Ward of the Vampire: Complete Serial

by Kallysten

  “Do you know why she told Delilah to trap me here?” I asked a little while later.

  “I… have suspicions. Nothing definite. I’m not so concerned about the why, more about convincing her that her game is getting old.”

  “A game,” I repeated flatly. “My life is a freaking game.”

  Morgan sighed. “To her, to both of them, yes, it is. I’m sorry but it’s true.”

  “Because I’m human?”

  “Because you’re human, and fragile, and so very young.”

  Something was clear to me as he said those words: that was how he saw me, too. He might not think he had a right to play with my life as he pleased, but yes, to him I was just a ‘fragile’ human child who might keel over dead if anyone said ‘boo’ too loudly.

  Or, you know, if someone compelled me to do something and I foolishly tried to resist the compulsion.

  I wanted to tell him that, no, I wasn’t a child. I might not be as old as he was—even though I didn’t know how old he was exactly—but I was a grown-up, and I could take care of myself. I wasn’t fragile, either. Think about it. The world as I knew it had been turned on its head when I’d discovered the existence of vampires. Not only that, but I’d been, in effect, jailed for no reason I could understand, I’d come close to dying, and someone had messed with my mind twice. For someone who’d had all that happen to her in no more than a week, I thought I was actually doing pretty well. And I would have said as much, but right then Mr. Ward stood, and with a quiet, “Excuse me,” he left the room with his cigarettes already in hand.

  I wasn’t sure if the frustration I felt was left over from our conversation or my inability to assert myself or simply seeing him again with cigarettes that were so tempting. As tempting as Mr. Ward himself, but I refused to think about that—and yes, that was one more source of frustration.

  *

  The next day was my parents’ last in New York. With their plane departing in the late afternoon, they wanted to spend the morning shopping for souvenirs for their friends. They also wanted me to come with them, and my father mentioned rather pointedly that I hadn’t set foot outside with them the entire time they’d been there. I reminded him about the storm, and how I hadn’t been feeling well, and that I had a ton of work to do, and wanted to kick myself when I finished with, “If you guys had told me about your plans before coming, I’d have told you this was the worst possible time for it.”

  In other words, yes, I blamed it on them. And hated myself for it. Would I ever be able to come clean about the whole thing and tell them what had really happened? No, they’d never believe me. For that matter, I wouldn’t believe it if it had happened to anyone else.

  They looked a little hurt when they left for their shopping. And I felt immensely guilty. A few hours later, saying goodbye to them was bittersweet.

  On one hand, I hadn’t seen them in so long that saying goodbye after so few days felt too soon. Promises that I’d visit when I could, and an offer from Mr. Ward to pay all expenses for their next trip “because I robbed you of precious time with your daughter this time and I’m very sorry about it” attenuated the sting, but not all that much.

  On the other hand, I couldn’t deny that their departure would simplify things. Let me say it one last time: I hated lying to them. That final lie about how, of course, I would accompany them to the airport, only to receive a phone call at the last minute and have to stay at the mansion when an important meeting was rescheduled… Yes, that final lie was hard. Saying goodbye in the foyer, being unable to even walk them out to the car, watching Mr. Ward close the door on them… It hurt. Me, and them, too, I’m sure.

  Alone in the mansion, with no meeting to actually attend, I felt numb. I still had a lot to do to prepare for the party, but at that moment I couldn’t. My mind wasn’t up to the task. With heavy steps, I went to the kitchen. I pulled a bottle from the wine cooler, opened it after needing to think for a second about where I’d seen Stephen stash the corkscrew, then took a glass from the cupboard. With the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other, I started for the door, but changed my mind and came back to get a second glass. It might not get used. Then again, maybe it would be.

  I took it all to the sun room and poured myself a full glass before leaning back into one of the armchairs, my feet propped on the massive wood block that served as coffee table. I sipped the wine slowly, my gaze fixed straight ahead, although I didn’t really see anything of the beauty around me. My mind drifted from thought to thought, replaying the past few days, my parents’ visit, what I’d hoped to show them and that they’d seen without me, the many ways Mr. Ward had distracted them, my many lies and untruths.

