My eyes widened, and I imagined all the ways I could murder him right then and there.
Knight’s response was snickering before he said, “As if I can tell her what to do. Lisbeth always does whatever she wants, and trust me, she can protect herself.”
“This was my idea,” I interjected, my cheeks reddening with Knight’s compliment. “If I don’t show our people it’s safe to do this, then what kind of example am I setting? They’re already reluctant enough. This could be the tipping point, seeing one from the Council going abroad for negotiations.”
Arthur chewed on that idea and then his eyebrows slowly rose in surprise. “That’s… sound logic.”
“Remember that the next time you imply I’m stupid.” I stepped onto the pavement of the road and started on my way back to the castle Order. With Knight at my side and Arthur flanking me, we made it to the gates of our home.
Knight motioned for Arthur to go inside the gate first. “Could you give us a minute?” he asked the Hunter. Arthur glanced at me for approval and went inside after I nodded to him.
Me alone with Knight. For the second time today. Me and Knight. Alone. Us. Alone. Pussy, stay silent for once. Don’t give me away.
“Lis,” he said, knocking me out of my brain freeze. “Why are you going to Europe? You’re not exactly a fan of traveling. Plus you just had a baby. Are you sure you’re up for it?” My heart fluttered painfully when I met Knight’s eyes, but I still smiled at the memory of my little Kitty waiting for me in my rooms. Knight smiled back, thinking I was smiling at him, prompting him forward, enough where his warmth fell over me like a shadow. “I’ll protect you, no matter where we go.”
I took a step back and watched the glow in his face slowly fade. “I didn’t want to bring you. I had to.” I left him there, unable to see him sad because of me. When I got to my room, I found Olivier bouncing little Kitty on her shoulder. My daughter was cooing and had one fang stuck in the blanket on Olivier’s shoulder. She saw me and hiccuped with a smile.
“Miracle thing, receiving blankets. She kept trying to stick her fangs into me,” Olivier said with a smirk as she carefully handed Kitty to me. Kitty cooed again and flopped onto my chest before taking a bite from my shoulder. “I’m not even sure she’s trying to feed. She thinks we’re pacifiers.” Olivier flicked Kitty’s ear playfully and left the room. I kissed Kitty’s black curly head. She looked up, her mouth curled around my collarbone, and smiled at me. My heart warmed up again.
“Mommy might have to go away for a few days,” I told her. I was quite aware that babies had no language comprehension, but I hoped vampire babies were different. And anyway, it felt good to talk to someone. Kitty went back to gnawing on me, but she reached a hand up to my neck as if trying to comfort me. “Mommy loves you, but I need to find out what you are. Besides adorable, that is.” Her little fist curled around my neck even more. “I can’t take you with me, little one. It’s too dangerous where Mommy is going. Olivier and Arthur will keep you safe and fed.” I held her close, as tightly as I could. “When you start to miss me, just remember my face. Your memory is like mommy’s, right? Picture me and the memories will come. And mommy will do the same.”
I tried not to make a sound as tears flowed down my cheeks and she slowly fell asleep against me.
A soft knock at the door brought me up from my paperwork a few days later, and Arthur walked in with Knight close behind. The werewolf had his old duffle bag slung over his shoulder and a mischievous grin on his face that went straight to my heart.
Taking in a breath, I raised an eyebrow at him and stacked my papers up. “Excited?”
“A bit,” he admitted sheepishly. “I’ve never been outside the continent before.”
“How can you live over one hundred years and not leave the continent?” Arthur asked in disbelief.
Knight shrugged and grinned again, not even Arthur’s frost could keep him down. “Being a werewolf doesn’t pay very much.”
I stood up and grabbed the envelope that had been left on my desk, then I came around while tearing it open and removed the contents: two brand new passports and ID cards for us. “Passport and I.D,” I told him. I handed Knight his and slid mine into my dress pocket.
“Kyle,” Knight read off his passport. He glanced up at me with a skeptical eyebrow raise. “Kyle?”
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t choose it. Mine is Jasmine. Do I look like a Jasmine?”
