VEILED Complete Boxed Set: A Paranormal Vampire Romance Thriller

by Victoria Knight

  “Say it,” she told him.

  “Yes,” he said indignantly. “But I did not kill any damned cows.”

  “I saw it and—”

  “I said it wasn’t me, you brat!”

  She looked like she had been slapped. But instead of leaving, she sat back down on the couch.

  Acting without thinking, Saul walked into the adjoining kitchen and grabbed the roll of paper towels from the counter. He threw them at her without looking.

  “Please clean that up. I’ve worked too hard on restraint to let your foolishness destroy me.”

  She took off a handful of paper towels and began to blot at the cut.

  “So what do you want from me?” Saul asked.

  “Nothing,” she said. “I just wanted to know.”

  “Well what can we do so that this stays between us? You can’t spread this around town.”

  “It’ll be no worse than the ignorant shit that’s already circulating about you.”

  “This is serious,” he said. “What do you want from me?”

  She thought about this for a moment, slowly blotting away the blood on her arm. The knife sat beside here on the couch and Saul’s eyes saw the thin rivulet of blood along its blade.

  After roughly ten seconds, she looked up to him. There was fear still apparent on her face, but it was fading. “I want to know how you ended up here. I want to know how a vampire ended up in Red Creek. I want to know your history.”

  Saul let out a nervous chuckle. He stood at the kitchen table, keeping a good distance away from the spilled blood, even the red stains on the paper towels she held.

  “And that’s it?” he asked. “I tell you my history and you’ll forget about the video and the things you have seen?”

  “Hell no I won’t forget. But I’ll keep it between us.”

  Saul thought about this for a moment. He looked down to this peculiar young woman and she returned his gaze just as intently. Even when she knew what he was, she didn’t seem to be truly afraid of him. He had no idea how to react to that.

  He walked across the den and into the kitchen. There, he took out a bottle of red wine and two glasses. He poured the wine and took the now-filled cups back into the den. He handed one to Nikki. He then sat down on the other end of the couch and gave her a queer look.

  “You’re strange,” he told her.

  “So I’ve been told. But I have a feeling you’re a bit stranger.”

  “Fair enough,” Saul said. And then he began to tell her his story, starting with a particularly nasty period in Europe.

  2

  The details of his family’s history were rather boring as far as vampire history went. Still, he told that part of his story as well as he could. He would catch himself getting distracted from time to time, impressed with how calm Nikki seemed. He could smell slight twinges of fear coming off of her, but it was nothing compared to what he was used to while in the presence of humans who knew what he really was. He wondered what sort of demons this girl had in her past to make her so relaxed in this situation.

  “We lived in Romania for about two hundred years, living our lives the way you’d expect. It’s not at all like the movies make us out to be, though. We did kill people and we even purposefully turned some, but it was usually criminals.”

  “What do you mean by turned?” Nikki asked.

  “Sometimes, rather than kill a human, we decide to turn them. We simply bite them, infecting them. They then become vampires, too.”

  “Does that automatically make them a part of your family?”

  “No,” Saul said. “But they will forever be loyal to whichever family turned them. It doesn’t matter anyway because several hundred years ago, it was decided that there could be no more vampire families. That meant that we could no longer turn humans. Turning humans means that they have a chance to go on, live forever, and have families of their own. Around 1500 or so, it was decided among the larger clans that we were starting to have something of a population problem. Of course, if our numbers got too big, we’d become common knowledge to mortals.”

  “How many families were there?”

  “There were thirty families, the Bentons included. But there were also rogue vampires that never really settled down. In total, it was estimated that there were nearly nine thousand vampires living worldwide. And like I said, that was in the early 1500s. It was also suggested that we scatter—that we break up. There were too many of us clustered together. Romania, parts of Russia, and South America had huge populations. So when the families scattered, the Bentons ended up in the land that would later be called the United States.”

  “So who was it that made all of these decisions?” Nikki asked. She was sipping on her wine and reclining back on the opposite end of the couch as if she were having a normal conversation with one of her friends. It unnerved Saul slightly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, who decided that there were too many vampires and that you had to stop turning people and scatter over the ends of the earth? Do vampires have a President or something?”

  “No,” Saul said with a laugh. “There is a group that is called The Guard. I will tell you that when it comes to The Guard, I am not allowed to tell you much. It’s just a rule. But it is their responsibility to ensure that creatures such as vampires don’t do anything to threaten the human population of the world. They sort of keep us in check.

  “As a matter of fact, members of The Guard came to America shortly after the Revolutionary War to make sure we were not up to any ill tricks. At that time, there were four families living in the U.S.”

  “And what did you do here in the U.S?” Nikki asked. “Did your family just spend its time killing cattle?”

  He grunted and gave her an annoyed look. “That wasn’t me on your friend’s video. I swear to it. But anyway, this is where another of The Guard’s rules comes in. For the most part, vampires don’t necessarily like The Guard, but this rule is actually genius. To ensure that vampires posed no real threat to humans, a system was set into place. We are only allowed to hunt and live our normal lives in remote regions of the world. And each family can do this only for a certain period of time. Each family has free reign over that remote area for a period of two years and then must go into hiding to live presumed human lives. This allows another family to hunt in another remote area. This way, there are never two families at large at the same time.”

