by Jeff Hale
She was pulled abruptly away from me before I had a chance to answer. My eyes snapped open and I just stared at her in alarm, trying to remember to breathe, as Darien dragged her backwards. She didn’t even bother to fight him, only smiled crazily at me before grasping her crucifix in her hand and silently mouthing words that I could have sworn looked like a Hail Mary.
“Dana!”
Her expression changed at the sound of the man’s voice, sobering and almost repentant. I hadn’t even heard him come into the room, but he stood at the door watching us. His hair was the whitest blonde, his eyes ice blue. He wore a suit of deep crimson, with a black dress shirt and crimson tie.
“These are our guests, at least for the moment. I would prefer if you treated them with some courtesy.” His words seemed sincere, but his tone wasn’t, as though what he was saying was only for show. “You can let go of her now, shifter. I promise she will harass you no further… at least for tonight.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Darien let her go with a growl of warning. She gave him a seductive smile, then turned again to me. “You never answered my question, little one.” She blurred before my eyes again and I felt a quick tug on my scalp. I heard her voice murmur, “Hair the color of blood.” Or at least I thought I did, and then she was standing next to the man at the door, clutching what looked like strands of my hair in her fingers, her frozen eyes meeting mine. “You’ll see me again someday, little shifter, I promise you that.”
“Our other guests are ready to see them now, Dana. Come along now,” the blonde haired vampire told her, gripping her arm.
“Yes, Zachary.” She let him lead her out of the room and the door closed softly behind them.
I let out a breath of air that I hadn’t realized I had been holding and stumbled over to sit on one of the couches, feeling my body begin to shake in reaction.
“Bloody fucking hell, that sheila was a piece of work!” Alex was staring wide eyed at the door, his mouth still open slightly in astonishment.
“She’s a vampire, what did you expect?” Darien asked sharply. He was doing his best to otherwise ignore us, busying himself studying the artifacts on the display tables.
“Not that,” Alex replied. “Something more like Matt maybe.”
Darien snorted, his back still to us as he looked closely at an age patinated sword. “Matt’s not a pure vampire. There is a world of difference, believe me.”
“Are they all like that, like her? The pure ones?” I asked, still shivering despite the warmth to the air. The ones who had tried to kill me had seen no value in human life, had killed Cody without a second’s hesitation.
Darien shrugged, still not turning. “Some of them, some are worse. Although I’ve never met one that had a religious bent before. Not that I’ve met many as it is.”
The door handle clicked and we all turned our attention to the door, watching as it opened again. I sat up straight in surprise when I saw Matt walk into the room, his brown hair pulled back into a clip at the nape of his neck and wearing a loose dark green silk shirt over tight black leather pants. He was just as pale as the other two vampires, but his light brown eyes didn’t seem nearly as cold to me. Maybe it was just because I knew him. I couldn’t be sure though.
He strode over to me, a genuine smile creasing his lips, and literally picked me up off the couch in a strong hug. “It’s good to see you safe and sound, Katelyn,” he exclaimed, patting my back. “We were all very worried about you.”
“Thanks, Matt,” I mumbled against his chest, and wondered what the hell he was doing here.
“Put ‘er down, Matty, an’ get ou’ o’ tha way so I kin lay eyes on ‘er meself.” It was yet another new voice, this one thick with an Irish brogue, and full of as much arrogant demand as I had ever heard from Darien.
Matt lowered me until my feet made contact with the floor, then dutifully let go of me and stepped to the side as this new person shut the door behind him and came fully into the room, stopping within arm’s reach of me.
“Mo mhíle stór! Tá sí go hálainn,” he whispered in a language that I didn’t understand but recognized as Gaelic. He reached out with a pale hand and caressed my cheek while I stared at him, my mouth open in utter shock.
His hair was the same color as mine, short and spiked, his vampire paleness—and I knew he was a vampire, the room temp feel to his fingers added to the knowledge that we were in a vampire den told me that—not seeming out of the ordinary. Eyes a sharper blue than mine, although lacking the warmth, wandered my face, drinking in my features. He was tall, taller than Darien, but shorter than Aerick, and very lean. He still had the freckles that I had somehow managed to not inherit.
