Meeting Eternity (The Sullivan Vampires, Volume 1

by Bridget Essex

  My heart felt like it was breaking.

  So no. That meant that Kane didn’t feel anything between us. How could she? She was still remembering her soul mate love…her true love in Melody, the woman she’d lost a long time ago. She was staying true to her, even after all this time, and how could I possibly begrudge her that? Couldn’t I, with how I’d mourned Anna, understand that much?

  Yes, I know that I’d hoped that what I was seeing from her were signals, some sort of sign that there was interest there, in her toward me. But I’d misread everything—I’d been, in fact, completely wrong.

  The space where my heart resides began to actually hurt, a deep, piercing ache that pained me much more than the healing wounds in my neck. I breathed out, trying to quell the rising pain, the deep and profound sadness that wanted to fill me completely, when I heard, far distant, a gong that sounded a little like chimes or bells. It reminded me of a front door bell.

  Tommie raised her head, and smoothly stood, kicking the stool back under the counter with one shiny shoe and shoving her hands deeply into pants pockets, hunching her shoulders forward. “I’ll talk to you later, yeah? That’s the first guest.” As she moved past me, her hipbone grazed my side perhaps unintentionally, but my heart beat a little faster, my body responding to a signal when my head and heart weren’t remotely involved. She turned to toss me a smirk and a wink over her shoulder, but she kept walking. She left the kitchens, and I was alone with my sadness.

  Funny how a single piece of knowledge can make or break you. I shouldn’t have been so utterly consumed by Kane Sullivan, but the feelings that I had for that completely unexpected woman in my life, that vampire, weren’t something that I could have predicted, and it certainly wasn’t something I could control or quell, even if I’d wanted to. And now I knew she could not or would not be mine. When had it happened, her love affair with Melody? How long is a “long time ago?” Centuries? A century? Decades? Since then, Kane Sullivan had probably seen thousands of beautiful women, much prettier than me, more attractive, more beguiling, and had withstood all of them, if she’d ever even wanted anyone after losing Melody. Just because my heart beat faster when she was around, just because I was drawn to her utterly meant nothing. I wanted her. She did not want me.

  I wanted her.

  I stood, picking up the greasy paper plate and the half-eaten slice of pizza and deposited them into the shiny revolving trashcan’s mouth. I put back the pizza box into the walk-in fridge, and I stood for a moment in the too-bright kitchens, rubbing at my arms with cold hands, my body curving toward the door.

  I felt lost.

  Tears pricked my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them spill. Angrily, I dashed them away with my sweater’s sleeve as I glanced around, realizing there was no reason for me to stay down here, in the kitchens. I’d lost my appetite and my hope for Kane, all in the space of five minutes. I’d find my way back to my rooms from here—you just keep heading ever upward, right? I could get there.

  But I didn’t really feel at that moment, in my life, that I was remotely headed ever upward.

  I felt stupid, shame coursing through me that I’d ever even carried a hope for Kane Sullivan. How could I be so naive? But when I closed my eyes, I saw that perfect curve of her pale jaw, the slope of her neck, the full lips and the brilliant blue eyes that pinned me in place, that made and remade me as I was consumed by them. I wanted to feel the silky strands of her hair as they draped around me, I wanted to feel the cool press of her lips against my mouth as she leaned over me, her shadow covering my body, her hands against my…

  I breathed in, breath catching in my throat as I stood, shaking beneath those too-bright fluorescent lights. Oh, how I ached. What was wrong with me? Why did it hurt this much, this knowledge that Kane and I would never be?

  I didn’t understand it. I crossed to the far side of the room, flicked all the lights off, one by one down the row on the metal plate as I dashed away more tears from my watery eyes, and I began to walk down the corridor in the basement, my flats clicking against the tiles like my too-fast heartbeat.

  Above me, I could hear muffled, distant voices.

