Change is sweeping through the world, as humanity fights for autonomy, discord tears apart the foundations of the vampire order, and dhampirs return to the world after centuries of war between two powerful peoples. Dhampirs, creatures known to heral...
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"I want to be a Sol," three and a half feet of white-haired, blue-eyed terror said to him.
"Then be a Sol," Neil said, lifting his attention from the papers he'd been signing for the mage-vampire agreements. They had a lot of work with the budding relationship between humans and their newly-discovered, blood-thirsting neighbors. Little time and patience was left for his spoiled daughter.
Isis puffed out her cheeks when Neil dead-eyed her, clutching Ares' vest where she sat up in his arms. Neil had learned that no amount of pandering pleased her. While Isis had inherited his white hair, it rolled in gentle curls to her shoulders, weaving as Silvia's did, and those obstinate murky eyes belonged to his mate.
The attitude was Ares' and Tala's.
Isis had been born with all the traits of a vampire, and women were rare in their society, so his best friend and first general had spoiled her rotten. Dhampirs grew and learned so fast that it was impossible for Silvia to even out Isis inflated ego when she was busy with the mage order too. They should have gotten better babysitters than a desert pyro and a stiff, culturally-outdate war general.
There had just been so little time to do so. Dhampirs were like caterpillars, one day tiny and adorable and the next running around and biting anything with a pulse. Isis needed constant companionship to keep her fangs to herself, but her urges weren't crazed like a fledgling vampire. She just enjoyed the taste. Neil ruffled his long white hair as his daughter grumbled in Ares' arms, and Neil glanced up to his general.
Ares averted his gaze and his frown set deeper in his face. They'd had a discussion this morning about how he should cut his hair, and Neil hadn't agreed. It was to his mid back now and made him look more like Vincent, which in turn made some of the older blood slaves they kept around uncomfortable. It made their allies uneasy, his general uncomfortable, and Damien grimace the more he grew into his father. They acted like four inches of hair differentiated him from a tyrannical, well-dead ruler. For a while, he'd kept it just at his shoulders, but with the constant work of caring for his children, his people, and the new budding world, he just hadn't the time nor desire.
That and he'd liked his father. Long ago, before vampire blood had corrupted him and taken his wife, Vincent had been a loving caring father. Fear and power had turned him into something else, and after his passing, his father had crawled up from the depths of the void to reconcile with him, to apologize though it meant little. There wasn't more his father could do as nothing but an essence in the void but give sentiment.
Neil had been unable to talk about the message Meredith had given him with Damien or Ares. He doubted either would understand, and with children who grew a year in a month, Neil was quite distracted.
"I'll really do it," Isis said, and Neil sighed as he met his daughter's despairing eyes.
He didn't know what she wanted. He never knew what she wanted.
