Ward of the Vampire: Complete Serial

by Kallysten

  I pressed back against him, trying to roll into his arms and face him, but he wouldn’t budge.

  “Let me turn,” I said, my words catching on a moan. “I want to touch you, too. See you.”

  “Later.” He pressed the word like a kiss to the back of my neck through my hair. “Let me. Please.”

  He could have asked me for anything with that soft ‘please’ and I’d have given it to him. I’m pretty sure he knew it, too.

  I stopped trying to turn, and gave myself over to his hands, his mouth, the way he played my body as effortlessly and beautifully as he played the piano. It wasn’t long before I was trembling, my body primed for another orgasm that Morgan, so far, was denying to me. He teased my nipples and clit for a few moments, long enough for my heart to start stuttering and my body to press back against his hardening cock, and then he stopped, caressed my arm, hair, and thigh, his touch just as electric, just as intense, but no longer enough to push me into the light.

  I tried to entice him the best I knew how, with moans and pleas, or even by shifting my legs to open myself to him, or by capturing his hand and drawing it to my mouth, where I sucked on two of his fingers the same way I’d sucked on his cock. It was that last, dirty trick that finally got to him—or maybe he’d just reached his limits as thoroughly as I’d reached mine.

  He finally plunged back inside me, back where he fit so perfectly, back where I wanted him. His body pressed to my back, his hand splayed on my thigh to keep it out of the way and give him access to my core. His first few thrusts were slow, almost tentative, as though he were trying to control himself and make things last.

  At my first push back against his cock, he lost that semblance of control and started to rock inside me in earnest, each push of his hips punctuated by a groan from him and a moan from me. At one particularly strong thrust, my body moved a little too far, and he slipped out of me. I cried out at the loss, then again, now in surprise, when in one smooth movement Morgan pushed me onto my stomach, then drew me up to my hands and knees even as he settled behind me and slipped back in with one snap of his hips.

  Things get a little blurry after that. My memories are flashes of sensations rather than linear events. I remember the smooth feel of the fine cotton sheets when my fists closed over it. I remember the rhythmic, erotic slap of flesh against flesh. I remember the tightness of his hands on my hips, his relentless thrusts, the harsh sound of his panting, and how he pushed deeper inside me when my orgasm took me, remaining still except for his own pleasure shaking him and tearing him apart.

  My muscles turned to jelly. All my body wanted right then was to lie down in contentment, but Morgan didn’t let me. Both his arms wrapped around my waist, and he drew me back so that I knelt in front of him, his chest pressed to my back. When he buried his face in the crook of my neck, I knew, without the shadow of a doubt, what he was about to do. And I was surprised to realize I had no problem with it. I hadn’t really thought about it, or maybe I hadn’t wanted to think about it, but the prospect of his fangs sinking into my skin wasn’t as scary as it should have been. Or maybe my brain was too high on pleasure to interpret danger as such.

  I tilted my head to one side, and even managed the superhuman effort of lifting a hand to brush my hair aside and out of his way.

  “Go ahead,” I said, still panting a little. “If you want to. I trust you.”

  My invitation had the opposite effect of what I intended. Morgan shuddered and lifted his head off my neck. Very gently, he lowered me back to the bed and lay down next to me.

  I turned my head toward him and felt a pang at how still he was, looking up at the ceiling. What I could see of his face showed no emotion, and my heart tightened. I’d blundered and messed everything up again.

  “Don’t be upset,” I whispered, moving closer to him because the lack of contact was intolerable. “I just wanted… to be close to you. Closer. To show you I really mean it. I do love you, Morgan. You don’t have to say the words back, but I wish you’d believe me.”

  When he turned on his side to face me, I held my breath, hoping with all that I was that he’d tell me he did believe. Just that much would have been wonderful. His words fell short of the mark.

  “Angelina… I need to break a promise I made to you.”

  He sounded pained even saying the words. After what had just happened between us, I couldn’t fathom what he meant. For that matter, I couldn’t remember him promising me anything.

  “What do you mean?”

  I can’t say I felt comfortable. It didn’t help when Morgan shifted a little, propping himself up on one elbow so that he was looming over me.

  “I need to show you something,” he murmured. He rested a hand on my cheek, and while it was the most delicate of touches, I felt like I couldn’t move. “I need you to understand why this is a terrible idea.”

  My heart skipped a beat or two.

  “This? What’s this? You and me? Making love? Being in love? Biting?”

  He let out a deep sigh. “All of it.”

  Something changed in his gaze. His eyes darkened, deepened… and I knew, of course I knew, what he was about to do. What I’d asked him to promise he wouldn’t do again.

  I tried to close my eyes, but it was already too late. I was already falling into his gaze. Already trapped into yet one more fantasy.

  *

  It was different this time, and not only because I knew where I was and what was happening. It was also different because, when Morgan had done this before, he either ‘rewound’ time to change what had happened, or the transition had been seamless, so that I’d been unable to tell the difference. This time, the switch was abrupt, and in a blink I was standing in a dark room, with Morgan at my side.

