Nectar

by DD Prince

  Julia giggled, but looked blankly at her.

  “That’s enough,” Tristan said, a slight edge to his voice.

  “What? Why? It won’t hurt her feelings, will it? Oh wait, right,” Kyla fired back, “You folks don’t care about her feelings. She’s just a bleeding fuck toy.”

  She caught sight of Sam glancing in her direction with a disapproving look on his face. “Got yourself a real sparkplug there, Tris,” Sam mumbled.

  Tristan ignored the comment and his tone softened, “She is on a sort of cruise control or auto pilot right now.” Tristan touched her cheek and leaned in. “She won’t comprehend anything or be capable of anything other than small talk. All you’re doing here is working yourself up.” His phone rang, and he backed up and answered it, strolling toward the opposite end of the courtyard.

  She started smearing jam on a piece of toast with a scowl on her face. She felt beyond bitchy, and probably annoyed too because she wasn’t getting a reaction from Tristan. She watched Julia, who was eating bacon and staring off into space. Then, she couldn’t take it anymore. She anxiously shifted in her seat and looked over in Tristan’s direction. As he ended his call and returned to the table she said, “I get it. I’ll just be a brainless Barbie doll and pretend this isn’t the most fucked up scenario ever. What-ever.” Kyla stood up. “I don’t need to see any more of this.” She dropped her napkin and pushed her chair back.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Tristan glared at her, his brows raised.

  “Back upstairs.”

  “Sit.” He motioned to her chair.

  She shook her head, “No. I’ve lost my appetite.”

  His jaw clenched, “I said sit.” Tristan was 100% alpha all of a sudden and was in her space. Kyla was about to protest, but he towered over her, an inch from her and looked down at her like he meant business. Her throat instantly went dry. She slowly sat, feeling her face heat up as she descended.

  He glared at her with a look that shook her to her core, then leaned over and softly but menacingly spoke into her ear, “The way you’ve been behaving so far does not work. Now, listen and listen very carefully; that phone call I just had means that this breakfast has new meaning and it’s life or death. Life or death. Right now. Understand me? This is not a drill. Sunglasses.” Kyla felt a chill run up her spine. She looked over at Sam, who was leaning back in his patio chair, smoking a cigarette and fiddling with a gold lighter while regarding her with a serious look on his face. The sliding doors from the house opened.

  “Mr. Walker, Mr. Tsakos and Miss Jamieson are here,” the housekeeper said with two people behind her.

  Kyla looked at Tristan. Walker. She hadn’t known his surname up until now.

  “Sunglasses,” he repeated under his breath and then plastered a smile onto his face.

  A Mediterranean-looking man with dark hair and dark eyes walked out onto the patio then. He looked about thirty or thirty-five. He wore a black suit and black shirt with no tie and was talking on a cell phone as he strolled out. He was good-looking and as tall as Tristan. He spoke into the phone in another language, Greek, maybe. A young and bored-looking petite redhead dressed in a white fitted-bodice sundress with a full skirt, red sandals, and red sunglasses walked behind him.

  Kyla quickly pulled her sunglasses off her head as they’d been acting as a headband and put them over her eyes. Not a drill? That was an understatement!

  The man ended his call, “Sorry to call at your doorstep, and so early, Tristan. Cheers for letting us crash here a day early. Our plans changed, and I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind the intrusion rather than us stay in some impersonal hotel.”

  Tristan got up and accepted the man’s outstretched hand, “Not a problem, Andre. You’re very welcome. Hello, Becky.”

  “Walker,” the young woman muttered under her breath. Kyla saw Tristan’s jaw tighten. What was that all about?

  “Who have we here?” The man sat at the table beside Julia who was across from Kyla. His gaze landed on her very bare cleavage.

  “Hiya; I’m Julia,” Julia said brightly and sipped her coffee.

  “Hi,” Kyla said. Her voice came out hoarse. She cleared her throat as quietly as possible. She could feel Tristan’s eyes on her. She decided to slowly sip her nearly empty cup.

  Sam piped up and spoke in a game show host-like voice, “Jules over here in the smokin’ hot bikini is visiting with me and in the pretty green dress with the pretty green eyes is the lovely Kyla. She belongs to Tristan. And I know why you two are really here early; always looking to get the best room in the joint, ah?” Sam stood, and he and Andre did the brief half bro hug thing with a slap on the back.

