Called to Order [The Order of Vampyres 1] (Siren Publishing Allure)

by Lydia Michaels

  In an electric-like flicker, he moved closer without ever standing. He now sat a mere ten feet from her, his legs crossed at the ankles and tucked close to his chest, his arms folded in a non-threatening manner across his knees. She looked at his face, and her heart stuttered. It was Cain.

  “Please do not run. I will not chase you,” he said softly.

  She kept her eyes on him, watching for any sudden movements. He remained completely still, just watching her. They sat in silence for quite a while, simply watching each other. Anna found she had plucked a long willowy blade of wheat from the ground. She subconsciously dragged the stem through her fingers, the follicles prickling against her softly calloused fingertips like tiny splinters and the plume of grains at the end soothing the abrasion with their softness.

  “Tell me something Adam does not know,” he finally said.

  Anna considered this. Cain was a man who had not treated her kindly. He had caused his brother and family much tension over the last week, yet here, in this peaceful dream, he did not seem to hold any ill-planned motives. She did not want to disturb the serenity of the moment. For peace’s sake, she offered, “I can write my name with my toes.”

  He laughed, a laugh much like his brother’s but slightly coarser. “Did you not have use of your hands as a child?”

  “No. I just could always pick things up with my feet. One day I tried to hold a pencil. I could, so I wrote my name with it. It’s a stupid talent, but there you go.”

  “Not stupid. Charming.”

  “Do you have a hidden talent?” She had a feeling after the next couple days, Cain would not be around very much. He was part of Adam’s life and therefore she wanted to know him in some minor way. If this were her opportunity to do just that, she would take advantage of it, so long as he continued to be respectful.

  “I have none.”

  “Everyone has some sort of talent.”

  “Perhaps, but not me. I cannot read thoughts, and I am terrible at sensing emotions. I have a difficult time lulling animals. I cannot whittle, and I cannot sing.”

  “Neither can I.”

  “You are human.”

  “So?”

  He shrugged. “I cannot hold things with my feet either.”

  “Sounds to me like you have a gift for thinking negatively.”

  He attempted to pout, but she saw the side of his mouth kick up in amusement. “Do you like it here?”

  “Very much.” He opened his mouth as if to ask another question but then dropped his head and said nothing.

  She waited a few moments then asked, “Are you really here or am I imagining you?”

  “I am here.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Because you are my mate, and he is taking you from me. This is the first time you have seen me without being frightened, and I sense the threads that tie us together unraveling with each word we speak. I’m losing you.”

  “I was never yours.”

  His head lifted sharply, his eyes boring holes into hers. “Do not doubt it. You are as much mine as you are my brother’s.”

  “They say it isn’t possible.”

  “And so we are all proven wrong as I am here, sharing a dream with a mate I will never know the feeling of before I die. I wonder if your hair is a soft as it appears. I suppose it will be one of life’s unanswered mysteries.”

  “What about what you said in the carriage?”

  “I was wrong. I apologize for scaring you. I always knew he was a little bit better than me. I thought myself humble enough to accept that. For thirty-seven years I have not complained about the way things always were, yet when put to the test, I failed. The better man has won the fair lady’s heart. If I take you, as I could, you would hate me for eternity. It is a long time, eternity. I seem to be growing tired of it. So you see, if I were to take you, I would lose my brother, a part of myself that has always been, and in turn, lose you. The family will forgive my absence. They would not forgive me Adam’s death.”

  “Will you leave?”

  “I will try.” He sighed. “There are moments where I hate just enough to say curse them all and take what I need, what I know I am entitled to.”

  “I would fight you.”

  “You would lose.” They stared at each other for a minute, a game of chicken Anna knew was a complete bluff on her part.

  “So you plan to just walk away? Why should I believe that?”

  “I do not lie.”

  “You sound like Adam.”

