‘So what made you change your mind?’
‘You did,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘After the phone call from headquarters, I immediately hopped on a plane to Corsica with Vincent. We needed him to fabricate documentation that would allow you back into Australia. We had not made the decision whether or not we would adopt you yet, but we still had to at least go through the motions for the sake of our positions with the IMI. I know that sounds terrible,’ he said, looking at me apologetically, ‘but until we met you for ourselves, we just didn’t know.’ He paused again, looking to Susan for reassurances. She urged him to continue.
‘But when I saw you for the first time, I couldn’t look away. You were so beautiful, Elena—you still are, even more so than a regular girl of your age—but there was more to you than that. When I looked into your eyes for the first time, I knew then and there that I had to take you home with us. I knew that you would be a part of my family no matter what because we all need you.’
‘Need me?’ I repeated with suspicion. ‘Why the present tense all of a sudden?’ He shook his head, eyes suddenly wary and fingers twitchy. ‘Umm, yes,’ he reconsidered. ‘We need you as a part of our family.’
The warning look Susan gave him meant he’d probably just lied. I thought about pursuing it, but decided there would be no point. If he was lying about the original intentions for taking me in, then he wasn’t about to come clean now.
I looked at Susan, shifting the subject slightly. ‘Did you feel the same way about taking me in?’
Her tension eased and she smiled, shifting her gaze over to Lucas briefly before meeting my eyes again. They lacked the warmth they’d contained only seconds previously when looking at Lucas. ‘Having you as a member of our family is for the greater good.’
My eyes narrowed at the slightly mechanical response—again with the present tense, as if I still had some vital role to play.
She laughed lightly and glanced at Lucas again. He was still staring moodily at the coffee table and kicking the wooden legs with his feet, but there was no denying the chill that swept across her face when she focused back on me again.
‘And Lucas,’ she continued, looking back at him again with what appeared to be a flicker of disappointment, ‘he loved you from the moment he met you. He followed you around everywhere, from the time you could crawl until the time you could run. He shared all of his toys with you and never let you out of his sight. If you hurt yourself, cried, or were upset because we had growled at you, he would always be right beside you, defending you.’
I looked at Lucas with new eyes. His face was now flushed, completely red with embarrassment.
I didn’t let my gaze linger upon him because the attention was obviously embarrassing him. Instead, I promised myself that I would lighten up on him a little bit, and maybe try to stop calling him a dumb ass all of the time.
Suddenly realisation dawned. Some very vital information was being left out of the puzzle. ‘Okay hang on a second,’ I said, my attention directed at George, holding my hands up in front of me. ‘We need to back up a little bit. You both at, one time or another, have told me that my mother died in a car crash shortly after I was born. If that was true, then why were there Protectors present at my birth? And why were you receiving phone calls from the IMI only hours after I was born? I’m fairly certain that, just after giving birth, my mother would not have gotten into the car and popped down to the shops for some groceries while she left me in the care of Protectors. My mother didn’t die in a car accident at all, did she?’
‘No.’
‘Then I have to ask—is she actually dead? Or did the IMI just decide that they knew what was best for everyone and fabricate a story for their own benefit?’
Susan shook her head sadly. ‘No, Elena, I’m afraid that your mother did in actual fact pass away. But you are correct. She did not die in a car accident. She died from severe blood loss. She was attacked by a vânâtor.’
‘So why lie about it? I would have understood.’
She tapped a fingernail against her teeth and looked over at George again. ‘I’m not sure how to answer that.’
George stepped in. ‘You were seven years old when you first realised that you were not a true Manory. You took one look at yourself in the mirror and then another at the rest of us and then cleverly pieced it together yourself. This was on top of the fact that every time you hurt yourself you’d self-heal. Your powers of regeneration were certainly getting difficult to explain away.’ He sighed. ‘It was at that time we decided to explain the details of our adoptive arrangement to you, which you accepted rather easily. It didn’t seem to bother you that we weren’t actually your parents. It was almost as if you already somehow knew the truth and that you had just been waiting for someone to give you the details.’ He shook his head. ‘Your only request was to know where your mother and father were. How were we supposed to explain to you that your mother was murdered by a hungry werewolf and your father was a fly by night vampire? Certainly not at such a young age.’
Point taken.
‘What about my father? Do you know where he is?’ I continued.
‘No,’ George answered quickly. ‘No one knows who your father is, Elena. Your mother never mentioned him to anyone on the Island before she died. She was a very private person, according to the records.’
‘You have records about this?’
‘Of course we do. We have to keep records for future generations of Protectors.’
‘I want to see them.’
‘That’s not possible, Elena,’ George murmured. ‘We aren’t even supposed to be revealing any of this to you. You weren’t supposed to know that you were going to become a vampire, but your incessant questions regarding the taste of blood and your macabre desire to see how many times you could injure yourself before you didn’t heal again changed all that. That’s when we integrated you into the IMI and told you that you were going to be a vampire. For some strange reason you’ve always known that you were different and very accepting of that fact, but that didn’t make you ready to hear the truth. But you’re too damn inquisitive for your own good.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said angrily, a hint of sarcasm marring my voice. ‘Forgive me for wanting to know my past, and who I am. I’m terribly sorry if I’ve disrupted any plans that you and the IMI had worked out for me.’
