Moonshade (Vampire Conclave: Book 1)

by S. J. West

  It takes a moment for my mind to register what he asked me. I’m not sure why, but I don’t feel like myself. Something is definitely different, but I can’t quite put my finger on what has changed.

  As I continue to stare into his beautiful hazel eyes, I realize I don’t know what he’s feeling. His emotional state is completely cut off from me. Julian is like a blank page in a book without any words. Have I lost my empathic ability by bonding with him? Is it even possible for me to lose something that has been a part of me since birth?

  I decide not to say anything just yet. What I’m experiencing could simply be temporary. Surely I haven’t lost my gift. That’s not possible, right?

  “Rested,” I finally answer. It’s the truth. It’s just not the complete truth. “How long did I sleep?”

  “Only two days.” He leans forward in his chair. “Did you have nice dreams?”

  “I hardly ever have nice dreams,” I confess. “They’ve always been a bit strange. But I did dream a lot about you.”

  “Interesting.” He says the word like my small confession means something more to him.

  “Did the other people you shared a bond with dream about you a lot?”

  “Not that they ever told me.”

  Well, now I feel embarrassed. I just assumed it was because of our bond that I had dreamt so much about him. Feeling kind of stupid for admitting such a thing, I roll onto my back and look up at the ceiling, trying my best to figure out why I don’t know what Julian is feeling.

  “What’s bothering you?” he asks.

  I know he’s concerned by the tone in his voice, but I can’t feel his concern. It’s rather disconcerting. I never realized before now how much I relied on my ability to sense what the people around me feel. The sensation of being disconnected from someone’s emotions is making me feel panicky.

  I look back over at him.

  “I can’t sense what you’re feeling anymore,” I tell him, deciding I need to share my worry with someone who might understand. “It’s like my empathic ability is gone.”

  “Are you positive?” he asks, sounding doubtful that it’s actually disappeared.

  “Yes,” I say with certainty. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re feeling right now, and I should.” I try unsuccessfully to prevent panic from saturating my voice.

  Julian’s gaze shifts to the floor for a second before he meets my eyes again. I may not be an empath anymore, but years of being one have taught me what certain expressions on people’s faces indicate. I can tell he’s struggling internally as to whether he should tell me something important.

  “Perhaps it’s just me you can’t read,” he finally says. “Let’s go down to the kitchen and see if you can feel Helen’s emotions. She’s been cooking ever since I told her you would be waking up today.”

  “How did you know I would be?” I ask, slowly getting out of bed. I still feel a bit drowsy and stiff from my long slumber.

  “I can usually feel when the person I’m bound to will awaken after the ceremony,” he tells me as we leave the room together. We walk side by side along the hallway and down the grand staircase to the first floor.

  The kitchen is located at the end of the hallway of the foyer at the back of the house. It’s a bright, airy space with white painted cabinets, pale pink marble countertops, and stainless steel appliances. There is a large kitchen island with a built-in sink and two wrought-iron chandeliers hanging above it. One of the doors of the refrigerator-freezer has an inset TV with a local morning news program playing on it.

  Helen, dressed sharply in tan slacks and a blue and white button-down shirt, is pulling out a cookie sheet from the double wall oven when we walk into the room. The aromas of chocolate and cinnamon fill the air, bringing me a sense of calm.

  “You’re not using your spell on me, are you?” I whisper to Julian.

  “No,” he says aghast, looking slightly offended that I would even ask the question. “Besides, you’re immune to that now, from me or any other vampire.”

  Well, that was good to know. I understood that I would be immune to others of his kind but I didn’t realize it included him, too.

  “Oh good, you’re awake,” Helen says, closing the door to the oven and turning around to place the freshly-baked cookies on a cooling rack on the kitchen island. “I made you some chocolate chip and cinnamon cookies. I hope you like them. I’m sure you’re starving, you poor thing.”

