Ward of the Vampire: Complete Serial

by Kallysten

  “So, do you like your gift?” Morgan asked in his melted-caramel-and-chocolate-fudge-sexy-voice.

  “It’s a really nice bedroom set, yes,” the girl answered.

  “I meant what happened in the bed.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  They had—I kid you not—a tickle fight. Like kids. Complete with peals of laughter and gasping calls for a truce.

  Something inside me ached at seeing Morgan so playful. On the one hand, it was wonderful to see him happy, laughing, relaxed—to know that he could be all those things. That was, after all, what I wanted to share with him. The problem was, he wasn’t happy because of me, wasn’t laughing with me, wasn’t wrapping his arms around me to hold me close. I wanted all that for him, with him, but I had no idea what I had to do to make it happen. She didn’t have the same problem.

  Not that I could do anything about it at the moment.

  “I love the new decor,” the girl said once she’d caught her breath. “And I love the green house. And I loved the play and the restaurant and the dress. And most of all, I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from groaning aloud and had to turn away as they kissed again. I’d been very careful not to demand this kind of declaration from Morgan, but come on, who doesn’t want to hear the person they love say the words back? Hearing him say it now to someone else…

  It hurt. Oh, God, how much it hurt.

  And it didn’t matter that I knew this was only a memory, and that the woman, whoever she might be, was not in Morgan’s life anymore. It hurt just as much as if it was all happening in the present. Even remembering it now, my heart feels constricted, like a weight is pressing down on my chest. I know it’s irrational, and I don’t begrudge him having loved before he met me, but it’s one thing to know the person you love has a past, and quite different to experience that past as though you’d been there.

  I continued to face the wall, my entire mind focused on the tiny brush strokes I could see in the paint so that I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the kissing noises and quiet moans rising from the bed. They were just making out and cuddling, but that was already too much as far as I was concerned.

  “Happy birthday,” Morgan finally whispered.

  “The best birthday ever,” she replied. “But there’s one way you could make it even better.”

  “Oh? Did I miss something?” He sounded genuinely upset at the thought.

  “No, no, you were perfect. You always are. And that’s why I’ve decided. Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean…”

  I glanced back toward them at that moment. Morgan’s eyes were as wide as his smile. The woman laughed softly and caressed his cheek.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  And they started kissing again. Absolutely wonderful. When I got out of there, I was going to give Morgan a piece of my mind. Or maybe knee him in the balls. It wouldn’t hurt him half as much as I was hurting now. At least this time the kissing didn’t last.

  “When?” Morgan asked when he broke away from her mouth.

  “How about now?”

  As I pushed past my discomfort, annoyance, and pain, what was left was confusion. She’d said yes, and Morgan seemed to know exactly what she meant, but all I could think of was that she’d agreed to marry him and that didn’t quite work with that last answer. It was the middle of the night, they’d be hard pressed to get married right then. When the girl added a few words, however, I understood.

  “So both my birthdays will be on the same day,” she said, and I knew what that second birthday was about. What she was agreeing to. She wanted to become a vampire.

  The whole thing was getting worse and worse.

  “Well, technically you won’t rise until tomorrow night,” Morgan said, bopping her on the nose with a finger. It was absolutely adorable. I felt like gagging. “So that will be your birthday.”

  She grinned.

  “So… my birthdays will be one after the other? Two days of presents and surprises?”

  No, I wanted to shout at her. Not two birthdays. You’ll only celebrate your vampire birthday. Didn’t Morgan teach you anything?

  He’d told me about that, but apparently he hadn’t told her. It was completely ridiculous how happy it made me to realize that he’d shared things with me that he hadn’t shared with her. Yes, I was jealous of a memory. But again, it was hard to think of it as a memory when it was happening right in front of me, when they were both close enough that I could have touched them—if I’d been corporeal.

  Morgan didn’t tell her that vampire custom dictated she wouldn’t celebrate her human birth anymore. Instead, he laughed softly and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.

  “For you,” he said, “anything.”

  Her smile wavered a little, and her voice dropped to a whisper when she asked, “Will it hurt?”

  Morgan’s fingertips caressed her neck. Without thinking, I brought a hand up to my own and touched where he was touching her.

  “Only a little when I bite,” he said. “Then it’ll be like falling asleep.”

  She nodded once, but she wasn’t done.

  “Will I be awake when I…” She gulped. “When I have to drink your blood?”

  Her smile was completely gone by now, and I wasn’t the only one who had noticed.

  “If you’re not sure,” Morgan started, but she stopped him by pressing her fingers to his lips.

  “No, I am. I am sure. It’s just…” She shrugged. “The drinking blood part is still a little freaky.”

  He pursed his lips against her fingers in a kiss.

  “You won’t really taste it,” he murmured. “Not this time. You’ll already be floating. And after you wake up, you’ll never think it’s freaky again, I promise.”

  She was quiet for a little while, her gaze searching his, and I knew exactly what she was seeing: Morgan’s confidence, his love, his excitement, all the things I could hear in every word he said to her.

  “All right,” she finally said, and now her voice was stronger, more self-assured. “I’m ready.”

  Morgan’s fingers combed through her hair, pushing it back behind her ear.

