The Vampires #2: Heroux and Odette

Chapter 39 (Odette): Yours

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

*** TW for beating/bullying***

Sometimes life feels overwhelming. 

For most of my life, it had been overwhelmingly bad and ugly. Now, after telling Heroux I was choosing to run to him, I knew I was facing a lifetime of overwhelmingly good and sublimely beautiful because this vampire standing in front of me would make it his life's mission to ensure that.

I knew he would do anything to ensure my happiness. 

After Hugo and I had spent the day at the shelter, before we'd gone home, we'd detoured to Heroux's office. Lord Petit had called me, asking me if I'd prefer to stop by and sign some papers that required my signature in regards to the Vautours' assets or if I wanted him to bring them by the house.

Since Hugo and I were close to the office, I chose to stop by. Newton would know how to accomplish what I wanted done with the limited assets the Vautours owned. We dispatched that business efficiently, Newton understanding exactly what I wanted.

"Lady Alarie," he called to me just before I left his office. "May I bother you for a moment of your time?"

As long as it doesn't involve a discussion about non-traditional uses for sticky notes, yes. 

I'd almost had a fit of the inappropriate giggles when signing the papers because I counted eight different colors of sticky notes neatly arranged on his desk. Then that led to me wondering where the various colors would go on a body, which led to me pondering where pink would go -- and then the poor man probably wondered why signing papers could cause me to blush so violently.

Lord Petit held the back of the chair in front of his desk, indicating I should have a seat. He took the seat next to me, and I realized for a small man, he had a big presence.

"There is nothing I wouldn't do for Lord Alarie, I wish you to know that."

"I know he considers you his best friend, Lord Petit." It had been a question I'd asked Heroux one evening after I'd won our chess game.

"And he is my best friend. I wish you to know that he's shared some details of his reprehensible behavior with you after I pushed him one afternoon as to the reason for his continuously foul mood. I've never seen Lord Alarie so distraught day after day and having not the first clue how to deal with what was happening to him."

I wasn't sure Heroux would thank him for talking about this with me, and Newton, reading my face, held up his hand.

"No, Lady Alarie, that's all I'll say on the subject, I promise. I wish to discuss something else entirely, something only my Aullana knows because of its embarrassing nature, and I wanted to give you context for why I was willing to share this story with you."

He was deadly serious, I could tell, so I simply nodded.

"The family names hold true. Lord Alarie is, as his name suggests, all power. I am Petit by name and also by stature and build. As you can imagine, that often made me a...target in school for bigger vampires. A group of particularly nasty boys in my class seemed to take particular delight in reminding me of my shortcomings, shall we say. They continued to get bolder and bolder each week but I refused to tell anyone. One day after school, the seven of them got me in the alley behind the school and the taunting turned extremely physical. In plain terms, they proceeded to beat me."

Newton took off his glasses and cleaned them with a cloth he'd pulled from his pocket. Not that they needed it, I was sure, but because he needed time to compose himself.