"I can't believe it." I shake my head.
Letting them go?
The thought had never crossed my mind. When I heard the rumors, and then saw him down there myself it had just been so easy to believe the worst of him. And it isn't like he's given me much reason since being here to think anything nice of him.
Letting them go. He rescues them. Those poor people who have no hope to live for, he saves their lives and let's everyone else believe he's an awful person at the same time.
I just stare at him, looking at him through all new eyes now.
"Why?" I finally whisper.
Dalton snaps his head back up and rolls his eyes at me.
"What do you mean, why?" He grumbles, rubbing his arm almost like he's a little embarrassed, why I don't know. "What was the first thought through your mind when you saw them down there?" He asks and I know what he means.
I nod once. "I wanted to be able to set them all free."
"Exactly." He shrugs. "So I do."
"But it's illegal."
He nods his head, looking over at the opposite side of the room from me. "Which is exactly why no one can ever know the truth. I'd be executed on the spot for crimes against the crown. That's why I keep it a secret and let anyone else spread whatever rumor they want."
I walk over to him, not even meaning to and stop right in front of him, looking up into his eyes until he finally meets them. "I would never tell anyone, Dalton." I promise. "You can trust me."
"I know." His words surprise me, and maybe even him.
We both look away nervously.
"How long?" I say and he glances back down at me. "How long have you been doing it?"
His tongue sweeps across his bottom lip and he frown. "Years. Since I got out." He tells me dismissively, clearly uncomfortable talking about any of this.
"Got out?" I furrow my brow. "Get out of where?"
He glares down at me suddenly, like he's angry that I'm making him spell it out for me, but then his expression softens and he looks just as confused as me. "You don't know?" He asks and I shake my head, lifting my shoulders a little. He shakes his head in confusion. "But I thought you...saw."
I purse my lips and blink slowly, momentarily recalling the awful visions of him as a little kids. Those big sad eyes. "I saw you in an orphanage, and the woman who took you." I tell him quietly and he flinches from my words. "And I saw you get jumped by those guys who turned you."
Dalton's eyes shadow over and he walks away from me.
"I guess I assumed you saw everything, and that Pedro would have told you anything else." His voice is a soft murmur. So different from his uniformed brisk tone he usually saves for me, and everyone else for that matter.
"No." I tell him, walking over to him again where he stands by my bed. "I only saw snippets of things and Pedro isn't the type to tell stories that aren't his to share."
"Regardless," He sighs. "It's the past. It doesn't matter anymore." He lowers himself to sit on the foot of the bed, his shoulders slumped forward, breaking his rigid stance.
Slowly I slide up next to him, sitting where our shoulders touch and lean forward to look at him. "It looks like it still matters to you." I whisper. "Please tell me?"
I expect him to rebuff my question, to shy away from my closeness, and to tell me to mind my own damn business, but instead he rubs his jaw and sighs, staying in place.
"Your mom and I have a lot in common." He says after a few minutes of silence. "The woman you saw in your vision, the one who took me," his voice is so low I have to strain my human ears to hear. "I remember thinking she was an angel who came to recue me. One like I'd been praying for for years there. I thought my prayers had finally been answered." He shakes his head at himself. "I'd finally been good enough for my luck to change."
"Dalton," I whisper his name, my heart aching for him, but I didn't know what else to say.
He shakes his head a little, the slightest of a movement. "She took me to a feeder school." He tells me and I hear my own gasp. A feeder school just like mom. "I believed it all. I really thought that I had been so lucky to have been chosen." He laughs without any humor. "I went from that...terrible place I was in before, to this new place where I got fed three times a day, got to go outside, got to study and learn...for me it really was like I'd been saved. I even had a certain handler while I was there that I looked at like a father figure. He was tough and harsh, but I knew he cared...at least I thought so." He balls his fists in his lap on top of his knees, his knuckles stretching stark white. "I thanked god every damn day for choosing me to be so lucky." He scoffs. "I was an idiot." There's venom in his voice and I can't stop myself from grabbing one of his balled fists and forcing it open until he relaxed it, letting me lace my fingers through his and I held tightly to his arm with the other hand.
"You weren't stupid, Dalton." I try to make him see. "Everyone falls for it."
