Vampire Coven Book 3: A Vampire's Embrace (13 page)

Hope had been hurt by the encounter. She wasn’t raped; she agreed to let Ben do what he wanted. But getting banged belly down over frozen ice her first time by an inexperienced guy was less than momentous. In fact, she had thought the experience sucked. Then to have the asshole tell everyone she had begged for it was inexcusable. The look on Hope’s face, the betrayal and fear almost sent Rhett into a rage. Ben was lucky he was already dead.

The second Rhett settled Ann and Hope at the table, Galf handed Ann a cookie. Rhett sighed and raised his eyes at Tavish who chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. The little blond imp was already proving to be the rogue his father was. The boy was part vampire but only fed from his mother. He needed real food as well. There were times the boy couldn’t control his eyes glowing white or his little fangs from growing. He scared some of the children, but not Ann. In Ann’s eyes he was perfect, as Ann was perfect to Galf. It was going to be hard on the boy when Ann died. Galf wasn’t used to loss. He was still of an age where he thought his father could fix anything. Even Tavish, seventeen-thousand-year-old Tavish, couldn’t cure leukemia.

“Your son is smitten with my little Ann,” Rhett said as he approached Tavish and Mercy.

“Hope looks happier and yet sad too,” Mercy said.

“We exchanged a few memories,” Rhett said.

“And?” Tavish asked.

“And—I think I’d like to get to know her better.” Rhett ignored Tavish’s wide eyes and smile.

“I’ll be happy to babysit,” Mercy said. “The rain has started up again. The children can go to the indoor play area and I’ll keep an eye on them.”

The invitation sounded fine to Rhett, but he wondered what Hope would say. Understandably, Hope wanted to spend every moment she could with Ann. Rhett felt it would be a good idea to learn more about Hope. After all, if he planned on handing her over to Tate, he should make certain the two were compatible. Rhett knew everything there was to know about Tate, he had watched him come into the world.

When Galf took Ann by the hand and Mercy took Galf’s other hand to lead them away from the table, Rhett approached Hope. She watched worriedly as Tavish took Ann’s other hand and her child disappeared with the vampire family. Rhett knew other vampires were watching them. He wanted to be alone with Hope.

“Ann will be fine. It’s a quiet day and Tavish will keep an eye on her.” Hope stared up at him with her dark, beautiful eyes. Rhett had taken Hope on a memory journey, but she didn’t realize while she searched what he allowed her to see, Rhett knew everything about her from the time she was born. He had seen it all through her eyes. But who she was might not be who she is now. Her world had changed the day he brought her here. He sensed the fear fighting with bravery.

Hope’s past was sad to be sure. Her parents had loved her but they died too young. Being left alone at a time when a young woman needed her mother, Hope had turned to anyone who would offer her comfort. Ben was also young. He was a coward at the end, but Hope had feelings for him.

“Take my hand,” Rhett said.

Hope looked at his outstretched arm. “But,” she muttered.

“You will have plenty of time to spend with Ann today; we always eat dinner early on Saturdays and Sundays. We allow the humans to indulge in sweets and treats later in the evening. Let me show you some of this new world.”

“It’s raining out.”

Rhett grinned. “Not everywhere.”

Hope looked confused. Tentatively, her small hand settled into his. One thing Rhett had seen from Hope was her courage. She didn’t give up. Rhett pulled her closer, then up into his arms. Before leaving the building he grabbed a raincoat. He pulled the coat around her covering her body. Hope gasped as he took to the sky.

“You can hide your face against my chest,” Rhett told her. “I won’t tell anyone you’re afraid to fly. Many humans beg their vampire to take them flying. We’ve had to watch out for some of the little male humans who get it in their head they can fly alone. A child is compelled never to try; it’s for their own safety. I’m guessing you won’t be jumping off a tree or cliff any time soon.”

“Never,” was her whispered response.

When Rhett set her down, Hope spun round gazing with wide eyes at her surroundings.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“Long ago humans abandoned their way of life to escape to the icebergs and hide from vampires.” Rhett wondered how much to tell her. When the world became surrounded in chaos, times were very frightening to humans. The elements conspired to kill them and the vampires went into a feeding frenzy. Hoards of vampires would swoop down on crowds in broad daylight. A mass cloud of flying blackness in the sky was death-come-hither.

Tavish had seen it coming. It was hard for vampires to covet their food, to desire the humans in a fashion bordering on obsession. Large quantities of people were needed to slake fulfillment, where so few humans existed in reality. Boundaries were set where there never had been before. Children were captured, but they were useless to a vampire who wouldn’t feed off a child. Many wouldn’t, but as the human adults died, children were orphaned at an alarming rate. They had no way to protect themselves. Tavish gathered as many as he could, but he also needed the adults.

