Jackson turned to her. “You’ll come with me, won’t you, Baby?” he asked, turning into a little boy when it suited him. “You know how much I hate hospitals.”
She forced a smile, “Sure.”
The ambulance moved silently down the freeway, not needing the siren since Jackson clearly wasn’t about to die anytime soon.
Serenity sat on the narrow bench beside the gurney. The younger of the paramedics, John—according to his name badge—sat opposite her.
Jackson lay between them. He’d fallen into a heavy sleep and still managed to snore, despite the oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth.
Serenity rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. She had thrown on a sweater and a pair of jeans before they left, diminishing the scrutiny of the paramedics. Though she avoided the young paramedic’s eye he still attempted to make small talk, resulting in perfunctory one word answers. She didn’t want to be rude—impoliteness wasn’t in her nature—but she couldn’t discuss the weather or the latest Dodgers game when she had so much more on her mind.
With a loud thud, something landed on the roof and the ambulance swerved, pulling into another lane. Serenity lurched to one side as the vehicle fought against the control of the driver. Someone behind them blasted their horn.
“What the..?” John glanced up at the roof.
The driver got the ambulance back under control and shouted back, “You guys all right? I’ve no idea what that was!”
“A bird?” Serenity suggested, thinking one of the big pelicans dropping out of the sky might cause such a big thump.
“It didn’t bounce,” John said thoughtfully, half to himself. “A bird would have bounced.”
Whatever landed on the roof had been big, really big. If Serenity thought in the terms of an animal, it would have been closer to a Great Dane than a bird.
They both glanced back up at the roof of the ambulance. Was something still there? Perched, waiting? The interior of the rig seemed to have shrunk down to toy size. A chill ran down Serenity’s back and she saw the paramedic shiver as well.
“Not far now,” John said, seeming to try to reassure himself as well as her.
She nodded, but said nothing.
Someone was there; both of them felt the presence.
Is it you?
She sent the thought out with every concentration of her soul. God, I’m losing my mind. Why would a man be on the roof of the ambulance? How the hell would he even get there? She must be crazy to be having such thoughts. She probably was—what with all the stress she’d been under—but that didn’t stop her believing.
They pulled into the unloading bay at the hospital. Jackson woke at the vehicle’s change of motion. He tried to roll over, discovered straps held him to the gurney, and went back to sleep.
“It’s the bump,” John told her, mistaking her worried expression for concern. “It’s normal for him to want to sleep.”
Serenity started to climb out of the ambulance, but instead of climbing down from the back, she stood up. Ignoring the paramedic’s look of surprise, she hooked her fingers over the edge of the roof and pulled herself up so her elbows took her weight.
Whatever had hit was no longer there but the metal was dented inward. No blood, or feathers, or even fur indicated an animal had landed on the roof, but she hadn’t been looking for that, had she? Instead, she reached out a hand as best she could and traced her fingers across the indentations.
Footprints?
She dropped down to find John staring at her. “Anything?” he asked.
Serenity smiled and shook her head. “Must have been a ghost,” she said, wondering if she was so far from the truth.
The paramedics admitted Jackson and a couple of nurses transferred him to another gurney in a shared bay. Three other men occupied the space, ranging from an old man whose fragility was exposed as he slept, to a young guy, not far out of his teens, with tattooed sleeves covering both arms. He too slept, but in the zonked out way people did when they were either sleeping off an overdose of drink or drugs, or a combination of both.
Serenity could do nothing more. The woman at reception gave her a pile of paperwork on a clipboard to fill in and she hugged the board to her chest. She hoped her medical insurance was still valid and her work hadn’t yet notified the company about her being fired. Hopefully, the claim would slip through the net, but if it didn’t she was in even more trouble.
A heavy sigh escaped her and she stood up. The restaurant must still be open, despite the late hour. She desperately needed some caffeine.
Strips of long fluorescent lights lit up the cafeteria with a harsh, unnatural light.
Blocks of tables and benches reminded Serenity of her school canteen, soulless and unloved. Behind the aluminum, heated display cabinet, a tired-looking woman in an apron gave her a half-hearted smile as she walked in. Floor to ceiling windows made up the far wall, giving a view out on a small patch of yard for the hospital residents.
A lone figure sat in the corner of the restaurant, their face turned to the window. Above the person’s head, the fluorescent strip light had blown, and the figure sat in partial darkness.
Serenity’s heart caught in her chest. She didn’t need light to know the person’s identity. Even though she had only spent moments with him, she would recognize the breadth of his shoulders, the angle of his jaw and the curve of his forearms anywhere.
She stopped dead in the middle of the room. Blood rushed through her ears, thumping like horses’ hooves in her head. Adrenaline flowed like water; speeding up her heart, making her hands tremble.
“Can I help you, love?” the woman behind the counter called to her.
Serenity couldn’t respond. She stood frozen. Part of her wanted to turn and run, the other part of her wanted to fall to her knees and weep, but she stared, inert.