  “It seems I was created in the image of a saint, always emulating, but never first so never in the lead. It’s dark forever standing in someone else’s shadow. It would do me well to step into the light.”

  “Won’t you get…sick? They say if you don’t follow your calling, you become more animal than man. Your father told me about your uncle and what happened to him.”

  “I was not born then. It is a tale we have all been told. Tell me, how long did you believe in Saint Nick?”

  “Until I was twelve.”

  “Well, perhaps you are more astute than I. I am thirty-seven and just now starting to wonder if I ever did have an Uncle Isaiah or if perhaps he is just a tall tale to make us do as The Order expects.”

  “He was your father’s friend.”

  “Yet he let him die. They will do the same for me because it is easier than embracing the ugly, messy parts of life we cannot pray away.”

  It suddenly occurred to Anna that if Cain did in fact die it would be partly because of her. She frowned and hung her head. “You will die, and it will be my fault.”

  She wanted him to say something, argue with her, and reassure her that it was okay. That’s what Adam would have done. Yet Cain remained silent. “It’s cruel to let me take the blame,” she said, wanting to hurt him suddenly, let her comment sting him, show him that such inadequacies were exactly why she had chosen his brother and not him.

  “Life is cruel. And now you are going to marry my brother and sentence yourself to an eternity of it. Let me offer you a bit of advice, sweet, foolish Annalise, a wedding present if you will. Anyone who stands as Adam’s equal never is. You will always be a little bit short, a little bit uncouth, a little bit ugly next to a man like him. You had better come to terms with that now, because it is the way it will always be. When you have children, it will be his eyes they look for in their faces, his strength they pray they inherit. You will always come out less interesting and guilty in every quarrel so long as you choose to have him by your side.”

  She felt each measured breath fill her lungs as her tongue pressed painfully against the back of her teeth. She wanted to slap him to punish him for such horrible words, yet she had just enough self-doubt to recognize the truth in what he said. “Your own insecurities are bared in your words,” she said carefully. “You’re right. I will never be as good as Adam, but all the more reason to feel proud that such a good man wants me by his side. You sacrificed that honor the day you betrayed him—”

  His arm slashed through the air, and he was suddenly on his feet, standing over her, a look of fury in his eyes, “I betrayed nothing! You are my right as much as you are his! I could snatch you from the bed you sleep upon and take you away where they would never find you! Adam is arrogant to think he holds me at bay. It is my own pride that controls me, not his! He who flaunts his victory, gambles to lose it. Let him wave this in my face, and I will show him how equal we truly are. All he has over me, he has only because I allow it.”

  A snapping crack of thunder broke the air, and the earth rumbled below her. Silver bolts of lightning forked down from the heavens, stabbing into the fields. An unholy wind came from every direction. Ugly clouds of gray rolled over the blackening sky, blotting out every star. Anna’s heart began to pound.

  “I have decided humility earns a man little,” he seethed. “I may be prideful more than any man should, but I am realizing pride can be an easy substitute for guilt. Let you and my brother know, my gift comes at the p
rice of your humility. Forgo the humble grace I deserve and I will take it back.”

  Before she could react, he reached out and touched a lock of her hair, his fingers rubbing over the strands, his eyes seeming to see some distant place she was not privy to. He dropped it before she could push his hand away.

  “Wake now, Annalise, before I come and take you in your sleep despite my promises.”

  Anna had awakened with a start. She spent the next hour lying paralyzed under the weight of her thoughts until Gracie had come and scattered them away. Now she sat silently between Abilene and Grace in a small open carriage as a horse briskly pulled them into town. They were going to purchase material for her wedding attire. Anna knew she should be excited, but since her dream, she had felt as though some contented emotion had been stolen from her.

  It was odd walking into a shop dressed as an Amish girl. She was advised not to speak to others as her words and accent would easily give her heritage away, and Amish law typically stated that the Amish marry within their own. It was not a law that Adam’s order followed for obvious reasons, but there were other orders that needed to be considered. Abilene had explained in some detail that the one law they held above all others was that their kind not be threatened by irresponsible acts that could expose their people. It sounded like a good rule to Anna, so she remained silent.

