by Janet Jones
"The family who plays together stays together.” He grinned. No fangs in sight. “Ever ride a motorcycle?"
She squeezed around him and found safer ground in the kitchen doorway. “No."
Would there be another chance to escape?
"You're in for a treat, then.” He put a lid on the stew pot and turned down the heat. “First you'll eat and ask your questions. Then I'll give you a proper introduction to the family. After that, we'll all head for the beach. There's a full moon tonight. Very pretty."
Don't ask. The warning rumbled in her head like thunder, but she couldn't stand not knowing. At some point tonight, he was going to do it again. She wanted to be prepared, not find him springing on her unawares.
"Leave it be, Talisen,” he murmured. He half-turned his head in her direction, but didn't look at her. “And for the sake of avoiding unnecessary apprehension on your part, I don't ‘spring on’ people. I don't have to."
She fixed her gaze on him and made herself say the words without flinching. “I don't want to dread it all night."
He cursed and turned to look at her. “Was it so terrible?"
A flash-fire of desire made her face burn. She couldn't lie and say she'd hated it.
He took a step towards her. She took a step back. His hand rose in a reassuring gesture, and she let him come close enough to reach for her. All that held her to the spot was the gentleness in his eyes.
He turned her palm up to his mouth and kissed it, sending a shock of arousal to her core. “Our moment will find us whenever it must tonight. Lay your fears on me. I vow I'll see you well requited."
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Chapter Nine
She smelled warm and sleepy. Ellory resisted the urge to bury his face in Talisen's hair when he pushed her chair closer to the table in the den. Nonchalance was what she needed. Certainly she didn't need him gawking at her while she ate.
Having set her dinner before her, he returned to the kitchen to put the leftovers away and let her eat in peace. Twice he reached for her thoughts to see what she was thinking. Twice he backed off, determined to let her speak for herself. Tonight the first move was hers to make.
He returned to find her sitting slump-shouldered in her chair, her gaze fixed on empty space. But her bowl was empty. He smiled, satisfied and relieved, and dropped himself into the chair across from her.
How long would it take for her to emerge from behind the veil of apprehension he saw in her eyes? Her gaze flicked at him, and her face turned cherry-red. He leaned forward and locked gazes with her. “Presumably this is when you're going to ask me to wax nostalgic about the lost years of my human life."
She shook her head. “How did you become a vampire?"
Ellory turned in his chair and looked at the fire until he knew his disappointment didn't show on his face. He'd hoped Talisen would want to hear about his days as a human, his life as the sea captain she treasured. But now that she knew the truth, perhaps in her eyes, the man he'd been was truly dead. He hid his painful bitterness behind a broad grin. “Well, we must be making progress. You said the v-word without hissing at me."
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe I'm saving my hissing for the end of the story."
Despair filled his heart. She disdained him, and after she'd heard what he had to say about his dark beginnings, she'd disdain him more. Best to spit it out and be done with it.
"Maddie and I had just gone to bed. Our nuptials were interrupted before they began. Aloisia chose that moment to come and collect me. She'd had her eye on me for awhile."
He waited. He didn't look at her, afraid of what he'd see in her eyes. Pity. Loathing, surely. He braced himself.
But when she spoke, her voice held only sorrow. “What about Maddie? What did she do when Aloisia showed up?"
"What could she do?” The memory clawed his heart open and left it bleeding. “Aloisia would've killed her, except ... I begged for her life. She put Maddie in a trance and sent her back to our bed. Maddie didn't know a thing until she woke that morning. Hence, her amnesia concerning the details of my ‘disappearance.'” He rubbed his eyes hard. “Aloisia took me from my home, turned me on the beach, and from that moment until the night of her self-destruction, I was her creature in every sense of the word. That's all."
"Her creature? I don't understand."
He put his hands in his lap under the table and curled them into fists until they were numb. On pain of starvation, he'd labored over Aloisia like a stud and bared his throat for her whenever she demanded it. Anything for a sip of her, just to ease the all-consuming hunger that had racked his body. Later, she allowed him to hunt, but only after she'd broken him.
