Matthew and his adoptive father were true partners, despite their differences. Matthew was calm and discreet; Danny was a real whirlwind. I cringed when, one day while I was passing his restaurant, Danny came out with his apron slung over his shoulder, caught up with me, kneeled down in front of me, and began singing a serenade, the refrain of which was “Come back to eat at Danny’s, beautiful lady!”
He only stopped when I promised to come in the following week. In any case, that night Phoenix was finally going to give me my first paycheck, and I was curious to know at what price he valued my monthly work.
As a librarian, no one could have said that I was rolling in money, but I got by rather well. Returning to the manor that evening, there’s no question I was excited: I was finally going to have my own money to spend again, money I had earned.
Of course, at the beginning it amused me to make my boss pay for everything, but I wasn’t raised like that. My parents had passed down a strict work ethic, and I didn’t see myself as anything less than financially independent. Even if I were paid only as much as I had been as the high school librarian, I would be satisfied.
When Phoenix joined me in the kitchen, I couldn’t stop myself from looking to see if he had an envelope in his hand. He didn’t, and I didn’t quite know how to broach the subject.
“Do you realize that we’re already at the end of March? That means we’ve known each other for three months!” I exclaimed, all smiles.
Phoenix looked up from his newspaper.
“OK, what do you want?”
Caught unawares by such brusque perception, I could only stammer, “Uh, well . . . me? I . . . well . . .”
He returned to his reading. “When you know what it is, say it so I can understand you.”
Humph. “I would like to be paid! Three months’ pay!”
He slowly put down the paper. Gulp.
“We have already discussed your pay for the previous months. In most industries, people are only paid for real working time. Last I heard, students do not get paid. Therefore, you did not really start your job until you met Kiro.”
That was too much. He had kidnapped me and imposed Green Beret–level combat training on me, and he compared that difficult time to classes that a student takes peacefully seated in a university lecture hall.
“What a con! I should’ve suspected that you would do something like this. Only you could insinuate that my first weeks here were a vacation at your expense!”
“I am not insinuating anything.”
What arrogance! Not knowing what more to say, I got up from the table and went to soothe my nerves by washing my dishes.
With a sidelong glance, I watched as he finished with his reading, folded up his paper, and slipped it under his arm before heading toward the exit. While I was cursing him silently, I jerked in surprise when a hand holding an envelope appeared above my head. I turned around and saw my boss staring at me with his irritating sardonic smile.
I took the envelope he was holding out to me, or rather I grabbed it from him.
“What is this?” I said unpleasantly, opening the envelope.
There were two bank account statements. One was in the name of Samantha Stratford, the other Samantha Jones. I almost fainted when I saw the two account balances. I looked up, but Phoenix wasn’t there. On each statement was double the amount of my librarian salary: I was making four times as much as before. Incredible.
I started jumping up and down in place, clapping my hands. Then I remembered my exclamations from earlier and my smile tensed up.
I had some apologies to make the next day.
A few days later, I was finally able to accept Matthew’s offer for a tour. Phoenix had told me the evening before that he didn’t need me, so I gave myself an entire day of relaxation.
I started by inviting Angela to eat at Danny’s with me; he was delighted to see that his serenade had worked. Angela and I had so much in common, and we got along marvelously. Unlike Phoenix, she had loved the Twilight saga, and we talked about it a lot that day. Angela admitted that even if she was surrounded by the great classics of literature, all of which she had read, she also devoured any and all books that spoke of legends, especially vampires. She was even more fascinated by the different reactions people had to these mythical figures. She genuinely pitied those who, in the absence of historical context, venerated vampires. As for me, knowing the truth, I found them all completely crazy.
We were still on this topic when Matthew arrived. The three of us took up the conversation again, but after a while, Angela said she needed to go back to her bookshop. Before she left, she asked about Matthew’s tour, and he gave her a list of the places he wanted to take me. I thought again about what Ginger had said about an inevitable romantic relationship between my two friends. I didn’t want to stir up trouble between them, even if I was doing it unintentionally. But Angela’s reaction calmed my fears. She added another place to my devoted admirer’s list.
Shortly after she left, Matthew and I headed out. During our stroll, Matthew told me the town’s history. It had been founded at the beginning of the twentieth century following the establishment of a sawmill that took advantage of the vast surrounding forests. The workers flooded in, and small businesses opened up, and Scarborough was born. Although I had already read Ellen McCoy’s book, I listened to him attentively. However, despite his characteristic discretion, he wanted to know more about me.
“Tell me about your grandfather. You keep very quiet about him.”
Oh boy. When anyone asked me questions about Peter Stratford, I always managed to dodge them or keep my answers perfunctory. I would have to do more than that to be believable to Matthew.
“What do you want to know?”
“Well, I don’t know. Is he nice to you, for instance? Seeing as how you’re his live-in nurse.”
I didn’t expect such concern. I was touched by Matthew’s kindness and curiosity.
“Well, I think of him as a polar bear. He can be kind, but he can also be as glacial as an Antarctic breeze.” That description was rather faithful, even if I was not going to go so far as to say Phoenix was a teddy bear. That would be a grievous error. “But he is endearing and always concerned for my well-being, even if he doesn’t show it.”
