by Zara Novak
“Here.” He said as he passed a small black remote to Kat. “Press that.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Just press it.” Ansel said with an encouraging nod. “You’ll see.”
Kat clicked the button and a thousand blue fairy lights flicked into existence around them. The conservatory, the handrail on the porch, the trees bordering the garden below, and invisible strings tied through the air above them - every inch was twinkling with tiny blue light.
“Ansel!” Kat gasped, looking down at the breath taking sight. “This is beautiful. You did all this?”
Ansel shook his head and smiled. “I can’t take credit for it. I think it was my au-” He paused, “I think it was the people who had this place before. I just found this remote by accident the other day.”
They sat a little while longer, enjoying the pleasant warmth of the evening and simply relaxing in each other’s company while looking out on the light studded garden below. A question had been nagging at Kat all the while, and she finally found the strength to ask it out loud.
“Ansel… you know before when you said you’d never drink from me?”
Ansel nodded quietly and looked as if he were making some effort to stop himself from doing something. “Yes. What about it?”
“I was just wondering… that seems like a rather weird thing for a vampire to say. Why say it?”
“Well…” Ansel picked his empty glass up off the table and rolled it around in his hands. “It’s just that… vampires generally only drink from people for two reasons. There’s feeding and there’s bonding sex. Vampires have poor inhibition, and once we start drinking from someone… we generally can’t hold back. We drink until they die.”
“Oh.”
Kat gulped. “And bonding sex… what’s that?”
Ansel shifted in his seat. “Well. That’s something a vampire does when he’s found a mate. It’s only really a short burst, and it’s done during sex. It ties the vampire to a lover. It’s not lethal, it’s a show of affection. Once a vampire bonds with someone… it’s a way of showing a person that he’s chosen for life.”
“Oh.”
Kat gulped again, and silence beat between them.
“I said I’d never drink from you,” Ansel clarified, “Because feeding from you would mean killing you. And I’d never want to do that. I’d never want to feed from you.”
“Oh.”
Kat gulped once more, and the silence grew even louder. They both stared into the quiet of night in individual contemplation, and then Kat sat up in her chair. Ansel had said that he’d never want to feed from her, but he hadn’t mentioned anything about the other one.
…Did that mean he wanted to have bonding sex with her?
15. Ansel
Ansel stayed up that night, his slumber the night previous had done more than to replenish his energy to it’s usual levels. Kat excused herself and run up to bed in quite a hurry after they had dinner on the conservatory. Ansel was hoping she’d stay a little longer and ask him more questions about bonding sex… lord knows he was enjoying talking about it with her.
He couldn’t help but smirk as her face blushed with red and she ran off up stairs. He sat there on the back porch for a while, trying to sooth the fires raging within him, more than aware of the raging erection screaming to burst from his trousers.
Just go up there and seduce her. The voice inside him whispered. All you have to do is use your Intention on her.
Intention. If only it were that easy.
Ansel knew full well he could have Kat any time he wanted her. All he had to do was use the powerful magnetism of his voice to sap her will into doing his bidding. He could make her body his entirely, have her naked and writhing on the bed on top of him, bouncing on him in a variety of different positions.
His cock lunged in his trousers once more and Ansel took a long and very deep breath. Staying in the house under the same room as Kat was going to be very hard.
He didn’t just want to make her a sex slave. He wanted to connect with her.
Being around Kat wasn’t just tempting, it was also confusing. He knew the girl didn’t want to be in the house. He knew that she wanted to try and escape, but then he listened at night when she was sleeping… he heard the quick beat of her pulse, he tasted the sweet scent of her floral arousal as it floated down through the corridors of the house.
When she ran to bed after their brief talk about bonding sex, Ansel’s ears couldn’t help but train themselves of the distant slicking sound coming from her bedroom, accompanied by her heavy breathing. He couldn’t quite tell, but if he knew any better he would assume it was the sound of her…
But no. It couldn’t be that. He was probably just imagining it.
Regardless, Kat’s erratic behavior defied explanation. Ansel couldn’t figure out if she wanted to escape his clutches or if she wanted to take him under the bed sheets. He only knew one thing for certain, and that was that he wanted her, badly.
He peeled himself away from the back porch some time later and made his way upstairs to the ground floor and into the garage. The garage had become something of a preparation area for his mission to take out the Red Circle. Since he escaped the Vesper clan a few weeks ago, Ansel had been stalking through Dead Rest and it’s surrounding valley quietly, interrogating local vampires and trying to get as much information on the Circle as he possibly could.
He stood before his board of drawings, notes and findings. To an outsider, it probably just looked like the scribblings of a mad man, but to him there was focus and direction. He had made a profile sketch of Cairo Inai from an eyewitness testimony he’d received off a vampire named Abraham Dullus. Dullus claimed he had seen Inai once about four years ago, and he described a gaunt and thin looking man to Ansel.
