2. Breakfast Conversations

Angel ran toward the central staircase, hoping to reach it before the vampire and his son got caught in the sunlight that filled the staircase every cloud-free morning. The windows on the second-floor landing overlooked the gardens and the ocean to the east, and the garden was lit golden at the tops of the tallest trees and bushes. The house was tall enough that its shadow cast the front lawn, which faced west, in darkness even as the sun crested the horizon over the ocean.

Ashwin and Leandro were hand-in-hand at the end of the hall before it opened into the staircase and they turned to watch his hurried approach. The light was bright enough that Angel blinked in discomfort as he reached the staircase.

The angle of the rising sun mostly focused on the upper reaches of the underside of the stairs heading to the third floor and the tops of the walls, a few inches from forcing Ashwin to duck. Both were startled at his sudden, rushed appearance from the hall, both dressed for the day already. Ashwin gave him a wide smile in greeting, though his eyes were guarded, and Leandro held tightly to his father's hand and inched a bit behind his shoulder, shy and skittish.

Angel stopped his headlong rush and tied his robe, catching his breath. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. I haven't warded the house for sunlight yet, so I wanted to make sure you could get to the kitchen safely."

"Warded for sunlight?" Ashwin asked, a bit incredulous. He glanced toward the huge windows in the landing, squinting as if trying to see the wards and runes Angel usually deployed in his own home to safeguard his vampire family members. "How do you mean?"

"Oh," Angel took a moment to gather his thoughts. He wasn't sure how to interact with Ashwin or Leandro—they were technically family, but he wasn't sure of them or himself, really. His rage wasn't directed at either of them.

Usually, making windows safe for vampires took meticulous and expensive spells woven into manufactured glass built to filter the radiant magic inherent in sunlight that was inimical to the sentient undead. The glass panes of the Mansion were most definitely not the thick, gray-hued monstrosities frequently seen in buildings used predominantly by vampires, like the Tower.

Angel moved a bit closer so he wasn't speaking too loudly, not wanting to risk waking Ignacio or bothering the newlyweds, who were a few doors down. "I meld the Invitational magics with wards designed to reflect radiant magics, letting UV rays through, but not the radiant magics that burn the sentient undead. Far more effective than the commercial glass available on the market. I crafted it myself to keep my mate safe."

A thin brow went up in surprise, and Ashwin gave him a quick smile as sharp as the fangs on his upper jaw. "A Salvatore to the core, indeed. Are the Invitational magics not strong enough for you to craft such a wonder?"

Ashwin's accent was vibrant and effusive, delightfully crisp, and Angel found himself a bit charmed by the vampire. Not magically—vampires could and did Charm susceptible mortals—but by his manner and speech. Angel had to remind himself what they were talking about.

Angel shook his head once, grimacing a bit. "The Mansion has been empty since…" Angel coughed into his fist, and Ashwin's expression shifted to one of sympathy and understanding as Angel continued. "Daniel lives here full time, now, but…"

"Ah," Ashwin murmured softly. "He's no longer human, so he no longer creates the magic needed to lay the foundation for your sunlight wards. You need a human practitioner who calls this place home to cast the spell."

Angel nodded and gestured to the stairs. The floor of the landing was clear, still in shadow, though the sun was steadily encroaching down the walls, and the ambient light was bright enough that it might be uncomfortable for the vampire to attempt to head downstairs. "The servants' stairs in the south wing are in shadow all day; they should be safe until I can get the windows warded."

Angel glanced at Leandro, making sure to keep his expression kind so as not to scare the boy.

The whole time Angel spoke with his father, Leandro stared with an intensity Angel found a bit unsettling, but the boy didn't bother him. Well, not because the kid was staring outright—Angel supposed if he was Ignacio's son, then that made the boy Angel's many-times great uncle, or something. The boy was a Salvatore by blood, that much Angel knew just by looking at him, never mind how the estate wards had let the boy through the night before without issue. He had the same coloring, set to the eyes, thick, dark hair, and jawline. In fact, he reminded Angel very strongly of himself as a boy at that age. The child was ten or eleven from the looks of it, though Angel was afraid to ask specifically, fearing the answer and the emotions it might dredge up.

"At my age, I'm used to avoiding the sun," Ashwin replied. Angel was not an Anglophile by any means, but he thought Ashwin sounded like the quintessential refined Englishman, despite the family records listing Ashwin as a poor actor from the peasantry in the late 1500s. The records placed him as a native Londoner, too; that part was probably accurate. "It's been a long time since I was in this house—I usually jumped over the side of the stairs to avoid the light instead of making the staff nervous by using their spaces. I told Andie a bit about this place before we came."