I realized that I’d perfectly summed up my boss. After all, if he wasn’t concerned about me, he would have abandoned me on the backseat of his car in his unheated garage at least once.
“Do you miss your parents?” Matthew asked, very seriously.
It seemed that we’d started fifteen minutes of truth-telling. Why not?
“I think about them every day, but the pain has dulled some with time.” I looked at him surreptitiously; he seemed lost in thought. “And your birth parents? Do you miss them?” I ventured.
“Danny never hid the fact that I’m adopted. When I was eighteen and I wanted to know more about my origins, he helped me look for my parents. But as had been the case when he looked for them right after he found me, we didn’t discover anything. That was hard to accept at first, but I realized that I couldn’t have asked for a better father than Danny Robertson. I have a good life now, but I must admit that sometimes I think about them. Maybe because you’re an orphan too, I feel strangely close to you.”
I wasn’t expecting that at all. Close? To what point? How should I respond? Help! I had to find some way to wriggle out of this to clarify things.
“Wherever I go in this town, people tell me that the person you’re closest to is Angela. That makes sense since you’ve known her forever . . . and me . . .”
I didn’t even time to finish my sentence.
“It’s not the same. I know that everyone sees Angela and I married one day, but she’s only a friend. Listen, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I have different feelings for you than the ones I have for Angela.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never considered Matthew that way. I was sixteen the last time I’d been interest
ed in a boy! Romantic relationships were a real mystery to me, and I admit that until then, my inconspicuousness had suited me just fine because it protected me from the pain of being rejected.
“You’re not saying anything,” he observed.
He came closer to me. Dangerously close.
“I wasn’t expecting that. We hardly know each other,” I answered, taking a step back. “You’re going too fast.”
I might have sounded harsh, but I was being sincere. He had succeeded in ruining my day. I only had one desire: to go back to the manor and not think about any of this.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. Even if I’m more discreet than my father, I always say what I feel. But in this case, I think I’ve completely blundered.”
You could say that. I didn’t doubt that Matthew was the type to occasionally put his foot in his mouth.
“I forgive you, but give us some time to get to know each other before bringing this up again,” I said, my smile tense.
It wasn’t very late, but I said I needed to get back to town, and we returned in an embarrassed silence. For the first time, I was happy to see the Audi. There was a moment of hesitation, and then Matthew sighed.
Before he said whatever he wanted to say, I launched in, “Well, until next time!” I gave him a little smile, which he returned.
“Later.”
When I started the car and drove off in the direction of the manor, I exhaled at length. I was disturbed; my day, which had started off so well, had ended in a declaration unexpected in my sentimental desert, and no one could say that my reaction had been the best.
As I got within sight of the manor, I decided that I couldn’t do anything about it except to give myself some time to see if I also felt something for Matthew Robertson. In any case, not for love or money would I let my evening be ruined too. I had some peace, quiet, and idleness on the horizon, and no one could take that away from me.
Though I expected Phoenix to emerge at sunset, he didn’t, so I figured he had left to take care of business as soon as he had woken up. I kept my cell phone on hand in case he needed me, but I doubted he’d call.
I wanted to cook, and I pampered myself with a fabulous meal: osso buco with tagliatelle, a glass of wine, and a slice of homemade lemon pie. Delicious.
After eating, I went into the parlor and channel surfed until I found a film that interested me. I settled comfortably into the big sofa; I pulled a plaid blanket over my legs, and it kept me agreeably warm. The film was good, but then I felt myself drifting off during the news.
A noise woke me up. I looked at the clock: two o’clock in the morning. I yawned widely as I got up to turn off the television. I couldn’t wait to get into my soft bed.
Then I heard that noise again . . . it was strange, as if someone were scraping the wall. It was coming from the hallway, and I went to take a look.
Turning my head toward the entryway, I jumped back and let out a cry of fright. When my brain started working again, I realized that the dark mass collapsed against the wall, trying to move, was my employer.
“My God! Phoenix!” I exclaimed, noticing he was injured.
I rushed toward him and positioned myself so he could lean on me. Despite his weight, I succeeded in getting him to the parlor, where he slumped onto the sofa. I could then see the extent of his injuries. His handsome suit was shredded, his shirt was covered in blood (was it only his own?), and his face . . . He’d been beaten up, I was sure of it. He seemed so weak, hardly even conscious.
“Phoenix! Tell me what to do! How can I help you?”
I thought for a moment that he’d fainted, but he managed to say, weakly, “Bl . . . Blood.”
I didn’t wait for any other orders. I ran out of the parlor to the kitchen to find the bags of blood in the fridge. My heart was pounding harder than ever, and it wasn’t because of my task. I was really worried about Phoenix. I’d never seen him show the least weakness, but here he was clearly in a very bad way. I had to help him.
After I activated the mechanism, I grabbed several bags at random and turned back without taking the time to heat them up. The whole operation hadn’t taken me more than a minute, but it felt like I was moving in slow motion. Upon returning, I almost fell to the ground, slipping on the tiles. Finally, I sat down on the edge of the sofa. Phoenix wasn’t moving anymore.