He folded it into his pocket and muttered, “Good thing that’s not my real name. Then again, neither is Knight.”
“You… your real name isn’t Knight??” I gasped with genuine surprise. Was it Sam? Jerry? Oh fuck no, not Jerry.
“Plot twist!” he sang out. He was still grinning like a fool when I handed him the rest of the envelope contents: one of two stacks of money. His stack had twenty thousand. Mine had more. His grin went slack with awe and he flipped it with his fingers like a guy about to stick dollar bills into a stripper’s underwear. “Well fuck me. It seems being a werewolf does pay well. What’s it for? Greasing fingers? Are we bribing people?” He got quiet and whispered, “Is there a vampire mafia?”
Rolling my eyes at him again, I retrieved the suitcase I’d hidden behind my desk, rolling it right up to Arthur. I stared up at him with much more bravado than our height difference allowed for. “Arthur, guard my daughter with your life. I don’t have to tell you what I’ll do to you if I come back and she’s been harmed in any way,” I warned. Instead of complaining, he bowed his head to me with complete respect. Good boy.
Suitcase and duffle in hand, we made our way to the foyer where a small crowd was waiting. Since when did flying to Europe earn a sendoff? I wasn’t going off to war. Then again, maybe I was.
Olivier held Kitty to her chest, my little one holding a plastic chew toy to bite on. I walked to them and gave Kitty a kiss on her curly head. Leaving her made me feel like I was sprawled on the carpet again with only a sliver of sanity left, but I had to do this. I had to know what my daughter would become. Staring into her crystal blue and violet eyes, I couldn’t believe she would become a monster like Anastasia Bathory, but if she had any chance of the vampires accepting her, I had to be sure. I took her from Olivier and hugged my tiny jewel as tightly as I could.
Mommy will not forsake you, little one. She will fight for you with her last breath.
With a deep sigh to stave off the tears threatening to overcome me, I kissed Kitty’s head again and handed her back to Olivier. Arthur took his place beside her and nodded to me again, that hint of a glint back in his eyes. There was no one else on earth or in the deepest corners of the universe I’d trust my daughter with than those two.
I cleared my throat and took a step back from her, addressing the other vampires surrounding us. “I’ll be gone for several days. At most a week. James is the oldest vampire in my Order, but he has deferred his seniority in favor of Olivier. She will temporarily take my seat on the Council and handle any requests you might need.” Kitty waved her chew toy, rattling it for me, and I smiled slowly. “The turned will not overthrow us, this I can promise you. Please continue the peace talks with the remaining Lycans and assist them in any way you can. Only together can we save our species.” With a nod to everyone, I met Arthur’s eyes last before I headed out the front door, Knight right behind me.
Castilla stood outside in the garden, and she reached a hand out to me when we passed her. She leaned in close and spoke in my ear. “Your mission is dangerous, and you will not find the answers you seek.” I pulled away in surprise. Who had told her my mission? I had sworn James to secrecy, on pain of death, and I knew well enough how much he valued his own life to know he would never betray me.
“I can handle the Lycans,” I whispered back to her, Knight coming close to me just in case I was in danger.
“It is not the Lycans you are going to see,” she countered, her eyes darting from me to Knight. “This will not help the child.” She tried to grab me again so I stepped further
away, bumping into Knight’s body. She looked haunted and flushed, more so than she had at the meeting. Was she… no. She couldn’t be bingeing. I reached out with my sense and felt her power above normal levels, not enough where anyone would notice, but still enough to be against the rules. Her face dropped when she realized I knew, and she stiffened with a haughty sniff that was nothing like the Castilla I knew. “I will not apologize for my habits. I need the sight to see if our people can be saved.”
I reached for her arm this time and roughly brought her to my eye level. “You will cease this immediately, and when I return, your blood levels will remain at legal levels, or your seat on the Council will be forfeit.” I let her go with a small shove and left her behind to stand in the icy shadows of the castle.
Knight didn’t comment until we were at the car. “Everything cool?” he asked, watching me pass him to put my suitcase in the trunk.