  “Tristan’s, huh? Hm,” Andre said thoughtfully, “What pretty green eyes? I can’t see her eyes.”

  Kyla saw Tristan’s eyes ever so slightly narrow in Sam’s direction and then he leaned over to Kyla, “Show our guest your pretty eyes, princess.” His voice was firm, condescending, with a hint of a threat in it.

  Kyla tried to hold her breathing and her fingers steady. She took the rim and pulled the glasses down past the bridge of her nose and looked at Andre. Her hair fell into her eyes a little bit. His dark eyes seemed like they pierced into hers. For a split second she felt panic rise and thought, he sees right through me.

  The housekeeper came out and Andre’s attention moved to her. Esther brought Andre and his companion place settings.

  “Very nice, Tristan,” Andre said without looking back at Kyla and then he reached for the carafe. Kyla straightened the sunglasses, pushing her hair out of the way, and folded her hands in her lap.

  She heard an exasperated-sounding sigh come from the girl beside Andre.

  “Girls, I’m Andre and this is my lady, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca didn’t acknowledge Julia or Kyla.

  Sam got up from the other side of the table and walked over and kissed her on the cheek, “How are ya, Becks?”

  She sighed, “Jetlagged, Sammy, and parched. You?”

  “Ah, you know. Busy. Places to go, people to bite.”

  Tristan, Andre, Sam, Rebecca, and even Julia all laughed. Kyla caught that she was the only one who didn’t. She forced a smile on her face, thankful the glasses were hiding her eyes. She knew they were the window to her soul and that they hid absolutely nothing. How on earth would she ever get through the next few days?

  What was with Rebecca? She was definitely not all doe caught in the headlights. She had to be a vampire, too. A female vamp? Wow.

  Breakfast continued for the next little while and there was small talk about their flight in from Cyprus with a 2-day stopover in Chicago that Andre and Rebecca had taken. Esther came out with a glass pitcher filled with red liquid and poured some for Rebecca and Andre.

  Blood?

  She was thankful for her dark glasses. It was like her heartbeat was in her ears. Tristan reached under the table and caressed her leg briefly. She felt reassured at his touch and her heart settled down a little. She couldn’t wait to get out of this situation.

  “Ah, not a bad vintage, Tristan, but have we got anything a little fresher?” Andre said after a sip. Kyla could feel his eyes land on her.

  Sam piped up instantly, “Tristan isn’t a sharer, but I don’t mind. Help yourself.”

  “Pity,” Rebecca said with a pout, “Blondes aren’t my favourite…”

  “Ah, it’s okay, Becks,” Sam said, “Jules is a brunette, too, much to my chagrin. If there were a rug, it wouldn’t match the drapes.”

  There was a chuckle from Andre who leaned over and sank teeth into Julia’s right breast. Rebecca, who’d been seated on Andre’s other side got up and walked over, removed her sunglasses, and bit into Julia’s left shoulder.

  Kyla sat, mortified, horrified, and paralyzed. It was beyond bizarre to watch anyone, let alone a woman, suck blood out of someone’s body. Rebecca looked like she was barely out of her teens and had flawless porcelain white skin and long reddish eyelashes. She looked like the
epitome of innocence. Now here she was with fangs sunk into Julia. Kyla’s hands nervously fidgeted in her lap. She held her hands tight, hoping to stop her fidgeting from drawing attention to herself. Andre and Rebecca finally let go of Julia and wiped their mouths on linen napkins. Julia seemed completely unaffected. Kyla wondered briefly about Julia’s huge fake boobs, thinking Andre might puncture one. They looked fine.

  Kyla had been petrified they’d be looking to her for a reaction, but neither even glanced in her direction. Andre started talked to Sam about something about traffic and airports or something totally inconsequential to Kyla. She tried to stare past Julia toward Esther who was shuffling around the table, clearing plates and offering everyone more coffee, more food, and it was as if all was normal. Kyla tried to focus on Esther’s movements, so she had somewhere to look. The woman looked like an ordinary housekeeper, not robotic, not frightened.

