Amelia Elias - [Guardian's League 02] - Outcast

by Outcast (lit)

  He’d stolen her life. Keeping her comfortable was the least he could do.

  Still, she’d never seen a room like this. It was absolutely lovely, like it had been created for royalty. The bed was enormous, far larger than her king-sized bed at home, and covered with an intricately quilted bedspread of midnight blue silk and velvet. Matching hangings were tied back at each of the bed’s corner posts with gold cord. The walls were painted a soothing, cheerful yellow, such a pale shade it felt almost like sunlight. Two intricately carved doors opened off the room and the light wood gave a feeling of airiness despite their obviously heavy construction. Velvet curtains hung on the far wall and she crossed to them, suddenly curious.

  Pulling them aside revealed not a window but a large and very detailed painting of a sun-kissed meadow covered in spring flowers. A creek trickled at the far boundary of the meadow and a flock of incredibly detailed and tiny birds glided in the sky. It was by far the most beautiful painting she’d ever seen.

  Renee felt despair instead of joy when she looked at it. The sunlight on those lovely flowers would never again touch her face. She would never hear those birds sing on a spring morning. She dropped the drapes and threw herself down on the bed, too tired for tears.

  Chapter Three

  Renee awakened all at once. She lay there on the bed, trying to figure out what had woken her since she usually floated slowly to the surface of consciousness each day.

  But she couldn’t identify what had woken her, so she finally sat up with a shrug. The room looked the same as it had last night—plush, open, and lovely, but she still felt a pang when she glanced at the closed velvet drapes. Never again would she wake up to the bright rays of the morning sun brightening her room. Her sadness made her feel physically weak, and it was an effort not to burrow back under the covers.

  Renee shook her head. What was she thinking? This wasn’t like her. No matter what, she wasn’t the type to hide from her problems, and she didn’t intend to start moping in her new life as a vampire.

  And that was how she intended to think of it from now on, she decided firmly. A new life. No, she hadn’t chosen this path, but she couldn’t honestly say she’d rather Eli had let her die. She probably shouldn’t complain about how he’d saved her. No one would miss her, and there was another depressing thought. She pushed it resolutely aside. She’d always been a night owl. This, she thought with a faint smile, was simply taking the tendency to the extreme.

  She stood, stretched. The weakness rushed over her again, making her a little dizzy. Renee frowned and held onto one of the bedposts until she felt steady again. When she was sure she wouldn’t stumble again, she made her way toward the first of the two doors which opened off the room, curious.

  The first opened onto a bathroom suite which could only be described as opulent. As they had last night, candles flared to life at her approach. She stood in the doorway with her mouth open for a long moment. Everything was white marble, the gold-veined stone elaborately engraved at every angle, and so beautiful she hardly knew where to look first.

  The tub was an enormous sunken affair in the center of the room, and marble pillars supported an arched dome above it. She edged closer and peeked up at the ceiling of the dome and somehow wasn’t surprised to find the engraving continued there. The inner surfaces of the pillars were shaped into great tree-trunks, no two alike, and their branches entwined over her head in a riot of leaves and flowers of every description. Candles of all shapes and sizes burned in small groupings at the four corners of the tub. Even the faucet was exquisite, the gold spout shaped like the head of a swan and the handles resembling its wings. Snowy towels thick and huge enough to use as blankets hung on the wall beside a plush bathrobe.

  She finally managed to tear her eyes away from the tub and let her gaze travel over the rest of the room at random. Thick Persian rugs overlapped on the stone floor, and even her untrained eye could tell they were exceptional examples of the craft. She winced at the mere thought of getting them wet. Two pedestal sinks, also marble, waited to her right with a large gold table between them. At the center of the table sat an enormous crystal vase filled with white flowers. Their heavenly scent filled the room. On either side of the vase burned thick, three-wick candles.

