“Can you take me to that bar?”
“I’m not sure. I have to ask Robbie. It’s where shifters hang out.”
“What’s a shifter?”
“It’s like a werewolf, but it could be anything. A cat or a lion any kind of animal that changes from one form to another.”
“Robbie just came in from his hunt. I’ll call you back.” She didn’t say anything else so I carried the phone and waited. Then she called back.
“Zoey, Robbie said it was ok, the only thing, he wants to go with us. To protect us. You know how that is.”
“Yes. That’s great,” I said and I rushed to microwave the last of the frozen pizza. I swallowed down a coke a cola, and when I had finished two slices and two cans of coke, the bell rang. This time I looked around and it was Ann, and Robbie was driving her beat up jeep.
I opened the door, “Does it always rain around here? I thought I would see some snow.”
“When we get an occasional blizzard but not now. That’s a once in a lifetime thing. But it would be nice to have some snow.”
We ran to the car and I hopped into the back. “Zoey, you know Robbie, Robbie, Zoey.”
Robbie grunted and turned his head in the direction away from me. He took off and headed for town.
“What’s wrong with the doctor?” Robbie finally asked after watching at me in the rearview mirror. “We hate to see him go?” he said.
“Where is he going?” I asked.
“Don’t you know? He told Ann and she said that he was thinking of leaving town. You would think he would have said something to his wife. You are his wife?”
I didn’t answer his question even as his dark brown eyes met mine. Finally Robbie took his eyes off me and watched the road.
“We need him here. He’s the only doctor that came here and didn’t look down on us because we were shifters. Did Ann tell you the whole town is made up of male shifters with female human mates, and one vampire and that’s Sebastian? It’s nice to have a vampire in town,” he said as if that gave him comfort and prestige. “Keep some of the bad shifters under control, and the witches away.”
Vampires can control shifters? All this is new to me. Why would Sebastian find it necessary to go to a bar to solve his problems? Since when does that ever solve anyone’s problems? Not unless he was looking to break something, or kill something. Like a hunter who gets angry and goes out and shoot something.
It didn’t take Robbie long to drive up to the bar. Looking around I spotted Sebastian’s black Land Rover sticking out among a sea of motorcycles parked outside along with a few old pickup trucks.
We stepped out of the Jeep. In my rush to see Sebastian, I took off ahead of Robbie and Ann. “Hold on. Don’t open that door.” His large hand resting over my hand reaching for the handle. I dropped my hand. There were too many things I didn’t know and by the sound of Robbie’s voice, it was something I shouldn’t do.
Walking up close behind me, Robbie moved past me, I stepped aside, and he grabbed the handle and opened the door and stepped in. “What was that about?” I questioned Ann.
“If a woman opens that door without a shifter or in that case our own vampire, then they would assume that she’s a witch. And they would have attacked without thinking. Witches are forbidden in this town, and if she kills anyone from this town like Samantha did David, even though David was a human, then she will be hunted down and killed. They already have a bounty on her head. Robbie is looking to make some extra money, and he’s looking for her, too.”
I felt somewhat relieved but not much. Samantha had proven to be a man killer because of her powers of seduction.
As we stepped behind Robbie, and he made a gesture that I wasn’t a witch, and therefore ok, he searched around the bar and spotted Sebastian sitting at a table in the back alone. His head down a drink in his hand and pain on his face.
Robbie and Ann stood aside as I walked up to Sebastian. “Why are you here and not at home?” Slowly he raised his head and he looked pale. His eyes sunken. “When was the last time you ate?” He glanced up at me.
“Why does that matter to you? I know you’re going to leave me so what does it matter?” And he took a drink.
I reached for the drink and took it from his hand. He watched at me as if he was a spoiled child who had never been told no by his parents.
“I’m not going anywhere. I have no one but you.” I sat near him put my warm hand over his cold hands. “You brought me out here in the middle of nowhere, and now you want to starve yourself to death.”
“I wish it were that easy. It would take too long to kill myself like that.” He looked up at me and his eyes had dark circles underneath. His magnificent eyes were now dim and dark.
“So you come to a place like this in hopes that Aare finds you and does the job for you?”
“I’ve been too long on this earth without love. And now that I found you, you don’t want to return my love. I don’t blame you. I just want to be finish with my cold empty existence.” Leaning close to him, his body heated, and there was a light in his bluish green eyes. He glanced up at me and he felt it too.
We balanced each other. Me with my overheated body and him with this cold hard body which didn’t seem to have a light or a soul beneath his amazing heated eyes. But there was a soul and I felt it.
“You made me angry, Sebastian. Whenever I wanted to talk to you about me and what you knew, you would never tell me anything.”
“Since you’re choosing to kill yourself, then I should at least know the truth about my life so I can continue without you.” He raised an eyebrow. There was no way I meant that. It seems I had no life until Sebastian came into it and saved me from imminent death.
