Roses & Thorns (7 page)

* * * * *

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dying to Ask

(
Rose
)

Christian and I had been seeing each other for about a
month and a half
now.
I would almost venture to say that w
e were in love
,
even though neither of us had said it yet. We weren't having sex, b
ut I was happy
with
that
decision.
It just made our conversations and the times we spen
t
together that much more real. Our relationship wasn't about sex, though if
our make
out sessions were any indication, our sex life was going to be amazing when it finally
did
begin.

But
, t
onight I had other plans.
While s
pending all of my extra time with Christian
was
certain
ly wonderful, it was definitely taking its to
l
l.
I was dreadfully behind in all of my classes
,
and I had a paper due this week
. I
refused to let all my hard work go down the drain just because of a guy.
So, I had bit the bullet and told Christian that I couldn't come down tonight because I had
made plans with Mom to stay late after school in order to get some research done in the library. She
was working late, conducting a class a
t
the swim complex
,
and agreed to pick me up when she was done.

I was walking out of the library when my phone rang. "Hi
,
honey. Look I'm sorry, but this session is running late and I need you to take the bus over to meet me here instead.
Is
that going to be okay?"

"Sure, Mom. No problem
. J
ust give me the address again." I quickly rummaged through my ba
g
to grab a piece of paper and a pen to jot down the address. "Okay
, g
ot it. Looks like I should be there just after dark."

"Perfect. Just head around to the
outdoor
pool when you arrive. Thank
s
,
honey. I'll see you soon."

The bus ride went by pretty fast
,
and I arrived just after dark as expected. Walking around this huge complex was a little freaky at night, so when I
approached the pool
,
and
didn't hear anything, but instead saw thrashing waves in the pool
, my nerves were shot
.

"Mom?" I called out. There was no answer. I slowly walked towards the pool but stopped only after two steps because o
nce I looked closer, I saw my mom a
nd a guy struggling underwater.
Oh g
od, please no
!

I had never been faced with any kind emergency situation, so even though I
wasn't
proud of it, I was
panic stricken and
completely froze
n
. I couldn't move or scream
until the
moment the waves in the water started to clear.

What I saw was enough to scare me into
motion.
I ran back around the corner of the building and
hid while I
watched as
a
man climbed out of the pool carrying my mother in his arms with his mouth plastered to the side of her neck.

Holy shit, my mom is having an affair
.
My legs almost gave out, dropping me to the ground. I was suddenly cold as ice and terrified to
move because as
I looked closer I could tell that he wasn
't kissing the side of her neck, but instead
had sharp teeth that appeared to be piercing her instead.
What I
had
first
thought were sensual kis
ses were actually long drags of
sucking.
Then
a
thought hit me that changed my world.
Dear lord, a vampire
is
drinking from my
mom
.

I
finally, quietly,
sunk to the ground
,
not knowing what to do or think. I
t
felt
like I was going to pass out.
At first, I was so scared and feared that this monster was hurting my mom that tears instantly filled my eyes, but suddenly my anger trumped the fear and I started to look around for anything made of wood that I could slam into this asshole's heart. I wanted to
scream when
the man finally removed what could only be called fangs from my mom's neck.
But then
,
as h
e laid her on one of the chaise lounges next to the pool
,
I witnessed how
he
gently b
rushed the hair out of her eyes. The kindness in his actions left me dazed and confused.
Mom
sat up with a smile on her face and waved as the man started to walk away. I was so relieved to see that she was
still alive
that I
accidentally
sucked in a quick breath. The man's head spun in my direction and
suddenly I was being stared down by a pair of
intense, dark eyes.

After a moment, he crooked his finger at me, indicating for me to come to him. I was still frozen in fear and literally couldn't move. The next thing I knew he was standing right in front of me. Only a split-second had passed
,
and I hadn't even seen him move, but there he was, dripping wet, towering over me with a cocky smirk on his face.

