The Vampires #2: Heroux and Odette

Chapter 35 (Odette): Mine Alone

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

True to his word, Heroux came to me and knocked on my door at ten that evening. His words to me on the stairs were still echoing in my head even though it was several hours later. They wouldn't stop replaying, though, nor could I forget the admiration in his eyes.

If there is a more beautiful heart than yours, I've yet to encounter it.

I opened the door to a more casual Heroux than I had ever seen outside of him being naked in his bedroom when we fed and released. Now, he was shirtless and wearing nothing but thin grey sweats, his tanned torso set off perfectly against the paleness of the material. His slightly red eyes darkened when he saw me, the Hunger wanting blood and sensing it was close.

Thump thump thump

My heart started pounding, an evolutionary development to draw the Hunger closer so it would drain the excess blood in our veins.

"Would you like to go into my room or stay in yours?" he asked me, his deep voice lower than usual. The Hunger saying hello.

"Yours." I'll never be able to settle down to sleep if my bed smells like you, like our release.

We walked across the hall to his room, and he closed the door behind us, then crossed his arms over that incredible chest. 

"We have some things to discuss before I feed, Odette."

I crossed my arms back. "Such as?"

"First," he said gravely, "I want you to know I ordered an autopsy on the Vautour and Basse because I wanted answers for you. I suspected, but had no proof, that there was something off about them. The medical examiner discovered that the Hunger portion of their brains was not as developed as it is in most vampires. It was nowhere near the size it should be. I suspect that's why the Vautour didn't protect his young as most normal vampires would, why he could even threaten to not feed from your mother and deprive you of the protein you needed to develop in the womb."

"I've never heard of such a thing."

"He was defective, as was Basse, and although rare, it does happen, but our kind have a way of culling that weakness out. I'm glad to say, he is ended and his line of males with him, for that sort of defect is passed directly through the males, the doctors told me. He visited unspeakable pain on you and plotted against you because he was very much lacking as a vampire. You noticed he never begged for his daughters' or son's lives today, or even his blood-bonded lady's. That shouldn't have happened but his Hunger was weak, and in turn, he was weak when it came to protecting his offspring. Hundreds of years ago, that would have gotten him and his young killed. Today, although we're more civilized, that can have some drawbacks as it allows weaker vampires to exist. I suspect you were singled out because his wife led the charge against you, and he allowed it because he was pathetically weak, as both man and vampire."

This unexpected knowledge explained so much of the treatment I'd received. It didn't make it any easier to accept, but it helped me understand that it wasn't me. It was an inherent weakness in the Vautour and Basse.

Heroux tipped my chin up, and his eyes burned redder than I'd ever seen them. "As a female vampire, you can only imagine the primitive surge that goes through a male and his Hunger at the thought of something threatening what is ours. I would defend you and our child with my very life, Odette. Even the thought of you carrying our young riles up my Hunger, and we would kill anything that we saw as even a potential threat to you without hesitation and without remorse."

I closed my eyes at the image of carrying Heroux's baby and stepped back from his hand holding my chin.

"Next, Odette, I'd ask why you gave Priscilla permission to say good bye to me, after I gave explicit instructions that she and her brother were to go without a good bye."