The Origin of Species

Reginald Silverman ate breakfast with the rest of us. The eldest dragon got to see my family life and as I walked him to the elevator down he shook my hand. “It is a rare treat seeing the life of one we all treasure. Call that meeting young one, and I will be there with everyone else.”

I nodded and watched as the golden dragon hobbled into the elevator and went down. I took the stairs down three flights. It was where the conference room was and where I told Alex I’d meet him. Well not in the conference room, I wanted to look at the book. It’s something he and I had been doing everyday for the past two weeks, trying to figure out how it burnt Alex and then how it had saved his life.

Ant says it recognized something in Alex that was part of me. I think that’s not quite true. The book feels like magic, like living breathing magic. If that were a thing. It also gave Alex and I alone time where no one interrupted because no one wanted to be around the book. Cari let me keep it on the third floor walk in safe. She relocated everything else and I was the only one who had the combination. It had taken Sage and Jack both to change the combination. Jack tried at first, but his mechanical abilities weren’t as good as his electrical ones. In other words Chevalier was a better hacker than safe cracker. That was when I called in Sage. If he couldn’t do it then well we’d survive with Cari’s combination, but Sage did it no problem and he didn’t remember the password, not that he needed one anyway since he could just open it with his ability.

It really was a good thing Sage was raised by an FBI agent and had a mostly good morality. He could be a serial cat burglar and no one would really ever get how he got in or out or such.

Alex was already inside the safe looking at the book. Okay so more than I knew the pass code, but that’s because Alex is in my head 100% of the time. If I’m in range he’s in my head. Mostly because of Cass, but that’s the hovering and over protectiveness going on. Not that he could have done anything against the demon, but he was still that guy – the man, the protector, my man and my protector. He said he was only living with me until I got back on my feet. And then it was because of Cass.

He’d been a god send when it came to the little girl’s powers. Being around Venatori she wasn’t taught how to shield as well as she should have, nor the proper etiquette and number uno why Alex was in my head. You talk to much. Alex said in my head.

“Yeah in my head maybe,” I said out loud and Alex laughed.

“Cass will learn. Before school starts in September. You are putting them in public school right?” Alex asked. “I thought that’s what we agreed on.”

“It is what we agreed on. All six of them would go to public schools and we’ll handle their training here for the supernatural side.”

“So these tutors?” Alex asked.

I shrugged. “Dorian sent them, I can only assume he thinks we are going to keep them here. The only one who might need to stay is Hunter. Until we can get a handle on his dreams and his sight, he can’t be around that many kids at one time.”

“You did it,” Alex said.

“I grew up around the Venatori. I only had to deal with my vision, not what everyone else was doing. Hunter doesn’t see the world like you or I. He doesn’t hear the world like Cass. It’s an onslaught of hallucinations and whispers that become full fledged dreams at night. And Matt can’t stay with him all the time.”

Alex nodded and held out a hand. “He’ll figure it out. If he’s anything like his dad, he’ll be just as strong.”

I took Alex’s hand and he pulled me towards the book, I ran my fingers over the embossed letters and smiled. “I just wish there was something like the bracelet that could help.”

As I spoke the book got warm under my fingers and I jerked my hand away and it flipped open to another page. Alex was already taking a step back, he was leery of the book and I didn’t blame him. I looked down at the pages that were open and started reading. It wasn’t like reading words, more like it spoke to me in my head. I couldn’t tell you what it translated to I just knew what it said and I hadn’t been able to read anything of real import until now. “It’s a rune to protect Hunter.”

I blinked at the pages and Alex asked sceptically, “It specifically says that?”

I shook my head. “No. The rune is called a seer stone. But it doesn’t allow the user to see the future, or past, it focuses the energy a user has so that it can be called at will instead of all the time.” I laughed flatly. “My dad has this symbol tattooed on his upper left arm. The fucking Venatori do this. Why didn’t they help Hunter?” I growled.

“You want your son to be marred against his will?” Alex asked.

I turned to look at him and frowned. I hadn’t thought about it. I hadn’t asked for the tattoo, did I need it? Not really, but this could help Hunter. I smiled at Alex. “So we don’t make it permanent. For now we can do it every morning. We’ll get a metal bracelet made like this. Imbue it with the same magics I have in mine and as long as the metal always touches his skin it should work. Does that sound reasonable, and if Hunter decides one day he wants to mark it on his body then he can.”

Alex smirked at me. “Do you solve every problem?”

I pulled my love close and kissed him long and deep and felt the warmth of the book glowing next to us. I nodded to answer his question. “Yeah, but we should probably leave now.”

Alex shook his head. “No, not yet.” He pressed a kiss to my lips and ran his fingers over the glowing book. “It always lights up like this when we are … ” And now my love was afraid to say sex so I just let it go and waited for him to finish his train of thought. “It responded to your question and you can’t read it all the time I think it’s based on your needs. Like an extension of you. I can almost read its mind, but it’s not quite human, but it reads yours and I can read it with you in your head, but I can’t for the life of me see any of it now.”

“So you are saying it was meant for me?”

Alex shrugged. “I think we need someone older and wiser to tell you more about this book.”

I laughed. “I’m about to meet some of the oldest vampires in the known world so I guess I can ask them if they know anything.”

Alex nodded and looked at his watch. “I should go meet Benj, we still on for lunch.”

I pressed a soft kiss to Alex’s lips and moaned softly. “You betcha. I’ll bring groceries by a little early so that I’m not cooking while we have time to spend together okay?”

He nodded and we walked out of the vault locking it behind us. Vin followed me to the elevator and was on the phone as we rode it up to our living quarters so I could grab my shoes and things before being a real boy who had no job. Vin was likely telling Ant we were almost ready to go do the Council thing.