by Tinnean
“No!”
“My lord!”
We spoke at the same time.
Rául sounded aghast and stared at Adam as if he’d lost his mind. Then he turned and stared at me, apparently startled by just how emphatic I was.
“Why not?” he demanded.
I shook my head at him. Suppose there came a time when Adam didn’t want me anymore? I wasn’t spending the rest of eternity, however long that might be, without him.
I picked up the caplet and swallowed it. “I’m drinking the milk. Notice me drinking the milk?” I had to struggle not to gag on the bits of raw egg. “Now let me eat my breakfast in peace.”
Adam ran his hand over my hair, sat back in his chair, and smiled at me. It was so… loving? Did he… Could a vampyr love a sabor?
And would I have turned down the opportunity to become a vampyr if he’d offered it to me?
Well, there was no use in wondering about it. My place in the scheme of things was to feed vampyrs, not be one.
I RINSED off the plate and was putting it in the dishwasher just as Mina came to me and tugged on my sleep pants.
“Need to go out, pup?” I looked down at my bare feet. “Let me go put on a pair of shoes.” I went to the coat closet.
“I must leave as well, Tyrell.” Rául stood in the doorway. “I’ll return your shirt to you as soon as I can.”
“There’s no rush. Adam bought me plenty of them.” I stepped into my shoes. I probably should have gotten a pair of socks, but I didn’t want Mina to have to wait. “Adam, do you have to go also?”
“No, I thought I’d stay a night or so longer, if you have no objection.”
“No, no objection.” I started to smile at him, but then a thought occurred to me, and my mouth went dry. Was he staying to protect me? Was I in that much danger? I put on my jacket, took Mina’s leash off its hook, and snapped it to her collar. I knew from the morning… night… before she didn’t really need it anymore, but it had a dispenser for poop bags. And besides, there was a leash law; it would be just my luck to have a cop car drive by tonight. “Rául, will you be safe returning to your… your lair?”
“I’ll be fine.”
That’s what we’d thought last night. “Do you need one for the road?”
“Excuse me?” He gave a faint smile when I tugged on my collar and tapped my birthmark. “Oh. No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Okay, then. Come on, Min.” I flipped on the outside light, opened the front door, and stepped onto the porch.
And then I backed up. Fast. At the end of the walk were those glowing eyes. A tall figure began coming toward me.
“A-Adam?”
“It’s all right.” His arm came around my shoulder. “Raymond?”
“Yes. Mon seigneur sent me to keep watch over your sabor’s home.”
“Thank you. Ty, this is Raymond Girard. He’s the rege’s om de pace.”
“Excuse me?”
“He’s the rege’s… enforcer.”
Oh, that was just great. Next Adam would tell me the rege’s other name was Godfather.
I scowled at the enforcer. “How long have you been hanging out here?”
“Since last evening.”
“Did you know you scared the living spit out of me?” I wanted to sock him, but Dad had taught me better. And besides, he was bigger than me.
“I…. You saw me? That’s not possible!”
“Wanna bet? How could I miss your red eyes?”
“You were not outside when I arrived!”
Oh. “Um….” Crap.
“Tyrell, was someone watching you when you went to search for Rául’s talisman?” Adam demanded. I hunched a shoulder, and he sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination.” And I didn’t want him to think I was a scaredy-cat.
“Well, it wasn’t. De Vivar’s flunky would have attempted to seize you and take you to him if your Înger Păzitor hadn’t been with you,” Raymond said stiffly.
“Wait, what? How do you know it was him?”
“It was him.”
I really hated that omniscient crap. And I supposed that was how he knew Mina was with me, even though he hadn’t been here at the time. “Why does he want me, aside from the obvious? There are other sabors.”
“There are, but none with your bloodline, and he believes having you will enable him to become rege.”
“And he thinks I’d stay with him?”
“You’d have to. You’d be in love with him.”
“Eww.” I looked down at Mina. She sat waiting patiently. “Thanks, pup.”
“We’ll keep that from happening.”
“I appreciate it, but is there anything I can do?”
“From what mon seigneur has said, you already did something—you refused de Vivar admittance,” the big enforcer said. “Although how you managed that….”
Why did everyone make such a big thing of it? Adam had said I didn’t have to say yes, so I didn’t.
“Wait a minute.” All of a sudden my stomach wasn’t sure if it wanted to hold on to the waffles and bacon. “I’m supposed to be in love with them as soon as I lay eyes on them, not after I invite them in?”
“In a word? Yes.”
I thought of the other vampyrs I’d sent away. What if I was brought to them—if I had no door I could close to shut them out? Would I have no choice but to fall in love with them?
I didn’t want to think about it. “How long will I need a… a… bodyguard?”
“Until we’re able to sort this out.”
“Any idea how long that will be?”
“As of now? No.”
I swallowed bile and decided to change the subject. “Where’d you spend the day?” I asked the enforcer.
“In the trunk of your car.”
“How…?”
“He was able to metamorphose into mist,” Adam murmured in my ear.