Leandro tugged on Ashwin's arm, looking up at his father. "Da, I told you I'm not a baby anymore." It was whisper-yelled in the way only kids were adept at, and Angel's brows went up in amusement when Ashwin exhaled heavily in exaggerated exasperation. The boy spoke English with an accent that mirrored his vampire father, too. It spoke of a life abroad, for the boy to carry his father's English accent.

"Apologies, fledgling." Ashwin ran a hand over the boy's thick black hair, using the vampire term of endearment for a beloved child. "He's recently decided to go by Leo instead of Andie, as he's almost a teenager and teenagers don't have baby names. Andie is his childhood nickname."

Angel took a guess and asked the boy, "Is that because Leo is short for Leandro?"

The boy nodded decisively but didn't answer Angel, instead tugging on Ashwin again. "Da, I want to jump down with you. You said we could."

"No one here but us now if you'd rather take the stairs," Angel gestured toward the opposite hall that connected the other wing of the building to the original main structure that housed the impressive central staircase and foyer. "Hasn't been staff here since, well, you know."

Ashwin hugged his son around the shoulders and gave Angel a soft smile. "I do know, and I am so sorry." He paused, rubbing Leandro's shoulder for a moment, clearly thinking through what to say. "I'd prefer Iggy to be with us when we answer the questions you have, if that's alright."

Angel looked at Leandro for a swift second and nodded, somehow protective of a boy he didn't know existed the day before. A Salvatore was a Salvatore, at least to Angel. And the child was innocent, wanted breakfast, and deserved a life free from the miseries and burdens of adults. "Breakfast is on the agenda, for now. Family meeting after lunch."

Ashwin gave him a grateful smile and a sharp nod, then spoke to his son. "We'll jump down this once. You'll need to run ahead into the kitchen and shut the blinds before I come in to cook breakfast, alright?" Leandro nodded seriously, eyes wide. Ashwin rubbed a hand over his son's head in a loving touch. "Good, then after we eat I'll show you the stairs I'll be using during the day. That way you know what routes to take if you need to find me."

"I'll order some curtains to fit the windows in the landing so it'll be safer going forward," Angel said quickly, not wanting the boy to be kept from his father by the lack of sunlight protection in the Mansion. They needed to find a way to get the sunlight wards in place and soon. "And I'll make sure to close the curtains in the foyer before the afternoon sun lights it up."

The grateful smile on the boy's face was heartbreakingly familiar to Angel, and he took the lance of pain to his heart without giving away anything on his face. Ashwin gently hoisted Leandro up on his hip with one arm, neatly showing off his vampiric strength, and then adroitly jumped over the railing of the stairs heading to the ground floor. The vampire landed lightly on his feet in the shadows near the hall that led to the rear of the house and the kitchen. Leandro giggled loudly, and the sound echoing in the foyer made Angel smile wide in pleased surprise.

Angel listened as Leandro ran ahead down the hall to the kitchen, calling back to his father in what sounded like a fluid mix of Spanish and English as he went about finding all the blinds in the kitchen.

He couldn't recall the last time a child's laughter was heard in the Mansion.

After retreating to his room and getting cleaned up for the day, Angel left Simeon in the main library with a good book. He was thankful that Simeon was old enough, and their mate bond strong enough, that brief exposures to sunlight weren't enough to harm him as he traveled through the Mansion during the day. Simeon was old enough as well that the midday lethargy that affected younger vampires didn't hold him back.

Vampires did not need sleep like humans—Angel was exhausted, both from the wedding and the reception the night before and the long, sleepless hours after his ancestor's unexpected arrival. An hour or two sleeping in Simeon's arms after dawn was only enough to take the heavy edge off his exhaustion, and he hoped for things to remain calm enough for decent rest tonight. Doubtful, but he could hope.

His phone was full of missed calls and voicemails from O'Malley, the detective who was his liaison with the Boston Police Department back in Beacon Hill. The local cops, the forensic crews, and the coroners left in the small hours of the morning after cleaning up the cars and bodies. The Council enforcers failed to stop Ignacio and Ashwin from reaching safety at the Salvatore estate, and battered vehicles and lightning-struck corpses had lined the ditch and service road in front of the Mansion at the edge of the wards.

