They walked into the house and Sebastian gave the door a shove behind him, the crash echoing around the vast property.
Serenity cringed. “Sebastian. Talk to me. I thought you understood?”
She spoke to the broad expanse of his back. He shrugged off his jacket and threw it on the banister at the bottom of the big, curved staircase.
He spun to face her. “What do you want me to talk about, Serenity? You said no. You gave me your reasons. Would anything I say change your mind? I doubt it. So what is there left to say?”
“I love you. Not wanting to marry you doesn’t change that.”
“You married someone like Jackson, but you won’t marry me.”
She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Oh, for God’s sake. Don’t say this is about some kind of male pride?”
“I’m sorry, Serenity. I just need some space. Maybe I got my feelings hurt and I should get over it, but right now I need to be by myself.”
Serenity watched as he snatched his jacket back up and headed back to the front door.
“Sebastian ...” She called after him, but no sooner had his name left her lips, the door seemed to fly open of its own accord and he’d vanished.
Chapter Two
Sebastian had the unsettling notion he was acting like an overgrown, sulky teenager, rather than a two-hundred-year-old vampire, but he couldn’t seem to shake his bad mood.
And a vampire in a bad mood was never a good thing to be around.
He ran down his driveway, leapt over the gates and headed into the city. The desire to kill caught him in its grip, tightening his muscles with a burning strength and heightening his senses so his nostrils flared and his ears strained. It was a natural response to extreme emotion—wanting to lose himself in the rush of blood rather than deal with the issue—but he tried to limit his kills to the bare minimum he needed to survive. Killing someone simply because Serenity had upset him was out of character.
It wasn’t like him.
He flew across the city, crossing Santa Monica Freeway, toward the ocean. As he approached Venice Beach, he slowed to human pace. Though late evening, the place thronged with the area’s eclectic mix of locals and tourists.
He needed to feed at least once a month. To do any less would cause him to lose control over his desire for blood. He couldn’t even imagine ever wanting to feed from his family—he found the thought abhorrent—and he’d never risk getting to the point where wanting to do such a thing might become a possibility.
Sebastian sat on the low wall running between the beach and the promenade, finding a spot not already occupied by someone touting paintings or handmade jewelry to the tourists. He knew he looked out of place wearing his customary tailored suit, but what did he care? Serenity often teased him about his total lack of concern for fashion. She’d even gone as far as buying him a pair of jeans, but upon presenting him with the pants, he’d only needed to raise his eyebrows. She’d laughed and bundled the offending item away, never to be seen again.
His boredom for the changing fashion over the centuries wasn’t his only reason for his choice of style. Over the years, he’d learned people were more inclined to trust someone who was smartly dressed. While he didn’t doubt that he caught peoples’ eyes with his striking dark hair and pale skin, wearing a suit made him more respectable. He often wondered, if he had been wearing ripped jeans and a leather jacket the day he’d met Serenity, would she have even taken his hand?
The thought of Serenity roiled something dark and uncomfortable deep inside of him. To have a proposal of marriage turned down was humiliating for any man—mortal or immortal.
He couldn’t get past the thought that when Jackson asked her, she’d accepted. There had probably been kisses, laughter and tears of happiness. All the things Sebastian imagined would have happened when he asked her. Not the awkward silence he’d experienced. She’d been confident enough to think of forever with Jackson but not with him.
Perhaps he was arrogant, but he never even considered the possibility of her saying no.
Restless—a grinding desire for blood still working at his nerve endings—Sebastian got to his feet and began to walk down the promenade. Two young guys with long hair and low slung, baggy shorts raced toward him on skateboards. He stepped deftly out of their way. Another man with dreadlocks walked down, a bull terrier on a chain lead. The dog darted out at people only to be reined back in by its owner with a sharp tug which left the animal rearing up on its hind legs.
As Sebastian approached, the dog fell back against its owner’s ankles, trembling as he walked by. Animals often sensed his unnatural state long before humans even caught a glimmer that something paranormal had passed near.
He would need to go home and talk to her. This shouldn’t change anything between them, not after everything they’d been through. He knew she loved him. Marriage was a silly, inconsequential human idea anyway.
Except he’d been married once before and, unlike Serenity’s negative view on the institution, he’d liked being married. He liked the idea of them being joined in the eyes of the law. In particular, he liked that Elizabeth would be contained within their union. At the moment, Serenity still shared Jackson’s surname and the fact left a bitter taste in his mouth. When he’d tried to broach the subject with Serenity, she’d shrugged off his concerns, saying it was only a name and the one she’d had the whole of her adult life. Perhaps he was old-fashioned, but—
Sebastian’s line of thought cut off and his mind lurched. Where one minute he’d been walking down the promenade toward Santa Monica Pier, he now stood on a narrow street, the small apartments of the area either side of him, their shutters pulled down, their front doors practically opening onto the street. Overhead, the moon had travelled higher into the sky. Like its daytime counterpart, Sebastian could easily estimate the passage of time via the position of the moon. Hours had vanished compared to the position only moments before.
