He didn't stir, but I had the feeling the soul, or whatever the hell it was I could feel, did. I glanced over at Alessandra and Max. Max had taken a hit to the chest, but was succeeding in his struggle not to go down. Alessandra had a look of intense fury on her face, but sweat was marring its perfection. She was working hard and it was taking its toll. I quickly bent back down to Michel and tried again. “Michel, please. Please come back.”
Now, I know what you're probably thinking, why doesn't she just go and stake the big bad vampire while he's distracted by the bitch? Unfortunately, it didn't even cross my mind. My sole focus was on Michel and getting him up and back, to me. Staking Max would have been great and all, but staking him without Michel around, was just not. And part of me feared that if I didn't get Michel's essence, soul, thingymajiggy back into his body right now, right this instant, it would all be over. I just couldn't contemplate anything else.
“Michel, please.” I was begging now and practically crying, my eyes stinging from unshed tears, my throat raw and closing shut from emotion, my hands wringing in my lap. Of course, even if he was awake, he wouldn't have seen the distress on my face, but he could hear it. And luckily, that's all he needed.
“I am here, ma douce.” I let a whimper out, I couldn't help it.
He sat up slowly, no colour in his face, his eyes a little glazed over. Luckily Max was too occupied with Alessandra. I might not like the woman, but I sure as hell could appreciate the effort she was putting in right now, even if it was to save her own arse.
Michel took a deep breath in and his gaze focused on the battle crackling and sizzling in the room, I saw the purple swirls start to swim in his eyes and I almost cried out in relief. Colour came back to his face and he started to glow softly, like when I first met him that day in the bank. He stood slowly to his feet, not because he was still shaky I think, but because he didn't want to call attention to his movements, his eyes were fixed solely on Max.
I stepped away. I wasn't sure what was about to happen, but I didn't think my vision thingy would protect me from a direct hit, or at least, I didn't want to try and see what would happen if I got in the way of Michel's power. Michel raised his hand slowly and I expected to see sparks fly or something, but Max simply fell to his knees. His head turned and a look of utter incredulity spread across his features. So, he'd written Michel off, had he? He countered Michel with his own raised hand, both of them stretched out towards each other, Max's other hand raised towards Alessandra, but she was fading. Her head kept dropping down and she'd jerk it back up and grimace.
Finally when I could stand the tension no longer, Max smiled, flicked his wrists and simply disappeared. What the?
Alessandra immediately crumpled to the floor panting, Michel glanced casually around the room and then stepped over to her, resting a hand on her shoulder. She didn't even try to grab it in a possessive slutty manoeuvre, she simply hung her head and continued to try to catch her breath.
I made a move to walk toward Michel, then I felt it, the blur against my vision, the rush of sound fading past me and away and I let myself be dragged down into that nothingness that had brought me here, hoping against hope that it would take me back to my body. Waiting for the moment when sensation would return and I'd find myself on the plush carpeted floor of Michel's chamber.
But all I could feel was a void of nothingness that stretched on and on forever.
Chapter 17
Sleeping Beauty
I slowly woke to the sounds of something bleeping. I couldn't open my eyes or move my body and my hearing came and went for the first few hours. Every time it returned, there'd be the constant bleeping, not loud but persistent, repetitive, steady.
Finally I started picking up other things about me but they made absolutely no sense at all, the sound of birds, seagulls I think and wind whistling in the trees, the rustle of paper, the clink of a glass, the rush of waves against a beach, the humming of someone nearby, I couldn't make out the song.
Then I started to feel. The pull of something in the crease of my elbow, the weight of the blankets, the softness of the pillow which cupped my head and the soft warm hand holding mine, stroking the back of it with a thumb. Soft, warm and oh so comforting. I just lay there for a while revelling in the sensation. I decided it was time to see who was doing that to me, such a simple movement, but filled with so much care.
