“This hallway is handled electronically by guards in a room nearby.” He pointed me into one of the cells. A cement wall separated my little suite of cells from the others, but it had furniture — a bed at the back with a little table beside it, and there was a sofa, a recliner, and a fancy cloth armchair. Bran walked to a huge armoire and opened it to reveal dresses, pants, and shirts.
He pointed to a smaller, six-by-six jail cell with a metal toilet. “If you feel yourself losing control, go in there and close the door behind you. I don’t care whether Ghost’s here or not — if you destroy your room, I’ll take it out of your skin with my whip. Are we clear?”
I nodded and he continued. “Ghost has brought you paperback books as you’ve asked for them, but I’ll allow your e-reader on a trial basis. It doesn’t have glass, and there are things in this room that would make a better weapon, anyway.” He nodded to the camera just outside my cell, and the door slid closed.
“They’re watching now because I’m here, but under ordinary circumstances you won’t know if you’re being watched or not. There are security features that will alert them if there’s a problem, but you’ll no longer have eyeballs on you every moment of the day.”
My other jail cell had thin mesh on my side of the bars, from floor to ceiling, while this was just normal bars. Granted, they were closer together, but my snake could fit in some pretty tight places.
“What’s to keep me from turning snake and leaving?”
“The bars are electrified. You’ll note there’s nothing flammable within six feet of them.” He nodded to a button on the concrete wall. “You can get the guards’ attention with the red buttons. You’ll also find one near your bed, and in your toilet area, though you’ve probably guessed closing the door in there will bring help.”
He spent another twenty minutes explaining the new rules to me before we walked back upstairs. I donned one of the loose dresses in the armoire while we talked, and he hadn’t told me not to.
He stripped when we arrived at the pool, and dove in. I put my dress near his clothes, but I used the steps to get in.
“In order to justify waiting so many hours to notify them after I knew you were nourished by food, I need to be able to honestly tell them I was checking other things. Go underwater, let all the air out of your lungs, and fight the instinct to come above water. See if your body accommodates the lack of oxygen.” He looked at me a few seconds before adding, “If you aren’t under at least thirty seconds after you release the air, I’ll have to hold you under.”
Right, and if I didn’t have the control to stay under, it’d mean I’d failed yet another of his tests, too. The more of his tests I pass, the more liberties I get, so I was determined to stay under. Miraculously, after about fifteen seconds of feeling as if I was going to die, my body relaxed and everything was okay. I didn’t need to breathe. I swam around under water as if it were nothing.
When I finally came up, he didn’t tell me I’d done good, merely gave me my next test.
And so it went that three hours later I found myself digging a hole, knowing he was going to put me in it, pile all the dirt back on top of me, and then retrieve me after dark tomorrow night.
However, once it was dug he looped rope around my arms and wrists, back and forth and between in an intricate design, and hung me by my arms from a tree branch so my toes barely touched the top of the grass if I pointed them.
“I’m not doing this because you’ve displeased me,” he told me as he ran his hand down the side of my face, “but because we need to see how your body reacts. It’s imperative you stay in your human form and don’t change to your snake form. If you change then I’m not going to use my influence to sway the Concilio votes in your favor. If you can hold onto this form for the next two days, I’ll do everything in my power to help you keep your life and your freedom.”
And then he proceeded to whip me as I swung from the tree, helpless to make the pain stop. He ripped skin from my body with the first cruel, cutting, bruising lash. It didn’t take me long to realize the knots all up and down the three leather strands had little metal pieces in them. Sharp metal pieces that pulled skin off as the leather struck my body.
I don’t know how long he whipped me, but I have a feeling he kept going even after I passed out from the pain. The snake wanted to come out, but I pushed her down, and down, and down until I couldn’t even feel her anymore. My life with Dare depended on my not losing control, so I held onto it with all I had.
Chapter 17
Ghost
Bran used a burner phone to call my burner phone, and proceeded to tell me what he’d done to my love since I’d been gone.
He began the conversation by telling me the Concilio would do the same thing to test her, and he’d recorded it so they wouldn’t have to do it again.
“The good news,” he told me, “is she passed with flying colors. We won’t know how her body will react to the damage until she comes back to us on the second or third night, but her self-control is perfect.”
Bran and I have gone round and round about the best way to train Hailey on more than one occasion. The egg sandwich is the first thing I’ve been right about, but I understood his reasons. He should’ve told them to us, but I suppose it would’ve negated him staying legal with the Concilio.
I carefully considered the situation from a strategic angle, and told him, “You wanted her to be buried when you told them, so you’ll have time to argue her case before they can take her.”
“In part. Also, having the video of her not turning snake while I whipped her will go far toward showing she’ll eventually be safe in human society.”
“I’ll be having breakfast with Aaron Drake and someone he feels can help.”
“Very well. I’m about to change clothes and initiate a video call. You can let him know I’m starting with Myrddin.”
“If they’re in Europe, we should have the better part of a day before they can get here, right?”
Bran sighed. “I’m afraid not, dear wolf. They can be here in an instant should they decide it’s necessary.”
