“You got it.” Surging to the head of the pack, Paul took point and headed out to do his duty.
Chapter Two
“Really, Laurent, must you go out?” Laurent’s mother, an elegant older vampire of five hundred and some odd years—although she wouldn’t admit to more than three hundred—took another puff of her slim cigarillo and blew out a stream of smoke.
Laurent sighed and ran a hand through his short, dark hair. It wanted to curl and would have if he’d let it grow at all. But he preferred it neat. “Yes, Mother, I must go out,” he said shortly. If I don’t I’m going to go mad. H e didn’t say it aloud but it was true—ever since they’d made the move from Paris to Miami he’d been utterly miserable.
“Well, do be careful.” Celeste, his mother’s best friend who was visiting them in “the great American wasteland”, cautioned. “I’ve heard some dreadful things about the wolf packs around here. Some say they’re quite violent toward our kind.”
“I’m old enough to take care of myself.” He had just turned one hundred the other week, which made it perfectly ridiculous for him to still be living with his parents. If they had stayed in Paris he would be gone by now, living with his lover Jean Pierre. But of course, Jean Pierre was the reason his parents had insisted on moving their family half the world away in the first place.
“I don’t know where you got your deplorable taste for rough trade,” his father had lectured when he’d found out Jean Pierre’s low-class background. “But a future Viscount of the Blood must not be seen consorting with one so below him. You are free to take a human lover if you wish, but be sure he or she has the right family and background. Your mother can provide you with a list of approved sycophants who would be eager for your bite if you so desire.”
Laurent had refused the offer. He wasn’t interested in the toadying humans who came sidling up to him at court balls, offering their necks and simpering over his hand.
Jean Pierre might have been only a common laborer, but he had been honest. He had liked Laurent for himself—not for the massive wealth and the title he would someday inherit. He hadn’t known Laurent’s background when they first met—in fact, he hadn’t even known that vampires really existed outside of romance novels and horror films.
Laurent had taught him differently and the education had been mutually pleasurable.
The things Jean Pierre could do with his tongue and the warm, rich taste of his blood…
“Mind your manners, Laurent!” His mother’s sharp voice drew him out of the pleasant fantasy of his old lover and landed him back in his present dismal reality with a thud. “Apologize to Celeste for using that tone,” she insisted, taking another dainty puff of her cigarillo.
“My apologies, Madam,” Laurent said coldly. “I was only referring to my recent coming of age to remind you and my mother that I am, in fact, old enough to make my own decisions. But if the tone I used was less than genteel, I heartily regret it.” “You are, of course, forgiven.” Celeste inclined her head and he saw that a few streaks of gray were making their way into her auburn hair. It was to be expected that she would begin to age after so many centuries. She was, after all, only a made vampire, not a full-blooded one who had been born to the Blood like Laurent and his parents. In fact, it was his mother who had turned Celeste in the first place. She had started out as a human woman—a sycophant in fact—and had become his mother’s regular boisson aux sang, which translated literally to drink of blood. Laurent suspected they had been lovers as well but of course, his mother would never admit to such a thing. She had tied Celeste to her with a blood bond for as long as she could but after a hundred years or so when the bond wore thin, she’d had no choice but to turn her or lose her.
Thus Celeste remained in his mother’s life but as a friend only. Vampires did not drink from one another and since drinking and sex were tied so closely together, having one without the other was considered highly unsatisfying. Generally it was only done in order to conceive, which Laurent was certain had been the case in his own birth. Both of his parents had been born to the Blood and it was obvious they had no great physical attraction between them.
Laurent’s mother had been fortunate to find a lover who could also be a friend when the time came. Laurent wanted more, though. He dreamed of finding a mortal lover he would never have to change, of a love so true and enduring the blood bond would never weaken and their love could continue forever. His old blood nurse had told him legends of such a one—a Coeur de Sang or Heart’s Blood. If Laurent was honest with himself, he would admit that was who he had been searching for when he began his relationship with Jean Pierre in the first place.