House Rules - Chloe Neill Page 0,42

Ethan had once said he’d considered himself a monster after he’d become a vampire; I’d wondered if he’d thought the same of Balthasar.

“Fortunate that you met Peter,” I said.

Ethan nodded. “I was. He was a good man, and I’m better for knowing him. Many of us mourned his passing.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever asked. How did Peter die?”

He genteelly pressed the napkin to his mouth. “Extract of aspen.”

My eyes widened. An aspen stake through the heart was one of the very particular ways to kill a vampire. But extract of aspen? That was a new one.

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing.”

“It’s usually goes by more poetic names. Sometimes bloodbane or bloodberry, because the particular variety of extract turns crimson as it’s prepared. It had a role in alchemy and earlier sciences. Its secondary effect on vampires was a later discovery.”

“What does it do?”

“It’s a slow, death-dealing poison,” he said. He shoveled a mound of eggs onto his fork.

“When was the last time you ate?” I wondered.

“Yes,” was all he said, loath to admit to his girlfriend how poorly he’d been taking care of himself.

I took a bit of eggs that seemed positively dainty by comparison. “The complete reorganization of a political system can be difficult for the schedule.”

Ethan snorted through his eggs, then coughed his way through a laugh. “Well said, Sentinel. Well said.”

“So, back to Peter. He was poisoned. By whom? And why?”

“His beloved’s parents, unfortunately.”

My eyes widened. I loved a good story—I’d been a literature student, after all—and this one sounded like a doozy. I plucked up a sausage roll and bobbed it at him like a magic wand. “Elaborate.”

“Peter was a vampire. He fell in love with a woman who was not.”

“Human?”

“Fairy,” he said, and I winced, recognizing the drama.

“Yikes.”

“Indeed. Cadogan House was situated in Wales at the time, but we’d traveled to Russia. Her name was Anastasia. She was the daughter of fairies of some repute—politicos with connections to Claudia, who was still in Ireland at that time—and who’d gained a title in the Russian aristocracy. Keeping face was very important to them, and they were staunch believers that fairies shouldn’t mix with humans or anyone else.

“But Peter was in love,” he said, a smile crossing his face. His eyes went slightly vacant, as if he were recalling. “You’d have liked him. He was a man’s man. Brawny. Like me, a soldier before he became a vampire. He had a warrior’s mentality, and that didn’t stop simply because he joined the night brigade, so to speak. He was Welsh, didn’t really believe in vowels to speak of. He had a ruddy complexion—more like an Irishman than a Welshman, although he wouldn’t even hear of the possibility that there was Irish blood in his veins.”

He looked at me again, his gaze sharpening and the corners of his mouth dropping again. “It was a great love,” he said. “A big love, and very emotional. Equal parts love and hatred, I think, although neither Peter nor Anastasia would have admitted that. Unfortunately, her parents hated Peter, hated that Anastasia was ‘lowering’ herself by being with a nonfairy, and a vampire to boot. He was a Master vampire, but he was neither fairy enough nor wealthy enough for their preference.”

“So what happened?”

“She wouldn’t end the relationship, so her father decided to end it for them. Anastasia had a retainer—a weasel named Evgeni. He was a sneak, a liar, and a murderer. And, unbeknownst to Peter, he was doing her parents’ bidding.”

“He poisoned Peter,” I said, understanding dawning.

Ethan nodded. “Slowly, and over time. Long enough and little enough that the poison accumulated in his heart. By that point, it was equivalent to a staking, although unfortunately a slower process. As it turned out, Evgeni’s motivations weren’t solely about his hatred of Peter and his sycophancy to Anastasia’s father. He was infatuated with her.”

My eyes widened. “That’s a nasty love triangle.”

“Indeed. One evening, after he dosed Peter with what he imagined was the fatal bit of extract, he confronted Anastasia. Whatever the faults of her people, she was very much in love with Peter, and had no interest in Evgeni, who was, frankly, an asshole.”

“He sounds like it.”

“But he didn’t take her rejection seriously; he’d convinced himself Peter had glamoured her, that she wanted Evgeni and Peter was in the way. So when she said no . . .”

“He pushed?”

“And then some. He assaulted her,” Ethan said flatly. “Peter heard her scream. By then he was so weak. We