Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter Thirty-One

1 "She didn't even complain when I bit her and you chained her up again," Irina told Aro, as she looked out the private jet's oval-shaped window at the clouds below. They'd set out from Volterra almost immediately. He'd filled her in about what that call had been about, and she'd of course agreed to join him on his impromptu trip to the USA.

"That's because I promised that it would only be for a few days," he replied from opposite her. "Now that her powers have been muted, she's remarkably patient."

"It's probably a side-effect of being chained to a wall for six centuries." It was out before she knew it. Being on a human-friendly restrictive diet came with side-effects, such as impaired impulse control. That got even worse if a vampire went on an animal diet, along with the additional stupidity and clumsiness. She glanced at him and made a pained face. "Sorry."

"It's perfectly all right. It's an upsetting notion," he said, and smiled, before looking out the window again. The windows they were sitting by faced south, and since it was around noon over these parts, the sun was shining into the cabin, making what little was exposed of their skin explode in a million sparkles. He held up his hand and beheld it, a thoughtful expression on his face. "You know, I leave the fortress so rarely, I sometimes forget about this. Looks rather silly, doesn't it?"

"It's probably a matter of personal opinion. Some find it beautiful," she said, and looked about the cabin. It was sleek, in beige tones, and very modern. On their side, there were three pairs of leather-covered armchairs around three little mahogany tables. On the other side was a huge sofa, lamps, and a bar that nobody used, among other smaller objects of decoration. All in all, this was the perfect cover, really, for a bunch of immortal people who wanted to travel around the globe, hidden in plain sight. "I've got enough foundation for both of us, should you have forgotten to bring any."

That made him laugh. He dropped his hand to the armrest. "Thank you, but that won't be necessary. Whenever I do venture outside, I take a page out of Demetri's book and go through a pre-travel checklist. No need to commit such a pointless blunder such as sparkling in public. I'd be mortified for the rest of my life, not to mention forced to execute myself."

The mentioning of Demetri's name wiped the smile from her face, despite his light-hearted little joke. She leaned back, crossed her arms, and looked out the window again. All those years, and flying still felt like a miracle of modern technology to her. "I wish things were less complicated...regarding Demetri, I mean. He's only doing what he thinks is best."

"I know," he said, and without seeing his face, she could still tell that he'd grown solemn. "I've known him for a very long time. He's a good person. He always tries to be fair. Unfortunately, fairness isn't always compatible with loyalty."

She let those words sink in for a while. After a minute or so she said, "I really don't know if that's true. What is loyalty worth if it's given against one's own personal convictions? Besides, in this case, the ultimate authority is you. You have the power to decide what is treason and what isn't."

He took his time replying to this, too. "That's why I'm flying to America," he finally said. "There's a reason I rarely leave my home, dear girl. If I'm gone and something happens to either me or Volterra, then there'll be a power vacuum that would probably result in our kind being discovered. It's happened before. Back then, humans were much less capable of fighting us, and even so, they managed to cause us damage. They're ingenious, resilient, and very intelligent. As the times changed, so have our methods. I've never approved of what the Romanians and the Egyptians did – trying to set themselves up as gods, herding humans like cattle, abusing them in every possible way." When she looked at him again, she was almost taken aback by the expression of unadulterated disgust on his face. "Even if we could endure the ages like that, there is no honour in slavery. That is one of the reasons Demetri believes so firmly in our work: we don't kill unless there's no other way. The vampire world needs us."