by Heather Linn
“How the hell did that happen? Was there someone or something else in the room with us?” Yeah I had a real problem with interrupting. I know we all have an annoying habit or two.
“Well, I was hoping you would be able to tell me. Anyway, when I sat up I became totally disoriented. I thought maybe I was alone and something attacked me; a cat maybe. Then I saw you lying there. You were so pale; I thought whatever had shredded my chest had killed you. I searched your entire body, but you didn’t have a single mark on you; not a single drop of blood anywhere on your perfect skin.” I felt myself blush when he said he had searched my entire body. Just the thought of him being that close to me, so intimately touching me was awakening the places again that I never prior to him knew existed.
“None of it made any sense. I didn’t know what to do. I had never been in a situation like that one before, and I was pretty sure that you weren’t going to wake up unless I could figure out what had happened to us. I started to look for something that made any kind of sense whatsoever. I knew that I was running out of time and I needed to find the missing pieces of the puzzle before it was too late. I found your wallet, that is how I knew who you were. I tried to get out the door, but they were still locked and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get out. I yelled until my throat was numb, but no one was around to hear me. I found out later there was an incident in the parking lot with some rogue Vampires and all the staff and guards were trying to fight them off. I didn’t know what to do so I tried sharing blood with you and each time you drank my blood, your vital signs got a little bit better.”
“Each time?” I choked out in a whisper and my throat suddenly went dry. “H-how many times did I feed from you?” My world was suddenly spinning.
“Um, four or five I think; but why is that important to the story?”
My heart sank. I thought for a second I was going to pass out again. When the room steadied again I said, “No, it isn’t of any importance. I just wanted to know how close to really gone I was. I never thought that I would have to worry about dying. We are supposed to be pretty much indestructible you know.” I was shocked at how matter of fact I sounded when inside, my world just about crumbled in around me.
The truth was, if a human drank the blood of a Dominus six times, they would fall away into a dead sleep and wake several days later as immortal themselves. It was the one threat that the Vampires had not accounted for on their quest to make the perfect being. With their arrogant self-importance, they never thought they would have to worry about a Dominus falling in love with a human. Humans were nothing more than animals, and there was no reason to ever develop feelings for them.
Much to the surprise of the Vampires, there had been about ten executions in the past 15 years due to Dominus’ trying to turn the humans that captured their heart. The Dominus swore that they had found their soul mate in one of the house servants, or a regular meal, knowing that no matter what, they couldn’t live the rest of eternity without them so they attempted to make the humans immortal so they could keep them forever. Once the humans became Dominus they could even have sex, making their love even stronger. No matter what methods the self-proclaimed soulmates used to hide what they had done, someone always figured it out. All it ever took was one human tick presenting itself in the wrong place and their relationship was brutally over. I always found it kind of ironic; all of the ten Dominus that died had said that they couldn’t live without each other, but if you wanted to get technical about it, they truly couldn’t live with each other, considering they were all executed by way of public beheading to teach everyone a lesson. A lesson that should have scared anyone that was even toying with the idea straight, then again, maybe it is true that love makes you do stupid irrational things. Stupid things like staying in a room and making out with a man that could snap you like a twig? The little voice taunted me from the back of my mind almost making me to tell her to shut up out loud. Of course maybe I should have just gone with it. Maybe if he thought I was nuts he would let me leave.
“Cat, are you even listening to me?” Akia’s voice startled me away from my thought.
“I am. I am. Sorry your majesty. Please go on. My mind is a little cloudy.”
He just stared at me for a moment with a genuinely worried look on his face, and then he continued. “I was hoping that if and when you woke up you would remember a little bit more about the other night then I have been able too.”
“Wait what do you mean the other night? How in the hell long have I been out?”
His expression went from worry to pity so fast that it was frightening. “The ball was eight days ago. You really don’t remember anything at all do you?” Every little bit of hope that his voice held before was completely gone now.
“I have been out for eight days? How in the hell did this happen? Has anyone been looking for me?” I really was hoping that the answer to the last question was no. I really hoped that they were all smart enough to stay away. I had to get out of there. Darien and the others must be out of their minds with worry, thinking I was dead or worse. I had to get to them before Darien flew off the handle and sought revenge on the man that he thought killed me. That would mean certain death for him and the others.
“No, no one has bothered themselves with the task of finding you. In fact, this Darien man that you were so adamant about getting back to has made no attempt to find out if you are still alive, let alone OK. I shouldn’t even tell you this, but just last night, he was at some bar dancing the night away with an unknown slut, and mind you, I am using that term loosely. This woman was a mess.”
He wasn’t even trying to hide the hatred in his voice; I could feel the disgust that he was feeling for the most important man in my life radiating off him. The last bit of hope that I had been holding onto disappeared. I was hoping that with everything else that had happened, Akia would have forgotten that I had let Darien’s name slip in my drunken stupor. We were all in trouble and it was my fault. I wasn’t sure how I was going to fix this, but I needed to do something soon.
“Wait a minute. How do you even know who Darien is?”
“I had my people do some checking on your little boyfriend. You wanted to go back to him the other night so bad badly I figured he would be out of his mind worrying about you. I was going to have one of my men bring him here so that he could help you. I didn’t want him to think that something happened; I thought maybe he would be better able to take care of you than I was. I just wanted you to wake up and from the way you sounded when I wouldn’t let you leave to go to him the other night, I realized that you two were in love. Now mind you, I believe that all is fair in love and war and I fully intended to fight for you. Still, I figured if there was a slim chance that he could help you, I wanted him here. Then, when my men reported back to me and told me he wasn’t acting the least bit worried or concerned, I had them follow him some more. The next time when they reported back to me, it was the night when he was hitting on the slut. This confirmed what I had thought all along; this Darien of yours is a worthless waste of your time. Not only was he not worried about you, but I am certain that he was trying to have sex with this other woman.”
Akia wasn’t jealous; he wasn’t happy by all means but he was willing to give me Darien because he thought that it would save me. That alone should have made me feel a little bit better. However, although he might not be the jealous type, he was mad; mad because he thought that Darien was stringing me along, even angrier because Darien wasn’t mourning my potential loss the way he thought he should be. I was oddly flattered, but even more scared. The only thing that was worse than a jealous Dominus, is a pissed off vengeful one that has his sights set on your best friend.
I took the fear and did the only thing that I knew how to do with fear, I turned it into anger, an emotion that I was very good at controlling and using for my advantage. Yes that is what I needed. I was angry now and I was glad. I would take anger over confusion or fear any day. I jumped out of bed and started
collecting my things. I was sure I would pay the price for moving around as fast as I was later, but right now I didn’t care. I felt like the room was closing in on me and I couldn’t stand it any longer. Being so close to him without touching him on top of everything else was making it even worse.
“Where do you think you are going? You are not well enough to leave yet.” Akia truly sounded worried and for just a brief second I wanted to tell him he was right and let him take care of me while the rest of the world happened around us, but the smart part of me knew that he wasn’t a dumb creature, and all too soon he would start putting the pieces of the puzzle together and realize there was something a little off about me.
“You have no right nosing around in my personal business and I am not going to sit here and listen to you belittle my friends.” Every time I bent over to retrieve another piece of clothing my head threatened to explode. It was so hard to maintain my pissed off momentum that I thought I was going to burst.
“Kitten, what kind of friend, let alone boyfriend, mourns the death of the woman that he is supposed to love by trying to get under the sheets with some random whore?” His voice was so calm and cold that it was nerve racking.
I was so pissed now that if I thought I would get away with it, I would have killed him with my bare hands, but his death wasn’t worth endangering my family. “I told you not to call me kitten. It is sexist and degrading. Not that it is any of your concern and or business, but Darien is not my boyfriend. He is my best friend that just happens to have a penis. Here’s a little news flash for you; males and females can have relationships that do not revolve around sex.”
