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“Welcome,” Elijah says, entering the sitting area. “Thank you for taking me up on my invitation.” He moves straight for the death chair. He sits, crossing hislegs at the knee and laying his hands neatly on top. His body language is screaming asshole.
“Thank you for the invitation,” Micah answers for our group.
“Would anyone care for a drink?” He snaps his fingers, bringing the woman from earlier back into the room.
“Cut the shit, Elijah,” Amelia interrupts from across the room. “No one wants anything to drink or eat.” She looks around the room, holding my eye contact longer than anyone else. “What are you hiding?”
The vampire clears his throat and sits up even straighter. “I’m not hiding anything and don’t appreciate the implication that I am.”
“No one’s implying you are hiding anything.” Micah tries to ease the tension filling the room.
“We found a child today,” I add, hoping to rescue the conversation. “She couldn’t have been older than six or seven when she was turned.”
“A child? You mean an immortal child?” Elijah asks.
“Aye,” Thorne speaks for the first time. “She told us there were ten more just like her.”
“Oh, my.” Elijah relaxes his posture with Thorne’s words.
“Any information you have on Patrice would be great about now,” Amelia continues, calming her tone from earlier.
“A horde of immortal children serves only one purpose,” Elijah continues. “Destruction.”
“Destruction of what?” I ask.
“Anything and everything.” Elijah stands, moving toward the fireplace. “What became of the child?”
“She was…taken care of,” Amelia answers. “But there are more just like her.”
Elijah sighs deeply before speaking. “Patrice is someone I knew from long ago.” He picks up a glass of red liquid and drinks it in one gulp. “Our makers were…acquaintances.” None of us speak, nervous he won’t continue. “Patrice was turned a few years before me, and our makers decided it would be best for us tolearnfrom each other.” He moves toward a cart in the corner, pouring another glass of liquid.
“What do you mean bylearn?” Topher asks.
“It means just what you think it means.” Elijah takes another large gulp. “We were lovers, hunting partners, and more for many years.”
“What does this have to do with the immortal children?” Amelia asks.
He sets the empty glass down before facing us. “Because to understand Patrice, you must first know who and what she is.” He moves back to the death chair. “Patrice was from Egypt, and I was from what is now known as Ghana. I don’t know how she ended up in my country, but it was there that she wasaltered. It wasn’t until we’d been together for several decades that she began to change.”
“What kind of change,” I interrupt.
“She began talking about wanting a child. She knewshe would never be able to produce an offspring, and that upset her. So much so that it became an obsession. It consumed her thoughts and was all she talked about.”
“You knew she was turning children into vampires?” Thorne asks.
“No,” Elijah answers quickly. “I left her in Africa before she…before she created an immortal child. Her obsession ruined what was left of our relationship, and I left.”
“Did you ever tell anyone about her desires?” Micah asks. He’s casually leaning against one of the ornately carved posts in the entryway.
“No. Unlike lycan, vampires don’t care about the doings of others. Truthfully, I hadn’t thought about her until she contacted me a few months ago.”
“What did she want?” Micah continues.
Elijah shrugs. “She asked me to recommend where she could find food for her children when she arrived. I assumed her children were other adults she had transformed through the years. I didn’t fathom she actually meant…children.”
“Did she say where they were going?” Amelia takes the lead.
“No.”
