Everyone else walked in in a jubilant mood, so he left her in peace for a while and retrieved drinks from the kitchen for them all.
“How did it go?” he asked as he threw cans to everyone.
They all knew he meant ‘how did she do?’. “She was great,” Craig said. “No hesitation. Straight in with the attack. She even managed to behead one.”
He listened calmly as they gave a detailed account, all the while wanting to leave and check on Sarah. Then he noticed Scott’s ripped and bloody sleeve.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Vampire caught my arm. Don’t worry, it’s just a scratch.”
“Any venom?” Scott shook his head. “Go and have Doc take a look anyway,” he said and Scott left the room. “So what’s wrong with her?” he asked Craig once they got back onto the subject of Sarah.
“I don’t know. She was very quiet on the way back, now that I think about it.”
“I’ll go and check on her,” JD said and left the victorious hunters to continue their celebrations.
He went to his room, but there was no sign of her. Worry started to seep in until he remembered that all of her wash things were still in her room.
He knocked on her door and, hearing no response, pushed it open, breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn’t locked. Whatever was wrong with her, she wasn’t shutting him out.
There was no sign of her in the bedroom, other than her hunting suit dumped on the floor, but he could hear the sounds of the shower going in her bathroom.
He locked the bedroom door then undressed, folding his clothes and neatly placing them on the bed. He picked up her suit and dropped it in the wash basket. She had plenty of spares if they were called out again before it was cleaned.
He then eased open the bathroom door and closed it behind him. Through the glass of the shower screen he could see her standing with her back to him, arms straight and hands flat against the wall as hot water poured all over her. She was staring at the ground.
He stepped into the shower and placed his arms around her. She leaned back into him and laced her fingers in his.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked her before kissing her neck.
“I killed someone today,” she said softly.
“No, you killed a vampire not a person. It’s what you trained to do. You need to stop looking at them as people.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“I enjoyed it.”
He felt like laughing with relief. This he could easily deal with. “Of course you did. You got to do for real what you have been practicing for for ages. You would feel the same no matter what it was you were training for. It’s no different to how actors feel on opening night of a new play or racing drivers feel at the start of their first race.”
“Did you feel the same?”
“I still do. We all do. The only difference is that we don’t feel guilty about it.”
She went quiet, thinking about his words. Eventually he broke the silence.
“Why do you keep this room? Every night you’re here you sleep in mine.”
She shrugged. “It feels too much like moving in together, I suppose.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” She turned around and kissed him. Then she kissed him again and all thoughts about vampires and hunting left both their minds.
When they eventually made it out of the shower and got dressed, she moved all of her things out of her room and into JD’s.
“I need a screwdriver,” she said. He didn’t need to ask why.
They found one and set about removing her name plate from her door and placing it on JD’s, just below his.
“I guess that isn’t your room anymore,” he said. “How do you feel?”
“Happier than I can put into words.”
“How long before anyone notices do you think?”
“Knowing that lot, the second they reach the top of the stairs.”
I don’t need his permission
In the morning, Sarah told JD she needed to take him somewhere. He agreed without asking any questions. She had used the word ‘need’ instead of ‘want’, which meant it was very important to her.
Sarah grabbed her car keys, but JD shook his head. “I’m driving. You just give me directions.”
As soon as he was told to pull up outside a cemetery, JD knew what Sarah wanted him to do and he was more than happy to do it.
Taking his hand, she led him to Alex’s grave and sat down beside it. “Alex, this is Jason. I have told you all about him. I just wanted you to meet him and to give your approval. You will always be in my heart, but he is my future. I hope you understand.”
She went on to explain to her dead fiancé why she wouldn’t be visiting him as much anymore. Every time she had a problem, she would verbalise it to Alex. It helped her to get her head around what she needed to do. Now she had JD to help with that.
JD realised that the object of the outing was not for him to see Alex’s grave, but for him to hear what she had to say, so he remained quiet, letting her get everything off her chest that she needed to.
When she had finished, she stood up and held out her hand to him, but he made no move to take it. “Can you give us a minute?” he asked.
She nodded and walked away, giving him some privacy. Once she was no longer able to hear him, he started talking.
“I’ve never spoken to a grave before. It feels kind of weird. I’m not going to ask you to send me a sign to say that you’re okay with me taking Sarah as my lover because I don’t need your approval. I know you were a big part of her life and helped to make her the person she is today. You did a great job by the way. I know she will always love you and I can never have all of her. I’m fine with that and won’t let it come between us. I just want you to know how much I love her and that I will never do anything to hurt her. I will protect her as much as I can and I promise I will do everything in my power to make her happy.”
He then fell silent, thinking about anything else he wished to say. His thoughts were interrupted by a voice sounding above him.
