Well, let's see... I'm hangin' with the vampires. But even worse than that is the fact that, three days ago, I kissed my best friend. In a car. And then I dreamed about kissing a vampire. I am such a slut!
"Um, Alex?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry," I said, jerking my head up. "I haven't been up to that much. Hanging out with Lulu and Ty, mainly."
To my embarrassment, this caused Casey and her followers to titter for a few minutes. Once she noticed that I didn't get her reason for giggles, Casey gave me a blank look.
"Aren't you and Ty, like, going out?"
I could feel my face burning up. Oh, shoot, it felt like I was being incinerated. Opening my mouth, I tried to speak, but found nothing to say. What could I say? I could feel the words trying to bubble out of me—I kissed Ty a few days ago!
No way. There was no way I could let myself say that! I hadn't even been able to speak to Ty for the past few days! Still, I could feel those words coming-
"Hey, Alex. Friends you haven't introduced me to?"
Before I knew what was happening, I could feel cold lips against my cheek. I sat there, stunned. Sadly, there was only one thought going through my shocked teenage mind: how was I suddenly getting males to pay attention to me?
Turning my head, I found my face inches away from Zane. His eyes were sparkling, and he gave me a slow grin. Something in those dark, beautiful eyes told me that he was going to save my butt.
"Alex...?"
Casey sounded like she was coming out of a dream. Yeah, I wanted to turn and look at her, gloating... But Zane was close enough to kiss. And, as much as I hated to admit it, that was a tempting possibility. Still, I'd just kissed Ty. Plus, I really had no actual attraction to Zane. It was just a physical attraction.
Finally, I forced myself to tear my eyes away from his gorgeous face—wouldn't want him to get the wrong impression, or anything. Now it was time to gloat.
Casey's face was a mask of shock and jealousy, all mixed together into one big blob. As usual, her clones looked exactly like her, except not as pretty. Standing up, I looked straight at them.
"Oh, I should introduce you." My voice was bright and cheery; my Ty depression was certainly helped by this small triumph. For the moment, anyway. "Casey,"-I didn't really know her clones' names- "this is Zane. Zane, this is Casey."
Before even answering the beauty queen, Zane helped me to my feet. Wow, he was playing the caring boyfriend to a "T". This could be interesting.
"Nice to meet you, Casey," Zane said curtly, before turning back to me. "Sorry if I'm interrupting anything, Alex, but I need you to come over to my place." His eyes slid over to Casey. "Is that all right with you ladies?"
"Yeah," she said faintly. "Just fine."
Shrugging at the beauty queens, I followed Zane as he walked towards his car. When he wasn't looking, I brought my hand up to my cheek. It was still cold. Despite my best efforts to act normal, a small smile played on my lips as I got into the front passenger seat.
"You owe me," he declared as he started the car. With a grin, he glanced my way. "Was she a friend of yours?"
Shaking myself out of my dazed state, I shook my head. "Not really. We've just come to understanding. Um, thanks for coming and... Uh, what would you call it? Going vampire on her?"
"What?" Zane raised his eyebrows. "'Going vampire'? Sorry, I don't quite get that."
"You know." I waved my hands, as if trying to collect an explanation out of thin air. "Distracting her, or whatever. That kind of came in handy, I guess."
"Oh, distracting her." Rolling his eyes, Zane pushed the car twenty miles faster. "Yes—anytime. I'm your vampire." He turned his gaze to me. "She was asking you about Sanders, wasn't she? Something going on with you and him?"
Instantly, my face went bright red, and I'm sure he could hear my heart speed up. That didn't mean I couldn't lie, though, right? "No, we just haven't been able to talk lately." OK, think up some other subject. "What century are you from?"
"Changing the subject?" Judging from Zane's tone, I hadn't been subtle. "Look, that's kind of personal. I'll tell you what century I was born in when you tell me what happened with you and Sanders the other night."
He was so direct, it made me jump. "What?" My voice was shocked. "How would you know if anything happened? Your stupid little sixth sense? Is that just something you got when you became a vampire?"
