Page 40 of Don't Bite the Botanist
Tressa cracked her neck side to side, then glared at her cousins. “Let’s get this over with. You do know I already got a lecture from Marquin a couple days ago?”
“Clearly it didn’t take,” a smooth, cultured voice came from behind Saiden and Derrick.
Tressa glanced around them to see Marquin and Eliana strolling through the doors to the pool. They practically looked like twins with their long blond hair and icy blue eyes, though Eliana was likely hundreds of years older than him. They were all curious about her age, but nobody wanted to risk their undead life enough to pry the actual number out of her.
Tressa groaned and dropped her head into her hands as her pseudo parents joined Saiden and Derrick. “So this is what?” she asked. “An intervention? Shouldn’t Baylin be here?”
“Baylin is… occupied,” Eliana said as she gracefully lowered herself onto the chair beside Tressa.
“Not with finding Renata,” Tressa muttered. She knew Baylin waslikely doing his best to locate the rogue, but it still itched at her. The way he immediately closed a window on his computer whenever she went to see him for an update. Whatever he was working on was keeping him from the search for Ethan’s attacker. Even though she knew his facial recognition programs ran in the background, she still felt like he was… distracted.
“The rogue will be located when the time is right,” Eliana said, her tone leaving no room for argument. Not that anyone ever argued with Eliana. Her delicate beauty might give her an angelic appearance at first glance, but there was death in her eyes.
No, you didn’t argue with Eliana. You bowed your head slightly and accepted whatever she said. Which is exactly what Tressa did.
“Okay, then,” she replied, switching her attention to Marquin. “Are we going to do a repeat of Monday’s discussion? Because I told you, I’m waiting for the right moment to tell Ethan about us. He’s still not budging on the whole vamps are evil thing.”
“Well of course he isn’t,” Derrick huffed out. “Until you tell him the truth, all he has is the one experience.”
“But if I tell him the truth, he’ll leave.”
Derrick shrugged. “Then he leaves. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Derrick!” Eliana scolded. “You will not bring your own issues into Tressa’s predicament.”
Everyone’s head rotated toward Derrick. “What issue is she talking about, Derricula?” Tressa asked, amused that she was no longer the one in the hotseat.
Derrick glared at her, then stormed out of the pool, tossing a “Fuck you guys,” over his shoulder.
They all glanced back to Eliana who just waved a hand. “Do not ask. Derrick’s story is his own to tell.”
Okaaay,Tressa thought, wondering what, or who, had her arrogantcousin on edge. It couldn’t be that he found his mate because he wouldn’t be hanging around the compound if that was the case, but something clearly had his Armani boxers in a twist.
Saiden shoved Tressa’s legs to the side and sat on the edge of her lounge chair. “We’re worried about you, Tress. Ethan has been here over a week now, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to keep our identities secret. I slipped up the other day when we were working out and mentioned something that happened forty years ago. How was I supposed to remember that? Time sort of loses all meaning shortly after you turn two hundred.”
Tressa sighed. “I know. I’ve had my own fair share of near fuckups. But I swear, I’ve been trying to open his eyes to our kind. Anytime he’s not in the gym, I’m talking to him about how our research has shown that rogues are not the same as other vampires.”
“And how is that going?” Marquin asked as he took a spot against the wall, crossing his arms and legs in a pose that exuded relaxed and casual. Or it would if you didn’t know Marquin. Relaxed and casual on the outside meant you could be seconds away from either getting a lecture or getting murdered.
Tressa thought back to the conversation earlier that day when Ethan had asked her if she’d been brainwashed for her continued assertions that some vamps might be good.
“Not amazing,” Tressa answered. “He’s just been so focused on getting his strength back for his revenge mission. He’s not really open to hearing anything that isn’t that.”
“Tell me about it,” Saiden grumbled. “He’s got me in the gym training him to fight multiple times a day, and he won’t shut up about how he’s going to murder that vamp. It takes everything in me not to laugh and reveal this whole training bullshit is just a ruse. I’m kind of starting to like him, and I feel bad about the lies. He genuinely has noconcept of how much stronger we are than him.”
“So perhaps we educate him,” Marquin mused.
Tressa’s head snapped up. “Say what now?”
“I’m merely suggesting that if he’s fixating on his revenge because he thinks he has a shot at eliminating Renata, then maybe you should let him encounter another real vampire. He might realize just how outclassed he is. I could ask one of the members of the East Coast cadre to come visit for a few days.”
Tressa leapt out of the chair, nearly kicking Saiden in the balls as she did. “Are you insane?” she barked. “You think having him get attacked by another vampire is going to help? Every night I sit outside his room for a few hours with the door cracked, listening to him whimper in his sleep from the nightmares he’s still dealing with. It kills me not to hold him in my arms and tell him it’s going to be okay. And you want to put him through that again? Have you lost your marbles in your old age?”
“Careful,” Elianna said quietly from her seat. “I might take offense at that considering I’m older than everyone in this compound combined.”
They all stared at her for a moment, each of them likely doing the math in their heads. It was the closest Eliana had come to revealing anything about her age. If she was older than all of them, that would put her at well over a thousand years.
Okay, so Tressa would definitely not be arguing with Eliana anytime soon.
