He was at my car door in ten seconds with mine and his duffel bag slung over his shoulder and a cooler. A cooler that I was sure was stocked with blood.
He, Joseph, and Gabriel huddled around me like a protective shield even though the coast seemed to be clear. But I guess there was no point taking chances. I was thankful that no one was outside ambling around the hotel because I was mortified. If people saw me surrounded by these big, beefy, no-nonsense, guys they’d probably think I was a princess from some far off land. I snorted and Jonathon shot me a look. I shrugged my shoulders in answer to his inquiring gaze. I had thought it was funny because that’s what Jonathon called me, his principessa.
Patrick, Amelia, Balthazar, Diana, Vivian, and Viola were already in the lobby. Danny, Mason, and Benji followed behind us.
I felt like were in some sort of parade the way were lined up. It’s like every move had been calculated.
Patrick had already procured the various room keys. A key for Patrick and Amelia, one for Diana, Vivian, and Viola, one for Danny, Mason, and Benji, another for Jonathon and me, and then the last went to Joseph, Balthazar, and Gabriel.
The ride up in the elevator with Jonathon was awkward. I was getting more ticked off by the second. I could tell from the stubborn set of his jaw and shoulders that he was stressed and hiding something from me. He had been tense all day ever since the topic of the Originals was brought up. Quite frankly, I was sick and tired of him always keeping stuff to himself. Could he not confide in me? Was I not good enough?
When we finally reached our room I stumbled to the bed in exhaustion. Today had been stressful, confusing, and very tiring. Jonathon laid down beside me, he didn’t jostle the bed, but I knew he was there because I could feel him breathing.
“Ky-,” he started. But I cut him off before he could even finish saying my name.
“Don’t, Jonathon, just don’t,” I said fighting tears.
I had only been this mad at Jonathon once. And that was when he left me to lead Selena and I still wasn’t quite over that. I knew he was keeping something from me and it made me mad. Even more than that it hurt my feelings. We were soul mates weren’t we? I thought there were no secrets between soul mates. But apparently I was wrong.
He sighed.
“Kylie, please talk to me,” he begged.
“I am mad at you Jonathon!” I said, now getting on my feet, “You’re lying to me!” I accused pointing a finger at him like a mother scolding her child.
“There are just some things you’re better off not knowing,” He said, his voice soft. I laughed but it wasn’t in humor but in disgust.
“I’m your soul mate, Jonathon, or so I’ve been told. Maybe you’re lying about that too!” I said dreadfully.
His eyes narrowed.
“Oh Kylie, I live out my miserable immortal life preying on innocent girls for some quick action!” He yelled.
“You’re such a jerk! Why won’t you tell me what’s going on? Obviously it affects me or you wouldn’t be lying about it,” I cried in desperation. How could he protect me if I didn’t know what I was being protected from? I knew deep down that there was more to this than just Selena.
“I don’t see what I’m doing as lying, per say, but as protecting,” he said trying to get me to understand.
“Protecting? What in the hell would you have to lie about to protect me? You’re a freakin’ vampire!” I cried desperately. I wanted to stay mad at him. I didn’t want to believe him.
He stood now too and put his hands on my arms. His hands rubbed up and down my arms to comfort me. I cringed. Here I was, mad at him, and he was comforting me.
“Kylie, you have to understand that there are some things I am unsure about. Things that I haven’t even voiced to my family. I’m not lying to you just to lie, I’m lying to protect you, because if what I’m thinking is true then we are in trouble,” he said choking on emotion.
My anger over the lying immediately disappeared. But the anger over him leaving me still didn’t leave and I didn’t think it ever would.
“Trouble? What kind of trouble? We haven’t done anything,” I said staring into his silver gray eyes.
“Yet, principessa, yet,” he said, his voice shook like he was frightened.
I wrapped my arms around his rock hard, freezing, cold body.
“I’m sorry I got mad at you,” I whispered against his chest.
He pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry to have given you reason to be mad at me,” he said into my hair.
His lips brushed against my forehead, my cheek my chin, and then my lips. Like every time we kissed I felt as if I was being electrocuted but it was a good feeling. I pressed my lips tighter against his. He picked me up effortlessly and laid me down on the bed. He was on top of me but I didn’t feel any of his weight. His hands roamed over my body making me shiver, and not because he was cold. I put my hands on his chest. I could feel the shape of his muscles through the thin shirt. This was the first time things had gotten like this, like it might lead to something else besides kissing. My breath became more labored.
“Jonathon,” I breathed.
“Hmmm?” He sounded as he grazed his lips lightly against my neck.
“I’m not ready.”
“Ready for what?” he asked kissing my eyelids.
“This,” I said blood rushing to my cheeks. He wasn’t going to make me say it was he?
“Kissing?” he asked, raising up to look at me, a wrinkle in his brow from confusion.
“No, Jonathon. Sex,” I said blushing red down to my toes. Stupid vampire, making me say it out loud.
He rolled over onto his back next to me. He laughed silently and I smacked him in the shoulder which only hurt me and not him. He rolled back on his side and propped his head up with his hand.
“Silly, silly, girl. Did you think I was going to take advantage of you?” He chuckled tracing the shape of my cheekbones.
I blushed a deeper shade of red. I had never been so embarrassed in my entire life. “No, but I thought you might have thought that things were going to…um… go farther than they have in the past…”
“I know you aren’t ready and… I’m not ready either,” he said laying on his back with his hands behind his head.
I breathed out a sigh of relief. I had never worried about when I’d lose my virginity. I just figured it would happen when it happened. And you’d think with Jonathon that it wouldn’t matter to me when we finally did it. But suddenly I knew that I wanted to do this the right way.
Jonathon whispered in my ear what I had been thinking in my head, “I want to make you my wife before I make love to you,” his words and his breath sent a shiver down my spine.
At least he was content with things the way they were. I was a virgin. He was a virgin. And it was going to stay that way until we were married. We were going to do things the right way. Well, the right way for us.
I hoped, because suddenly I wasn’t so sure it would happen the way we planned.
He continued to kiss me and murmur sweet things in my ear until I finally fell asleep.
Day two in the car all day was even more miserable than the first. At this rate, by tomorrow I’d be begging someone to kill me. It sucked being stuck in a car all day and well into the night. And whenever I did get out there was always more than one someone watching me. I felt like the president with the secret service following me around all the time. But at least the president could probably go to the bathroom by himself.
At least Romania is beautiful. I had assumed that Romania was old and run down. I was wrong. It was lush and green with big cities and castles too. Under different circumstances I would have loved exploring every crevice of the country.
Our goal for the day was to make it to the border of Romania and Ukraine where we would meet the Coven and Luigi and then we would head to Russia. Jonathon seemed to think that if we made it to Russia we would be safe. I don’t think the others were quite as optimistic bu
t he seemed to think that if we made it that far without Selena showing up that we’d be in the clear. I sided with his family. I think Jonathon underestimated Selena. But I didn’t. She was a vampire, a heartbroken vampire, on a mission. Nothing would deter her. Either I had to die or she did. There was no other way. But even though Selena had nearly killed me and was still trying to kill me I couldn’t help but feel compassion for her. I knew how I would feel if Jonathon died and I also knew that my imaginings probably couldn’t compare at all to what it would really feel like. Jonathon had left me once, I knew he was alive, but the pain was unbearable. I can’t imagine a world without him. The world wouldn’t be the same. It would be broken. It would be empty. So, even though I didn’t want to I could understand where Selena was coming from. She had lost her love, her soul mate, her one and only, her life, her everything. I can’t imagine that I would take her approach for revenge if I lost Jonathon but I did know that life wouldn’t be worth living. He was my life now. I thought all of this as I watched lush green lawns and cities flash by outside the car window.