"She created me. I belonged to her. I kept her fed and pleased, and she kept me alive."
"You fed her and.... “There was still no pity in her voice. Incredible. “She didn't give you a choice?"
Shame and anger scalded Ellory, and his fangs thrust from his gums so suddenly he winced and rubbed his jaw. He would never let another Ancient to get close to him. Ancients were not to be trusted. “Aloisia had rather precipitate views regarding the purpose of fledglings."
He felt a raw, hot wave of terror gush from Talisen and glanced at her. What had frightened her? There was no color in her face.
Her words were little more than puffs of air. “You're no different from her. What you're doing to me is no different."
The realization struck him like a bullet between the eyes. Yes, to Talisen, it must seem like that. He'd seduced her. He'd fed on her. And he was keeping her safe from the rest of the predators like a miser guards his horde.
Ellory's denial strangled him before he got it out of his mouth, so he shook his head emphatically and shot out of his chair so fast that his feet cleared the floor by six inches. He paced the room. Halting mid-stride at the baby grand, he stroked the glossy, ebony wood. Slick and cool and familiar. It resonated at his touch, sounding a single, perfect note that hung in the air, comforting him.
Drawing a long, even breath, he closed his eyes. No. He was not like Aloisia. There had to be a difference. He'd felt it on the beach the moment Talisen's presence had touched him. He'd felt it in her thoughts of him, thoughts of a dead man with a forgotten name. How he longed to be that man again, happy and safe with the woman he loved.
He turned to face her. No apologies. Just the truth. “Talisen, I care for you. Aloisia cared only for power. I am not like her. I'm not ... a monster."
Her chin trembled, but she just looked at him. Had she even heard what he said? Squaring his shoulders, he glared at the floor and cursed the moment he'd seen her on the beach, cursed the compulsion that had dragged him there, cursed the very breath in his ill-gotten body.
He zeroed in on every sound she made. The drum of her fingers on the table again. The swish of her sock-clad feet on the floor. The rush of air in and out of her lungs. Her heartbeat—his lullaby.
Her soft laughter stunned him. He looked at her. No bitterness. She shook her head at him, while her laughter mellowed to something indescribably sweet that wreaked havoc along his ribcage. He returned to her slowly, finding his chair without taking his gaze off of her.
"Whatever you are, Ellory, you aren't cruel. I've seen how you are with Shelby. That kind of affection can't be faked."
Fear shook him. What if he disappointed her? He cleared his throat. “I don't think you should credit me with kindness just because I took in a couple of human orphans."
"No?” Her eyes narrowed, and she gave him a probing look. “If it's not kindness, then what is it that makes you treat them the way you do? I'm all ears."
He'd never hear the end of it. He could remember a time when indulging in this sort of softhearted nonsense at sea would've gotten him sliced from nose to gullet. He winced. “Chocolate cupcakes."
"Beg your pardon?"
"You know, those chocolate cakes with creamy centers. They always smell like cardboard to me, but—"
"I know
what they are. What do they have to do with the way you treat Shelby and Sean?"
Fool. He felt so exposed now he may as well go all out and gut himself good. “The first time I watched Sean and Shelby eat chocolate cupcakes, I couldn't look at them the same way that I look at other humans. Or maybe ... I just couldn't look at humans the same way. I don't know."
She didn't even try to stifle her laughter.
He mustered his defense. “Shelby tried to shove the whole thing sideways into her mouth like Sean did, and then she grinned at me with chocolate teeth ... and these little crumbs were clinging to her milk moustache...."
Words left him. He smiled and shrugged, his face hot with embarrassment and his throat achy. His gaze clung to hers like a moth dancing round a flame. Where did she get a smile like that? It made him feel as though it were mid-morning on a summer's day.