“Well, if he hasn’t got into your panties yet, he must not be doing something right.”
That was just what I needed. Akia was arrogant. He was a monster and he had just been kind enough to remind me of that. I let my anger feed off his words. I had only been this angry one other time in my life. I knew that if looks could kill Akia would be dead in his tracks. “You are an arrogant self-righteous asshole your majesty and I would rather drop over dead where I stand than spend another second in here with you!” With that, I threw the door open so hard that it hit the wall with a bang. I never realized before that I had that kind of strength; anger does that to you, I guess.
“Cool it with the majesty crap. You can call me Akia. And I am sorry, but you are not leaving until I know that you are OK. Get in here and get back into bed or I will have you arrested and locked up, so that I can keep an eye on you.” It was the voice of a man that had never been told “no” to anything in his life. I was not naive, I knew for a fact that more than him wanting to take care of me, he wanted to throw his power at me and to let me see that he was used to getting everything that he wanted; well not this time.
“Try and stop me.” I was really hoping the last was just an idle threat because I knew he was right. As much as I hated to admit it, I was smart enough to know that I was in no condition to be leaving, let alone leaving as mad and stressed out as I was. Whatever happened in that room had drained me completely. Still, part of me was secretly wishing that getting me arrested and locked up was exactly what he would do just so I could rest. But the other part of me was determined to walk out and find Darien. I guess it was really up to Akia and his ego as to which part of me won.
“Ok go, but what about these marks? How can you just walk out the door without knowing what happened to us? There had to be something, or someone messing with us. Why did we pass out like that? How is this not getting to you like it is getting to me?”
Had I seriously just won, was he going to let me walk out willingly without a fit, did I just beat the King? “I don’t know YOUR MAJESTY. Why don’t you have your people look into that for you?” I threw the last comment back at him, in a tone that could cut before slamming the door behind me. I half expected him to come after me and try and keep me there. It really couldn’t have been that simple, could it? I was relieved when he didn’t come after me because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could act like I felt fine.
Chapter Six
I wasn’t sure if I was being followed, but I have a great imagination that was telling me I was. Every time I rounded a corner, I tried to get a glimpse over my shoulder to see who was lurking in the shadows. I had no idea what I was going to do. If I went back to my apartment, then they might find out who I really was. I was pretty sure that I had no incriminating items lying around, but since I had no plans for anyone to accompany me home the morning after the ball, I wasn’t a hundred percent certain. I started to second guess myself; was it possible that Doctor Walker was right, that I wasn’t capable of this job, that maybe I was better off underground constantly with the other females? I mean, seriously, how much trouble could I get in if I was twenty feet below the surface? I hated when I questioned myself; it pissed me off. I had to figure out what to do soon because when I get pissed I tend to try to pick fights. Usually Darien is the victim of this very unfortunate character trait of mine but since he was nowhere to be found I knew I would lash out at someone else in due time, and when that someone else was capable of throwing me a good 2000 feet probably it wasn’t a bright idea.
I had nowhere to go and no money to kill time with. I was going to have to go back to Akia’s to get my wallet which I had left behind in my haste to leave; this day was just getting better and better. For the rest of the day I wandered around aimlessly from point to point trying to throw off people that maybe were following me. After five hours of roaming, I knew I had to stop. I was drained of life and there was no way I could go any further. Five hours was long enough to bore people that may or may not be following you, right?
Chapter Seven
When I walked into the underground shelter, I was shocked by the fact that Dr. Walker grabbed me and hugged me so hard that it took my breath away. It was times like this that I realized just how lucky we all were to have this man. It would have been so much easier for him to have just gone into hiding alone. Yet, he didn’t. He chose to take us all in and he loved us just like a father would. He didn’t treat us like a burden; instead, he had provided everything we needed to grow and thrive as individuals in the messed up situation that we were in. I would have to remember to be nicer to him; the hug showed me that no matter how many times I had disappointed him he was always going to be there for me. I needed him in my life way more than he needed me, and I hoped that when I hugged him back he could feel just a little bit of my appreciation toward him.