  I sigh in relief as I look at Helen. I can feel how happy she is to see me. I haven’t lost my empathic ability after all. Julian seems to be the one I’m cut off from for some reason. That idea seems odd to me. Considering the bond connecting us to one another, you’d think I would be able to read him more clearly, but perhaps since the bonding made me immune to his coercion spell it made him immune to my empathic ability. It seemed like a sound theory.

  Julian looks at me and arches one eyebrow, silently asking me if I can sense what Helen is feeling. I smile in relief and nod my head, letting him know I can.

  “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble,” I tell Helen, taking one of the cooled cookies off a rack. There must be at least two dozen already cooling on racks besides the ones she just pulled out of the oven. The dark-chocolate-cinnamon cookies contain mini-chocolate chips and chopped walnuts. I take a bite and gobble the cookie down in two seconds. I soon discover that I am starving. I quickly grab more cookies and eat them all in quick succession.

  “See,” Helen says triumphantly, pointing the spatula she holds in her hand at me while glancing in Julian’s direction. “I knew she would be hungry. They always are.”

  I realize I feel as though I haven’t eaten in a month of Sundays. I finish off all the cookies in about five minutes flat. Luckily for me, Helen is prepared for my ravenous feeding frenzy. She has an egg and sausage strata, a casserole dish full of chicken enchiladas, and a large crystal bowl filled to the brim with fruit salad ready for my consumption. I eat them all in one sitting. By the time I start eating the basket full of yeast rolls sitting on the kitchen table, I notice Helen and Julian standing off to the side, watching me like I’m a freak show at a circus. I can well imagine what the carney would be saying in the background: “Come see the amazing Sarah Marcel as she devours anything and everything made of food! Don’t get in her way though or she might just eat you too!”

  I finish eating the roll in my hand and slowly push what’s left in the basket away.

  “Sorry,” I say sheepishly, feeling like a sinner for my gluttony.

  “Well,” Helen crosses her arms in front of her, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of the others do that before.”

  “I promise you,” I say, my cheeks growing hot from embarrassment. “I have never eaten like this before in my life. I don’t know why I’m so hungry.”

  “Well it’s obvious you don’t eat much, dear. You can’t weigh much over eight and a half stones.”

  I wasn’t sure how much a stone represented in actual weight, but I did know I weighed 120 pounds on my skinny days.

  “It’s normal for people to be hungry when they first wake up after the bonding is complete,” Julian reassures me. I can tell he’s slightly amused by my show of appetite. He’s almost smiling. “We’ve just never seen any of the others eat so much in such a short amount of time.”

  I hate to admit it to them, but I’m still hungry. The basket of yeast rolls is practically begging me to finish them. I also can’t prevent my eyes from wandering over to a triple chocolate cake resting delectably on a glass pedestal on the kitchen island.

  Julian comes over to the table and practically pushes the basket of rolls underneath my nose.

  “Eat,” he orders. “If you’re still hungry, then you need to eat.”

  I don’t need any more of an invitation than that. I have the rest of the rolls devoured before Helen brings me a pitcher of tea to help wash everything down. By the time I drink the pitcher dry, I finally feel somewhat satiated. I could have still eaten
the chocolate cake, but I decide I should let what I’ve already eaten settle first. Plus, I don’t want Helen to think she needs to cook me more food just yet. Hopefully, my hunger will wane as the day goes by.

  “I feel full,” I say, leaning back in my chair, patting the bulge of my stomach. It almost resembles a baby bump.

  “Well, I need to go grocery shopping,” Helen says with certainty. “Do either of you need something from the store?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Julian tells her. He’s facing me with his back leaned against the kitchen island counter. I can’t help but feel a bit shy under his steady gaze.

  “I’m fine, too,” I answer, not feeling like I should tell Helen I could really go for a few pounds of boiled shrimp and crawdads.

  “Are you sure there isn’t something in particular you would like for supper?” Julian prods, as if he can sense I’m not being truthful.

