Ward of the Vampire: Complete Serial

by Kallysten

  “How about books?” he asked after a beat. “Do you enjoy reading?”

  “I do. But I finished the book you brought from my place.” Which reminded me, it was overdue by now. Maybe I’d bill the library fines to Miss Delilah.

  “Let’s see if we can find something to replace it, then. Will you come with me?”

  Would you call me a pervert if I said my mind insisted on interpreting that very innocent question in a not so innocent way? I was blushing when I accompanied him down the hallway. I know he noticed, because I saw him glancing at me twice from the corner of my eye. He didn’t ask what was up with me, and I was grateful, for once, that he was a man of a few words.

  I was far less grateful when I remembered what he’d said in our latest—our last, I hoped—shared fantasy: that he liked it when I blushed. And everything else we’d said and done in that fantasy. It didn’t help at all on the blushing front. More like the opposite, in fact.

  I tried to get a grip. Now I was annoyed with myself for not being more annoyed with him. Shouldn’t I have been still upset about the trick he’d played on me? He had done nothing to earn my forgiveness, and it only added insult to injury that I couldn’t take a mental step back from my attraction.

  Why, yes, my mind was a complete and utter mess, thank you for noticing.

  At least, I didn’t feel like I’d self-combust anymore when he opened the door to his office and preceded me inside. I’d never been in there, and I paused for a second, taking in the lavish decor. Red velvet curtains were pulled aside, allowing light to flood the room. An imposing, carved desk took up a large part of the space, and the laptop resting in its center felt entirely out of place. Built-in shelves behind the desk were covered in books. I had time to wonder if that was what Morgan wanted me to see before he called my attention with a quiet, “This way.”

  He was standing by an open door to one side of the room. I joined him, and entered what, back in my small home town, could have passed as a local library in its own rights.

  The room was larger than my bedroom, maybe as large as my entire suite: bedroom, bathroom, and sitting room all together. At the center, a small table, two armchairs, and a Victorian fainting sofa that looked like a twin of the one Miss Delilah had in her dressing room were arranged together. The room had no windows, but recessed lighting in the ceiling made it feel as bright and comfortable as the office I had just passed through. A thick, richly patterned carpet covered most of the floor, stopping only a few inches from the bookshelves. And when I say bookshelves, what I mean is floor to ceiling wooden shelves covering all four walls, with each shelf packed with books. Only the door opening had been left free—but there were shelves and books above it and up to the ceiling. A three-step stool on the side would allow a reader to reach for the highest shelves.

  “Take your pick,” Morgan said. “There’s a little of everything. Nothing very recent, I’m afraid, and there isn’t much organization to speak of, but you should be able to find something of interest.”

  Nothing very recent? I could believe that! When I stepped closer to the nearest shelves, all I could see were leather-bound books, some of them looking quite fragile. I read a few titles: classics, all of them. With a careful finger, I drew one off the shelf and opened it to the first page. It was a first edition, autographed by Mark Twain to ‘The Lovely Irene.’

  I swallowed hard. My throat seemed to hurt again, all of a sudden. My hand was trembling a little when I put the book back in place.

  “Are they all hers?” I asked, proud when my voice didn’t shake.

  Morgan, who had pulled a book from a different shelf and opened it halfway, didn’t even look up.

  “Hmm?”

  “The books. Are they hers? Irene said the Monet painting is hers. And Stephen said the house was hers.”

  He finally looked up when I said her name, and a shadow darkened his gaze when it met mine.

  “It was,” he said, setting the book back on the shelf. “But not at the moment. Not legally. It’s one of the necessary games we have to play. Every few decades, we have to die, at least on paper, so we can have a new life. New name, new identity. Last time she ‘died,’ she gave me this house. Next time it’s my turn, I’ll give it back to her. Including the paintings. And the books.”

  That answered some of my unasked questions about the practicalities of living for centuries.

  “So, the books are hers.”

  As I said it, I let my eyes travel over the room. Such a large collection… I’d have loved to explore it. But if they were Irene’s, I wasn’t sure I wanted to lay a finger on another one.

  “Only some of them,” Morgan said.

  His eyes were back on me, but I didn’t meet them. I didn’t care to show him I was afraid of a woman who wasn’t even there.

  “Some are mine,” he continued. “Some are Lilah’s. Some…”

  When he trailed off, I did look at him. His fingers were brushing along a row of hardbacks that looked considerably newer than Mark Twain’s first edition.

  “Yes?” I prodded. “Whose are those?”

  He snatched his hand back and turned his back to that shelf, shoving his fists inside his pockets.

  “What does it matter?” he said gruffly. “Like I said, take your pick. It’ll at least distract you for a while.”

  “It does matter,” I said. “What if she comes back and tries to kill me again, this time because I’ve got my hands on her favorite first edition?”

  Without thinking, I raised a hand to my neck. Morgan’s eyes followed my movement.

  “I wish I could say she won’t threaten you again,” he said. “To be honest, I have no idea what she’s up to. And the idea is as unpleasant to me as it is to you.”

  He’d known her for four centuries, and he couldn’t tell what she was up to? That wasn’t reassuring…

  “You’ll save me again?” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “If she barges in and…”

  A crooked smile twisted his lips.

