Knight was further down the road, kneeling in the street, a dozen vampires and human bodyguards either holding him down or pointing a weapon at him. James stood at the head of the group, looking down at Knight, about to pass judgment for a Lycan trespassing within his unmarked borders.
Even though the last time I’d seen Knight had ended in literal blood and tears, I felt elation and relief at the sight of him. I’d given up hope that I’d ever see him again. And despite the oddness of our relationship, I found I didn’t want him to leave again.
“Wait!” I shouted. James’s head turned to see Sara and I coming towards him. Two vampires had a rough grip on Knight’s hair, so he fought his captors to find my face.
“Hey, Lisa,” he said with a toss of his chin and a smile.
“Lisa?” I asked, completely confused. Did he forget my name? Was he playing dumb? Well. He didn’t really have to play.
He grinned. “Trying to find you a nickname. Not working?”
The look I gave him was utter disbelief at his choice of conversation, giving the circumstances. He shrugged and grinned playfully.
James hissed loudly so we’d stop talking. I felt the command, even if he hadn’t spoken it. “You know this dog, Elisabeth?” Knight’s mouth wrinkled when my name was said, as if he disapproved more of James using my full name than being called a dog.
“Yes. He protected me before I came here. He’s my-” I checked Knight’s face before I finished my sentence, knowing I’d pay for it later. “-bodyguard.” James started to chuckle ironically and Knight scrunched his mouth up even more with annoyed disapproval.
“I can see that you’re serious,” James said after he’d finished laughing. “You had your reasons for hiring a mongrel to watch over you, I suppose.” Mongrel? That was much worse than dog. Even I was offended. “What shall you do with him?”
That surprised me. “I- what?”
“He bears your scent. You’ve bitten him. You decide what his fate is. Shall we kill him?” He waited for me to speak. To choose.
I glanced back at Knight, still kneeling on the asphalt and being restrained by so many other bodies, much more than a normal man would require. “Let him go.” I caught a slight nod from James out of the corner of my eye before Knight was released. He stood and brushed off his faded blue jeans.
“Thanks, Lis,” he said, the grin back on his face.
James straightened and flicked a hand for everyone to give Knight more space. “I expect you gone from my city before sunrise,” he commanded the Lycan.
“No, he’s not leaving,” I said, and instantly regretted it.
James’s body turned and seemed to tower over me. “Excuse me?”
I swallowed, fear trickling up my skin, and Knight gave me a perplexed look. It took all my power not to stutter. “I want him to stay.”
“Are you defying me?” James asked sternly.
I whimpered. It felt as if weights were crushing me and I struggled to breathe. I couldn’t defy my master. My panicked eyes went back to Knight. Although he didn’t know what was going on, he at least wasn’t mad at me for being a weakling. Wait. I wasn’t defying James.
“You…” I swallowed. “You said I decide his fate. I want him to stay here.” I waited to feel pain, weakness, the crushing weights again, but I didn’t.
James hmphed at me, a smile coming to his lips. “Clever. Very well. You win this time.” He raised two fingers and made a circle in the air, which apparently meant the show was over. The humans and vampires dispersed. With a smile still on his face, he took my arm and squeezed it so hard his nails pierced my thick vampire skin. “Be glad I enjoy your companionship, Lisbeth.” And with that, he was gone, along with his bodyguards.
Knight ran his hands through his mussed hair. “Nice company you’re keeping, Lis.” My emotions swirled so badly, I had no idea how to react. Sara broke the silence, stepping forward and offering her hand to him.
“I’m Sara. Resident weirdo.”
He took her hand and pumped it a few times. “Nice to know you’re owning it.” She shrugged playfully and flipped some of her pink tipped hair back. Was she flirting?
I interrupted…whatever they were up to. “What are you doing here?” I asked Knight sternly.
“Aaaand moment over. I’ll be in the lobby.” Sara about faced with a fancy twirl and half ran back to the hotel. Knight watched her leave (was he checking her out?), then he turned back to me. His face softened slightly.
