Chapter Text
It only took fifteen seconds after walking in his front door, before Nikolai knew what Katrin had meant about his eldest.
Three of those seconds had been spent giving his ten-year-old twins, Garen and Ouida, the hugs they demanded before they would let go of his legs. Three more were required to greet his twenty-two-year-old girl Tallis, who bounced up and down at her father’s return. The next nine were occupied in a heated greeting with his very pregnant wife, as the younger kids groaned in disgust and scattered back to their chores.
Then he turned to Sami and saw the anxiety hidden behind the solemn features. Brown eyes glanced briefly into his before looking away, and fingers twitched at the end of too-stiff arms. Nikolai decided that a hug would not be welcomed by his son at the moment, and opted for an arm around the shoulders.
“Hey, Sami. I missed you too,” he said, giving a gentle squeeze. “How are things?”
A slight shrug of the tense shoulders under his arm was his only response.
“Well, I had a chance to talk to your mom yesterday,” and with that, Nikolai could feel the tension in his son go up, “and she said that Honey isn’t doing well. Let’s look in on her and see what needs doing.”
Sami nodded and followed his father out to the goat barn.
Carefully inspecting Honey brought Nikolai to the same conclusion as the vet. Honey could barely walk anymore, and she was in enough pain that she didn’t want to eat; the other goats were happily stealing the fodder left for her. Even a month ago, such thievery would have earned the offender a nip or a headbutt, but now…
“Oh, Honey,” Nikolai breathed. A look in her eyes, and he knew. She was tired, bone-tired, in pain, and she knew her time was nearly over. He let his hand fall from her head; she couldn’t even object to the lack of his scratches beyond a small jerk of her head in his direction.
“It’s time for her to go, isn’t it, Dad?” The words out of Sami’s mouth were flat, and Nikolai knew his son was only half-thinking of their oldest goat.
“Yeah. It is.” He stood and walked over to Sami. “I need to prepare for her Blutfest. Do you want to help me?”
A long pause made Nikolai wonder, but then, “Yeah, Dad. I’ll help.”
The table and vessels were almost ready when Sami began to talk. “Dad…did you ever just…wish you were human?”
Nikolai only raised an eyebrow at the question. Sami was staring at the table, polishing it long past clean. He wouldn’t be asking without a reason, but he wouldn’t just tell his father the problem; it had to be coaxed out, like a skittish calf.
“I mean…don’t you ever wish that you…didn’t have to hide what you are?”
Now we’re getting closer. “Once or twice, when I was near your age, I think,” Nikolai said in as neutral a tone as he could. He set the freshly-scrubbed catch basin below the table grooves. “Usually, when I had to convince someone that they didn’t see me suck a rabbit dry. Or eat it raw, afterwards.” Being a hemovore by nature, well…such things were normal to a vampire. Raw meat still contained some blood, after all. “Not that Grandpa didn’t keep us fed, but sometimes tweenagers get hungry.” He smiled at Sami, inviting him to share the joke; Sami’s appetite before Nikolai had gone to Paris was a running gag in the family.
Tonight, the joke fell flat; clearly, Sami had something else on his mind. “There’s…a girl at school.” He didn’t need to specify human since they were the only vampire family around. The closest vampire family to them lived in Bordeaux; the next closest, near Nice. It stemmed from the days when vampires were very territorial to protect their food supply; even now, they didn’t tend to live too close to each other unless they were related. Katrin was from the family in Bordeaux, and sometimes she and the kids traveled there. That family was a good twenty or thirty strong…
Nikolai put away thoughts of why he was the only surviving member of his birth family since his father died. He was making a family here on the farm in Orleans, and right now his son needed him to pay attention. “Oh? Breaking another heart?”
This would have earned him a Sami™ eyeroll on any other day. His son was handsome, by human standards; even his ‘horrible teeth, that’s why I don’t smile much’ hadn’t put off most of the girls (and one or two of the boys) in his class. This time, nothing but a growl. Whatever was going on with this girl, it wasn’t a confession of love.
“I wish it was like that. That, I can handle.” Sami swiped savagely at the table with the cloth in his hand. “She’s been…hinting…all week. Saying things about ‘bloodsucking’ and ‘being a vampire’ whenever she’s around me…anytime she can slip it into the conversation…and she always looks at me sideways when she says it.” Sami turned and looked his father in the eyes. “She cornered me yesterday, away from everyone else. She knows, Dad.” He shuddered. “And it’s worse than that.”
Nikolai stood in front of his son and saw the fear in his face. He put a hand on Sami’s shoulder. “How, worse?”
Sami sighed, looking down at his feet. “She says that she’s hidden proof all over in case she ‘forgets’, like she knows what I could do. But she thinks being a vampire is like the books she’s read. That vampires turn humans into more vampires, and they live forever.”
“Let me guess,” Nikolai echoed his son’s sigh. “She thinks she’s pretty, and she wants you to ‘turn’ her, so she stays young and beautiful for eternity. Completely forgetting that she would have to drink human blood for the rest of her existence if it were true. And also ignoring the fact that you love garlic, wear a silver pendant, and go to school in daylight .”
“Yeah.” Finally, Sami gave his father a small smile.
“And if you don’t give her what she wants, then…what? She’ll ‘out’ you to the whole school?”
Sami gaped at Nikolai “How’d you know?”
Nikolai shrugged. Same merde, different decade. “That happened to me once, too, when I was your age, only it was a boy who wanted to live forever. Made my life rough until Grandpa handled it. He had me change schools while he talked with the boy’s parents about his ‘drug delusions’.” And that had been really annoying; he had just started to feel comfortable at the first school after so long being homeschooled; sometimes the vampire lifespan and biology made blending in with humans that much more difficult. But the alternative of being known as real…and hunted…Nikolai turned away from that thought, too.
Sami had a thoughtful look on his face. “Is that an option?”
Nikolai blinked. “Is it that bad?”
“It could be. I didn’t confirm anything, but Riva’s the queen of the school; no one wants to be on her bad side. I think I’m the only one who talks to Franco anymore after what she did to him last month. Not because he did anything terrible, but because none of the other kids want her after them.” Sami looked up. “But…”
Apprehension made a shiver go up Nikolai’s spine. “But?”
“There’s an opening for a student to go to a school in Paris. You have to apply for it by the end of the week for next term. And they’d send a student to our school. I guess it’s our school that’s having trouble getting someone to go.”
“Not a surprise. Who’d send their kid into a city of monsters?” Nikolai gave Sami a hard glance. “Especially if they could become one.”
“I guess it wouldn’t work, then…” Sami’s shoulders slumped.
“Actually, I’m less worried about you becoming a monster than how you would get your dietary needs.” Nikolai pursed his lips as they left the room to gather the family. “If I sent a package every week for your blood needs… and our contact at the blood bank might help with the monthly dose of human blood…of course, you know how to trap and kill rats or pigeons if you have to…” He patted his son’s back. “Go get your mother and sibs while I get Honey ready. You and I will talk it over with your mother tomorrow and, if that’s what you want…we’ll see if we can make it work.”
He gave his son a hug before they separated. “And just so you know, I met a couple of humans on this last trip who have to hide who they are just as much as you do. Being human doesn’t mean you don’t have to wear a mask. Okay?”
Sami nodded and broke away to get the family together.