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  Part of me knew he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. But that was the same part that had a hard time differentiating between reality and fantasy, so I wasn’t sure I could trust myself, let alone him.

  My throat felt tight when I said, “Every meaningful conversation you and I have had only took place in my head. So yes, I do have to ask.”

  When he took a step toward me, my heart jumped, the way it always did whenever he was close. He reached out with a slow hand and brushed light fingertips to my neck, so delicately that I hardly felt the touch.

  “Yes,” he murmured. “I would save you. Every time.”

  Our eyes met, and this time, I didn’t feel like I was falling into those dark depths. This time, they actually looked inviting. They were as dark as ever, but they felt… I don’t know. Warm.

  I never pretended I made sense.

  In that moment, I wanted something I couldn’t quite name. To touch him as gently, as intimately as he was touching me, maybe. Or to kiss him. To step closer to him, and wrap his arms around me, and stay there until the chill brought up by the thought of Irene went away. Or maybe to tell him that the marks on my skin were not his fault, that they’d fade, and that he had no reason to look as guilty as he did right now.

  Before I could decide what to do, he dropped his hand and shuffled away, turning back to the shelves. This time, he withdrew a slim paperback and flipped through it.

  “And if you want to be technical,” he said, his voice suddenly aloof, “you were in my head, not I in yours.”

  It was the second time he said something to that effect. The first time, we’d been arguing and I hadn’t picked up on it. This time, I couldn’t let it pass.

  “What does that mean?”

  He closed the book, picked up another one, and answered without looking up at me.

  “It means I can’t read your mind. I couldn’t… I don’t know. Make you see the inside of your parents�
�� house, because I don’t know what it looks like. What I do is pull you inside my mind. Show you things and places I know.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around that. It turned what I’d believed on its head. I had thought he poked into my head, my memories, my feelings, but it seemed to be the opposite. Did that mean he’d showed me who he really was—his soul, for lack of a better word? Or was it who he saw himself as, who he wanted to be? And how did the whole thing work?

  “So… you could show me what things were like four-hundred years ago?” I asked, suddenly intrigued.

  And of course, it wasn’t just a random number. He’d been a vampire for that long. I’m not sure why my mind went straight to what things had been like when he’d still been human, but it did.

  Morgan’s answer was a simple, quiet, “No.”

  I was a little taken aback. Had I misunderstood how this all worked?

  “Why not?”

  He set the book back on the shelf and turned to the door.

  “Because you made me promise not to do this again.” On the threshold, before he stepped into his office, he glanced back at me. His expression was inscrutable. “Not even if you begged.”

  The way he said that word, ‘begged’… It shouldn’t have sent heat running through me, should it? It was just a word. It shouldn’t have made my insides pulse with need. It shouldn’t have made me want him, here and now. The Victorian fainting chair looked comfortable enough. It would certainly be more comfortable than the dining-room table.

  Did I go after Morgan? I sure did. But not to jump his bones like I wanted to.

  He was playing with me. He could deny it for a hundred years, I still wouldn’t believe that he didn’t know exactly how he’d made me feel when he said that particular word in that particular tone of voice. Once again, he was doing the hot-and-cold routine on me, and I’d had enough of that. I could have accepted his desire to remain distant and out of reach if he was that much in denial. But I refused to let him play with my emotions without playing right back.

  I took a few deep breaths to steady myself, set my empty mug on a chair, and went to the door. I leaned against the doorjamb; maybe I was trying to find some much-needed support.

  “Did you figure it out yet?” I asked, and my voice was much colder than it had been moments ago. “Why you did the whole mind-trip thing again?”

  Seated at his desk in front of his laptop, he looked up and gave me a pained look.

  “Can we… not talk about this anymore?”

  I can’t say his answer surprised me. Not talking was his default mode, wasn’t it? Too bad for him, I wasn’t in an accommodating mood.

  “Can we not talk about how I almost offered you my blood?” I said with my sweetest smile. “How we had sex on the dining-room table? Or maybe how I told you I—”

  “Yes,” he cut in sharply, dark, cold eyes boring into me. “Can we not talk about all that?”

  “I guess it’d be easier if we didn’t, huh?”

  Keeping my smile in place was one of the hardest things I’d ever done but, oh, was it worth it to see Morgan’s icy exterior crack, just a little.

  “Are you going to fling that word at me every time we have a conversation?” he asked, and his voice shook a little.

  “Maybe.”

  I watched him work for a few seconds—but was he working, or was it pretend? His fingers were still on the keyboard, and his eyes, although directed at the screen, were not moving the way they would if he was reading. Another mask. Why did he always think he had to hide? Why couldn’t he just be himself?

  “You knew it was a fantasy, didn’t you?” I asked. “I mean, when we’re in your mind, you still know what’s going on, right? You know it’s going to end at some point.”

  He continued to stare at the screen.

  “Yes.”

  “Did it occur to you at all that I’d be mad?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you still let me go through with declaring my love.” More than the sex-that-wasn’t-really-sex, this was where things had gone one step too far for me. The one thing I wouldn’t get over easily. “You told yourself it wasn’t real, and you let it happen. But it was real for me. Did that occur to you?”