  It was useless to pretend otherwise: I was feeling sorry for myself. And while I’m not a big drinker as a rule, getting drunk seemed like an attractive idea at that moment. I didn’t even stop to think that, after my last migraine, it might not be such a good thing.

  One small sip after the other, I drank half the bottle and would have continued until it was empty if Mr. Ward had not joined me.

  “Getting drunk on Reserve Lapeyre,” he said, pouring himself a glass. “What grand tastes you have, Angelina.”

  There was the slightest teasing in his words, and I had to look at him as he sat in the armchair next to me to make sure that it was, in fact, teasing and not something less pleasant. His faint smile reassured me: no, he didn’t care that I was treating his God-knows-how-expensive bottle like some cheap booze hardly worth its hangover.

  “What can I say?” I was almost proud when I didn’t slur my words even though my head felt very, very light. “I live in a mansion with artwork valued at millions of dollars. I can’t really get drunk off wine coolers, can I?”

  “Invention of the devil,” Mr. Ward agreed before taking a sip.

  The words tickled my mind; I’d heard him say that before, hadn’t I?

  “Is there such a thing?” I asked without thinking. “A devil, I mean. If vampires exist… What else is out there?”

  He shifted in his seat, putting his back to the armrest to look at me full on for a few moments. Emboldened, maybe, by the wine, I returned the look without flinching.

  “Do you really want to know?” he murmured. “Think about it, Angelina. You’re already unhappy knowing about vampires. Do you really want to be told there are worse things out there?”

  Did I? No. But I didn’t want to sound like a coward, so I said instead, “I’m not unhappy knowing you.”

  What I had meant to say was, I wasn’t unhappy knowing about vampires, but my tongue or brain tripped somewhere along the way for a Freudian slip that didn’t go unnoticed. He’d been raising the glass to his lips again, and at my words he paused, his eyes widening fractionally. I held my breath, waiting for him to say something, anything—to acknowledge my words, or admit that he, too, wasn’t sorry he’d met me.

  But of course he said no such thing. He only used those words in daydreams and fantasies, as I knew quite well.

  “I got your parents to the airport with plenty of time,” he said, his eyes sliding to somewhere that wasn’t me. “It sounded like they’ll be happy to come back. Next summer, they mentioned, if you have time for them.”

  Would I? Summer seemed an eternity away. Would Miss Delilah have returned by then or would I still be Mr. Ward’s unwanted guest? I didn’t dare ask what he thought. I didn’t care to hear him say again that he had no idea.

  “Also, it appears your father is under the impression that you and I are… dating, I suppose is the word he would use.”

  I couldn’t help sputtering at that casual pronouncement, and the mouthful of wine I’d been drinking went down the wrong way. I sat up, coughing violently, my lungs burning. Mr. Ward took the glass from me and set it and his own down on the table before patting my back. Still coughing, my eyes watering, I struggled to catch my breath. When I did, he presented me with a neatly folded white handkerchief.

  “I don’t want to stain it,” I protest
ed, croaking a little. “Wine…”

  He batted my concern away with a gesture of his hand.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  I wiped my mouth, coughing a little more and still feeling bad about the handkerchief. It was only cotton, or at least I thought so, but really fine, and embroidered with the same elegant M and W that had been stamped on his party invitations.

  “So… what did you tell my dad to disabuse him of this strange idea?” I asked, still coughing a little.

  “I don’t think there is an appropriate answer to ‘You better treat her right, and it takes more than money to do that, son.’ So I didn’t say anything.”

  Neither did I. What could I say, really? My father had called Mr. Ward ‘son.’ He’d all but given him the ‘she’s my little girl and if you hurt her there’ll be hell to pay’ speech he used to give my boyfriends back home. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or feel nostalgic. I was a bit of both.

