Page 4 of What Fools These Immortals Be
I shake my head and pick up my other boot. I suppose I am headed to London, then.
Chapter Two
Njáll
Vasileissittingbehindme in a low armchair, one leg crossed carelessly over the other as he pretends to leaf through a magazine.
I don’t know who left the magazine there. I don’t even know how it got into my rooms in the first place.
I can’t bring myself to care as I finish fastening my cufflinks, trying not to look my reflection in the eyes. Certainly, I’m not ready for tonight, and yet everyone is acting as though I should be.
“I can hear you thinking,” Vasile says. My eyes snap to him, but he’s still scanning the same page he was five minutes ago. It’s a full-page ad for some kind of expensive watch.
Who knows, maybe he’s in the market for a gift for his mate.
My lip curls and I tug my sleeves down, the cufflinks finally in place. I am happy for Vasile. Happy that after all this time, his sire is gone, and he is free to be with his mate.
I am less happy about the fact that he has decided to step down as the head of our vampire clan and, for reasons far beyond me, believes I am the person fit to take his place.
“I can’t do this,” I say, and a split-second after the words leave my mouth, my eyes flare wide in horror.
I didn’t mean to say that. I have gonesix monthswithout saying that. What is wrong with me?
Vasile snorts and closes the magazine, tossing it back onto the low table where he found it. “Fine. Get it all out.”
I blink at him but don’t turn to actually look him in the face. No, this is better. Even sitting, his posture casual and suit jacket open, he looks far more elegant and poised than I do. Than I couldeverdo. When I don’t speak, he cocks one dark eyebrow, clearly willing to wait.
“I can’t be crai,” I say.
“You are.”
I bite back the words I want to throw at him. Yes, of course I am because we don’t do ceremonies and bonds like the wolves, and Vasile had me sign all the legal documents a week ago. I moved into his rooms a month before that as they’ve been empty since January, when he went off and got himself mated and practically moved into Deacon’s pack house the next day.
Who was going to argue with him? With either of them?
“Vasile, I’m not…” I trail off. Ready doesn’t cover it. Not when I think I never will be. “You should have chosen someone else.”
“I could have,” Vasile says agreeably. He gets to his feet and buttons his jacket again before he approaches me. Standing side by side, I look like the more immediate threat. Vasile is not a short man by any means, but I am probably half a foot taller—and broader. Groomed as he is, he looks the kind of man to deliver a cutting remark, perhaps, but not a physical blow.
Even all the work we have done to my hair has not quite tamed it; wisps of blond fall around my face, the beads on my braid resting against my jaw. I look more the part of a wolf than a vampire, and not at all the part of the crai.
“I could have chosen any of the chieftains we have left,” Vasile continues as though he cannot read my thoughts from my face. “But you have been here longer than any of them. You have been an attentive chieftain since the beginning. You’ll make this role your own.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Do you think I thought I could?” Vasile huffs a laugh. “It took Moreau and Deacon both to convince me, and you know the only reason I agreed.”
“Because Deacon is your mate.”
“Precisely.” He turns towards me, and I drag my eyes away from our reflection to watch as he reaches out and adjusts the sit of my jacket. “That was enough to have me turning my back on being a vampire on his own, one ready to kill whoever he liked, and do what I could to bring this clan together. He was the support I needed, even if I did not have him with me for that long.”
No, because his sire came back and tried to kill Deacon. Or Vasile. Whatever it was Tamesis truly wanted, he made Vasile destroy the bond between him and Deacon, a bond that has only recently been restored.
Still, Vasile remained our crai despite the heartbreak. I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job, even under less awful circumstances.
He smooths the fabric over my shoulders now and looks up into my face.
“It’s just… overwhelming,” I say. I’ve already agreed. Everything is already in place.