George bowed his head. Susan leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Elena,’ he started. ‘That was not how I intended for that to sound. I simply meant that your curiosity and desire to defy seems to be what lands you in trouble.’
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have anything particularly pleasant to say.
‘So why you?’ Lucas mumbled, finally looking up from the table, glancing at our parents. ‘I mean, out of all of The Protectors, why send Elena to Cairns? Why didn’t they send her to Bucharest, which is nearer, to train and live at headquarters?’
They suddenly both looked uncomfortable. ‘Elena was sent to live with us because it was as far away from Europe as possible. Headquarters knew that we already lived here with a few other Protectors, so it seemed like the most logical choice to place her. Australia has always remained fairly absent from the intrusion of both vampires and werewolves, being so isolated.’ He coughed and looked into Susan’s eyes.
‘But why did the IMI need to do that?’ Lucas continued. ‘Elena’s going to be a vampire. Protecting her from vânâtors I understand, but other vampires? That doesn’t make any sense to me.’
‘Because none of us had a clue as to how either species was going to react to her.’
‘Why should that matter?’ I asked, still a little irritated.
‘Because what is in your blood could change everything.’ He glanced over at Lucas and then looked back at me.
I suddenly had the feeling we were having two conversations—the one that we were saying out loud and the one that Susan and George were having inside their heads. And the way that they kept looking between Lucas and me was odd.
‘What is it that’s in my blood?’
Another emotionally charged look passed between Susan and George.
‘Oh come on, you’ve come this far. Just spit it out.’
Lucas gave me a sideways look and touched his fingers to the top of my hand. He squeezed gently. His gesture was heartfelt and reassuring, and I found myself warmed emotionally by his desire to comfort me. I became aware that, suddenly, I was calming down, my anger and frustration for our parent’s distinct equivocation ebbing away.
George cleared his throat, reclined backwards into the sofa and placed both hands stiffly on top of his knees. ‘Perhaps I need to start the explanation back at the beginning. It may help you to understand why you are so unique.’
‘I’m ready when you are, George.’
He frowned at my tone, but continued nevertheless. ‘To be truthful, we do not know too much about your mother. According to the records, she showed up one day on the Island, looking for lodgings. She was at least six months pregnant and looked in relatively poor condition. Her clothes were tattered and carried nothing on her except the clothes on her back and a small wad of cash. Now, on Corsica there is no branch of the IMI but there were still three Protectors living there. One of them ran an estate agency, took pity on her plight and offered to lease his converted garage in exchange for her helping to clean some of the vacated rental properties. Just as she did not know that Olivier was a Protector, Olivier did not know that she was pregnant with a vampiric child. It was purely by coincidence that your mother and The Protectors crossed paths. According to the records, she was extremely diligent with her work, pleasant enough to get along with, but never went out of her way to speak to anyone or make friends. She was quiet, reserved and preferred to keep to herself. The only thing that anyone knew about her was her name … Elena. We just thought it would be nice to honour her memory in some way given what she went through—’
‘What do you mean what she went through?’ I asked. ‘Are you referring to her being attacked, her pregnancy with me, or whatever relationship she must have had with my father?’
‘The night that your mother was killed,’ George continued, ignoring me, ‘a Vânâtor had snuck its way onto the island. He’d seen your mother walking alone on a path near the ocean, out for an evening stroll, and chose that moment to attack her. Olivier, The Protector who had housed your mother, could hear her screams coming from the pathway near his home and went to investigate. He saw your mother being viciously clawed at and drained of blood by the Vânâtor. He took immediate action, hurtling the Hevannatara curse at the beast. It dropped to the ground like a stone, trapping your blood deficient mother underneath him. Olivier stabbed at the beast until he knew it to be dead. When the beast no longer grunted, no longer breathed, Olivier rolled the Vânâtor away. He quickly pushed the carcass into the ocean below and then began to tend to Elena.’
‘So she was still alive at this stage?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, but there was blood everywhere and Olivier had no idea if it was hers or the Vânâtors’.’
‘Why should that matter?’
‘The explanation is coming, Elena. Just be patient for a little while longer.’
I nodded reluctantly. I wanted the answers right now.
‘Olivier began to call for help. He was sixty years old and in no shape to carry Elena himself to a hospital and, unfortunately, his home was also relatively secluded from the main town. No one lived close enough to hear his calls for help.’
‘So what did he do then?’ Lucas asked.
‘Well, he had every intention of running to get aid, but Elena grabbed him by the hand and made him stay with her until the end. She gripped him tightly and made him promise that no matter what happened to her, he would protect her baby.’
‘She said that?’ I asked quietly.
George nodded. ‘She made him promise that no matter what you looked like or what you might try to do, he was not to let harm come to you, because you were going to be an innocent child that would eventually tread a path that could change the fate of everyone.’