Ward of the Vampire: Complete Serial

by Kallysten

  A really screwed up therapist, but it’s the intent that counts, isn’t it?

  She’d made him take care of someone after he’d isolated himself for years. She’d made him open up after he’d been keeping everything bottled up. She’d done what she could, along with Miss Delilah, and I had helped, without realizing it. And now they’d set me free, so presumably they believed I’d done all I could for Morgan.

  And that was a check mark in the ‘don’t leave’ column, because at this point I hardly wanted to do what the two of them expected of me.

  Although Miss Delilah had given me a way not to leave if I didn’t want to by forbidding me from telling Morgan I was free…

  And I was thinking in circles. That was not particularly helpful.

  I lay down on the bed, still in my robe, and closed my eyes. I’d meant to clear my head for a moment, but I ended up falling asleep. Strangely enough, that turned out to be helpful. When I woke up at dawn, I didn’t allow myself to think. I just acted.

  My feelings for Morgan hadn’t changed. Me leaving like this had nothing to do with what I felt for him. It had to do with what he didn’t feel for me, what, maybe, he wasn’t able to feel for anyone anymore. What he wouldn’t be able to feel until he faced his past for himself.

  So, I dressed up in the warmest clothes I had. I packed up the rest of my things, including as many shoes as I could fit inside my suitcase. I ended up leaving most of them behind, as well as the two gowns I’d worn to Morgan’s parties. I gave a last look at the room, tried my very best not to let my mind drift toward Morgan, and I stepped out of my suite.

  It was so early that it never crossed my mind that I might run into Stephen.

  Of course, I did.

  I don’t know if he heard me as I was walking past the kitchen or if it was a random happenstance, but the door opened, and there he was. I was startled enough that I paused, and I could see his gaze running over me, stopping on my suitcase. When his eyebrows twitched, for just a second, toward a frown, I knew that he’d guessed exactly what I was doing. He didn’t ask when I’d been released from the compulsion, or how. He also didn’t ask why I was leaving.

  “Do you need a coat, Miss Angelina?” he asked instead in a perfectly emotionless voice. “It’s rather cold outside.”

  I did my best to hide a wince. He didn’t sound like the man I’d started to consider my friend anymore. He sounded like the butler devoted to Morgan I’d met my first night in the mansion.

  “No, I’ll… I’ll be fine.”

  A coat would have been great, but I wanted to leave as soon as possible and avoid the chance of Morgan waking up. And also avoid having enough time to rethink my decision.

  Stephen nodded once and said, “Do you need a cab? Or I can drive you wherever you’re going.”

  Another offer I’d have liked to accept, but I couldn’t, not when I was scared Stephen would drop his calm demeanor and ask me point blank why I was running away.

  “It’s not necessary,” I said. “But thank you. And goodbye.”

  He didn’t reply. I started to walk away, and I could have sworn I could feel his eyes on me. Before I reached the end of the hallway, I had to turn back and ask, “Will you please tell him goodbye from me?”

  I hadn’t meant to say it, but I couldn’t stop myself. Maybe I should have written a note for Morgan after all. Not even an explanation, just a goodbye. Something. Anything.

  “So, he doesn’t know you’re leaving,” Stephen said, and now his voice was bursting with disapproval. “You were complaining about him leaving before the conversation is over. How is this any better?”

  Insert knife. Twist.

  “You don’t understand,” I heard myself say. I sounded like I was pleading, like I needed Stephen to get it when, in fact, the one person who mattered was Morgan. “It’s better this way. Easier for both of us.”

  Easier…

  Only when the word passed my lips did I realize what I was saying, and I was absolutely horrified.

  How upset had I been when Morgan admitted to taking the easy way into fantasy-land? How many times had I thrown that word back in his face? And here I was, doing the same thing he’d done to me, taking a step back because I didn’t know what else to do, didn’t know how to help him. Like Stephen had pointed out, I was pulling away from the conversation without caring what Morgan still had to say.

  Could I do that?