“Ye look jus’ like yer grandmo’er,” he said, smiling broadly at me, only a hint of fang showing.
I felt my knees turn to water and I sank to the floor until I was sitting on my heels, unable to take my eyes off the man in front of me, my father, my dead father.
Oh, I recognized him. He hadn’t changed much from the last pictures my mother had of him. His hair was a different style, and he was missing the glasses, but the man slowly dropping to his knees in front of me and gazing at me with intense affection in his ice blue eyes was the man who had sired me.
And he was a vampire now. A hybrid like Matt if I was to guess, since he had obviously been responsible for my shifter blood.
I didn’t know whether to be overjoyed or pissed as all hell and demand to know what the hell he was doing alive… undead… whatever. So I settled for stunned silence, my right hand reaching out to tentatively touch his face. His skin was smooth under my fingertips, but very, very real. I gave his cheekbone a light poke.
“Caitlín? Lass?”
His voice stirred a memory of something buried deep within me, the smell of sky and sun, the feel of safe encompassing arms, of laughter and smiles. It broke through my daze and I felt those thrice bedamned tears welling in my eyes again and a tremble go through me.
“Daddy?” My voice was the barest whisper, wanting further affirmation that my senses weren’t lying to me.
“Tá mé, mo Caitlín.”
I flung myself at him, deciding I would be pissed at him later, burying my face in the fabric of his dark dress shirt, letting the tears soak the cloth. He wrapped his arms around me, resting his face against the top of my head, murmuring soothing reassurances in Gaelic. I heard Darien clear his throat lightly, heard footsteps as the other three made to leave the room, and I was suddenly very afraid to be alone with this man who was a vampire as well as my father.
“No, stay,” I told them, lifting my head and pulling back from my… father, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “Please?” I looked back at my father. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Wha’e’er makes ye happy, lass. ‘Ere, why don’ ye sit back up on tha couch?”
He stood and helped me to my feet, then settled me back down on the couch. He seemed unsure of what to do next, whether to sit by me, at the end, on the other couch, so he opted to stand behind the couch back so that he hovered protectively over me.
The others had stopped when I had asked them, and now Darien leaned against the door, while Alex moved back over near the fireplace. Matt took up position not far from my father. I had a sudden thought.
“Does Mother know? That you’re alive?” I had the abrupt fear that she had been lying to me all these years.
“She does, but she only found ou’ yesterday mornin’. I know ye probably have already seen her, but I asked ‘er no’ tae tell ye.”
I gave a short bark of laughter. “Bet she was pissed.”
“Aye, she was.” He laughed in amusement, and his chin went up, eyes going to Darien. “Darien! Come sit wi’ Caitlín!”
Darien shook his head, eyes meeting mine briefly before looking away. “I’m fine where I am, Lochlan.”
Why would my father want Darien to sit next to me, or think that it would be something I might want?
“Ach, she’s
yer, how do you American’s say cara mná… girl friend? I’nit she?”
Where had my father gotten that piece of misinformation from? And then it dawned on me that this was not the first time that Darien and my father had met, that Darien had called him by name.
“No, I’m not, Da,” I said, using the shortened version of daddy that I had used in reference to him when I was a younger child. “I don’t know why you would have that idea.”
His brow furrowed in confusion, head tilted to one side. “’E said ‘e was courtin’ ye, lass. Yer a shifter now, would take a strong will tae refuse an Alpha. Most shifter lasses would be happy tae be in yer place.”
“Well she’s your daughter, Lochlan, and stubborn as all hell.” Darien’s snort was lacking amusement. “She’s got herself another boyfriend, that sorcerer that rescued her.”
“Tha one tha’ took ‘er to Las Vegas?” At Darien’s nod, my father looked down at me in disappointment then back at Darien. “An’ ye didn’t fight for ‘er?”
There was silence for several moments, then Alex said, “Show him, Darien.”