  The town’s people were mostly English. When their buggy passed another Amish buggy, Abilene would kindly wave. A young Amish boy whom Anna was told was completely human had passed their carriage and taken his time eyeing Gracie. Anna wondered if it bothered the young girl to live so reclusively on the farm without many opportunities to date or do any of the other things normal twenty-one-year-olds did. It seemed to Anna that everyone treated Gracie as if she was fifteen rather than as a woman in her own right, yet Gracie never seemed to act as if this bothered her.

  After Abilene and Gracie sorted through numerous bolts of fabric and held them up against Anna’s complexion, they finally settled on a soft, silky ivory material delicately threaded with vines of white and a thicker material of light blue. When they returned to the buggy, Abilene made suggestions about what parts of the farm would be good places to collect flowers. As they drew closer to the farm, Anna heard an unnatural pounding in the distance. It seemed a clatter of taps and zipping rolls. The hammering grew louder the closer they came to the big house and that was when Anna realized what the noise was.

  Across the field, still quite small from their vantage upon the buggy, worked a hundred men. They looked like a colony of colorful ants dangling from beams like acrobats. Their arms swung hammers and propelled long, jagged saws. Underneath many of the crawlers, stood the skeleton of a house that had not been there when Anna and Adam had left two days ago. Amazing. They were building her home.

  In the distance a bit, rested a tapestry of quilts over the land, each blanket forming a patch itself across the grass, making the communal spread appear as one gigantic quilt. Children in pastel and black clothing dotted the area, twirling and playing adorably. Mothers and wives manned a long table spread with jugs of lemonade and sandwiches. Some sat and stitched work draping from their laps to supple baskets tucked below their feet. It was charming and bizarre to see wooden furniture carried out to the lawn for such a thing. She supposed the Amish did not invest in plastic picnic wear like the rest of the world.

  Anna was slightly intimidated by the work ethic she was witnessing. One hundred wooden chairs carried over eight hundred acres that would no doubt be carried back to their kitchens again that night was exhausting just to think about. They truly were like worker ants. Each set of hands busy, creating items from resources they nurtured and pulled from the land. Anna could take blood pressure and mix a mean cosmopolitan, but she was clueless how to do the things these women did.

  She suddenly thought of Adam’s socks and the way they were not a simple tube with machine-woven elastic cuffs, but rather two cuts of wool sewn together with fine black thread. Did Abilene mend his socks? Surely she would expect to retire such responsibilities once Adam was married. Yet, Anna had no idea how to even thread a needle.

  And Larissa. Anna had only seen the older Hartzler sister once in her time here. She was married. Once married, Anna supposed she and Adam would be eating separately from the family most days. Sure there would be family dinners still going on at the big house, but she would at that point be responsible for feeding her husband. She couldn’t very well expect Gracie or Abilene to continue to do it.

  She remembered averting her eyes one morning as little Gracie roughly tugged handfuls of feathers from some kind of bird filling most of the sink basin. Anna could not even bring herself to watch the process let alone imagine doing it herself. It wasn’t like she was some chicken advocate, but just seeing those gray and white feathers pulled from pink, pimpled flesh… Oh God, she was going to be sick.

  Her stomach lurched with the carriage as Gracie expertly pulled it beside the barn. Anna’s heart was beating way too fast. How was she going to do this? She didn’t even have the patience to bake cookies. She usually just bought a tub of dough, and sometimes she didn’t even waste time with the oven, just simply dug into the raw batter with a spoon. If she had to cook for Adam, she would wind up poisoning him. Only when he was falling to his knees being sick, he would have floods on because she would never learn to make him a decent pair of pants!

  “Oh God!” Anna moaned, and she covered her eyes with her hands and frowned.

