House Of Vampires 2 (The Lorena Quinn Trilogy)

by Samantha Snow

  The feline seemed to breathe too. As I ate the first few bites of my sandwich, I watched the steady rise and fall of its middle, but I was almost positive that it wasn't alive. Not just because it had managed to teleport from the kitchen to the bedroom, but because of my own magical skill. The presence of the cat was a weight in my mind, and a comforting one at that. It stretched again, and the collar around its neck twinkled.

  I reached out and turned the little name tag until I could read what was written there. Maahes, the letters spelled. I frowned. That was an odd name. But the address below was familiar. It was my grandmother's address. Had this, once upon a time, been my grandmother's cat? Maybe. It would explain why it was hanging around here. I gave the feline's chin a scratch. It purred in response, and I decided I now had a ghost friend. I queued up a novel on an app on my smart phone. I was just getting to the good part when I heard a knock on my grandmother's door.

  My heart hammered inside of my chest. The cat didn't budge. So much for a guard pet. There was a part of me that wanted nothing more than to pull the blankets up to my chin and pretend like I wasn't there. I shook, and sweat appeared on my skin. I went from being relaxed to being afraid for my life in two point three seconds.

  “Lorena?”

  It was Wei's voice. I didn't relax exactly, but I felt a little less afraid for my life.

  “Wei?” I asked. I had to ask it twice because the first time it came out as a choked whisper. “What are you doing here?”

  “I. wanted to speak with you.”

  It was quite nearly a speech as far as Wei was concerned, no matter how bluntly he said it. I opened the door, and there he stood.

  Wei was never going to have Alan's elegance, or Dmitri's fiery charisma, but he had his own kind of beauty, and I had to admit that I was drawn to it. His long sheet of pitch black hair was pulled into a thick braid. It hung over one shoulder, making a line of black over the sapphire blue of the shirt he wore. I was almost positive it was made of silk; it had that particular sheen. His dark slacks had a quality to them, the kind that whispered wealth rather than screamed it the way some wealthy people's clothes did. Not that I had a lot of experience with the high class, but, thanks to Jenny, I was learning more about fashion.

  "What did you want to talk about?" I asked, leaning against the door frame. I should have told him to go away, but I couldn't. In the time that I had known Wei, he had never come to me for anything, and I was curious about what he had to say.

  "May I come in?" he asked.

  I shrugged and stepped back. "Sure. Come on in. Meet the ghost cat?"

  He frowned. "Ghost cat?"

  Maahes was sitting on the arm of my grandmother's floral easy chair. His bright eyes blinked solemnly as Wei walked into the living room. For a moment, I wondered whether or not Wei could even see the cat, and then he held out one hand towards the feline. The cat sniffed and then bumped his head against Wei's fingers.

  "You make interesting friends."

  I smirked. "More and more every day." I sat down on the couch. Maahes jumped down and sauntered over to me. "What did you want to talk about?"

  He stood there quietly for a moment. The sun, just barely set, was still letting off just enough sunlight that shadows played across his handsome features. He was looking down, rather than at me.

  "I wanted to apologize."

  Wow, I thought to myself, everyone just wanted to apologize to me today: my mother, Marquessa, and now Wei. Must be some kind of planetary alignment thing. "Take a number."

  "What?"

  I shook my head. "Bad joke, never mind. What did you want to apologize for?"

  "For...what happened...between us."

  Jeez. If this was how Wei said he was sorry for something, it was going to take forever to get through.

  "For which part?" I asked. "For the wild make out session? For you eyeballing my throat like it was a tasty, tasty treat? Or for running away from me and leaving me with a throbbing case of blue-ovaries?"

  He jerked his head up. "Blue...ovaries?"

  I shrugged. "I figure if guys can say they get blue balls without there being any scientific evidence to back it up, I can claim blue ovaries. I mean, I don't know if you have a clear memory of what happened in that big old bed, but it was getting pretty hot and heavy. Then, you left me high and dry. Well...okay...not exactly dry, but-"

  He made a sound that was somewhere between a snort of surprise and a choked laugh. It was an impressive sound.

  "You baffle me."

  I shrugged. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

  He sighed and finally took a seat. "I want to explain my actions."

  "I could handle an explanation."

  Rather than launch into that, he sat there in the ever-growing darkness. His hands were flat on the arm rests; I could see bits of the flower design through his broad fingers. For a moment, just a moment, all I could do was remember how good his hands had felt. The way he had kissed. The way I had arched to his hand. I shivered.

  "Lorena."

  "Yes?"

  "Whatever you are thinking about...please stop."

  I blushed. Well, that answered the question about how good a vampire's senses were. I didn't bother to reach for a light. I had no desire to show him the depth of the blush on my cheeks.

  "Sorry."

