The air was stale, and the room was dim. There was a large electrical box to his left that produced music. A man pressed a button as pages flipped inside a glass window of the box. The music faded, leaving only the rumbling of voices and the sound of clinking glasses. Adam watched as the man at the box reached into his pocket and then slid two quarters into a hole and pressed the two buttons. Music started again, and he walked away. Perhaps this large box was a radio. Adam had always assumed they were smaller.
He stepped away from the doorway and searched for his mate. He did not see her. Under the veil of smoke he could smell honeysuckle. It was imbedded in the air here. There was also that musky scent he detected earlier in the air. He sniffed and found the musky sent coming in waves from the male behind the counter. This establishment did not appear to be private, so he found an empty table with bench seating and sat down. He deposited his hat and bag under the table and waited.
After a few minutes another man walked to the music box, pressed some buttons, and inserted two coins. More music played. The odorous man behind the counter noticed him and tapped a door behind him with his knuckle. Adam wondered if he should be doing something and considered busying himself at the music box. Just then the door behind the counter swung open, and his mate appeared. The man and his mate exchanged a few words, then she looked in his direction.
She carefully sipped from a cup she held then placed it on the counter and picked up an apron. She tied the apron strings around her slender waist and picked up a tray. Adam sat up as she approached.
“What can I getchya?” Her voice stroked his senses just as it had in his dream. It was childlike and soft. He took a moment and breathed in her delicious scent. It was headier than in his dreams. He could become intoxicated on such a scent. “We have dollar drafts of Bud ’til midnight.”
Adam couldn’t help but smile at her. “I will have that.”
“You bet,” she said and turned away. Her hair swung from side to side as she sauntered off. A minute later she returned, placing a napkin in front of him followed by a tall glass of amber liquid. “Let me know if I can get you anything else.”
Before she could run off again Adam asked, “What is your name?”
She smiled. “Annalise.”
“Thank you, Annalise.”
She tilted her head to the side and gave him a peculiar look. She continued to smile, but her brow crinkled slightly. She then shook her head and said “you’re welcome” before she disappeared again.
Anna. Annalise. A beautiful name. Adam repeated her name over and over again as he watched her retrieve and deliver drinks to other patrons. This was her work. He knew of other orders that allowed their women to do such work in the English communities. If this is what pleased Annalise, perhaps she could do such work in Lancaster.
He understood he would need to finish his drink in order to have her return to his table. Adam sipped the drink and found it slightly bitter. By the time he reached the bottom of his glass, he felt his mood lighten considerably and he did not mind the robust flavor. Within a few minutes of finishing his drink, Annalise returned and asked if he would like another. He wanted to speak with her but didn’t want to appear too eager. He had been so preoccupied with finding her, he had not considered what he would do when he found her.
Ultimately, Adam would be asking Annalise to leave her life here in Bensalem to join him and to live as an Amish couple in Lancaster. That wasn’t even taking the entire immortal-mortal issue into consideration. Although he had found her in only a few days, he had roughly a few weeks to return home with her. And that was according to his grandfather. Who knew if he would make it that long without completing the blood bond?
He needed to get past introductions and move on to more intimate interactions as soon as possible. Yet he had no idea how to do such things. She was about to turn away and he panicked, not knowing how long he would have to wait to speak with her again. “Do you like working here?”
She paused and thought about his question. “I guess. The customers are nice.”
He sensed her answer was not completely honest. “This area is where you prefer to live?”
She smirked at him and leaned her hip against the bench seat across from him. “Now, that’s a different question entirely. People either work somewhere because they want to live there or they live somewhere because they can get good work.”
“And which is the case with you?”
“I live here because this is where I grew up. I work here because I get good hours and okay tips.”
“Tips?”
She tilted her head and gave him a dubious look. “Yeah, tips. You know, like after a waitress brings you a couple beers, you leave her a few dollars for being prompt and friendly.”
Adam nodded in comprehension. She’d said she’d grown up in the area, which made him wonder how old she was. “How old are you, Annalise?”
* * * *
Annalise couldn’t help but get a little thrill at the way her name sounded when he said it. He had an interesting accent she wasn’t familiar with. When he said words like “work,” the k sounded harder, coming out almost like worg. Words like “live” sounded softer like liff. And when he said her name, it sounded so much prettier than she ever thought it was. Rather than a clipped “Annalise,” he drew it out, softening and elongating the vowels, as if pronouncing it Ah-nah-leeze. She realized he was staring at her, politely waiting for an answer to his question. What had he asked? His question completely slipped her mind. “I’m sorry…”
“Adam.”
“I’m sorry, Adam. I forgot your question.”
“I asked what your age was.”
“Oh, I’m twenty-three.” He smiled and repeated the number quietly to himself. Of course it sounded more like tventy-three when he said it. “Where are you from? You have an accent.”
“I am from Lancaster.”
“Oh, that’s only an hour or two from here. I never realized you guys had such a different dialect.”
“I speak Deutsch, a form of Pennsylvania Dutch. It is like German, but mostly English.”
“Dutch? Are you Amish?”