  I traveled up the spiral staircase, and because I felt guilt at not remotely having done my job that day, I didn’t go back up to my room. I hoped that I wasn’t too flushed from my tears, but other than that, I was presentable and whoever was currently manning the front desk probably needed some help if there were a lot of guests to check in. So I walked down the hallway of paintings quickly, resolved, the red and black checkered tiles moving swiftly under my feet. I wanted to be helpful. What the hell were they paying me for if I wasn’t?

  I paused, though, when I rounded the final corner past a painting of a man, sitting alone on a violet and gold mountain. How fitting—it’s how I currently wanted to be to deal with my pain. But I wouldn’t get the chance. Because there was a line of people and suitcases and trunks stretching out the front door.

  And Kane, and only Kane, was behind the big, wooden front desk.

  “The usual, Eleanor?” came her cool, smooth voice, rolling across the space between us to wash over me. When she spoke, my body responded, and I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t like it. Not even Anna had held that much power over me, but when I heard Kane’s tongue and lips form syllables, my heart skipped beats, and I was tugged closer to her, like she held a rope around my heart and was squeezing, pulling, drawing me in.

  As if she felt the weight of my gaze on her, Kane straightened, rolling up one of her dress shirt sleeves (her suit’s jacket laying on the stool behind her) a little higher and glanced in my direction. Her bright blue eyes widened almost imperceptibly when she saw me, but she said nothing, only handed the woman before her, a stunning creature with pumps that made her practically walk on her tiptoes, and covered in an appalling fur coat, an old-fashioned silver skeleton key.

  I made my way across the distance, sliding behind the wide expanse of the mahogany front desk, turning to Kane as she pushed the guest book gently across the table toward the next guest, a tall man with piercing brown eyes and a delicately curled mustache dressed in a smart tweed suit.

  “Do you need help?” I asked her, and Kane then cast a sidelong glance at me, appraising me. The corners of her mouth, to my delight, curled upward, and she was nodding a little, handing the man an expensive looking fountain pen.

  “If you would give Reginald the key for 313, that would be lovely,” she said, voice a rumble as she nodded to him, the man scratching his name down into the book.

  I turned to the wall behind the both of us, covered in pegs and keys on leather key rings like you might have seen a hundred years ago at the best hotels. I chose the one beneath the small metal plate, corroded with rust, that read “313” and handed it across the wide front desk to the man who exchanged the key with me for the pen.

  The woman after Reginald had such pale skin it was almost translucent. Her face looked young, but there was an air about her of age and timelessness. Her long, curling inky-black hair almost fell down to the backs of her knees as she stepped forward gingerly, her midnight blue gown flaring out around her knees. It hung off her painfully thin shoulders like it’d been sewn for a different woman. She gazed at me with milky blue eyes as she tilted her head slowly. I shivered.

  “Who’s that?” she asked Kane, her soft voice high-pitched as Kane handed her the pen and pushed the guest book gently in front of her.

  “This is Rose, Maggie,” said Kane softly, her gaze not on the old woman, but on me. “We just arrived to help at the Sullivan Hotel—she’s a new hire here, you’ve not met her before.”

  “Rose?” asked the woman, persisting, as if she disbelieved Kane. She reached across the table, and I held out the key that Kane had pressed into my hands with her cold fingers, but it didn’t seem like the key had been what Maggie was after. Instead, she curled her bony fingers into my palm, groping my hand, as if she was searching for something.

  “Kane, how foolish--this i
sn’t Rose,” said Maggie seriously, but Kane shook her head, handing the pen to the next guest in line.

  “I’m Rose,” I told this strange woman gently, but then her fingers were pricking my skin, her fingernails sharp and pin-like against me, more painful than they should have been, and her young-looking nose sniffed the air. She unnerved me.

  “Maggie, here’s your key,” said Kane firmly, taking my hand in her right as she pushed the key forward with her left. And the woman took up that key, then, holding it over her heart as she cocked her head at me and looked at me with those strange blue eyes. She could see out of them, it seemed, because she followed me with her gaze as I stepped backward, but it seemed that she was looking past me, too.