Ansel had spoken to maybe two dozen vampires about Inai and the Red Circle, and everyone of them hadn’t really known much. The Circle operated with such secrecy and aversion, half of the rumors he received conflicted with the other. He even met a man that claimed to have met Inai too, but upon giving a description, it sounded nothing like the one that Ansel had received from the more credible Dullus.
None of it added up, but the most mysterious part itself was the location of the Red Keep, the place where the Circle resided on a more permanent basis.
“You have to understand,” a vampire in a bar one hour north of Dead Rest had said, “The Red Keep ain’t a place you can find on this earth. They built it on a magical realm… and you can only get there through the gateways. Finding one of those is hard enough, but finding one when it’s open. Even harder.”
“What about a witch?” Ansel had said. “Reckon one of those could find a gateway for me?”
“Maybe.” The vampire hiccuped, drunk on too much blood. “Show me a vampire that’s crazy enough to voluntarily seek out a witch, and I’ll show you a vampire that’s going to die.”
The most useful piece of information was the one that Ansel had received from Hurst, the same piece of information he had now pinned up at the center of the board, just under the profile drawing of Cairo Inai. According to Hurst’s note… the witch was only going to be at that location for one day.
Ansel stared at Hurst’s scribbled writing, looking at the same date he’d now looked at a thousand times. It wasn’t long until the witch was going to be at the location (supposedly), and Ansel would have to make tracks if he wanted to be there on time.
He turned from the board and looked at the box of supplies he’d prepared for the road trip. He walked over to it and opened the box, double checking through the supplies for the millionth time, looking over everything and making sure all the stuff was there that he already knew was.
Retreating from the garage, Ansel made his way back inside, deciding that he would spend some time reading in the library. He was about to head up stairs to the library room on the second floor when he remembered that he’d left the basement door open. The sun would be up in a few hours
time and Kat would surely come down stairs to roam around the house once more. Leaving the basement door open would mean she could escape with ease.
Patting his pockets as he stood in the basement by the door, Ansel realized that he didn’t have the key. A flash came to his mind and recalled leaving it on the table outside on the back porch. He ducked outside to get the key, but there was nothing there.
Weird. Ansel thought. He could have sworn that he’d left the key on the table, unless Kat -
A wry smile curled over the edge of Ansel’s lips and he shook his head. He headed back inside and looked up through the building toward the direction of Kat’s room.
Clever girl. But if she thinks she’s getting out that easy… she’s got another thing coming.
*
It wasn’t until later in the afternoon that Ansel finally heard Kat make her way down stairs and tip toe quietly into the basement. He didn’t understand why she had been sleeping in so late the past few days, but he thought it probably had something to do with all the ‘nightmares’ she had been having.
He waited patiently in the basement, and was sat in the dark of the corner as quiet as a mouse when he saw Kat make her way downstairs slowly with the key in her hand.
Her breath was racing in the dark of the room. She shuffled across the stone floor of the basement quick and silent, making straight for the basement door. She was just about to jam the key into the lock when Ansel cleared his throat and stood up behind her.
“Going somewhere are we?”
Kat about jumped out of her skin, shrieking Ansel’s name as she turned. “Ansel!”
He stood with his arms crossed, listening as her heart thundered in her chest. He thought it remarkable how she looked beautiful even in a dim dark basement, scared within an inch of her life.
Hand outstretched on her chest, Kat breathed her adrenaline out and kept her eyes on Ansel. “So you knew I was trying to get out?”
Ansel shrugged. “I realized my key was missing, and you headed off to bed awfully fast last night. It didn’t take much to put two and two together.”
Kat took a deep breath. “Just let me go.” She said. “Please. I need to find Ruth… I need to see that’s she okay. I need to let her know that I’m okay!”
“There were no casualties at the club.” Ansel said calmly. He threw the latest copy of the Dead Rest Gazette onto the floor in front of Kat and it slapped onto the stone with a hollow thud. “You can read it for yourself in there.”
Her eyes flicked down and she looked back up at Ansel. “I don’t have to - I already heard it on the TV upstairs.”
“So why all the subterfuge?” Ansel walked forward slowly, stopping just a few paces in front of Kat. “Why all this sneaking around? If you go out there the Circle will catch you and they will kill you. I’m not beating you, I’m not being vicious to you… so what are you running from? Could it really be possible that you’re just that scared of being intimate with me?”
Kat looked at him and froze, then she tried to fake revulsion. “Yeah right.” She scoffed. “You’re so full or yourself, you really think I want you? Vampires…” Kat shook her head.
“And don’t you?” Ansel smiled. “All those… dreams you’ve been having. All that pent up frustration you’ve been working out of your system.”
Shock washed over her face. “You know?!” Kat gasped. “But how?!”
Because the same thing is happening to me.
“Supernatural senses.” Ansel smiled softly and tapped his ears. “Sometimes I can’t help but hear things…”
Kat’s cheeks filled with red once more and her eyes shot down to the floor to study the stone tiles.
“I’m sorry.” She said shaking her head. “I really don’t know why I’m still trying to get outside. If I’m being honest with you… I know you’re not a danger to me. I just… I miss being able to go outside alone. Don’t you trust me?”