“And who, may I ask, are you?”
He looked around to see a short woman in her fifties. She had neatly trimmed brown hair and a frown on her face. “I’m Jason and you must be Mary.” He stood up and held out his hand, but she refused to take it.
“Oh yes. Sarah has mentioned you. Here to ask his permission to date her?” She did not sound angry, but her face told him she was certainly displeased at finding him at her son’s graveside.
JD opted to go with honesty rather than what she probably wanted to hear. “No. I don’t need his permission. I know that there is a part of Sarah that will always love him, but I have everything else. I can live with that. I’m here to let him know I will take good care of her for him.”
“Sarah didn’t cope very well when she lost Alex.”
“So Craig told me.”
“Don’t make her go through that again.” It was not a request.
“Don’t worry, I have no intention of doing so.” Given what he did in his spare time, he could not make any promises, so he didn’t. Sarah knew the risks involved and must have assessed them before making her move on him.
Sarah had noticed Mary’s arrival and was still debating whether to ‘rescue’ JD when he started moving toward her.
“She didn’t give you a hard time I hope.”
“No worse than I would have expected.”
“Thank you for coming here. It meant a lot to me.”
“I know,” he said, then kissed her forehead. “So what are your plans for the rest of the day?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
He raised his eyebrows at her suggestively. “There are lots of other weapons I can teach you.”
“You really know how to turn a girl on, don’t you.”
————————————-∞————————————-
One Friday night,
a few weeks later, Sarah called JD before leaving the office. “Sorry honey. I got stuck at work. I’m only now leaving so I will be late. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Alright. We will start without you.”
“We?”
“We got called out last night so I cancelled this morning’s training session. Some of them are making it up this evening.”
“Okay. See you soon.”
She hung up, then realised that she had left her personal laptop at home and there were things she needed to do on it during the weekend. She debated calling JD back, or going to collect it in the morning, but it wasn’t much of a detour, so she decided to drop by her house on the way to the Sanctuary.
Sally jumped when she walked through the door. “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
“No, I just popped by to collect my laptop.” She moved toward her bedroom, but Sally stopped her.
“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”
Sarah froze, her hand on the door handle. “Why?”
“Speak to JD first, that’s all I ask.”
“Why?” Sarah asked again. She had stopped smiling.
“He kind of bought you something and wanted to tell you before you saw it. He arranged with me that I take delivery and supervise it being put together.”
Sarah opened her bedroom door and started swearing the moment she looked into the room. She grabbed her laptop and shoved it into her bag.
“Bloody men,” she said as she walked out, slamming the door behind her.
“I did advise him to discuss it with you first,” Sally said. She was worried she would be blamed as an accomplice.
“He doesn’t listen to advice.”
“Don’t be too angry with him. He was trying to do something nice.”
“I’m not angry with him,” Sarah said through clenched teeth. “I’m bloody livid. He had no right.”
Sally flinched at the vehemence in Sarah’s voice and was suddenly glad she wouldn’t be present when Sarah got hold of JD.
Sarah drove slowly and carefully to the Sanctuary, knowing that if she didn’t keep her anger under control she would end up crashing the car.
She quickly got changed and went to the balcony. Simon, Katie and Craig were there, going through a group attack scenario with JD playing the role of the vampire. Despite her anger at him, she could not help admiring the way he moved.
Hearing her enter, JD glanced up at her. The look on her face distracted him and Katie managed to hit him on the arm, hard. Sarah hoped it hurt.
“Stop,” JD called out and everyone backed away. “Sarah, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing I wish to discuss with my trainer,” she said. He knew what that meant. As her boyfriend, he was in trouble, but she would keep everything bottled up until after the training session.
“Alright,” he said. “Grab your sword and join in.”
He made her play the role of a vampire alongside him. Given the mood she was obviously in, there was no way he was going to let her attack him.
The physical exercise did not calm her at all, but she made sure she did nothing JD could reprimand her for. She did everything he told her to and said nothing out of place. She acted the perfect student, as she always did since they became an item. Her face, however, told him he was in for a hard time once the session had finished.
He purposely ran over, delaying the inevitable for as long as possible, but he couldn’t do it forever. Eventually he had to end the session.
“Have we finished training?” she asked in a voice that sounded much too calm for JD’s liking.
“Yes. Why?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking, though he knew what the answer was going to be.
“Because I want a word with my boyfriend not my trainer.”
“I’m not going to enjoy this am I?”
“I very much doubt it.”
“In that case, please put your weapon away first.”
The other three made a rapid exit, but stopped outside the arena door to listen.
“I made a detour on my way here to collect my laptop from my house,” she said.
“Oh.”
“Oh? Is that you all you can say?”