  After a long, awkward moment, she curled her claw-like fingers around the key and turned, walking down the gallery of paintings with an uneven step, her back to me.

  There were some in this first wave of guests who definitely struck me as vampires (like Maggie), but there were just as many who looked like they were on a business trip and were going to ask me if their room had Wifi and what sort of gym we had. There were men and women who looked nothing like what I had ever assumed vampires to be—they didn’t even appear pale, which I suppose is a cliché, but most of the Sullivans were pale (though, admittedly, not all of them).

  I was just doing my best to uncover everything I could about what made a vampire…a vampire. And those answered didn’t appear as easily as I would have hoped.

  After we’d checked everyone in, Kane sighed, closing the guest book for the night, and plucked up her jacket from the stool, shrugging into it with one graceful motion.

  “That’s the first wave of them,” she said then, her voice soft and deep. I turned to her as I slid the pen into its little wooden box beneath the counter. “For the Conference,” she said, adjusting her jacket’s collar and tightening her tie, straightening it with long, slender fingers. “Did anyone tell you about it?”

  “Um, a little,” I said, fingering the fringed edge of my sweater. “Vampires, from all over the world, come together for a…meeting?”

  She chuckled at that, a sound that caused a (hopefully) imperceptible shudder of pleasure to move through me. “That’s…an interesting description. That’s a little of what the Conference is, but there’s more to it then that. You’ll get to see it all—there’s a dance at the very end of it…” She gazed at me quietly, her blue eyes constant and piercing.

  We stood there then, just the two of us in the now quiet entrance. My body curved toward her like an arrow, something I couldn’t control, just like I couldn’t control what I wanted or how much my heart hurt looking at her.

  I knew what I wanted. And it wasn’t something I could possibly have.

  “Do you always walk late a night?” Kane asked the surprising question, then, her head to the side as she considered me, her long, white-blonde hair pooling over her shoulder. I breathed in, paling.

  “How did you know that?” I asked her.

  She shrugged a little, adjusting her sleeves beneath the jacket, tugging them out. “It was just an odd hour for a walk this morning. I wondered if you often do it.” She seemed to be searching my face.

  “Yes. I love to walk at night,” I breathed.

  She didn’t look at me as she stepped forward, her gaze was down, the intensity of her blue eyes muted by her long lashes. She was close enough that I could inhale the scent of her, that delicious vanilla mingling with the rich, warm aroma of jasmine that caused a tightening in my chest. She shifted her gaze, and she did look down at me then, her blue eyes darkening as she gazed into me.

  What was this then, if not attraction? I wanted to ask her, ask her if my heart beating so quickly was answered by her own. How fast can a vampire’s heart beat? I wished deeply and darkly that it mirrored mine. My breath came fast and as she stood so close to me, her scent engulfing me with a want and a need that my body, my head and my heart were in complete and unanimous agreement on, she straightened, her face suddenly becoming impassive as she turned away from me, walked past me and out from behind the front desk.

  “I enjoy walking at night, too,” she said then, her back to me as she pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and straightened it. The white-gold hair laying in her hands like a pool of satin caused my breath to come shorter. I wanted to touch those perfect strands, run my fingers through them, take out her ponytail and watch the length and shimmer of her hair fall around her perfect shoulders. She turned to me, her eyes searching mine as her head inclined toward the door. “Would you like to go for a walk with me?” she asked then. Her words were soft and low, but still, in that stillness, they seemed to be projected clearly into my heart.

  “Yes,” I was saying before I’d even processed the question, was already out from behind the front desk, too, already alongside her before my brain had caught up with the question asked. The right corner of her mouth curved up a little at that, and she inclined her head to me in something that was almost akin to a little bow as she offered her arm to me once more.

  I slid my arm into hers like it was meant to be there, my fingers brushing against the cool softness of her suit jacket’s sleeve.

  We crossed the space of the entrance together, and her hand was on the scrolled silver of the doorknob before she turned to me, one brow up.