  “So how long have you been living this presumed human life?”

  Saul smiled and shook his head. “It makes me seem old.”

  “That’s okay. You look no older than forty, if that. And apparently, you’ve looked that way for at least twenty years, if that newspaper clipping is any indication.”

  “One hundred and six years. All of it spent, in some fashion, here in Red Creek.”

  “How has no one noticed?” Nikki asked, clearly stunned.

  “I’m not sure. It’s sort of a charm that my kind has over humans. If you were to find the oldest resident of Red Creek and ask him how long the Benton Cabin has been out here in the woods, he’d probably claim he wasn’t sure. People’s memories of us get foggy when they try to piece the oddity of it all together.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “It is. But it’s been going on since 200 B.C. When the families started to really take off and grow, we realized that one of our advantages was that humans seemed to get very confused and hazy when they tried to recall anything about us for more than a period of thirty years or so.”

  “So you chose Red Creek to hide away until it’s your family’s turn to feed again?”

  “My father did, yes. I am not quite sure why. But we came to love it.”

  “Well,” Nikki said, never one for tact, “if you father is dead and you are living alone, will you go to some remote place for two years all by yourself when your turn comes around?”

  Saul almost kept the next part from her, but decided to tell it all. He rarely had anyone to sp
eak to and he found that it was almost therapeutic to share his history. Even if it was with a mortal that seemed to not fear him at all, he wanted to tell it all.

  “No, I have a sister.”

  “Yes, the article mentioned that.”

  “I assume she’ll show up wherever I go. We’re linked like that. But she split after our father died.”

  “You don’t know where she is?”

  “No. If I set my mind to it, I could probably find her rather easily. We can track each other. But she obviously wants to be alone. So I’ll let her have her time.”

  “How much more time do you have before it’s your family’s turn in the cycle?”

  “Eight years.”

  “And you aren’t supposed to attack humans until then?”

  “That’s right. That’s why this thing with Lester Dobbs had the potential to cause a lot of trouble. If I had killed him—even without killing him the traditional ways vampires usually do—I could have caused a lot of trouble for my sister and me.”

  Nikki sat up, as if she’d had a sudden moment of clarity. She looked earnestly at him and a slow dawning slowly crept into her face. It was the closest thing to fear Saul had seen on her face since she had arrived.

  “So do you have yourself sort of trained to not attack humans? Is me being here, sitting on your couch, hard for you to resist? Do you want to attack me by nature?”

  “A hundred years or so ago, it would have been hard for me. But after a while, I got used to it. And when I do feel the need to draw blood, I can sort of make myself go into a hibernation where I sleep for several weeks. When I come awake, the urge is gone.”

  He obviously didn’t tell her about the other urges that were rampaging through him. These urges had nothing to do with his vampire instincts, only the purely male ones. It didn’t matter that her body was hidden beneath those baggy clothes or that she was shy and awkward like Kara Humphrey had been. Nikki’s face was enough for him. It was the way she chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip when he spoke to her. It was the steel in her eyes that basically told him that no matter what he might be, she wasn’t afraid of him.

  It was the last one that was baffling to him. He drained the last bit of his glass of wine.

  “So the movies got that wrong, too?” Nikki asked. “You won’t die if you go without blood?”

  “No. Not at all. Although, when I’m…well, transformed, I have to have it within a few hours or I become ill.”

  She considered this for a moment and sipped from her wine. Saul’s’ male urges rose up in him again as he watched her lips part to take the glass.

  “So let me ask you something,” Saul said.

  “Sure.”

  “You had a pretty good idea of who I am, yet you came here to confront me face –to-face. Why are you not afraid?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “I did. But you dodged the question,” he said, getting up to refill his glass. Nikki followed him into the kitchen and he saw that she was keeping a slight distance between them.

  “I don’t know,” she said, giving the same answer as before. “I guess I’ve led the sort of life where even if I thought you would hurt me, I wouldn’t care. It sounds clichéd and troubled, I know…but that’s all I’ve got. I mean, I don’t have a death wish or anything, but things of a darker nature have always fascinated me. To know you were out here and to sort of know what you might be…it was just too much to pass up. I had to know.”

  Saul held out the bottle of wine. Nikki eyed it for a moment and he could tell that she wasn’t quite ready to leave. Saul himself was torn; part of him wanted to her to leave and a larger part of him wanted her to stay. But he could tell that this girl could be trouble. He had sensed some degree of possible danger when he had let Kara into his house to question him earlier in the day, but what he felt stirring between himself and Nikki was something different. He wasn’t sure he had ever experienced anything quite like it before.

  After a moment, Nikki shook her head. “No. I better not. I think I’ve had enough crazy for one day. I’m really not interested in going insane.”

  “Fair enough,” Saul said.

