Vampire Most Wanted (16 page)

“And before the Romani?” Marcus asked now.

Divine considered him briefly, and then said, “Isn’t it time you told me a little about yourself?”

Marcus paused and then set his own fork down with a nod. “Fair enough.”

She was glad he didn’t argue the point . . . for two reasons. She really did want to learn more about him, but she also wanted to eat more of the delicious food on her plate, which was hard to do while she was talking.

Marcus took a sip of the water beside his plate and then set the glass down saying, “Okay. My grandparents are Marzzia and Nicodemus Notte. They were a part of the group of original immortals, the survivors of Atlantis.”

“Atlantis?” she asked with bewilderment.

Marcus stilled and tilted his head. “Has no one taught you the history of our origins, Divine?”

She almost lied again and said yes rather than look ignorant, but then sighed and admitted, “No. I’m afraid not. My childhood was rather . . .” She frowned and glanced away.

“Unconventional?” he suggested gently, and the word made her snort indelicately.

Covering her mouth and nose quickly, she peered wide-eyed at him over her hand and then suddenly lost patience with herself. She was no shrinking violet. She had taken care of herself for millennia, and would be damned if encountering a life mate she couldn’t claim, and recalling a childhood that had been a horror all around, was going to reduce her to the state of a blithering idiot afraid to say what she felt or meant or wanted. Her history was her history and that was that. She couldn’t change it, and he could accept it, deal with it, or just get the hell out of her life if he didn’t like it.

Letting her hand drop she said, “Unconventional does not begin to describe my childhood. For one thing, my parents were not true life mates.” His eyebrows rose at that and she nodded. “My mother, Tisiphone, was older than my father, Felix, and she wanted a child. My father was apparently very likable and easygoing and so she decided he would do.”

Divine paused to take a drink of water before continuing, “While my father couldn’t read Tisiphone, he knew she was older so thought nothing of it.” She grimaced and added, “Until Tisiphone claimed she couldn’t read him either and they therefore must be life mates.”

“She was lying?” Marcus asked.

Divine nodded. “Yes. She could read him . . . and control him too. She used both skills, plus manipulation and drugs, to make him think he was experiencing the infamous life mate sex.”

Marcus frowned. “Was your father young enough to still eat?”

Divine shook her head. “I gather she used mind control, or perhaps drugs too, to make him think he was hungry and that the food was the most delicious he’d ever had and whatnot.”

“And she did all this for a baby?” he asked with a frown. “Why not just manipulate a mortal into impregnating her? Hell, she wouldn’t even have had to manipulate one. They’d have been lining up to sleep with her.”

When Divine raised her eyebrows at that, he explained, “We apparently give off some chemical mix of hormones that makes us seem ultra attractive to mortals.”

“Really?” she asked with interest. Divine hadn’t known that. But it explained why mortal men seemed always to be making nuisances of themselves around her.

“Yes,” Marcus said, and then added. “Even if that hadn’t worked, she could have easily influenced any mortal to think she was gorgeous. Although, if you got your looks from her, she must have already been gorgeous.”

Divine felt her face heat up at the compliment and rolled her eyes at her own reaction. Seriously? Blushing? She was too damned old to blush, she thought, and then said, “Yes, she could have. But apparently my mother didn’t want just any baby. She wanted the baby of a man from a powerful family.”

“And your father, Felix? He was from a powerful family?”

Divine almost bit off her tongue as she realized that she’d given something away that might be dangerous. Trying to act as if she hadn’t, she shrugged. “Apparently, although I only heard all of this from a servant. And my mother had been a servant herself before she tricked my father into thinking he was her life mate.”

“Your mother was older than your father, immortal, and yet a servant?” Marcus asked with surprise.

Divine shrugged. “That’s what I was told.”

