“He changed you that night?” I asked.
“Yes. Jareth left his creator on the continent and came home. He was watching me flail, and he was lonely. We were always close in life; our personalities seem to balance each other. I was found and buried, and my mother wept for a second time. Jareth dug me up and took me away with him. I returned once or twice to watch my family, much to Jareth’s disapproval.”
He reached out to stroke my face and I did my best to stay calm under his touch.
“Here I make my point—I do understand how it feels to have your feet swept out from under you, not once but twice. I had Jareth. Who do you have if you will not have me?”
I sighed, wondering if he and Jareth had been comparing notes. He had a point, all the same: I really didn’t have a support network, since I had cut both Aram and Virginia off. I leaned back against the railing, thinking about Aram’s story.
“What war was Jareth fighting?”
“The great war. I believe it is now referred to as the Hundred Year War.”
I’d studied that in school; it surprised me a little that I could still recall anything about it. I said, “That war ended in fourteen fifty-three. That would make the battle between Lancaster and York the War of the Roses. So you became a vampire in fourteen fifty-eight.”
Aram shrugged. “Approximately.”
“That would mean, if you were twenty-five when you were turned, that you’re five hundred and seventy seven.”
“So?”
“You said you were five hundred and twenty six.”
“I miscalculated a little.”
“You miscalculated by fifty years! How can you miscalculate by fifty years?”
“In a long life it is easy to forget things, so I merely estimated. I am done humoring you. We are getting off point.”
The music from the bar came through more clearly now; someone must have turned it up. It was a racy, dancy beat, though I couldn’t make out the lyrics.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I just can’t believe you miscalculated that badly.”
“When you are my age, dates will matter less to you as well. No one can remember everything.”
All my breath whooshed out of me and I almost lost the power to stand. When I was his age?
“Oh, pet, I have frightened you.” He swept me into his arms, and his swaying comfort became a dancing motion. The music switched into a dreamy romantic song. Curse you Michael Bublè.
“I, for one, am glad you are not mortal,” Aram said. “I worried about our parting, and even began to hope reincarnation were true, so that I could have hope that time after time you would come back to me.”
“Aram, that’s…” I cut myself off. I didn’t want to say sweet. I found calling a vampire “sweet” a tad moronic.
“We must return to the topic of our relationship. Again I find myself, as you put it, being the woman in our relationship,” he said.
“Can you see a pattern developing?”
“Mmm, and it’s not one I care for.”
“Don’t panic,” I said, giving up and leaning my head on his shoulder. “You’re all man, all the time, to me.”
He pulled me tight against him.
“May I simplify? Cassandra, do you love me?”
“Yes,” I replied, hating how small and weak my voice sounded.
“Then why must you persist in this notion that we must be apart?”
“I want time to regain my balance, pull all the pieces into perspective and feel like I was me again. You deserve a together me, not a neurotic mess me.”
Aram grasped my shoulders and leaned back to look at me.
“You have always been special to me,” he said, “regardless of who you are, what species you are, and what powers you possess. I love you.”
“It has less to do with your perception of me but with my perception of myself,” I said. “You can’t make someone see them the way you do.”
“It does not change the facts. I love you, and I would prove it any way you asked of me.”
I smiled and tried to lighten the situation by teasing him. “You do? Then would you scream it to the world?” He smiled at me, leaned into my ear and whispered.
“I love you.”
“Why did you just whisper that?”
“Because pet, you are my world.”
I blinked. Where the hell did he get these lines? He pressed his mouth to mine as I stood dumbstruck, sending a current of electricity coursing right down to my toes. He held me close again and we swayed softly to the music.
“I return to my original question, pet. How much more time do you require?”
“I don’t know. If you’ve grown tired of my indecision, I understand.” Maybe. Eventually I’d understand. He hushed me with another kiss.
“I would not be here if that were the case.”
“All I ask is that you let me come to you. I’ll know when I am ready. No more dreams, no more prodding or subtle maneuvering. That goes for Jareth, too.”
“That would, technically, not make us a couple.”
“Technically, no.” I didn’t want to say he saw other people if he wanted, because damn it, I didn’t want there be anyone else.
“I understand. May I ask something in return? A promise?”
“I guess that’s fair. What is it?”
“That you will warm your bed with no one but me until you decide.”
He was asking me not to have sex? Well, that should be a fairly easy promise to keep. “Yes,” I said. “I promise.”
The music returned to a racy beat, and we pulled apart.
“Perhaps you should go back inside, pet,” Aram said, “if only to stop the futile glances out the window.” I turned to look back at the building and saw DJ at one of the high windows; he must have stood on something. He ducked his head out of sight but I’d already seen him. I turned back to Aram to find him gone and his voice echoing in the dark:
“Remember your promise.”