“Sure.”
He looked back at Castilla, still watching us from the shadows. “She’s blood bingeing,” he said quietly. Of course he could tell. He had a front row seat to my bingeing, so he knew better than most what it looked like. I didn’t need to answer him, but I gave him a knowing look.
We got in and our driver drove out of the castle yard, towards the airport. The further we got, the more my heart hurt. I was leaving my infant baby alone when I should’ve had her with me, no matter what.
Knight’s warm hand covered my own on top of my lap. “She’ll be fine,” he soothed gently, but I took my hand back. Having him comfort me wouldn’t help my confusing feelings, especially when he rejected me officially, as I knew he would. Still though, when I leaned away against the door, I felt slightly better.
“Right this way, Miss Heart,” the airport security officer said as he escorted us past customs and straight through the bag checks.
“Jasmine Heart,” I complained under my breath. “I sound like a soap opera star. The legal team is so fired.”
“At least your name isn’t Kyle Vanderbilt. Seriously. Vanderbilt. Do I look like a rich white guy?”
“Please. The Vanderbilts wish they were as rich as vampires are.”
“Then why aren’t we flying in a private jet? You vampires and your castles, your fancy luggage, and your lack of private jets. I’m so disappointed in you.” He shook his head with a silly expression. I knew he was joking, but everything inside me came to a head and his whining was raising my hackles.
“We do have private jets, thank you, but it’s not safe to use them because the turned know how to find where they are.”
Not seeing the look on my face, Knight grumbled under his breath, “Stupid turned making me fly first class with a bunch of smelly humans.”
“I’m sure you can survive twelve hours’ worth of sweat stank. And quietly too.” That had much more salt than I’d intended, but I couldn’t take it back. I pressed my lips together and stepped into the plane. Knight was quiet as we found our seats, put our luggage in the compartments, and sat down facing one another. Fuck. I could add being rude to him on my list of all the things I’d done to make Knight hate me, as if I needed more sins. My lips opened and closed several times with an apology trying to surface. I couldn’t apologize to him. He’d try to be friends and I couldn’t be friends. I couldn’t be anything to him. We’d work together, and then we’d part ways forever, just like Arthur. I’d never have anyone by my side now.
Why in the name of god was Knight the only creature on the planet that could help me with my mission? The universe was being unnaturally cruel.
“Something to drink?” A stewardess had appeared next to us with a tray of drinks in very expensive wine glasses. I grabbed some red wine and chugged several gulps of it. Knight took one with white wine. He held it tenderly by the stem and swirled the yellow liquid around with elegance before taking a refined sip.
“So,” he said, putting the wine glass down on his armrest and folding his hands in his lap. “Why are we going to Europe?” I had to tell him eventually what my real mission was, but it was too soon. We had to be out of the country first, just to be safe.
I raised an eyebrow at his probing to feign innocence. “You were literally standing next to me when I said why. Lycan negotiations? The turned? War? Ringing a bell?”
He tilted his head, smelling my bullshit. “I know why you said we’re going to Europe. What I don’t know is the real reason.” I tried not to stare too hard at him while retaining eye contact so he wouldn’t call my bluff. He blinked, looked away, leaned back into his chair, and I sipped more of my drink, wishing it was something harder like Everclear. “You can trust me, Lis. Whatever it is. And the fact that I have to say that to you…” He shook his head and tapped a fingernail against the bottom of his glass. “I thought we were closer than this.”
My lip trembled when I formed my next words, my heart in utter agony. “We aren’t.” I felt him shift his weight in his chair and I couldn’t look at him.
His hand shook when he picked up his glass. “Okay then.”
It took all my willpower to not cry. Digging into my purse, I shoved my headphones in my ears and put my favorite playlist on repeat to block all the feelings rushing over me. Knight shifted in his chair to lean his head against the top of it, sighing deeply, and saying something I had to read his lips to understand with my headphones on.
“This is going to be a very long flight.”
With the same songs playing over and over, I drifted in and out of sleep. I dreamed of a house, old and battered from years of neglect, but it felt like home. In all my long years, it was a house I’d never seen before. Why did it feel so familiar?