  Well, yes, I certainly could. I was packed and ready to go, so it wasn’t a matter of being able to.

  Could I do that and live with myself? Or was I going to regret it as soon as I stepped into the street?

  Maybe… maybe I owed Morgan more than that. More than a shameful, wordless sneaking away the morning after. Maybe I owed him a goodbye. Maybe even an explanation. But if I talked to him, would I be able to leave? Would he let me leave? Would I even still want to?

  Maybe I could give him a call later. Or write him a letter, a real one, put everything I felt and thought on paper, all the things I wasn’t sure I’d be able to say aloud. It was always easier for me to write things down, so I could go back, pick the best words, add in things or delete other parts. I had a tendency to ramble at times—I’m sure you’ve noticed by now—but on paper I always managed to say what it was that I meant to say, even when I wasn’t sure what that could possibly be when I first put pen to paper. When I talked to Morgan, on the other hand, I always seemed to get derailed before I could get to the important part.

  I stood there, in the hallway, watching Stephen without really seeing him, biting my lips as I tried to figure out whether I’d made the right decision or whether I was acting too fast.

  In the end, the question was whether I was going to take the coward’s way out or not.

  I’d been scared quite a few times since coming to the mansion. But I’d never been scared of Morgan. And I’d never thought of myself as a coward.

  Homeward

  I didn’t run away.

  In case you were wondering.

  I had half a dozen excellent reasons to leave the Ward mansion—a gorgeous house, half residence, half museum overlooking Central Park. For one thing, I’d been trapped in it against my will for two weeks. I’d been threatened here. Physically assaulted by a deranged woman. I’d damn well near died a couple times. I’d had my head messed with in pleasant and not-so-pleasant ways. I’d started to get claustrophobic to a degree I’d never experienced before.

  And I’d fallen in love with Morgan Ward.

  That, too, was a reason to leave.

  All of it was a monumentally bad idea. It wasn’t about the fact that we’d all but been forced into each other’s arms by his meddling, psychopathic family. It wasn’t even about the fact that he was a vampire. By now, you must have realized I didn’t give a damn about that. Maybe I should have, maybe him being something other than human should have terrified me—or at least troubled me—but truly, honestly, I didn’t care.

  What I did care about, what the deal breaker was for me, the one reason why I thought I should leave despite being in love with him was this: I didn’t believe he was ready to be in a relationship, with me or anyone else. He still hurt over a past relationship—over multiple past relationships—and I didn’t know if there was anything I could do to help him get past that other than give him time and space.

  So I should have left. I’d been all set to leave, in fact, freed at last from the compulsion that had kept me trapped. My suitcase was packed and my heart resolved.

  And I’d have been a complete and absolute coward if I had left like that.

  Yes, he still hurt over his past relationships. He hadn’t moved on from either of the last two women he’d loved. For that matter, he had killed both of them, which really should have been one more checkmark in the ‘leave now’ column. But hurting or not, trapped in the past or not, I knew he felt something for me. He hadn’t named it, he hadn’t admitted to any feelings the way I had, but we’d been together, he’d been inside my bo
dy and mind, and I refused—I completely and utterly refused—to believe for one second that it had meant nothing to him. He hadn’t just fucked me. He’d made love to me. And then he’d tried to scare me off and prove to me that he was nothing more than damaged goods. Dangerous damaged goods, at that. I’d almost fallen for it.

  But like I said, I wasn’t a coward. Or I didn’t want to be one. In the end, the result was the same.

  I dragged my suitcase back to my suite, kicked off my shoes, and tiptoed through the hallways back to Morgan’s room. I have no idea why I tried to be so quiet. There were only two other people in the mansion. Stephen, the butler, was awake, as I knew quite well since he’d been the one to stop me in my tracks and make me question my runaway plan. And Morgan… If he was still asleep, no doubt he’d wake once I entered his room.

