Page 14 of Becoming D'Vaire
“Could I just—”
“Grigori Alexei Volkov, no you may not ‘just’ do anything. You’ll wind up with your face buried in a notebook for the next three days. Now march yourself down the hall and get dressed.”
“Sorry.”
“I know you’re sorry, you always are. You have a beautiful heart, my love, but you have zero concept of time. Now please, go put on a suit and run a comb through your hair. We’ll have a wonderful evening, then you can come home and do whatever you want,” his mother’s voice had softened, and Grigori was glad he hadn’t fully pissed her off. He hadn’t meant to ruin her evening or force his parents to hunt him down because he was incapable of keeping himself on any kind of a schedule.
Offering her a sheepish smile, he said, “I’ll just go dig out a suit.”
“Don’t worry, Tigglesworth has already laid one out for you.”
“What do we do when he’s not here?” Grigori asked as he slipped out of his lab coat and hung it on the peg next to the door.
“Curse your brother for bringing the most capable butler on the planet into our lives, then deciding to take him and Charlie with him whenever he has to spend a few months in whatever town he feels Umpyr requires his special attention like we always do,” Alexei replied.
“Exactly,” Irina agreed. “Five minutes, Grigori. We’ll meet you downstairs in the car.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After his parents disappeared down the hall, Grigori jogged down to his room and quickly changed from one ensemble to the next. He always felt awful when his parents had to hunt him down, and he did try to remember there was a world outside his lab, but it was difficult. Grigori loved what he did and most of the time couldn’t care less about what else happened to be going on.
It wasn’t that he didn’t love his family or that he hated the few functions they required him to attend; he just got lost in equations. Rearranging numbers and letters in such a way that they improved people’s lives was an almost euphoric feeling. Ever since Grigori was a teenager, his innovations had been filtered through his brother’s company, so it was not adulation he craved. It was the challenge of discovering something new and knowing it had the ability to profoundly affect the future that fueled him. In turn, he drove the people around him insane with his single-minded focus on his experiments.
Grigori pulled on his suit jacket and spied his phone lying on the nightstand. Picking it up, he shoved it into his pocket with a roll of his eyes. He grabbed a small notebook from his desk and a couple of pencils and stuffed them in there alongside it. Wherever he was, he kept something with him to jot down whatever popped into his head.
Growing up with modern technology, he could have typed into the phone he was always losing, but he preferred a more old-fashioned method. It allowed him to easily scribble it, strike-through, and finagle when the juice was flowing through his mind. Not wanting to get distracted, he forced himself out of the room. He waved at Tigglesworth, who nodded somberly as Grigori sped toward the front door.
If things went well, the night would be over quickly, and he’d be able to get some time in his lab before he had to go to sleep. When his stomach rumbled, he remembered that he probably hadn’t eaten since morning. He would have to binge on hors d’oeuvres while he mingled.A bag or two of blood might not be a bad idea either, he decided since he couldn’t recall exactly when he’d last fed. It was a sad state when the youngest child of the vampire rulers forgot to drink the one thing he needed to sustain life.
One of his parents’ security guards, Sebastian, fell into step beside him as he walked out of the condo he shared with his family. “The Vampyress is waiting,” Sebastian said as he tapped the elevator button.
“I know, I’m always making her wait.”
“You’re a good son, you’re just absentminded.” Sebastian had been employed by his parents for over two thousand years, and he generally held nothing back.
“It’s not like I do it on purpose.”
“We all know that. Are you planning on going out after the Emperor’s event tonight?”
Grigori’s brows drew together. “Where would I go?”
“You’re a young man with needs. It’s been awhile since you went out alone.”
“Oh. Sex. Right. I think I’ll pass.”
“Grigori, you haven’t been out in over a year.”
“It’s really been a year?”
“Over a year. You went after your twenty-fifth birthday party.”
Grigori tried to think back; then the memory slammed into him. He recalled going to a vampire club and finding a hot guy who wanted a quick fuck. The guy was super impressed to be asked to retreat to a private room with the Vampyress’s son. He’d campaigned to perform together in front of everyone, as was allowed in vampire establishments, but there was no way Grigori would ever agree to that.
He didn’t have a lot of experience with sex, and being around strangers made him nervous. At social events, it was easy enough to hide it under a bright smile and try to make small talk but one-on-one was a whole other story. As he always did, he’d sweated profusely and gotten tongue-tied. The more flustered he’d gotten, the more difficult it had been to stay in the moment. His erection had died.
The man wasn’t impressed and made it clear that he thought Grigori was an awkward freak who needed to work on his bedroom skills. Sebastian and everyone else might have believed Grigori had sex that night, but the sad truth was, it’d probably been closer to two years since someone else had made him come. “I think I’ll pass on going out.”
“You could use a social life. How are you going to meet your mate?”