He shocks me by turning his face to mine, his eyes so vulnerable I almost look away under the pressure. "Not like me." He sighs. "I had this whole idea built up in my mind of how my life was going to be...But then my eighteenth birthday came around. I knew something was up because even my favorite handler was being weird with me when he walked me out to load me up on the busses." He looks away from me again, but he doesn't let go of my hand. "We pulled up here and the second the doors of the bus opened I started throwing punches." He laughs a little to himself. "It took two men to get me under control. Which at the time I was proud of, but later found it only put a target on my back and made me less desirable apparently. When it came time for the auction no one wanted me because they all thought I'd be too hard to break to submission."
My hand tenses in his and he glances over at me out of the corner of his eyes.
"Wait, so you're saying you were auctioned off?" I clarify.
"Not everyone has a charmed a life as you." He snaps and I duck my eyes.
"Dalton..."
"No, I'm sorry." He says quickly, before the insult even had time to land well. "It's habit."
I purse my lips and narrow my eyes. "Being an ass is a habit?" I roll my eyes.
"Yeah, well, it kind of has to be." He looks down at our hands and I squeeze his arm gently.
"That must be awfully lonely though," I whisper. "blocking everyone out like that."
His eyes find mine. "It's better this way."
"For who?" He looks away at my question and I somehow feel cold without his golden fiery eyes on me. "Ok, I'm sorry, I won't get too personal."
To my surprise he looks back and smiles, a sight I never thought I'd actually see full on in my whole life, much less directed right at me. It was jarring. "For some reason I don't know that I believe you." He shakes his head and then goes back to his dark story. "Anyway, the undesirable from the auction immediately get sent down to slave bay."
I drop my jaw and my mind screeches to a loud halt.
"Wait, you were a slave?"
I can't picture it, Dalton behind that glass.
He nods once, looking back down at his knees. "Yeah, but they didn't get to use me that way very often. I was never cooperative and I'd fight them at every single turn, so eventually they came up with a new ploy for their little pet." His tone is angry again and I don't know if I miss the softer one, or if I'm glad he doesn't sound sad anymore. "At the time there were certain keepers down there that were running underground fight matches. Like literal fucking gladiators of their own." He snarls under his breath. "I never raised a fist to another human, and I'd take the beating instead, but I would challenge them."
My eyes widen as I try to imagine it. "A human fighting a vampire?"
He laughs a little again. "I never won, but I held my own enough to make it entertaining." He explains. "I've always been strong and had a mind for fighting. It's just come naturally to me."
I have about a trillion questions bubbling around in my head but finally the big one comes out. "So how does one go from being a blood slave in underground cage matches to being the next in line for the throne?"
Dalton sighs, his mask of uncaring and usual formality slip back into place as he slowly releases my head and stands from the bed. "That's enough story time for today." He mutters.
I am just about to object and insist that I have to know more when there's a knock on the door and Fallon and Lance walk in. Lance comes directly to me, wrapping his arms around me, while Fallon stops just inside the door, looking over at Dalton. "She's fine." She tells him softly.
I can't believe I'd forgotten about Eyan.
That backstabbing little blood slut. I wish I could just-.
"I'm so glad you're alright." Lance's worried voice breaks through my annoyance at Eyan and her betrayal and I hug him back.
"Hey, I'm fine." I tell him and he leans back to kiss my forehead and then reaches for my hand. I catch Dalton watching from the corner of my eyes and there is no hiding his annoyance at Lance. The only thing I'm not one hundred percent sure of is if he's just annoyed with Lance in general, or if it could possibly have to do with me.
"Thank goodness." Lance nods. "Come, Pedro wants us all back in the suite."
Fallon and I follow Lance and Dalton into Pedro's suite and we find him sitting in his big recliner, blank staring at the opposite wall.
"Hi, Pedro." I say softly and he turns slowly to look at me, his expression totally spent.
"Hello, darling." He sighs.
I walk over and sit on the arms of his chair and put my arm over his shoulders, letting him know I'm here for him.
He smiles once at me, patting my knee and then looks over me to Dalton.
"We are going to have to address this head on." He tells him, exhaustion in his voice. "Tommy is, was, too high profile to be swept under the rug. There's going to be fallout from this."
