“Ah, that’s a complicated question to answer,” Carden replies, rubbing the back of his neck.
Something about it hits a chord within me. The feeling of familiarity whooshes through me so fast that I nearly stumble; reaching out to grab onto the dresser for support. All of these slight realizations of old memories feel so close yet so far away, like I’m having a strange sense of Deja vu that I can’t quite place. We lock eyes, and the overwhelming urge to touch him rises up in my chest, along with a little bit of desperation. That feeling flushes out into the room, hitting him like a truck as he stumbles forward, a wild look on his face.
Our bodies crash together, our arms coming around each other in an awkward embrace. Even though it was orchestrated by my poorly controlled power; I relish this human to human contact. Alina didn’t seem like the hugging type, plus I’m not so sure I want to hug her. That woman has too many secrets, too much baggage that I’m sure is hidden beneath years of mastering her emotions. It leaves me uneasy every time I talk to her. Being with Carden, in his arms, is so much different.
His presence is actually comforting in comparison to hers. I can feel his pure intentions in every breath he takes, in every scrap of emotion that my new power picks up from him. He wants to help me, to make me feel a little bit less alone in this new suddenly scary world. I sigh, pulling him closer and getting my arms more comfortable around his neck before settling my head right beneath his chin. I fit perfectly here, and the hollow of his throat begs me to kiss it, to. . . sink my fangs into it.
This time I feel them elongate out over my bottom lip. The moment they do, my emotions switch from happy relief to desire; both for him and his blood. I open my mouth wide, leaning closer for a moment, before snapping myself backward again. We stumble away from one another and I turn quickly away, making sure to hide my mouth from him. But he steps up to me until my back meets his chest, pulling me closer.
“You can’t hide from me, Blair. I already saw it. The glowing red eyes are a dead giveaway,” he murmurs, and the feeling of his breath along my throat sends little shivers of pleasure coursing down my spine.
“Red?” I ask, turning my head toward the mirror over the dresser.
He’s right, of course. My eyes had gone from light blue to deep crimson. Now they’re glowing with an inner light, and I watch as it shines off of my fangs. The glow makes me look much more foreboding than ever before, like a true vampire. I’m sure if a human saw me right now, they’d back away with a scared look on their face. The thought doesn’t send any wary feelings into my stomach as every other realization these past few days has, thank the lord. Perhaps I’m getting used to the idea of what I’ve become.
What? A blood sucking monster? A tiny voice in my head asks, practically gesturing toward my reflection.
“Ah, I’m sorry for throwing myself at you. My emotions are all over the place right now,” I mumble before shuffling away from his warmth.
I sigh, but this time with a sense of exhaustion even though I just woke up. Carden allows me to fully step away this time, and I scramble to grab the nearest set of clothes and pull them on. Sometime during our strangely passionate embrace, my towel had dropped to the floor. All of the sudden; Carden doesn’t seem bothered by my nakedness at all. In fact, he seems almost sad when I pull on a pair of jeans and a thick cream colored sweater. I smirk at him for a moment before remembering myself. I don’t even know this guy, not really. He might remember me from whatever life I had before this, but nothing about him is really familiar. Before, during that intense hug, I had been riding the wave of my wayward emotional power. Any other time I’m sure I wouldn’t be so casual.
“So. . . Who are you to me? Are you, like, my boyfriend?” I ask, my voice back to being unsteady.
He opens his mouth to answer just as the door swings open again and a woman comes crashing into the room green hair swinging and arms overflowing with bags. My eyes widen at her gothic appearance as I take in the hair, the massive earrings, and the too thick eyeliner. She grins back at me while throwing the bags unceremoniously to the floor. The next thing I know, she’s barreling into my chest and gripping me in a fierce hug.
“Oh Blair! I thought you had died. The lords told me that someone took you, and I was so, so worried. But then Alina contacted Carden all secretively and we rushed here with the belongings from our old apartment,” she babbles. I open my mouth to question her, but she surges on. “And I wanted to tell them, Blair! I did! But the woman said we’d never see you again if the lords knew your location. I’m really sorry that they’re not here instead, I know you started to love them, like, really love them.”
