Bitten & Smitten ib-1

by Мишель Роуэн

  “Oh.” I bent to pick it up and put it gingerly on the top of his desk. He opened the top drawer and placed the gun inside. “So, where were you, anyhow? When I got here, Zelda didn’t know where you’d gone.”

  “There was a crisis at another club.”

  “So, you own more than this one?”

  “Yes. I own three.”

  “What was the crisis? Did somebody quit on you?”

  He slid the drawer closed and sat down at the desk.

  “No, a little more serious than that, I’m afraid. Just after midnight last night they were raided by vampire hunters. Nearly everyone was killed, and the club was burned to the ground.”

  My breath caught in my throat.

  “So,” he continued, “I’m sure you’ll excuse my rude behavior when dealing with your friend, as it was his friends who were responsible for what happened.”

  I blanched. “Oh, God, Thierry, I’m so sorry.”

  He shook his head. “I suppose I’ve been too wrapped up in my own petty worries lately, but this was enough to fully waken me to the dangers around us.”

  “So you’ve reconsidered the whole killing-yourself thing?” I asked hopefully.

  “No. In fact, it makes me certain that my decision is the right one.”

  I opened my mouth to argue with him, but he waved me off.

  “I wish to be alone for a while, Sarah, if you wouldn’t mind.”

  I nodded solemnly. “No problem. Um, I’ll go home, I guess. I’ve got some stuff I need to take care of.” I turned to the door. “Oh, by the way, I’ll probably be gone until Wednesday. I’ll swing by when I get back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have this family thing to go to.”

  Yes, it was a sudden change of heart on my part, I’ll admit it. But I’d decided the wedding was unavoidable. It would be best for me to go and get it over with. Also, getting out of the city right now sounded like a very good idea.

  Well, maybe not to Thierry. He looked at me with annoyance. “I thought I told you to part ways with your old life. That does not include attending ‘family things.’ How many dangerous situations do you need to be involved in before you’ll do as I say?”

  “It’s my cousin’s wedding in Abottsville. I have to go—everyone’s expecting me. I’ll part ways immediately after that, I promise.” I smiled at him and turned to leave, wondering why I felt guilty.

  “No,” he said.

  “Pardon me?”

  He took a deep breath and rubbed his temples before answering. “I said no. You cannot go to this wedding.” I frowned deeply and felt anger rising in my chest. “You can’t tell me what to do. I’ll go wherever I want.”

  He was on his feet then, hands clutching the edge of his desk, his expression dark with anger. “Stop acting like a child. You can’t go anywhere you want; you can’t do anything you want. Not anymore. Your actions of the last day have jeopardized all you see around you. Don’t you understand? Going out of the city will mean that I’m unable to protect you, and I have enough to concern myself with here.”

  I felt my throat closing up, but I wasn’t backing down. He couldn’t bully me, no matter how scary he got. No way. No how.

  “How have you been protecting me holed up in this place planning to kill yourself? Yeah, you’ve been a lot of help. And sorry for saving Quinn. I guess I can’t just turn my back on people dying in the street. I’m funny that way.”

  “I don’t wish to argue with you, Sarah.”

  “No, you just want me to obey your every command the way everyone else around here does. Well, forget it. Not going to happen.” I turned again to leave, but before I could get to the door, he was there, blocking my way. He grabbed me and pulled me closer to him. For a crazy moment I thought he was going to kiss me again. But he didn’t. He just stared down at me while his fingers bit into my upper arms. “If you leave here and ignore my warnings…” He paused for a moment. “Don’t ever return.

  You’ll be completely on your own.” There was no more anger in his voice; it was simply a cold, monotone statement. He released me.

  I stared up at him and felt a tear slide down my cheek. I swallowed hard. “That’s fine with me.” I moved past him and out the open door. I commanded myself not to turn around to look at him—to see if he wore any telltale expression on his face. The anger had left me as quickly as it had come. I felt sick and tired and terribly alone.

  Thierry’s main problem was that he was too rigid. He was black or white, there was no give-and-take with him.

  My problem was that I was exactly the same way. But what was I supposed to do? Bow my head and say, “Yes, master, whatever you say, master”? Not going to happen. So that was it. I left Midnight Eclipse through the back door and tried to put his words out of my mind, but they ate at me like hungry termites.