Marcus sat back and shook his head at this news, apparently finding it hard to believe. She could understand why. As an immortal Tisiphone could have controlled and influenced any number of wealthy mortals into marrying her, and with them under her control, they would have let her do whatever she wanted with their wealth. Heck, she could even have just used mind control to make them give her their wealth if she’d been of a mind to. That was certainly no less dastardly than what she’d done to Divine’s poor father. But the truth was she’d needed the power of Divine’s father’s family to get her out of servitude. Because she’d been a servant to another powerful, immortal family to pay a debt she owed for causing the death of one of their children.

Marcus cleared his throat suddenly and Divine glanced to him. He was about to ask a question, and she knew exactly what it would be. What was the name of her father’s powerful family? She couldn’t answer that, so quickly said, “Of course, her lies and manipulations couldn’t hold up forever. I was four when my father eventually figured out that she’d used him. Once he realized that, he apparently snuck out a message explaining the situation and asking for help with one of the servants, who was ordered to take it to one of his brothers.”

“She could still control him,” Marcus realized with slow dawning horror at the predicament her father had been in.

Divine nodded. “And she could still read him, which she must have done. The night after the servant slipped away with the message, she barricaded the doors and windows of our home and set it on fire.”

“And then took you with her when she fled?” Marcus asked.

“Oh, she didn’t flee,” Divine corrected him. “She barricaded all of us in the house while we slept: myself, my father, the rest of the servants, and herself. She meant for all of us to die.”

“How did you get out?” Marcus asked at once.

“The servants,” Divine said quietly. “They slept on the main floor and woke first. She tried to control them and make them just sit down and let themselves burn, but there were apparently four of them, too many to control all at once. I gather she gave it a good try though,” she added dryly. “She kept them busy long enough that by the time my father woke to their cries, the fire was raging.”

“He rushed downstairs, sent one of the servants up to get me, and tried to battle with my mother, but she could still control him. When Aegle, the mortal servant my father had sent to fetch me, returned to the top of the stairs with me in her arms, two of the remaining servants were dead and the third was rushing up the stairs while my mother and father struggled below, the pair of them engulfed in flames.”

Divine paused, more to let Marcus digest everything she’d just said than for her own sake. To her, this was an old story, one she’d lived with her whole life. She had no more tears for her long-lost parents and felt only sadness for her father who had been used so poorly and then had died trying to save her and the servants.

“The servants got you out,” Marcus said finally.

It wasn’t a question, but Divine nodded in response anyway. “They managed to unblock an upstairs window and jump out with me.” She turned her fork absently on her plate and said, “I don’t know what became of the other servant. I think Aegle said she left us, planning to return to her own family, but Aegle stayed in the area for three days waiting for my father’s brother to come before giving up and setting out to try to find my family herself.” She glanced to him and grimaced before explaining, “Aegle was actually my nanny, though I don’t think they called it that back then. She’d cared for me since birth and had been trusted with our secrets. She knew that I was an immortal and needed blood to survive and did her best to help me get it. But I was young and couldn’t yet control the minds of donors which made matters difficult.”

“How the devil did she see you fed then?” he asked with amazement.

“I don’t remember it, but I was later told that she lured men to a secluded area and then knocked them out so that I could feed on them.” Divine smiled faintly. “Aegle was a very intelligent and creative woman.”

“No wonder she had to move after a couple of days then,” Marcus said with amusement. “I’m actually surprised she stayed in the area as long as she did with those men no doubt out looking for her.”

Divine nodded.

“So she was able to find your family and reunite you with them?” he asked after a moment when Divine didn’t continue.

“Eventually.”

Marcus’s eyes narrowed. “How eventually?”

Divine sighed. “I was eleven when we kind of stumbled across an uncle who read my mind, realized who I was, and took us to my grandparents.”

“Do you mean to tell me it took seven years for—”

“Yes,” Divine interrupted. “I’m afraid the way we were forced to live didn’t help. Actually, it hampered it greatly. We could never stay anywhere long with her having to knock out people for me to feed on.”

Marcus dropped back in his chair with dismay. “You had no one to teach you to read or control their minds so she could stop knocking them out.”

“No,” Divine admitted.