Once again, delightful confusion crossed Zane's face, and he suddenly banged his hand against the dashboard. The car trembled from the jolt, and my head spun. "I don't know what makes you different from other humans, Alex. Natalie and Madison say you smell a bit different, but not as different as you smell to me. Do you realize how strange that is? Something is up with you... and me. That's part of the reason why I'm taking you to my place."
OK. You hear a guy like Zane say that there is something up with you and him. Then he tells you that he's taking you to his home. There are two things you can do at that point. Freak out, or inwardly party at your sudden ability to get boys. I chose the first one, since I doubted Zane was doing this because he was actually attracted to me. After all, I wasn't attracted to him at all.
"So... I'm weird, even to a vampire?" I asked weakly. "Well, that's just great. I'm now seeing what my life as a high school senior will be like."
"Your social life should be the least you should be worried about," Zane grumbled. "Things could be a lot worse. You could be six feet under."
Startled, I looked at him with an arched eyebrow. In response, he opened his mouth, touching each of his sharpened canines with the tip of his tongue. "Vampire, remember?"
"Oh—yeah." I gave a quick nod, the laid my hands down on my lap. "I just never considered you a major danger."
Zane's laugh was harsh and humorless. "Never think that, Alex. The thing is, I'm a vampire, and I'm not ashamed of that. Why should I? It wasn't my fault, and now I have all these powers that maybe I can use for the right reasons. Yes, there are some things I've done... that I hate. But my being a vampire is something I cope with. There's no way I can change it.
"However. You should not think that, just because I haven't posed a threat to you yet, that I won't. I am one of the most dangerous things in your life right now. You're lucky you have your own personal Hunter." He looked straight at me with his beautiful eyes. "I would never want to hurt you. But I'm always going to want your blood."
"Got it." I gave a nod. As creepy as that may have sounded, I was glad that Zane at least told me. That meant that he thought I deserved to know. That meant that he didn't see me as just some prey. Then, a thought struck me. "What about Madison and Natalie?"
"Both of them prefer male blood, just as I prefer female blood," Zane replied slowly. "But if absolutely desperate, any of us would take anybody. Madison probably has the best self-control out of all of us, even though she's the youngest. She kept more of her humanity, I believe. Natalie is the most ashamed of what she is... She grew up in a Puritan colony, you see. It was 1634 when she was turned, and she'd been in the New World for six years."
His words, the precise accuracy of them, made me wonder: was he Natalie's sire? But I suspected that was something too personal for me to ask. Zane had willingly told me that he'd sired Madison with no hesitation. If he was Natalie's sire, maybe there was something else, something that complicated things.
"Natalie sees what she is as a curse," Zane continued. "She's not a Puritan now, and her beliefs have evolved. But part of her will always see herself as the devil's creature. As a demon. Truthfully, that's what we are."
"I'm not so sure I believe in demons," I murmured, more out of curiosity than anything else. "How can you tell me that you and your friends are such things?"
Zane shrugged. "I can never be sure, I guess. But how could we be anything else? We have powers that no one living can have. We must drink blood-kill people, at times-to stay the way we are. And then the way we look." He winced, as if embarrassed. I myself flushed at this subject.
"
Look away, Alex." Intentional or not, his voice was soft and alluring. I couldn't. I was trapped. "See? You can't. The way we look is just another curse—to embody lust. But like I said, I can't change it. I have no choice. So I deal with it."
"I don't think you're a demon," I smiled. "Demons don't have souls. Zane, you have to have a soul to be connected to me, since I have one."
"I think that it wasn't becoming a vampire that took my soul away," he said quietly. "But what I've done." There was a moment of silence, and I wondered whether to ask him more, when he spoke. "You've trusted me a lot, Alex. So I'm going to trust you with a secret of my past."
Eagerly, I listened. The thought of Zane's past had been eating at me for quite a while, and I couldn't wait to hear what he had to say.
"Before I was turned..." His voice was hesitant. "I was a father. And I was married."
Shock spread over me, and I stared at him with wide eyes. "Um, but... You don't look that old... No offense, or anything..." My voice was dazed.