  “Anna? What is it, dear?”

  “I can’t do this. He’s going to hate me,” she cried.

  Abilene’s panicked look told Anna she was unsure whom she was speaking of. Gracie had just emerged from the barn when her mother said, “Grace, go get Adam. Quickly. Something’s wrong with Annalise.” Gracie tore off toward where the construction was taking place, and Abilene turned and pulled Anna to her shoulder. “There, there, child. Everything’s all right. Whatever it is, Adam will fix it. Here he comes now.”

  Adam ran up to the buggy so fast Anna jumped. “What has happened? Ainsicht? Tell me what happened.” He pulled her into his arms and began carrying her into the shade of the barn. Anna saw Abilene standing by the door, clearly wanting to provide them with privacy but also wanting to be close in case she was needed.

  Adam straddled a long bench and held Anna on his lap. She was a sniffling, drippy mess. “Anna, tell me what has gotten you so upset.”

  “You. Me. This place.” Her shoulders quaked as she took a long shaky breath. “I can’t do this.”

  “What are you talking about? Did something happen in town?”

  “You built us a house,” she sobbed.

  “I told you I would.”

  “But don’t you see. You say something and always do it. You don’t curse or lie. You are capable of anything you put your mind to. Cain was right. I’m not good enough for you.”

  He held her away from his chest. “Cain? When did you speak to Cain?”

  “In my dream this morning.”

  “Why didn’t…” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Anna, you should have told me. Tell me about the dream. Did he hurt you in it?”

  “No, he barely touched me.”

  “Barely?” he growled.

  “We talked. We were sitting in a field. It wasn’t like the other dreams. Well, until the end. The end was a little scary.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Mostly you.”

  Adam hesitated for a moment. “What did he say?”

  “Nothing I didn’t already know. How perfect you are. How dependable.”

  “I am far from perfect.”

  “Not as far as I am. Don’t you get it, Adam? I love you, but this life here, it’s not me. I don’t know how to do any of the things women are supposed to do here. They will all make fun of me, and then when I send you out in shirts with crooked buttons and safety pins for suspenders, they will laugh at you, too. I will be an embarrassment to everyo
ne.”

  A chuckle echoed deep in his chest as he kissed the top of her bonnet. “Anna, you will never embarrass me.” He pressed her shoulders back until she was looking at him. “Don’t you see? You are whom God has chosen for me. There is no mistake in that. We are meant to learn from each other. The fact that we are so different only goes to show you how much we both still have to learn in our lifetimes, you and myself. If I were perfect, I would have spent my life alone, never needing another soul. I need you, Annalise, no one else, but you.”

  “I don’t know how to skin a chicken.”

  He laughed and wiped a tear from her eye with the hem of his crisp, green shirt. “Why should you?”

  “I can’t sew.”

  He leaned in close and whispered, “Let me let you in on a little secret. There is a shop in town that sells Amish wear already made. You can buy my shirts, and I will take just as much pride in wearing them, knowing my wife had lovingly selected them for me.”

  “Sometimes I eat Nesquik with my fingers. I don’t even use milk.”

  “What is Nesquik?”

  “Powdered chocolate.”

  He laughed again, this time kissing each of her eyes. “Now you are just being kintish. If you want to eat such things, I will not stop you.”

  “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t know how to cook anything from scratch.”

  “Well lucky for you what our abedits will most want, we already have.”

  “Adam, you’re talking funny again. I have no idea what you just said. What’s abbey-tits?”

  “You do make me laugh, ainsicht. My apologies. I meant appetite. Our main source of nutrition is blood, Anna. You do not need a kitchen to provide that for me.” She wrinkled her nose, and he said, “That is not the face you made last night when you talked of drinking from me.”

  “That was different. We were making love. Thinking about it as food seems barbaric.”

  “How do you suspect we will do such things? It will always be during our time making love. It is a beautiful sacrament between a bonded male and female.”