  Was I really fooling myself? Was it a mistake to go to the wedding? My hometown was as safe as anywhere I’d ever been. Almost too safe. And I’d be fine, just fine, without the arrogant and demanding Thierry de Bennicoeur in my life. Jerk. Despite my unease with traveling back to my apartment all alone, I sucked it up and took public transit instead of calling for a taxi. I was in such a bad mood the hunters should be scared of me today. On the way back I stopped at Blockbuster and rented three movies to watch for the rest of the afternoon to take my mind off things. After perusing their selection I decided on the original Dracula, with Bela Lugosi; Interview with the Vampire, with Tom Cruise; and Love at First Bite, with George Hamilton.

  The phone was ringing as I pushed open my door. I ran to it, throwing my purse and the DVDs on the kitchen counter. It had to be Thierry, I knew it. He’d apologize for the argument and everything would be okay between us again.

  “Hello?” I said breathlessly.

  “Sarah! I’m glad you’re there.”

  My shoulders slumped. It was only Amy. It had been twenty-four hours since she’d abandoned me in the food court of the Eaton Centre, just before my little adventure with Quinn began. I hoped she hadn’t ended up spending too much money trying to make herself feel better. She was in major credit card debt. But I had my own problems to worry about.

  “Amy, about yesterday—”

  “Forget it,” she cut me off.

  “Forget it?”

  “Yeah, I think maybe I was totally being unreasonable. It’s none of my business if you’re

  seeing a new guy. In fact, I’m completely happy for you.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah, he’s a cutie, too. Quinn, right?”

  “Quinn.” I felt the sudden stirrings of a migraine. Or maybe it was a brain tumor. “Yeah, that’s his name, all right.”

  “So, how did you two meet, anyhow?”

  I tried to think up a good lie, then gave up. It hurt too much to think. “I kind of picked him up at a bar and he hasn’t left me alone since.”

  “That is so adorable. Who says you can’t meet a great guy in a bar anymore?”

  “Actually, I say that.”

  “Well, silly, I guess you’ve finally proven yourself wrong. Look, I don’t want to keep you;

  I know you probably have your hands full getting ready for the wedding, but I just wanted to call to say thanks.”

  “Thanks? What for?”

  She giggled. “When I left you two lovebirds alone yesterday, I went off to feel sorry for myself and ended up meeting a fantastic guy I never would have met if I’d spent the afternoon with you. And I bought the coolest new shoes. Wait till you see them.”

  “Oh,” I said with surprise. Well, not that much surprise. This was Amy we were talking about here. “Well, that’s great. The guy thing, that is. What’s he like?”

  She took a deep breath before she started gushing. “Well, he’s sexy as hell for one thing. He’s new in town, so maybe it’s totally fate. I think he might be the one. You would love him. In fact, I’m thinking that when you get back from the wedding, maybe you and Quinn and Peter and me can ge
t together for a double date?”

  I didn’t answer for a moment.

  “Sarah?” Amy asked. “Are you still there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.”

  “So? A double date? How much fun would that be?”

  I nodded, mostly from imagining how much fun that would not be. “Yeah, superfun.”

  “Major superfun. Why don’t you give me a call the moment you get back and we’ll set something up?”

  “Okay, I promise.” I was crossing my fingers. “Oh, and, Amy—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sorry. Really. I’m just sorry if I made you feel bad yesterday.”

  She laughed. “Forget it. When do we ever have boyfriends at the same time? It’s all good.”

  I hung up feeling guilty. There was no way I was going to go on that double date. For too many reasons to list. It wouldn’t be the first time that week I’d agreed to something I had no intention of following through on. Besides, with Amy’s track record, she’d have moved on to her next perfect man by the time I got back. For the rest of the day I sat on my couch and watched all three movies back-to-back while feeling very sorry for myself. Every few hours I’d have a small sip from the bottles of newbie special Zelda had made for me. I didn’t learn much from the movies. Well, other than the fact that when you’re a vampire, you seem to have a need to sink your teeth into any available vein. The thought made me feel a bit ill. There was no way I was doing that. Ever. Cross my heart and hope to…

  Oh, never mind.

  I packed my suitcase and went to bed early. I wanted everything to go smoothly over the next two days. I’d prove once and for all to myself that Thierry was wrong. I could still have a normal life. It would be okay. After the week I’d just had, I wasn’t in the mood for any more bad stuff to happen.

  But seriously, what could possibly go wrong at a wedding?

  Chapter 12

  The town of Abottsville is three hours northwest of Toronto. It has a population of just over eight thousand bright and cheery people who pride themselves on their town and their white-picket-fenced homes. In other words, it’s hell on earth. I hot-tailed it out of my hometown just after my eighteenth birthday to go to the university in Toronto— minoring in psychology, majoring in drama. I had big dreams of swiftly becoming a major movie star. But other than landing the lead in a local maxi-pad commercial, my starry-eyed plans fizzled pretty fast. I’d been in such a hurry to leave home because three weeks before prom, my high-school boyfriend had surprised me by popping the question. His big dream was to take over his family’s pharmacy and for me to stay at home and squeeze out four kids before I was twenty-five. Some girls might find that to be the meaning of life, but I wasn’t one of them.

  That had been the end of our relationship. I heard he’d recently won the lottery and moved to Hawaii with a former Playboy centerfold. Hindsight’s a bitch. I came back to town every now and then to see my parents, though not as often as I should. The guilty feeling always wore at me about that, but it wasn’t as bad as the queasy feeling I got when I passed the sign that declared WELCOME TO ABOTTSVILLE: HOME OF THE LARGEST PUMPKIN IN ONTARIO. I much preferred city living. Give me rush hour, pollution, and overpriced cappuccinos any day, thank you very much. I’d rented an economy-size car to drive into town for the wedding. Monday was filled with happy-happy, joy-joy family reunions and a highly unpleasant final dress fitting, which only proved that my new liquid “diet” hadn’t helped me lose a single pound. So damn unfair.

  Bridesmaid’s gowns were supposed to be ugly, but the ones Missy had picked out were guaranteed to give me a major case of post-traumatic dress disorder. It consisted of a short, shiny skirt, a wide, sparkly waistband, and a low-cut—very low—satin top. The chosen color was called “eggplant passion.” I felt like a showgirl in a sleazy Las Vegas production. My cousin had obviously been dropping some serious acid. But it was her day, after all, and who was I to complain? The other two girls who were in the wedding party looked more miserable than I did. At least I had the coolest shoes since I’d insisted on wearing my own “special occasion only” silver mules. So, other than the dress, the day I’d spent in the town of my youth had been uneventful. I was proving to myself that I could pass quite nicely as 100 percent human. And stupid

  Thierry wanted me to part ways with my old life. I was proving that I could leave things exactly the same, and nobody would ever know the difference. I stared at my barely there reflection as I tried to touch up my lip gloss in the church’s powder room. I was totally lying. The last day had been a nightmare of epic proportions. I wasn’t even exaggerating. All I wanted was to get the wedding over with so I could jump into my rented Toyota Echo and leave town. Why was it so bad? Let me count the ways. First, the whole reflection thing. It’s surprising how many reflective surfaces there are in the world. If anyone saw that I didn’t have a reflection, how was I supposed to explain it? So far I’d chosen avoidance as the best course of action.

  Second, at the rehearsal dinner I felt obligated to choke down some fettuccine Alfredo and garlic bread. I then learned by throwing up in the floral centerpiece what happens when certain vampires eat solid food. Don’t even get me started on when cousin Jeremy nicked his finger on a steak knife. We almost had a repeat performance of the Ms. Saunders incident. Thank God I found a raw steak to suck on. It wasn’t pretty. Now everyone was treating me very cautiously, like I was two minutes away from falling off the narrow edge of sanity, or something. They weren’t far off.

  On a more positive note, thanks to a rogue digital camera at the wedding rehearsal, I learned I did show up just fine and dandy in photographs. I just didn’t photograph very well. No big surprise there.

  “Sarah!” Missy wailed for me from the back of the church. I jumped and put my current glass of champagne down on the powder room counter before making my way over to the dressing room.