There were vents in the garage door, and Raymond could have entered the garage that way. As for getting into the trunk…. Trying to picture it made my head hurt, so I stopped.
Mina tugged on her leash. “All right. Come on, Min.”
Raymond was right behind me. I would have told him to stay and chat with Adam and Rául, this wouldn’t take all that long, but they were right behind him.
“Okay, fine, we’ll all go walk my dog.”
The full moon was waning, but there was enough light to make it easy to see, and what I saw was a bare front yard. The disaster of the night before had been cleaned up.
A hand rested on my shoulder, and I didn’t need to look to know it was Adam.
“Thank you.” I turned into him, wrapped an arm around his waist, and tucked my head under his chin.
“It was the least we could do.”
“I… I appreciate it.”
Mina gave a demanding yip.
“Okay, pup.” I released Adam and let her pull me toward the curb.
I could hear Adam and Raymond talking quietly behind me, and then they split up, Adam going to the right and Raymond to the left, flanking us.
I glanced at Rául. “I thought you had to leave.”
“Soon.”
I wasn’t going to ask something stupid, like “Is anyone out there?” I knew even if there were I was safe. So instead, I asked, “How long have you known Adam?”
For a minute I wasn’t sure if he was going to answer me, but then he gave a lopsided grin. “I was eight the first time he came to my father’s house.”
“When was that?” I held my breath, wondering if he’d actually tell me.
“The year of Our Lord, 1808.”
Okay, so his mention of camp followers made sense; he’d have to be over two hundred years old. But I definitely wasn’t going to think about how old that made Adam. He looked about twenty-three, twenty-five, tops, and that was fine with me.
“Did your father know Adam was a vampyr?”
“Of course. My family is sabor
ese. My sister is a sabor.”
“‘Is’? She’s still alive?”
“Yes. Sabors have a very long life span.”
“How long?”
“It varies from one line to another. For instance, the Navarros tend to live two to three centuries.”
“Wow. So what about me?”
He shook his head.
“You don’t know or you won’t tell me?”
“You need to have this discussion with Adam.”
Same song, different beat. “How am I supposed to ask Adam if I don’t know what to ask him?”
Rául shrugged. “This is for the two of you to decide.”
Great. I’d have to start carrying around a pencil and notebook to keep track of the questions I needed to ask him. “So about your sister.” I went back to our previous conversation. “Is she older or younger than you?”
“She’s older.”
“Did… uh… did Adam feed from her?”
“Would it matter?”
“No.” As much as I didn’t like that idea, how could I deny Adam the need to feed? “Did you ever feed from her?”
“No. There is always a hint of the sexual involved in feeding, and I couldn’t. She heard my prayers and tucked me into bed. She comforted me when our mother passed away. She raised me until her vampyr came for her.” He stared up at the moon. “I’ll do without before I go to her.”
“Did it bother you to feed from me? Because I’m a guy,” I clarified.
“Are you asking if I prefer to feed from female sabors? I do, but when my lord duke asked this of me, how could I refuse him? It was a great honor he did me.”
“Oh!” I blushed. “Um….”
Mina tugged on her leash.
“Are you ready to go in?”
She looked up at me, her ears perked, and I realized she’d been waiting for me to pay attention to her.
“Sorry, pup. Let’s go.”
Adam and Raymond fell into step behind us.
Raymond stopped outside the door, and I felt like rolling my eyes.
“He’s safe, Adam?”
“Yes, Ty.”
“Okay, come on in, then, Ray.”
“You Americans and your tendency to employ nicknames.” But Raymond sounded amused.
“Yeah, that’s us.” I grinned. Once we were in the house, I turned to the three vampyrs. “I appreciate you all coming with me to make sure I didn’t get snatched.”
“Always, dragul meu.” Adam closed his hand over my shoulder and gave it a slight shake. “Now I must talk with Raymond.”
“Okay.” That would give me more time to question Rául.
They went into the dining room.
“Do you have other brothers and sisters?” I asked as I unsnapped Mina’s leash and followed her into the living room.
His expression became sad. “They’re all gone, but I have their descendants, nieces and nephews too numerous to count. I see them on their birthdays, on Navidad.”
“You can do that?” I toed off my shoes and made myself comfortable on the love seat. “I mean, I thought religious symbols repelled vampyrs.”
“Not born vampyrs, but if a normal believed before he or she was turned, then yes, those symbols would have power over them.”
“What about you? Or is it because you’re… I mean you were… saborese?”
“That has something to do with it, but there was also the fact I believed I had done nothing to anger God. In fact, it was the so-called men of God who—” He gave a short, harsh laugh.
“Easy there, amigo.”
“You would think after all this time I would know not to be disturbed by the memory….”
I could see just how much this still bothered him, and I decided to change the subject again. I touched his arm, surprised but pleased it didn’t bother me. “Are any of your nieces and nephews sabors?”
“Yes. In each generation there is at least one, although if it comes to pass that the number of sabors worldwide falls, there may be more.”
“Ah. Supply and demand.” I should have asked Adam all of this, but I hadn’t even thought of it. I went to my desk and scribbled it on a piece of paper. “What would cause the numbers to drop?”
