Shift ✔️

Shovels & Dirt - 8

Jace's POV

Three Days Earlier

Things hadn't really been going well. My father was becoming even more difficult to deal with. I had barely been home, I had barely seen anyone I knew. My father sent me to town after town, making sure that people KNEW that we were always watching. Which was bullshit, because although he had cameras, eyes and ears all over the place, he couldn't be everywhere at once. Sending me out around the country was just a scare tactic.

I was currently in the town of 'who gives a fuck' laying on a 'the best they had' but an ultimately crappy hotel bed, twirling a business card in my hand. I had found this business card crumpled up, forgotten on the floor of the room where Annabelle was attacked by Markus, the night of the ball. I had picked it up, curious. It just had a name on it, Elizabeth J. Harleys and associates, and a phone number. Why Annabelle had it, I had no idea, and the card gave very little indication of why she would have it. For some reason, I had kept it on me. It had been about 3 weeks since I had found it, and I still don't know what to do about it. I don't want to ask Annabelle, she's still so scared of me, and me confronting her will only cause her to fall into a sputtering mess and she won't tell me a thing.

Screw it, I'm just going to phone this woman. The curiosity is killing me, and my schedule for today is over. Usually the rest of the group who has to go on these 'missions' as my father calls them, goes out drinking after the day is done, goes and meets with woman in the bars. I go back to the hotel room and sulk. I know I'm sulking, although I would never admit it. The routine of bars and woman has already begun to bore me, the same woman begging for one thing. The same men bragging about what they did and who they did it with. The people were boring, and everything about it was old, even for me, at the young age of 27.

I actually am 27. It's not like I'm 300 and stopped aging at 27, I actually have only been on this earth for 27 years. My father had been in power for a long time, and instead of starting a family right away, he decided it made sense to grow his power over many years, before finally bearing children. There are many saying he was foolish, what if he had passed and there wasn't a son to take the throne. He didn't care though; he wasn't even sure he would ever give up power. He wanted to rule forever.

He looked older than most vampires, he had stopped aging at an older age than most, mostly because of his strong heritage. He looked like a 50-year-old man, older than some of those older than him, because it showed a sense of power. I would stop aging before my time. I have power to hire a particularly powerful witch to stop the aging process at a younger age than I'm sure has been chosen for me. I do not want to be my father; I do not want people to believe I crave the same amount of power as him. Most vampires have to stop aging whenever it has been chosen for them. It is usually around the age of 30 years old, the oldest, other than my father, I have seen, is 42. The youngest was 15, but that was a strange case.

I took out my cellphone and dialed the number that was on the card. A woman picked up after 2 rings. "Hello Prince Jace, I have been expecting your call."

"Who is this? Why did you give Annabelle your card?"

"Annabelle, well I'm glad you are using her first name," I could hear her smirk through the phone. "She is a beautiful little thing isn't she. I wonder though, how is she doing?"

"I'm going to ask one more time, who are you, and why did you give Annabelle your card?'

"Well, I want to help her of course. Have you seen the state of her? Shaking. She was terrified of you. She doesn't deserve that. You should know Jace. No one deserves to be terrified. No one that innocent deserves to have any bodily interaction other than a hug."