Blood Lily (Lilith Adams Vampire Series Book 1) (32 page)

To her surprise, Chance stepped around her and cleared his throat. “Gregor.” Her father swung around, those piercing sky grey eyes fixing on him. She watched Chance’s chest rise and fall a little faster. “He’s not human, and he’s not vampire. You have no reason to trust him, but he did risk exposing his nature to us in order to save Lilith’s life.”

Something flickered across Gregor’s face, too fast to
tell exactly what. He didn’t waste any energy on fancy words. “Explain.”

Chance’s eyes flickered to hers for just a moment, a moment definitely not missed by her father.
Great. “Lilith was attacked. Spencer ran her off the road, beat her senseless and she just barely managed to escape. Cohen found her, got her to the police station. When he brought me in she was fairly coherent, but it changed lightning fast.” His eyes darted to Cohen, who merely closed his eyes, knowing what was coming next. They’d agreed to never let it leave the room, but Chance knew Gregor would never trust Cohen without either a reason, or specifics. If Cohen wasn’t willing to give him what he needed, Chance had to give him a reason.

“Lilith was suffering from multiple concussions
and she was bleeding internally. She started talking nonsense, got really pale, her brain was swelling. It was all I could do to keep her awake. She was seconds away from dying, Gregor. It’s not a figure of speech.” The pain in his voice brought tears to her eyes and she wasn’t the only one. Gregor’s tough exterior faltered, red tingeing his eyes as they fell on her. “Cohen…he fed her some of his blood and it saved her life. Apparently, his blood has some kind of healing property to it. He took an extremely bold risk revealing that. If what he said is true, his own family would kill him for what he did.”

Gregor stood up a little taller, reigning in his emotions and turned back to the Detective.
“That all true?” Cohen nodded cautiously. “If it is such a threat to you, why did you take such a risk?” Gregor’s eyes narrowed, calculating.

“If Duncan dies, Lilith is the only hope I have of finding what I’m looking for. That alone would be a reason, but beyond that…” Cohen took in a deep breath, his eyes darting around the room.
Nervousness. He was nervous. His eyes hesitated a moment longer on Chance than anyone else. What the hell? “Your daughter is incredibly courageous. I saw the report on the truck she was driving. It’s a miracle she lived through the crash alone, but to fight off an attacker and claw her way to safety like she did, that is truly remarkable. She deserved to live, Sir.”

Lilith blinked in total shock as Gregor carefully considered Cohen and his words. Either he had a soft spot for anything
concerning his daughter, or he could see the truth on Cohen’s face as clearly as she had. He nodded slowly. “Fine, stay. If you give me one reason to doubt your sincerity, you’ll be begging me to kill you, understand?” That cold, menacing tone took her by surprise again. Chance stepped back to stand beside her, his fingers brushing against her hand. That one simple touch shot up her nerves in vibrant colors and filled her with warmth and strength. It was a unique sensation. Almost dying makes everything more powerful.

“I need to know what’s going on, Gregor.” Lilith steeled herself, ready to weather his wrath.
Gregor slumped slightly where he stood and turned toward her. It wasn’t anger on his face. It was a whole heaping helping of shame. “Dad, I know you want us to leave, but we can’t do that. Spencer is helping this monster, more than that. Spencer looks up to him. He actually idolizes this guy. They won’t stop and Spencer knows everything about us. We can’t run, Dad. We have to end this. To do that, we need to know what’s going on.”

Gregor sank down on the corner of one of the beds and nodded in defeat. “You all might want to take a seat, it’s a lengthy story.”

Alvarez and Cohen claimed the two chairs near the balcony doors while Lilith and Chance sat on the opposite bed, keeping a little distance between them. She already knew they were both in for an earful later. There was no need to aggravate things right now.

Gregor spent a long time staring at his open hands, resting against his thighs. For the first time, Lilith saw the weight of all his years heavy on his shoulders.
He looked exhausted and empty, nothing at all like the father she knew. It just broke her heart to see him sitting there so defeated. Finally he rubbed a hand over his closely trimmed beard and broke the silence.