"I wasn't," Zane said dryly. "I was only twenty-one when I was turned, but I married when I was eighteen. This will aid you in your search for my age, I guess. My wife was a girl named Arabella, and she was two years younger than I. Our marriage was arranged, and I had met her only three times before we were wed." His voice was now musing. "I never loved her, and she never loved me... But we dealt with it. There wasn't much of a choice in the matter for us, I suppose. It was expected. A year after our wedding, when I was nineteen, I became a father to twins, a boy and a girl. It was miraculous, in those days, for Arabella to live through such a thing, but she did. My son was named Benjamin, after my father, and my daughter Anna. Both were fair-haired, like their mother... But they had my eyes." A smile crossed his face for a moment, and his gaze was far off, in a different time. "Everyone passed Anna over often, since she was a girl, but I have to admit that I favored her a little bit, perhaps because she was passed over. She was more like me in her personality, and looks. Benjamin was more like his mother in those areas. Both were my pride and joy, though, even if I didn't love their mother.
"I wish I would have known them better, since they began to show personality a very young age. Most fathers weren't supposed to spend much time with their children in those days, especially if they had considerable ranking, which I did. In fact, most mothers weren't even supposed to take care of their offspring. Arabella followed those rules of society. I didn't. The twins had just turned two when I was turned... The last time I saw them was when I was saying goodbye. I was going on a business trip, of sorts. If I had known that I would never see them again..." He shook his head. However, he was still keeping his emotions in check.
My head was reeling. Zane was a father... His descendants still could live today. I could be descended from him. Oh, wait, I was clear from that. When I was in the third grade, I'd had to do a project on my family tree, and I traced my ancestors way back. No Zanes, thankfully.
"I'm sorry," I murmured, looking at him. There was a new light on his personality, now. I wondered how much the vampire Zane differed from the living Zane.
"Like I said," Zane muttered, straightening up. "There's nothing I can change." He paused, thinking. "Oh—there was one time I saw one of them. Arabella's funeral. I was in a different city, but I'd heard of it, and decided to pay my respects. Wearing a hood, I went and stood in the crowd for just a moment... She'd remarried after my supposed death, and had three more surviving children. They were there, and it was interesting to see them. But I was more worried about seeing my own children. There they were, in their early twenties. Benjamin still was the spitting image of his mother, besides my eyes. Anna was the opposite, almost a feminine version of me, but with her mother's hair." He shook his head. "It was shocking to see them... Anna had two children of her own, right with her. I think Ben did as well, but I didn't see them. They'd both grown up excellently, and I was proud and sad at the same time. I think Anna may have seen me, but I wasn't sure. She did have this look of complete shock and confusion for a moment, just when she saw my eyes under the hood. Maybe she remembered me, maybe she'd just heard stories from Arabella. Who knows. I'd like to hope that she saw me, and that she remembered me. But that's probably a foolish hope."
"I don't think it is," I smiled wanly. "I mean, you have the right to hope for your children to recognize you. So..." The question lingered in my head. Maybe it was too callous, but it would help me figure out what time period Zane was from. Put another piece in the puzzle. He was a vampire by the twenties...
As if he sensed my question, he gave an answer. "They'd be long dead by now."
Wow. Zane... How would it feel to still be walking around as everyone you loved died? To endure that kind of pain... I wouldn't even want to think about it.
"We're here." He suddenly pulled into the driveway of a small house. I'd been so absorbed in talking to him that I hadn't realized that we were in a different area.
Zane's house had the look of a place college students would share. Not a dorm, really, but not the place of a middle-aged someone. Of course, he probably used the college student excuse. However, he didn't seem to have many neighbors, which was understandable. Two other cars were pulled up there.
"I share the place with Madison and Natalie," he added, as almost an afterthought. "We always travel together."
Whoa. Three gorgeous vampires rooming together. Huh. That must make for an interesting life, all right.
"We're not really here much," Zane said, shrugging. "More important things to tend to. But they wanted to talk to you, as well."
Confused, I nodded and got out of the car with him. He zoomed over, closed my door for me-chivalrous, all right? I'll give him that.-then led me up to the house. Leading me in, he gave a small gesture. "There you have it."
