Page 92 of Amethyst and Iron
“Okay?”
He gave a nod, and released my hand, but with a smile. “Yeah, I get it. You might find me deficient, but I’m a wolf-vampire hybrid, I can sense your sincerity. You want to be a father to me. Desperately, actually. That’s enough for me. For now. Especially now you’ve admitted you have a strategy you’re working on to actually finally change things, to help our family.” His lips quirked. “You’re really not what I thought, you know? I mean, all I had to go on when Sylas completed that Blood Trace was that you were part of The Shadowed. I figured you were this stoic, ice-in-his-veins power-hungry dictator, that abandoning your son was freedom to you, a weight off. I thought I was just something to be discarded, especially with my hybrid nature—a stain on your legacy, maybe. But you’re none of those things. You’re… you’re a lot more than I thought.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. I am just showing you my truth. You deserve nothing less than that, especially after all these years. As for yourdeficientcomment and thestain on my legacy,please don’t speak of yourself that way. You are trulyspecial—thatspecialnessscares people, especially the ignorant. It comes from them being too inept to understand and learn, so they retreat into fear, that fear resulting in them lashing out because they are ill-equipped. That mentality is what you have internalized over the years.”
“How do you—”
“For one, I heard you tell Victor when he tried to degrade you that you’ve experienced it many a time before. And another, it’s evident in your suppression of much of your vampire side.” I picked up my glass and gestured for him to do the same. “So, let us begin remedying that.”
“How?” he asked, grabbing his glass.
“Drink.”
He tensed and sniffed the warm liquid again—with his wolf side.
“Allow the wolf to retreat. When you feed, you are vampire. It does not need to be checked by the wolf. Because the wolf is not just affording you control, it is repressing the essence of the vampire. It’s diluting the effects of the blood infusing your system and also preventing you from drawing from more than a fraction of your abilities.”
I brought my own glass to my lips and let the vampire rise and take me, my features contorting and twisting, fangs dropping, my eyes gleaming with the call of the demon within.
He gazed at me, watching as my fangs clinked against my glass when I tipped it back and took the coppery liquid into my mouth, savoring it as it coated my lips, my tongue, then swallowing the intimate fuel down, snarling with its sweetness and power infusing me.
His attention dipped to his glass and he tipped it back a little, taking a sip.
I smiled as he licked the blood off his lips with no grimacing or turning his nose up this time.
And then it happened.
The vampire rose, his features contorting spectacularly, his eyes blazing.
It was breathtaking.
My first time witnessing my son bringing forth the vampire.
Truly remarkable and a beautiful sight to behold.
He took another sip, then snarled and gulped it down ravenously, his talons—not his claws—dropping in the process and scratching the glass.
He took it down to the last drop and when he came up for air he was panting heavily, his body vibrating with intensity.
He eyed my glass that was still half-full.
I smiled and handed it to him.
And then I watched as he devoured that too.
The true heart of the vampire had been awakened.
For once, not restrained by the wolf.
Or his fear.
He was in the presence now of somebody who could assist should he lose control.
Not only that, but in me, he had somebody who knew well how it actually felt, how to properly thrive with bloodlust without losing all sense of reason in the process.
“More,” he breathed, when he finished off the blood in my glass too, his lips and fangs dripping with it.
“As you wish.”