  I started to reach for the glass and bottle on the table, but Mr. Ward was faster. His hand closed on the neck of the bottle, and he held it out of my reach.

  “I think you’ve had enough, Angelina. Drowning your sorrows rarely helps. Even when the wine is excellent.”

  “You’re one to talk. The night before my folks arrived, you got so drunk you slept up here.”

  He shook his head and started to say, “I didn’t—” but he cut himself short and looked away.

  I, of course, was curious about what he wasn’t saying.

  “You didn’t what? Get drunk?”

  He helped himself to another glass of wine but didn’t reply.

  “Come on, Mr. Ward. Don’t go back to the silent act now. Aren’t you supposed to treat me right? What would my dad say if I told him you’re ignoring me?”

  Would I have given him lip if I hadn’t been tipsy?

  I guess you know me well enough by now that it’s useless to pretend I wouldn’t have. And he must have been getting used to it, too, because rather than getting upset, he rolled his eyes.

  And—don’t faint in shock now—he actually answered.

  “I was drunk, yes. But I didn’t sleep up here because I was drunk. I did because my room smelled like you.”

  That was possibly the very last answer I had expected, and I couldn’t help blurting out, “Smell? What do you mean smell like me?”

  He sighed.

  “Nothing bad. Just… your soap. Your shampoo. Just the smell of you. Your arousal.”

  Tipsy or not, I was mortified and tried to cover my discomfort with a snort.

  “Nothing bad, but you didn’t want to smell it.”

  “No. I didn’t want to get used to it.”

  He’d finished his glass—and the bottle. He stood, and I just watched him in silence, having no idea what to reply to that. He didn’t want to get used to me? How did that mesh with what he said next?

  “And I told you, you can call me Morgan, remember?”

  I remembered, yes. Tipsy or not, I remembered perfectly well when he had said that and the conversation we’d been having at the time and what had followed. I remembered, better than I wished I did, that none of it had been real.

  “You said that in the fantasy world,” I murmured. “I thought the whole point of it was to do things we’d never do in real life. Isn’t that what you said?”

  Emotions flickered through his face, too fast for me to catch what any of them were. When he inclined his head once toward me, I had no idea what it might mean.

  “You can call me Morgan,” he repeated, and then he was gone.

  I remained up in the sun room for another hour or so, telling myself I was too tipsy to go back to planning. In the end, though, I couldn’t continue fooling myself. I hadn’t drunk that much, and once I had something to eat, it’d be time to return to work.

  *

  I’d thought the silent auction was a great idea when I first suggested it, but the amount of additional work it represented was enormous. At eleven that night, I was still writing descriptions for the donated items, trying to make them sound both interesting and amusing. Try to describe a hand-painted porcelain tea set without sounding boring, and you’ll see how much fun I had.

  When the door opened and Morgan came in, part of me was glad for the interruption, and even more so when he suggested I give it up for the night. And yet… the same thoroughness that had never allowed me to turn in school work that was any less than A material demanded that I finish this batch of first drafts tonight, so I could go back and tweak them over the next couple of days.

  “I still have six descriptions to write,” I told him. “And more should come in tomorrow. I’ve got to…”

  He didn’t let me finish and pushed the top of the computer down, slowly enough that I had time to pull my hands away.

  “Tomorrow,” he said in a firm voice. “We still have four days. And I’ll help you with the descriptions, I promise.”

  Stepping behind me, he tugged the rolling chair away from the desk, turned it sideways, and offered me his hand.

  “You work too hard, Angelina.”

  I took his hand and let him pull me up to my feet. His fingers were as cool and gentle as I remembered them, and despite myself I found myself clinging to them a little too long.

  “I just want the gala to be a success,” I said, trying to cover how flustered I was. What was wrong with me? A touch of his hand didn’t warrant my heart beating so fast.

  He let go and stepped back, opening the door wide for me.