The look on Darien’s face suggested that he didn’t want to show anyone anything, but at a prompt from my father, he lifted the front of the blue button up shirt he was still wearing from earlier, revealing the large bandage that was taped to his stomach.
He grasped the edge of the medical tape and pulled the bandage loose, showing what looked like a broad stab wound, its edges finally knitting together, but still bruised and red and oozing small amounts of blood. He turned, reaching behind him to peel the bandage from the opposite side on his back, showing the exit wound in a similar state.
“How old is tha’ injury?” my father asked, clearly puzzled.
Darien shrugged. “Seven, maybe eight hours?”
“An’ her man did this tae ye?” He gave me a look of reproach. “It should ‘ave been mostly healed by now. How badly did ye mess the lad up?”
Darien choked on a laugh. “Much as it pains me to admit it, he walked away unscathed. Oh, I had my claws in him, but he healed it quick, magic quick. And this?” He indicated his abdomen and I could tell it battered his pride to say the next words. “This was nothing but child’s play to him, a warning so to speak.”
“’E’s tha’ dangerous then?” There was worry in my father’s voice, worry and something else. Calculation maybe?
Darien’s chin jerked in a quick nod. “That dangerous, yes, and unpredictable. And your daughter’s fucking him.” He threw a cold, bitter look my way.
“Darien!” I exclaimed, mortified that he would say something so vulgar in front of one of my parents.
“Is tha’ true, Caitlín? Are ye warming tha man’s bed?” My father’s eyes were narrowed at me and there was anger brewing in them, although I didn’t get the idea that the anger was due to me, at least not directly.
“Not that it’s anyone’s business who I sleep with, not even yours, but yes!” I said through gritted teeth, feeling like doing nothing more than going over and removing the smug look from Darien’s face with my claws. I could feel the cat prowl close to the surface again as fury rose in me and my father must have seen something in my eyes because he patted my shoulder as though to soothe me.
“Now settle down, lass. Yer a cat shifter, right? So I dinna expect ye tae stay chaste, but I woul’ at least prefer it tae be one o’ yer own.”
One of my own? How hypocritical of him. “Mother is human, or did you forget that?”
“An’ I loved, still love, yer mo’er more than anything. But there were many a time I wished she weren’t human, an’ it tore me up inside. I jus’ want something different for ye, lass.” He patted me on the shoulder again. Yay for fatherly concern.
“Aerick’s not human either, Da,” I said.
“I ken, ‘es one o’ them magic users, sorcerers—”
“He’s a Sentinel, actually,” I interrupted, noting a brief flash of recognition at the word in my father’s eyes.
“—an that lot ‘as their own notions of other Aetherics,” he went on. “They are no’ tae be trusted, those sorcerers.”
“I love him, Da.”
He just sighed. Darien turned his back on me again, there was surprise in Matt’s eyes, and Alex, my sole support, reached over to pat me on the knee. “I ken ye think ye do, bu’ yer still young yet, lass.” He gave me a look that said he was humoring me.
I got pissed again. “Da, I’m glad you’re still alive… undead, whatever, and I love you, I think, but you’ve been gone for the last eighteen years of my life, so I hardly think that gives you any right to come in and start dictating my love life.” I forced a smile at him.
“Ach, yer right, Darien, she is a stubborn one.” But the smile he gave me now had a bit of pride in it, as though my standing up to him, while chafing, was something he approved of. “Fine, then, lass, let’s jus’ leave tha subject of yer young man alone fer now, an’ ye tell me all about wha’ I missed these last eighteen years.”
I was fine with that, and we spent the next couple of hours talking, well mostly me talking, with him listening avidly. I had one of those expensive cell phones that could take pictures, although not particularly good ones, and I showed him every picture I had stored in its memory. There were some of me, some of my friends, of Kris, and several of my mother. I showed him the few pictures that I carried in my wallet, and he stared thoughtfully at my driver’s license, his finger rubbing absently over the name on it.
