Oliver carried her plate away for her when she finished eating and returned to his seat across the table. Leaning back in his chair, that same soft smile on his face he asked, “So, you know Italian too?”

“Si. Mio nonno era italiano.”

“English. French. Italian.” With each language he tapped a finger against the dining table. “You are a child of Saint Tourre. And, by your own admittance, you are a fellow American. Who are you, Estella?”

“I am…my family…” she was stumbling just like on the train. Estella gritted her teeth. “I am the payment of a generation's old debt.”

“You said something about that—about being a payment.”

She nodded. “Oui. My great grandfather is Matthieu de Saint Tourre. He married a woman named Estelle. She was a witch. A great witch. Her family was supposedly ancient and well-respected. ‘Blood of the Gods’ is what they were known as—and a few other families. It was a saying used to describe the older families, mythologizing them. It doesn’t mean anything to people anymore. Or to most people.”

Oliver shifted in his seat, one long leg stretching out, dislodging another chair from the table. “But it might mean something to some people?”

“It might.” She took a slow drink of the wine he brought with the pasta. “But we haven’t gotten there yet in this story. This is only the background information.”

“By all means, continue.”

“Matthieu was human when he married Estella. Together they had six enfants. During the age of Persecution.”

Oliver blew air through his nose in the same way Jacques would say, “putain.”

“In those days, Saint Tourre was different. It was only the village then and Estelle’s family seat. They were easily accessible—no magical boundaries, no formal systems of protection. Back then, the village was protected by vampires who were changed by lots. That’s what happened to Matthieu. His name was drawn.

But he got to stay with Estelle and his children longer than either though he would. He was only human after all. He would have died long before any of them. One day, Estella asked my grandfather to run an errand for her. She needed a special ingredient for an expectant mother. It would take him all day to go and come back but he went. He smelled the smoke long before he saw the village. Homes were trashed and bodies were burning in the street. Including his family. All six children and Estelle were gone.”

“I don’t understand. If his family died, how are you related to Matthieu? What does the story have to do with you?”

“It has everything to do with me.”

“How?”

“Because the youngest girl survived.” Estella leaned across the table, her glass of wine long forgotten. “We don’t quite know how but she did. Matthieu believes that Estelle made a deal with a god, or a demon, something in order to save her youngest’s life. The being accepted the debt and took little Marguerite with nothing but the clothes on her back, the family recipe book to her name, and put some place unreachable by the hunters.”

“Where?” he whispered.

“Late nineteenth century Italy.” This is where the story became more concrete for her. Her grandparents must have told it to her a hundred times, about the girl in the barn and the boy who found her. “She lived in the barn of a family who eventually took her in. She fell in love and married the youngest boy, Timoteo. My grandfather.”

“Did she go back to Saint Tourre? Reunite with her father?”

“No, she never did and we don’t know why. I can only imagine how difficult it was for her.” During her angriest moments, Theodora always reminded her of how hard going home can be after such tragedy. The irony wasn’t lost on her now. Sighing, she continued, “So, they married but wars kept coming to them in Italy. In just a few years they will leave. Jacques will help them out of Europe and she will reveal nothing to him. Not even ask after her dear papa. They will come to America and build a pretty little life with a child who cannot stand them. A child who, with his partner, they did not even bother to name.” She spat the last words. As a child her lack of parents wasn't a problem. But as an adult she couldn’t help but look back and wonder, why? Why? It was the perpetual question of her life.

“My grandparents named me. I am Estella in honor of the mother who saved her and the Italian blood that runs through my veins. But there was still the matter of the deal. Of the debt for Marguerite’s life. Soon enough, things started happening to me. Visions and dreams and visitors. In one of my dreams, a frightening creature told me that “she was the debt, you are the payment.” My grandparents understood it, I think, but they chose not to share their knowledge with me. There was also the matter of the Stranger. A vampire who came to find the blood of the gods.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“What did they do?”

“Ultimately? Nothing. Jacques and I were in the dark when he came to me after they died. It wasn't until Matthieu and Theodora saw the family recipe book that any direct connection to Saint Tourre was made.” The palm of her hand smacked against the wood table top, a note of finality weaving through the air. “This is who I am. The payment. And I am being collected.”

She was tired. She felt ancient. Sagging against the chair, she thought of her grandfather. “I cannot imagine what Matthieu is going through. And the thought of never seeing my family again is unbearable. I don’t know how my grandmother did it. Am I trapped here too?”

