“Elisabeth, please come in,” he said, gesturing to the chair across from him. How did he know my full name? I sat, feeling slightly uncomfortable at being given such a small chair. A display of power, most likely. “How are you liking the inn?” he asked, giving no indication he thought it was a bad establishment.
“It’s good,” I answered. “Sara is very kind. And she can really decorate.”
James smiled, for the first time showing warmth. “Most people find her odd. I’m glad you do not.” As if summoned silently, several humans came in bringing the first course: cucumber soup. “I wasn’t sure which eras you preferred as far as cuisine is concerned, so I just went with some traditional favorites.”
We ate, sometimes talking and appreciating shared experiences from the past, but mostly just enjoying the food. The main course was roast peacock, and the platter was decorated with several feathers, as well as the bird’s head. I wrinkled my nose at it and James had it taken away with a snap of his fingers. Dessert came, an exotic chocolate dish, and he relaxed in his chair after finishing his.
“That was delightful,” he said with a relaxed smile on his face. “Do you need to drink?” I shook my head. “I may after you leave. I usually do after I partake of food.” He stood and walked over to examine a painting near my chair.
My brain didn’t quite process that. “You drink more than once a day?”
He brushed his hand over his sleeves, even though they were spotless. “I drink as often as I feel like it.”
“That causes instability.” I’d lived long enough to know that. It would explain James’s odd behavior. He was close to me now and held out a hand for me to take.
“It also causes powers. This you know.”
I shifted my legs under the table. “I’m well aware.”
“I can read minds. I can bend humans to my will. I can control our kind.” He gave me a pointed look. “Including you.”
“Well,” I said quickly, tossing my cloth napkin onto the table. “This was a lovely meal, and I thank you for-” James interrupted me, uttering a single word.
“Stand.”
My legs suddenly clenched and the only thing I wanted to do was stand up.
I didn’t.
His lips pursed at me and his eyes focused sternly on my face. “I said, stand.” My muscles began to burn like I’d been sitting for days. I craved the sweet release standing would give me.
I still didn’t.
This time James squinted, studying me, and a slow grin spread onto his face. “I should’ve known, given your age. There’s only one way to make you submit.” No. He couldn't mean... He pulled me by my hand to his embrace, and I felt revulsion having him so close to me. I fought, but he was stronger, and he held me against him forcefully.
Then he bit me.
Fourteen
I rubbed my neck in the limo on the way back to Sara’s inn.
Once he’d bitten me, he kissed me for several minutes, and man was it gross. Then he stroked my neck and told me to go back to the hotel. He wasn't interested in hurting me, which was nice. He just wanted to control me.
Sara was lounging on a fainting couch in the lobby when I arrived, chewing on pieces of melon and reading a Japanese newspaper upside down. She glanced up at me briefly and went back to the paper. I could feel her disapproval, but of what I had no idea. Then suddenly, she looked back at me with a horrified expression and jumped up, tossing the paper away.
“He bit you,” she stated, her face shocked. I reached a hand up to cover my neck. “He forced his will on you.” She put a hand on mine and gave me a comforting look, like James had raped me, instead of just biting me. Now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure how those two options differed.
Then the air changed. We both tensed, though I didn’t know if Sara felt what I was feeling. It wasn’t a smell, more like my ears had randomly tuned into something happening outside.
“He’s here,” she whispered.
I turned around and went back to the front door. Sara joined me, pulling on some shoes that looked like they’d come from Aladdin’s closet. I expected to see James standing there, ready for round two of whatever he thought our evening had been, but that wasn’t what greeted me.
Knight was further down the road, kneeling in the street, a dozen vampires and human bodyguards either holding him down or pointing a weapon at him. James stood at the head of the group, looking down at Knight, about to pass judgment for a Lycan trespassing within his unmarked borders.
Even though the last time I’d seen Knight had ended in literal blood and tears, I felt elation and relief at the sight of him. I’d given up hope that I’d ever see him again. And despite the oddness of our relationship, and my uncertainty about his intentions towards me romantically, I found I didn’t want him to leave again.
“Wait!” I shouted. James’s head turned to see Sara and I coming towards him. Two vampires had a rough grip on Knight’s hair, so he fought his captors to find my face.
“Hey, Lisa,” he said with a toss of his chin and a smile.
“Lisa?” I asked, completely confused. Did he forget my name? Was he playing dumb? Well. He didn’t really have to play.
He grinned and my heart skipped a beat. “Trying to find you a nickname. Not working?”
The look I gave him was utter disbelief at his choice of conversation, giving the circumstances. He shrugged and grinned playfully.
James hissed loudly so we’d stop talking. I felt the command, even if he hadn’t spoken it. “You know this mutt, Elisabeth?” Knight’s mouth wrinkled when my name was said as if he disapproved more of James using my full name than being called a mutt.
“Yes. He protected me before I came here. He’s my-” I checked Knight’s face before I finished my sentence, knowing I’d pay for it later. “-bodyguard.” James started to chuckle ironically and Knight scrunched his mouth up even more with annoyed disapproval.