I couldn’t help but feel envious of the people sitting in their homes, safe and comfortable, while I was stuck in this hunk of metal running for my life. Maybe ignorance is bliss. Those people had no idea of what was out there. They didn’t know about vampires or vampire hunters or whatever else was out there. They were absolutely oblivious to the real world. They thought they knew the real world. They thought they knew love. They thought they knew loss. They thought they knew pain, and happiness. But they don’t know anything. They don’t know anything at all. How good it must feel to know nothing?
Jonathon, sensing my dark mood, reached out and took my hand in his. His cold hand, hard as rock, melded perfectly to mine. I noticed it wasn’t as cold as it had been yesterday and deduced that he must have fed sometime. It felt reassuring to be able to hold on to him. To hold on to something. I looked away from the window and up at him. I tried to give him a weak smile to try and reassure him but I failed. His other hand reached out to trace my face from forehead to chin. I leaned my face into his hand and sighed. He always knew how to make me feel better.
“Almost to the border, principessa,” he said, thinking that my dark mood was from being cooped up in the car all day. I nodded. I didn’t want to have him worrying about me.
He was right. It wasn’t long till we made it to the border.
We made a random turn in a city that took us down a narrow one-way street. I was surprised that the huge SUVs didn’t get banged up. There was a millimeter gap from the wall to the mirrors. The small alley finally opened up. I breathed again. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. Damn, claustrophobia.
We were surrounded on all sides by buildings, no wait, it was all one building, and lots and lots of garages. The only exit was where we had come from.
We parked in the large open space in the middle of the building, it must be u shaped.
The engines had barely been turned off when all the garages opened. Wait, it wasn’t a bunch of garages but one. One very large one with many exits.
They started out of the car and I followed.
The Coven came forward. Aleksei in the front in his blood red cloak. Their hoods were down. I could see Isaac and his friends. They weren’t the carefree boys I remembered from Tyson’s basement that just wanted to make music.
“Huh,” the air rushed into my lungs making a strange startled sound. Isobel.
Isobel, Isaac’s twin sister, was in the Coven. Well, I shouldn’t be shocked. She definitely had the temper for it. I could see her killing vampires way more than I could picture Isaac doing it. She had that whole, wild and untamed, thing going for her.
I could see Luigi standing in a far corner of the massive garage.
He was so far away that I could barely see him.
But I could see he had his strong arms wrapped around a struggling figure.
I looked up at Jonathon with questioning eyes and then looked back at Luigi and the struggling vampire. The vampire was making a bunch of feral noises and it looked like she was about to grind her teeth off. Her eyes were a bright, menacing, silver. Not the warm silver of Jonathon’s eyes. No, this woman’s silver eyes were cold and distant.
Why would Luigi have brought a newborn vampire that couldn’t control itself? Especially when we were on the run? Did we really have the time to babysit a vampire?
Her silver eyes met mine. Some of the menace seeped out of them. A different emotion replaced it. Sadness? Regret?
She looked away again as if she was ashamed to look at me.
She looked so familiar. As if I had known her in another life.
I still couldn’t place her.
And then I saw the familiar Range Rover.
The air rushed out of my lungs.
“Mom?”
Chapter Ten: Hate
Anger coursed through my veins like molten lava, hot and fast.
What the hell was she doing here? Was she trying to ruin my life some more? Why did she always have to ruin everything?
She had put me through hell and back. Did I miss her? Sure.
Did I love her? No. Not like one should love a mother.
She had always been selfish and whiny but I overlooked that, she was my mom after all, but she was an adult and her childish behavior was silly. I’m the kid after all, so how come I have to act like the adult? My mom has the personality of one who wants to be taken care of. My brothers and I always had to fend for ourselves. And after her stunt in October when we first moved here, her attempt to kill herself, I had lost complete faith in her. Yes, I had worried about her, and still do but that episode had further imprinted into my mind that the only person my mother truly cared about was herself and I just wasn’t okay with that. I had always been a giver as were my brothers, and so was our dad. But mom, mom was a taker. She always was and always would be. Since now, she got to live forever.