“No, you’re not. We’re going to get you back to your family.” She was surprised at the iron in Oliver’s tone and even more shocked to look up and find him walking around the table to her, kneeling at the side of her chair. “That will not happen, Estella. You will go home.”

Looking at him then, it was like an electric current ran between them. She needed him, she realized. “How do you know?”

“Because I will remind you everyday that your family is waiting for you and you don’t seem like the kind of person who keeps people waiting.”

“How do you know the kind of person I am, Oliver?” They still hadn’t broken eye contact. And she knew. He felt that connection too.

She forced her eyes away from his. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe she could break it.

Maybe she wouldn’t have to drag him down with her.

“I just do.”

She wanted to ask him why. To confirm if what she thought was dancing through her veins was doing the same to his, dancing and knotting and forming the most cursed tie, the most beautiful bond.

Instead, Estella went against instinct and pulled away from him.

“Will you tell me more about yourself? Who is Oliver Morris?” She asked as a distraction.

It worked. The spell that held him to her side broke. He straightened and returned to his chair.

“I am a privileged boy from Connecticut. Had two parents with an average and comfortable life in an average and comfortable neighborhood in New Haven. I was an only child and stubborn and maybe more than a little spoiled.” He smiled ruefully at the last part.

“So self-aware.”

“Had a lot of time to think about it.”

“Was it happy, at least? With your human parents?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you were happy?”

He shrugged. “It was a normal life, you know? And my hands were soft. So soft. Not a single rought day touched them. I resented that. It felt like my hands lacked a purpose.”

“In other words, you were bored.”

“Not very dramatic, I know. My father wanted me to go to Harvard but I was even tired of school. Despite my parents ire, I worked night shifts at the lumber mill.

One night, or early morning rather, I fell asleep driving home. I woke up like this. John and Eva found me and decided to save my life. Or curse me, depending on who you ask.”

“Is that why you left them? You think they damned you?” A ludicrous notion if she ever heard one.

“No. I mean, perhaps they did, but they also saved my life. I left because John and Eva forgot to tell me one very important thing—the truth.”

“Which was…” She could not imagine that what they left out could warrant leaving but then again, she didn’t wake up from a car accident as a vampire.

His hands curled into fists on the table. “They told me that we fed on the blood of animals. That if we fed on humans, it would drive us to madness. But that was a lie. We can drink from them, and we don’t even have to kill them to do it. It is the natural order of things.”

Estella pushed her back into the chair, uncertain of what to say. Oliver was still obviously angry at John and Eva. His voice was harder than she’s ever heard it and the low burning Hell fire in his eyes shone like hot coals. It was a ridiculous lie on their part. Surely they knew he would have found out about human blood eventually. Did they value human life so much that they would just lie about it to the vampires they create? Her family was reputedly the most upstanding vampires of the supernatural world and even their palates weren’t clean.

“How long were you with them before they told you?”

“They didn’t tell me. Another vampire we crossed paths with did.”

“I see.” And she did. Or she thought she could sympathize with the lying part.

“You must think I am a jackass.”

“For abandoning an animal diet to hunt humans out of spite? A little bit. For being angry at your creators for lying to you? No.”

Oliver dropped his hand into his hands.

“But I also think you’re very human for it.”

He peered up at her and scowled. “I believe that is exactly what I am not.”

Ah, so he did think he was damned. Estella waved her hand in dismissal, philosophy was never her suit. “Whatever. My grandparents lied to me too, remember? I was angry. I am still angry. I spat on their names and I threw the family book, damaging the spine. I hurt people in my anger too. People who didn’t deserve it.”

“That’s hardly the same, Estella.”

“Hurt is hurt.” But still, she had to know. “Why are you doing it? If there’s another way, why hurt people?”

“This is what I am supposed to be. I am a vampire, feeding off of people is the natural order of things.”

“Is it the natural order of things, or is it how society dictates vampires behave? I’ve read the novels and the legends. You’ve got some great role models if that’s all you know.”

“What do you know?” He hissed. “The Saint Tourre family hardly lives among us.”

“My family has nothing to do with your childish choices.”

“Childish? I’m hunting people that’s—”

“In anger!” She snapped. “At your creators! That’s the definition of childish. Do you think you’re the first vampire in history to react poorly to something their creator told them?”

“Says the woman who doesn’t know how to define herself outside of her family.”

“Says the man who doesn’t know who he is, period.”

And like the adult she is, Estella stomped away from the table, away from him, and away from the whole conversation. If he wanted to be a bastard, he can do so without her help.