“I can see that you’re serious,” James said after he’d finished laughing. “You had your reasons for hiring a mongrel to watch over you, I suppose.” Mongrel? That was much worse than dog. Even I was offended. “What shall you do with him?”
That surprised me. “The fuck?”
“He bears your scent. You’ve bitten him. You decide what his fate is. Shall we kill him?” He waited for me to speak. To choose.
I glanced back at Knight, still kneeling on the asphalt and being restrained by so many other bodies, much more than a normal man would require. “Let him go.” I caught a slight nod from James out of the corner of my eye before Knight was released. He stood and brushed off his faded blue jeans.
“Thanks, Lis,” he said, the grin back on his face.
James straightened and flicked a hand for everyone to give Knight more space. “I expect you gone from my city before sunrise,” he commanded the Lycan.
“No, he’s not leaving,” I said, and instantly regretted it.
James’s body turned and seemed to tower over me. “Excuse me?”
I swallowed, fear trickling up my skin, and Knight gave me a perplexed look. It took all my power not to stutter. “I want him to stay.”
“Are you defying me?” James asked sternly.
I whimpered. It felt as if weights were crushing me and I struggled to breathe. I couldn’t defy my master. My panicked eyes went back to Knight. Although he didn’t know what was going on, he at least wasn’t mad at me for being a weakling. Wait. I wasn’t defying James.
“You…” I swallowed. “You said I decide his fate. I want him to stay here.” I waited to feel pain, weakness, the crushing weights again, but I didn’t.
James hmphed at me, a smile coming to his lips. “Clever. Very well. You win this time.” He raised two fingers and made a circle in the air, which meant the show was over. The humans and vampires dispersed. With a smile still on his face, he took my arm and squeezed it so hard his nails pierced my thick vampire skin before he forced me to kiss him.
Ewwwwwww.
Knight ran his hands through his mussed hair. “Nice company you’re keeping, Lis.” My emotions swirled so badly, I didn’t how to react. Sara broke the silence, stepping forward and offering her hand to him.
“I’m Sara. Resident weirdo.”
He took her hand and pumped it a few times. “Nice to know you’re owning it.” She shrugged playfully and flipped some of her pink-tipped hair back. Was she flirting?
I interrupted…whatever they were up to. “What are you doing here?” I asked Knight sternly.
“Aaaand moment over. I’ll be in the lobby.” Sara about faced with a fancy twirl and half ran back to the hotel. Knight watched her leave (was he checking her out?), then he turned back to me. His face softened slightly.
“Are you his now?”
“That’s not what I fucking asked you.”
“Fine. I was worried about you.”
My first reaction was accusatory. Why had he left? Why had he suddenly come back? But I was too relieved to see him and too tired to argue. “The reason being?”
“I caught your scent at the gas station outside of town, and then I smelled other vampires. I figured you'd been captured.”
In the midst of everything that had happened in the past hour, I'd scarcely thought of Arthur. But that didn't matter much now since I was now bound to the small city and couldn't leave without James's permission. I'd have to take my chances with the Hunters, as disconcerting as that was. I had bigger problems at the moment.
“Thank you for the concern,” I told Knight. “I haven't been found yet so I’m safe.”
He looked at the corner of the street, the one James had disappeared behind. “Forgive me if I don’t believe you.”
Fifteen
Once we were secure in my hotel room, Knight shut and locked the door before turning to me with a very determined look on his face.
“You're going to tell me everything that happened here,” he said firmly, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“I don’t think I owe you anything,” I countered, arms over my chest as well. I hadn’t been mad before that moment, but now I was so upset with him for abandoning me, it was overriding my happiness that he was standing in front of me.
His eyes fell to my neck and his face turned dark. “Did he bite you?”
My hand automatically went up to cover it. “Yes.”
“Fucking bastard,” he ground out. He moved towards me, hands out, probably to look at the wound, but I recoiled away from him.
“Please don’t touch me,” I whimpered. “I feel extremely violated right now, I can’t deal with physical touch.” Tears came down my cheeks and I sniffed with a sigh. “I’m sorry.”
His brown eyes looked as sad as I’d ever seen them. “Don’t be. I won’t touch you.” I nodded, wiping my eyes. He grabbed a blanket from the bed and went to sleep on the floor without another word.
I slept fitfully, my dreams running over and over what it felt like to have my free will taken from me so easily. It was as foreign to me as being human. I’d never experienced something like it before, and as I’d said, I felt so utterly violated. When I woke up the next morning, my pillow was soaked with sweat. Knight’s pallet had been neatly folded up and he wasn’t in the room. I took a bath, got dressed, and went downstairs.
When I walked into the kitchen, Knight and Sara were eating breakfast. They both had a similar look of cautious pity when they saw me. I sat down in the chair Sara had brought into the room for me, a wicker armchair that didn’t match the 1950’s kitchen theme. She’d already loaded a plate for me with pancakes that smelled like chocolate chips and cannoli. I brought a fork towards the stack and Sara quickly added a mess of whipped cream on top.