The woman’s words hit me like a truck, but I don’t let go of her. I almost pull her closer to me, crushing her in a firm embrace as my hands begin to shake. I know you started to love them. Alina had mentioned I was with the rulers of the four covens before I had been turned, but nothing more than that. I was in love with them? My chest hollows out at the thought and I sag against the woman, allowing her to catch me against her shoulder as she rubs fast circles across my back.
“Uh, Jade? You realize that Blair has no idea who you are right now, much less what you’re talking about,” Carden says from behind me, effectively breaking apart the nice moment.
“Oh!” Jade squeals, pulling away from me and steadying me with two hands on my shoulders.
After making sure that I can stand on my own she takes two steps back, looking sheepish. My chilled skin immediately cries out when she pulls away, and it dawns on me that that must be why I’m so eager to hug these people. They have a sense of warmth to share, and I’m desperate for it, emotional connection be damned. Wringing my hands, I turn back to Carden and search his eyes for an answer to my earlier question. Is he my boyfriend, or not? He doesn’t meet my eyes, instead walking to the woman, Jade, I remind myself, and planting a big sloppy kiss on her lips. My heart sinks in my chest, and I know that it was a clear message to me as she pulls back and giggles, hitting him in the chest.
I clear my throat. “I loved them? All four?”
Carden’s shoulders seem to curve inward at the question, and Jade glances past him to give me an apologetic look. “Yes, you did.”
“And I was a human?”
They both turn to face me fully and Carden grips my elbow, steering me toward the couch in front of the fire. “It might be best if you sit down for this explanation.”
Jade plops down onto my other side as Carden pours both of us a glass of blood from the pitcher Alina must have left on the coffee table for me sometime this morning. Jade wrinkles her nose as I bring the glass to my lips, and a wash of shame makes me lower it again. I know that it’s disgusting, wrong even, but I can’t help but need it, crave it. Noticing that her look affected me, Jade sits up and smiles brilliantly.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Please don’t stop on my account. I’m just new to the whole drinking blood thing and haven’t gotten used to it yet.”
“Same here,” I mutter before chugging the entire glass and cringing as it slides down my throat.
I wipe a hand across my mouth out of habit and wince when my sharp fangs scrape against my hand. Damnit! I’ll never get the hang of this, will I? I think, shaking my head as I set the glass down on the counter and lick the back of my hand to close the wounds. When I look up, Carden is watching me with a small smile on his face, almost as if he’s amused. I narrow my eyes at him in response and stick out my tongue, making a startled belly laugh rise out of him and into the air around us. I can practically taste his unbridled joy in the air, and Jade’s rising up to meet it at the sound of his laughter. They must really be in tune with each other.
“Okay, lay my past life on me, but just the brood strokes. I don’t need anymore long stories. Alina has those covered.”
Jade raises her eyebrows before leaning back on the couch and slinging her legs over mine as if we’ve been friends since birth. Instead of feeling uncomfortable, I enjoy it, and pull her feet cl
oser to my chest to suck up as much warmth as possible. Carden shifts so that he’s facing me as he sips slowly on his own glass, lips tinted a deep pink.
“Alright, the brood strokes, got it,” he starts, tapping his chin. “We will bring you up to speed on the last three or so months that lead to you being turned, then if you have any additional questions, you should ask Jade. She was your best friend.”
My head whips in her direction to see her, once again, grinning at me. “You were my best friend?”
“You better believe it Chica, for our entire lives,” she replies, winking.
I can’t help but laugh. “That makes total sense, I feel like I already know you.”
“Yeah? Well, that makes it easier to slide right back into friendship then.”
