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.” He smiled in amusement to let me know that he was kidding; at least, I thought it was what that smile meant.There was a knock at the door, and the man who had disappeared came in and knelt at the entrance.He lifted up a juice bottle for Claudius’s inspection.Claudius tossed him a glass that he snagged easily out of the air.I thought his movements were exaggerated, but he cracked open the safety seal and twisted the plastic cap off.He poured some of the drink into the glass, then took a deep swallow of it.What the hell? I thought Claudius told him to get me some juice, and now he is drinking it?“And?” A query to the assassin from my father.“Simply juice, Lord Claudius.” The assassin returned respectively.I stilled.Did I just get myself a food taster? I needed a food taster? Someone was so threatened that there was a Blue Line Lord Emperor that they would try and poison me? Wait.Nobody should know about me yet.Well, the Emperor part of me.Claudius took the juice bottle and brought it over to me.“Is that really necessary?” I had thought to brazen it out, but my voice was barely a whisper.“Better to be safe than sorry.There are others who would use your Fledgling status against you.Poison is an insidious killer.If you were fifty years old, poison wouldn’t have done anything more than give you cramps.Drink that up.I will get the seeds from the fruit and put them in a container for you to take home.” Claudius laid the back of his fingers against my forehead.“You are still pale and cool to the touch.Ideally, now would be the time to take you hunting, but it would be best if you took Marcus home with you.Have Chesterton make you a blood pack every hour until it is time to retire for the night.”I took a drink of pomegranate juice and smacked my lips together a couple of times.Different.I frowned.“What are you going to be doing?”“Being First is not all killing, Xavier.There is paperwork to be done, especially now that I have allowed it to accumulate on my desk.The saying is that tomorrow never comes.When it does come, everything you have put off for another day suddenly has to be completed now, especially since I am no longer First Ranked.” He straightened.“It would not bode well for me if my successor inherits an avalanche of paperwork.Marcus, wake up! Take Xavier home.”Marcus groaned and slowly rolled up to his ass, shifting so he could put his long legs on the floor.“You okay?” I asked him.“What doesn’t kill you…” His tone was an attempt to be light-hearted, but I could tell he was still in pain.The disappointment in Claudius words came across loud and clear, maybe even more so because it wasn’t masked with that icy fury from before.“…Makes you smarter.I would rather not have this conversation again, Marcus.”“Yes, Father.”We were in the back of the limo, and it was way after nightfall.The light of the moon was strong enough to light our way to the car.Marcus had been hand-feeding me pomegranate seeds from the plastic container as we headed home.After that, memories grew hazy.Hazy? An inappropriate word if there ever were one.I have nothing.It’s just a big blank until I woke up buried deep in Marcus’s ass as my wings pinned him helplessly to the floor.Why can’t I remember? I didn’t hit my head.Did I? The dog had brought me down to the floor, but I don’t think I slammed my head on the ground.Did I? Then again…everyone is quick to point out that I am the last Lord Emperor Sigmund’s descendent.I’d heard enough of the whispers that he was a nut bar near the end of his reign.Mental illness was inherited, wasn’t it? I frantically tried to think about my family.The men died relatively young, unless they were highly skilled, because of the danger and risks of being a Regency Hunter.There was a history of men marrying into the family.Now that I think about it, Dad took Mom’s name.The Xavier name has been passed on for centuries without any male children, only twin girls until Shayne, a non-twin, and me, the first male in 400 years.Even Shayne had twin girls…Until I went blind, I had every intention of becoming a Hunter with the Regency.I had no talent for Mage work like my father, and I wasn’t skilled enough to be on the frontlines, but I was showing promise as a sniper when my sight started to go.Once that went, everything got so messed up…Who was I kidding? I was still messed up, and now I was raping vampires and sitting up on top of buildings, lost.I left Marcus an hour ago wanting to be alone to think and to…dredge up memories, but there was nothing there to remember—only the aftermath of the ride home with Marcus and what I apparently had done to him on the way.I could not for the life of me remember what happened.“What the hell?”I remembered sharing with Marcus—no, that was Armor.I raised my hands to my head.If Armor and Marcus were truly the same, they both found joy in pain, but…that didn’t make what I did any better.If anything, it made it worse.I stayed on my knees, my wings folded back on my shoulders.I didn’t remember pushing him down.I killed someone, and I don’t remember.I began rocking back and forth, holding my head in my hands.My wings sprang up and spread wide.I couldn’t keep it in anymore.I screamed my terror and frustration.Only what came out wasn’t my voice.It was an inhuman roar.Sleeping birds scattered into the night.I slammed my fists down in the gravel of the nondescript office building on which I was essentially hiding.The phone went skittering across the stones.I was losing control.That rage back in the alley and in the limo, it came out of nowhere and it took over.I caught myself.I was doing it again.Losing control.My hunger was strong.I leaned over and let my fingers grasp at the cool stones.My hands hurt from where I smashed them into the gravel rooftop.My eyes burned with unshed tears as my thoughts raced, trying to evoke those lost hours.Marcus had us stop at a club so I could hunt, because I wasn’t recovering fast enough from the shocks of the day.Becoming First was a big deal, but what was even bigger was that Father knew about the broken Covenant between Armor and me and that if I hadn’t taken his rank, he would have killed us.Punishment for Armor and mercy for me.I could tell from his eyes that he meant it.It wasn’t our regular hunting grounds.I did my thing, shaking my tail feathers around enough to draw a crowd.This time women were crowding around me.Their hands wandered just as bad as the boys at the gay bar but nothing as blatant as a grope between the legs from behind.I tasted several young women, until the gnawing edge was taken off my hunger.When Marcus and I left, I was pleasantly buzzed on fresh essence.I wasn’t angry or even all that concerned about the seven hotheads who followed us outside.It wasn’t until one of them grabbed me and Marcus jerked him off and got stabbed that I lost my memory to the crystal vision, and a fury I’ve never known before came over me.Then there was nothing
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