“I see.”
“It’s been this way forever. My sister and I were always seen as pawns, not players.” Fury started percolating in the pit of my stomach and my hands tensed on the armrests of the chair. “Now, with Melanie gone, the duty to carry on the line falls to me. Hence the oh-so-flattering title of Legacy Bearer. As if that’s the only thing I could possible do that would be useful. My father doesn’t want me to rule and govern. He wants me to give him a grandchild.” I tossed my head in disgust.
“And if you do have a child …” Matthias kept his voice tentative. “What happens then?”
“I don’t know what his exact plans are, but I imagine they involve enrolling the child in some boarding school where my father can be sure to control every drop of information that’s presented. He’ll start them young, indoctrinating them into this world.”
Something flickered behind Matthias’s steady green eyes. “You won’t have a say, even though it will be your child?”
“Pah!” I laughed, the sound hollow. “That won’t matter. He has dozens of guards at his beck and call. If he tells them to lock me in a tower so high it would make Rapunzel’s nose bleed, that’s exactly what they’ll do.”
Matthias winced.
There really was only one way out from underneath his thumb, and while I was desperate, I wasn’t able to wrap my arms around the idea of killing my own father.
My gaze shifted and landed on the mug of coffee sitting on the end table. “Last night, before the ball, Jupiter was helping me get ready. She said things had changed around here since I left. Things aren’t right. Families are leaving. Old, established houses, just gone. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Do you know what’s going on? Why are people leaving?”
“I don’t know when it started, but there have been a lot of businesses closing down in the haven. Court-owned shops and restaurants. Everyone says it’s slow sales, but I don’t see what’s caused it to suddenly dry up. The haven population hasn’t changed. Why would waves of people just stop frequenting vampire-owned businesses overnight? No one seems to have the answer. But that’s how it started. Then, the other thing I’ve noticed is there are a lot more turned vamps around the haven.”
My eyes went wide. “How many?”
“I don’t know the exact number.” Matthias glanced to the side, as though forgetting we were alone in his living room. “But there’s this bar I go to most days after work. They play basketball games and have decent on-tap brews. Anyway, a lot of vamps hang out there, and they host a weekly support group for the newly turned. The first group I saw was small, just three vamps. Then, the next week, there were four turns. Last week, they had to shove three tables together to make room for them all. Must have been a dozen or more.”
“Whoa.”
“It’s possible that some of them have been turned for a few weeks and are just now getting around to joining a support group. I don’t know, but it seems like a lot.”
“Especially if some of the old houses have moved on,” I added.
“Exactly.” He nodded. “Old houses are moving to other territories and some even to other courts. Then you have a bumper crop of newly turned vampires? Something feels off.”
According to the Haven Council, vampires weren’t allowed to turn people. Period. Full stop. If a vampire was turned over to the SPA for turning humans, the consequences were grave.
The Vampire Council was more lax in their approach. While not the official ruling force over vampires, they were the elders who most courts looked to for guidance. They allowed two turns per vampire, and only in cases of accidental death or special requests, such as humans with terminal illnesses who wished for immortality and happened to discover a vampire. It wasn’t freely encouraged, but the council looked the other way.
If there was a sudden surge of turns, that was a massive problem. One my father should be looking into. Was he even aware of it? My gut told me he knew everything that happened in his territory. He had spies everywhere and with his reputation, they would be fools not to report something of that magnitude to him at once.
Matthias rubbed a hand along his jawline, his expression pensive. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I think this tournament might be some kind of distraction to keep the Court busy while other pieces shuffle into place in the background.”
“I wish I’d pressed Jupiter for more information.” I sat back in the chair and exhaled. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Me too.”
I wanted to ask him if there was more than a friendship between him and Jupiter. The sadness in his eyes told me there was something there, but I wasn’t sure it was romantic. Wouldn’t he be climbing the walls if his girlfriend or frequent-flirtation was missing following a brutal murder? It also didn’t explain what he was doing as an entrant in the tournament. His mother wanted him to marry. Jupiter wasn’t a bornling. Was that the issue? A vampy Romeo and Juliet?
The questions danced at the tip of my tongue, but before I could figure out how to ask any of them, my phone rang.
I groaned when I caught the name on the Caller ID.
“Who is it?” Matthias asked.
“My mother.”
Chapter 9
“You’ve been in New York for over twenty-four hours and didn’t call me!” My mother’s voice was a nasally whine.
“Mother, stop being so dramatic.” I frowned. “I’m sure you’ve already heard from your sources that I’ve been a little tangled up since getting into town.”
I decided against telling her I’d actually arrived in New York three days ago. It had just taken me two and a half days before I worked up the resolve to go to Vaughn House.
“Yes,” she sighed. “I heard your father really rolled out the red carpet.”
I snorted. “Yeah.”
Athena Persimmon Vaughn, though no longer with my father, still retained her title of Baroness and all of the privileges that came along with it. She had her own mansion on a five-acre plot of land in Sleepy Hollow, just on the border of the annexed border of the New York Haven. It was close enough to the Vaughn estate that she wasn’t completely out of the loop when it came to Court matters, but it was far enough away that my father didn’t have her coming over to borrow a cup of sugar every time she wanted to catch up on the inner gossip.
Not that she needed to physically show up to get her fill of the scuttlebutt. A good majority of the household staff remained loyal to her and were all too happy to provide her with the daily minutia of the comings and goings. It drove my father crazy, but not enough to fire everyone and have to retrain a new staff from scratch. He was a creature of habit and though gossipy, the staff knew how he liked his pillows fluffed and his meals served.
Beyond that, the staff never crossed loyalty lines to share with the Court at large. They knew better than that. Gossiping with Athena was one thing, since she was still technically the lady of the house, though she no longer resided there. Any leaking to outside sources would result in a punishment far more severe than a slap on the wrist or dock in pay.
“I warned him,” Athena continued. “I told him to play nice or he’d only drive you farther away. I hear he ignored me as usual and took the domineering route.”
“Why weren’t you there last night?” I asked.
Athena muttered something I couldn’t quite catch, as though she’d moved the phone’s receiver too far from her lips. Even so, I was fairly sure I heard at least a few curses. “He wouldn’t allow it. He claims it’s for bad behavior on my part, but I assure you, I don’t know what bug he has up his rear. I can’t set foot on the grounds or he’ll have that brute, Gerald—or, Jerrod?—escort me away. It’s downright humiliating! I’m the Baroness after all!”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, as I’m sure you already know I’m not at the mansion now.”
“Yes. I spoke with your father this morning.”