  With a brusque gesture, he slammed the laptop shut. His gaze, when it found mine, was darker, deeper than the coldest ocean trench.

  “I apologized,” he said in a very low voice. “I don’t know what else you want from me.”

  Did he ever?

  Wait, no, I’m being unfair. In the past two weeks, he’d proved that he did have a fairly developed insight. I’d watched him with my parents, in particular, and I knew he could figure out people and see what made them tick. I’d guess that four centuries’ worth of dealing with people would help with understanding them. The problem was only when it came to us. To him and me. To what I felt and what I thought—hoped, believed—he might be feeling, too. On those things, he was completely clueless.

  “I want to understand,” I said, each word slow and precise, “what was going through your mind when I started saying it and you didn’t stop me like you stopped me when I was about to offer you my blood.”

  He considered me for a long moment, long enough that I wondered if he’d bother answering at all. And then…

  “And if I tell you that, you’ll stop talking about it?”

  Probably not, but that wasn’t what he wanted to hear.

  “I’ll try,” I said, which wasn’t exactly a lie.

  He pressed his hands flat on either side of the laptop and pushed himself up with a deep sigh. He looked tired, more so than I’d ever seen him before. He walked around the desk and stopped three feet away from me. Much too far.

  “I was thinking that it’d been a long time since anyone said those words to me.” He paused, his eyes flicking away from me for a second before coming back. “And that it’d be nice to hear them, even if it wasn’t real.”

  “But it was real!” I protested.

  He shook his head. “You don’t know me, Angelina. You don’t know anything about me. How could you love me?”

  Those words…

  I was about to tell you his words caused me pain, but that’s not it. Not pain. It’s more than that.

  The first time I had a migraine, I was just eleven. After trying regular pain killers and realizing that it wasn’t working, my mother took me to the doctor. And the doctor, upon finding nothing wrong with me, decided that I was only pretending because I didn’t feel like going to school. There I was, crying my eyes out, telling this man my skull felt like someone was prying it open with their bare fingers, and he was telling me that, no, really, I didn’t hurt that much, I was just imagining it. In the end, we found someone who believed me, but I’ll always remember how I felt when that man said he didn’t believe me. It was like he was denying my very existence: like I was standing in front of him and still he couldn’t see me or hear me.

  When Morgan said those words to me, it was the same thing all over again.

  Before I could say anything, though, before I could yell at him or slap him or kiss him or anything else, he left the office. Left me behind. Once again.

  *

  With my soul raw and bleeding—you’ll forgive the imagery, but like I said ‘pain’ doesn’t begin to cover it—I didn’t feel like remaining in that room. I didn’t feel like being alone, for that matter. I retrieved the empty coffee mug and returned to the kitchen. It was getting close to noon, so I hoped Stephen would be there. As far as company went, he wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy, but even trying to convince him that he could call me by my name had to be better than loneliness.

  I wasn’t planning on mentioning Morgan, because Stephen had made it very clear whose side he was on, but when I walked into the kitchen and found him there, doing something as mundane as emptying the dishwasher and putting plates away, I heard myself blurt out, “Why does he always do that?”

  He barely glanced at me and continued emptying the dishwasher.
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  “I assume ‘he’ is Mr. Ward?”

  “Yes!” I stomped into the room and drew one of the stools from under the island. “Why does he always just leave when he doesn’t like the way a conversation is going?”

  Without realizing what I was doing, I punctuated each word with a tap of the porcelain mug onto the counter top, until Stephen, with a light wince, tugged it out of my hand.

  “You’d have to ask him,” he said, setting the mug in the empty dishwasher. Turning back to me, he leaned both arms on the island so that he was level with me when he said, “But let me ask you this. Would you rather he compel you to walk away from that conversation? Or compel you to never speak of it again? Or he could take a hint from Miss Irene and stop the discussion in a more physical way. Would you prefer any of those options?”

  When he put it like that, it made Morgan’s tendency to flee more palatable, yes, but not by much.

  “If I were feeling rude,” I muttered, “I would call you a smartass.”

  “And if you did, you wouldn’t be the first,” he replied with no hint of a smile.

  As he started to take ingredients from the fridge, I wondered who could have called him that. For some odd reason, I could very well imagine Morgan doing it. It was strange, because I didn’t think I’d heard Morgan use that word, but it seemed like it fit the relationship the two of them had. Not that I had seen them interact much, mind. In this big house, they hardly ever seemed to occupy the same space. Then again, Morgan only appeared to use a few of the rooms in the mansion.

  And my thoughts kept bringing me back to him even when I was looking at Stephen. What a surprise.

  “I’ve noticed you’re very protective of him,” I said, just to say something.

  Stephen glanced up from the other end of the island, where he was breaking eggs into a large metal bowl.

  “Do you believe Mr. Ward needs protection?” he asked, and he sounded amused.

  “No, I don’t. But I think you do. Am I wrong?”

  Even though he turned away to pull a whisk from the drawer behind him, I did catch a flash of something on his features. I wasn’t wrong, no, but I had a feeling he wasn’t about to admit it.