Then he turned, his beautiful eyes focusing on hers, despite the gloom surrounding him, and she found herself able to walk again.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked. This time Serenity managed to give her a smile and nod of reassurance, but her eyes never left the man sitting by the window.
She walked toward him as though gliding on water. As she approached, he got to his feet.
“What are you doing here?” she tried to say, but her voice came out as a whisper.
“I’m visiting someone.”
“Oh? A family member? A friend?”
“It’s good to see you again,” he said, not answering her question.
“It’s strange seeing you again. Small world, I guess.”
He gestured to the seat opposite him. “Will you sit with me a while? Allow me to buy you a coffee?”
The act seemed so normal in such surreal circumstances and she grasped onto the lifeline he presented.
“Coffee,” she repeated. “Yes, coffee would be good.”
He brushed past her as he headed to the counter, sending a thrill of goose bumps up her arm. She stood watching his broad back as he walked away, then she sat heavily, her legs weak.
He was here. God, he was here!
She didn’t dare take her eyes off him, fearing he would turn out to be a figment of her over-stressed imagination. As he paid the woman behind the counter, he caught her watching and gave her a smile she wanted to pack up and take home.
He returned with two cups of thick, dark coffee. In her nervousness, she took a sip too quickly and burned her mouth.
“Careful,” he said with a smile, his green eyes lighting up. “The coffee’s hot.”
She couldn’t help but smile back. “Thanks, I think I figured that one out.”
“Your husband is here.”
The sentence wasn’t a question but she answered with a nod.
“What happened?” he asked.
“He had a... accident.” She glanced up at him. For reasons beyond understanding, an underlying current of truth ran beneath their words, but neither of them tapped into it.
The strangeness of
the evening made her head hurt. She couldn’t explain what had happened in her bedroom, but she remembered her initial reaction—the face of the man before her, flashing in her mind.
“What are you doing here?” she asked again.
“I needed to make sure you were all right.”
His words made her heart race and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. He was here for her.
“What happened to my husband?” she asked, barely believing the words had left her mouth.
“What happened to you?”
She looked up, her eyes fierce. “Answer the question!”
His eyes grew dark under his furrowed brow. He pressed his lips together as though he had to control himself before answering. “He didn’t get anything he wasn’t asking for. In my opinion, he got off lightly.”
“So it was you!” Anger bubbled within her. “Why ask me? Are you just another controlling man who likes to screw around with a woman’s head?”
He sat back, astonished at her fury. Then he leaned forward and took her hand across the table. She caught her breath at the touch of his skin on hers and the anger melted away like a night’s snowfall under the day’s first rays of sun. She saw worry in his face; in the creases at the corners of his eyes, in the lines between his eyebrows.
“No, never,” he said. “I didn’t know how much you had figured out for yourself. I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Scare me? It’s a bit late for that!” she sat back, shaking her head. “But how? How did you get into the bedroom? And the ambulance, that was you on the roof?”
He nodded.
“What are you? An acrobat, or a magician, or...” She trailed off, at a loss for ideas. “Something?” she finished weakly.
“Yeah,” he lowered his head and a lock of thick black hair fell across his forehead. “Something.”
“But how did you get in and out of the room without us seeing you?”
“I can’t explain exactly. Try to think of it as a trick of the light, an optical illusion.”
She wanted to press further, but she didn’t want to scare him off. His presence was nothing short of a miracle and however he’d managed to perform his ‘tricks’, he’d kept her from being raped by her own husband.
He must have read her thoughts.
“You could leave him now. Pack your bags and go.”
The thought struck fear into her heart and she hated herself. He was right; she should have left Jackson years ago, but didn’t have the courage. More things came into play than simply packing her bags because he was a bad husband. Things had happened in their marriage, some weren’t Jackson’s fault, and she blamed herself for them. Part of her didn’t blame Jackson for the beatings. Deep down, she felt like she deserved it.
“I don’t know how to,” she admitted, her cheeks heating with shame. “I don’t know how to be alone.”
“Alone is all I’ve ever been.”
They looked up at each other and time stopped. Even though they sat in dim light, his features were more real to her than anything she’d seen before. The gloom cast shadows across his face, making his pale skin jump out from the darkness and his eyes almost glowed. She wanted to reach out and touch the thick lashes framing his eyes, trace her finger along his jawbone, touch the fullness of his lower lip.
How was it possible to want someone so badly when you knew nothing about them?
“I will leave him,” she said, her voice low. “As soon as he is well again, I’ll leave.”
He dropped her hand.
Panic rose within her; she was being forced to make a decision she should have made years ago. “I don’t even know your name,” she said, “and you’re asking me to leave my husband.”
“I’m not asking you to leave your husband for me. I want you to do it for yourself.”
He pushed back his chair and stood. For a moment, she thought he would touch her again, place his palm against her cheek. Heat spread from the centre of her chest, flooding down into her belly and coalescing between her legs.