“Duncan and I used to be quite close
, even after Aaron left for the Romanian countries. We established ourselves in Scotland, centuries ago and we lived quite comfortably. We weren’t noble, of course. That would draw far too much attention. Everything has its pros and cons…” There was a heavy pause that made her chest tighten. “I fell in love.” A shadow of a smile pulled at his lips. She could see the layers of emotions like transparent films laid out on top of one another. Lilith could see the deep love in his face, but it was overwhelmed by tremendous pain and haunting guilt.

“Margareet was an enchanting woman, beautiful, graceful, optimistic,
and compassionate, with the voice of an angel.” It was uncomfortable listening to her father talk about some woman that wasn’t her mother. It was lifetimes ago, but still, it made her skin itch.

“We were married in a quaint little ceremony and created a life out on the moors where we raised two sons on our modest, little farm. Duncan lived with us in those days and he tinkered around in alchemy, convinced he could solve the riddle of our kind. When he could pull himself away from his work, he’d help out around the farm.” It was odd to think of her father in such a simplistic life. She knew he’d been alive for hundreds of years, but it was still a shock to the system trying to picture the modern man in grey slacks and a grey knit sweater farming on the moors of Scotland in medieval times.

Gregor’s
stormy eyes stared out sightlessly, lost in his memories. “The happiest day of Margareet’s life was the day little Mary was born.” Gregor looked up at the ceiling, tears welling in his eyes as he rubbed a hand over his face. There was such heartache, such deep pain, clearly on his face that Lilith wiped at her own eyes. She hadn’t seen her father cry since her own mother’s death. The pain of this loss seemed just as fresh for him, like it’d been days ago, and not over 600 years ago. After clearing the lump from his throat, Gregor continued.

“Mary was the center of our world.
She was a force of nature, beautiful, compassionate, and giving.” His sad eyes settled on Lilith and a half smile quirked at his lips. “You remind me so much of her, Lilith. She was just as stubborn as you, too.” Everyone in the room seemed to disappear into the background. Right then, it seemed like they were the only two people in the world. Just her and her Gregor sharing a father-daughter moment. She stared into her father’s heartbroken eyes and wished she could take that pain away. It was too familiar. Lilith’s chest tightened as she remembered those horrible days following her mother’s death, how torn up Gregor had been. She’d been the strong one, helping her father cope.

Gregor’s voice pushed her out of her own memories.
“I remember one spring, when Mary was just seven, a poor little lamb was born missing a leg. Mary scooped it up immediately and named it Trinity.” A soft painful laugh escaped as he shook his head. “That lamb hobbled around, following her everywhere. She feed it, combed it, and even brought it into the house at night whenever it got cold, which was quite often in Scotland. Nothing Margareet or I said mattered. Mary was determined to raise that lamb. Margareet gave in first and started singing about Mary and her little lamb… it’s funny how some things survive over the centuries. Eventually I think they expanded on it in the Americas adding bits about schools and teachers.” A distant smile crossed his lips and then he waved it away.

“A couple years later, Trinity was attacked by one of the feral dogs that sometimes plagued the area. We lost a lot of sheep to them over the years. Mary found the poor thing and carried her all the way home with tears in her little eyes. There was no saving Trinity and the thing was in terrible pain,
bleating like crazy. I wanted to end its suffering, but Mary wouldn’t have it. She bandaged her, feed her milk, cradled her, and even sang to her. When nothing helped, she came to me and told me I was right. Trinity was in pain and she needed to find peace. This little nine year old girl, told me not to be sad, that she should be the one to give Trinity her peace. I couldn’t let her, of course. I told her I would gladly walk Trinity to heaven if she would stay with her mother and comfort her. That was my little girl, bold, fearless and so full of loving compassion.”

When Gregor paused, wiping at his red eyes, Lilith moved to sit next to him, placing her hand on his. He squeezed it for a moment, but he wouldn’t look at her now. “Every fall we would h
ead into town for one last sale and buy supplies for the coming winter. Usually, it was Margareet and myself. Duncan would stay with the boys and Mary on the farm. However, when Mary turned twelve, she begged to see the town. We could deny her nothing when she had her sights set on it, so she came with us that fall. She joined her mother in the markets, marveling over all the people, animals and interesting little baubles, while I stayed with our goods.”

