in old-time movies. He wore leathers, weapons, had hair that I would die to possess --”
“You knew him personally?” Jamie interrupted, not wanting to listen to him rave over another man. The guy sounded...other-worldly. A king who wore leathers? She tried picturing Talon in a leather jacket and pants, and the image was too implausible for her.
Vladimir nodded, a proud look entering his eyes. “I was his personal consultant,” he said. The condescending tone wasn’t lost on her.
“I was not there when the kidnapping happened -- well, we are not too sure that he just didn’t disappear. As king, he was put under much stress and I think he could feel, much as I could, that our earth was dying. Still is, in fact.”
“So the 2012 stuff is real?” she asked dubiously, face screwing up. Jamie had never personally believed in the Mayan prediction, but now that she knew for sure that there were things other than humans... Her skin crawled.
“Silly human, of course it isn’t. That calendar was made to instill fear into the minds of the lessers and plus, with all of the leap years, their predictions are inaccurate. Do not believe in things you see in the movies.”
“Vampires,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “What about those?”
“My, my, you are a curious one. Vampires, unfortunately, do exist. Yet they are close to extinct,” he said sadly, hands stilling their twisting. When he spoke, the grief in his voice reached her. “I am but the last of our once proud and thriving race.”
Awkward and shifting her legs so that one crossed over the other, Jamie rubbed a hand over her cheek. “I’m so sorry...you never know, though. What about Talon? He showed me how...strong he was. It isn’t possible for a...a human to survive what he did and still have enough sanity to go through the day. And his eyes...” Her voice trailed off.
“Talon is an anomaly. He does not know what is within him, yet Lucian and I knew from the beginning. I cannot tell you anything except that he is an Immortal.”
“Why can’t you tell me what he is? Don’t you think he has a right to know?” she demanded angrily on his behalf.
“Jamie, if I were to tell you what he is, what he was made for, you would die tomorrow. There is a reason that he has had such a rough time. Meeting you was just the catalytic push he needed to awaken into his powers. Sooner or later, he’s going to start feeling it.”
Fury flashed through her and she barely stopped from jumping to her feet and slapping him. “This morning...” She struggled to talk calmly. Vladimir acted like he knew everything, and while she might want to tear every sparkle from his skin piece by piece, she had to get answers. “Before this morning, he didn’t remember a thing. I don’t even think he knew what color his eyes were.”
He nodded, urging her to continue. “This morning, well.... Something weird happened. Like he got possessed or something,” she said thinly, rubbing a hand over her eyes, remembering how black it had gotten. She explained the glaring light, the complete darkness, and the way he had spoken to her -- how demonic his voice had been. Jamie also told him of the time Talon had almost killed her at Auro’s mansion.
The whole time she spoke, it got harder and harder for her to keep from crying. Just thinking of Talon in a situation, remembering it, was horrible. He had been put through so much, yet he still kept her with him.
By the time she was done talking, a pondering silence had entered the room.
“I will talk this over with Lucian,” he finally said, once again twisting the hankie.
Jamie took a shaky breath and nodded, relaxing back into the chair. She hadn’t realized that she was almost at the edge, about to fall off.
“Now, back to our earlier conversation. We have shifters -- you might think of them as werewolves, but they can turn into so much more than that. I once knew a man who
could turn into a spider. Creepy thing, but he was amazingly flexible...” A smirk came over his face as he talked.
“A couple of rules you might want to consider. If you ever seen one of our kind fighting? I would request, for the sake of Talon not going apeshit on everyone, that you do not enter it or try to interfere. We have a council for that.”
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