Page 6 of Vampire's Hearth

“I jumped in front of the arrow to save Declan,” exclaimed Aiden, pointing at the hole. “It hit me and went straight into my heart. But here I am, alive. Not even a stake to the heart can kill me.”

His confused smile captured us all—except my mother, who turned white and grasped at my father’s hand. That was the day our family began to evolve from brothers to rivals as Aiden insisted we defer to him because of his unique power.

Aiden challenged my father, demanding that he be the patriarch of our family, deciding how to wield our influence because he was the most powerful. It didn’t take long for my parents to leave. They charged me with holding our family together, intimating they wouldn’t be gone long. They were going to look for a way to help Aiden. That was almost one hundred and twenty years ago, and I had failed them spectacularly.

Lorcan had been the next to go. Unable to deal with our brother’s gloating and conceit, he disappeared in the middle of the night in 1910. Days before, he had transferred enough money to build another home, but he had not accessed our family’s wealth since then, making it impossible for us to know where he was.

Our youngest brother, Conall, held on the longest. I still didn’t know the details of what happened, but I knew the outcome.Aiden convinced Conall to go out hunting. At the end of that night in 1915, the vampire left in charge of the Waterford faction, Charles, was dead, and our ability to stay in the city was in jeopardy. The next day, fearful of revenge, Conall ran. I spent years attempting to rebuild the trust between our family and the faction leader, Runa, the Dearg Dur.

As for Aiden, he went from being a respectable gentleman to one obsessed with immortal politics and power. It didn’t take him long to figure out that the hunters couldn’t kill him from afar or that none of them dared engage us hand to hand. And so he roamed the world, killing freely and upsetting the way of our kind, before settling on Charleston.

Declan grabbed my arm, drawing my attention back to the here and now. “My question is about you and your brothers. You don’t know if there is a way to cure his imperviousness to the usual methods of slaying a vampire. And if you do find one, you know destroying him will change your world forever. And how do you know it wouldn’t kill you as well?”

I shook Declan’s hand from my arm, picked up my drink, and savored the burn of the alcohol on my tongue before I swallowed.

“Maybe a world without any O’Cillians wouldn’t be so bad.” I clenched my jaw, a sign this conversation was concluded.

Declan glanced around and took a deep breath. He lowered his voice, allowing the conversations of the humans around us to drown out anything we were saying, though we still heard each other perfectly. “You never told me what you know about Runa—why you sent me to Waterford to find her when you already knew her. How did you know she would have useful information?”

My parents had ensured Declan never met Runa at all, a strategy I adhered to after they left. Declan hadn’t been by Aiden’s side when Aiden beheaded Charles—a vampire werecently found out was not only Runa’s second-in-command but her lover as well. The depth of her outrage made more sense when I learned that. Tensions had always been high between my family and her even though she was the one who turned my father. After spending the past twenty-five years searching, I failed to find anything to help me rein in my brother and reunite my family. With my parents nowhere to be found, I took my chances. I suspected there was more to their story, and Runa was the only witness to be found. If she was hiding something on their behalf, she would never tell me.

It had been shitty of me to send Declan into the middle of a feud without fully explaining to him what the rules were. But I needed someone who could provoke her into talking, someone who angered her, and Declan could handle himself. Yet there was still another unanswered question. “And you never told me where Michael is.”

Declan stiffened at the mention of my confidant, whom I had sent to Ireland with him.

“You know he was a younger vampire, but I trusted him implicitly, just as I do you.”

Declan glared at me. “And what would you like me to tell you?”

“That he’s just lost finding his way home. That my suspicions that someone killed him are completely unfounded.”

“And what if someone did? Isn’t that what we are—killers?” Declan glanced at the bar and clenched his teeth before raising his glass to his lips, refusing to meet my eyes.

“Not all of us. I recall teaching you how to feed without killing because you begged to know how I did it. Have the years with Aiden changed you that much?” I sipped my drink to give my question time to settle on him.

Declan stared at his hands. “We do what we must in order to protect our family, right?”

My eyes narrowed, and I focused on the wall of bottles, my chest tightening as he threw one of my own mantras against me. “And what was his crime, Declan? Who made you Michael’s executioner?”

“I did,” he growled. “He was getting sloppy.”

“How so?” My head snapped in his direction.

“There are five dead joggers all buried in a park because he decided he was hungry one morning. Five! Was I supposed to allow him to continue to kill that way? It was as bad as your brother.” He threw his hand in the air, anger permeating his voice and eyes.

I pressed my lips together. I wanted to kill Declan for betraying me and taking my man’s life. He never should have done so without speaking to me first. But he had been like a brother to us for one hundred and fifty years, so he knew the rules. I clenched my jaw one last time and retreated from the anger.

I glanced around to ensure the humans hadn’t heard us, but they continued to scoop food into their mouths, eyes glued to the enormous televisions, oblivious to our conversation. “I see. Not that I’m completely above killing—at times. You do recall that?” I smiled, thinking back to the meals Declan and I had shared. Sometimes humanity was marvelous, and sometimes we saw the worst of it.

“I know. And I’m sorry I lost my temper with Michael. Would you like me to make it up to you? Find another person to turn for you?”

I rolled my eyes. “No. I’m not building an army. We’ve never required force or to be part of politics, and I don’t want those things now. We’ve always risen above them just because of who we are.”

“You mean what you are.” Declan paused while staring straight ahead, still avoiding my gaze.

He took a drink before he turned toward me. “So again, why did you send me to find a vampire you already knew?”

I considered my words before answering. “Runa and my parents have a long, complicated relationship. I needed to know her side of the story, and thanks to you, now I do. She wanted my father to suffer the same consequences she did, so she turned him into a vampire.”

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