“Margareet returned in a panic. In the hustle and bustle, she’d lost sight of Mary and couldn’t find her anywhere. We searched all through the night and couldn’t find any trace of her.” Gregor drew in a deep painful breath, closing his eyes, and she knew what was coming next. It wasn’t a happy ending. She squeezed her father’s hand and leaned her shoulder against his. It tore her heart to shreds to see her father so distraught.
She could feel his pain vibrating off his skin. It made her own skin tingle.

“
The next day there was a huge commotion at the Tavern. I told Margareet to stay with the cart while I went to see what was going on. When I reached the building, the whispering crowd was already filling in the blanks. Some poor girl had been murdered in one of the rooms. There were snide comments about some nobleman’s son, but no one dared to even whisper a name. I pushed my way to the front of the crowd and ran inside. Upstairs, I found her, my poor Mary.” His shoulders hunched forward and tears were stinging his eyes again, but this time, his jaw set in an angry line.

“The bastard raped my little twelve year old daughter, brutalized her. Her precious face was swollen from the punches. The spring green dress that Margareet stitched for her was torn and bloody. He’d strangled the life out of her and then tossed her in a heap on the floor like garbage.
My Mary, the light of my life, now just a used up corpse on the floor.”

Lilith slid her arm around his shoulders as he hunched down and cried.
Agony seared up her arm but it wasn’t quite painful, just surprising. She could feel the emotion, but it wasn’t hers. It didn’t wrack her body, she simply recognized it and somewhere deep down she knew it felt thrilling to feel an emotion without actually experiencing it. Lilith pulled her arm back, breathing a little too fast, lost in her concerns on these emotional things that kept happening whenever she touched someone. She caught Cohen’s eyes on her. There was a quizzical expression on his face that snapped her out of the private moment with her dad. She suddenly remembered the room full of people.

The
rest of the room was still and quiet, no one daring to speak a single word. Gregor’s story was so deeply personal and emotional that you felt like you were intruding just by hearing it. You weren’t supposed to see your father, or boss, or elder cry like this, crying like his soul was ripped from his body. After a few struggling breaths, Gregor patted Lilith’s knee and sat a little straighter. He needed to get this out as much as they needed to hear it.

“The barkeep informed me that Sir Ashcroft Orrick’s son, Clyde, rented that room for
a silver, and was the last one to leave. He was aware that simply telling me that might cost him his life, but he had a daughter Mary’s age and he wanted to see the monster punished. It wasn’t the first time this happened in his tavern, and it definitely wasn’t the first time that a horrific death was linked to Clyde Orrick.”

“
I went to every noble I could find in the city, none of them would concede to my pleas for justice. The Orrick family was a revered Noble house and I was little more than a peasant. In those days, Justice was reserved for those that didn’t need its services. To bring a crime against a Noble, you’d have to be Noble yourself or higher. Even with proof it was impossible. A hundred peasants could watch a noble slaughter an infant and if there wasn’t another noble involved as either a witness or the victim, nothing would ever happen. Even then, the noble would have to be willing to risk possible war just by questioning the act. There were no neutral parties to settle disputes, and most nobles were guilty of some atrocity. Speaking up, demanding justice, would mean giving up their own hideous hobbies. It was a game of underhand politics and we commoners were just pawns in their game. We had no value.”

Gregor’s eyes searched them all, begging them to understand.
“You have to understand, completely, that social justice in that time period simply did not exist."

“We couldn’t stay in town any longer, so Margareet and I took Mary’s broken body back with us to be burned on the moors. Margareet was beyond distraught, she barely spoke,
and she wouldn’t eat. I had to find justice for what happened to my little girl, even if it meant taking it myself. He couldn’t be allowed to continue defiling and slaughtering the innocent. The evil needed to be abolished forever. I could not sit there and allow my daughter’s death to be meaningless. And so, after a modest little service with Duncan and the boys, I followed Duncan back to his hut and we began planning. Clyde Orrick, nobleman’s son or no, was going to die for what he did, for what he desecrated and took away from us.”