  “You’re only wearing a sweater—won’t you be cold?” she asked me.

  “No,” I told her, which wasn’t a very convincing lie, but she shook her head with a small, throaty chuckle, and then the door was open, and we were out beneath the stars.

  The cloud cover from earlier seemed to have lifted, for the heavens were spangled above us, brilliant and bright with the milky way arching overhead, pointing, it seemed, ever onward and downward, toward the sea.

  “Sometimes,” she whispered into my ear, the coolness of her breath making me shiver against her, “you can see the aurora borealis from here. A thousand colors, all drifting together like a great dance.”

  Her words washed over me, and I felt my heart lift as we stood together between the front columns of the Sullivan Hotel, the both of us looking up at that beautiful night sky, beautiful even without the sight of the aurora borealis. I could imagine those colors, as her syllables entered me, but most of all, I could imagine watching it with her.

  We took the steps and began walking across the gravel, our shoes crunching against it, toward the path that led down to the sea. I should have been unhappy to go back there—I did almost die there that morning—but I felt nothing more than giddy happiness (and, admittedly, a bit of cold) to be out here in the night with Kane and Kane alone.

  I tried not to think about what Tommie had just told me. That Kane had not dated anyone since her partner had passed away. I was here with her right now, wasn’t I? And this was perfectly innocent, I knew, strolling down a path with her, arm in arm—Kane was old fashioned, and offering her arm to me meant absolutely nothing. I knew that. But just for a few moments with her by my side, I could pretend. I could pretend that this was so much more than taking a late night stroll together, content in one another’s companionship.

  I wasn’t content. I knew that. It had come quickly and fiercely upon me, this want and need, something I hadn’t felt for so long. And it frightened me, how much I wanted her to look at me with want, too. I ached for that, the ache stronger than the wounds far above my heart. But wasn’t it enough to be with her?

  I felt, when I was with Kane Sullivan, that all of the pain of my life was somehow lessened. All of the scars on my heart, all of the moments I’d suffered, were somehow made better. That’s the only way I can think to describe it. That, by being around her, the good of the world was confirmed, the miraculous and the beautiful were made clear, and I could suddenly see how lovely life was, how precious each day was, how important and beautiful a single moment could be. I turned to her, then, as we continued in our way down the smoothly sloping path, down to the sand and the beach. The starlight was reflected
in her bright blue eyes, and they seemed to glow with that light of the stars. Her eyes were downcast, looking down at the beach, at the pulsing rhythm of the waves, but her gaze seemed a million miles away.

  That is, until we reached the sand.

  Kane turned to me, then, those bright blue eyes, still so bright, even in the darkness, seemed to be searching my face. “I’m sorry about what Mags did to you,” she whispered, then, her deep, dark voice so soft, so gentle, that I shivered as she stared deeply into me. It felt like that voice was caressing me, the satin feel of the words drifting over my skin as I tilted my head up, as she tilted her head down. She was standing so close to me, because she’d not yet let go of my arm. I didn’t want her to. I held tightly to it, because at least, for this moment, we were this close.

  But she stepped closer.

  “I want you to know, Rose, that I will make certain it never happens again. I…I don’t want you to fear being here. I want you to know that you are, and will always be, safe at the Sullivan Hotel.” She searched my eyes, first one, then the other, her breath coming faster as she took her other hand and gathered my fingers in its palm. Her skin was so cold, and I shivered beneath that soft touch, as much as I shivered beneath her gaze, her words.

  Wordlessly, Kane let go of me, then. She let go, and she took off her suit jacket. Like she was in an old black and white movie, Kane slipped the smooth material around my shoulders, tugging a little at the collar to straighten it.

  Her hands remained curled against the collar.

  Over my heart.

  “I’ll keep you safe,” she whispered.

  I gazed up into her eyes, her eyes that reflected the stars back to me so clearly. My heart beat too fast, my breath came too fast, but still, I parted my lips, I opened my mouth. I had to know. I couldn’t keep the question from being asked, so I simply spoke it: