Melted By The Vampires: A Paranormal Menage Romance (8 page)

Abbott, who'd been standing silently, just looking at me, now spoke in a low, measured voice. "You have the right idea about just going to sleep, and Daniel and I
will
leave you right now, because alcohol clearly makes you paranoid and hostile. Goodnight, Harper. May you awake tomorrow completely sober. If not for your own sake, for Daniel's and mine."

He began striding out of the dining room, and Daniel followed after a mumbled goodnight, still frowning.

They hadn't been gone a single minute when I realized I'd made a huge mistake. Just as suddenly as my little fit had come on, it had seemed to leave me, along with the tangle of emotions I'd been experiencing.

Sitting down at the table, I realized that whatever strange thing had come over me, whether it had been caused by the wine, or thawing, or stress, or a combination of all three, it had caused me to say far too much. If Daniel and Abbott didn't know I was a spy before, they'd certainly have suspicions now.

But then again, I reasoned, maybe they wouldn't. After all, I
had
been extremely tipsy before my crackers, and Abbott himself had blamed my hostility and paranoia on the alcohol I'd consumed. It was possible that he and Daniel would never question that was all it had been. Especially if I apologized the next day, saying that I'd simply been spouting nonsense because I was drunk.

I still wasn't sure exactly what I thought about the two of them not exactly behaving like cold-blooded killers. But, I had to admit as I ate my Thanksgiving dinner mechanically, without really even tasting it, two men bringing a special meal to a woman didn't seem like the action of people capable of true evil.

In fact, the thought that Abbott and Daniel had done it as some sort of a sick joke seemed a bit silly to me now. Definitely paranoid. Abbott had been right on the mark about that.

Even though my paranoia, anger, and sadness had left me, I was still confused. But, at present, I was too tired to do any more serious thinking. I needed sleep. Then, I felt like I needed to spend more time with Daniel and Abbott to get an even better feel for who they were, and what they were and weren't capable of.

If they somehow
weren't
responsible for killing my coven, obviously I'd want to rethink my revenge plan. Not that I could even go through with it anytime soon anyway, still not having my powers back.

The next morning, after another night of restless sleep, I showered and dressed a little earlier than usual, wondering if Daniel and Abbott might come by for a morning visit. However, when Brenda came by around eight, I wondered if I'd ever see them again.

Brenda came inside, held my apartment door wide open, and then gestured to the hallway. "Go ahead and get out. They're letting you go."

            *

   I stared at Brenda, incredulous. "They're...they're what?"

"They're letting you go."

"Do you mean...well, permanently, or...."

"I mean they're letting you come and go from the building as you please. They think being cooped up is starting to make you crazy. So, go. Just don't try any escape attempts. If you do, you'll be caught."

Slumping against the wall, I breathed a sigh of very unexpected and strange relief that I
would
be seeing Daniel and Abbott again. I told myself this was just because I was relieved that I
could
still execute my revenge plan to execute
them
if I came to the conclusion that they
had
indeed been behind the murder of my coven members.

After taking a deep breath, I nodded at Brenda. "Okay, well, just let me grab a few things, and I'll be on my way out for the day."

She took a white envelope from her pocket and handed it to me. "Spending money for the day. Paper currency of New Detroit. Go to the cafe with the white awning across the street at nine. That's where a lot of the frozen women who haven't been turned into vampires still go to socialize and eat. A young woman named Maria will be waiting for you there. She'll be your friend."

Without another word, or a have a nice day out, Brenda left, clunky black Mary Jane-style shoes thudding down the hallway.

My first step out of the apartment felt so good I could have wept. I hadn't realized it, but I now knew that being confined
had
been making me a little crazy. If it hadn't been, I didn't think being "released" would have felt half as blissful.

I practically skipped down the long, marble-floored hallway to an elevator bay at the end. Then, I got in and rode the elevator down to the ground floor as the only passenger. It was when I stepped out that the stares began.

Like the hallway, the ground floor of the building was made of marble, and it seemed to be some sort of lobby, with people coming and going from different elevator bays. But when they caught sight of me, most people stopped what they were doing and peered at me intensely. I began walking briskly, uncomfortable with the attention, until a pretty, slender young woman with long, curly brown hair caught up with me, began walking by my side, and said hello.

Possibly overly thrilled to have a female to speak to besides taciturn Brenda, I said hello back with a big smile. The curly-haired woman smiled in return. "Wow. The rumors are very true. You're gorgeous."

I slowed my walking to a stop and smiled again, embarrassed but pleased at the same time. "Well, thank you, but...how do you know me? I don't think we've met before."

She gave me a dazzling grin that made her chocolate-brown eyes sparkle. "Well, I was told your description, and you're also the only woman in this building I've never seen before." Still grinning, the young woman extended a hand. "I'm Maria, and I was just heading over to the cafe to meet you. I've been enlisted to show you around town today."

I took her hand and shook it. "Oh. Well, it's really nice to meet you, Maria. I'm Harper. And I'm really ecstatic to be out of my apartment."