“I was going to tell you about it tonight.”
“And that is what I am so mad about. This isn’t something you tell me. It’s something you discuss with me, before making the purchase.”
“I’m sorry sweetheart, but your old bed was uncomfortable so I decided to buy you a new one. It’s not as if I can’t afford it.”
That was the wrong thing to say. “I don’t give a damn whether it made a dent in your bank balance or not. We should have talked about it, chosen one together, paid for it together. Do you understand?”
“So I can’t buy you things?”
“Not a bed, no,” she almost screamed at him.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “I only bought us a new bed because I am planning on spending every night in it that you are not here. I hate sleeping apart from you. I know you have commitments that prevent you staying here some nights so I thought you wouldn’t mind.”
He could see his words were getting through to her, so he continued. “Okay. I messed up. I’m sorry. I’ll speak with you before buying anything for your house again. Happy?”
Sarah growled to get rid of some of her frustration. “You know I love you with all my heart, but you’re really hard to deal with sometimes.” She did not like the look on his face. “Why are you grinning like that?”
“That’s the first time you have told me you love me.”
“We can discuss that later. Right now we are having an argument.”
“No, you are having an argument. I am just listening.”
“This is not over,” she said as he took her in his arms.
“Yes it is. I made a mistake, I said I’m sorry and you are about to forgive me so we can put it behind us.”
She didn’t resist when he kissed her. “It’s impossible to stay mad at you,” she said and slipped her arms around his neck so she could pull him closer.
“You know the best thing about arguing?” he whispered in her ear.
“What?”
“The make-up sex.” He picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. He kicked open the arena door, making Katie, Simon and Craig scatter in different directions, and carried her up the stairs to their bedroom.
Nobody commented when they were late for dinner.
————————————-∞————————————-
The next morning, JD told Sarah that he was taking her shopping.
“What for?” she asked.
“A bow, arrows and the other accessories that go with it.”
“Why can’t I just use yours?”
“Come with me.” He took her to the arena, took down his bow and told her to draw it. She did better than he expected, but couldn’t draw it all the way back. “That is why you need to have your own bow. We will start you off with a relatively light one and increase the strength of the drawstring as you get more used to it.”
He took her to the shop he purchased a lot of his weapons from and handed her over to the expert behind the counter. Half an hour later they exited with bow, arrows, sight, glove and arm guard.
JD took her out into the woods in the Sanctuary grounds where he had a target set up. Everyone who lived there knew that was where he practised and avoided the area, so there was no risk of anyone being around to get accidentally injured.
Her first lesson did not go well, but she promised to stick with it and JD was confident she would improve with practice.
At dinner that evening, Craig immediately noticed the large bruise on her arm.
“Jesus. What the hell did you do to her?” he asked JD.
“That’s not my fault. She had her first archery lesson today. I told her to wear her arm guard but she didn’t listen.”
“You told me that the string wouldn’t hit my arm if I was holding
the bow correctly. You neglected to mention that it’s physically impossible to do so.” JD was trying his best not to laugh. “Besides, you didn’t tell me to wear my guard, you advised me to. There’s a difference. If you had told me to wear it I would have done so.”
“Sarah, Sarah, Sarah,” Craig said, shaking his head with mock sympathy. “When are you going to learn? When it comes to weapons and fighting, always follow his advice as well as his orders.”
————————————-∞————————————-
Weeks passed and each time Sarah was at the Sanctuary when the alarm went off, she and JD discussed who should go on the hunt. JD hated watching everyone leave without him, but Sarah needed to get as much experience as she could as quickly as possible so that everyone could become confident enough with her abilities for him to join her.
The fact that she enjoyed the killing no longer bothered her. She discussed it with each of the other hunters from 14 and found that they all felt the same and believed every hunter did. If they did not enjoy killing, why would they do it?
As time progressed, Sarah managed to persuade JD to spend more time with everyone and less on his own. Most of the time when he would have been alone in the arena, Sarah now joined him and he was teaching her some of the more complicated routines that none of the others would even attempt. Sometimes though, she convinced him to take a break and join in watching a film or playing a game of poker.
One Saturday night, a film was suggested. Initially JD said no, as his head was beginning to ache, but Sarah managed to change his mind by promising to give him a head and shoulder massage.
She sat on the sofa with her legs apart and he positioned himself on the floor between them. She told him to take off his shirt, which he did, then she began running her fingers through his hair, gently rubbing his scalp.
“Why do you keep making him undress in public?” Simon asked, casting his mind back to her assessment.
“Because he has a fantastic body and I love having my hands on it.”
“You make it sound like you’re only after him for his body, sis.” Jonathon said. There was no way he was going to miss the opportunity to wind her up.
Vampire Hunters, #1 Page 27