Ahead, a dog ran down the street, away from him. The animal’s ears were flattened to its head, claws skittering on the tarmac in its effort to get away. Sebastian frowned. Could it be the same one he’d passed on the beach?
He suddenly became aware of the sensation flooding through his body and the overwhelming scent of fresh blood on the night air. He glanced down and stumbled back in surprise.
A body lay crumpled at his feet. Thick ropes of dreadlocks hid the man’s face and neck, but he didn’t need to see the puncture wounds to know what had killed him. The man’s blood buzzed through Sebastian’s veins, lighting his senses afire. Like a transplant recipient receiving a donor’s organ, he felt some lingering connection with the man—as though the blood cells themselves had some kind of imprinted memory.
Sebastian realized he was standing in the middle of a built-up, residential area with a dead body on the ground before him. He looked left and then right, trying to see if anyone else was around, if he might have been seen. Although he would easily evade immediate capture, the last thing he wanted was a sketch artist’s image of his face being circulated by the police around this area. Now settled with his family, he rarely killed close to home. He couldn’t risk the cops knocking on his door.
All remained quiet around him and he calculated that it must now be the early hours of the morning.
Not allowing himself time to think, he lifted the body into his arms. He needed to get out of the city.
To keep away from the roads, he leapt onto the small balcony of a second floor apartment and then up to the roof. He jumped from roof to roof, taking huge leaps and soaring through the air, the corpse held against his torso. Wind tore his dark hair back from his face. His muscles burned with the sort of energy only a fresh feed could bring.
Sebastian ran through the city, leaving the tall buildings and freeways far behind. He headed out to the Angeles forest, knowing he could go deep enough to bury the body and limit the chances of it ever being found.
As he ran, his mind turned over the sudden turn of
events. What the hell had happened? One moment, he was walking, and the next, he’d killed someone. He had no memory of hunting the man down, though he remembered seeing him. He hoped no one else had witnessed the attack.
Why couldn’t he remember? He’d never lost a period of time like that before.
Instantly, his thoughts went to Serenity and what had happened after Jackson fed from her repeatedly. She’d forgotten who she was. But Sebastian didn’t doubt his identity and he’d never let another vampire feed from him—not since the time when Madeline turned him.
He was simply missing a portion of time. Time in which he’d killed a man.
Damn it! How did this happen?
As soon as he disposed of the body, he’d need to go back to Serenity. Suddenly, the matter of her rejection seemed unimportant. Something else was going on here, something that frightened him. He didn’t like the sensation. Being frightened for his family was a different matter, but rarely did he ever experience concern for himself. After all, he was immortal. He healed quickly and was fast and strong. Not many things harmed him. As far as evolution went, he sat at the top of the food chain.
The memory of Serenity’s shocked face at the restaurant flashed through his head. She’d seen something—a shadow. Why had he dismissed her words so readily? Had he been distracted by the imminent proposal or had something forced him to laugh her off? No, he’d felt no different. She’d just leapt back in her chair and stared at him. He had no reason to think anything occurred other than a trick of the light.
He ran through the forest, darting past the rough expanse of tree trunks and breaking through foliage, heading deeper. The air smelled of damp earth, the fall leaves creating a mulched carpet on the forest floor. As he ran, small mammals froze in their tracks—rabbits, mice and squirrels—eyes wide and ears pricked as he passed. Above his head, an owl took flight, filling the night air with its haunting screech.
The body jerked in his arms. Sebastian stopped and looked down. The man’s back curved in what would have been an uncomfortable angle had he still been alive. His arms and head lolled to one side, his legs the other. The body jolted again, as though an electric shock powered through him.
Surely the dead man shouldn’t be coming back already? Bodies sometimes reanimated after being drained by a vampire, but the process didn’t normally happen for hours after the kill. While he knew he was missing some time, he felt sure not that much time had passed since he’d fed from the man.
So what was happening here? Could something else be at play?
His curiosity getting the better of him, Sebastian dropped the body to the ground and took a couple of steps away. He folded his arms across his chest and waited.
Within seconds, the body jerked again, the hands in spasm so the fingers stretched out, rigid, before curling back to the palms.
Sebastian craned his neck forward, his eyes narrowed.
The man’s dreadlocks had fallen away from his face, so they spread like knotted ropes across the ground. As Sebastian watched, the dead man’s eyelids flickered. His body convulsed again, more violently this time. The tremors gripped the man’s entire body. He shook and jerked on the forest floor as though he were still alive and suffering a seizure.
Suddenly, he fell still. His eyes blinked open and he sat up. His nostrils flared as he turned his head, one way and then another, before catching sight of Sebastian.
The man glared at Sebastian. Pale-faced and drained of blood, only his eyes were forked with bloodshot veins. The creature moved with slow, jerky movements, loosening the muscles that had taken on the beginnings of rigor mortis.
The dead man got to his feet.
Sebastian stepped back. Something was different about this creature. Different from the bodies he’d previously seen reanimate.
The thing took staggered steps toward him, its arms outstretched, head tilted to one side. Dead eyes locked on Sebastian’s face. It stumbled over the rough ground, but regained its balance and kept coming. The creature opened its mouth. A bloated tongue darted out over cracked lips and it issued a long, hoarse breath—a death rattle—as it approached.