Angel entered the foyer after one last fond glance at his mate, and he mentally girded himself and dialed O'Malley. The gruff tones of the misanthropic detective came before the first ring even finished on Angel's end. "More dead bodies?"

Angel chuckled soundlessly, shaking his head as he walked slowly across the foyer, heading for the bench in front of the piano, taking a seat, and crossing his ankles, one arm on the closed lid over the keys. "Not unless the locals missed a body in the ditch," Angel replied, though not as snarky as usual. He was too tired. "Just returning your many, many calls."

James O'Malley was a rough man in his late fifties, though far more open-minded than most assumed before getting to know him. He was entirely mundane, not an ounce of magical or supernatural blood in him, and had been a cop since before Angel was born. He was the only person in the Boston Police Department with any kind of common sense in dealing with the many supernatural communities that resided in the Greater Boston area.

"There's some important people who wanna talk to you," O'Malley said, with all the delivery of someone getting the bad news out of the way first. "They're concerned about another Blood War."

Angel sighed quietly, staring at the stone floor, the cool air of the foyer seeping through his clothes. It might be the height of summer, but the majority-stone makeup of the grand entrance kept the temperatures rather chilly. He took his time thinking of a reply, O'Malley patiently waiting on the other end of the line. He heard sipping—O'Malley was a coffee man and went through a dozen cups a day.

"The High Council wants power. And the only way they know how to get it is through murder, coercion, and violence. I will defend my family. My clan."

"That's what the higher-ups are afraid of," O'Malley grumbled, though he was more resigned than judgmental. Angel was well aware of his own reputation. He met violence with violence and never backed down from a conflict. Some old habits were worth keeping.

"Who exactly wants to talk to me?" Angel asked, more out of curiosity than anything else. He wasn't worried about being arrested or charged with anything, not by the humans, at least. Mundane human governments tended to stay out of practitioners' affairs unless humans were in the line of fire. Another conflict like the Blood Wars or on an even larger scale was more than enough to stir the human authorities into taking action. At the moment, it was small-scale actions and silence from the High Council, who had yet to make a public statement, or respond to government inquiries from the U.S. and Massachusetts State Departments.

"Some Feds with fancy badges from some alphabet agencies, and some people from the U.S. State Department," O'Malley replied, and Angel heard the creaking of the detective's chair in the background as O'Malley shifted his weight. "There's a handful of suits in the conference room drinking expensive coffee and shouting into their phones."

"No one aside from you has called me," Angel mused, though that was to be expected. Only a few people outside his family had his personal number, and even fewer would share it.

"A fancy suit by the name of Samuel Kenzie demanded your number and I took great pleasure in telling him to fuck off. I scared the rest into the conference room before I called ya." O'Malley said with glee, his Southie accent in full force. Angel cracked a smile. "Captain wants them out of his precinct. He's not happy."

And an unhappy police captain was probably making all his officers unhappy, too.

"For you, Detective James O'Malley, I'll meet with these suits. Make it clear I won't be making promises—this is just to hear their concerns. Nothing more."

"Good enough," O'Malley said. "Let me know when and where as soon as you can."

"I will," Angel said, and O'Malley hung up without any fanfare. Angel put his phone on the top of the piano and leaned into the priceless antique, thinking about options.

His eyes strayed over the vast emptiness of the foyer, the chandeliers once more dark and pulled up into the rafters, no signs that they were recently lit and in full view for the wedding. Aside from the upholstered benches and heavy chairs pulled out from places around the house, now clustered in front of one of the unlit hearths, and the grand piano where Angel sat, the foyer was empty. Not even a coat rack—though to be fair, he never recalled ever seeing a coat rack in the foyer in his childhood. The butlers and footmen had taken care of all that.

His eyes skipped over the doors nearest to the front door, out of habit, but in his exhausted state, he found himself lacking the energy to pretend the doors were part of the wall.

Three doors marked the core rooms of the Mansion: the main library, the formal dining room, and a slightly smaller room that served as his grandfather's study. The fourth and last was the formal parlor—what his family once called the great room, overlooking the front lawns—used to receive guests in prior centuries and turned into a general hang-out space for more recent generations of the family to use when not in their private quarters.

His grandparents, in particular, spent the mornings having breakfast not in the charming nook in the kitchen, but in the parlor, sitting at a small table for two at one of the grand windows on the far wall that opened onto a stone balcony overlooking the sea-grass dunes and stunted pines past the immaculate green lawns. Angel ate on the run in his teenage years, sneaking late snacks in the kitchen from the indulgent night staff.