  “What’s wrong?” I tried to force myself to sound concerned. This was not the first time my cousin had been in tears since I’d arrived. She was either very emotional or very needy. Probably both.

  Join the club.

  She let out a long, shaky sigh. “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see if I could pass the proverbial baton to someone else. But we were all alone in the dressing room. Well, except for the two hundred people currently seated in the church next to us. Which included the decidedly creepy Reverend Micholby. Last night at the rehearsal dinner all he did was give me the evil eye. Or maybe it was the holy eye, since he was a reverend. Whatever.

  “Come on.” I plucked a tissue out of a nearby box and handed it to her. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Will it? I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready.”

  “Richard’s a great guy. You two are going to have a fabulous life together.”

  She sniffed. “We’re very different, you know. So different, it’s kind of scary.”

  “Hey, vive la diff?rence. Opposites attract, and all that.”

  “But what if he gets bored with me in fifty years? When I’m old?”

  “He won’t. You two are meant to be together. It’ll be fine. You want some champagne?”

  I poured her a glass. She took it from me and downed it in one gulp. I took a swig myself, right out of the bottle. The free booze was helping, although not as much as it used to.

  “He is great, isn’t he?” she asked.

  I wiped my mouth, trying not to smear my lip gloss. “Yeah, really great.”

  Truth be told, I’d only spoken to Richard, the groom, for five minutes at the rehearsal dinner. He was a balding, forty-something accountant who drove a blue Volvo. He seemed fine, but I wasn’t the one who was marrying him.

  Missy was in her early thirties. She’d been married once, twelve years before, but it hadn’t worked out due to her husband’s other two wives. She’d spent the interim yo-yo dieting and collecting cats. She met Richard when he did her taxes last year. Yup, romance didn�
��t get much more intense than that in Abottsville. The first notes of Canon in D started up outside the dressing room in the church. That was the cue for yours truly. Time to show off this bitchin‘ dress.

  “Saved by the Pachelbel,” I said. “Get it? Pachel-bell?” Missy looked at me blankly. “Oh, never mind. They’re playing our song.”

  Missy smiled and stood up.

  “Thanks for being there for me, Sarah. I sure wish you could come to town more often.”

  She hugged me lightly enough not to affect our makeup.

  “Yeah, me too,” I lied, and forced a big smile as I leaned back from her.

  She frowned at me. “Your teeth look a little funny.”

  “They do?” I ran my tongue along them and felt pain shoot through my mouth. My heart sank. There they were. They’d finally sprouted, like tiny little needles, ahead of schedule because of Thierry’s superstrength blood.

  My fangs. Terrific.

  “Um”—I tried to talk without opening my mouth very wide—“I used those Whitestrips things, that’s all. I guess they’re just whiter than normal. Anyhow, showtime. See you up at the front.”

  I scrambled away from her just as my uncle appeared in the doorway to accompany Missy down the aisle. I walked out to my fellow eggplant-clad bridesmaids. They were pulling at the hems of their dresses, but the more they pulled at the bottoms, the more cleavage popped out at the top.

  “This sucks,” a girl named Lana said before she began her walk down the aisle. She was first. I was second. The maid of honor, who looked ready to break out in hives, came behind me. Then it was Missy all the way.

  “Breathe,” I told Susan, the maid of honor. “You’ll be fine.”

  “I feel like a big, fat whore,” she said.

  I didn’t have a response for that, so I started down the aisle, tightly clutching my little bouquet of pink and white carnations. Okay, I finally had my vampire fangs. Just another little thing to deal with. No problem at all. Nada probl?me!

  Who was I kidding? This sucked. The Whitestrips tooth excuse was weak at best. Maybe no one would notice. I’d have to spend the rest of the day smiling as little as possible. I glanced over to where my parents were sitting. I had to talk to them. Explain that I would be parting ways and wouldn’t be around much in the future. That I was moving to Australia on business. They’d accept that without asking too many questions, wouldn’t they? They both beamed back at me from their pew, looking very happy. I frowned slightly. Almost too happy. What would make them look that damn happy today? As I moved into a better angle to see them, I stopped walking right there in the middle of the aisle. My bouquet fell to the floor. Seated in between my parents, wearing dark sunglasses and a bored expression, was George.