  “I love you. More than I ever loved anyone.”

  The second he finished saying it, the scene flashed to black. I couldn’t help but feel relieved that I wouldn’t have to see the rest. Morgan’s image flickered to life next to me, and I opened my mouth, ready to yell at him or curse him for toying with me like this. My recriminations faded from my mind when he said in a pained voice, “That’s when it started. When I started to remember.”

  I frowned at him.

  “What?”

  But Morgan was gone already. Or rather, he was back in bed, and the bedroom was back around me. He was very still for a second or two, a confused expression passing over his features. He shook his head and leaned forward. I held my breath when he pressed his mouth to her neck. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off them, and so I witnessed his fangs piercing her skin, saw her shudder against him, and heard her quiet gasp of pain.

  The bedroom melted into darkness again, and I let out a shaky breath. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or frustrated that I wouldn’t get to see the end of this scene. I was probably a little bit of both. Part of me didn’t want to see it and even wished I hadn’t seen any of it, but at the same time I had wondered about how this kind of thing happened, so I felt a little bit bereft at not getting to see the full event.

  “That’s when I remembered Melody.”

  Morgan’s words echoed around me before his image appeared at my side, and I jumped, startled. I looked at him, but his form was blurred, as though I were looking at him through frosted glass.

  “I’d been having flashes for years,” he continued, “but I could never piece it together. Right then, in that moment, when I started drinking, it all slammed back into my mind. All of it. Melody. How I
’d drained her. How I’d made her a vampire. How I’d killed her. I still had my fangs in her neck. I was still drawing on her blood. I blacked out. Not fainted, just… I have no idea what happened. I just know I killed her. And this time, there was no bringing her back like I’d brought back Melody. By the time I got a grip on my mind again, she was gone.”

  He didn’t show that aftermath to me, and for that I was grateful.

  With a flash of light, we were back in his bedroom and out of his memories.

  *

  Seconds passed. Then minutes.

  Neither Morgan nor I moved. We were on our sides, facing each other. His eyes were closed, although I strongly doubted he was asleep. I watched his features and couldn’t help but see the tension in his face. After I’d seen him so happy, it was rather glaring how tense he was. Glaring, and more than a little bit heartbreaking. We’d connected tonight. Not just the sex, but everything—being together, talking, Morgan opening to me without being forced to but rather because he wanted to. Or at least, I’d thought we were connecting. Now I knew that something had passed between us, yes, but he’d still been holding back. I hadn’t made him as happy as he made me. It was not a pleasant realization.

  “Now you can truly say you understand me,” he murmured, and as quiet as his words were, they startled me enough that I shivered. He opened his eyes; they were dark, lifeless. “Or don’t you?”

  “I do, yes.” My voice sounded like I’d been shouting much too loudly for much too long. Maybe because I’d been trying so hard to reach him, and even when he was lying right next to me, he felt much too far. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  Even as I said it, it dawned on me. Three times. He’d gone through this ordeal—killing the woman he loved—three times. Twice Melody, once the other woman. And because he’d been compelled to forget about Melody, for him it had all basically happened at the same time. How painful had that been? I could take a much better guess than I wished I was able to. I’d seen his face at the moment when he remembered killing Melody and realized he’d killed… I didn’t even know her name. I wasn’t sure I did want to know. Regardless of her name, her death, on top of Melody’s, had shattered him.

  Ever so gently, I reached out to him and laid my hand on his cheek. I stroked my thumb under his eye. He wasn’t crying, not now, but I remembered tears rolling down his face in his memory.

  I slid my hand to his neck, then his back, and shifted closer to him, pressing my body alongside his. For a few seconds, he remained still against me, rigid and uncomfortable. Little by little, he started to relax. He even rested the lightest of hands at my waist.

  “You’re not… scared?” he murmured.

  I snuggled my head under his chin, pressing my face to his collarbone. He smelled good. Like sex. Like the two of us together.

  “Scared of what?” I asked. “You? You wouldn’t hurt me.”

  His fingers briefly tightened at my waist.

  “I didn’t want to hurt them either, and—”

  “Don’t.”

  The pain and guilt in his voice felt like they reverberated through his entire body, causing it to tremble against mine. I held him a little closer.

  “What happened to them…”

  How could I word it? How could I touch such a delicate subject without being hurtful? Was that even possible? Never mind walking on eggshells; this was like unicycling on the rim of an active volcano. I didn’t feel like my balance was good enough.

  “You’re not going to hurt me.” If I’d ever sounded entirely convinced of anything in my life, it was now. “I know you won’t. You don’t even want to bite me.”

  His fingertips tingled up my back, ending at the crook of my neck. He caressed the skin there in slow spirals, and a frisson coursed down my spine.

  “Who says I don’t want to?” he breathed. “I do. God, you have no idea how much I want to taste you. But I can’t. I can’t let myself do it. Not for a second. Because I don’t know what will happen if I do. Maybe I’d black out again. Drain you without meaning to. Kill you. You’re not scared, but you should be.”