She laughed, and we soon left the building and headed across the street to the cafe, and within ten minutes, we were sitting with plates of breakfast and mugs of steaming coffee, chatting away like we were old friends. Bright sunlight streaming in through the plate glass windows of the cafe added to my buoyant mood, as did a few friendly waves and hellos from other former frozen women sitting nearby.

Maria told me that she'd been thawed three years earlier and had a baby daughter named Claire with her husband Noah, who was a good friend of both Abbott and Daniel, and also one of their top men when it came to fighting The Saints.

She also told me that the building we'd just left was strictly for Abbott and Daniel's "inner circle" people to live in, and since she and Noah had an apartment there, we were neighbors, though separated by ten floors.

"So, anytime you want to come down and visit Claire and me, you're more than welcome."

I said I'd love to, and I really meant it. I'd always loved children and babies, and even though I'd been devastated when I'd been declared infertile, the thought of getting to hold a baby now, even if it wasn't mine, filled me with joy.

Maria and I continued chatting while we ate, but when the subject turned to Daniel and Abbott, and how the three of us were "getting on," as Maria put it, I began to feel decidedly less chatty.

Lowering my gaze to my plate, I also lowered my voice so that none of the women nearby could hear me. "I'm sorry. It's just that...well, I'm really not sure about the three of us right now. I'm really...confused about a lot of things."

To say the least.

"So, maybe,” I continued, “we could just talk about something else right now, instead."

Maria said no problem, and that she understood completely. "But just know that if you ever do want to talk about everything, I've got a good set of listening ears, so come to me anytime."

I replied that I would, then changed the subject by asking if the cafe had Belgian waffles. "As long as I'm having bacon, eggs, and buttered toast this morning, I guess I might as well go all-out.”            

I'd always had a hearty appetite, but fortunately, past my teen growing years, I'd never put on weight, and my hourglass-shaped figure had never developed any unwanted bumps or lumps. I hoped that being frozen and thawed hadn't affected my metabolism in any way like it had my supernatural powers, so that I could continue to indulge on occasion when I liked.

Maria flagged down the waitress and ordered Belgian waffles with strawberries and powdered sugar for us both, and while we ate them, she remarked what a shame it was that vampires couldn't enjoy food. "I mean, I know my husband enjoys...well,
drinking
you-know-what, and he claims that it's even more satisfying than eating food.

“For some reason, I'm still not convinced. I guess I'll just have to find out for myself once I let him turn me into a vampire after we're finished having kids. It's just that I've always been a little on the squeamish side."

"Oh, you, too?"

"
Very
squeamish, I should say, honestly. It helps to know that most of the vampires here in New Detroit only drink from animals, but...you know, it really doesn't help
that
much. It still grosses me out. Noah says that I need to start trusting him when he says that I'll absolutely, positively get used to it, and that eventually, I won't find drinking from animals 'gross' in the least.

“He says I'll actually look forward to 'hunting' trips to the wild forestland outside of the city. I keep telling him he's nuts if he really believes that."

With a sense of unease creeping up on me, I put my fork down. "So...so, do you know if Abbott and Daniel only drink from animals?"

"Oh, of course. They, and Noah, and really almost everybody else here are exclusively animals-only. There's no difference between drinking from animals and humans, at least not nutritionally, as icky as that sounds when discussing the ingestion of blood. I think it's just more an ethics thing."

"So...you don't think Abbott and Daniel would ever drain a group of people dry in order to kill them?"

Maria suddenly stopped cutting off a bite of her waffle with a fork and slowly looked up at me, frowning. "Please don't take this the wrong way, and it's really none of my business, but it sounds to me like you, Abbott, and Dan might really need to get to know each other a little better."

Instantly mortified, I picked up my fork and began cutting at my waffles, avoiding Maria's eyes. "Oh, I know. I know we do. And that was just a silly hypothetical question. I'm just still on very unfamiliar footing with the whole vampire thing, so I’ve been asking lots of random questions of people lately, just to try to get all the information that I can."

"Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with that, and again, none of my business, but you might want to start asking more questions of Abbott and Dan themselves, because it sounds like maybe you haven't been comfortable enough to do that yet. But just try it. I think it'll help.

“They're both really good men, and good leaders, and they'll answer any other questions you have with complete honestly. And if Abbott strikes you as a little too stern, because I know he can come off that way a lot, try approaching Dan with your questions first. I'm sure you've already discovered this, but he's a little more laid-back,

a little quicker to laugh. Honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not sure that I've ever heard Abbott laugh even once. He's pretty serious a good part of the time. But, at any rate, maybe do really try to open up to them both, even if you're a little hesitant. I think you'll find that neither of them are what you may have thought at first."

I put my fork down, suddenly unable to eat another bite of my waffles, but not necessarily because I was getting full. As if I hadn't had my perceptions and convictions rattled enough the night before, now I really wasn't sure who Abbott and Daniel were; really wasn't sure if they were the men I should be planning on taking revenge on.

The thought crossed my mind that maybe it
was
still possible that they
were
the monsters I'd accused them the night before of being, or at least, maybe they
had
been monsters hundreds of years earlier. Maybe something had made them change. Maybe killing my coven had made them sick with themselves and determined to change their ways.