He smiled, and his expression had a pleasant effect on her she couldn’t quite understand. “Yes, I am Amish.”
“So what are you doing all the way down here?”
At that his smile grew. “I have come to get something that belongs to me. Tell me, Annalise, do you work tomorrow?”
“From eleven to nine.” Just then there was a sharp whistle from the other end of the bar. “Well, it was nice talking to you, Adam. I gotta go take another order.”
By the time Annalise did another circuit around the bar, Adam was gone. She went to go collect his money and glass from the table and frowned. He had left her a hundred-dollar bill. This had to be a mistake. He had ordered two beers and barely touched the second one. His tab was two dollars. He could not have intended to leave her a ninety-eight-dollar tip. She turned to make sure he had in fact left. The bar only had a few other customers remaining. She walked over to the men’s room and knocked. When no one answered, she peeked behind the door. “Anyone in here?” It was empty.
“What’s up?”
Annalise jumped as Kyle spoke directly behind her. She slid the hundred into the pocket of her apron. “Uh, nothing. Did you see that guy at table one leave?”
“Yeah, he took off about twenty minutes ago. Why? Did he stiff you on a tip or something?”
“Or something,” she said letting the door to the men’s room close.
“You coming to my place tonight?”
“I don’t think so. I have to get some stuff done at home, and any free time I have should really be spent studying for finals.”
“Fine, but come graduation night your ass is mine.”
Chapter 8
Adam waited patiently in the shadows as the last customer left the bar. The only people left inside were Annalise and the man pouring drinks behind the bar. The evening air had cooled
considerably. The pavement steamed through the thin coating of puddles, and the vibrations of the living mortals faded as they settled into sleep.
It didn’t take long for the green neon light spelling Jimbo’s to flicker and a light below illuminated the word closed. He watched the green door expectantly for his mate. A sound toward the back of the brick building had him turning in that direction. A nondescript door he had not noticed earlier opened and heavily shut as his mate emerged into the darkness. He watched as she moved over to the white vehicle he had seen her in previously. She slung her bag from behind her shoulder and reached deep into the pockets as the bag rested on her hip. He heard the distant jangle of metal and saw she had retrieved a set of keys. Just then the door on the side of the bar opened again, and the male from behind the bar emerged. He followed Annalise to her vehicle.
She unlocked her car and leaned in. A growl rumbled deep in Adam’s chest when he noticed the other man admiring his mate’s bottom as she bent into the car. The clunking rattle of her car’s ignition turning over drowned the sound out. The scent of the other male mixed with the exhaust fumes being emitted by the white vehicle. She stood from the vehicle, the door separating her from the other male.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow,” the male said.
“Sorry about this weekend. Just think, once my finals are over I’ll have so much more time.” Adam wondered what finals were. Was that more work his mate did?
“I know, and I plan on collecting on my tab of rain checks.”
His mate twittered a small, unfamiliar laugh. He liked the sound but did not like that it was for this other male. Suddenly the male leaned in close to his mate and pressed his lips to hers. A distant rumble of thunder covered the growl that ripped from Adam’s chest. Adam was not a violent man, yet he was suddenly fighting the urge to rip the man touching his mate to shreds. His nails lengthened into sharp claws and pierced the flesh of his palms. His incisors punched through his gums and filled his mouth. He knew his pupils had dilated, expanding into feline-like diamond slits over his silver irises. His breath punched through his nostrils, and his shoulders quaked with an unfamiliar rage. Finally the mortal man released his mate and stepped back.
The haze of rage receded. Adam’s heart rate returned to a normal pace, and his claws and fangs began to retract. Annalise said something then ducked into her car and shut the door. Adam watched as the man left the presence of his mate and entered a red truck parked nearby. He was torn as to whether he should follow the man and slit his throat for touching what was Adam’s or if he should follow his mate. Knowing he needed to track his mate to her resting place, he decided to push aside his urge to punish the other male. He had other ways to make sure the man no longer touched what was his, and he would make sure he employed any tactics necessary to protect his mate.
The truck rumbled to a start, much more smoothly than Annalise’s car. He watched as the headlights flipped on, illuminating the vacant lot, and frowned when he saw that his mate’s car only had one, rather than two, working lights. He did not understand why she would drive such an inadequate vehicle.
As the car and truck moved out of the lot, another light on the vehicle blinked. Annalise moved left on the road and the male moved right, tires squelching over the wet gravel. He watched as the truck disappeared in the distance then adjusted his bag and began to move after his mate.
Adam had followed the car less than two miles when it pulled into a congested lot filled with quiet cars. As his mate shut off the vehicle, the engine rattled and pinged as if belts and parts were still vibrating and wheezing from the short jaunt. The door slammed as Annalise stepped out. He watched from the shadows as she moved toward the tall brick building situated on a spread of unhealthy lawn. There was a device with wires pulled from it like ripped-out guts just by the door. She pulled the door open and disappeared inside.
A baby cried from within the building, and Adam frowned. The building was mostly dark. Covered windows shaded the faint glows of electric lights from the inside. He watched as a window three floors up suddenly was illuminated. That would be her room, he assumed. He watched as her shadow passed the glass and the next window lit up.