Her words send tears to the backs of my eyes and I have to blink fast to hold them in. She doesn’t care that I turned into a blood sucking monster, in fact, it seems like it isn’t an issue at all. I shouldn’t be that surprised. Carden is a vampire and they’re dating. I squeeze her feet in an attempt to convey what I can’t confidently say out loud, and her answering smile lets me know she heard the message loud and clear. We stare at each other for a moment longer, simply sharing a moment together as warmth that has nothing to do with the fire blooms in my chest. Maybe being a vampire isn’t so different than being a human after all.
“Uh, not to break up this very heartwarming moment, but can we focus? We only have about twenty minutes before Alina comes to collect you for training,” Carden says.
Pulling the blanket off of the back of the couch, I drape it over Jade and I before turning to face Carden with my full attention. “Okay, I’m ready now.”
“Alright, here it goes.”
Chapter Ten
My head is still swimming as Alina’s brute of a trainer, Hannibal, or Han for short, takes me through several complicated sets of martial arts exercises. I’m a very distracted student, much to his dismay and anger, so I already have an impressive collection of bruises forming along my skin. My new body feels awkward to begin with, as if my limbs have grown longer and more lithe in nature. And on top of that, I’m pretty sure my human self was clumsy as hell and had never played a sport in her life. The feeling has me off balance, and I stumble about the training mat in an attempt to avoid Han’s flying jabs.
“Ugh, no!” he huffs for nearly the twentieth time. “You fake left, then swing right. Not the other way around.”
I rub my aching chin as I look up at him from where I had fallen on my ass, again. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Do you?” he counters, giving me a doubtful look.
“Okay, maybe not,” I chuckle.
He throws up his hands. “Alright, that’s enough for today. I don’t think I can stomach hitting you again.”
That makes me burst out laughing, and despite himself, he cracks a smile and holds out a hand to help me up from the ground. I take it, leaping to my feet and shaking out my aching limbs. Han walks away mumbling to himself about Alina giving him completely incompetent students to work with, effectively dismissing me. I watch him go, questions banging on my rib cage begging to be asked, and yet I hold them in.
“Same time tomorrow,” he calls out, not bothering to turn back toward me.
“Alright.”
This isn’t just to make sure I can function in my new body, no, if that were the case I’d be doing cardio or something much easier than whatever the hell this is. Martial arts is for defending yourself, and I’m beginning to worry just who Alina thinks I might need to protect myself from. The lords? No, surely not if the whole story about our whirlwind love and/or hate affair is true. Carden’s story still hasn’t left my skull, swirling around like a bat that’s been trapped inside a house. I sit back down on the mat, hanging my head between my knees.
Alina had informed me that I was with the lords due to my magical human blood, and that I was their concubine. At first, hearing that left a sour taste in my mouth, as I’m sure it did for my human version as well. But the more detail I learned from Carden and Jade, the more that apprehension had faded away. I had gotten to know the lords for who they really were, and they had insisted I was their queen, not their concubine. The stories I heard about my days spent horse riding and drinking champagne at the tops of castles made the little girl in my chest beam. Other stories, more sexual in nature, made her hide in a corner and a deep blush fan out across my cheeks.
I’m not really sure how Carden knew those stories. All I know is that Raphael, one of the lords, is his best friend which explains why he’s really here. Jade came for me, but Carden came for the lords. To make sure that I’m okay. It was something he ended up asking right before Alina came by to get me, but I honestly didn’t have an answer for him. Maybe I would have been before learning about the men who were supposedly the loves of my life, but not now. Not after hearing how incredible they all seem to be.
And that’s just it, isn’t it? They seem that way. I’ll never know for sure. At least not until I see them again, that is, if I ever see them again. By the way Jade explained it during her crazed rant right as she ran into the room, Alina doesn’t want the lords to know anything about my new vampire life. Either she wants me all to herself or she’s going to train me up to make sure that I’m worthy of them. Either way a sour feeling is now permanently bubbling in my stomach.
“I hate this,” I mumble into my hands, tears gathering at the corners of my eyes.
