Last week, Raphael finally found his mate, the only woman he's going to spend his life with, Katie, a girl who came to work for us as a maid. Still, he screwed everything with her, and now he tries to rebuild her impression of him.
"You've met my co-workers, and you didn't want to marry any of them," he reminds me, and I feel how my fists clutch out of anger.
"You can't tell me who to marry! It doesn't work like this! It's not the eighteenth century anymore!" I protest, breathing heavily, feeling how my nostrils become larger.
Yes, we were raised in times where men decided everything, but it changed. Now is the twenty-first century, and I don't want to be a hostage to our old traditions. How can I convince my brother that I need a social life to find my mate?
"I promised our parents I'd find a good husband for you." Raphael interrupts my thoughts. "It's just not the time."
"I don't need an arranged marriage! I want to marry my true mate, the one I'll see and know that it's forever, just like you did," I whine, feeling how my lips puff out in resentment. "And I am not as lucky as you are; my mate won't knock on our door! I have to look for him."
And finally, he smiles. Only slightly, but it is something. When my brother starts smiling, I'm halfway to getting what I want.
"You know it rarely happens," he begins, and I roll my eyes, unable to listen to another one of his lectures. "You can look for your mate for hundreds of years. An arranged marriage is better, especially for a woman."
"Oh, so now you're a sexist?" I exclaim, even though I know that accusing my brother of anything won't lead me to what I want. "Or you don't believe that my mate exists?"
Raphael smirks, obviously tired of arguing with me, and then adds: "Why do you want to go there anyway? What's this occasion about?"
"They selected a new head of...the club. There will be a celebration in his honor!"
And over a hundred bachelor vampires attending the event,I think, but he doesn't need to know that.
"And it's a masquerade ball so that no one will see my face," I continue before he says something. "I'll wear a mask."
He stares at me for a couple of moments, processing the information, trying to decide what to do.
"You know I can't go, not until I claim Katie as my mate," he says thoughtfully. I smile involuntarily, thinking that seeing my brother in love is pure joy.
What if he's right? What if I never meet my mate? Raphael had been waiting for his mate for about three hundred years. What if my mate is also a human? What if he hasn't even been born yet?
I try to wipe those negative thoughts away. I will meet my mate very soon. I just need to get out of this house at least once.
"Please, let me come," I beg, making puppy dog eyes to convince him, although it rarely works with him the way it did with our parents.
"Only if you take the train," he says, and I widen my eyes in surprise. I didn't expect him to agree this quickly. Is it love that’s making him softer?
"Of course!" As I jump from my seat, I exclaim, "I know you don't trust airplanes." I lean to him for a hug.
"And you'll use a different name," he warns before letting me touch him, "and you won't tell anyone who you are."
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I scream as I hug him, ready to agree to anything he says if it helps me get what I want. "You won't regret it!"
"Oh, I already do."
CHAPTER TWO
LEONARDO
"He won't come," I roar as I enter my brother's office at our mansion, angrily throwing a letter from Raphael Darrington on the table.
Darius looks at me as if I slapped him in the face.
"Well, then we'll have to pay him a visit." He ignores the letter, taking a seat at his desk table. He's much calmer than I expected him to be. I just told him that his worst enemy, a vampire he's been looking for for ages, won't be able to attend our event, but he seems as calm as always.
"You have a celebration in your honor; you can't miss it," I insist, even though I know how much more important this is than some event, even an eventthisimportant.
"He will probably change the address before then," he continues, his eyes dark out of anger, even though he doesn't look that way, but I know my brother.