Everyone stares down and my eyes catch on the papers about the upcoming summer solstice again. "What if..." I murmur, the idea playing in my mind. "This ball is a pretty big deal, right?"
"This biggest celebration of the year." Pedro nods. "Why?"
"So we would be looking to protect it at all costs, right?" I prompt, but no one seems to be following. I walk over and scoop up the papers, holding them up. "The ball is coming, and a high profile human teen was just kidnapped from right under our noses." I say. "Like you said before, Tommy's family won't let this go quietly, and we need a way to up security without out spooking our subjects."
Dalton crosses his arms slowly, tilting his head to one side. "What are you getting at, Rose?"
"We blame it all on Tommy." I explain. "I know that sounds bad, but think about it. What better excuse do we have to add extra guards, or even limit who can enter Castrum than using a high profile human disappearance as the rouse for us to protect all of our people?" I set the papers back down. "You make an announcement, which I'm sure Tommy's family will appreciate. We tell the people about his being kidnapped and that due to this event so close to time for our Summer Solstice celebrations we will be upping our security to protect our humans here. We can even add on how this is bad publicity right before the ball to have an issue in the West Wing that is so notorious for being completely safe." I'm talking so fast I'm nearly out a breath but I don't even care. "We get the word out there to be on guard and what to look for, we get to screen people coming and going from here using the rouse of looking for Tommy's attacker as a cover, and all the while the vampires here will have no reason to worry or cause a panic because we make it look like it's an issue for the humans which if we're being honest they don't care that much about anyway."
Lance and Pedro smile, Dalton nods.
Pedro is out of his seat and scooping me into a hug in a flash. "That's just crazy enough to work."
"You really think so?" I ask, suddenly feeling self-conscience about the whole thing.
"Darling, yes." He taps my nose and then kisses it too. "Your parents would be so proud." He adds and I blush under the praise. "Plus," He says excitedly, spinning away from me. "This gives me the perfect excuse to bring you up from West Wing. I can't very well keep my human niece down with the humans when there is a threat to them." He grins cheekily. "You can take my bed."
I shake my head. "No way, Pedro." I tell him. "You're the king, I'm not making you sleep on the couch." I laugh. "I'll take the couch, I don't care."
"I'm fine with a pallet on the floor." Fallon adds with a shrug of her shoulders.
Pedro narrows his eyes at me. "I won't hear of it." He dismisses me. "No princess of mine is sleeping on the couch."
"Pedro," I roll my eyes. "You do realize I've slept on the floor before."
"Never again." He says in a final tone.
"You can have my room."
Every single pair of eyes, mine especially, flock over to Dalton where he's leaning against the wall.
"What?" Pedro asks him and Dalton shrugs.
"I don't mind." He says in a disinterested voice. "It's more hers than mine anyway."
"That's not true." I object. "Besides, I am not kicking you out of your own room."
"I know you're not, I'm volunteering to leave mine so that you can stay there." He fires back just as quickly.
I open my mouth to say more, but Pedro holds up a hand.
"Very well then, it is settled." He smiles happily. "Rose you're in Dalton's room, Fallon you are welcome to my couch, Lance stay with your men and get them ready to pull extra duty hours, and Dalton I will get you a stateroom fixed up."
Everyone shuffles around, but I walk over to Dalton.
"You really didn't have to do that, you know?"
He shrugs it off. "I don't mind, Rose. Just don't go rifling through my underwear drawer or anything else weird." He winks. An actual wink.
"Oh my god, Dalton whatever your last name is, did you actually just make a joke?" I fey shock and he just shrugs one shoulder and half smiles.
"No," He tilts his head before turning. "I really mean don't mess with my underwear."
I watch in amazement as he walks off to join Pedro and Lance in the study.
Fallon loops her arm through mine, watching him go too and we both almost giggle when he glances back our way.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you and Dalton just have a pleasant exchange?" She whispers to me.
I nod and laugh. "I think hell just froze over."
"Um, yeah." She nods too. "Someone better go check the sky for flying pigs."
I pull my eyes away from him and look over at Fallon. "I might just wear him down yet."
"I think you already have."