  “Well…” I should just tell them what I want. If they haven’t felt offended by my recent display of hunger, then they probably won’t care if I ask for what I’m craving. “I wouldn’t mind some steamed shrimp and crawdads, if they have any on sale.”

  “Crawdads?” Helen asks, as if it’s a foreign word to her.

  “The people at the store will know what they are,” Julian assures her, glancing in Helen’s direction before returning his full attention to me.

  My inability to tell what he’s thinking is disconcerting. He is certainly adept at masking his emotions from others behind an expressionless façade. Why, out of all the people in the world, does he have to be the one I can’t read? I just hope he’s the only one.

  “All right then, I’ll be back in a jiffy.” Helen walks out of the kitchen towards the front of the house. I hear the rattle of keys and the opening and closing of the front door as she exits the house, leaving me alone with Julian.

  I suddenly hear my cell phone ring. When Kaylee first became pregnant, I set her ringtone on my phone to the song “Baby Got Back”. She professed to hate the ringtone, but it did make her laugh the first time she heard it. I distinctly remember leaving my phone in my purse, which was supposed to be up in the bedroom I had slept in, yet the sound is nearby.

  I see Julian pull my cell phone out of one of his front pockets and press the silence button.

  “Why do you have my phone?” I ask, feeling as if he’s just invaded my personal bubble of privacy.

  “Your friend Kaylee has called at least twenty times since yesterday,” he reports a bit agitatedly, handing me my phone. “I got tired of hearing that ringtone, so I kept it on me to silence it when it rang.”

  “Why didn’t you just turn the ringer off?” I ask, taking the phone from him.

  “I was worried she might be in distress. I read the text messages and listened to the voicemails she left you to make sure she wasn’t. I knew you would want to go to her after you woke up if she needed you.”

  I quickly look at all my missed calls. He’s right. Kaylee has called me twenty times in the past couple of days, and left twice as many text messages. My heart sinks at the thought of lying to Kaylee about the new direction my life has taken. What am I going to tell her?

  “Maybe now would be a good time to come up with a believable story about you and me,” Julian suggests, coming to sit with me at the table.

  “Oh, the lie I’m supposed to tell everyone about us dating?” I don’t like to lie. I only do it to spare someone else’s feelings. I think everyone has told one of their friends that they don’t look like they’ve gained an extra ten pounds when they have or that their butt doesn’t look big in a new pair of jeans. Of course they come and ask you those questions. They want to be reassured that they don’t look fat. They’re asking you because they already know how you’ll respond.

  “It’s the easiest way to introduce me into your life,” Julian says, being aggravatingly pragmatic about the situation. “Besides, from what you told me, it should make your friend Kaylee happy to know you’ve found someone to spend your time with.”

  I sigh. He’s right. It is the easiest way to make him a part of my life that Kaylee will readily accept.

  “Do you have any suggestions on how to explain where I’ve been the last two days?” I ask, being new to the lying game. I assume Julian has probably mastered it by now after four hundred years of existence.

  “What if you told her we met each other later that evening by accident, started talking, and one thing led to another?”

  “I’m not sure that’ll work. If ‘one thing leading to another’ is code for sex, then Kaylee already knows I wouldn’t jump into bed with a man I barely know. I definitely wouldn’t just ignore her calls for a stranger either.”

  “Then what do you suggest?” Julian frowns. I’m not sure if he’s disappointed in hearing that I don’t sleep around, or that his brilliant idea has been rejected so readily by me. I know he needs me to become impregnated at some point during my fertile years, but surely he can’t be disappointed to find out that I’m not promiscuous.

  I sit there for a few minutes more, trying to think of a plausible reason that I would be completely out of contact. Then the solution presents itself to me.

  “Besides you, did I inherit anything else from my grandfather?” I ask.

  Julian’s eyes narrow on me as if my query makes him suspicious of my motives for asking the question in the first place.

  “You own all of my assets,” he reveals almost reluctantly.

  “What do you mean? How much is there?”

