The Vampire & the Rebel (Completed)

Part 2: Chapter 4

Jamie had stood before me, handsome and defiant as ever, when I had let the power of my age seep into my words. He had not liked that once he understood, but it had to be done. If he was going to be running around challenging vampires, I could not afford to let my secret plans go unprotected. It would have been better if they had not brought him here, but Marcel would ever be Marcel for as long as he lived. In truth, I had done nothing to mitigate their conflicts.

I was at fault.

I listened to the sound of my guards removing Jamie from the rebel encampment. I regretted that I had to get rid of him so abruptly, but I was not sure that my self-control would hold up if I did otherwise.

Clearly, I had been off my game, but Jamie had made his decision and now I was going to live with it, or whatever close proximity my existence actually was to living. Even if the most intriguing person I had ever met was gone, I still had much I wished to accomplish. If the idea seemed emptier than before, I was just going to have to deal with that.

It was completely boring, terribly dismal, and above all most unfitting for a vampire of my stature, but I kept feeling like I might start crying, which was absurd. It was not as if he had died already, but I could not dare to hope that Jamie would survive the attempt or the completion of his goal. And even if he did not, it was only a matter of time. All humans died, like spring flowers, and what was it to me if they lasted more or less a day?

My comforting lies to myself did not come as easy as normal, but I would treat him as all the other humans before him, and eventually I would scarcely be able to see what I did not want to see.

Feeling reasonably certain that he was gone, I left the storage pantry and walked upstairs. Unfortunately, Lucas was waiting at the top with questions written all over his face. Worse was the concern also present.

These male mother hens would be the death of me. I, above all, did not need sympathy. They should turn and pity themselves for their tragically short lives. I sighed dramatically, but he seemed undeterred. I cocked an eyebrow at him.

Finally, he stopped looking at me in such an annoying way and asked, "What's your plan?"

"My plan? Well, I eventually hope to start a rebellion that will remove vampires from rule and shove them back in the shadows where they properly belong, of course. I'm quite surprised that you haven't figured that out yet, Lucas, since you have been with me for some time and I was rather convinced we were on the same page. I know your intellect isn't quite at the level of my own, but—"

"You know that's not what I meant, Vienne."

I wanted to scowl at him and go on my way without answering him, but that would be far too telling. If I gave Lucas a satisfactory answer, many would hear his impression of the situation. Lucas spoke a lot, and although I trusted him to keep my secrets, his knowledge always constantly tinted his attitude. He had the worst poker face of all my guards—rather my ex-guards. I hid the scowl I wanted to bestow on him, because he would surely think it was related to Jamie rather than his own irritating errors.

Instead, I smiled with all the peaceful confidence I could muster from long years of practice. "If you're referring to Jamie, he made his choice, the same one that you all ultimately made, but with a quite different response. It is clear he will not rest easy without his revenge, so I shall not stop him. I ensured that he will not speak of this to anyone, and I trust he will properly destroy his brand, so he'll appear as if he were nothing more than one of the free humans who got swept up in my feral branding program."

There was of course, still a risk that an equally talented and ancient vampire could undo my compulsion, but the odds were slim. Ivan was, of course, a risk for that, but to do so he would both have to guess that there was compulsion to undo and find a way around it. It was possible, but vanishingly unlikely since Ivan was one of those vampires who underestimated humans to the extreme.