  What the heck was a functional trance? Obviously, it made it not weird to pour breakfast guests a pitcher of blood. Were all the blood drive calls that went out due to thirsty vampires who depleted the stock at the Red Cross?

  Tristan’s phone buzzed on the table between them. It startled Kyla a little and she saw his eyes dart to her. No one else’s eyes were on her, thankfully. He answered it and stepped just a few steps away from the group, but his conversation could be heard clearly.

  “Yeah?

  What!?

  Are you kidding me? Again?

  I’d suggest you cover it up, then. I don’t want to hear from you until then. I’ll send someone, but this has got to be--- no, I don’t want to hear it. Apologies are getting a little old at this point. Whatever. Just deal with it, got it? Be thorough this time! Later.”

  His voice was menacing; she pitied the person on the other end of the line. He dialed another number.

  “Frankie is up to his old habits again. Take care of it, will ya?

  He’s done…

  No. Done done. End him.”

  He strode back over to the table and tossed his phone on the table, looking annoyed. All eyes, other than Julia’s and Kyla’s, were on him briefly at the outburst.

  “Need me to run interference?” Sam asked.

  Tristan waved dismissively and sipped his coffee, “It’s under control. Leonard is handling it.”

  After a beat, everyone resumed eating and /or talking.

  Kyla’s blood ran cold. Was he ordering someone’s death? Was this the same guy who stared into her eyes and told her he loved her? Was this the same guy who held her, making her feel safer than she’d ever felt? The guy whose gorgeous eyes twinkled and whose dimples melted her into a puddle of goo? She thought back to the fact that every other time the phone had rang since she’d been here he’d left the room. Did someone’s life end each time that phone rang?

  Then she thought back to the fact that this was the guy who held her against her will, who didn’t take no for an answer in bed, who had shackled her to a bed for days, who’d stolen blood from her and who had pumped her system with birth control. He’d told her he was a bad guy and said he’d done things he never wanted her to know. Stuff like this? Sourness rose in her throat.

  She tried her hardest to stay frozen and not show anything, because she knew her life depended on it but she could feel her blood pressure rising and felt pain in her chest, bruising sorrow. She took a deeper-than-she-meant-to breath and caught Tristan eyeing her from the corner of her eye.

  He rose to his feet. “Kyla. Come,” He stood and held out his hand. His eyes were intent on her, imploring her not to hesitate. She stood up and tried to do it without shaking and took his hand.

  “Excuse me everyone; time for my breakfast.” He grabbed his phone from the table and stuffed it in his pocket.

  “Bon Appetit,” she heard Sam say as she followed Tristan, trying hard to keep her knees from knocking together. They walked past Esther, who was busily cleaning the kitchen.

  Tristan said, “Esther, put my guests in a guest room in the south wing.”

  “Yes, Sir,” was the reply.

  When the door to the bedroom clicked shut, Kyla instantly broke out into a cold sweat and started trembling and hyperventilating. Tristan grabbed her and pulled her tight to him, “You did fine, baby…”

  “Nnnno.” She backed up. She felt repulsion crawl up her spine, “No.”

  His expression dropped. He held out his hand, reaching for hers.

  “Fuck no!” she hissed and bolted into the bathroom, slamming the door. It felt good to be alone, to be able to breathe freely. It was like she’d had her breath held tight for the last half an hour or however long it had been since Andre and Rebecca had arrived. She put the lid down on the toilet and sat on it and buried her face in her hands. She heard the door open.

  “Leave me alone, please. I just wanna be alone.”

  “I know that was hard for you. You did okay. Those two just showed up unexpectedly but it was good practise. We’re gonna be faced with the unexpected. I need you to hold it together for me.”

  “Leave me alone for a minute. Please!”

  “How much time do we really have to spend in the bathroom with you mad at me?”

  “This is the only place I can fucking go! Go, Tristan. Please leave me alone. Go, please.”

  He crouched in front of her, “You’ve gotta settle down, Kyla. Look at me. You can’t keep hiding in here from me. We have to face things together.”

  She didn’t move. He gently moved her hands away from her face. She half-expected to see black pupils and nothing else, but there they were, the blue eyes that she could swim in. He squeezed her hands reassuringly. She looked down at his strong hands holding hers. Confusion washed over her.