  “After I accumulated a large amount of wealth, we made provisions to have each of my companions inherit all of my properties and money. It simply made it easier to do it that way instead of having to explain why the name on the accounts never changed generation after generation. So, yes, you’ve inherited quite a fortune, Sarah.”

  That’s interesting and good to know.

  “Ok, then. I’ll tell Kaylee that my grandfather, who I never knew existed, died and left me his estate. I’ll just say I had to go to New Orleans to take care of the paperwork. That explanation is a lot more plausible than saying I spent the last two days in your bed.”

  “Not nearly as exciting, though,” he says. I could have sworn his statement was meant as a joke, but his delivery was so deadpan I can’t be sure.

  “Wait,” Julian says. “What if she asks why your grandfather didn’t contact you while he was still alive?”

  “Hmm, good point,” I reply. “Any suggestions?”

  “You could tell her the truth,” Julian says. “We never did give up searching for you and your mother, but she hid her tracks so well we couldn’t find either of you. It’s odd, but your last name is my first wife’s maiden name. I never would have thought to look for a Clarissa Marcel. I guess your mother chose it because of that fact. I suggest you tell Kaylee that your grandfather had private detectives actively searching for you, and that one of them happened to find you right after his death. It’s only a partial lie.”

  “Ok. That at least sounds plausible. I’d better call her before she gets the police involved.” I flip through my short contact list to find her number.

  While I smooth the ruffled feathers of my best friend, Julian leaves the table and walks over to the kitchen island. I hear him fiddling around, but don’t pay him any attention as I talk to Kaylee. I let my sister berate me for not answering her calls, and explain that I’ve been in a lawyer’s office most of that time and didn’t have my phone on. After I tell her about discovering I have a grandfather and losing him in the same day, she immediately forgets to be mad at me and starts asking me about him. I don’t know the answers to her questions, but I try to tell her as much as I can. I feign exhaustion from the events of the past two days and promise to come by her house the following morning. She orders me not to eat breakfast before coming over because she plans to make me my favorite breakfast in the world: Belgian waffles topped with Nutella and fruit.

  “Make a lot,” I warn her. “I have a feeling I’l
l be hungry.”

  When I get off the phone, I feel somewhat better about the situation with Kaylee. I didn’t lie to her, but I didn’t tell her the whole truth either. I fear my life will end up becoming a series of half-truths from now on. I don’t like it, but I don’t see any way around it either.

  Julian walks back to the table, holding a glass platter with a quarter of the chocolate cake I eyed earlier lying in the middle of it and a large glass of milk.

  “I thought you might like dessert,” he says with a hint of a grin.

  He thought right. However, this time I don’t gobble my food down like a sow at a feeding trough. I take my time and try to eat like any normal human being.

  As I eat the cake, I can’t make myself stop staring at Julian. There’s something different about him, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.

  “Have I grown a second nose or a third eye I don’t know about?” he finally asks, obviously becoming annoyed with my gawking of his person.

  “There’s something different about you,” I reply, still trying to figure out how he’s changed. Then I see it. “Your skin isn’t pale anymore.” I put one of my hands on top of the hand he has resting on the table. “And you’re not cold anymore either.”

  “No,” he says, sliding his hand out from underneath mine as if he doesn’t like to be touched. Or maybe it’s just me he doesn’t want touching him. Either way, I can take a hint.

  “Why aren’t you pale and cold anymore?” I ask, continuing to eat my cake and trying not to be offended by his reaction to my caress.

  “As long as I feed on a regular basis, I look this way. It’s only when my heart slows and isn’t circulating my blood that I start to look pale and become cold to the touch.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” I say.

  I run my fork along the icing on top of the cake, making tiny troughs. I have some more questions I want to ask, but I’m not sure whether I should bother him with them now. I just can’t tell if he’s in the mood to answer them or not.

  “I assume you want to ask me some questions,” he finally says after the silence between us has become noticeable. “Feel free to ask me anything you want, Sarah. I’ll try to answer what I can.”