Adam moved toward the door and frowned at the wire box. There was a canister with a long, upside-down, funnel-type opening. He leaned over to look inside the tip and thought better of it when a stench of something unpleasant wafted out of the receptacle. He looked around the base and saw small white cigars littering the ground. Tobacco.
Losing interest in the odd bin, he entered the building and was assaulted by the overwhelming collision of various scents. There was a spice that seemed to permeate the air. He found it unpleasant. The smell of spirits and mildew drifted from the stained, threadbare carpet. The baby still cried in the distance. Adam moved up the narrow stairway and navigated around the forgotten clutter that littered the carpeted planks. His hand touched the railing, and he frowned as something unclean offended his skin. This was where his mate resided?
By the time he reached the third floor, the crying baby had quieted. Sounds of canned laughter echoed from behind doors. He assumed this was not a home like his farm where families and clans shared shelter, but a grouping of dwellings where people of no relation could rest. He focused his mind to read the pulse of his surroundings. The overall feeling was one of discontent. He caught the scent of honeysuckle just outside of a door with gold, plastic markings on it. There was the number 3 and a hook. He realized it was the letter J, but the marking letter had come loose from its screw and dropped at the wrong angle. 3J. That was his mate’s address.
He pressed his palm over the chipped, glossy door and felt her. She was preparing for sleep. He could sense her exhaustion. He stepped aside and folded his arms over his chest. He would guard her door, not liking the place she rested.
Adam had stood stoically quiet for several hours. When he finally sensed the residents and his mate had all drifted to unconsciousness, he stood from the wall. He placed his hand on the knob and turned. It was locked. He shut his eyes and focused on the mechanism until it clicked. Turning the knob again, he slowly pressed the door open. A chain stopped the door. He reached in and unlatched the thin device. It dangled and clattered against the wall. Moving into the dwelling, he gently shut the door behind him.
Her scent washed over him, coming from the worn furniture and items spread throughout the home. The room was sparse. A well-used couch sat against the wall. A box rested on its side, topped with books and a small reading lamp. He picked up one of the tomes and read the title, Clinical Competencies. He flipped through the pages and realized it was literature for medicinal practices. Images of the human anatomy were vibrant and glossy, nothing like the books his family kept on the farm. He replaced the item and moved over to a counter on the other wall. There was a machine that hummed. Adam recognized it as an electric icebox. A bag of bread sat next to the sink. There was also a machine similar to the one he had seen in his hotel room. Although Adam did not understand the function of such a machine, he knew from the well-used scent of Annalise’s that it was for brewing coffee.
He approached a small alcove with white tile. It was her washroom. A tall basket sat against the wall with rumpled clothing frothing from the top. A purple, daisy curtain hung half open at the shower. Beads of water still clung to the vinyl material. A yellow bath towel sat over the lip of the small sink. He picked it up, the fabric still damp from use, and pressed it to his face. His body hardened as her scent stole through him pressing deep as if massaging each nerve from his brain to his maleness all the way to his toes. A contented growl began to purr deep within his chest. He turned, needing to see the beauty that owned such an intriguing scent.
The dwelling was small. Other than the door to the washroom and the entrance to the space, there was only one other doorway. No door, but a beaded curtain covered the opening. Adam parted the beads and stepped inside what seemed to be his mate’s bedroom. For now.
His mate lay in th
e center of the mattress, her limbs twisted in a sheet, her still-damp hair splayed across the pillow. In the window a device with vents rattled not two feet from her face. Cool air coming from the device made the dryer tips of her golden brown hair twitch in the artificial breeze. The space was small, dominated by the bed. Although the bed was not overly large, it dwarfed her petite body. He had not realized how tiny she actually was.
His breath kicked out of his lungs as he stepped closer and saw that she was barely clothed. The bedding wrapped around her thighs, her privates were covered by only a wisp of material unlike any undergarment he had ever seen before.
Adam was not inexperienced with the fairer sex, although he had led his brother to believe he had more experience than what was true. Adam had just never taken much interest in the females of their home. True, he had flirted with Eve, a fair member of The Order. She had actually followed him into the barn one snowy afternoon, pressed her lips to his throat and whispered suggestive invitations into his ear. His body had pulled tight at her words, hardening and lengthening. They had kissed, and he had petted her curves through her dress but called halt as the scent of her arousal began to reach him. It wasn’t that he was afraid. He just did not want to disrespect the young immortal. The pulling and coiling of his body now was so much more potent in comparison to that innocent experience last winter.
His eyes moved from the tight-fitted material over his mate’s sex, across the flat expanse of flesh. Her hips swelled and tapered, her skin dipping deliciously into her tiny bellybutton. Adam’s mouth went dry and he swallowed. Her meager shirt, clearly an undergarment, twisted around her narrow waist and rose over the generous swell of her breasts. He knew women usually wore supportive bracings under their clothing but could tell only her soft flesh rested under her shirt. He watched the mounds rise and fall with her slow breaths.
Called to Order [The Order of Vampyres 1] (Siren Publishing Allure) Page 7