  He’d rolled onto his back as he spoke, ignoring my efforts to keep him against me. His eyes were closed again, and I couldn’t help but think back of the first time I’d been in his bed, when Miss Delilah had compelled me to sleep there. He’d been light years away from me that night. And tonight… maybe he wasn’t that far away anymore, but it was a close thing.

  “Is that what this was all about?” I said as I slowly understood. “Scaring me so I won’t love you anymore? Pushing me away again? Well, tough luck. I’m not going to fall out of love with a snap of your fingers. So deal with it.”

  I shifted closer to him again, lying against his side, resting my head on his shoulder. He let me and didn’t even try to argue anymore. Once again, however, he was tense, his muscles knotted and hard as a rock under me. I pretended I either didn’t notice or didn’t care, but I did. I noticed, and I cared. It was just more proof of how uncomfortable he could be around me.

  If you’d asked me, I’d have said he wouldn’t fall asleep, not when he was so wound up. I’d have been wrong. It took a little while, but I guess the emotional roller coaster he’d subjected himself to in the fantasy-slash-memory finally took its toll on him. When I felt him relax against me, it was different from earlier, when he’d accepted my embrace. This time, his body was yielding to something much more primal: exhaustion.

  I tried to tell myself that it was nice he could fall asleep in my arms, but the truth was, he didn’t seem aware of my presence. After a few minutes, he even rolled away from me and onto his stomach.

  When he did, I started to shake.

  I’d told him I wasn’t scared, and it was true when I said it, but something occurred to me out of the blue. Something that sent my heart to a gallop and threatened to take my breath away.

  This was the very same bed Morgan had bought for his girlfriend’s birthday.

  The very same bed where she had died.

  And as my mind replayed that memory, more realizations burst into my mind like popped balloons. She’d probably never even known what was happening to her. She’d died when she was at her happiest, thinking that she’d spend the rest of eternity with the man she loved, a man who had showered her with thoughtful gifts on her birthday, proving how well he knew her, how much he loved her. Or had she realized something was wrong? Had she pleaded in her last moments, begged Morgan to snap out of it? Had she died cursing him with her last breath, or still in love until the very end?

  And more realizations still.

  Stephen had told me Morgan had spent twenty years without cultivating relationships other than for business. Twenty years sleeping in this room he had furnished for her, sleeping in the bed where she’d died. Twenty years looking at himself in the mirror in the bathroom and calling himself a monster—other than the one in my suite, it was the only mirror I’d seen in the mansion. Twenty years spending time up in the sun room, tending to the flowers that had been meant for her.

  Twenty years since her death, and every moment of it had been spent taking a whip to his own back.

  I understood now, like he’d said. I understood that he hadn’t been trying to scare me. No, it went deeper than that. He’d been showing me who he was under the masks and affectations. He’d been showing me that he truly believed what he’d said earlier that night: he didn’t think he deserved to be happy. He thought he deserved to be punished, over and over, for killing the two women he’d loved. He was, deep down, to a level I could barely comprehend, broken.

  My plan to show him we could share something real, in retrospect, was laughable. Sleeping with me, in the real world or the dream one, wasn’t going to fix him, or heal him, or make him forgive himself. I didn’t know what I could do to help him—I didn’t even know if there was anything to do. Maybe it was something he had to do for himself. He’d talked of going to Hawaii; maybe that was what he needed to do to mourn properly, to
let go of the girl, and I knew he wouldn’t go until I left the mansion.

  Inch by inch, I slid to the side of the bed until I could sit up, then stand. I was afraid to wake him up, afraid that he’d believe I was scared after all—afraid that I’d have to explain and reopen his wounds. When I looked back and checked on him, however, he hadn’t moved, and although he was facing away, I was convinced he was still asleep. I picked up the blanket that had fallen to the floor, wrapped it around myself the best I could, and sneaked out of the room.

  I was wrong about him being asleep. I wouldn’t know that for a little while, but I was wrong. He was awake, and he let me go. One more way he found of punishing himself.

  I hurried back to my room, a little scared that I’d come across Stephen and have to explain myself, but I reached my suite without seeing him. I cleaned up first, hoping a nice shower would help me clear my head from too many conflicting thoughts. I can’t say it worked, and by the time I came out, wrapped in a robe, I had almost talked myself out of leaving.

  My main issue was that I didn’t want Morgan to think he’d won. Wait, that sounds really childish when I say it that way. Let me correct that. I didn’t want him to think he’d succeeded in frightening me into leaving. I’ve said it already, but it bears repeating: I wasn’t afraid of him. I’d have done just about anything to prove it to him. And I’d have done a lot more to prove to him that I loved him.

  And leaving, I tried to remind myself, was ultimately a proof of my love. By getting out of the mansion, I freed him to leave as well, with the hope that he’d let himself mourn.

  A little voice asked why I thought he’d do it now when he hadn’t allowed himself to get over those two women’s deaths in two decades. The answer was that I didn’t know for sure, but I was beginning to understand the point of Irene’s game. She hadn’t been exactly subtle when she’d thrown me in his arms and told him to ‘get over it’ or even when she’d laid out his history with Melody in the open and basically dared him to set the record straight. I didn’t like her methods or being used as a pawn, but at least now I did get that she’d been playing therapist.