“Tell you what. You come upstairs and help me with something, and I’ll give you the keys. You can walk around outside as much as you like. Sound fair?”
“What do you need help with?”
“Come on.” Ansel nodded toward the stairs. “Follow me and I’ll show you.”
*
Kat stood in front of Ansel’s board of information and stared at him like he were a mad man.
“This was all you?” she said.
“It’s just things I’ve collected in the past few weeks. Things to help me find a way into the Red Keep.”
“So the Red Circle are a society that police all vampires?”
Ansel nodded.
“And they execute ones they deem ‘unworthy’?”
“That’s right.”
“They deemed you unworthy because…”
Ansel shrugged. “I guess Cairo Inai just took a disliking to me.”
“And Cairo Inai is a Warden. Is that right? What does that mean?”
“He’s sort of like a Chief of Police I guess. He’s fairly high up.”
“So once you find this guy and take him out, you’re going to the Red Keep, that’s their headquarters. Where’s that?”
“That’s where it gets tricky.” Ansel conceded. “It’s hidden on another realm apparently. There are magical gateways that lead to it, but they’re hidden, and often guarded.” He stood up and tapped Hurst’s note on the board. “I need a witch to find one, and that’s what this information is here. There will be a witch at this location. I’m going to head off soon and find her.”
“You think she’ll help?”
“I hope.” Ansel said. “Her sister was a prisoner in my coven too. She said Rubago was my best chance.”
Kat turned from the board and looked at the box of supplies they’d picked up the day before. “Ah, the supplies. This is for when you get to the Red Keep, right?”
“Possibly.” Ansel stepped forward while Kat looked through the box. “You never know it might come in handy before.”
“Garlic masking agent…” Kat said, reading the pressurized can in her hand. “You mean to tell me garlic actually works?”
“It does, but not in the way people think.” Ansel said. “It doesn’t keep us away, it dulls our senses. That stuff practically turns us blind temporarily.”
Kat raised her brows and set the cannister back into the box, looking through the other things Ansel had prepared.
“So what is it you need my help with up here? It looks as though you’ve gotten everything ready yourself.”
“I’m going to be heading out in the morning. It’s going to be a few hours drive, and I want to make sure I’m there on time.”
“Drive? Wouldn’t it be quicker to jump? And what about daylight?”
“Windows are triple tinted with UV coating.” Ansel said, pointing at the car. “And jumping would work, but that’s far… even for me. It would be like running a marathon, and I need to save my energy up just in case.”
“So… where do I come into this?”
“Well - truth be told I’ve sorted most of it myself. I don’t really need a lot of help getting ready to leave tomorrow. I know I’ve kind of been holding you here against your will, and that’s not really fair. As a token of my trust however… I’d like to give you a choice.”
Kat turned her head. “For what?”
“It’s up to you if you want to stay here or come with me.” Ansel said. “I’m not going to lock you here in the house, but I will ask that you stay here until I get back from dealing with Cairo Inai at least. Once I’ve dealt with him… you’re free to return to your pedestrian life.”
“And the other option?”
“Come with me. Let’s go see what this witch has to say together. I can understand if you don’t want to, and that’s fine. Being around me for a long time is enough to drive anyone crazy. You don’t have to give me an answer now. Just think it over if you want.”
Kat nodded and looked somewhere into the distance. “Okay, I’ll think it over. Thanks Ansel. Is that all?
”
“Nearly.” He said. “I thought maybe we could have dinner tonight together. Properly. You can even dress up if you like.”
“That could be nice.” Kat smiled. “Count me in.”
“And… just one more thing. I think things between us got mixed up a little the past few days, so I thought to lighten the mood a little and reinvigorate the trust between us we could play a game. We each get three questions, and the other has to answer truthfully… no matter what the answer.”
A smile flickered over Kat’s face as she considered the rules for a moment.
“Okay.” She said after a long pause. “You go first if you want.”
Ansel smiled. “If I leave you here alone… would you try and escape?”
Kat took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “No.”
“Now you go.”
“Who were you in a previous life?” Kat asked, her eyes blazing with curiosity.
Ansel laughed and brushed a hand over the back of his head. “Ooh boy… now you’re asking. It’s not that exciting I’m afraid. I was just some hot shot investment banker kid.”
Kat smiled. “Okay. Your turn.”
“You go again.” Ansel said. “I’m thinking.”
“Okay.” Kat’s eyes glimmered with the fun of the game. “This house… it was yours in your previous life wasn’t it?”
Smiling, Ansel finally gave a reluctant nod. “How did you figure it out?”
Kat shrugged. “It just felt too much like you for it to be someone else’s place. Who do the clothes belong to? The ones I’m wearing?”
“This place used to be my aunts. She left it to me when she passed away. The clothes must be hers, the room you’re staying in was hers.”
“Okay. Ask me a question.”
Taking a deep breath, a mischievous smile curled over his lips. “These dreams that have been keeping you up at night. What are they about exactly?”
Kat’s cheeks singed to an adorable shade of pink. “Don’t you already know that?”