  Just the same, I was as quiet as I could when I pushed the door open and stepped inside. In the bluish light cast by his alarm clock, I approached the bed. Morgan was on his side, facing away from me, the sheet riding low on his hips. I climbed in and lay down behind him, winding an arm around his waist. I pressed my forehead to the back of his neck and breathed in, taking in his scent. His usual cologne was little more than a faded memory. Stronger was the smell of him, musky, masculine—the smell of sex, too, lingering from our night together.

  The moment I curled my arm around him, he turned to stone against me, dispelling any doubt I might have had that he was asleep.

  We stayed like that for a long time. I kept hoping he’d turn toward me, kiss me, maybe, or even do more, and we wouldn’t need to have this conversation quite yet. Wishful thinking.

  “You didn’t leave,” he finally said, and that was the very opposite of what I expected.

  If you’d asked me what I thought he’d say, I’d have bet he’d accuse me of leaving his bed when I’d said I wouldn’t run away from him even after what he’d showed me of his past. That would have been the logical thing for him to say. After all, I had left; my return didn’t change that.

  But when he said those three words, ‘you didn’t leave,’ I realized he wasn’t talking about the bed. He wasn’t turning things around and commenting on my return. It sounded much different. What he was saying was, ‘you didn’t leave the mansion like I expected you to. How come?’

  Which meant that he knew I was free to leave. And he hadn’t told me he knew.

  Granted, I hadn’t told him about Miss Delilah’s visit and the fact that she had freed me from her compulsion, but only because she’d placed me under another compulsion and forbidden me to tell him.

  So how did he know?

  “How did you know?”

  “That you didn’t leave? Your presence here right now is sort of a giveaway.”

  I tightened my arm around him and raked my teeth over his shoulder. Using teeth on a vampire. Smart, that’s me.

  “Don’t pretend to be obtuse,” I said, ignoring his hiss. “You know what I mean. How did you know I could leave?”

  He gave a small shrug. Feeling his body shift against mine should not have felt that good—and yet.

  “This is my home,” he said. “Do you think anything can happen here without my knowledge? Like my dear sister visiting and opening the doors of your gilded cage? Honestly, Angelina. Shouldn’t you know me better by now?”

  He had a point. I should have seen it coming. After all, I knew he had a PI tracking her, so I should have guessed he’d know she’d returned to New York and had come to the mansion.

  “You knew the entire time?” I asked in a murmur. “Last night? When I asked you to have dinner with me?”

  “Yes.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around that, but it proved difficult. I’d thought I was lying to him, if only by omission, but he had known all along. Was that why he’d agreed to dinner, why he’d taken me to his bed for real this time, not just as a fantasy? Because he knew it might be his last chance? Our last chance?

  And then it struck me.

  “You were saying goodbye,” I breathed. “All of it. It was goodbye, wasn’t it? And you even tried to make sure I would actually leave. That’s why you tried to scare me away by showing me that memory of yours. You’re such a fucking jerk!”

  Tears prickled my eyes, and I buried my face at the back of his neck, tightening my arm around him at the same time.

  “Mixed messages,” he commented. “Calling people jerks and then clinging to them? Not particularly helpful.”

  “Because you’re helpful?” I countered, my words muffled against him. “When you make love to me one moment and then scare me the next, that’s not mixed messages?”

  He laid his arm over mine, entwining our fingers together.

  “You’re still here, so I’m assuming the scaring part didn’t work very well.”

  I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself. I was mad at him, mad at myself, mad at Miss Delilah and Irene and quite possibly the entire world—but I wasn’t sure I even knew why I was mad anymore.

  “I almost left this morning,” I confided when my thoughts had quieted down. “I packed and everything.”

  He’d relaxed against me, but now he tensed again.

  “And then,” I continued, “I realized that’s something you’d do. Leave without a word when the conversation isn’t over. I’ve been so mad at you for doing that before. I couldn’t do it to you.”

  “You should have,” he murmured. “It’d have been easier.”