He had fond memories of racing down the central staircase, jogging across the expansive foyer, slipping into the parlor, and getting an affectionate scolding from his grandmother for running in the house. A soft kiss on his cheek, the rose perfume in her curly hair staying with him as he got a smile and brief hug from his grandfather, who smelled of tea and leather, before hurrying out the door to do something pressing….

"Angel," Simeon was suddenly standing beside him, and Angel instinctively checked his mate over from head to toe, looking for burns from the sunlight.

Simeon was unharmed, and the faint smile on his lips said that Angel's concern did not go unnoticed. Simeon sat beside him on the piano bench, and Angel moved so he could rest against his mate, head on Simeon's shoulder. The piano was not in direct sunlight, and Simeon was old enough that the indirect light where they sat didn't hurt him.

"I heard your call with O'Malley," Simeon said. Angel hummed, thoughts occupied with haunting recollections and remembered aches. Simeon rested his cheek on Angel's head, arm coming up to wrap around his waist.

"I'll get back to him after the family meeting," Angel murmured. "Things are about to get crazy."

A kiss landed in his hair, making him smile. "Things have been crazy for a while, my love. We're together—it'll be alright."

All the blinds were down in the kitchen, and the recessed lights in the ceiling and under the cabinets along the counters were turned on full. It was still the kitchen of his youth, aside from the new appliances he had put in earlier in the month when Daniel moved into the Mansion.

Seeing Leandro perched on a tall barstool at the island, drinking a glass of milk while his father cooked at the range, made him pause in the doorway, watching. Déjà vu was intense, and he had to look down at the floor to dismiss the images of a young Isaac doing much the same when they were children. Angel was seven years older than his little brother, and the gap kept them from being playmates for most of their youth. Angel had been driven—by expectations from himself and his family—and he had little time for his baby brother when Isaac was Leandro's age. Being the first necromancer in the family since the founder of their line at the height of the Blood Wars meant Angel was destined for battle. His affinity arose at the very tender age of ten, and his training began in earnest at the same time. He rarely had time to spend bonding with his father that wasn't spent on training.

Leandro, while reminding Angel of Isaac, perhaps had more in common with Angel. His affinity was rising, not quite in full bloom, but slowly unfurling like a flower—most affinities came to practitioners in their late teens and early twenties, with twenty being the average. A preteen child coming into a death affinity had a hard road ahead of them, no matter who their family was—and a Salvatore on top of it. Yet here this boy was, enjoying the quiet morning, watching his father cook breakfast. It made Angel feel both nostalgic and a bit happy; a part of him was glad a Salvatore necromancer had the chance to grow up slowly.

As slowly as a conflict with the High Council would allow, at least. Angel was willing to do anything to make sure his new family member got to keep his childhood.

Ashwin clocked him immediately, standing in the doorway from the servant's hall, but said nothing, only nodding politely before returning to cooking eggs at the range. Leandro turned on his stool and shyly waved at Angel, and Angel was knocked from his memories at the gesture.

"Hello again," Angel warmly greeted Leandro, walking into the kitchen and heading for the coffee station on the same counter as the range. The kitchen was quite large—range, dual ovens, broiler, coffee station, double-basin sink on the outside wall overlooking the gardens, the island in the center with another sink, two dishwashers, and lots of seating with bar stools for half a dozen people.

The interior wall was more of a butler's pantry setup, with counters free of the appliances hidden away in the numerous cabinets, along with heirloom china and antique serving sets. The far side of the kitchen had steel tables meant for catering staff and servers to plate and prepare food—the gas range had twelve burners of various sizes, meant to cook food for over two dozen people on any given day. It was the only appliance Angel didn't replace when he updated the Mansion for his former apprentice.

The breakfast nook was on the nearer side of the rectangular room—a place for the staff to sit and eat in between their duties. It was a recessed seating area made of two deep booth benches, a long wooden table between them, the benches covered in thick padding and leather, the table polished to a high sheen and covered in marks from generations of servants.

Angel made himself a cup of coffee, forgoing his usual Earl Grey tea. He needed the extra punch from coffee, running on limited sleep. Simeon entered the kitchen and Angel joined him at the island, both of them sitting off to the side so as not to crowd the boy. When neither Simeon nor Angel made a comment to Leandro about him sitting and waiting for food, the kid went back to avidly watching his father cook.

"Breakfast, Angelus?" Ashwin asked over his shoulder, stirring the eggs in a large skillet. Toast waited on a plate beside the range, already buttered.