The light was harsh at first and I found myself blinking. The ceiling was a plain white, nothing special, a sunken light fixture in the middle, not directly over the bed. I turned my head towards the hand stroking mine and found Michel with his forehead resting on the side of my bed, his dark hair tumbling across the white coverlet on the mattress and butting up to my hip, one hand holding mine, stroking, the other resting across my legs. He didn't know I was awake.
I tried to say something, but no sound would come out, my throat was parched, so I opted for squeezing his hand instead. His head shot up and deep blue eyes, as deep as any ocean, looked into mine. He smiled.
“Tu es réveillés mon amour, mon précieux amour.”
“English,” I managed to whisper then licked my lips and cringed as my throat closed over completely. Michel quickly stood and reached for a jug of water, pouring some into a waiting glass, he held it to my lips and I sipped at it gratefully. You have no idea how much better I felt after that. I hadn't realised just how thirsty I was and how dry my throat had been and once that was dealt with, I felt a million times better.
But, Michel wouldn't let me get up straight away, he pushed the buzzer next to the bed and a human nurse came in. She fluffed around checking this and that out, taking my temperature, listening to my chest, flashing a pen light into my eyes and looking in my throat. I croaked out the Ahhh, but it seemed to satisfy her. She proceeded to remove a number of tubes from my arm, my nose and then one much lower. Once she was satisfied she had a quick word with Michel at the door and was gone.
I took the chance to sit up while his back was turned, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The world tilted abruptly and Michel caught me as I fell.
“Too soon, ma douce. You have been lying still for one week now, you need to let your body do this slowly.”
One week? One friggin' week? No friggin' way!
He raised the back of the bed up halfway using a control on the side, hanging on a cord. It was kind of like those beds you see in the emergency room. He lay me back down gently, lifting my feet back onto the bed and perching on the side next to me.
“One week, huh?” I said, my voice sounding a little tinny, different, not quite yet strong, not mine. “What's that all about?”
Michel brushed my hair out of my eyes and let his hand trail down the side of my cheek. “You gave me quite a scare, ma douce. When I opened up the chamber at Sensations you were curled up on the floor. I could not rouse you. Nothing I could do could make you wake.” He looked pained at the memory. “I had you brought here immediately and waited for you to stir.”
He smiled then, a slightly wicked smile. “You do make a wonderful sleeping beauty though.”
Despite the unusual realisation that I had missed a week, totally slept through it, Michel was quick to bring me up to date on the events after I left the basement. It turns out, that Max didn't just vanish into thin air, he disappeared from our shores and ran into hiding. He knew he couldn't beat both Alessandra and Michel together. It had been close, he had almost defeated Alessandra after knocking Michel out and sending his soul flying, but when Michel reappeared in the basement, he knew he was done. He took the coward's way out and ran.
I had been asleep for exactly one week. Nobody could tell Michel why, the doctors and nurses he called in were at a loss. They said my body was fully functional, but my mind was resting. Michel had me connected to heart monitors, fluid and nutrition supplies and just waited. From the look in his eyes, it had been the longest wait in his life.
“So, Enrique and Stephen tell me you aided in the battle after all, my
dear.”
We were sitting in the lounge of yet another of Michel's residences, where he'd had me resting after the fight. I felt a hundred percent, fighting fit, but he insisted we stay one more day before returning to the CBD. Looking out at the view over St Helier's Bay, there were lights of small watercraft twinkling on the waters and the dark shape of Rangitoto Island blotting the landscape. I couldn't tell if he was angry or slightly impressed.
“Stephen?” I opted to just ignore the tone altogether.
“Stephen was at the docks when you took out twenty vampyre in under a minute.”
I spluttered, “It wasn't twenty.”
“The number is irrelevant.” Not to a hunter, but I thought I'd keep that to myself. “The fact that you did it, is not.”
There was a flash of something in his eyes. I couldn't quite grasp, it wasn't anger, but I couldn't tell what it was either. He was using everything in his arsenal to try to hide it from me. Even though I had got good at reading him, if he really worked at it, he could still hide his emotions from me.
The fact that he had to work at it at all, said a lot about how much things had changed.