  “It will be,” was all he said, but he knew, I was sure of it. He knew how that small, innocent touch had affected me. That had to be why he didn’t meet my eyes before saying good night.

  It was a long time before I found sleep. I woke up from dreams that left me hot and bothered and wishing my vibrator wasn’t back at my apartment. But not at all wishing I were brave enough—crazy enough—to go knock on Morgan’s door.

  *

  Time flew. Another couple of busy days passed. All the important things for the gala were set, and with two days to go, I was working on details.

  As it turned out, there was one detail I had neglected to consider. And when Morgan brought it to my attention, I could only stare at him and repeat his question, my mind in overdrive but coming up empty.

  “What am I going to wear?”

  Somehow, it hadn’t occurred to me that I would be attending the gala. This was a function for rich people, not people like me. When I’d planned Miss Delilah’s charity gala, I had dressed in a black suit that resembled the staff uniform so I could go around and solve last minute issues without drawing attention to myself. When I said that aloud, however, Morgan shook his head.

  “No. Not after all the work you’ve put into this thing. There’s someone in the blue salon to see you. She’s a very talented designer. I’m sure she’ll make you something suitable.”

  For the second time, he’d left my brain on repeat mode.

  “A designer?”

  My mind flashed back to Miss Delilah’s dressing room, and the custom dresses she’d had designers create for her—or rather, for me. They’d been gorgeous dresses, sure, but the thought of playing mannequin doll again, this time for Morgan, wasn’t exactly appealing. I didn’t need to be reminded of how little power I had. And I would have said exactly that if Morgan hadn’t added, “Today she’ll just take your measurements and talk to you about what you want. She’ll be back for fittings.”

  “What I want?”

  I was beginning to feel ridiculous, repeating what he said. And he’d noticed, too, because he gave me an amused look.

  “Are you all right, Angelina? If you don’t want a new dress, I suppose you could wear the one you had on at my birthday party.”

  That sealed it. That red gown was gorgeous, but I had no intention of ever wearing it again. I had a few… interesting memories associated with that dress, all of them involving Morgan but mostly it was what Miss Delilah had compelled me to wear; the
wrapping of her ‘gift’ to her brother.

  I shook off my confusion and let him lead me to the ‘blue salon,’ which was a small sitting room whose furniture and artwork were all, you guessed it, blue. He introduced me to Crystal, a middle-aged woman whose kind eyes were already running over me as though taking measures before she’d even finished shaking my hand. Morgan left, Crystal and I sat down, and right away she set a notepad on her lap and started sketching the rough shape of a body. She asked what kind of dress I had in mind, and as much as I enjoy fashion, I might have had more to say if I’d been given anything other than a five-minute warning.

  “Relax,” she said, smiling, when she noticed how weird this was for me. “We’re here to put a beautiful dress on a beautiful woman. There are no wrong answers. As long as you’re happy with the result, that’s all that matters.” Then she leaned closer and winked as she added, “And don’t worry, we’ll make sure he likes it, too.”

  There was no doubt in my mind that ‘he’ was Morgan. And the thought of wowing him was rather appealing.

  With a few quick, easy questions about what length I wanted for the skirt or how much of a décolletage I cared to show, Crystal started to get what she needed from me. And once I watched the beginning of a shape appear on her notepad, it was easier to tell her what I could see myself wearing. When I began using words like ‘dropped waist’, ‘sweetheart neckline’ and ‘asymmetric draping,’ she teased me about watching too many fashion shows on television, and that shared laugh finally chased away my reservations.

  After another few minutes, she was done sketching both the front and back of the dress, and I could easily see myself wearing it. It just felt very me. All that needed to be decided was the color. When I hesitated, she said, “If we’re trying to make his jaw drop, I’d suggest a bold color, something dramatic. Judging from past experience, he’s very partial to red.”

  “Past experience? You mean, you’ve done this before?”

  I tried not to let my disappointment pierce into my voice, but it must have shown because her expression instantly turned apologetic.