Instead, he took a step away.
“I don’t want you to choose because of me. What would you have done if I hadn’t stopped your husband tonight? Would you have let him do what he wanted and then pretended nothing happened?”
A lump formed in her throat and her eyes burned with tears. She would never admit it, but he’d called her out. She would have done exactly as he claimed.
“I can’t save you,” he said. “You’re the only one who can do that.” With those words burning in her ears, he turned and walked away
“Wait,” she called out. “Please, wait.”
He ignored her and kept walking, disappearing through the doorway and into the corridor.
The moment he left the room, the blown light above her head flickered back to life. The tears welling in her eyes trickled down her cheeks and plopped onto the back of her hand.
Her coffee sat cold and untouched.
Chapter Four
For almost three hundred years, Sebastian Bandores survived alone.
He sat on the flat roof of the hospital, tormented by thoughts of the dark-eyed woman. The night sky hung above, thick cloud blocking the stars. In front of him stood the hospital’s emergency helipad, and beyond, the lights of the city shone. On any other night the beauty of the scene before him would block out all emotion but tonight the sight meant nothing.
The vampire stood and walked to the edge of the roof. A wall divided him from the multi-story drop below. He peered over the edge, watching the lights from the cars below move like a procession of tiny fireflies. The height didn’t affect him. Sebastian had no reason to fear the drop. If he jumped now, just stepped off the roof, he would be all right. He wouldn’t hit like a normal person; instead, his body would brace, his legs would take the impact and he would land, cat-like, and unharmed.
Nothing could harm him. He was invincible, immortal.
At least he’d believed as much until the dark-haired woman caught his attention; running through the streets, long hair streaming behind, her eyes so haunted he imagined some terrible, invisible entity chased her.
Sebastian had never been involved with a human before, not since his own human life ended. What was so different about this one? Was it that the desperate, haunted look in her eyes was so similar to the one surely present in his?
She’d seemed trapped, as if whatever tragedy she carried would always be a part of her.
Sebastian understood; the pain he carried forged what he was today. He would never escape what he had become.
He told himself he followed to be sure of her safety. He told himself she might have children and a loving husband waiting for her, but Sebastian knew that wasn’t true. What woman ran so with such desperation through the busy streets of LA and had a happy home?
So he followed and saw her hand shaking as she put the key in the lock. He smelled the fear as she walked into the house. By then, he couldn’t bring himself to leave, couldn’t bring himself to walk away.
So he stayed, waited and watched.
When her husband grabbed her by the neck and threw her to the floor, Sebastian fought to not leap through the window and rip the man’s throat out. Only his desire not to interfere with her life held him back.
But still, he didn’t leave.
Sebastian wanted to know this woman. He needed to discover who she was, what drove her.
He couldn’t understand why she stayed with the abusive scum, what prevented her from packing her bags and leaving. Sadness radiated from her. If she was so unhappy, why not do something about it?
Sebastian hadn’t been given a choice of how his own destiny would unfold. The choice had been taken away by someone who thought it all right to be possessive, to take what they wanted at any cost, to own another person.
He wouldn’t do that to her.
Guilt had weighed heavily upon him as he watched her change for bed. He’d been unable to tear his eyes away when she slipped out of her j
eans, exposing her long, bare legs. She stood with her back to the window, her arms raised up and pulling her sweater over her head. Her long hair caught in the material before falling in a cascade around her shoulders. Reaching behind, she unhooked the clasps of her bra, revealing her naked back, a long line ending in a simple pair of white cotton panties and the gentle swell of her bottom.
How badly he had wanted to reach out and touch her skin. To lay his head against her chest; feel her warmth and the thud of her heartbeat beneath his ear. The longing gripped him like an addiction and he thought he might lose himself in it; hell, he wanted to lose himself in it. He craved, just for a moment, to forget his nature.
Such desire and need for her.
The only thing he had ever desired so strongly was blood.
Sebastian had watched her husband come to bed and force himself upon her. He watched as she begged him to stop and her pleas were ignored.
Then he could watch no longer.
After three hundred years, he moved beyond the capability of the human eye. Rage descended like a red haze across his vision and he no longer wanted to control it.
He wanted to kill this man, make him pay for harming her, but forced himself to stop.
If he killed her husband, he would only be doing what had been done to him. He would be taking away her choices. By injuring her spouse, he’d hoped the balance of power would shift to her, giving her the strength to leave.
Sebastian had been naive to think she would choose to escape. God, the word ‘naive’ made him laugh. To think that even after three hundred years he could still be such a thing.
He’d meant it when he told her he wasn’t asking her to leave for him. Their being together was impossible, but it didn’t stop him wanting her to be happy. To go through each day knowing some creep tormented her while he remained helpless to do anything, filled him with fury and made his heart ache in some inexplicable way.
Many years had passed since he’d last felt this way. He thought the part of him that knew how to love had died along with his humanity.
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