  And there was that word again. God, I hated it, and I hated hearing Morgan say it even more. Easier wasn’t right. Easier was a cop-out, and in the end it made everything more complicated. Pulling back a little, I tugged him onto his back so I could look at his eyes, make him look at me and see how much I meant my words when I said, “I don’t want easier. I want you.”

  Before he could answer with something asinine, I pressed my mouth against his. I didn’t mean it to be anything more than a chaste kiss, but when his lips parted under mine, the invitation was too good to refuse. I touched the tip of my tongue to the curve of his mouth then slipped inside, propping myself a little more securely over him as I kissed him, deep and slow, the kind of kiss we might have shared if I’d stayed in his bed and we’d woken up together, with no unsettling discussion hanging over us.

  Every soft touch of his tongue alongside mine sent sparks down my spine, and I knew that if I didn’t stop now, the conversation would be replaced by something much more pleasurable. As appealing as the thought was, we still needed to talk. So, with immeasurable regret, I ended the kiss and rested my head on his chest, my ear above his silent heart.

  “I didn’t run away,” I said, pushing past the aching lump in my throat. “But I will leave. I think I have to.”

  His fingers had started to run through my hair. They paused briefly, then resumed the slow stroking.

  “I know,” he said. “If you stayed, I’d end up killing—”

  “Don’t,” I cut in. My hand was curled around his bicep, and without thinking I tightened my grip until my nails were digging into his skin. “That’s not why. I’m not scared of that. I don’t believe that. That’s not the reason why I need to leave.”

  He was silent for a little while. I let him, waiting for him to ask, “Why, then?”

  “Because you’re not ready to be with someone.”

  It hurt to say it, but I knew it was true. I knew it with the same certainty I knew the sky was blue, the same absolute clarity that I knew I loved him.

  “You haven’t let go of them, and until you do, I don’t think you can be with me, or anyone else.”

  His hand fell away from my hair. He stopped moving. It might as well have been a slab of marble under me, engraved with two names, two sets of dates four centuries apart.

  “I don’t mean you should stop loving them,” I added hurriedly. “But you still feel guilty about what happened to them and—”

  “What happened to them?” he interrupted me in a cold voice. “I happened to them. Me. Of
course I feel guilty.”

  He tried to push me off him, but I clung to him, shifting my body so that I all but lay on top of him, my head now raised so I could look at him again. His eyes were nothing but emptiness.

  “Accidents,” I said in a clear voice. “What happened to them were accidents. You said you didn’t mean to kill Melody. And you said you don’t even remember what went on with… with your other lady friend. They were accidents. Accidents happen. They happened to them, and they happened to you, too. You were hurt, too.”

  He let out a bark of laughter, full of a bitterness that made me cringe.

  “I was hurt,” he repeated flatly. “They died. It’s hardly the same thing.”

  “But it’s still an accident,” I insisted. “And punishing you for it for twenty years—”

  “Now you sound like Irene.”

  I swallowed back my dislike for his maker and kept my eyes locked with his, as much as I could in the poorly-lit room.

  “Maybe she has a point,” I said. “Maybe she was right about everything. About trapping me here to make you realize you can still care for people. About saying you should move on. And about letting me go since I can’t help you.”

  My words surprised him, I could tell. Truth be told, they surprised me as well. Irene was not my favorite person, far from it, and hearing myself give her credit… it wasn’t any easier to hear it than it was to say it. But what I thought of the woman or her methods didn’t matter. I understood what she’d been after. And I understood that she cared for Morgan as much as I did.

  I didn’t know how I expected Morgan to reply. I knew what I wanted him to say—that yes, I did help him, and he wanted me to stay and help him move on—but I knew how unlikely it was. So I waited, holding my breath, wondering if this would be another one of those instances when Morgan ran away because he didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken.

  He did not run away, not any more than I had. Instead, he cupped my face in both his hands and kissed me. He kissed me as delicately as though I were one of the fragile, priceless porcelain pieces on display on the first floor of the house. He trailed his lips against my chin, my cheeks, my eyelids, and finally my mouth.