“Kylie?” said Jonathon, and from his expression I could tell he had said my name more than once. My eyes were squinted in anger and my nostrils were flaring.
“What?” I snapped turning to glare at him.
“Are you okay?” He asked, worry lines wrinkling his perfect face.
“No, I most certainly am not! What the hell is she doing here?” I yelled. Everyone, including my mother could hear me.
I heard Gabriel whisper, “I didn’t know she was so feisty,” to Joseph.
“We couldn’t leave her unprotected. She could kill someone. Everyone that takes turns babysitting her is here. So, there was no one to watch her. We had to bring her,” he looked down, “and I also thought that maybe her power to change her appearance may help. I also thought that you might want to…um…see her now that she has more control over herself.”
“No,” I said harshly, “I do not want to see her. She’s no mother to me,” I snapped and got in the car, turning my back on the shocked faces of humans and vampires. I sat down sulkily in the seat, crossing my arms over my chest.
I knew I looked immature but it needed to be said.
Jonathon’s hurt face, as he got into the car, cut into my heart. I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings. I just wanted her to suffer for what she had done. After all, she still looked like she wanted to eat me. But Jonathon had thought he was doing something good, something to make me happy.
And he was right, I did miss my mom, but what he didn’t know was that I missed what my mom used to be, before the divorce, this new person was not my mother.
Jonathon’s cool hand brushed against my arm.
“I’m sorry, principessa. I wasn’t thinking about the pain this would cause you. I shouldn’t have been so callous. I should have said something to you. I just thought that it would make you happy. I’m so sorry that I was wrong,” he said in a rush so I barely understood what he said. He then lapsed into rapid Italian and I was at a complete loss.
“Jonathon, don’t apologize. It’s my own fault for not telling you the way I feel. I�
�m the kind of person who keeps everything bottled inside. I don’t want other people to have to suffer with me. It just seems unfair. And I know you think I’m mad but I’m not. Not with you anyway. You were doing what you thought was right and maybe it is right. Maybe she can help us kill Selena but I don’t want anything to do with her. I’m glad to know she’s okay but I don’t need her. She’s selfish and unreliable. Patrick and Amelia have treated me much better than she has and I’m far from their child. A mother doesn’t abandon their child the way she did. She would have died had she not been turned. I would never do what she did, no matter what pain I was feeling, I would make it through for my child,” a single tear slid down my cheek and Jonathon wiped it away.
“You’ve given this much thought,” He said it as a statement but I answered him anyway.
“Yes, I have,” I said damming back the tears that wanted to cascade down my cheeks.
“Are you calm enough to exit the vehicle?” he asked.
I couldn’t help but burst into laughter. He was always so gentlemanly. “Yeah, I’m calm enough,” I said around my hysterics.
Before we got out of the car he said in a whisper, “You will forgive her.” He said, again a statement of fact.
I sighed, “I know.”
The question was, when?
The Coven and the others had disappeared inside the warehouse type building. I followed Jonathon, still wiping away stray tears, and I didn’t need the Pulmers or the Coven to see any more of this behavior from me. I’m embarrassed enough as it is. I don’t need to give them more reason to think of me as weak.
Jonathon found a door into the building. I hadn’t even noticed there was a door because it was so seamlessly hidden into the wall. I wasn’t sure how the Coven even saw it but then again this was their dwelling, they would know all the entrances and, of course, they would have to be hidden so riff raff couldn’t wander in.
The warehouse reminded me of the cave where we had first met the Coven. It was dark and damp and smelled awful. I wanted to plug my nose but that would seem rude so I settled for holding my breath for brief periods of time.
Forbidden (Fallen Series Book 2) Page 11
