Heart of the Vampire (Vanderlind Castle) (9 page)

“Not really,” he said. “The music room is just at the end of this hallway.” He lifted his chin to direct my attention down the passage. Then he changed the direction he was leading me, presumably heading for the facilities. “We rarely have guests at all,” he said, reverting to our conversation. “But when we do have visitors, they are vampires mostly, but sometimes they have companions.”

I nodded, saying nothing. I wondered if that was what I was destined to become—just another vampire’s companion, a portable juice bar.

We crossed the great room again, Jessie pausing outside a door down a short hallway and to the left of the kitchen, which of course, was completely abandon
ed. “Here we are,” he said. “Do you think you can find your way back, or would you rather I wait here?”

The idea of Jessie pacing outside the bathroom door while I tinkled was unappealing. “I can find it,” I assured him.

By the time I got into the bathroom and locked the door behind me, my bladder was about to explode. After I had taken care of business and was blissfully relieved, I took in the bathroom’s decor. The walls were a round gray stone, a lot like the exterior of the building. I guess because vampires didn’t need that type of facility, they didn’t bother remodeling it with the beautiful gold-flecked sandstone. The toilet and sink were white porcelain of a traditional, very basic design and sparklingly clean. On the wall above the sink hung an enormous gilt mirror. It was a good six feet long and four feet high. It was so ornate, it looked like something Marie Antoinette might have gazed into at one point in time, although that was only a guess. I had no idea how to put a time period on a mirror. Taken altogether, the bathroom looked like a dungeon with really good amenities.

As I exited the powder room and headed back up the short hallway toward the great hall, I heard voices and thought Jessie was having a conversation with his mother. I slowed my steps, unsure if I would be intruding.

“Are you seriously going to let him go through with this?” a voice demanded. I realized instantly that it was Daniel—not Jessie—talking to his mother.

“I don’t see how we have a choice,” was Mrs. Vanderlind’s reply. “What would you have me do?”

“Just give them the girl,” Daniel growled. “That would settle things fast enough.”

I froze, scarcely able to breathe. I had to assume that by “the girl” he meant me. He wanted to hand me over to the Bishops.

“I think if she died, it would literally kill your brother,” Mrs. Vanderlind said. “We can’t let that happen. Not again,”

Daniel laughed
—a low, dark laugh full of malice. “Well, she’s probably going to get him killed anyway. And how is that going to make our family look?”

Chapter 14

I stood in the hallway just off the great room, too afraid to move. I figured there was very little preventing Daniel from killing me right then. Besides the disapproval of his mother, of course. A large shadow fell over me. I saw a looming figure out of the corner of my eye and had to stifle a scream. “Do you need assistance, Miss Aurora?” Viggo asked.

“Uh, no,” I said hurriedly. “I was just...” I couldn’t think what I was “just” doing. “I was just leaving,” I said and knew that I meant it.

“If you vill vait for Mr. Wanderlind, he will escort you home.”

“No, I can’t wait,” I told him. “I have to leave now.” The castle was huge, but I was suddenly feeling very claustrophobic.

“Shall I show you to your car?” he asked with a slight bow.

“Please,” I whispered. To some degree
, I trusted Viggo. He was human, and he had protected me before.

“Do you need to speak to Mr. Jessie before you go?” Viggo asked.

“No.” I shook my head. “He already knows I’m leaving,” I lied. I didn’t have my cardigan, but at that point, I didn't care. I just wanted to get the hell out of the castle as fast as I could.

It was hard to keep my legs from trembling as I headed for the front door with Viggo at my side. Daniel and his mother stared at me. Their expressions let me know that they knew I had heard them. “Good night,” I managed to mumble. “It was nice meeting you.” They said nothing in return, just followed my movements across the room and out the door with their gray, impenetrable eyes.

The problem with knowing vampires exist is that it makes it impossible to fully relax while being outside at night. The walk from the castle to my car was awful. Even with the giant at my side, I kept feeling like some creature was about to dive on me from out of the sky.

Once Viggo had seen me safely into my car
, he said in a very somber voice, “You should not be driving alone at night. You should vait for Mr. Wanderlind.”

“I can’t wait,”
I told him. “I have to go now.”

“Be careful,” he said. “Especially vhen you get out of your car.”

“Thanks,” I choked out before locking the doors, stepping on the gas, and chugging toward the gate. Fortunately, the guard had seen me coming, so I didn’t have to wait too long. Once I was through the gate, I jammed on the gas and got the hell out of there.