  Well, when I say dark room, that’s not exactly correct. It wasn’t a room per se. I could feel the floor under my feet, but it felt… odd. Not hard like concrete or hardwood. I sort of want to say ‘squishy,’ but that’s not right either. It was like the distorted memory of what a hard surface might be like. When I looked around me, I couldn’t see much—there was no source of light, and I couldn’t see any further than an arm’s length. I certainly couldn’t see any walls or furniture. But I could see myself, as clearly as though in full daylight. I was wearing the same black dress I’d put on for dinner. I looked at Morgan to ask what was going on and did a double take.

  I could see him as clearly as I could see myself, and like me he was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing earlier. What startled me was that he looked… the best way I can put it is, ‘not human.’ Ridges protruded on his cheekbones and forehead, as well as spikes on his head. Even before I glanced at his hands, I knew they’d look more like claws than actual hands. This was what he’d drawn for me on the mirror, and I thought I knew what he was up to.

  “It’s not going to work,” I said. “If you think you’re going to scare me that easily, you’re mistaken. You’re still you. The way you look doesn’t change anything for me.”

  “The way I look?”

  He sounded confused, and he was frowning when he raised a hand toward his face. He stopped short when he saw the state of his hand, and at his look of surprise I had to wonder if he’d appeared that way on purpose. Probably not, because he closed his eyes and his appearance changed, returning to a more human form.

  “No, that’s not what I wanted you to see,” he said.

  He was frowning again, but this time he seemed to be focusing on something—on what, I had no idea. Other than his appearance, nothing had changed since we’d appeared here.

  “What then?” I asked, impatient despite myself. I didn’t like being there. I didn’t like mind trips, period. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  “I can’t.” His frustration pierced through his voice. “I just… can’t, all right? Let me focus, and I’ll show you what happened.”

  “You told me about Melody. What’s so bad that—”

  “I didn’t tell you about Melody. Irene did. A
nd she did a bad job of it on purpose. So I could either let you believe lies or correct them.”

  Under his breath, he muttered something that sounded like a curse. His hands had tightened into fists, and his frown was deeper than ever as he stared into the darkness, and still nothing was happening.

  “What did it matter if I believed a lie?” I asked, confused as to where all this was going.

  His gaze snapped toward me.

  “It matters to me,” he said, now close to growling. “You matter to me.”

  I can’t deny I felt a flutter of wings in my stomach when he said those words. It still wasn’t a declaration of love, but it was a step up from telling Irene he ‘enjoyed my company.’

  Coming closer to him, I wrapped my arms around his neck. I didn’t press my body to his as I so wanted to because I wanted to be able to see his eyes, but we were close enough that I could feel him shiver.

  “If that’s true,” I murmured, “then just tell me, whatever it is. We don’t have to be here.”

  He shook his head, his gaze escaping mine as he peered once more into the darkness around us.

  “You don’t understand. I don’t know how to say it. I can’t say the words. I just can’t. You have no idea how hard it was for me to talk about Melody. This is…”

  I hated to push when he was clearly getting upset over whatever it was, but what else could I do?

  “This is what? Worse than what happened with her?”

  “It’s the reason why I remembered what happened to her. And remembering is the reason why this happened.”

  I repeated that statement in my own mind twice and still couldn’t figure out what it meant.

  “You’re not making much sense, you know,” I murmured, then leaned closer to him. I meant to kiss him, but he disappeared before I touched his lips. My arms were suddenly wrapped around nothing. I let them fall even as I called out, “Morgan! Don’t leave me here alone!”

  It’s not that I was scared, exactly, but really, my surroundings weren’t comforting.

  Or at least, they weren’t until the space around me somehow… thickened. I’m not sure how else to describe it. One moment, there was nothing there but me and darkness. The next, the darkness receded, leaving in its place trees, flowers, and the familiar surroundings of the sun room. Familiar, and yet different. It took me a few seconds to figure out what had changed: the trees were smaller, the orchids less developed. I understood in a flash. Morgan had said he wanted to show me what had happened. He wanted to show me the past. This was straight out of Morgan’s memories. I was standing in the sun room when it’d still been new. But why would he want to show me that?

  Even as I asked myself the question, I heard voices a small distance away. Voices and laughter. With my arms wrapped around myself, I watched Morgan and a woman come closer. He was dressed in a tuxedo, minus the tie which was wrapped around the woman’s head, covering her eyes. She wore a gorgeous cocktail dress in a deep red that complimented her caramel skin tone. Her hair, black and very straight, fell down almost to the middle of her back. Morgan held both her hands as he guided her toward me, and she kept giggling, like she couldn’t help herself.

  “Can I take it off already?” she asked in between two bursts of laughter. “Come on, Morgan. I’ll end up breaking my ankles in these shoes.”

  The shoes were black stilettos with little bows on the back. I’d picked almost the exact same pair from Camille during my shoe shopping spree.

  “Just a second, love,” Morgan said, and I felt a pang at how warm and affectionate his voice sounded.