I learned a few things about him. He had only been a vampire since I was a baby, when he had ‘died’, but he had been a shifter for over a hundred and fifty years prior to that, Alpha of his pack in Ireland before he had followed my mother back to the States.
He was a bird shifter, and his bird was an osprey. Even though he was a vampire now, since he was a rakshasa, a hybrid, he still retained the ability to shift, although he had lost most of the other gifts from being a shifter. And I found out that he had known Matt for a little over a hundred years.
“You knew?” I rounded on Matt, betrayal in my voice. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell, Kat,” he replied, obvious chagrin in his voice. “And I didn’t realize who you were until you showed me that picture, didn’t realize that you were Loch’s daughter. And what was I supposed to say then? You were already dealing with what you were, what you were possibly going to become. Was I supposed to say ‘Oh, and hey, your father’s a vampire and still alive!’ too?”
“No, I guess not,” I conceded, knowing that if had said something at that time the knowledge overload might have done me in. “But you could have said something later.”
“There wasn’t a chance later.”
I just nodded, a shiver going down my spine as I remember why there hadn’t been a chance later.
“Caitlín, lass, I’m afraid it’s nearing dawn, an’ our hosts only agreed to ‘ave us here whilst they were awake, so I’m going tae have tae go, we all are,” my father said, looking down at his watch. The sky was still dark outside, but it was closing in on five in the morning.
“But, Da, I just got you back!” I stood and faced him.
“An’ I’ll not be going out of yer life again, lass,” he promised, caressing my cheek quickly. “But I do ‘ave a life tha’ I ‘ave put on hold for tha last few days an’ need desperately tae get back ta, an’ tha’ pompous ass back in Las Vegas has refused me tha city. I certainly canna stay here.”
I nodded, tears threatening again. It seemed like all I did was cry at the drop of a hat anymore. “Where will I be able to find you?”
“I’ll be back in Tillamook, lass, where I ‘ave been all this time.” He reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a small card, handing it to me. It had his name on it and an address, along with two phone numbers. “Tha second one is me private phone, use tha’ one if ye need tae get hold o’ me. Ye’ll be safe if ye stay in Vegas, but if ye change yer mind, call me.”
I took the card, then followed him to the door and out of the room, onto the landing outside. Darien looked relieved, Matt still seemed curious about the house, and Alex yawned sleepily. The blonde vampire, Zachary, met us at the bottom of the steps and ushered us out with a perfunctory good bye, clearly eager to see us go. The other vampire, Dana, was, thankfully, nowhere to be seen.
Our car was still waiting where we had left it. Darien and Alex both got inside, Darien in the front passenger seat again, and Alex in the back. My father wrapped me in a tight hug, kissing me on the forehead, before helping me get into the car and shutting the door, waving as the car pulled out and circled down the drive. I watched my father’s form dwindle into the distance and hoped it wouldn’t be the last time I saw him.
TWENTY
Katelyn
The ride back was just as silent as the ride to. Darien sat morose and quiet in the front, occasionally talking to the driver. I sat in introspective thought about the sudden appearance of the father I had believed long dead. After finishing off a bottle of vodka, watching some television and putting up with my monosyllabic responses to his comments, Alex got bored and fell asleep again, using my lap as a pillow. Somewhere between the time I had fallen asleep in the car on the way to Reno and woken up when we got there, my discomfort around Alex had faded, and his closeness was a support and solace to my nerves that I dearly needed.
We made it back into town sometime near ten o’clock in the morning. We stopped and picked up some fast food along the way, but I was stiff from riding in a car for so long and couldn’t wait to not only stretch my legs, but to see Aerick. I wanted to kiss him and punch him at the same time. He had known about my father, and he hadn’t said anything to me.
The car was negotiating its way carefully down the Strip, the badly leaning Stratosphere looming up ahead, when there was a loud thump as something impacted against the trunk. The driver hit the brakes, coming to a screeching stop, and it was only sheer luck that kept us from being rear ended. I would have looked out the back window, but there wasn’t one. I could hear movement as something crawled across the area it would have been, and onto the top of the car.