  A vanity table, also gilded and graced with a crystal vase of flowers, sat near a glass-walled shower stall. Pure decadence, it looked large enough to hold several people. Shower heads were positioned at every angle on three of the four sides, clearly designed to massage the entire body at once, and Renee was suddenly torn between equally powerful desires to try this decadent shower and spend hours lingering in that sinfully tempting bath. More of those luxurious towels hung nearby.

  Then she frowned. Not one mirror graced the entire room.

  Renee was about to step inside, still torn between the shower and the tub, when she remembered she had no other clothes than the borrowed jeans and sweater she still wore from last night. She turned away—not without a pang of regret—and looked at the other door.

  If the bathroom had amazed her, the sight which met her eyes when she pulled open this door stunned her. Renee stared into the walk-in closet and fought the urge to rub her eyes.

  It wasn’t the size of the closet, which was huge. It wasn’t the Persian rug on the floor, which was gorgeous. It was the sight of her clothes already hanging there.

  Renee touched the sleeve of her favorite blouse, then opened one of the drawers in the lingerie chest in the center of the closet. Her bras and panties, neatly folded, met her eyes. She blushed crimson at the thought of Eli touching her intimate things, for who else would’ve brought her things here?

  But all embarrassment aside, she was deeply touched. Having her things here, something familiar in a strange place and in the strangest of circumstances, grounded her in a way she couldn’t explain. She didn’t even want to know how he’d known where she lived. She was too grateful to care. She picked up fresh lingerie, forcing her blush away—after all, if Sian was to be believed, the man was certainly old enough to have seen a women’s underwear before—and grabbed a set of clean clothes.

  It was definitely time to try that shower.

  An hour later, her skin tingling from the heavenly massage those multi-level shower heads had given her, Renee pulled on the thick robe and toweled her hair dry. If this was how vampires lived, she thought as she bent over and flipped her hair to dry the roots, she could definitely get used to being a creature of the night!

  The next thing she knew she was lying flat on her back and staring up into Eli’s black eyes. She gave a squeak of surprise. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded, pulling the lapels of her robe tighter around herself. “I might’ve been in the shower or something!”

  “I felt you faint,” he said, his voice as calm as if he’d been discussing the weather. “I didn’t think your state of dress was the most important consideration. Are you hurt?”

  Renee pushed herself into a sitting position and tried to ignore the sudden throbbing in her head. “I’m fine, and it’s important to me,” she said irritably, hardly able to believe she’d actually fainted. She’d always been scornful of dramatically swooning women.

  He ignored her discomfort and bad mood. “You need to feed. You didn’t take enough last night, and it’s catching up with you.” He shook his head at her reluctant sigh. “You’re not fully healed from the Change. You have to feed.”

  She sighed again and looked away from those dark eyes. It was a little too disconcerting to be sitting here wearing nothing but a robe beside a man who’d handled her panties. “I know,” she said, plucking at the rug beneath her. “I just don’t have to like it.”

  Accepting her new life was one thing. Getting comfortable drinking blood…

  That was something else entirely.

  Eli reached out and smoothed her damp and rumpled hair. She had no idea how much her reluctance to hunt soothed his worries. “I know,” he said gently.

  She looked u
p at the tone of his voice. “Do you mind stepping out while I get dressed?”

  “You’re sure you don’t need assistance?”

  Her eyes narrowed and flashed with irritation, two golden gems kindling in her pale face. “I’m not a child,” she snapped.

  He almost smiled at her temper but restrained himself. “I’m well aware of that.”

  She didn’t look mollified in the slightest. She looked pointedly at the door and he took the intended hint and left.

  Eli closed the door softly behind him and sighed. Her words echoed in his head and he rubbed his forehead wearily.

  If only he could think of her as a child.

  But she wasn’t, and all his senses knew it. He shook his head, trying to banish the memory of her sitting there glaring at him and forgetting to hold the robe closed in her anger. The faintest hint of cleavage had shown in the V of the robe but it had been enough. Looking away hadn’t helped, because his eyes had been drawn to one slender, exquisitely fine leg peeking out from beneath the terry cloth, bare all the way to mid-thigh.