With my fingertips, I pushed him to wake him up, but nothing happened. I took him by the shoulders and shook him sharply.
“Wake up! I have blood! Wake up!” I shouted.
With no response from Phoenix, I decided to pour the contents of the pouch directly into his mouth, making sure he swallowed it. It was a success with the first one. I thought that the drink was taking effect, so I opened a second. When I tried to pour it into his mouth, the situation got out of control.
Vampires are predators that feed on human blood. Put a vampire in a situation of intense thirst, shake a pouch of his favorite blood under his nose, and you’ll not be disappointed by the result. Especially if the hand holding the pouch is filled with blood of the same type . . .
When I saw my boss’s eyelids open, I had a moment of joy that was too quickly deflated by the metallic, luminescent color of his eyes, announcing misfortune for the human being who stupidly found herself in the same room as the creature to whom those eyes belonged.
I’d barely realized the precariousness of my situation when things took a downturn. A steel grip closed over my right arm; at the same time, I heard a bestial growl, and I felt something like two knife blades sink into my flesh. I emitted a cry of pain and fell back in shock.
My attacker had followed the movement, and I found myself once again pressed against the floor, Phoenix above me, just like that horrible episode in the office but worse because this time, he had truly stuck his fangs in my forearm. The pain was dreadful, but I had to act before he drained me dry.
I tried to hit him, but without success. I tried to shake my arm free, but that only managed to make the pain worse, causing me to cry out again. His fangs were so firmly planted in my arm that moving would only tear up my already damaged flesh. What’s more, fighting galvanized him. I didn’t know what to do.
I had to think of something, for I knew that soon the hemorrhage he was subjecting me to would invariably lead to a loss of consciousness and, eventually, my death.
“Phoenix, please! It’s me, Samantha! You’re going to kill me, and you said you don’t want to kill innocents anymore.”
No reaction. Just an awful sucking sound that made me want to vomit.
“Phoenix! Stop! Please!”
Nothing. How many times had humans begged to be spared at the moment when Phoenix was sucking the life out of them? He must have heard this refrain thousands of times. What’s the point . . . a few minutes passed . . .
What a strange sensation, feeling my strength leave, feeling death approach . . . I was light, nothing was important anymore. I was going to leave for good, and I welcomed my fate without any anger. One thing pained me: the guilt that my boss would feel once he realized what he’d done. Not having killed me—I wasn’t naive—but letting himself be controlled by his thirst. I wasn’t mad at him, and he had to know that.
Gently, I placed my other hand on his face and murmured his name.
“Phoenix.”
He stopped drinking and looked at me. His eyes still shone, and his mouth, fangs out, was stained with my blood. As my last bit of strength was leaving me, I gave him a feeble smile with which I projected all the power of my forgiveness. And then there was a black hole . . .
I was slowly gaining consciousness, I felt it. The preceding events came back to the surface. I recognized Phoenix for the predator he was, attacking me: his eyes, his fangs, my blood in his mouth, that sickening sucking noise. I remembered the pain I’d felt. Next to this, being used as a cannonball was comparable to a mosquito bite. I remembered the feeling of powerlessness I had felt as my life escaped from me, then the calm that had ta
ken over. Strange. To untangle all that, there was only one solution.
I opened my eyes.
I was indeed in my room, in my bed. There was a difference between this and the other times I’d woken up here, however. I had an IV in one arm, and on the other, the one that had provided Phoenix with his blue-plate special, was an enormous bandage. I was in a nightgown, and to my great relief, it covered me and wasn’t transparent.
“I know that you are modest, but I was obliged to change your clothes.”
I quickly lifted my head. Phoenix was seated in the same armchair he’d sat in when I first arrived here. His clothes were impeccable. The whole scene provoked a touch of déjà vu, but this time I wasn’t afraid.
“Why are you so far away?” I asked.
He stared at me, his face impenetrable.
“After what happened, I did not want to scare you when you woke up.”
I sighed. “Nonsense. Your reasoning is off. Waking up is a relief. It means that you didn’t finish what you started. By the way, how are you?”
“You are asking me how I’m doing when I almost killed you to assure my own survival? Who is talking nonsense now?”
I wasn’t in the mood for wordplay. “What do you want me to say? That I’m mad at you? That I hate you? Go ahead and think that if it makes you feel better, but I won’t tell you something I’m not thinking or feeling. You weren’t yourself. I get that you’re a vampire. You’re a predator and all that. But I know that what happened in the parlor is not something you wanted.”
He stood up and started pacing. “You don’t understand. I wanted you, Samantha. I wanted to drink your blood, and that desire totally overwhelmed me! When I bit you, I completely lost control. I could not stop.”
What was bothering him more? That he bit me or that he’d lost control of himself?
“What stopped you?” I asked, curious.
He stopped pacing. “You.”
“Me? But I couldn’t do anything . . .”
He shook his head. “You stopped fighting and . . . what you said . . . finally . . .” It was his turn to stammer. “Why did you look at me like that?”
Samantha Watkins: Chronicles of an Extraordinary Ordinary Life (Samantha Watkins Series Book 1) Page 13