“If you’re planning on ending my life, I can understand because if you leave me now, Samantha promised me that she would come for me in the future when I was happy in my life, and I had forgotten about her. Then she would end my life because of you, and because you love me, and I love you.” Sebastian eyes lit up and he gave me one of his warm closed smiles.
He wrapped his hand around mine. “I never wanted to tell you about your life as a child. I never wanted to interfere in your life again, but I made one mistake and that was to reject Samantha because I couldn’t bear to live my life without you.”
Sitting and gazing into his eyes, I felt his pain, but I wanted to know. I wanted to know what was causing his hurt, and what it had to do with me.
“It was my father who kidnapped you from school.” I waited. My breath came in waves and I stared at him. I had to breathe but I didn’t want to. I didn’t know if I wanted to hear anymore. But that was why I asked.
Somehow I knew it was someone in his family who had taken me, but it was difficult putting together the face and what had happened. I thought my memory was faulty because I was too young or because everything had been too traumatic.
“My father had been your father for ten years of your life and hundreds of years of mine. My mother could never have children because my father fell in love with my mother and turned her too soon. I think she was seventeen or eighteen when he fell in love with her, and turned her into a vampire because he couldn’t bear for another man to marry her. She wanted children and so my father would kidnap them, and when they reached the age of a teenager as in your case, I would, or my siblings would turn them into vampires. And like that we would have a large family.”
But in your case, I couldn’t bear to do the unspeakable to you. I took care of you. I protected you like a big brother.” He put his head down. I placed my hand to his chin and pulled his head up and looked at him.
“It’s not like we were brother and sister.”
“But I looked at you as a sister, but when you grew into this beautiful warm creature, I couldn’t stand to be away from you. Neither could Aare. And it was him I had to get you away from. He just wanted you to serve him. He wanted your blood as well as making you his concubine for his pleasure. I wanted you because I loved you. But the
re was no way a vampire and a human could be together. I would have to change you to keep you from Aare and to please my mother and father.”
When you were fifteen, I disappeared with you, and we lived in England. When the temptation of your blood became too strong, I knew I had to send you home.”
“You didn’t tell me how Samantha fit into this.”
“Before I had become a vampire, I was to marry Samantha. That was before I knew she was a witch. I discovered that when I was courting a beautiful innocent girl. I had just returned from a voyage as a ship’s mate from South America and the ship was filled with treasure.
With my portion of the treasure I was able to buy a castle in Liverpool. I was rich and had my choice of young women. But I would have married Samantha. I had been in love with her before I set sail. When I discovered she had used black magic and turned the girl into a hideous old woman, I wanted no part of her.
Every time I found someone to love, she would destroy them with her magic. Year after year. Finally I cared about nothing and I would walk the streets. My father turned me into who I am now. A soulless creature of the night. Someone who frightens little girls and will eventually cause their deaths.
Samantha has followed me century after century to make sure she kills and destroys my happiness with any woman that dare see me differently.
“I see you differently. You aren’t a soulless creature. You happen to be the gentlest person I know.”
“That’s because you don’t know me,” he said watching up at me. His eyes turning dark. If I find I can’t control myself around you, you could discover how cold I can become. I would drank your blood and because it is sweet I wouldn’t be able to control myself. When I’ve loved you is the time when you are vulnerable and I’m at my weakest.
“That’s not true. You could never harm me or lose control with me. I remember somethings about you even if you think you have erased my memory. I remember how you took care of me when I cried for my mother and father. I remember how you would play the piano to calm me when there were terrible lightning storms. I remember how you held me in your arms and rocked me and sung to me and told me how much you loved me and to not be afraid.”
My eyes locked with his and I saw a tear fall from his face. This cold creature had a heart and soul.
He stood. “Let’s go home and tomorrow we will figure this out.”
Chapter Twenty-Zoey
We left early that morning after saying goodbye to Ann and Robbie who apparently waited because they didn’t want to leave us in the bar without backup. Robbie seems to think that we could have been in jeopardy from a bar full of shifters, but it was unlikely a pack of shifters and werewolves could frighten a vampire.
Vampires bring the darkness that many fear to tread in, but Sebastian had lost his darkness because of his love for a human, but Robbie feared he may have been one of the first vampire causalities at the hands of werewolves looking to make a name for themselves in the world outside of men.
Sebastian drove us home and at first there was silence between us. Then he glanced at me, “Do you think you can live with me the way we are now?”
“No,” I said. He furrowed his brow into three rows. I smiled and said, “No. I won’t live with you and without the benefit of marriage. If I’m going to be hunted by a multitude of vampires and a witch for the rest of my life, at least I should be married, and you said you were rich.” I winked at him and watched at his surprised expression. “If for some reason you should expire before I do, which I doubt, I should at least inherit that gold you brought from South America.”
He watched at me with narrow eyes until he realized I was kidding. “I wanted to ask you to marry me when you became twenty-one, but it seemed a little inappropriate, and I was afraid you would say no,” he said reaching and placing his hand over mine.
“Why didn’t you ask? Of course I would say no to a stranger.”