As exits went, it was a good one. I pulled the sling from my pocket and put it back on, then walked back into the bar. DJ was standing with one foot on the back of a bar chair and one on the seat, still as a statue.
“You and I need to talk,” I said. “Get down from there, you look ridiculous.”
I headed across the floor to the door that led to the bathroom and the kitchen—where we could have the illusion of privacy. I wasn’t sure he was following me until I head the door clank shut behind me. I turned to face him; he had the audacity to grin at me.
“Giving the vampire his marching orders?” he asked hopefully.
“No, and,” I said, poking my finger into his chest, “I do not appreciate being spied on.”
“Are you together?”
“Technically, we are not a couple right now,” I said. He grinned. “You and I are not a couple either.”
His smile faltered. “Why not?”
“Well, to start, neither of us has actually asked the other out.”
“Will you go out with me?”
“No!”
He crossed his arms and pouted. Lord save me from petulant men.
“Give me a good reason why not,” he said. “I can feel you react to me. When we kiss, it’s amazing.”
I started to blush and made a waffling motion with my hand. “That’s not the point. I react that way to a lot of guys. Gerard Butler, for instance.”
“He’s not offering himself to you. I am.”
“I’m sure he would if he met me,” I said, trying for arrogant. “Besides, I’ve done the whole possessive boyfriend thing, and it’s tiring.”
“Like the vampire isn’t possessive!”
“Look, DJ, you’re a nice guy, but I don’t want to go that next step. If that means I have to find another instructor, I can.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t threaten to take yourself out of my world completely. I’m the best instructor you’re going to get.”
I put my hand on my hip. “Then can you b
ehave yourself?”
He nodded. I nodded back, then walked past him, heading for the door back to the bar.
“I want my chance with you,” he declared behind me.
I sighed. “Well, good job. You’ve certainly gone about it the right way.” I pushed through the door, leaving him behind. I took a seat at the bar, facing the dance floor; LeBron was twirling his date around and grinning like it was the best day of his life. He handled the changes in his life a lot better than I was. I’d have to ask him what he was taking.
The record of the jukebox switched to Bad Moon Rising, prompting a chorus of pleased howls—the song was practically the were national anthem.
I hoped that song wasn’t a sign of things to come.
About the Author:
Sonnet was born at the John Radcliffe in Oxford and spent the first six years of her life living in the town of Abingdon close to both her grandparents and most of the rest of her family. She moved after that to Cornwall for three years and then to Devon for another three before moving to where she has lived for the last fourteen or so years.
Sonnet now lives in Worcester, Worcestershire, famous for Lea & Perrin’s Sauce and as the site for the last battle of the Civil War.
Sonnet has had a passion for the written word from a very young age and enjoys nothing more than to read a good book. The worlds created by words.
Please visit her at http://www.sonnetodell.com
or email [email protected]
Other books by Sonnet O’Dell:
Triton Rising
The Morning Afterlife
The Cassandra Farbanks Series
Soul Market– Novel 1
Lost Innocents– Novel 2
Skin Thief – Novel 3
Inhuman Heritage – Novel 4
Also from Eternal Press:
Triton Rising
by Sonnet O’Dell
eBook ISBN: 9781615724628
Print ISBN: 9781615724635
Paranormal Romance
Novella of 20,933 words
Love can be like the ocean. Deep…and deadly.
Illiana is a half mermaid and has kept that fact hidden from all but a trusted few in her life. She is content to live her life, work her job, and to stay far away from the sea she is so drawn to.
Then by accident, she meets Karsh who is a full merman. They are drawn to each other and fall into a strangely instant and intense relationship as a mated pair. But knowing Karsh brings her into danger.
There is a man named Kelby who enjoys killed halfies like her. The minute he meets Illiana, he knows what she is, setting to hunting her immediately. Can Karsh protect her or will she suffer the fate of dying at the purists hands?
Also from Eternal Press:
Wolves Dressed as Men
by Steve Lowe
eBook ISBN: 9781615722365
Print ISBN: 9781615722372
Paranormal Shape-Shifter
Novella of 21,876 words
Can their love save the human race?
Thiess remembers very little of his life before he changed. His only memories now are of frozen mornings, naked and coated in human blood, and of running for his life from a Tracker bent on his destruction. Thiess prays for forgiveness and begs God to cure him of an affliction that turns him into a murderous beast, but as the Tracker closes in, he is losing any hope for salvation. Then he falls in love with Maria, and together, they race through the crumbling slums of a city slowing burning to the ground at the hands of a serial arsonist, setting off a chain of events that will threaten the existence of mankind.
Table of Contents
Silent Doll
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
About the Author:
Also from Eternal Press:
Also from Eternal Press:
Table of Contents
Silent Doll
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
About the Author:
Also from Eternal Press:
Also from Eternal Press:
Silent Doll Page 25