For some reason her answer made him frown, and he said slowly, “But surely you began to learn to do so on your own? It is a natural skill. Training helps, but with enough time around mortals you should have begun to pick up on their thoughts, and then started to be able to begin to control them.”

“But I wasn’t spending time around mortals other than Aegle,” she told him. “We were constantly moving, traveling mostly at night to avoid the sun’s damage and the need to feed even more often. And then the stories of Aegle’s attacks on men became almost legendary and we had to avoid people in case they had heard of her and had been given a description.”

“Hmmm.” Marcus shook his head. “It’s a wonder you found your uncle at all.”

“That was pure luck,” she admitted. “He happened to be in the same area as us on business. Aegle spotted him while she was looking for a likely man to lure away for my next meal. She noticed that he looked similar to my father, and then she saw his eyes and knew he must be an immortal like me because of the metallic silver in the blue, and she approached him. But when she asked if he knew Felix, he eyed her suspiciously and asked, “Who wants to know?”

Divine smiled softly. “Despite all she did for me and the chances she made herself take to help me survive, Aegle didn’t consider herself a brave woman and his reaction frightened her. My father had been such a charming and easygoing man that she felt sure she’d made a mistake and rather than say anything, simply scurried away and hurried back to me. But she’d caught his attention with my father’s name, and he apparently read her mind, and followed her back to me.”

Her smile faded. “He was a hard man. Taciturn by nature and not very . . .” She hesitated, searching for the right word, and finally said, “He wasn’t very sympathetic. He gave us quite a fright when he strode into our little camp, and then simply started barking orders. When we didn’t move fast enough for him, he bundled us both up on his horse, grabbed the reins, and simply led us back to the village where Aegle had run into him. It was only then he said that he was my uncle, the one my father had sent a message to. That the family had been looking for me for years and he was taking us to them.”

“Aegle went with you?” Marcus asked with a smile.

“Of course. She was the closest thing to a mother I knew at that point. I wouldn’t have gone without her,” Divine said solemnly.

Marcus nodded in understanding, and then asked, “And your grandparents? Were they happy to see you when your uncle took you to them?”

“Oh yes.” Divine smiled. “They welcomed me with open arms. They were both very sweet and loving. They were kind to Aegle too. They offered her a position in the household as my guardian so that we wouldn’t be separated, and paid her very generously, promising her a home and enough wealth to retire on when she was ready. We both suddenly had beautiful clothes and plenty of food and my grandparents taught me how to read and control minds. Everything was perfect. It was all like a fairy tale really,” she said sadly, and thought that every fairy tale had a monster.

“But they didn’t teach you about our heritage?” he asked with a frown.

Divine shook her head. “They spent the next year not only teaching me how to use and control my abilities, but catching me up on all the things I’d missed as possible while wandering around with Aegle. I was eleven years old with no education at all other than how to hide and survive,” she pointed out. “I had to learn to read and write and do math and . . .” She shrugged helplessly.

“And after that?” Marcus asked. “Why didn’t they teach you once you’d learned the necessities?”

“They didn’t get the chance,” she said woodenly, and then took another drink of water, set it down, peered at him and said, “I guess you’ll have to teach me about Atlantis.”

“Oh,” Marcus looked surprised by the suggestion.

“After you tell me more about yourself,” she added firmly. “All you’ve told me so far is that your grandparents were Marzzia and Nicodemus Notte and that they were survivors of Atlantis.”

“Right,” Marcus muttered and then made a face. “I’m afraid my history isn’t nearly as interesting as yours. My mother was my grandparents’ third daughter, Claudia. Her life mate was a mortal male she turned. My father, Cyrus, died, beheaded in battle shortly before I was born, and my mother returned to her parents to have me. They helped her raise me.”

“And then?” Divine prompted, unwilling to let him stop there.

“A few years later my grandparents had their first and, so far, only son, and—”

“So far?” Divine interrupted with surprise. “They’re still alive?”

Marcus smiled wryly and nodded. “They’re a pair of tough old birds. Nothing short of an apocalypse will take them out.”