Chapter 87

As I help Noah pull history of vampires that had been marked as interest my mind keeps drifting back to Igor's words. It made my stomach twist as those were words Nick had spoken to me when I was still human. The smell of rain, seeing the man I didn't realize I was falling in love retrieving a completely soiled hat off the rain soaked course. Him looking back at me as the rain pelted him relentlessly with the softest smile on his face. Nick's soft eyes staring at me as he ran back and said in the warm smokey voice the very words Igor had spoken.

Shaking my head, I ask for the next name and walk down the isles with my already heavy load of books. When I had whipped around to look at Igor's face, that chuckle, those words with a smile in them were already gone - replaced by the same marble-esque features I knew so well.

After that moment, he had started walking again, leaving me staring after him, till he stopped looked back at me, black eyes as inscrutable as ever and said, 'If that hat means so much I can have a comrade retrieve it.'

Pulling another book from the shelf, I place my head on the shelf, stomach churning. Why was I fixating on something so idiotic? Had Igor shuffled through my memories, at least in part, to find that and throw me off? It had to just be a coincidence, nothing more.

Taking a fortifying breath, I place the books on a table where seven Night Hunter's were already busily studying. Several had notebooks out and pens, noting passages in those tomes that may reveal more. Noah comes up with his own stack and says, 'There are only a few more.'

'I can get them,' I reply, trying to keep those thoughts of Nick and Igor as far from my frontal lobe as possible.

But Nick's face kept filtering through as I looked down at the names. Of course one would be Vlad and my stomach drops further. How could I tell Nick that his grandfather was the leader of this most despised group of people? He already felt like I was pulling away and we hadn't even been married a month!

Slowly I walk down the isles, remembering that last look he had given me before he had left. It was sad and mistrustful. He had given me every reason to trust him, so why couldn't I? Because he simply couldn't remember a girl he kissed some two hundred and fifty years ago? Because he had been suspicious of me for some time till he knew? Or maybe just because I though he was using me due to the fact I was a daywalker?

Shaking my head I chuckle. No it was unlikely, sure I was a daywalker, but also I am exceptionally weak, no matter what was changing inside me. If I was such a threat he could have killed me long ago. All his hopes for the future landed on a single fact, my trust. I had to tell him what I now knew, no matter how much it hurt.

Grabbing Vlad's diary, as well as his own history book I stop abd look down the row. Zoran Dracul. I needed his history too and so I slip his own diary within the other volumes.

Coming back to the table loaded with books and whispers, as some try to make connections, I find a seat. Noah looks up and says, 'Find a person of interest if you'd like and get to speculating.'

Smiling I nod, but even as I pull Vlad's diary, my mind goes back to Igor's words and my memory of them. Nick's soothing smokey voice of all things foreign and then Igor's had been... not monotone or mechanical. It had been slightly jovial for but a moment, a slight rasp and rich tone. Shivering I pull back, Igor was deadly, and as cold as ice. Whatever I heard had been a moment of misplaced emotion on his part.

Flipping to the front, I set back to learning about Nick's father and hopefully his grandfather secretly.

-D-

My mind swirled as I read, page after page. Nick's father was obsessed with his bloodlines and it was unnerving. I feared a lot of it had to do with his father Zoran. Because the day that Zoran died, or supposedly died, was blank. The date was there but nothing was written and it told me a lot as well as so little. The following week was just as blank, the dates written until finally he came back into focus abd said, My father is gone and I can breathe once again.

After this he spoke very little about bloodlines, or even about his sons. His words were more anarchist than anything else. It made me wonder if he had always felt this way but because of his father's influence had just gone along with his father. He did speak a lot about how angry he was with his father.

It was interesting how he never spoke about his father in the past tense. It made it that much more apparent that Zoran was alive. That's when I hear chairs scrapping and look up as Noah says, 'We have been called back to the Night's Templar for an important meeting on our findings. Have you found anything you can share?'

I nod and say, 'Vlad Dracul is free of any findings. His death is solid as several saw it including Nicholi.'

Noah nods and turns to another saying, 'Scratch that name off the list. We will be back as soon as we can.'

I nod as I watch them leave. As much as Furlow hated the Night Hunter's, I had to respect their tenacious nature and tireless effort. Sitting back, I look around the now silent tomb of this giant room, filled with centuries, millenia's of unspoken words from thousands of dead vampire. Stretching my back, I look around. There was not a soul in sight as I slide the book I had kept hidden from the group this whole time.

I stare down at the brown, cracked leather binding of Vlad's father, Zoran's history, his own words. This man was to blame for the state of the vampire world right now and before long it would reach the humans world as well.

Opening it, I start to read. His formative years were rather simple and from what I could see he was an only child like his son. His family wasn't as obsessed with strength as they were already strong among the four royal clans of that time. Nothing illuminated him as evil, even his marriage was to one of his own clansman, a Pureblood third cousin. His sons birth was met with relief and happiness. Births of Pureblood Royal's is rare and death was common. Thus the celebration. It had been long before my changing into a vampire since a Pureblood had been born.

I kept reading, the death of his wife seemed to switch something in him. His writing became more determined for greatness. There seemed to be tension between himself and a young Aname who was proving to be a better tactician than himself. It was strange to think that though Aname was now the oldest among the vampire, he was a young one in Zoran's writings. Then with his sons marriage it became a political game of cat and mouse between them. More tension to grab more power.

Then Nicholi and Igor were born and a switch flipped further into power. The need of it. Twins, a variable miracle in the vampire world, both healthy and both strong. Zoran seemed to dot on Nicholi more than Igor. Igor was much loved by his mother, but it was Zoran that maneuvered Igor out of the clan home even before Vlad was ready for his son to go. But as Zoran was the clan leader at the time it was expected for him to do as told.

Zoran took Nicholi under his wing for well over a hundred years and spouted on about how Nick was the strongest of them all and his bloodline would secure the future of the clan name forever. It made my stomach turn to think about this. More doubts flooded my mind about telling him about his grandfather. Doubts bubbled in my mind as I flipped the page. What if it was all a ploy from the beginning? But I slam down on those thoughts. Nick had no idea what I was when we first met, his reaction to my ability of daywalking had surprised him. So that scraped those idea.

Then there was all the other factors. Ki's interest in me, how he had looked into a book of his ancestors named during the investigation, Igor's constant brick walls and more. It left my head spinning.

I read on, trying to block out anything but what is in front of me. Zoran's writing was eloquent, but also straightforward. He was decisive in his decision making, and most of all, it seemed, hard. All icy resolve to become the best. I had tallied at least seven Purebloods he had killed and eaten to gain strength but one page made me stop and read, I met him today. The oldest vampire, the one who started it all. There was nothing there, no power, no strength, a human man staring back at me. How could such a thing be? But even with those facts fear leaked out of me like a gyser. In his shabby clothing, staring me down as if I were an insect under my boot and I realized I wasn't strong. No matter how many of my species I ate, or years I spent refining my blood or even my bloodline was futile. He was the pintacle of power. I must have it.

Dropping the book, I realize that this was the catalyst for everything that had happened. I murmur, lips numb from my own hyperventilating, 'Furlow... you fool.'

Placing my head in my hands, I realize that Zoran wasn't after the power of the vampire world, he wanted only power. For himself.

Just then a cold shiver passes through me and I hear a voice behind me with such cold malice I knew who it was, 'What are you hiding Natasha?'