"Hi. You must be the daughter." His voice was deep and sexy, just like the rest of him. I couldn't believe that I had had those thoughts about a man who had just been holding my mother so intimately, but I couldn't deny reality. The guy appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with dark brown hair and eyes to match. He was tan and muscular, and probably about 6' 4". He looked like sex-on-a-stick.

"Yes, I'm her daughter. Who the hell are you?" I had finally gotten myself under c
ontrol and stood up to face him, though my courage had run for the hills. This was definitely going to be a workout for my acting skills.

"I think the question you want to ask is
,
'What are you?', am I right?" He had a mocking glint in his eye, and that damn cocky grin was still plastered to his face.

"I'm not stupid. I know what you are
.
You're a vampire."

His grin widened. "Are you scared?"

"Should I be?" I tried to bolster myself so that the fear I was feeling wouldn't come across in my shaking voice.

He stared at me for a long time then gave a slight
hmph
. "No, beautiful, you have nothing to fear from me. One a night is all I can handle."

I hated that his
one
had been my mom, but I was damn glad that he would be leaving me alone. "Did you hurt her?" Now that I felt somewhat safe, I had a shit-ton of questions that I was dying to ask him. Well, maybe dying wasn't the right word to use.

"No, I didn't hurt her, and she won't remember anything about tonight," he explained. "What about you? Should I bite you and make you forget?" He seemed genuine in his question.

I tried not to shiver,
but
the goose bumps his question produced spread up my arms. "No. I don't want to forget. Actually, I have a lot of questions that I would love to ask you.
" I don't know why, maybe it was the brain-numbing fear or the years I'd spent researching as a history major, but in that moment the strangest thought of,
W
hat an amazing paper I could write with
his
help
, drifted through my brain. Seriously. Was I debating asking
a vampire to help me get a good grade on my
history paper? H
e'd pro
bably kill me for being so lame.

He turned around and saw that my mom had gotten up from her chaise and was starting to gather her things. "Why don't you meet me back here tomorrow night and I'll answer some of your questions
?
"

"Really? Or is this some kind of trick to get me here so I can be the one you feed
on
tomorrow?" I was excited but not stupid. I wondered if crosses or stakes would actually work on this guy. Not that I'm Buffy, but a girl could try.

"No trick. I do, however, enjoy the taste of your mother's blood. It's different than any other that I've ever experienced. So once you spend the evening with her and realize that I'm telling the truth and that I didn't hurt her in any way, as long as I can continue to feed
on y
our mom...I'll be willing to answer your questions. Is that something that you can handle?" He extended his hand as if preparing to shake on a deal.

"Okay. But if Mom shows any signs of being hurt or acting weird
then you'll never see us here again." It was a lame threat because he could probably just follow us home or find us whenever he wanted, but I had to make sure he understood that if he had hurt my mom in any way, the deal was off.

"Deal." He shook my hand and then started to walk away. "Oh. One more thing. What's your name?"

"My name is Rose. What's yours?"

"Terrance. My name is Terrance."

* * * * *

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Desensitized

(
Rose
)

O
nce I got Mom home
,
I
offered to cook.
Dad had a work meeting tonight that included dinner, so it was just going t
o be the two of us. All throughout our meal
I watched her so closely that I thought my eyes were going to pop out of
my head.
She seemed perfectly fine and acted as though everything was normal.
Normal, what a joke.
But for just
having
discover
ed
that vampires were real
,
I
thought I
was handling things pretty damn
well
.

I suppose with all the vampire lore that I studied in history
,
and with a new vampire movie or book popping up every other week, I, like the rest of society, had become desensitized. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a
bad thing, but since I hadn't ru
n
away s
creaming
at the top of my lungs that vampires existed,
which would probably
only
have
land
ed
me in a
loony
bin–
I was thinking it was a good thing.

