanted to argue Alexei’s point, but there was a rap on their bedroom door. It was ten o’clock, and she thought everyone in the household had gone to their private areas of the large condo. Alexei rose from the sofa where he’d been lounging and opened it to reveal the subject of their argument.
Irina fixed her youngest child with a stern glare. “Grigori, I told you to go to bed. You have school in the morning.”
“I know, I’m sorry. I laid down but then—”
“Numbers popped into your head,” Irina finished for him. His brain had been full of figures since he’d learned to count. “It could have waited until morning, Grigori. Rules are rules for a reason. You can’t concentrate at school if you’re tired. Now go to bed.”
“Okay, but wait. I finished my project.”
“What project?” Alexei asked.
“The one I’ve been working on for a while in my lab,” Grigori explained. His pale blue eyes, a mirror of Irina’s own, were alight with intelligence and excitement.
“You might as well tell us what it is, then it’s off to bed with you.”
“Sure, Mom.” Grigori thrust a piece of paper toward her. “Here’s the formula I came up with. I tested it really quick and it worked.”
Irina took the sheet of loose-leaf from him and glanced down. With an inner roll of her eyes, she let out a chuckle. “Maybe you should explain it, Grigori. I’m afraid my mind isn’t quite as brilliant as yours. What does this all mean, honey?”
“Do you remember a few weeks ago when they found that family in the house, and they were all dead?”
With a sigh, Irina recalled exactly what Grigori was referring to. An entire family had perished because they’d lacked access to blood. Her people required it to live, and not everyone had the money to purchase the bagged kind they relied upon. Since joining the Council of Sorcery and Shifters, they were forced into accepting a treaty with the humans.
They couldn’t feed from them without their permission and for most, it came at a price. There were not always enough willing donors, which ramped up the cost. Although she did her best to fund programs to help vampires without money, not everyone took advantage of them. It broke her heart each time a vampire died, and Grigori found her that day crying over the loss of that beautiful family. “I remember.”
“You said if we could find a way to make blood easier to get, it would mean less people would die.”
“Yes I did, and I hope someday we can achieve that goal.”