“At the time you were no stranger, but a child I had taken care of since you were five. It was when you were fifteen that you looked at me differently. I told you then that we weren’t natural brother and sister. And you asked me if you were adopted, and I answered you. You didn’t like the answer and you became angry at me. I calmed you and as we lived together because I was trying to protect you from Aare, and we developed a bond together. I felt it and I didn’t want to turn you and have you become my slave.”
“Why would I become your slave?”
“You wouldn’t be the Zoey I know. The sassy snarky Zoey with her own free will. You would be at my beck and call. Like a prisoner or slave is the best description. You would have to do as I wished.”
“And you didn’t want that? Most men would kill to have a woman like that. No more telling you no. I would have to do whatever you wanted sexually.” He smile and turned his eyes back to the road.
“That wasn’t you and I didn’t want that. I didn’t want a cold unfeeling child who had been turned too soon. I didn’t want that at all.”
Listening to his explanation, I knew now what he wanted. “You want a human lover.”
“No. I want a human wife and lover. But I was afraid of you.”
“A vampire afraid? Not likely.”
“It’s something you do to me that makes me unsure of myself when I’m around you. I worry about if I’m enough for you.”
“Oh you are more than enough for me.” I held his hand. “Why don’t you go to your father and tell him about you and me and that we want to go far away and never have to look over our shoulders?”
“That is wishful thinking on your part, Zoey. We exist in an outside world devoid of human feeling and desires. We use humans only as a food source and to bridge us with day and night. No vampire has ever lived with humans without him or her eventually turning them into the lifeless soulless monsters we’ve become.”
“Why do you refer to yourself as soulless? You’re not that. You will never be.” When I looked to Sebastian’s face, it was blank. No expression I could read.
Sebastian drove into the garage, parked, open my door, and helped me out of the car. He took my hand and said, “We will have to leave here soon. All your fanciful ideas are good, but my father would more likely kill me than listen to me. He will find us and therefore we have to leave and soon.”
“But I just discovered a new friend, well friends. I sort of liked Robbie. He’s a cool werewolf.” I tried to reason with Sebastian, but I got nowhere.
“When word gets out about David, the hunters, mostly humans who suspect that we exist, will be looking for me and you, and maybe Ann and Robert as well. His name is Robert and he’s a notorious fearless lone werewolf. Men have been tracking him for years. Calling him Robbie will not make him any less. My father put a bounty on my head and Robert’s. He was the only werewolf who wouldn’t try to bring me in. The forest is littered with a pack of them I killed before you came into that bar, and the members of their pack will look for me when they are found.”
I glanced at him as we entered the elevator. The door closed behind us.
“Can’t you reason with your father? After all you are his son. Make him understand that we’re in love.”
“In his world there can be no love between a human and a vampire.”
Looking at Sebastian with a confused look, I asked, “Can’t there be? We can be different. We are different.” I was trying hard to convince myself.
“I don’t know, but I want to try,” he said in a soft smooth voice.
The elevator opened and we stepped into the glass house which had been my jail, but now it’s more like my sanctuary. He held my hand until we walked up the stairs and then he stood looking at me. I had seen that look in his eyes before.
“Are you coming to my room? We have an hour before the sun rises,” I said.
“Go and prepare yourself for me. I’ll be there soon.” When he said prepare for him, he meant to mentally prepare for his body. But I didn’t need to prepare for what had been the best sex of my life.
After taking a shower, I walked out naked and lay in the bed, closed my eyes and thought about Sebastian, and what he had said to me about protecting me from Aare and when I was a child. Sebastian was my brother then, and now he’s my lover. The question is: can we have a future.
The answer came back “Of course not stupid. There’s no future with a vampire.” One day you can cut your finger and ask him to get a band aid, and the next thing he will be sucking the life out of you.
I didn’t want that kind of answer. I wanted my mind to lie to me. At least this once. I’m tired living in the real scary world where little girls can get kidnapped on their way to school, and big girls die at the hands of handsome men.
When Sebastian made love to me it was as if I had been floating weightless on clouds traveling around the universe and when we reached our orgasm it was like a blast from a dying star that gave out the most brilliant light before it faded. I felt completely engulfed by his love and devotion to me, his human.
My vampire.
Had I gone mad? Maybe. I had never been touched like that. His cool skin complemented mine. His cold body fell into the fever of my body. His immortality against my mortality raised an unnatural desire in me. Death and life together living with each other and loving every minute of it.
Opposites do attract.
He left our bed as I slept happy and relaxed. He left for his hiding place, and now I was free to roam around the house and go on a shopping spree. I knew what I wanted foremost and that was food for now.
What could be better than food after having sex?
Now Sebastian trusted me enough where he gave me a credit card to buy food and clothes for our journey to wherever he had in mind to take me. I had no choice but to follow him because of my love and devotion to him. Today I would make the best of my shopping experience. Before I never had enough money to buy the things I enjoyed. Jeans and boots and a nice leather jacket. And anything I wanted to eat.
The Soul of a Vampire #1 Page 12