* * *
Aaron Drake has invited the MC to several parties, so I’ve been to his home before. Abbott lives next door, but he dies at dawn and awakens sometime in the afternoon or evening, so it wasn’t him we were having breakfast with.
Jonathan opened the door to let me in, and Sophia walked me through the living room to the deck. “Gabby has kept me up to date on how Hailey’s doing, but we thought the Lugat had won out over the Snake. I wasn’t aware shifter blood and vampire blood could exist in the same body.”
“They can’t,” her husband said from a table on the deck as we stepped out, “which is why Bran is having to pull the Concilio in.”
Sophia put a coffee cup in front of me and pointed to a carafe on the center of the table. “Help yourself, we’re pretty informal around here.”
Aaron nodded to me and looked at the man beside him. “Mordecai, this is Darius Cook, but everyone calls him Ghost.”
The man had been giving me a strange look since I walked in, and now he nodded, “Yes, I can see the energy of the man who can walk without being seen. Tell me about Hailey.”
He didn’t ask for details about her supernatural abilities — he asked me to tell him about her, so I did. “She’s this beautiful soul who doesn’t know she makes other people happy just by existing. And when her fingers are on a piano or a guitar, the beauty inside her comes out and gives you goosebumps. She was raised with very few material things. When I met her, she owned two pair of jeans, three pair of shorts, a half dozen t-shirts, a pair of raggy old sneakers, and some flip-flops. They were cooking squirrel stew on a little gas stove just outside the camper, and I later found out they’d bartered deer meat with a farmer to get the vegetables for the stew.” I shook my head as I remembered. “When they moved in with my dad and me, she thought heat and air conditioning were decadent. She apologized for the water she used for a shower, and she
wouldn’t use the televisions because she didn’t want to run up the electric bill. If someone else was watching, she’d watch with them, but she never just turned one on to watch on her own.”
“And now?”
I finally poured myself some coffee, and drank it black.
“She’s had time to see how the rest of the world lives, but she still doesn’t need much. She knows who she is, she’s secure in herself. Society never got the chance to brainwash her into the idea she has to fit some crazy mold. She’s herself — take her or leave her.”
Mordecai nodded. “Thank you. Now, tell me how the supernatural changes have affected her personality.”
I considered the question, and shrugged. “They’ve made her focus on her self-control, but this kid could play complete piano pieces from the major composers — sometimes with no sheet music — when I met her. She’s always been able to do whatever she set her mind to.”
“How old was she when you met her?”
“Seven, nearly eight. She’s had self-discipline and self-control since well before then. She brought home dinner as often as her mom. How many seven-year-olds nowadays can take a gun into the woods, kill their dinner, skin it, and make it presentable for cooking?”
“Has she grown more confident? Less confident? Does she define herself differently?”
“She had no confidence at all when she first became lucid. Now, though…” I took a few seconds to consider. “I don’t think so. She’s my Hailey. We have to do this dance of dominance and submission for me to help her keep control sometimes, so it isn’t exactly as it was before, but she’s the same beautiful soul she’s always been.”
He looked to Aaron, back to me. “This is the second time I’m aware of someone taking on the aspects of shifter and Lugat, and the other instance was also a snake. In the early seventeen hundreds, a delegation of Cherokee chiefs and their families came to England to visit with the King and negotiate on their people’s behalf. One of the chief’s sons caught the eye of vampire royalty, and he didn’t go home with his family.”
“The cook has breakfast ready,” Sophia told us. “Let’s finish this conversation while we eat.”
By the time we finished eating, I knew a lot about Hailey’s likely fate. The Concilio had kept the man in a cage for nearly a century, but had eventually allowed him his freedom. He’s still alive and living in Italy, now the owner of thousands of acres of olive trees, as well as a small vineyard.
Since he’d posed no issues as a free man, there was a chance Hailey might keep her freedom, but there were no guarantees.
“What’ll I owe you for helping us?”
He shook his head and smiled. “Someday, you’ll have an opportunity to help someone. Do it without asking anything in return, and we’ll be even.”
I opened my mouth to ask if this was in general, or a specific person, and he answered before I could ask. “You’ll recognize the situation when it happens. You’ll know.”
I was on the edge of agreeing when Aaron said, “Understand, while this may happen five months from now or eighty years from now, your obligation is set in stone once you agree. Should you go back on your word…” He looked to Mordecai and then back to me. “Most people are terrified of the man you’re so casually having breakfast with. I’m not sure why you aren’t, but please don’t take this promise lightly.”
Mordecai smiled at me before looking at Aaron to say, “I believe he understands the gravity of our deal.”
“I do, and I’ll agree to it with the condition that it won’t cause conflict with any of my allegiances.”
“I don’t believe it will, but if it does then please contact me before turning anyone away.”
Chapter 18
Hailey
I awoke in the dark with the earth all around me. Perhaps I should’ve been afraid, but I wasn’t. I don’t have to breathe, so the weight of the earth above me didn’t terrify me.
It took me a little while to be certain which direction was up, but once I figured it out, I dug my way out.
