It was a start. Although to what, I wasn’t sure. Stepping out of the car, I slid the phone in my pocket and turned to find my assistant waiting for me across the garage.
Celia greeted me at the elevator. “Sebastian is hosting a party in the opium den, but your mother requests to speak with you in her sitting room before you’re stoned out of your mind.”
I raised an eyebrow, and she held up her hands in apology.
“Her choice of words, not mine.”
I followed her inside the elevator and pressed the button for the second floor. I had no interest in attending Sebastian’s so-called party. I had no doubt orgy would be a better term for it. But I did need to speak with my brother.
“Is there anything I can see to?” Celia asked me as the elevator carried us upstairs.
I was about to tell her no when I remembered that I owed Thea. “Yes, call Ferdinand and find out what cellos he can bring me by tomorrow, and then figure out where the Stradivarius is being kept.”
“Are you taking up a new hobby?” Her forehead wrinkled like she was trying to decide if I was feeling unwell.
“I owe someone a cello,” I said with a shrug. There was no point in telling Celia about Thea yet. Not since I suspected Thea would continue to slam doors in my face.
A smile played on my assistant’s lips. “She must be very beautiful.”
“She is very annoying,” I corrected her, “and as I said, I owe her a cello. Something happened to hers.”
“Were you that something?” she guessed.
“Yes and no,” I said, bracing myself as the second-floor button lit up on the elevator panel.
“Julian,” Celia said my name with a long-suffering sigh, “whoever she is, your mother isn’t going to be happy if you give her a twenty-million-dollar cello!”
“It’s my cello.” I adjusted my cufflinks as the doors slid open. Holding my arm across the elevator’s threshold, I waited until Celia stepped onto the gallery’s landing before joining her. “And I’m not giving it to her. I don’t see why the hell anyone would care if I did, though. None of us play. What good is it doing collecting dust?”
“I believe it’s what mortals call an investment piece,” she said dryly. “Is there a budget for the ones Ferdinand will bring?”
I shook my head. “But I prefer something Italian.”
“You always have.” Celia walked with me toward Sabine’s rooms. Her eyes wandered over the paintings lining the walls, widening every now and then when she spotted a Cézanne or a Van Gogh. Sometimes I forgot how much younger she was than me. Mostly, because she spent so much time mothering me.
“Care to join us?” I asked when we reached the oak double doors that led into my mother’s private wing of the house.
She rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll sit this one out.”
She was too smart to get in the middle of a family disagreement, especially when it involved me and my mother.
“I’ll let you know what I find.” She paused. “Shall I have whatever Ferdinand finds delivered and save you the trouble? I’ll just need the musician’s name.”
“I’ll handle it.”
She inclined her head in deference to my wishes before moving to leave. As she turned I caught a glimpse of unmistakable satisfaction on her face. I opened my mouth to clarify again that this was simply an issue of courtesy, but she sped down the hall before I could.
I watched as she disappeared into the servant’s corridor, deciding to let her think what she wanted to about the matter. I knocked softly on the door and waited until I heard an imperious “come in” from the other side.
Striding into the sitting room, I found my mother lounging by a marble fireplace, dressed in a silk dressing gown embroidered with large fuchsia blooms. The fire danced over the goblet in her hand, the glass reflecting the flames. Another filled glass sat on the eighteenth-century coffee table in front of her. She twirled a finger lazily in her own drink before lifting a blood-soaked finger to her mouth and delicately sucking it clean.
It was an old habit of hers, to think over a warmed serving of O-negative. In my younger decades, I came home to find her in a similar state frequently, usually the result of worrying over some mischief caused by one of my brothers. It had been years since I’d seen her like this, not since…
“I’m sorry for this evening,” I said stiffly. She’d called me here to tell me off for speaking so openly in front of a human. An apology would minimize her concerns.
She lifted blue eyes to stare at me, studying me with silent judgment, before she pointed to a plush chaise lounge across from her.
I might be the heir to the Rousseaux name and fortune, but my mother held a firm grip over me and the rest of our family. That was natural, given that vampires were matriarchal in nature. A male vampire’s job was to marry, produce heirs, and contribute to the betterment of society during times of peace. When war was called for, we were well-trained to protect our mothers, sisters, and wives. It was a skill we learned during friendly skirmishes at home and honed on real battlefields. A male vampire always stood ready to protect the females he served, even if most of them didn’t require much protection. At least, I’d been raised with those traditional values. Even the wildest of my siblings fell into line where our mother was concerned. For the most part, she respected her adult children, but every now and then one of us disappointed her.
I had never been the one to do that before tonight.
Taking the seat across from her, I waited for the lecture I knew was coming.
“You knew this was coming,” she said softly. She didn’t need to raise her voice. That was the power of a vampire queen. She knew just how strong she was and where she stood as leader of the family. “When Camila died…”
She trailed away for a moment, the slight flare of her nostrils betraying the grief she hid like an old scar.
“I understand,” I said, wanting to spare her the pain she still felt over my twin’s untimely death.
Sabine’s eyes flashed to mine, and I realized too late that I’d said the wrong thing. “You cannot understand the death of a child,” she stormed, “until you have one of your own, and, by the way you’re acting, I assume you never will!”
“There’s an entire year for–”
“Who was that mortal?” she interrupted. “The pretty, little human in the cheap dress?”
“No one of consequence.”
“Oh?” She reached for the phone in her lap where it lay hidden amongst pools of embroidered silk. “But you felt the need to dine with her?” She held it up to showcase a photograph of me and Thea at the diner.
