Blood Isn't Always Thicker Than Water

I blinked and looked at Fallen as if to make sure I was still on Earth. He was picking at the fabric of the armchair. George and Samantha were sitting together, Samantha on his lap, both of them silent. Lady Ivy was glaring sideways at the gently snoring Servant Dude. Monty twitched a little and made a high-pitched noise for a second. I wondered what he was dreaming about. What would a dog dream about, anyway? Chewing bones? Running? Girl dogs? Steak?

Pete sighed and kept going. “King Liam wanted you dead so he could have a clear path to the throne. My dad wanted you gone so he could Guard more efficiently. One less purebred, you know?”

I nodded. Normally, I’d be falling asleep right now. I’d been awake for five days straight, running at hyper-speed with a sleeping Gel Servant on my back. But my sleeping chemicals didn’t seem to be kicking in.

“Anyway. My dad got together with William, and they organized your demise. I’m not sure how many days old you were, but Dad used fairy magic—you’ve come to call it Guardian magic—and took over your father one day. Right in front of your mother’s eyes, your dad dropped your into a river. Your mother was screaming and almost threw herself over the edge of the bridge she was on, into the river, after you. But Dad got her in his binding spell too, and she watched, sobbing hysterically, as your little body drifted down the river.

“Your dad, however, did jump into the river. Cas, his love for you was already so strong—and his willpower was, too, come to think of it—that he broke Guardian bonds. Magical ones.”

I blinked at Pete, then got back to picking at Monty’s toenails. Should I call them paw-nails? But that sounds like a form of animal cruelty.

“However, your dad didn’t get far. Dad doubled his emanation power and recaptured him.”

I was now frowning. “Pete, how the hell do you know this?”

One side of his mouth twitched upward. “I know this because I was there,
Cas. I was almost a teenager. This all happened not long after my twelfth birthday. I had no idea what Dad was doing. I knew he and Grandpa—Peter Pan—could use magic and had fairies visit them frequently, but I had never seen him do something to this scale. I didn’t know about Guardians; I definitely didn’t know ‘vampires’ existed. I just saw the intentional murder of an innocent baby by magical means. I did what my heart told me to do. While everyone was preoccupied and, in the case of your parents, being forced away from the bridge, I jumped into the river and retrieved you. I used what little magic I could with the assistance of an outlawed fairy and basically brought you back from the brink of death.” Pete’s golden honey brown eyes softened. He gazed at me with a look I had never seen before. “Cas… You were such an adorable little baby. I wanted to keep you—the outlawed fairy wanted you too. But he probably wanted to conduct all sorts of experiments on you since he knew you were a purebred ‘vampire’. But I knew I couldn’t do that. Instead, I brought you to a woman whose baby had recently died.”

“Marietta,” I mumbled, now toying with Servant Dude’s hair. It was weirdly silky.

Pete nodded. “I gave you to her, and she brought you up as her own. I’ve got to show you something.” He rummaged in his jeans’ pockets for a couple seconds, then pulled out a folded and worn-looking piece of paper. He unfolded it carefully and handed it to me. “Read it.”

I accepted the scrap and looked inquisitively at it. What on Earth would a Guardian want to show me on a piece of paper? “This is Marietta Carver’s will,” I breathed out. “She left the house to some guy—”

“Her brother,” Pete supplied.

“And all of her money, possessions, and, like, her everything was left to this…Eli Marcus Carver.” I frowned. “Who’s that?”

Pete smirked. “That’s you, Cas.”

“Um, I believe that you’re mistaken,” I began, folding the will again. “I’m Caspian Luther Ross, Prince Caspian Luther Ross.”

Pete shook his head. “That’s the name your birth parents gave you. This is your other name. Marietta’s first child was Elizabeth May, so she shortened the ‘Elizabeth’ to ‘Eli’ and turned ‘May’ into ‘Marcus’. She considered you to be her very own child. Good thing, too. It kept you safe in your childhood. If word had reached vampire ears that a very young boy named ‘Ross’ was up and kicking, it would have eventually reached Liam and the King.

