Castle Vitale

Part 4: Captives

DRAKE POV

"You are awful!"

I turned at the sound of Darius's clipboard slamming on his desk. Oh, I knew this was coming and I didn't care. "Calm down, Darius!" I laughed. "Is she bitten? Broken? You're such a..."

"Doctor, Drake," Darius moved over to me and stood. "I am a doctor! You worked her up so much I will have to wait for some of the tests I need to run!"

"So she didn't give you blood--willfully?" I chuckled. "You're losing your charm, old boy!" I took  a moment, and smiled deviously. "You could bite her--"

"No." He ran his fingers through his hair, a sign of stress.

"What's got you so worked up about this--" I sniffed the air. "Ah...pheremones!"

"It's not that--"

"Oh, but it is," I smiled. "Oh, I have waited for this!"

"For what?" he sat at his desk.

"Someone to make you feel like a vampire," I told him, going to his desk. "Someone that calls to that darkness we all have in us, and damn your doctor's oath! May I tell you about her?" He didn't answer. Silent gives consent, I thought merrily. "Her name was Charlotte Edwards. She escaped to Canada years ago, but fell in love with a man named James Scott, a man of rank in the American Army. They fell in love and wed. He rose in the ranks quickly, and became part of the operation we work with."

"Her husband captured psychics for the government to sell to us?"

"That's right," I nodded. "He decided to work against the operation and help his wife help others across the border. He was found out." I shrugged, but then I noticed Darius's look of shock, then compassion. "Good God, kill me, you're such a bleeding heart! These things happen."

"I can understand it, that's all."

"Oh, you mean how your mother died giving birth to you?" I shook my head. "You should be honored! She knew your father was a vampire, and she still carried you to term, and truthfully, we are still trying to figure out why some vampires can conceive and others cannot."

"You saved my neck."

"You saved mine." And there it was. We were best friends who agreed to disagree. We shared ideals of honor, we were both strong, and over the years we grew on each other. I was centuries his senior, after all. But I liked when he made me remember, he was my--what did he call himself--my Jiminy Crickett?

"Keychain?" 

"What?"

"You've had your fun," he raised his eyes to me seriously. "Keychain."

I unceremoniously dropped them on his desk, hoping to damage them. No such luck.

"Thank you." He frowned, pulling them to him, but then did a double take.

"What?"

"That ring," He stared at it on my pinkie. "That's new. Where did you get it?"

"She dropped it, and it's mine." I looked at my new toy.

"She? The one who threw you in the lake?" When I didn't answer, he put his hand out. "Give--"

"Not on your life, Darius, this is mine. This one is mine."

The phrase "not on your life" left little room for argument. I watched his frown deepen, his mouth form into that grim line that reminded me of my father. It always gave me a certain wave of guilt, of hesitation, but in the end, I usually do what I want, with him watching and waiting for me to eventually admit in some form that he was right.  He wasn't this time, I was going to have my fun...until I could get the real thing, the real one...