After dinner
,
I climbed into bed with
Mom
under the premise of
watch
ing
a movie, but
really it was so I could
keep an eye on her. She
seemed to be doing fine. She didn't even have any puncture wounds where Terrance had bit
ten
her. That was definitely something I was going to have to ask him about.

I met Terrance back at the pool the following night just like we had planned. Mom didn't know I was there as I hid behind the
edge of the massive brick
building
. I kept my eye
s
on the pool expecting Terrance to creep towards my mom from the shadows, but suddenly, after hearing a noise, I
turned to find
him walking up behind me along the building instead. For a second I thought he was going to go back on his wor
d
and feed from me, but he didn't.

We sat down with our backs against the wall and started talking. It was all so surreal. He explained
how vampires weren't the bad, evil villains of lore, and how
every night they
only
fed
on
one person
,
and
only
took
their
fill.
He told me that t
heir powers let them make the feeding process an enjoyable act for both vampire and human, and it also allowed them to compel the human so that they didn't remember anything that had happened. He had said that these "powers" came from a sedative that flowed from their fangs.
How cool.

Everything was going great, but I couldn't help th
e feeling of dread and uncertainty that filled my chest when h
e
finally asked
i
f it was alright to
go feed from my Mom
.
But
, since s
he'd been fine the night before, it wasn't like he'd lied to me about anything yet, so I decided to trust him. Plus, I didn't want to back out of my end of the deal and make him so angry that he
decided to
kill
us
both
instead.

He told
me to stay behind the building
, so I did. She waved at him as soon as she saw him walking towards her.
S
he started back towards the p
ool when he shook his head and gestured
for her to take a seat on the chaise instead. She did so immediately.

I watched as he made his way around the back of the chair and sat down gently beside her. It took everything I had
in me
not to run over and
beg
him to stop,
but in the next instant
Terrance
had
s
u
nk his fangs into my mom's neck and
began to drink. I
covered my mouth to hold in my scream and immediately
look
ed
away
.

When he was done, which only took a minute or so, he laid Mom back on the chaise like last time, but instead of
her getting up to
gather her things, she
just lay
there instead. I started to panic and ran
towards
them
. "What did you do? You said you wouldn't hurt her."

"I didn't hurt her. I just used my sedative to make her sleep for a little while so we could finish our conversation. I thought you might have some more questions."

"Oh, okay." He was right. I did have a lot more questions.
The f
irst of them being
,
why did my mom think she knew him
?

"The first time I fed
on
her
,
I
used my sedative to make her think
I
was
one of her swim students.
Since I
don't have to breath
e
underwater
,
I sometimes submerge us in case anyone walks
by
. I'm able to control the flow of blood with my sedative so there's no mess, and
if anyone
see us
while we're underwater, I'll have time to stop feeding and
make
it
l
ook like we were just doing some underwater training
. And before you freak out, I always make sure she's never under too long."

"
Freak out
"
was an understatement.

Terrance spent the next half
hour talking
me out of a panic by explaining a few
specifics that came with being a vampire. Like how the puncture wounds close because of their sedative
. A
pparently it is
"programmable" and can not only be used for memory stuff, but
for
pleasure and healing as well. 
H
e also explained how vampires didn't burn in the sun, but fell
into a deep sleep
at its
rising
instead
, along with a lot of other interesting
facts
.

When Mom started to wake, Terrance said goodbye and asked if
I'd like to meet again
tomorrow
.
After pondering if I should come just to watch over Mom, since apparently she was his donor of choice, I decided that I ne
eded some time to process everything
and told him t
hat I'd meet him again in a couple of days.
At this point, I felt confident that he wouldn't hurt her because h
e had said that her blood tasted better than any
thing he'd ever tasted before. While that k
ind of
creeped
me out at first,
I quickly noticed how gentle he
was with her
, and since s
he seemed fine after
his
feeding, I felt confident taking this time for myself. Besides, I had
a date with Christian tomorrow night.