Silver Shadows (Bloodlines, #5)(27)

But I was also exhausted. The sun was threatening to come up over the horizon, and I was still on a human schedule. I took the well wishes with as much humility as I could and attempted to make my way to the door, promising each person I’d be sure to hang out with them later. Here, Nina jumped in to help me, steering me through the crowd, just as I’d guided her earlier, and dropping hints about official business I supposedly had to deal with.

“The only business I want to have now is with my pillow,” I told her with a yawn, once we’d broken free of the Szelsky home. “I’m nearly dead on my feet.”

“That was some hardcore magic you did,” she told me. “I didn’t even notice you’d stopped drinking. Pretty impressive restraint.”

“If I had my way, I’d live on a constant buzz of alcohol,” I admitted. “But I try to sober up a couple of times a day. It’s—it’s hard to explain, and I can’t really, but there’s something I have to do that I need my wits and spirit for. It timed out lucky tonight that Wesley made his appearance when he did. I wouldn’t have been so impressive if it had come down to a fist fight.”

Nina grinned. “I have faith in you. I bet you would’ve been awesome.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry for what he said to you.”

“It’s okay,” she said with a shrug. “I’m used to it.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to like it,” I said.

Something vulnerable in her eyes told me I’d hit the mark, that those comments stung her deeply. “Yeah … I mean, people don’t usually say things quite that explicitly, but I’ve seen that attitude in the people I deal with at work. You were right about the party, though. Some of them weren’t as bad as I thought.” Her voice suddenly turned shy. “And thank you … thank you for standing up for me.”

Her words and my small victory over Wesley gave me more self-determination than I’d had in weeks. My mood, which had been wallowing in darkness and self-loathing for so long, swung up dramatically. I wasn’t worthless after all. Maybe I hadn’t been able to find Sydney yet, but I was still capable of little things. I couldn’t give up the fight yet. Who knew? Maybe tonight my luck would change. I could barely wait to escort Nina back to her place so that I could get back to mine and search for Sydney.

When I did, though, it was clear my luck was staying the same on this front. No Sydney. That heady mood came crashing down, but at least I was so exhausted that I had little time to beat myself up over the failure. I fell asleep promptly thereafter and slept until almost the middle of the next vampiric day as my body continued figuring out what schedule I was on.

When I woke, my phone had a message from my mom, reminding me about dinner later on. When I checked the voice mail on the phone in my suite, I discovered about a million messages from my new “friends.” My cell phone number wasn’t widely known, but a bunch of the party goers had managed to find which guest building I was at and get messages through that way. I had social opportunities for months.

But today, I only had one that mattered. My parents’. I didn’t care so much about my dad, but my mom had gone out of her way to come get me. She’d gone out of her way for me on so many things, really, and I owed it to her to be respectable in front of her friends tonight. I stayed sober throughout the day and did boring things like laundry instead of following up on any of the invitations I had—including one that came in from Nina. As much as I liked her, and as much as I’d had fun with her, an inner voice told me it was wiser to keep my distance.

I showed up at my parents’ townhouse ten minutes before dinner started, wearing a freshly ironed suit and Aunt Tatiana’s cufflinks, and was greeted by my father in his usual gruff way. “Well, Adrian, I assume whatever business the queen has you on back here, it must be important.”

The comment took me aback until my mother rushed into the living room, looking glamorous in emerald green silk. “Now, Nathan, dear, don’t try to get state secrets out of him.” She rested a hand on my arm and gave a small, controlled laugh. “He’s been on me about that ever since the queen let me escort you back to your business here. I told him I just wanted to catch up, but he’s certain I know things he doesn’t.”

I finally caught on and shot her a grateful look when his attention was elsewhere. My mother hadn’t told him she’d found me in a drunken stupor in California and saved me from myself and a downward spiral. She’d let him think it was just an impulsive motherly gesture to travel with me and had even used it as an opportunity to pad my reputation. I didn’t necessarily feel the need to hide my shameful behaviors from my father, but I had to admit, life was certainly easier when he didn’t have them to rub in my face. Saying he was proud of me might have been a stretch, but he certainly seemed satisfied for the time being, and that was enough to make the night passable.

The dinner guests were other royals I’d met off and on throughout the years, people I knew little about, save that my parents were concerned with impressing them. My mother, who I was pretty sure had never personally cooked a meal in her life, oversaw every detail of their chef’s operation, making sure each course was perfect, be it in terms of wine pairing or simply how it was laid out on the plate. After a day of good behavior (and having checked for Sydney just before coming here), I let myself sample some of the wine, and even if I couldn’t correctly identify the region and soil type, I could tell my parents hadn’t been stingy.