But he didn't dare make himself out to be some kind of a hero in her eyes. That was criminal. “Talisen, your admiration means more to me than I can say, but it would be unforgivable of me not to make you understand what I am and what I am not. For the most part, I have supped off of humanity with as little compunction as you showed that bowl of stew."
She recoiled a little. “I'm trying really hard here, okay? I'm grateful for my life, and I'm trying to reconcile the person you seem to be right now with the thing you were last night, and the thing you were when you rescued me from Blazek and those other vampires."
He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Regarding the revenant, I make no apologies. They're abominations. If one crosses my path, I kill it. As for my neighbors who formed up that death squad, they'll be all right eventually. Assuming Blazek was courteous enough to bury their remains for them, they'll reconstitute in about thirty years."
Her jaw gaped. “You mean, they aren't dead?"
"Talisen, we can't be killed, except by the sun, or a wooden stake through the heart—that much Hollywood got right—or by very old vampires."
While Talisen was getting over the shock of what he'd just said, Ellory put some distance between them. He carried her bowl to the kitchen and took the opportunity to rein in his emotions before they overwhelmed him.
Resting his head against the cool wooden cabinet next to the sink, he breathed in the familiar kitchen aromas, separating each one until he latched onto a favorite. Shelby's breakfast cereal. Little marshmallow ghosts and sugar-coated, toasted-oat goblins. Georgina insisted on buying it for her; Sean argued that it would rot her teeth. It was their ongoing debate, and he loved them for it.
He longed to hear Talisen chiming in with them.
She might come to love him. It could happen. But how many years did they have together? One mortal lifetime. He shook from head to toe. Not enough. Not nearly enough to begin to love her the way he wanted to.
Desolation devoured him at the thought of giving her up. Oh, it would be so easy to turn her. A night never to be forgotten, feasting on one another, and he'd have her forever.
No. He was a monster, if he could consider dragging her down into the darkness with him. She was his sun. He would be her moon. That was enough for him. He would make it be enough. And when he had to let her go, he'd walk into the morning and simply cease to be. By then, his fledglings would be old enough to survive without him.
Come what may, he would have order in his house, if not peace. The fledglings would accept Talisen, human or not. And Talisen would accept whatever was necessary to keep her safe. They'd all learn to live together, or they'd fragment into easy prey for the likes of Dylan. Beginning tonight. None of them would like what he had to do, least of all Talisen. But if he couldn't depend on her following his orders, he'd have to shorten her leash a little. She'd probably hate him all the more for it, but at least she would be safe.
Right now what she needed from him was honesty.
He reached into the refrigerator for a bottle of mineral water, opened it, and took it to her. Setting it on the table, he crouched by her chair and seized on the uppermost question that hovered in her mind. She wouldn't be human if she didn't wonder.
"Though you're probably not going to ask—yes, I have killed humans."
She sipped the water slowly. “Why did you kill them?"
"Does it matter?"
"Does to me."
"Necessity demanded it.” He returned to his chair with a heavy sigh. “I am motivated by two things: feeding and protecting my domain. That is my world. That is what I am. You can't measure my behavior by human standards. Among vampires, there is only the common law of the mark—what I make mine will remain mine, and I'll kill to keep it that way."
He folded his hands in front of him on the table and watched her beautiful face for signs of contempt.
Her eyes glistened like green glass. He watched a tear roll down her cheek and could hardly keep from touching it. She wiped it away less gently than he would have done. “I'm sorry."
He blinked. “W-what?"
"I figure I'm the first human who's had the chance to tell you that, so I'm saying it. I'm sorry it happened to you. And I'm sorry you have to live like this.” Her face crinkled, and she put a hand on her chest. “I'm not saying I can handle it, but I know if it happened to me, the first thing I'd want somebody to say to me is, ‘I'm so sorry.’”
Disbelief trembled in Ellory's sternum. He couldn't make a sound, so he just stared at her. Over two hundred years of estrangement from humanity, and she'd just made an effort to erase it. With sympathy. The last thing he'd expected.