I flop backward to stare up at the high ceiling in the gym, letting my eyes travel the curving lengths of the beams just to give them something to do other than leak useless tears. All of those stories are just that to me, stories. Not a minute has gone by since their big explanation where I didn’t doubt my involvement in such an intense whirlwind romance. It feels like I’m watching a movie about it rather than living it, and maybe I am at this point. My human self isn’t who I am now. She’s dead. Gone. All I can do now is try my best to move forward despite all the heavy baggage.
Is it even possible?
“What are you doing on the floor, Blair?” Alina asks from above me, and I shift my eyes to meet hers.
“Trying not to have an existential crisis,” I reply, deadpan.
She rolls her eyes before sticking her hand out toward me to help me up. Despite wanting to lie on the floor for the rest of my miserable life as a vampire, I allow her to tug me up and off the floor, surprised by her strength. I keep forgetting that all vampires have those similar characteristics. Inhuman beauty, speed, lust for blood, the alluring magic, and superhuman strength. It’s one of the only things left in my brain since the change, and I’m not sure if it’s because I inherently know those things or if it’s a leftover memory. Hence why my brain feels so scrambled right now.
“Come on, let’s go to lunch with the others.”
Alina turns on her heel and clicks toward the double doors on the far side of the gym, not bothering to look back at me. I trail along behind her; silently wishing I could just go back to my room and curl up in front of the fireplace. If it were up to me I’d probably either find a very sharp stick to accidentally fall chest first onto or hide in some dank hole for the rest of my immortal life. Being a part of civilization feels so hard, and I had told Carden that, to which he assured me that it gets better. That those feelings go away with time. I’m not so sure.
Alina leads me down several long elegant hallways filled with expensive artwork and plush cream colored carpet that I’m sure would be incredibly soft against my toes. I was surprised that this place isn’t one of the four coven castles with how massive it is. Plus, it’s full of enough furniture to fill several apartments over and over again. I shake my head abruptly at that thought, trying to remember when I would have figured out how big an apartment even is. We haven’t exactly gone out since I’ve turned. But I guess that happens a lot, now that I think about it. Normal human knowledge slips in, like my college education or my favorite foods and even what human homes look like ins
ide and out. Just none of the familiar people in those memories pop up. How strange.
The moment I open up my mouth to ask Alina how that’s even possible, she’s pushing open a grand set of doors at the end of the hall and striding inside. Trumpets blow the moment she breezes past the threshold, and a gravelly voice announces her arrival.
“Lady Alina Evergaurd, first vampire to the high coven lords.”
People clap politely in her wake as she strides across the room. I, on the other hand, waver in the doorway like a stray breeze could topple me over at any moment. Carden and Jade are there, sitting three seats away from Alina at the head of the table. They look just as awkward as I feel in the sea of bodies crowded around the table. So, so many bodies. There must be over one hundred vampires here, all of them staring reverently at Alina. How is she both a celebrity but also hidden from the coven lords? It doesn’t make any sense.
Jade looks up at the moment and spots me standing by the door like an idiot. She waves me over frantically, completely, and utterly embarrassing me as all the vampires turn to look at who my new friend is gesturing toward. Alina smiles at me and beckons me forward with two fingers. The vampires around us look back and forth between us, a mixture of curiosity and jealousy clouding their expressions. Apparently Alina having her soul attention on me made everyone in the room nervous for some reason. I fast walk to the table and sit down two seats to her right, right across from Carden and Jade. He flashes me a quick smile before turning to face Alina again, his message clear.
“Let us eat first, and then the fantastic news will be shared during dessert to celebrate!” Alina says voice tinkling as it carries across the room to the other end of the table.
All of the vampires around me nod politely at the same time. The action is nearly cult like, and I throw a bewildered glance toward Carden. He’s already looking at me, and he shrugs in response to my unvoiced questions. He has no idea what’s going on here either. Jade lifts her glass of bubbly liquid, most likely champagne, into the air as if to salute me before downing the whole thing. A vampire to her left watches her do so in horror, and the sight nearly sends me into a laughing fit.
Blood Deception: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Royal Covens Book 2) Page 9
