“Amaya,” Jeramiah called.
A witch appeared from nowhere and stood by my nephew’s side. She was tall and thin, with sleek black hair and sharp, elongated facial features.
“Keep me in shadow,” he ordered.
She took the umbrella from him and held it up over him.
Now, with both hands free, he bent down and gripped Aiden by the throat. Aiden—his eyes still drowning in mourning over the loss of his lover—grunted, unable to fight back, as Jeramiah lifted him up and pinned him upright against the side of the rock.
“No!” Sofia gasped. “Let go of him!”
Jeramiah turned his back on us and I could only imagine the expression on his face as he stared at Aiden Claremont.
Just like Lucas. He never was interested in a fair fight.
The way he was holding Aiden reminded me of the way Lucas had once held Sofia—helpless and pinned up against a wall—while he had assaulted her in my Sun Room.
“Pray tell, vampire,” I spoke up, even as it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain an even tone, “what exactly are you seeking to accomplish by all this? Apparently not a family reunion …”
Jeramiah threw a cold glance over his shoulder at me, and this time, his poker face broke and a scowl spread across his stony features.
I wasn’t sure exactly what was going through his mind as his hold abruptly loosened on Aiden, causing him to collapse onto the sharp rocks, but I was glad that at least I had managed to cause a distraction—however fleeting it might be.
At this point, it felt like I was dancing on hot coals, trying to figure out how to get through to a man I’d never met, going solely by the instincts I had developed while dealing with my brother.
He returned to my side and bent down, his knees jutting out and almost knocking my shoulder. Amaya followed him, continuing to provide shade.
His sharp blue eyes fixed on mine, and I held his gaze, unflinching.
“A family reunion would have been welcome, actually,” he said, in a softer voice than I had expected from him. A voice that didn’t quite match up with the harshness of his gaze. A voice that even quivered, ever so slightly. Perhaps he was not as closed off from emotion as he made himself out to be.
“In fact,” he continued, clearing his throat, “it’s what I had been hoping for the day I discovered that I was not the first Novak to be turned into a bloodsucker.” His jaw twitched. “I suppose you can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that my father had been murdered by a member of my own extended family.”
“You never met your father,” I stated, knowing it for a fact. I was sure that Lucas himself had been oblivious to fathering Jeramiah, and I even found myself wondering whether this young man had been the only child born from one of Lucas’s many old flames. “And you were not present the day he died,” I continued. “Do you know why he was killed? Do you know even the slightest thing about the circumstances of his death? Or anything about who he was during his life?”
To my surprise, a small smile curved Jeramiah’s lips. Not one of amusement, but one of bitterness.
“I know more about my father than you ever bothered to find out,” he said, his voice dropping to a low hiss.
A pain stabbed my chest as Sofia and Aiden’s groans intensified. I didn’t know where all this talking would lead, or how much longer Jeramiah would stand being distracted from what he was planning to do with us, but right now, keeping him in conversation was the only thing that I could think to do.
“Why don’t you enlighten me then?” I said, a part of me genuinely curious as to what conception—or rather misconception—this vampire had formed about my brother.
“It’s a bit late for that now, don’t you think?” he replied. My gut twisted as he stood up. I had been hoping to keep him kneeling down on the ground, away from my wife and father-in-law.
“Jeramiah,” Sofia breathed out, even as her face continued to contort with pain. She would’ve been writhing around by now had she had control of her limbs. “Lucas Novak was a disturbed man.”
To put it politely… I thought.
“We never set out to make an enemy out of him. Since the day I arrived in The Shade, he had it in for me. He murdered an innocent girl who was staying in Derek’s quarters—she was only one of his helpless victims—and he would’ve done the same to me. We never wanted to isolate or cause harm to him. He did both of these things to himself. He was blinded by envy of Derek and—”
“Silence!” Jeramiah’s demeanor had turned to ice. Every part of his body was rigid, and his breathing had become uneven, his chest and shoulders heaving.