“We thought we lost you, and I know we don’t see eye to eye on everything but I would have never forgiven myself if something had happened to you. Where have you been? My God! You look like you are going to fall over. What happened to you?”
When he finally released me and took a step back, his face was so full of worry he looked ten years older. I could tell that he hadn’t slept at all and I had literally made him sick with worry. At that moment, I felt a pang of guilt for every time that I had caused that sweet old man to worry.
“I am OK; I promise. As for where I have been you are not going to be at all pleased.” I didn’t want to tell him that I had spent the last eight days in the bed of the Regent himself. I was sure his reaction wasn’t going to be pretty at all. I guess Dr. Walker believed me when I said he wasn’t going to like it because he made me wait until he was safely seated in his desk chair before he would let me tell him my story.
Once I made sure he was good and sturdy I jumped right in so that I could get this fight over with. I started with the confusion in the identities, briefly threw in the part about the claw marks and finished up with the fact that I spent the last eight days comatose in the bed of a very angry King Dominus. I had purposely left out a few things like the making out and the blood swapping; there was no reason to worry him with every little detail. There was also no reason to go into great detail about any of the time that I spent with Akia either. When I was satisfied that he knew enough but not too much I let the story finally end. It was time to face
the music. I slowly lifted my head so that I could look the Doc in the eyes. The look on his face scared me to death. In all honesty I wasn’t even a hundred percent sure he was still breathing. Damn it! I knew this was bad but I was expecting yelling and a good lecture and not a look that made me pale.
“Dr. Walker, what is wrong? Please calm down. I know I have to be extra careful from now on, but I am OK. I will do whatever it takes to fix this. You don’t have to get yourself all worked up over this. I am home and I won’t be stupid again, I promise.”
He jumped so quickly that the desk chair hit the floor with a heavy thud. He mumbled something about not even thinking about moving and calling a meeting, and then he left the room without even as much as a look back to make sure I was going to follow directions.
This was bad. I had seen him angry before; I had even seen him scared before, but this was something different, something almost desperate and unreal. When the one rock solid person in your life leaves the room like he did, it is scary. I hadn’t even told him all of the bad parts. I would have sent him to an early grave if I had told him about the feelings and the kissing, not to mention the blood sharing. I was smart enough to know that something drastic was about to happen, but I wasn’t brave enough to want to face the consequences of what I had unintentionally done with Akia.
I had nothing better to do but wait. I was petrified at the thought of what was about to happen, but I was even more shaken by imagining what would happen if I disobeyed him again and left. Facing the music was going to be bad, but I am the kind of girl that likes to face her punishment sooner and get it over with, instead of sitting around and worrying about what it might be.
I sat down at Dr. Walker’s desk and started to thumb through one of his notebooks that we were allowed to access. These notebooks were meant to give us ideas as to how to better conduct ourselves in the field. Sometimes they helped and sometimes they were so impractical that I wondered what the Doc was thinking when he wrote them. There were also his secret notes, the ones that as a child I use to just sit and think of ways to get my hands on. You know that saying, curiosity killed the cat? Well, I lived up to the namesake. I eventually got tired of trying and gave up. Doctor Walker was always one step ahead of me and for that reason his secrets remained his. The notebook that was out for us to access was full of drawings and theories that I didn’t understand. Trying to make sense of them would never do me any good. Dr. Walker’s mind worked differently than everyone else’s. It was almost like he knew how the minds of the monsters worked and as fascinating as that was, it was also a little frightening to think that the man that I loved, and the only father that I would ever know, spent so much time in the darkness that he could think like them.