  "It's...fine."

  Another long lapse of silence.

  "So, before I begin to think lecherous thoughts and embarrass us any further, how about you tell me what happened?"

  He blew out a long breath. "I was married once."

  I blinked. I wasn't sure what I had expected to hear from him, but that certainly hadn't been it. "Oh." I fought a tinge of unexpected jealousy that cropped up inside me. "What happened?"

  He splayed his fingers further apart, revealing more of the pattern. "Marriages were different when I was alive. My bride was chosen for me."

  "An arranged marriage?" I asked. I didn't know that they had done that in China. Then again, I was assuming he was Chinese. Shame on me.

  He shook his head. "Not exactly. It was not as if I would have no say in who I married. But our parents were very involved in the match. After all, this woman would be the vessel of their legacy, their continued honor. It was very important that she be everything that they desired for me."

  "What about love?" I asked, knowing how naive it sounded.

  His smile was bitter. "Love was...not important. But the process was complicated: who her parents were, who mine were, when we were born, what skills we both had, whether or not the relationship might bear a son. I do not wish to bore you with the details, but my parents chose a girl that I... did not enjoy."

  I drew Maahes into my lap, desperate for something to do with my hands. "I'm sorry." I said it quietly. I don't think he heard me.

  "Her name was Jiaya. She was pretty enough, I suppose, and polite enough. But she had no mind of her own. I have always been partial to a woman who speaks her mind." His eyes glanced up to meet mine. I didn't need to say the obvious, but I found myself smiling at him anyway.

  "Yes. But she was very quiet. Very meek. It was not some great fault, but I made it into one. I slowly began to hate everything that she said. We would sit for long hours, and she would do her best to try to please me with conversation, but...but I did not like her very much. I am ashamed to admit that I did not treat her well. She tried. She tried very hard to win my affection, even my attention, and I had already decided that she could never have it. My own stubbornness trapped us in an unhappy union."

  I could see it, I realized. I could see this little bride with a shy smile and bright eyes looking at Wei, so handsome and proud, and thinking that she had won the bridal lottery, only to be very disappointed because her handsome husband was also cold. I could also see Wei becoming more and more stubborn about her. Their parents had not chosen well.

  "Then what?"

  "She asked me to give her a child."

  I didn't hold my breath, but
it was a near thing. "Oh."

  "She begged. She said if I could not bring myself to care for her, she would not seek it, but would I please give her a son to love and who might love her in return. She would even settle for a daughter, which, in those feudal days, was a great sacrifice. Just something to give her heart to. I hated her for asking me, but I could not bring myself to deny her. I... did my best..." he said. His own blush turned his cheeks a rosy bronze. "It was not a comfortable thing for either of us, but there was a child. A son. She was so proud. To be honest, I was proud too. We named him Gui and, like all parents, had great expectations of him."

  "It sounds like everything was happy."

  His hand clenched. "It should have been. It might have been. I don't know. Her happiness did not last. She became very...sad. Very distant. She did not want to feed the child. She alternated between wanting to love him and hating herself for being a terrible mother. I was, I admit, confused."

  I swallowed. Postpartum depression was not a new thing, and it wasn't just something that happened in America. I knew that, logically, but imagining some ancient girl in feudal China going through it boggled my mind. "It happens."

  He nodded. "I know. At least, I know that now. I didn't then. I just...I hated her more. Here was this child we created, and she wanted less and less to do with him every day. I got mad at her. I made things worse."

  I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear the end of this story. It could not be going anywhere good. I continued to pet the cat, though it wasn't really doing any good for my growing anxiety.

  "I had to leave the home for several days in order to take an examination. I had hoped to do well in order to make sure that my son might have a better life. It felt so good to be out of the home, away from Jaiya. I lingered. I met a widow who liked to speak her mind. I enjoyed her company. I should have gone back immediately. I never took the widow to bed, but I wished to. Then, I received a letter. It was from my mother. She told me that I must return home immediately. I knew; even before I returned, I knew what had happened. My bride had drowned our son."

  "Oh my god."

  He went very quiet. "She was so angry at me. So wild. She blamed me. She snapped at me and yelled at me and snarled at me. She was like some great tiger lashing out. It was the first time I had ever heard her speak her mind. She asked me how I could have expected her to love something that had come from a man as cold and angry as I was."

  My heart sank all the way to my knees. I didn't like that Jaiya had said that. It left a bad taste in my mouth. You didn't have to love a father to love the kid...though it did help some things. "I'm so sorry, Wei."

  "She waited just long enough to know that I had heard her words, and then she took a blade to her own throat."

  "Oh my god."

  He nodded. "Yes. I left my home after that. My parents had another son, young but warmer of heart. I traveled a great deal. Eventually, I met Vlad," he said with a note of finality.