I was ravenous, and realized I’d be okay with either a mortal’s blood or food. I needed something soon, but I wasn’t going to chase a human down and drink them dry.
Bran, Dare, and three people I didn’t know were sitting around a table, eating and drinking, when I climbed out of my filthy grave.
“That table wasn’t there before.”
Yeah, it was a dumb thing to say as I stood before them, dirty and naked, but it’s the first thing I thought.
“I can offer you a human if you feel you have control, or bagged human blood, or a steak dinner, or a shower,” Bran said. “Choose one.”
“If the steak dinner can be ready in the next five minutes, I believe I’d prefer it. If not, then I have control for the human, please.”
One of the other gentlemen stood and walked to me. “I am known as Apollonius.” He put his hand out, palm up. “Please put your hand on mine.”
His hand was warm, and he smelled… I wasn’t sure what he smelled like. Human, but… not. I felt magic, felt power, but not what I’d expected after Dare told me how powerful the Concilio is.
He closed his eyes a good ten seconds before opening them and pulling his hand away.
“Thank you. Bran’s butler will show you to a shower, and I’d like to sit and speak with you in private while you eat your steak dinner.”
I looked to Dare, who told me, “They’d like for us to keep our distance until Apollonius has a chance to get to know you a little. If we touch now, they’ll keep us from seeing each other at all for a while.”
* * *
Ghost
She’d come out when they said she would, but they told me to be prepared for her to be all vamped out. Instead, she was completely healed and looked normal. Well, dirty as fuck and way too thin, but she looked and acted human.
Bran looked to Mordecai as if waiting for him to speak, and Mordecai smiled at me, “Your Hailey has spunk. I like her.”
“I’m being patient, but the wolf needs to hold her.”
“As do you,” Mordecai said, his tone gentle. “Let Apollonius do his thing. He has a system and he doesn’t appreciate people messing with it.”
I texted Viper to let him know Hailey was up and healthy, and then sat and tried not to fidget. I finally breathed a little easier when someone brought more food and beer out to us with a message. “Ferguson says to tell you everything seems to be going well.”
Eventually, Apollonius came back out, but it took me a second to realize Hailey was the snake slithering along beside him.
He stopped about fifteen yards from us and said, “Head down, please?”
The snake’s head went down, and he said, “Tail noisy.”
She shook her tail and he said, “Quiet.”
Hailey froze, and he asked, “Can you make a C, please?”
She waved her head, and he chuckled, “Yes, that was a curve ball, but I’m impressed you figured out how to tell me you can’t. Okay, final task. Go to Ghost and climb him.”
She looked to me, back to Apollonius, and then back to me. She approached me slowly, slithered up my leg, then my body. I’ve handled her when she’s been a snake, but it’s mostly been about keeping her head away from me so she couldn’t bite me. I’ve learned how to defend myself without hurting her, but this was the first time I’d just let her climb on me like this. I had to force myself to sit still as she came up my leg, but I relaxed as she paused at my thigh, and nodded to let her know we were good. I got the feeling she was careful to keep her face turned so I knew she wasn’t a threat, but I could tell by her energy we were okay. She curled around the back of my neck before turning to look at Apollonius again.
“Very good. Can you change from there, or do you need to move away from him?”
At first, I thought she’d leave, because she backed down so she wasn’t behind my neck, but then she grew heavier as she moved and morphed in my arms. She’d never changed while touching me like this
before, and I could feel the tingly magic of the shift. I pulled her to me once she was human, and held her tightly, grateful I could at last touch her.
She folded into me so no one could see her nudity, and I wrapped my arms to help shield her. I wasn’t sure why it bothered her today, but I knew I needed to help her feel safe. “I have you,” I told her. “I love you.”
“God, I love you, too. I want to go home worse than anything.”
My home was now her home, and I held her a little tighter as I looked up to Bran. “Any chance we can get her some clothes?”
He nodded, and I looked to Apollonius. “Did she pass your tests?”
“She isn’t ready to be turned loose in public on her own yet, but she isn’t expected to be ready this soon after her transformation.” He looked to Bran, back to me. “I’m willing to leave her in Bran’s care until he feels she’s ready, at which time I’ll make a trip back to verify. However, before I do so, I’d like to meet Viper one-on-one, and I’d like an invitation to one of your club’s social events. The moral compass of a new vampire’s friends are important, and at first glance being around a motorcycle gang wouldn’t seem to be ideal, but based on the things in your head and hers, it’s possible she’ll be in good hands despite first appearances.”
The dude was in a suit, and if I had to guess, some famous tailor in Italy had probably made it from the finest fabrics known to man. I shook my head as I considered him at one of our picnics. “Not everyone at our social functions knows about supernaturals. I have no idea how we’ll explain your presence. You’ll kind of stick out.”
“I understand Aaron Drake attends with his wife and children. We’ll call me his houseguest, and say he asked for permission to bring me.” He tilted his head and added, “I’ll follow his lead on what I should wear. The Concilio is not in the habit of drawing the attention of mortals.”
Ghost: The Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club, Book 8 Page 13