“Gotta keep your strength up. You didn’t sleep well last night,” Sara said cheerfully. She added one more extra-large squirt of foam for good measure before setting the can down. “Oh! I almost forgot. I didn’t get you someone to drink from. Silly me. Oh, and Knight, please don’t break more of my dishes.” She waltzed out without another word.
Knight looked down at his plate, still covered in a half-eaten stack of chocolate chip and cannoli pancakes. “I haven’t broken her dishes,” he said, confused.
“She’s always saying things like that, don’t worry. She’s a seer,” I told him. I took a bite of my own breakfast and suddenly didn’t want to talk anymore. It was that good. I wanted to break down and cry at the deliciousness.
“Like, oooo you will meet a mysterious stranger?” he asked, clearly skeptical.
“Like seeing the future is any weirder than having a freaky moon relationship?”
He twirled his fork around mockingly. “Meh, meh, meh, I drink blood.”
That’s how the food fight started.
We flung pieces of pancake at each other and both grabbed whipped cream to attack with. I clobbered him with a giant spray of cream, and he grabbed me to him to put his supply in my hair.
“No!” I screamed. “Not my hair, you cuntwaffle!” He laughed and his smile fell as he reached up to push my hair back. I realized I was in his arms and pulled away. “Sorry.”
He sighed and flicked me with cream. “Stop apologizing to me.”
When Sara came back into the room, Knight, the kitchen, and I were covered in pancakes and canned whipped cream.
“I’d be furious at you two, but I’m more furious that you two won’t be able to help me clean this up. Plate.” Knight was turning to see her and his foot slipped on the floor. His hand reached for the table to stop his fall and he knocked his plate off the corner. It crashed onto the floor. “Like I said, please don’t break more of my dishes. I like those. They’re vintage.”
“Sorry,” he apologized. “We’ll help clean up.”
She sighed like she was tired of people not listening to her. “I said you two won’t be able to help me clean. Did you not hear?” She turned to me. “I couldn’t get you someone to drink from. This was at the door.” She handed me a letter and shooed us out of the kitchen.
“What’s that?” Knight asked, his finger scraping a big glob of whipped cream off his arm, which he popped into his mouth. The envelope was sealed with red wax and the impression of a ring. I didn’t recognize the symbol, but I didn’t have to guess who had sent it.
‘I’ve sent a car for you. You may drink at my home every morning.’
Easily a message he could’ve said over the phone or something. Knight took the paper and read it. He didn’t say anything so I explained what it meant.
“He wants to control my feeding.”
Knight nodded and handed the paper back. “I figured as much.” He focused on something near my arm, and I was about to ask what it was until he reached a finger out to scoop up another glob of cream that sat on my elbow.
“Eww!” I ran back up the stairs so he couldn’t eat any leftover breakfast on me.
“I’m hungry! You interrupted a perfectly good stack of pancakes, COME BACK HERE!”
We cleaned up and went outside. The stretch limo James had sent was still sitting there waiting at the end of the block. More of his not-human guards were there. Knight wrinkled his nose at them, their odd smell disagreeing with his brain.
“What are they?” I shrugged. I was just as clueless. “They were fucking strong last night. Way too strong to be human.” We’d reached the limo, and the closest not-human came up to stand in our way. I recognized him from the scuffle the previous night and from when I’d first met James. He had blonde hair and his features were similar to James’s, not to mention their eyes were the same color. His son?
“He is not allowed to join you,” the not-human said, inclining his head at Knight. I didn’t want Knight to leave me since I was feeling incredibly vulnerable in this town, but it was safer to not piss James off.
“Fine,” I told him. I gave Knight a wave and walked over to step inside the ca
r. The guards got in behind me and the limo took off. Inside the limo, there was a small mini-fridge and a bowl of wrapped chocolate mints. I took one and chewed it while we drove to James’s house.
I looked the not-human up and down. “What’s your name,” I asked around the chocolate mint.
He glanced over at me and gave me a look like I could use a brush-up on manners. “Drake.”
“You have the same eyes as James,” I told him. I was so nervous; I couldn’t stop myself from talking.
“He’s my father,” Drake said simply. Called it!
“But you’re…” I started. He waited for me to finish my sentence, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. You’re human but not human? Thankfully, he was content to ignore me so I didn’t have to continue the conversation.
It wasn’t a long trip to James’s mansion, small town and all, and soon the limo was going up a small incline before it stopped. The guards got out, opened the door for me, and helped me step out. James’s mansion looked the same, but a little less welcoming. It was in the early American style, a colonial mansion. The type people used to have parties and balls at before the American Revolution. I’d been too distracted to really notice it before. He might have been a psycho overlord, but he had a nice house.
The inside was decorated with vintage furniture, no doubt all original from when the house was first built. You’d be surprised how long a chair can last when it’s not seeing daily use. The walls had dozens of paintings and photographs. While only some of the paintings were of James, all the photographs were of him, captured at various points in time and harkening all the way back to the first cameras.
Knight of the Hunted (NSFW Edition) (Born Vampire Book 1) Page 11