  "Wei, I'm so sorry that you went through that. It's...well, it sucks."

  "It did. But I hope it explains some things to you."

  I blinked at that. "Explains...what?"

  He turned those liquid dark eyes on me, and they were filled with that cool superiority that I had grown to know so well. "Lorena, laying with you might...is expected...to create a child. How can I give another woman who does not love me that burden?"

  Jesus. I took a deep breath and set the purring cat aside. Rather than just flop over or give me a sneer like a normal cat might have done, it disappeared. I hoped it wouldn't stay gone, but it was not my biggest concern now. I walked over to Wei, and then knelt in front of him, using a leftover pillow to cushion my knees.

  "Wei, let's be honest here."

  He eyed me warily. "About?"

  "You care about me."

  I wasn't willing to say that he loved me, but I was pretty sure that he did. Wei was a vampire. I was a necromancer. He might be able to sense when I was feeling all needy for his body, but I could sense what he was feeling too. He liked me a lot more than he was willing to admit.

  "Lorena-"

  "You care about me," I said, cutting him neatly off, "and I care about you. I won’t call what I feel love. It's not that. Not yet. But I care about you. I like your stubbornness. I like your rare smiles. And, dear god, I really liked how it felt when you put your hands all over me." I ran my hands up his thighs.

  He made a sound. "Lorena!" He grabbed my wrists hard between his own.

  "What?" I demanded as he pulled me back from his body.

  "Do not pretend to feel what you don't."

  "Who the heck says I'm pretending?" I demanded.

  He gave me an angry look. If it had been Dmitri, I might have been afraid to see that simmering anger, but it wasn't. Wei I trusted to keep control of his emotions, even when those emotions raged. That was a pretty big thing as far as I was concerned.

  "What of Alan?"

  "Alan is in love with Dmitri, and even if he weren't, he's a little flamboyant for my personal tastes."

  "Dmitri?"

  I shook my head once. "Weirdly enough, the fear of him one day losing control and beasting out on me does not endear him to me."

  "Zane?"

  "Mr. Enigma?" I asked. "We've barely exchanged three words to one another. Why would I have feelings for him?"

  Wei snarled at me. I jerked my hands out of his grasp. "I get that you have baggage because your first wife didn't handle you well, but that doesn't mean that you aren't able to be loved."

  He frowned at me. "You don't love me. You said so."

  I glared at him. "You haven't actually given me a chance. But even with that being said...everything that I have learned, I have loved. Even knowing about your son and your ex. Even knowing how stupidly stubborn you can be. How you like to hide all of your feelings behind this mask of cool distance. If you gave me half a chance, Wei, I would absolutely love you, but you are too damn afraid to accept that.”

  I felt angry, and I didn't even know why. I hadn't realized just how deep my feelings for the taciturn vampire went until right this moment. Was I crazy for feeling this way? Probably a little. But here I was.

  He tried to step away, but I grabbed his wrist. He used some fancy martial arts move to pull away from me, but I was better than that. Up until this week, I had been training with Wei three nights a week; I knew how to read his movements. I stepped up with him, and the next thing I knew, we were sparring. His heart wasn't in it though. I might be a good learner, but I only had a month under my belt. He had a few centuries and super human speed, but my magic gave me insight into his motions.

  It still wasn't enough. I stumbled back and plopped down on the floor, but I grabbed his silken shirt and carried him with me. We rolled on the ground, and I straddled his hips. I felt him beneath me and reveled in the fact that he was, at the very least, half interested in being pinned beneath me. I ground myself against him, and he made a bestial sound in response.

  “Lorena!”

  “Wei,” I groaned, lowering my mouth to his. There was nothing light or gentle about this kiss. This was full of tongue and teeth and fire. I wanted him; I wanted him so badly that I burned for it.

  His hands were quick as they tugged at my clothes, and all I wanted him to do was take me back to the bedroom. Heck, I was pretty much okay with just making it back to the couch. The floor, with its numerous scattered pillows, would have been a pretty good choice too, as far as my quickly waking libido was concerned.

  His hands folded over my hips and hauled me closer to him. I could feel how much he wanted me. I was drowning in it, and I was so totally okay with that. I was ready, oh so ready.

  And then Wei froze.

  I think I said "no," but it might have been more of a growl. Scratch that. It was definitely more of a growl. He gripped my hands and held them still, and it was then that I heard it: the sound of a car pulling into the drive way. I blinked, wondering who or what could possibly be interrupting this m
oment. Then, I heard the sound of Jenny's laugh and remembered that she was supposed to be coming over.

  "Jenny," I told him.

  He put a full foot of distance between us, readjusting his silk shirt so that it didn't look like I had yanked it out of his pants.

  "You should choose Zane," he said flatly.