Well, the cat was out of the bag, so there was no sense denying it I suppose. “I didn't wake when you spelled me and left me locked in the chamber.” I glared at him for that one, he simply looked back at me unmoved, waiting for me to continue. “It wasn't a dream, but something similar to what you create when you visit my dreams, it felt like that, but I could smell and hear and also touch and as you know, participate.” My mind flashed briefly on Rocky, lying so still, so white. I had not participated then, other than to witness that horror, or intervened either. Of course I hadn't known I could intervene, but that's not the point is it? I should have tried. “No one could see me though, or sense me, or even hear my movements. It was as though I was a phantom. But I could kill. So I did.”
I glanced at him to see if he found that repulsive, killing vampires when they don't even know you are there. It sounded barbaric, wrong, even to my ears. He must have been able to see the guilt on my face, it was too close to the surface and I hadn't even tried to hide it. Maybe I was slipping in that department too, because he reached out and took my hand and started stroking it. He didn't say anything, just gave me some warmth, when I had suddenly started to feel so cold.
“The first time, I didn't know what was happening, I just appeared at the docks in the middle of the fighting, but the second time, when I appeared in the club, I think I made it happen. I had woken up in the chamber and could hear the fighting in the club, but it wasn't until I felt you in pain, that I started to,” I dared a glance in his direction, one eyebrow was delicately raised, “um, get a bit desperate. I panicked, I guess, I didn't want to hear or feel what I was hearing or feeling, so I just tried to not exist.” It sounded all wrong, but it was really the gist of it. I had laid down on that carpet trying to block everything out, but when I felt the sense of nothingness approach, I had desperately grabbed it in an attempt to get away from everything else around me.
He sat forward and reached out to stroke my face. “What does it mean, Michel?” I asked. “I shouldn't be able to do this, should I? I haven't turned 25 yet, so if this is a power, which I can only imagine it is, why have I got it now?”
“I do not know, ma douce, I can only guess, but it is not something you should be afraid of. It is part of who you are and without your interaction that night, the outcome may have been quite different.”
“What can you guess it is then?” I was getting a bit desperate the more I thought about it. I had already been a enough of a freak before and I thought I had another two weeks, now only one week, until I became more freaky and now this.
He looked contemplative then. I wasn't sure if he was going to tell me what he was thinking, but something shifted in his face as he said, “I have heard of one other Nosferatin, who came into some of their powers before they turned 25. This was a long time ago and I do not even know if they lived past their 25 birthday. But there were rumours of one in the Middle East. I had thought at the time, that he may have joined with the Master of Cairo, but she showed no signs of having been joined and still does not today.”
A tingle of a thought went through me, just a brief glimpse and then it was gone. Something about what Michel had just said triggered a response deep within me, but it fluttered away before I could catch it.
“OK, but does it mean anything? It's not normal, does it mean I don't have to join?” Grasping at straws, but I had to try.
“No. The alliance between your people and mine is binding, conclusive. There is no way out. You will die if you do not join with us and the vampyre, as a whole, will lose their powers and become weaker over time, if we do not have you by our side.”
He didn't try to sugar coat it, he had seen the hope in my eyes, but there was no point trying to run away from the inevitable, even though part of me still longed for it to be possible. I also knew I would have to make the biggest decision of my life soon, but I could delay it as long as possible, couldn't I?
I sat still for a moment digesting all of that. OK, so I had a nifty new power, one that I could obviously use now and at will, but one that came with a caveat, use only once during the course of an evening, or pay the consequences. Or, at least, I assumed that was how it all went.
Michel interrupted my train of thoughts. “I do think, however, that we should not advertise this ability, my dear. It would not be prudent to let the Iunctio become aware of this, it would - how shall I say? - cause quite a stir, I should think.”
No surprises there. If vampires knew I could sneak up on them, unseen, unheard and not sensed, then there would be a riot for my head. I was now, probably, the most lethal thing in their world. I couldn't help grinning at that thought.