  “I need you to settle down. And you can’t shout like that. Someone could hear. Come. Snuggle with me.”

  “No. Just. Go. I’m fine.”

  “Come on, please. I need my own head to stay on straight and I can’t do that if you’re like this. Come snuggle.” He tugged her hand and led her back to the bed and flopped down and pulled her close.

  He held her tight. She didn’t hold him back, just laid there sobbing for a good ten minutes. Finally, she got it out of her system and stayed there, shuddering every few moments as she recovered. Tristan kept rubbing her back and kissed her forehead.

  “I know, baby. It’ll be okay,” he whispered.

  “How?”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “No. How - how could you? You ordered someone’s death?”

  He stared blankly at her.

  “You said, ‘I didn’t end him’ after that whole Joe thing and then on the phone you said, ‘end him.’ Did you think I wouldn’t know what that meant? Or is it that you just didn’t care?”

  “Stop. I told you that this road would be bumpy. Don’t you remember everything I said to you last night? Please don’t get caught up with that stuff. You don’t know the whole story from hearing a few words of my conversation. And besides that, I have a part to play right now; try to remember that. And if I don’t play my part it’ll be bad. For both of us.”

  She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her, so she put her head back down on his chest and closed her eyes, holding her body stiffly. He ran his fingers through her hair with one hand and caressed her back with the other. He was trying to make her melt into him, she knew it. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Playing a part didn’t have to require ordering death, though, right? Surely, he could punish someone without killing them, couldn’t he? Maybe he had much farther to go to being anything remotely resembling human than Kyla had thought.

  He lay there with her for ages, holding her, while she stared off into space. After a while, she sat up but didn’t look at him. “You can go. I’m fine.”

  “You are not fine. I’m staying. I feel everything you’re feeling right now. I can’t leave you.” He pulled her back down onto his chest and held her close, touching his lips to the top of her head.

  She lay there staring
off into space some more, feeling numb.

  A moment later, she felt him draw in a breath and then he trailed his hands up and down her backside and tried to pull her pelvis closer. He was erect.

  “Oh, no. No. Don’t,” she pleaded, eyes welling up with tears again, “Just don’t right now. I can’t do it, I really really can’t.”

  He leaned forward and started to suck on her bottom lip. She placed her hands on his chest and glared at him. She shook her head slowly

  “You don’t understand, Kyla. It wasn’t something done casually.”

  “You didn’t tell someone to kill someone else for fucking up?”

  “No, I did. But you don’t know why I did.”

  “It doesn’t matter why. I can’t just be here fucking when someone is dying because you ordered it. The gap between our worlds is so big, Tristan, it’s too big to ---“

  He let go of her before she could finish and rose to his feet holding his hands up in the air, his face had a “fuck this” look on it. She curled up and hugged the pillow. He looked down at her on the bed, curled in the fetal position, and she thought he was about to say something else, but then he changed his mind and left the room in a huff.

  She was both shocked and relieved that he knew not to pursue sex with her right now. She wasn’t sure she could take it and was glad that he didn’t push the issue. If he’d tried to force it with her, she was pretty sure she’d shatter into a million pieces and wasn’t sure she’d be able to be put back together again.

  She stripped and put on a pair of shorts and tank top with a built-in sports bra and turned the treadmill on. She ran and ran hard for 48 minutes with music blaring in her ears. Tristan had a great playlist and she ran like her life depended on it, like she’d somehow wind up finding the answers she needed on that treadmill. But as hard and as fast as she ran, of course it didn’t take her anywhere.

  As she was walking through the final minute of the cool-off period she yanked the ear buds out of her ears and reached for her water and that was when heard a vacuum cleaner behind her. She was filled with panic as she glanced over her shoulder and saw the woman dressed in a white blouse and gray skirt with salt and pepper hair pulled back into a tight bun. It was Esther; she was in the bedroom vacuuming the carpet, her back to Kyla at that moment as she was going in the other direction. Kyla felt like a zillion pine needles were trying to bore their way out of her skin. She almost fell off the treadmill from the shock. She didn’t know what to do so she trotted quickly into the bathroom. She leaned against the closed bathroom door and tried to catch her breath. She twisted the lock.