Page 99 of Only Fangs

Victor looks at me with thinly veiled pity in his eyes. “You know I can’t decline a legitimate deal.”

“That’s what I was counting on,” I reply.

“Well, eternity with Andrei Hele was going to be hideous anyway. And for what it’s worth, I hated what I was doing to Ari, throwing her to the wolves like that. She’s always been nice to my kind.”

“She’s a pretty amazing person.”

“You know that I’m meant to be rooting for you to lose?” His tone sounds serious and a frown forms on his face.

I nod in reply.

But then his expression starts to soften, almost as if he’s remembering something, something good. “I was in love once,” he whispers. He looks behind him almost furtively. “I’ll give you nine months, OK? That should give you time.” Then he straightens himself up to his full height. “Do we have a deal?” he booms, the words echoing around the small room.

“Yes.” I reach my hand out to shake his. He’s warm to the touch, almost hot. “Thank you,” I whisper, meeting his gaze for a moment, just long enough to see the red flames flicker behind his pupils.

Chapter 51

Ari

Iarrive at Aberdeen station just after eight in the evening. I’m exhausted and my back aches from sitting down for far too long. But I step onto the platform to find my dad waiting for me and all of a sudden the world feels a little less shitty.

He wraps his arms around me and draws me to him, holding me tight as if he will never let me go. I allow myself to relax into his embrace. He doesn’t ask me what’s happened. Or if I was the one who caused it. He’s just there. And in this moment that is everything I need.

“Let’s get you home, eh?” he says into my hair before pulling away and taking my bag from my shoulder. I didn’t bother to go home on my way to the station, so all I have with me are the few things I took to Hele Hall. Dad doesn’t comment on how light the bag is. He doesn’t ask any questions, just lets me head straight to bed when we get to the small house with its crooked chimney and thatched roof.

I sleep like a corpse, only waking up the following afternoon, just as the sun is starting to set below the horizon. I haven’t slept like that since I was a teenager. Adult vampires don’t normally sleep for more than an hour or so at a time and I feel utterly disorientated, like the whole world has tilted on its axis.

Dad feeds me bacon sandwiches, the bread cut so thick it could double as a doorstop. And then he clears his throat. “I think it’s time we talked,” he says.

I nod. I can’t avoid it any longer. “Can we do it over a drink?”

We head out in search of a pub. My father doesn’t like the company of other vampires and spends his life with the humans, avoiding vampire clubs and other places where our kind congregate. Apparently there’s a place up the road that’s Dracula themed; it was a church once upon a time and now it’s a real favourite with newbie vampires who love the whole kitschy faux-gothic vibe. They even have a statue of Vlad the Impaler. But we obviously avoid that like a stake to the heart and instead go to the Trinity Arms. It’s a human place, but Dad is able to catch the eye of the barman who invites us inside.

“What are you drinking these days?” Dad asks.

“Still the same,” I tell him.

We take our drinks – red wine for me and a pint of bitter for him – to a table in the corner. The pub is cosy, a fire burning in the grate and hundreds of fairy lights wound around the old wooden beams. “Nice place,” I remark.

“You didn’t come here for the pub,” Dad says gently.

“Well no,” I admit.

“Or even to see your dear old dad.”

“No.” I fiddle with the stem of my wine glass.

“What happened?”

I look up into his grey blue eyes and take a deep breath. And then I tell him everything.

I start right at the beginning. With Benedict and all the toxicity of that relationship.

“You should have come to me back then,” Dad says, reaching out to touch my hand.

“You didn’t approve of him.”

“So? I would still have been there when he broke your heart.”