Taming A Predator

Chapter 63

Xander's POV:

The meal prepared was delicious. Not 'Lily level' delicious, but reasonable given the fact that it didn't come from her.

Though some of that may have had to do this the almost adrenaline-like feeling coursing through my body at all of these revelations and discoveries.

I was still torn between keeping things professional and not given that we were family.

I felt like formalities were already somewhat out the window and all my questions were gonna sound frantic regardless.

Augustus sat across from me, sitting straight and a bit tense in the silence while I figured out how to approach all of this and in what order.

He picked idly at his food, pushing it around with his fork.

There was just so much I wanted to know. How this all started, how it got to where it was now, how mom tied up in all of this... I guess that order might work.

"So," He perked up at just the single word, looking at me with ready eyes, "This clan is beautiful. Who started it? Was it your Parents or..."

"It was me."

I drew back in surprise.

"It was you?!" I perplexed.

I don't know why I expected this clan to be much older. Passing down leadership at least a few times by now, but no.

A clan in its first generation.

"Well, me and your grandmother, Elenora, but she's Uhm," He paused for a moment, "No longer with us. she passed almost a decade ago."

I felt my eyes widen, my heart sinking despite the fact that I'd never met her.

Sure Augustus looked old, but not old enough to reach a vampire's life span anytime soon.

"I... I'm sorry." I began, but he shook his head.

"She was quite a bit older than me," He continued as if reading my thoughts, "That mixed with the stress of running this place and... she never really recovered from the grief when Caroline left."

Left?!

Okay... we'll come back to that.

"So if you created and organized this place then... Why? What drove you to want to make a place like this?"

He thought for a moment, brows knotted.

I plucked another bite of venison steak in my mouth before he finally began.

"I always believed that there's no one way to live a life that makes everybody happy. Vampires grew from savages over the ages. We learned to tame our instincts, to live lives somewhat peacefully amongst humans. Bloodthirsty creatures trained over millennia to acquire peace within ourselves."

He stopped to take a drink from his glass, then folded his hands on the table to give me his full attention.

"Peace isn't in our nature, not for long periods of time. We can see that with the way we lash out, how our instincts come into play the second we feel too much of any emotion. How we lose any semblance of control during bloodmoons, but otherwise, we manage. We try, but no matter how hard we do, it can get... hard to control. Some choose to bear with it and some choose not to. The latter runs in our blood. It's our nature given that that ferocious parts of us is what we are at our very cores. If it's who we are, then why try to fight it? That was our thought process anyways, back when we started this whole thing. We didn't understand why we had to change our nature when it was always going to be a part of us."