  For a moment, he’d been tempted to untie the robe and see the rest, and knowing she was nude beneath it hadn’t helped him in the least. Eli ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. Such thoughts were taboo for a sire, and he was ashamed of them.

  But damn it all, he wasn’t her sire and hadn’t felt anything like a sire when he’d looked at her.

  An instant later, he heard Renee’s footsteps approaching the door. He stepped back, realizing belatedly he’d been leaning against it. By the time she opened it, he was standing several feet away and had regained his composure.

  Her hunger beat at him as soon as she stepped into the room. He frowned at her pallor. The blue sweater and dark jeans she’d chosen only emphasized the rings under her eyes and the slight hollowness of her cheeks. Her bare toes curled on the thick rug as though trying to hide from his scrutiny, and Eli felt a strange rush of fierce protectiveness wash over him.

  In this state she was helpless as a newborn kitten. Easy prey.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his jacket to keep her from seeing his clenched fists at the thought.

  Renee glanced down at her feet. “Do I get to wear shoes this time?”

  He smiled slightly and nodded toward the closet. “Be my guest.”

  She edged past him and opened the closet door. She was still wary of him, and while Eli supposed it was appropriate, he found he didn’t like it much. He should’ve been used to it. Everyone treated him that way. He’d long ago stopped expecting anything else and it baffled him why it bothered him coming from her.

  He felt rather than saw the dizziness take her again when she bent to grab a pair of sneakers from the low shelf inside the closet. He welcomed the distraction from his strange thoughts and before she could stumble, he was there.

  She jumped at his sudden appearance beside her as he steadied her. His frown deepened at the ashen color of her face.

  “Sit,” he commanded as he guided her back to the bed. He didn’t give her a chance to argue before he was back with her shoes and a pair of socks in his hands. “I’ll do this. You can’t seem to bend over without passing out.”

  Renee watched him lift one of her feet to slip a sock on. Never in a million years would she have ever imagined herself in such a crazy situation—ensconced in a magnificent suite such as royalty could only dream of, with an ancient vampire kneeling at her feet to help her with her shoes. There was something oddly intimate about the act, the faint graze of his knuckles against her ankle and his fingers smoothing the material over her arch. His hands looked very tan against the white sock, very large as they cradled her foot. She looked down at him—kneeling before her put him barely below eye level as she sat on the high bed—and found her fingers reaching out to capture a lock of his amazing hair.

  Eli looked up at her touch. She avoided his dark eyes and stared instead at the silver-white strands curled around her finger. His hair fascinated her. There was no gray in it at all. It shimmered like threads of pure moonlight in the faint candlelight. “Will my hair turn this color someday?” she asked, remembering Sian telling her Eli was an ancient.

  He shook his head and the lock slipped from her gentle grasp. He didn’t comment on the randomness of her question. “Your hair will remain the same color as it is now.”

  “Oh.” Then she touched his hair again. “Has yours always been this way?”

  He shrugged and lifted her other foot. “Always.”

  Renee watched him tug the second sock on and thought about everything she’d ever learned about the Middle Ages. If he was as old as Sian said, he surely would have lived through the troubled, superstitious time.

  “I bet you were singled out a lot,” she murmured, even though nothing about this man indicated he had ever felt the need for sympathy. He glanced up at her as he tied her first shoe, one eyebrow raised, and she blushed a little and stumbled on. “I mean, people fear what is different—I bet it wasn’t easy for you growing up.”

  He shrugged and slipped the other shoe on. “It wasn’t uncommon.”

  Renee’s eyebrows rose. “Where do you come from?” she asked, wondering where in the world hair like his “wasn’t uncommon”. She’d never seen anyone with such silvery hair in her life.

  Eli rose with catlike grace and held out a hand to her. “Let’s go,” he said as though she hadn’t spoken.