“And, well, your dad died not long after. He was so distraught by your death that he started drinking heavily. His last days weren’t the best, but he found out right before he died that his youngest son was alive. Or so we hope. Rumor has it that William himself told your father while he was on his deathbed—told him that your dad’s good friend, Logan, had located a young boy, and he was unmistakably a purebred.”

I finished folding Marietta’s will and gulped. “Well. Thanks for saving my life, bud. I am forever indebted.” I suck at using sarcasm. I held the will out for him to take.

He shook his head and pushed my hand back toward me. “That’s for you. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“Hey, Petey boy, who’s the vamp?” This little spark of darkness came zipping right into my face. It was roughly the size of my hand, and looked like a man with dark gray skin and black wings and shoulder-length hair in dreadlocks.

I pointed a finger at him. “Is this your outlawed fairy?” I asked, glancing at Pete. The little man had a tiny sword strapped to his slender waist. Oh wow—the “sword” was a sewing needle. He also wore this sash thing and cutoff shorts. Both garments were grayed and filthy-looking.

He had really big eyes.

“You guessed it,” Pete said. “His name is Sacha.”

“Like Sacha Baron Cohen?” Fallen asked. “Brüno and Borat were awesome.”

“Nice to know, Fallen,” George commented, giving him the “you-are-so-insane-I-shouldn’t-be-within-five-miles-of-you” eye.

Fallen nodded to George. “It’s great to be appreciated.”

Samantha rolled her eyes.

Pete started talking to the fairy, who was still right in front of my face, hovering, black-gray eyes penetrating into my own. “Sacha, you remember that kid we saved almost eighteen years ago? The one that was a newborn, drowning in a river?”

Sacha frowned thoughtfully, eyes now trained on the ceiling, tiny hand stroking a nonexistent beard. “Not really…”

“You nicknamed him Fruit Fly.”

“Oh! Yeah, I remember. Why didn’t you say that before? Wait a second… Are you trying to tell me that this big boy here is my little Fruit Fly?” Sacha jabbed an abnormally long finger my way.

“Yes,” said Pete. “Yes I am.”

Sacha drooped and stared slack jawed at me. “You’ve grown up, eh Fruit Fly? And, well, I guess I can’t call you that no more…”

“Why did you name me Fruit Fly?” I asked, struggling to come to terms with the new nickname.

Sacha blinked at me. “Well, that was how big your dick was, ain’t it? The size of your average fruit fly!”

I blushed so much it was ridiculous, and everyone else started laughing. Even Samantha giggled a bit.

Then everyone gasped as something pale flashed out and snatched Sacha right out of thing air. I looked down at Servant Dude, and saw him inspecting the outlawed fairy that he now had caught in his gellified hand.

There was complete silence while Sacha was frozen under the probing, intelligent eyes of Servant Dude. Then, finally, the latter spoke.

“This little bit uh’ filth is pissing me off.” Then Servant Dude frowned. “He’s too damn cool.”

Fallen, George and Pete laughed. Samantha shook her head. I began extracting Sacha from Servant Dude’s grasp.

“You got a name?” Sacha asked while kicking his legs out of the gel.

Servant Dude shrugged, hair behaving like a girl’s. “One maid used to call me Sandy. I had absolutely no clue why… Oh yeah! She told me her sister was named Sandy. I said I liked that name. Then I told everyone to call me it.” He smiled. “So I guess I’m Sandy!”

I groaned. “You’ve such a girl.”

He slapped me gently. “Don’t you go talkin’. You ain’t exactly the epitome of masculine-ness yerself.”

I rolled my eyes. “Point taken.” I then frowned. “Hey… Where’d Lady Ivy go?”

“It’s just ‘Ivy’ now, Cas,” Fallen told me, jumping down from his chair and stretching.

“She went with Hannah and Lancaster to retrieve the contents of Marietta’s will,” Pete said, also standing up. “Cas…we’re signing you up for a Driver’s Ed course.”

I stared straight at him. “Oh hell no.”