  Nikki gave him a faint smile and then started walking towards the door. Saul followed her, careful to not walk too closely behind her. He didn’t want to alarm her in any way.

  “So we’re good?” he asked. “Is my secret safe with you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And…I don’t know. Is it weird of me to ask if I can come over again sometime? You have to think of this from a human’s perspective. This is pretty cool, you know? And I’m not the most popular chick in Red Creek, so it’s not like I have a ton of friends or anything.”

  “Yes, you are a strange girl.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Saul said nothing. Even if he had have wanted to, Nikki didn’t give him the time to do so. She turned her back to him headed down the steps. Saul watched her go, feeling the cool allure of the night inviting him out.

  He fought it off, though. He closed the door and, with an odd stirring in his guts, returned to his bottle of wine.

  3

  Nikki felt a slight pang of regret for having left so early. Her mind was cart-wheeling with the wonders that she had left behind in that cabin. A vampire, she thought. It was obviously hard for her to digest but at the same time, it made so much sense. She was glad the he had not shut down her little joke about visiting again.

  On that front, if she were honest with herself, it was more than just because Saul was a vampire. Part of it was also because the dude was hot. She typically loathed men that were solidly built, with muscles sprouting out like outcroppings of stone. But within two minutes of watching Saul’s mouth touch the wine glass, something in her had been set ablaze. She hadn’t ever felt so sexually charged about a man before. It was alarming and deliciously tormenting at the same time. It was completely new to her. For a moment, she wondered if that was the sort of thing Jason felt for her…and if so, he pitied him.

  It seemed to take an extra bit of force for her to turn her car out of Saul’s driveway and back onto the road. Nikki headed back towards town, excited but trying to convince herself that it was nothing. Everything was too fresh; the concept that the knowledge she had just uncovered could potentially alter her life hadn’t registered yet.

  She was too caught up in her thoughts to have noticed the black hulking shape of a car, its engine dead, pulled to the side of the road a few feet away from Saul’s driveway. Even if she had have seen it, she would have no idea who it belonged to and certainly wouldn’t have seen Kara Humphrey sitting behind the wheel.

  In the dark and shadows of the car, Kara wore a scowl as she watched Nikki Galimore come out of Saul Benton's driveway.

  4

  Saul was very much aware how the legends of vampires had been spread among various cultures. With each re-telling of the myths, some stupid human population had changed certain details until it was now almost comical. However, despite the millions of inconsistencies in the human-altered legend of vampires, they had gotten one important aspect correct: The vast majority of vampires slept during the day.

  Saul typically crawled into bed sometime around six in the morning. He did not sleep in a coffin, as human tales claimed, but in a queen-sized bed in his modest bedroom. The room boasted only a single window which was covered by blinds. When he went to sleep the morning after Nikki Galimore had paid her odd little visit, murky sunlight was etching itself through the blinds. He paid it no mind and crawled into bed.

  Sunlight was another thing the humans had gotten wrong. Saul knew that in the movies, vampires were instantly destroyed by sunlight. The only way Saul could be killed by the sun was if he walked outside and stood directly in it all day. Even then, he might not die. Instead, he would be sick as hell for weeks if he survived, as the sunlight would penetrate his skin and scramble his molecular make-up in a way that he still didn’t quite understand.

  But a littl
e sunlight through the blinds was nothing. He even enjoyed its warmth on his face as he drifted off. As sleep took him, his thoughts turned to images that he usually reserved for the quietest of moments.

  He thought of Jill, his sister, and hoped that she was okay wherever she was. He thought of his father, now more than twenty years dead, and the peculiar circumstances surrounding his murder. But now intertwined in all of this was the fact that a human had managed to discover his true nature. Not only that, but a human that didn’t seem to be the least bit afraid of him even after knowing what he really was.

  Nikki Galimore was the last thing on his mind as sleep took him.

  ***

  Saul usually awoke by a sort of mental alarm he had within his head half an hour or so before dusk. But something else stirred him awake that afternoon. As the last vestiges of sleep began to taper off, Saul’s senses began to pick up on the fact that there was a presence in the room with him. It had apparently come out of nowhere because if it had have been a human, Saul would have stirred awake as they had come within fifty yards of the cabin.

  Saul opened his eyes and sat up as if on hinges. There was a dark figure standing at the end of the bed. The figure was waifish, its arms elongated and its head somehow oddly stretched. It wore no clothes but had a body that seemed to be made of swirling shadows rather than skin. Certainly, such a figure at the end of a human’s bed would cause madness. But Saul had seen this entity before and was vaguely familiar with it.

  “Did you have a good rest?” the figure asked.

  “I did. What brings you here, Benali?”

  Benali stayed where he was (or maybe it was it—Saul was not sure of Benali’s gender) and said nothing for a moment. He carried a sense of power that filled the room. As a member of The Guard, it was a power that Benali knew how and when to flex.

  “I think you know the answer to that,” Benali said. “In the course of the last thirty-six hours, you have assaulted a human and had two female humans enter your home. Even if those events had been spread out over the course of a year, that would be cause for concern.”