He reached across the table and took her hand in both of his, bending over her palm to kiss it. “If I live a thousand years, Talisen Davies, I shall never deserve you."
She laid her other hand on his head with a butterfly touch. “You're nothing like Blazek and those others."
He breathed against her damp, salty palm. She was trying so hard. To accept him? Love him? Mother of God, please let it be so, if only a little. But love meant there could be no lies between them. “Talisen, I share their nature."
She tugged at his hair, at his hand, sounding desperate. “How can you say that? You don't even smell like them."
He rested his chin on their entwined hands and looked up at her. “I live with humans. I can't afford to let myself go. If anything, you'll probably get bored with the sameness of my appearance. Haircuts, beards, moustaches, tattoos, rings in my ear, nose, or navel—none will last longer than a night. I wake each evening looking precisely as I did the night I was made."
The corners of Talisen's mouth twitched into a near smile before she frowned and rolled her eyes. “All your good looks are probably just an illusion."
He nipped her palm just to hear her squeal. “You'll regret that remark before the night's over, madam."
The tension eased between them, softened by their fragile truce and the quiet in the room. “Any more questions, Talisen?"
"How different are you now, compared to how you were when you were human?” She looked away. “The way you would've been if I'd known you then."
He'd never had a reason to explain this before. “Contrary to popular fiction, we're not soulless dead things walking around like animated sacks of blood. We're more like cars whose engines have been converted to accept a different kind of fuel. Our bodily functions are mostly the same, except for a few aesthetic alterations and some obvious differences. There's an increase in muscularity, for example, and of course, we don't age. We're not bound by the laws of nature. I can become a blade of grass under your feet, or the breeze in your hair, or rain, or moonlight. I feel things more intensely, physically and emotionally. And the longer I exist, the more powerful I'll become."
Talisen looked pale again. He paused to give her a chance to respond, or recuperate, whichever she needed to do first.
By her choice of questions, she taught him what was most important to her. Of all the secrets he had just disclosed to her, she latched onto one.
"You control people."
"B
ut I don't enjoy it. I'm not power-hungry."
Like Dylan. Dylan would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. By attacking Talisen at the park, by sending his minion to kill her, he had sounded his declaration of war.
Ellory stretched his booted foot under the table and tapped her ankle. “On to the next order of business. Tonight, you join the family."
* * * *
Talisen didn't have to ask to know that Ellory had issued a silent summons. She'd felt it seconds ago, like a wind in a hallway through an open door. It stunned her to feel so much, as though a raw nerve connected her body to his.
She retreated to a leather armchair, curled into its slick, cool softness, and hugged a corduroy pillow to her chest. Ellory's every move drew at her senses. Nothing helped the edginess inside of her. She tracked him with her gaze from the table to the window. He looked so burdened. What did he expect them all to do? Live happily ever after?
Ever after. Her past, present and future was standing fifteen feet away from her, brooding at a window. Nightfall personified. But where in that preternatural being was her newfound friend or girlhood hero?
Fractured perceptions of Arthur Ellory Benedikt pricked at the back of her mind like a bed of knives. Move in the wrong direction, and she'd cut her heart to ribbons. Could she come to terms with all of them somehow?
No. She was going to get away and that was that.
Yet her craving for him palpitated inside of her like a second heart. Even now, the small distance that separated them physically was enough to put her teeth on edge. Just to see what happened, Talisen closed her eyes and made an effort to resist her need for him.
Ellory's soft intake of breath whooshed through her as though it were her own. She opened her eyes and met his gaze.
He grimaced. “That doesn't work, but I'll understand if you keep trying."
Her response was preempted by the arrival of the rest of the clan. Christophe and Adrienne ambled in and sat down on one of the sofas. They went on talking to one another in soft-spoken French and didn't give her a single glance.
Delfina and Georgina meandered in and joined them. Delfina was quiet and serene, Georgina cold and aloof. They whispered to one another.