  I’d always loved his voice, rich and smooth even when he said the most mundane of things, but when he called her ‘love,’ it was something else entirely. And it was more than enough to make me uncomfortable.

  I cleared my throat loudly and said, “All right, I’m not enjoying the show all that much, can we move on to the point of all this already?”

  Nothing happened. Morgan continued to guide the woman forward until they were in the center of the room, just feet away from me. Neither of them appeared to have heard me, and Morgan’s eyes never strayed toward me, remaining instead on the woman the entire time.

  It was odd to see him with another woman and to see him smile that brightly. It was all too clear that he was happy. Was this what he’d wanted me to see? How happy that woman, whoever she was, had made him? I’d only ever seen him like this in daydreams. It hurt to realize he’d never smiled like this because of something I’d said or done.

  I couldn’t bear to stay that close to them, so I stepped away, walking among the trees and orchids. I could still hear them, however, and I soon discovered that, about eight or nine feet away from them, the world turned back to inky blackness.

  As I listened to them despite myself, I soon understood that tonight was the woman’s birthday, and that the sun room was her present. My heart tightened a little at that. I’d always enjoyed the sun room and its flowers; it’d be different now that I knew it had been erected as a gift to another woman.

  “We don’t go back often enough,” I heard Morgan say as they came closer to where I was, probably to look at the orchids there. “So I thought I’d bring a little bit of home to you. It all comes from there.”

  She laughed again at that.

  “You flew it all in from Kauai? How many customs forms did you have to fill out?”

  “Too many. But it was worth it just to see you smile.”

  Kauai. Morgan had mentioned the island when I’d asked him where he’d go. He’d said he hadn’t been back there in two decades. He’d also said there was no one left there that he’d known. I still didn’t know what was the point of all this, but some pieces of the puzzle were starting to click together. I wasn’t sure I liked the image that was beginning to form.

  And I definitely didn’t like that woman. There was nothing wrong about her. In retrospect, she seemed kind of sweet. But why Morgan would want to show me one of his exes—why he’d want me to be there as they kissed in her sun room—I couldn’t fathom. I tried to move away from them again, but it didn’t do any good.

  “Are you ready for your last present?” Morgan said, and even though my back was to him, I could hear his smile bursting from every word.

  “Another present? You’re spoiling me!”

  “You absolutely deserve to be spoiled. Come on, it’s down in the bedroom.”

  “Is it? Are you sure it’s not right here?”

  Morgan laughed. In my mind, I could see her hands all over him. This was starting to become the next worst thing to a nightmare.

  “Morgan!” I called out, looking up to the glass ceiling above me, and the stars beyond it. “Enough already. Get me out of here.”

  But Morgan either didn’t hear or he didn’t listen.

  “You can have that, too,” he told the woman, now with a breathy quality to his voice that came close to a moan and made me clench my teeth even tighter. “But that’s not what I meant. I have something else for you. I know how much you hate living in a museum—”

  “I love living with you,” she interrupted him. “That’s what matters.”

  “Well, I can’t really change the rest of the house, but the bedroom at least is mine to do with as I please…”

  So, not only the sun room had been built for her, but Morgan’s room had been furnished for her as well. Wonderful. By the time I got out of this fantasy, every room of the mansion might hold unappealing memories. Was that what Morgan was up to?

  Caught in my dark thoughts, I didn’t notice when their voices faded away behind me, at the same time as the sun room gradually melted back into darkness. When nothing was left, Morgan reappeared at my side.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to get from all this,” I snapped at him. “Or are you just trying to demonstrate how cruel you can be?”

  He pinched his lips very tightly for a second before answering.

  “That’s not… That’s not what I wanted you to see. I got c
aught in my own memories. I couldn’t stop it once it started.”

  It made me feel a little better that he’d not tried to hurt me on purpose, but only a little, and I couldn’t stop myself from snarking away.

  “Oh, good, here I was thinking you wanted me to know how much happier you were with your ex.”

  He flinched, and I was sorry, but after all he’d brought me there. And left me alone to witness his past, whether that had been on purpose or not.

  “Can we get to the point already?” I asked, wrapping my arms around myself again. The darkness was beginning to feel a little oppressive. “Or just get me out of here. I’m not really enjoying myself.”

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured. He brushed a hand against my shoulder. “It’s about to get worse.”

  I would have asked what the hell that was supposed to mean, but the darkness was thickening again, transforming, this time, into Morgan’s bedroom.

  Morgan and the girl were in bed together.

  Worse. Definitely.

  Grinding my teeth, I turned my back to the bed and started for the door, but I couldn’t grasp the handle to open it. My hand just passed right through it as though I were a ghost. I figured I’d just walk through the door, but that didn’t work and I bounced back. I couldn’t go anywhere. I was trapped with the man I loved and his ex.

  Except, right now, she wasn’t his ex. They were very much together.

  The silver lining, if I can call it that, was that they seemed to be finished. Seething, I peeked at them; they were lying in each other’s arms, much like Morgan and I were in the real world. If the sun room scene had hurt, this was getting close to torture.