"You don't need to cook for me, I can manage," Angel replied between sips of his coffee. "And just Angel, please. Angelus is for people I actively dislike."

Ashwin threw him a sharp, lightning-quick smile over his shoulder before deftly plating the scrambled eggs, turning gracefully on one foot and leaning over far enough to push the plate across the island, sliding it to a perfect stop in front of his son. Without missing a beat, Ashwin found the drawer with the everyday silverware and gave Leandro a fork.

"Por qué papá no come con nosotros?" Leo asked as he dug into the food and shoveled a big bite into his mouth, eating in the way only growing children could. His accent when he spoke was indistinguishable from a native Spanish speaker to Angel's limited experience, and he figured that Leandro grew up speaking it as much as English.

"In English, mijo," Ashwin replied. "Papá has jetlag, and he also hasn't slept in a few days. We're letting him sleep in for a bit."

Ashwin wiped the skillet out with a clean paper towel and returned it to the heat. The vampire went to the huge fridge Angel bought the week before and opened one of the doors, finding the bacon wrapped in butcher paper and the remaining eggs. He then went about finding a baking tray, all with smooth confidence and far too quickly for a person unfamiliar with the kitchen layout.

"Is that Spanish?" Angel asked the boy, though he knew it was, as his own mother had been Spanish and taught him the basics of the language growing up. He rarely had chances to use it, and English was the primary language spoken in the Mansion growing up, despite most of the family being taught Spanish and Italian from a young age.

Leandro nodded enthusiastically while chewing on his toast. "I know Spanish and Italian and English and a little bit of Portuguese and…."

"Chew, mijo," Ashwin chided gently with a fond smile. "Chew and swallow before talking."

Leandro grumped a bit but he chewed his food as ordered, and Angel smiled behind his coffee as he took a sip. "That's impressive, Leo. I know Spanish and Italian too, so if you want to use them instead of English, that's fine."

"Da says my English needs improb…no…" Leo frowned hard, brows lowered as he sought out the word he wanted. "Improvement! I need to improve my English."

"Up until last week we lived in Spain," Ashwin supplied. "And he went to school where English was taught as a secondary language, so he grew up with Spanish first. And Iggy speaks fluent Italian, so we're a trilingual family these days. I had to play catch-up just to make sure my two favorite men weren't riding roughshod over me."

Leo giggled a bit at the gentle teasing from his vampire father.

Bacon on the tray and in one of the ovens, and putting the skillet on low heat, Ashwin went about making more toast and retrieving the various jams and butter as well. He quickly had plates and water glasses sliding smoothly across the marble top of the island, neatly stopping in front of Angel. He was distracted by the near-hypnotic method Ashwin had for cooking, watching the vampire deftly catch toast as the slices sprang up out of the toaster, piling them on a serving platter with butter and jam.

"Papá gets grumpy from jetlag," Leandro offered out of the blue, looking directly at Angel with wide eyes. "Da says it's a human thing, but I don't get it."

"You were practically born traveling, fledgling," Ashwin teased his son as he cracked some eggs into a bowl. "Your father is a bit older, and he didn't fly on a plane across multiple time zones until the 1960s."

"Papá is super old," Leandro said like he was sharing a secret. His eggs were gone and the voracious bite he took of his toast reminded Angel of Isaac eating everything when he was a teenager.

"I'm centuries older than your father," Ashwin said with a chuckle. "And stop calling him old, he's as spry as the day I met him. You'll make him grumble about the silver in his hair again if he hears you."

The way Leo grinned at his father's words made it clear that the elder Salvatore grumbled about his gray hairs often.

Angel was both deeply fascinated and frustrated at the banter between father and son—he had so many questions, but interrogating Ashwin with Leandro present was not something he wanted to do. And Ashwin was right—he was centuries older than Ignacio, despite appearing in his early twenties while Ignacio looked like he was in his early forties. Angel knew from the family histories that Ignacio was in his early fifties when he supposedly passed—so either the mate bond slowed his aging, or it managed to reverse it by a decade or more.

"Da says you're old too," Leandro said, leaning forward on the island to look past Angel at Simeon.

"Your Da and I are of an age," Simeon replied in his deep rumble, patient and not at all condescending like many adults would be with a child asking intrusive questions. His Irish accent was smooth and deep, charming the boy, going by his wide smile at hearing it. "Compared to you, we're both very old indeed."

That made Leandro giggle and he went back to eating his toast, legs swinging under the stool.