  Renee had lived long enough to know when a hint was being dropped to change the subject and she swallowed her curiosity. For all she knew, he might be the last survivor of a dead people or something. She couldn’t imagine how painful it would be to be the last of a culture. If he didn’t want to talk about it, she certainly wouldn’t press.

  She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. It felt like he was supporting her more than physically—a tingle shot up her arm and spread through her body from the simple contact, and her dizziness faded. She didn’t think too closely about how he’d provided the surge of strength. “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

  Eli squeezed her hand gently and drew her out the door. “It will get easier.”

  She followed him through the curving hallway. At every corner and even along the ceiling the intricate engravings she’d admired in her bedroom and bathroom continued. Lifelike vines twisted overhead and along Greek-style pillars. They passed several statues, all flawless carvings of predators—eagle, wolf, even a cobra so detailed each flawless scale glimmered in the faint candlelight. When Eli paused in the high-ceilinged entry hall she ran her fingers along one of them, an incredibly realistic rendition of a leaping panther.

  “These are beautiful,” she murmured. “How did you get them in here?”

  He glanced at her hand as she ran her fingertip along the cat’s back. He didn’t reply for a moment and Renee was about to decide he wasn’t going to when he spoke at last. “I made them.”

  Renee’s eyes widened as she stared at him. She looked back at the panther, really examining it, and realized it and the pedestal supporting it were all one piece, a single column of black granite rising uninterrupted from the floor. “Wow,” she breathed, looking at the engraved walls and archways around her with new appreciation. “You—did all this?” He nodded once, watching her with those unreadable black eyes.

  She smiled at him, wondering if this enigmatic and self-assured man felt the anxiety of an artist anxious for his work to be appreciated. “It’s amazing,” she said, running her fingers over the cat again in an unconscious caress. “I bet doing all this took you a long time,” she added, hoping he’d give her an indication of his age.

  He either didn’t notice the hint or ignored it. “California has some long days in the summer. I had to find something to do.”

  She looked across at the far wall and saw several more statues on pedestals. She crossed to a crocodile and smiled as she touched the sharp teeth in its gaping jaws. “You like predators, I see.”


  He shrugged. “They are all the Clans,” he replied.

  “Clans?”

  “The Clans are like extended families,” he explained. “A Clan will always come to the aid of any of its members.” He watched her as she moved to a carving of a tarantula. “Ronin is Arachnid Clan. Diego and Sian are Panther Clan.”

  “And yours?” Renee asked, glancing back at him and wondering who Ronin was.

  He shrugged again. “All of them,” he said, his eyes skimming over the statues as though he hadn’t really looked at them in a long time. “And none of them.”

  She made a face at his non-answer, but again he didn’t seem to notice. He was good at that, both not answering and not noticing her frustration with it. She looked around again and frowned. “No sea creatures,” she remarked.

  He looked at her, a little smile curving his lips, and her breath froze in her lungs. Renee tried hard not to stare. He shouldn’t be allowed to smile without warning a woman first, she thought irritably. It wasn’t fair to spring that on the unsuspecting. “We don’t interact with sea creatures much,” he replied. “But I suppose a shark would be a worthy Clan symbol.”

  “There are other ocean predators besides sharks,” she said, reaching for humor to distract her from her reaction to his smile. “I was thinking of a jellyfish. Have you ever been stung by one of those? They hurt like you wouldn’t believe.”

  His laughter surprised them both and he shook his head. “I don’t think any vampires would be too eager to join the Jellyfish Clan, little one,” he teased.

  “Well then, what about the giant squid?” Renee shot back, gritting her teeth at the nickname. He made her feel about six years old when he called her that. “It seems to fit. They can reach up to the surface, grab their unsuspecting victim, and drag them down into a dark world they never imagined. Don’t you think that’s an appropriate mascot too?”

  Eli’s face went solemn. Her tone left no doubt she wasn’t teasing anymore. “You’re angry with me. But without me, you would be dead. If saving your life the only way I could makes me evil to you, then I am evil.” He didn’t allow her to reply before he transformed them into mist.