“I thought you could use some backup.”
My first reaction was accusatory. Why had he left? Why had he suddenly come back? But I was too relieved to see him, and too tired to argue. “The reason being?”
“I caught your scent at the gas station outside of town, and then I smelled other vampires. I figured you'd been captured.”
In the midst of everything that had happened in the past hour, I'd scarcely thought of Arthur. But that didn't matter much now since I was now bound to the small city and couldn't leave without James's permission. I'd have to take my chances with the Hunters, as disconcerting as that was. I had bigger problems at the moment.
“Thank you for the concern,” I told Knight. “I haven't been found yet, so I'm safe.”
He looked at the corner of the street, the one James had disappeared behind. “I highly doubt that.”
Chapter 15
Once we were secure in my hotel room, Knight shut and locked the door before turning to me with a very determined look on his face.
“You're going to tell me everything that happened here,” he said firmly, his arms crossed over his broad chest. I could tell that beating around the bush wasn't going to work. By the time I'd finished telling him about the vampire town, James, and the bite, his hands were balled into fists and I knew he would have shifted from the anger if he was a normal Lycan. He grabbed a blanket from the bed and went to sleep on the floor without another word.
I slept fitfully, my dreams running over and over what it felt like to have my freewill taken from me so easily. It was as foreign to me as being human. I’d never experienced something like this before, and that was saying something. When I woke up the next morning, my pillow was soaked with sweat. Knight’s pallet had been neatly folded up and he wasn’t in the room. I took a bath, got dressed, and went downstairs.
When I walked into the kitchen, Knight and Sara were eating breakfast. They both had a similar look of cautious pity when they saw me. I sat down in the chair Sara had brought into the room for me, a wicker armchair that didn’t match the 1950’s kitchen theme. She’d already loaded a plate for me with pancakes that smelled like chocolate chips and cannoli. I brought a fork towards the stack and Sara quickly added a mess of whipped cream on top.
“Gotta keep your strength up. You didn’t sleep well last night,” Sara said cheerfully. She added one more extra-large squirt of foam for good measure before setting the can down. “Oh! I almost forgot. I didn’t get you someone to drink from. Silly me. Oh, and Knight, please don’t break more of my dishes.” She waltzed out without another word.
Knight looked down at his plate, still covered in a half-eaten stack of chocolate chip and cannoli pancakes. “I haven’t broken her dishes,” he said, confused.
“She’s always saying things like that, don’t worry. She’s a seer,” I told him. I took a bite of my own breakfast and suddenly didn’t want to talk anymore. It was that good. I wanted to break down and cry at the deliciousness.
“Like, oooo you will meet a mysterious stranger?” he asked, clearly skeptical.
“Like seeing the future is any weirder than having a freaky moon relationship?”
He twirled his fork around mockingly. “Meh, meh, meh, I drink blood.”
That’s how the food fight started.
When Sara came back into the room, Knight, the kitchen, and I were covered in pancakes and canned whipped cream.
“I’d be furious at you two, but I’m more furious that you two won’t be able to help me clean
this up. Plate.” Knight, startled, was trying to get up and his hand slipped on the tablecloth, knocking his plate off the table. He tried to catch it but his hands were still too slippery, and it crashed onto the floor. “Like I said, please don’t break more of my dishes. I like those. They’re vintage.”
“Sorry,” he apologized. “We’ll help clean up.”
She sighed, like she was tired of people not listening to her. “I said you two won’t be able to help me clean. Did you not hear?” She turned to me. “I couldn’t get you someone to drink from. This was at the door.” She handed me a letter and shooed us out of the kitchen.
“What’s that?” Knight asked, his finger scraping a big glob of whipped cream off his arm, which he popped into his mouth. The envelope was sealed with red wax and the impression of a ring. I didn’t recognize the symbol, but I didn’t have to guess who had sent it.
‘I’ve sent a car for you. You may drink at my home every morning.’
Easily a message he could’ve said over the phone or something. Knight took the paper and read it. He didn’t say anything so I explained what it meant.