“Wars. Natural disasters. Acts of man or God.”
“What kind of natural disasters?”
“Earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions. We lost many families before the pharaoh let Moses’s people go, and when Nero fiddled while Rome burned.”
“How do you know that?” I wasn’t going to tell him the fiddle hadn’t been invented until the eleventh century.
“Records, oral and written. Vampyrs have a long history.”
Hmm. “Was any of it translated? I mean I’m assuming the written records were in the original languages. Hieroglyphics in the case of the Egyptians, or Latin.” It sounded really interesting.
Rául looked away. Okay, something else I’d have to talk to Adam about. I jotted that down as well.
“My dad told me sabors survived the Black Plague.” I suddenly wondered if being a sabor was why, aside from when we’d learned I was lactose intolerant, I’d never been out sick from school.
“Yes, although a number of them were slaughtered by the populace.”
“What? Why?”
“They thought those families were minions of Satan.”
“Freaking idiots.” I was running out of space on the page; I’d either need to write smaller or get a bigger notepad.
“Yes.”
And speaking of idiots…. “Rául, you were so bent out of shape when you thought Adam might have turned me. Which is really dumb, y’know. He’s too honorable for that, and since you’ve known him more than two hundred years, you shouldn’t have had to question him.”
He smiled at me. “No, I shouldn’t have.”
“So why did you?”
“It would be very easy for a vampyr to lose his or her head and turn you. You would be very easy to turn.” He wound his fingers through my hair.
“Oh, well, thank you. I think.” I looked at him thoughtfully. Once again I noted that I wasn’t bothered by his touch. Something else I’d have to ask Adam about.
“As many sabors as we have, we still can’t afford to lose even one.”
Okay, I guessed that made sense. “Do vampyrs often turn the saborese?”
“No.”
“Then why did Adam turn you?”
“It was the only way to save him, Tyrell,” Adam said.
I’d known when he entered the room, and while that wasn’t one of the questions on my list, I hoped he’d start answering some of them. No such luck. He turned his attention to Rául instead.
“Rául, the rege wishes to speak with you. Raymond will see you arrive safely at the citadel.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Rául took Adam’s hand and bowed over it, then turned to me. “Tyrell, I hope to see you again one day.”
“I’ll be here.”
“We must go,” Raymond said. “It will be dawn shortly.”
“No, it won’t. Sunrise isn’t until 6:05.”
“And how do you know that?” Raymond scowled at me. That was okay. I didn’t like him, either.
“You start hanging with vampyrs, you pay attention to stuff like that.”
He laughed, and suddenly he didn’t look like such a hardass. “Very well. I was simply endeavoring to be polite. We need to leave now because I must return here before sunrise.”
“You could have said that. And you don’t have to sleep in the garage. You’re welcome to stay on the love seat. It opens into a bed, y’know, and it will probably be a little short for you, but it has to beat the trunk of my car.”
“You’re too kind.”
“Damn straight.”
His eyes were light with amusement, and suddenly I found him likeable. Sort of.
“Go, Raymond.” Adam sounded miffed. “Rául, take care.”
And then they were gone, and I turned to Adam and tapped the paper a
gainst my palm.
“Okay, vampyr mine, I have some questions for you.”
He muttered something.
“What was that?”
“I said Raymond had better not try working his French wiles on you.”
“Huh?”
“He would do well to remember you’re mine!”
A light went on. “That’s why it doesn’t bother me when Rául touches me.”
“Excuse me? I’m not following you.”
“He’s yours too.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. I leaned into him.
“Don’t worry about Raymond. He may be one of the good guys, but he doesn’t get to touch me.”
“Ty… I was very fortunate when the rege placed you in my arms.”
“What? When was that?”
“You were less than a day old.”
I huffed. “Why doesn’t anyone tell me stuff like that?”
“All in good time, dragul meu.” He kissed me, and I shivered. I figured for kisses like that I could wait forever to learn about being a sabor.
WHEN RAYMOND returned from seeing Rául safely to the rege, he had enough bags of blood for Adam for a few days.
I’d need to set up a hazmat-type of container for the used bags under the sink, next to the trash and the recycling bins. There was a small hospital on the other side of Knoxville. Maybe I could slip the bags into their biowaste containers.
“What about you?”
Raymond stacked the blood on the second shelf of my fridge. “You won’t need me while Adam is here, and mon seigneur has requested I rejoin him at the citadel. I will return when it’s time for Adam to leave.”
“Okay.” I stared after him as he walked out the door. “Adam, what are the odds Jack Splat will send his… uh… minions back here?”
“Who?”
“De Vivar.”
“He’s not to be taken lightly.”
“Yes, master.”
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “This is not a game, Tyrell.”
“I know. I’m sorry. So will he send his minions here?”
“You’re safe with me.”
“I didn’t ask that.”
“No, you didn’t.” He sighed. “I can’t begin to imagine what de Vivar plans to do at this point, but know this, Tyrell.” His palm was cool where it cupped my cheek. “I will never permit him to harm you.”