Driving when you’re scared out of your mind is pretty challenging. I kept thinking I saw menacing creatures soaring through the air or dark shadows darting between the trees. I was being stupid. I knew I was being stupid. I should have waited for Jessie. That would have been the smart thing to do. But my urge to bolt was too strong. I had to get the hell away from Daniel and his plan to sacrifice me to save the family reputation.

When I pulled into the driveway and clicked the garage door opener, I forced myself to scan the garage for a moment to make sure no one was in there waiting for me. I knew a vampire couldn’t enter our home without an invitation, but they could have sent someone else. And it was a good policy anyway, even if I wasn’t being stalked by the undead.

Pulling into the garage, I waited until the door was fully closed again before I unlocked the car door and got out. I wasn’t feeling all that composed
, and I knew my mother would probably suspect something was wrong, but I wanted to get the hell into the house.

The first thing I noticed as I scurried inside was a large bouquet of pink roses in a vase on the kitchen table. Did my mom have a new boyfriend that I was unaware of or something? “Hi
, Sweetie,” she called from the living room where she was reading on the couch.

“Hey, Mom,” I called back, trying to make my voice sound normal and not like someone who had just been scared witless. “Who sent the flowers?”

“I don’t know,” was the reply. “They’re for you.”

“For me?” I said, mostly to myself. Who the heck would send me flowers? Even with a vampire’s lightning speed, there was no way Jessie could have figured out I was gone, found a florist open past nine o’clock at night
, and then sped them over to my house before I pulled into the garage. Could he?

My hands fumbled for the card. It simply read

Does he send you flowers?

xo Fred

“Oh, great,” I grumbled. Blossom had been right; Fred did enjoy a bit of competition.

“Good flowers or bad flowers?” Mom asked, strolling into the kitchen.

“Huh?” I wasn’t sure what she meant.

“There are only two reasons why most guys send flowers.” She counted them on her fingers. “One, if he’s trying to win you over to liking him. Or two, if he’s screwed up and trying to get you to forgive him.”

“Didn’t Dad get you flowers a lot?” I was pretty small when he’d left, but I did remember there was frequently a vase of flowers around the house.

She sighed a little and said, “I used to hate it when your dad got me flowers. That always meant he’d done something to be a jerk. I mean, how about not being a jerk in the first place? Or maybe getting me flowers just to be nice sometime instead of using them as a tool to buy forgiveness.”

“Nah.” I nudged her in the ribs. “What’s the fun in that?” We both rolled our eyes and had a small giggle.

“So who sent these?” Mom asked, bending over and sniffing one of the blossoms.

“Fred,” I told her.

“He’s trying to win you back?”

I shrugged. “I guess. I really wish he wouldn’t. It makes me feel guilty.”

Mom nodded. “That’s why they do it, sweetie.” Giving our conversation a quick review in her head, she said, “I’m sorry for bagging on your dad. That wasn’t very fair. I’ve just been feeling...” She searched for the right words. “I’ve just been feeling a bit down lately.”

“That’s okay.” I wrapped an arm around her and gave her a half-hug. “I don’t have too many illusions about Dad.”

“Have you heard back from him about Thanksgiving?” she asked, keeping her voice casual.

“Not yet,” I told her.
I had meant to call him, but actually forgot.

“It’s Monday night,” she said with a disapproving frown. “He should let you know so you at least have time to pack.”

“I’ll call him tomorrow.” I added, “Good night, Mom,” and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before making a break for the stairs. I had impressed myself with how well I had kept it together.

“How was your not-a-date date?” she called after me.

“Not really a date,” I told her over my shoulder as I took the stairs two at a time.

I entered my bedroom with the intention of rushing over to the window and dra
wing the curtains, but I wasn’t fast enough. Jessie was already there. He was standing with his back to the window, head bowed a little, and hands clasped behind him. In one hand, he clutched my purple cardigan.

I’d already flipped the light on
, so it was too late for me to slip away. Jessie turned to face me through the glass, his face mortified. “I’m so sorry,” he told me. “My mother told me what Daniel said.”

“You know he wants to kill me, don’t you? He said you should hand me over to the Bishops,” I choked out, cowering in the doorway rather than entering the room.

“He’s always been an unreasonable jerk. Please don’t hold that against me.”

“Well, what keeps you from doing it?” I asked. “Why wouldn’t you sacrifice me to save your own skin? Daniel said it would get you out of all this trouble and save the family name.”

Anguish filled Jessie’s eyes, and he slapped his palms against the window. “Because I’d rather die,” he said. “Do you understand me? I would rather be locked in a coffin for eternity than let anything happen to you.”