“How are you going to keep it quiet?”
He smiled slyly. “I have my ways.” Then more seriously, “I have entered into an accord with Jock, Enrique and Alessandra.”
My eyes widened at that. An accord, as you know is binding and vampires are usually very hesitant to enter into one with their own kind. It wasn't unheard of, but it was very rare. To do so was to tie themselves to what could potentially be a liability. There can be a lot of wheeling and dealing in vampire politics. An awful lot of duelling too, but mainly people just negotiate. They negotiate alliances, not accords, but fairly similar in its goal, and they align themselves with other powerful cities. The more allies you have, the more influential you are and therefore the more successful you will be in winning the city of your choice.
So far, Michel had been able to fight off any would-be pursuers of Auckland City, but the battle with Max had shown me that was not by strength alone. Michel was not as powerful as Max, but he had good connections. He was the perfect example of vampire politics in motion. He had manoeuvred himself into a position of power by aligning himself with the right people. I had no doubt in my mind that Michel was a devious and cunning mastermind when he needed to be.
So, although alliances are similar in their overall outcome as accords, they can be broken, which is a necessary evil in a world where wheeling and dealing can have drastic results. Michel obviously had alliances with Jock, Enrique and Alessandra, otherwise they wouldn't have come when asked for help, but now he had an accord with them too and that can not be broken. Ever.
This also meant I'd be seeing a lot more of Alessandra. The bitch just wouldn't leave me alone, would she?
The length of time it took for me to digest this information had let Michel see I understood the ramifications. Michel had placed himself in a potentially dangerous position to protect me, but was it just because he cared? I doubted that completely. Did I want to confront him on that issue? Hell no. But I had to.
“Why would you do that?”
His lips curled slightly at the corners, even that small movement made his eyes light up with dancing swirls of every shade of blue. I could sink into those eyes if I allowed myself. “The end justi
fies the means, my dear. And as I have already told you, I will protect you no matter what. Forever.”
He leaned forward then and cupped my face with both of his warm, soft hands. He took all of me in with that look, searching every inch of my face, as though he was committing it to memory, lest he never had the chance to gaze upon it again. “You are my kindred Nosferatin, Lucinda. There is no denying it, you know it as well as I. The connection between us is deeper than just simple attraction, although,” his lips quirked, “that is undeniably a welcome addition to the mix, but it goes into the deepest part of us, it is as much a part of us as our own hearts.” He started to stroke my cheeks, softly running his thumb along my jaw. “You may not be aware, ma douce, but not all vampyre have a kindred Nosferatin, some will live out their existence without such beauty in their lives. I have waited five hundred years for you.”
His lips met mine, brushing against them in a slow, soft movement, then coming back to press more firmly, sending a shockwave of desire through my body. His tongue slipped between my teeth, seeking, searching, filling me with such longing I could hardly breathe. His hand now resting in my hair at the base of my neck, pulled my head back softly, exposing my sensitive neck to his mouth. The touch of his lips over my pulse made me shudder against him, he groaned softly against my skin and reached up with his other hand to caress my nipples, stroking softly against their already hardened tips with his thumb.
Heat was beginning to build within me, a luxurious flood of warmth starting down low and working up my body. It felt like every touch he made sent electric waves of pleasure through me. I was gasping and my heart had started beating in a rhythm all its own. Just when I thought I could stand it no longer, that I had to have him closer, had to have him naked against me, flesh on flesh, his head lifted suddenly away from me and he stilled.
“Merde!”
Chapter 18
This Changes Nothing
“I am sorry, Master. This cannot wait.” Bruno's voice was even, but low, as though he feared Michel's response to his interruption. He wasn't looking directly at us either, but off to the side, as though eye contact would strengthen Michel's anger toward him. I had no doubt that it wasn't out of any sense of consideration of my dishevelled and lust-filled look. It was a survival mechanism, pure and simple. He was protecting his own arse, not my dignity.
Kindred (Kindred, Book 1) Page 18