I walked through the rooms, each one holding remnants of the people that used to live there. Some pots, a tattered sewing kit, a baby bonnet. I picked up the white cloth and traced the delicate stitching with my fingers.
Kitty came to my mind, but I couldn’t see her. Coming to the front door, I opened it and walked across the front porch, the rotting steps barely holding my weight. Where was Kitty? I could feel her here. I had to find her.
“Kitty? Kitty where are you?” I called out to the empty field in front of the house. A dark shape drew my gaze and I ran to it. My stomach plummeted in fear before I reached the figure. It was suddenly before me, a corpse I couldn’t identify like their face was clouded. A small girl hovered over the corpse’s side. She looked up at me, her face and neck sticky with blood. Her smile turned my heart cold because this girl was my Kitty.
She stood to show me her blood-stained frock. “Look, Mommy. I killed them for you. Now you don’t have to be sad.”
The corpse’s face wasn’t cloudy anymore when I looked at it, and Cameron’s ashen face stared back at me, lifeless in death. I recoiled in horror, only to trip over another body. This one was Olivier. The more I looked around, the more bodies I saw. Every vampire I knew was a rotting corpse.
The girl Kitty came up and reached out a bloodied hand for me to take. “Are you proud of me, Mommy?”
Corpses. Faces. Carnage. All the things I feared. My daughter was a monster.
Make it go away. It’s not real. This can’t be real.
I woke with a bloodcurdling scream, back on the airplane with music blaring in my ears. Knight was right there, ripping my headphones off and putting his hands on my shoulders to keep me in my seat.
It was just a dream. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. Was it real? Oh gods it can’t be real.
“It was just a dream, it was just a dream,” I repeated to myself in a mantra to rid myself of the images.
“Is everything okay?” a stewardess said in a worried voice. I couldn’t process her words.
It was just a dream. Just a dream.
“We’re fine. She has PTSD, it causes outbursts sometimes,” Knight lied. Was he lying? “Sorry for the upset. I’ll calm her down. Thank you.” The human’s smell got further away.
Just a dream.
“The bodies,” I choked out. “They were all dead.
” I felt Knight switch to the seat next to me and tuck some of my hair behind my ear.
“Sssh, it’s okay, Lis. It’s not real. You were dreaming.” Unable to comfort me, he leaned closer and pulled me into his lap. I grabbed at him, anything to hold me afloat as I drifted about like a buoy.
“Kitty killed everyone. She…” I sobbed and gasped for air. “Oh god… what did I give birth to…”
Knight’s soft lips pressed against my temple and it calmed me down slightly. He kissed all over my skin where he could reach, everywhere but my lips. I pulled away from his face and the fog lifted enough for me to focus on him, noticing every feature of his beautiful face.
“It was just a dream?” I asked him feebly, petting his hair to keep from sinking into the darkness again.
“Only a dream,” he confirmed, pulling me back in and tucking my head against his warm neck, my arms around his body to steady me. I stayed that way until I fell asleep, and the nightmares did not return.
6. The tale of Celeste
If you asked me to recall the details of that day, the smells, the airports, what Knight said to me during our layover, how much money I spent feeding Knight airport food, what the second plane looked like, how it felt being back in Florence after centuries, I could not tell you.
My mind replayed the nightmare over and over in a countless cycle, my fears laid bare and the haunting face of a blood-stained Kitty looking up at me. That couldn’t be the future. The future I feared, yes, but not the future that would come to pass, surely. Surely.
Drifting away, Knight’s hand was suddenly in mine and I felt just enough clarity to hear him on the phone with someone.
“Arthur, I don’t know what to do. She had a nightmare and now, she’s just comatose.”
My ears automatically tuned into the other side of the call, to hear Arthur’s scratchy voice through Knight’s phone speaker.
“What was the dream about?” Arthur’s voice brought me closer to Knight, sliding up to his side so I could be closer to both of them.
The Born Vampire series: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Complete Series, NSFW Edition) Page 39