He looked so tormented that I found myself crossing to the window without having thought about the consequences. “Is that the truth?”

“Can’t you feel that it’s the truth?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

I reached up and mirrored his hand with mine, my palm against the glass aligned with his. I knew it was foolish, but I did feel it. I felt it intensely. His brother might have been willing to sacrifice me to clear up the trouble with the Bishops, but Jessie never would. “I believe you,” I told him, then reached down to open the window.

If I’m being honest, a small, very small, part of my brain was yelling,
Don’t do it! This is the same as suicide! He’s a vampire. Even if he doesn’t kill you, one of his family or friends will. Being with him means being sucked into his world. It will end your life!

But it was too late
; my heart and my hands weren’t paying attention to my head. The window swung open, and I was in his arms, tears rolling down my face. “He just really frightened me,” I sobbed.

“I hate that he made you cry,”
Jessie whispered in my hair. “If it wasn’t for my mother, I would throw Daniel out the window.”

I snuffled a little against his chest. “I don’t think that would do much.” I had to assume that Daniel could fly as easily as his brother.

“I shouldn’t have brought you to the castle,” he said. “I just thought it would be easier to get things done. That was my mistake.”

“I wanted to go,” I insisted as I righted myself, retracting my body back into the house, his arms still supporting me. “I can’t stop myself from wanting to find out more about your life. I know it’s stupid and dangerous, but I can’t help it.”

“Well, I’m not going to have Daniel upsetting you. This has got to be scary enough for you as it is without his stupid remarks,” Jessie growled.

“What else do we need to go over, then?” I asked. “I mean, I guess we can skip the dance lessons.” Saying this filled me with both relief and disappointment. “And I can probably look up on the
Internet how to get a corpse through customs. What else do we need to cover?”

Jessie was now just holding my hand, but even that simple contact left me feeling
tingly and warm inside. “Well,” he began, “we should practice being intimate with each other.”

“What does that mean?” I asked
, feeling simultaneously alarmed and a little aroused.

Jessie ran his fingers through his hair a couple times. “Right now
, we know each other, but we don’t really know each other,” he said. “Not like lovers. We’re more like strangers that feel a connection. What the Bishops are expecting is a bona fide couple who are committed to each other. We have to convince them of that.”

It was so hard to keep a clear head with his handsome gray eyes looking at me, his lips so close. “Okay.” I swallowed hard, my throat feeling suddenly dry. “I broke up with Fred, if that’s at all helpful.”

Jessie closed his eyes briefly. “Please don’t tell me the name of the human you were dating. I am a vampire, after all, and I can have a jealous side.”

“It’s your own fault,” I informed him, mildly alarmed for Fred’s welfare. “I was only dating him to try to distract myself from thinking of you. Being angry with him wouldn’t be fair. And you’re not allowed to be all vampirey about it.”

My words caused Jessie to chuckle. “You see, this is the kind of thing we need to be able to do in front of the Bishops. This is good.”

“Well, I’m glad you think it’s working because all we’ve got left to get to know each other is a couple of nights. And I have a tendency to get sleepy.”

“So you forgive me?” he asked. “For Daniel, I mean?”

“I guess I have to,” I replied. “I mean, he is kind of a creep, but lots of people have jerky brothers.”

“Good,” Jessie said, a smile breaking across his face, his eyes sparkling. “Would it be okay if I came to visit you tomorrow night?”

“It’s not that late right now,” I told him, glancing over my shoulder at my alarm clock.

“I know, but...” He cleared his throat. “There are some visitors to Tiburon that aren’t very welcome, and I need to make sure they’re aware of my feelings.”

“Oh.” I had assumed the shadows following me home were my imagination, but I suddenly wasn’t so sure. I involuntarily shivered.

“So, tomorrow then? I can come by?”

“Yes,” I told him. My world was spinning way too fast for me to feel that any of my decisions were rational, but agreeing to meet Jessie always felt like the right thing to do.

“I’ll get together all the information you’ll need. Instructions and contacts. That way you won’t have to look it up, and it won’t be in your search history. Plus, you’ll need a death certificate for me and some other papers to get my casket through customs.”

“A death certificate?” I gasped
. I hated the idea of Jessie in a wooden box.

“Yes,” he said. “I am, after all, dead.”
I must have looked a little shaken because the next thing he said was, “I should probably let you get some sleep.” Taking a half step backward in preparation to leave, he handed me my cardigan then paused. “There is one more thing,” he added, almost shyly.