Nobody would guess that vampires "lived" in the house. Sure, it had dark curtains drawn over the windows, and the light was dim, but other than that, everything was normal. Nothing remarkable.
Out of nowhere, Madison and Natalie appeared. For the first time, I was able to see their amulets. Madison's was a yellow quartz-looking stone, while Natalie's resembled a pale blue diamond. Both weren't obnoxiously huge, but they weren't small, either.
"Alex," Natalie smiled, a tired look in her green eyes. "I'm guessing that Zane has filled you in on why you're here, so let's get down to it."
"Um, actually," I said, with a realization. "He hasn't quite filled me in. He just rescued me from some plastic clones, and then we came here."
"Plastic clones?" Natalie raised her eyebrows.
"He never gets to the point," Madison sighed, rolling her eyes. "The thing we needed to talk to you about is that weird sixth sense thing. Zane may have something there."
I turned to look at him. "And you didn't tell me this... why?"
He shrugged. "Never got around to it." He sprawled on the sofa. "Might as well start now. Remember that I thought that there would be danger coming towards you? In a way, there was." Wow, he was good at hiding from his friends that he'd just been talking about his kids. Master of disguise, I guess. "Soon after Natalie and Madison got Peter and Flora out of there, we found out that Hunters basically stormed the place. If they had found out that you knew about us, you would have been getting some ultimate Memoria done. Or worse, thanks to Roxanne's rule. So, you may not have been in immediate danger, but you were in danger." Zane's face became smug. "Your Hunter will have to thank me for that."
"He's not mine!" I suddenly yelled, throwing my hands up in the air. "OK? He's not! So stop calling him that!"
There was an awkward silence as the vampires stared at me. Finally, Natalie spoke. "Touchy."
"Uh-huh." Madison narrowed her eyes.
"Just leave me alone about it, OK?" I sighed, slumping onto a chair. "Let's get down to this. Zane's sixth sense thing was right... Maybe it's just a fluke?"
"It could be," Zane nodded. "But I also sensed that something was up with you and those girls, earlier. And your scent
is especially different to me. Personally, I'm not sure what that means, but I think it means something."
"But what can we do to make sure that there is something?" Natalie asked. "Take her to New York, throw her in with a gang, and see if you can tell when she's about to get shot?"
"Obviously not," Zane said, rolling his eyes. "I already know it now. Besides, I wouldn't want to throw Alex in with a gang, anyway. She'd probably scare them half to death."
"Ha, ha," I remarked dryly, rolling my eyes. "So, what do you think is up? You don't think Zane and I are... related?" My former worry came back, bouncing through my head.
"No," Zane snapped quickly, shaking his head. "No way." He was clearly touchy about the fact that I'd brought up his family again.
"Absolutely not," Madison agreed. "You smell nothing like him, and as for looks... You two are anything but related."
"Thank goodness," I muttered under my breath. "So... I still don't get it."
"Neither do I," Natalie agreed, coming to sit down next to Zane. "He's never had a connection with a human before... Have you?" She arched one eyebrow at him.
"Absolutely not," Zane informed her. "Alex is the only one. That's what makes things so strange."
At that moment, the door banged open, revealing Ty brandishing a stake. Instantly, Zane and Natalie shot up to their feet, fangs bared. Madison rushed over to join them, her position similar.
"Ty!" I exclaimed, sitting up. "What the heck are you doing? I'm fine. It's not like they kidnapped me or anything."
He relaxed slightly, but not enough. "I called your house, and your parents picked up. They said you went and hung out at the park, but when I went there, you were gone. What was I supposed to think?"
Gulping, I tried to think of what to say. "Just because I came over here doesn't mean that I was getting bitten, or something." Gosh, it was so awkward to even look at him... Whenever I saw his face, all I could think about was kissing him.
"Look," Zane said, voice cold. "We haven't harmed Alex in any way." Suspicion colored his voice. "You seem to be especially on edge. Why?"
Meeting: Vampire Hunter Saga Book 1 Page 15