“He wants to control my feeding.”
Knight nodded and handed the paper back. “I figured as much.” He focused on something near my arm, and I was about to ask what it was until he reached a finger out to scoop up another glob of cream that sat on my elbow.
“Eww!” I ran back up the stairs so he couldn’t eat any leftover breakfast on me.
“I’m hungry! You interrupted a perfectly good stack of pancakes, COME BACK HERE!”
We cleaned up and went outside. The stretch limo James had sent was still sitting there waiting at the end of the block. More of his human-not-human guards were there. Knight wrinkled his nose at them, their odd smell disagreeing with his brain.
“What are they?” I shrugged. I was just as clueless. “They were wicked strong last night. Way too strong to be human.” We’d reached the limo, and the closest not-human came up to stand in our way. I recognized him from the scuffle the previous night, and from when I’d first met James. He had blonde hair and his features were similar to James’s, not to mention their eyes were the same color.
“He is not allowed to join you,” the not-human said, inclining his head at Knight. I didn’t want Knight to leave me since I was feeling incredibly vulnerable in this town, but it was safer to not piss James off.
“Fine,” I told him. I squeezed Knight’s arm and walked over to step inside the car. The guards got in behind me and the limo took off. Inside the limo, there was a small mini-fridge and a bowl of wrapped chocolate mints. I took one and chewed it while we drove to James’s house.
I looked the not-human up and down. “What’s your name,” I asked around the chocolate mint.
He glanced over at me and gave me a look like I could use a brush-up on manners. “Drake.”
“You have the same eyes as James,” I told him. I was so nervous; I couldn’t stop myself from talking.
“He’s my father,” Drake said simply.
“But you’re…” I started. He waited for me to finish my sentence, but I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. You’re human but not human? Thankfully, he was content to ignore me so I didn’t have to continue the conversation.
It wasn’t a long trip to James’s mansion, small town and all, and soon the limo was going up a small incline before it stopped. The guards got out, opened the door for me, and helped me step out. James’s mansion looked the same, but a little less welcoming. It was in the early American style, a colonial mansion. The type people used to have parties and balls at before the American Revolution. I’d been too distracted to really notice it before. He might have been a psycho overlord, but he had a nice house.
The inside was decorated with vintage furniture, no doubt all original from when the house was first built. You’d be surprised how long a chair can last when it’s not seeing daily use. The walls had dozens of paintings and photographs. While only some of the paintings were of James, all the photographs were of him, captured at various points in time and harkening all the way back to the first cameras.
Then Drake led me to a sitting room. James was sprawled on a divan, two female humans on either side of him. One had bite marks above her collarbone that trickled blood he hadn’t bothered to clean up. That was considered extremely disrespectful, but I wasn’t about to call him on it.
His face brightened when he saw me. “Lisbeth! Come. Have a drink with me. I saved you one.” He pushed at the other female’s side until she stood up and came halfway to me. He’d ordered to me to drink, but it hadn’t been entirely direct. I still felt the compulsion behind it as I walked up to the female without hesitation. She was taller than me so I lifted her arm and sunk my fangs into her arm, making sure to miss the artery that ran to her elbow. I didn’t want her to bleed out. Her blood tasted bitter, and I knew I’d get a stomach ache from it. I drank as much as I needed before pulling away, making sure to lick her skin around my bite to clean off the residual blood. I had to resist the urge to gag over the foul taste of her. I was sure she wouldn’t appreciate being told she tasted bad.
James was watching me with a steady gaze, one of his hands gently stroking the hair of the female he’d fed from. “Are you satisfied?” I nodded. “Good. Ladies, shoo.” He waved his hand at them and they left together. “Have you eaten?” I nodded again. “Not feeling chatty this morning? Never mind. I can talk for the both of us.”
Oh please no.
He got up, smoothly, and walked over to me. One hand reached up to swipe my hair off my shoulder and he leaned in to place a gentle kiss on his bite mark.
“I hated doing that,” he said mournfully. “If you’d been weaker, I wouldn’t have needed to. But you’re old.” He walked away to pour himself a drink. “I’m glad to see you don’t protest to being called old. Most of the younger vampires don’t understand. It’s not an insult to us. To humans, it means you’re closer to death. To us, it means you’ve been alive longer.” He offered me a drink, but I refused because he hadn’t ordered me to accept. I had to grab all the freedom I could get. “Have you ever wondered why there are so few older Born?”
“Sometimes.”
He sat down and swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “I’ve often thought about it. No one really knows for sure why. There are so many rumors surrounding the topic that one can hardly discern any actual facts. Since you’re barely younger than me, I’d be interested to know your thoughts on the matter.” He waited for me to speak, staring me down while he took a long sip from his glass.
I couldn’t lie, I’d often wondered about this topic. Why me, a 400-year-old vampire, was considered one of the oldest, when vampires had been around for many millennia. But I didn’t exactly feel like having a heart to heart with James.
I gave him a simple answer. “There are certain topics my Order prefers not to discuss. That’s one of them.”
“Oh, stop that. I asked what you think, not what your Order thinks. That’s why I stay away from the Orders. They’re all rules and regulations. Not at all to my taste.” That explained why he was here, ruling over his own little world, and why I’d never heard of him.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t approve of your feeding schedule,” I said before I could stop myself.
He studied me and then smiled slowly as if he’d figured me out. “You were a rule enforcer, weren’t you?” I said nothing. “A rule enforcer on the run for breaking the rules. How’s that irony for you? Stop being so uptight. I despise uptight people.”
Did he seriously bring me here just to talk about how uptight I am? And he’d just ordered me to stop being uptight too. Might as well order me to stop being sarcastic.
I cleared my throat casually, trying to hold in the pain I felt as his order seeped in. “So. Did you need anything else?”
“Hmm, dinner tonight. Leave.” And with that, he dismissed me. And I gladly left.
Chapter 16
James sent ov
er another dress for me to wear when the limo arrived, this one being a deep purple cocktail dress. I put it on and left in the limo.
‘Dinner with James’ was apparently also ‘Party with James.’ His colonial mansion was littered with the rich and fabulous from this tiny town. Mostly Born, some humans. I exited the limo and went to the front door. Drake was there to wave me in, ignoring me as much as possible. Whatever he was, he did not like me, a fact I was fine with.
Inside the mansion, it took me a few minutes to find James. He was in the thick of it, in the parlor I’d been in that morning, surrounded by humans and Born, dominating all the attention with whatever he was telling them. He spotted me and brightened, then he walked to me, motioning me closer.
“Lisbeth, how good to see you,” he said, leaning in to kiss my cheeks. I recoiled at the unwanted contact, but he held me firmly. “Don’t recoil from me,” he whispered in my ear. My body crunched inward at his order, like he’d squeezed my ribcage, and I tried not to lean against him as I swayed with pain. He stepped away, put a hand on my back in an unwanted caress, and pushed me towards his friends. “Gentlemen, meet Lisbeth. My latest conquest.”
His conquest. That put a lot of things into perspective.
“We have been so excited to meet you,” one of them said, a human female decked to the teeth in pearls.
“A vampire almost as old as our master, you are a precious gem,” another said, this one a male vampire wearing a very expensive suit. James tightened his hold around me as if he was jealous of anyone saying how awesome I was. My hip bone felt slightly crushed under his hand. I knew I’d have a bruise there later.
“James,” someone purred in a heavy accent. A female vampire came up to us and offered James her hand, which he gently kissed. She glanced at me, gave me a once over, and smiled at me in a way that meant she wanted to rip my hair out. “So, you’re her. The vampire that was so strong that James had to bite her.” She clearly ranked being bitten by James with winning the lottery. And I was almost positive her accent was fake. “He’s never had to bite one of us before. Carrying his mark means being under his absolute control. Having to obey his every whim. If only one of us could be so lucky,” she said, with a cute little seductive laugh at the end.
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