Intent, Sebastian realized. That was the thing different to the others. This creature moved with intent. And from the glare in the dead man’s eyes, he guessed its intentions weren’t good.
Wasting no more time, Sebastian darted around the man and caught him from behind, wrapping his arm around his throat. With a vicious twist, he broke the creature’s neck.
The body fell to the ground and Sebastian stood frozen above him. No more movement came.
He still needed to bury the corpse.
Sebastian turned away and crouched to dig the body’s final resting place. The top layer of leaves and dirt felt dry, the leaves crunchy and brittle, but beneath the first layer, the ground grew soft and damp. The earthy scent of soil filled his nostrils.
Movement from behind—a scraping of a foot against the ground, the cracking of bone—caught his attention and Sebastian spun around, leaping to his feet. The dead man stood, its head lolling at an unnatural angle. Fierce hatred burned in its eyes as it stared directly at Sebastian.
“What the hell ...?”
He wasn’t frightened of this thing—he didn’t think he had a reason to be—but its very presence unnerved him. He’d never seen anything like this before, and the fact that he’d been the one who killed the man set his nerves on edge.
The thing took one unsteady step toward him and then another. All around them, the forest remained silent. Only the crack of twigs and crunch of dried leaves beneath the dead man’s feet broke the unnatural silence.
Not wasting another second, Sebastian raced at the dead man. With a single movement, he tore the thing’s head off with his bare hands, wrenching bone, tendon and flesh apart with a wet, sickening riiiiip.
Tiny droplets of cold, dead blood splattered Sebastian’s clothes. Blood no longer flowed through the body, so the spray was minimal, but it was there. He grimaced in disgust. The scent of dead blood was nothing like fresh. The vibrant life that normally drew him in was gone and the fluid smelled only of death.
Sebastian dropped the head to the ground. The body took a couple more steps before folding at the knees and collapsing, chest down.
What the hell is going on? The bodies sometimes came back, but not like that. Had he done something else to the body at the time he’d killed it? Drawing a total blank about the feed, he had no way of knowing.
Sebastian looked down at the carnage he’d created.
“Shit.”
Someone stumbling upon a decomposing body in the depths of the forest would always cause a stir, but someone stumbling across a body with its head torn off would create a different sort of panic entirely.
He dropped to his knees and dug into the rough earth. He always liked to bury the bodies, or at least leave them somewhere they wouldn’t normally escape from, but this one needed to be deeper than before. Not only did he want to reduce the chance of the body being found, but the image of this thing reaching out, finding its own head and replacing it upon its shoulders plagued him.
He tore away clods of earth, his strength making it easy for him to dig deep within only a few minutes. With the unmarked grave now easily six feet in depth, he got to his feet. He drew back his foot and kicked the head. The dreadlocks wound around the head like a coil of dead snakes as it flew through the air and landed in the pit. It bounced and then came to rest.
Sebastian bent and hoisted in the rest of the body.
Chapter Three
With Sebastian gone, Serenity had little to do but wait. It wasn’t as though she could go after him. He’d be halfway across the city before she even left the front door.
He would come around. She had enough faith in him to know his senses would win him over. After all, he would have to forgive her eventually. He couldn’t force her to get married and he would never change her mind, so the only other option was to forget this painful, embarrassing evening
ever happened. Unless, of course, he decided he didn’t want to be with her anymore.
The thought caused her stomach to clench in anxiety. He’d left her once before, but that had been a long time ago. Sebastian loved her and Elizabeth. He’d proven the lengths he would go to in order to keep them safe, time and time again. She shouldn’t be comparing the person he was now to the one she’d met eight years ago. He’d spent years searching for her and taking care of Elizabeth. Something like her not wanting to get married wouldn’t change how he felt about her.
So where was he now?
Serenity paced to the living room window and peered out toward the driveway. The night remained still and empty. She chewed at a sharp hangnail on her thumb and closed her eyes. Could she sense him? Now that she regularly took drops of his blood, she sometimes picked up on his emotions or caught a glimpse of his thoughts, but right now she didn’t sense anything.
She was alone.
A painful ball knotted in her throat and her eyes filled with tears. She wished Elizabeth wasn’t off on her trip. At least with Elizabeth here she’d have something to distract her. She could go and sit on the edge of her daughter’s bed and remind herself that they were a unit, a family. Being separated didn’t feel right.
She let out a sigh, one that came from the very bottom of her lungs, and flicked off the couple of table lamps lighting the room. She left the light on the hall console by the front door on, partly for security, but also for a practical reason. Unlike Sebastian, she couldn’t see in the dark.
Though she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Sebastian, even with Elizabeth away, she found herself unable to stay awake all night and sleep all day. Doing so made her brain foggy and her limbs heavy. Instead, she stayed up with Sebastian and headed to bed in the early hours of the morning. She’d get up with Elizabeth first thing and then take herself back to bed for a few hours in the afternoon. On weekends, Elizabeth also stayed up too late in order to spend time with her father, so she, too, was always keen for an afternoon nap.
Dominion Page 2