Weeding out the healthy from the sick was Caine’s job. He did it well but was so busy the first twenty years, he never seemed to catch a break. It took a hundred years before things settled in Tavish’s coven. Soon every person who lived there had been born there. Hunting parties went out but the humans realized they were targets. They moved to the ice and cold, hiding to wait out death. Some thrived, until the law came down.

When Tavish learned the humans of the ice had made a pact to have no more children, he intensified his effort to save as many of the young as he could. There were very few humans left, and most were old. Hope was a prize simply because of her youth. Rhett knew many vampires would want her. He wondered why the idea bothered him so much.

* * * *

Hope had never seen anything like what she was looking at, her raincoat slipped from her shoulders to the ground. She knew she was gazing upon homes. Tavish had a huge home with many rooms inside. But this was home after home in a row. Overgrown weeds and brush grew wild around everything. The ground beneath her feet was hard in many places, Rhett called it pavement. It looked ugly when she was used to the beauties of the ice caverns and the lush foliage of Tavish’s coven.

She approached one home. Hesitantly, she stepped up things Rhett had called stairs. There was no door to the home she entered. She moved into another world, a world of her ancestors. Rhett had names for each space. Hope had learned about washrooms and bedrooms, but there was a living room, an office space or den. A family room with a box Rhett called a television.

“What was its purpose?” Hope asked.

“No matter how I explain, you’ll think I’m lying,” Rhett said and chuckled. “You could see other people in it from all over the world.”

Hope looked behind it. “How did the people fit?”

“Very carefully.”

“And this? What’s this? Don’t tell me people fit in this small thing?”

“It’s a laptop. I’m not even going to try and explain YouTube.”

“These things don’t make sense. How could they be of any value? Was that why they were left behind?”

“In a way. There is no electricity in an iceberg. When the first storms of the ice age hit, the power went out. It never came back on.”

“Power?”

“Look up there and see the fixture? It’s where light would come from if the power was on.”

“But there are lights at Tavish’s coven.” They were amazing, magical and a bit spooky for someone only used to fire.

“Little seal, you ask a lot of questions, and I’m guessing I’ll be bombarded with more. I should have seen that coming. Tavish has things called generators and solar power. I could tell you about the complexity of inverters and car batteries and windmills, but I doubt you would understand. Humans walked away from those items; they walked away from anything that made sound.”

“Like when you sing to Ann?”

“Something like that. Humans felt the less noise they made the safer they were. It’s sad really, no laughing, no singing, no loving. You can do all of those things at the coven.”

Hope was lost in thought until she nodded at him, Ann loved to hear Rhett sing, frankly so did Hope. Most of her life she talked little. Hope had laughed on occasion when Ann did something cute, but years of the no noise law was always at the back of her mind. Silence was safety. Maybe that was true then, but not now. Rhett smiled at her, urging her to go on. Hope walked into another room; it was faded but still pink. The bedding was on a little bed with some sort of ripped sheet for a roof. Strange pictures were on the walls. An odd creature similar to a cow but with a horn on its head.

“Did my people worship such creatures?”

“No, this is obviously a little girl’s bedroom. The picture is a unicorn.”

“Why, Rhett? Why did they run into the cold and ice when they had homes?”

“The world became unsettled. Little seal, the rain storm that scared you was nothing to what humans endured. For the most part, the Earth has settled. Ominous phenomena called tornados and earthquakes, like when the ice splits. Tsunami tidal waves, fires destroying cities. A city is a place filled to the brim with people.”

Hope knew he held something back. “Did my ancestors run from you?”

“On occasion. But I have saved many as well.”

“Why did you bring me here?”

Rhett went to look out a broken window. His back was to her. “When I gave you my memories, I saw yours. I saw how often you spoke about what it would have been like before. I hope I wasn’t wrong to show you.”

Hope went to stand beside him. “You know all my memories, even my secret ones.”

Rhett gazed down at her. She saw the corners of his mouth twitch. A blush crept up her neck to burn her face.

“Ben could have been better,” Rhett said.

“I thought it would feel better,” Hope admitted. In secret, she had touched herself. She had thought the hands of a man on her would feel ten times better. As she had grown older she noticed the men in her coven, their eyes, their bodies, wondering what they looked like underneath the furs they wore.

“It does feel so much better.” Rhett’s eyes blazed to life for a second before he took a deep breath.

Hope was startled; he was actually trying not to scare her. When his hand cupped the side of her face she didn’t pull back. She knew the day they met she would feel his body pressed to hers whether she wanted to or not. She didn’t want to then, but she wondered what she wanted now. Rhett was so much larger than Ben, and powerful. Ben had hurt her.

A flicker of fear must have shown in her eyes because Rhett removed his hand. There was no one to stop him from doing what he wanted. That she belonged to him was made clear on her first day.

“Out here no one can hear a cry for help,” Hope whispered.

Rhett looked angry. “I didn’t bring you out here because of that.”

Hope put her hand on his arm. “I can see that.”

She did see from the look on his face she had hurt him. Hope wondered at that. If he knew her memories, he would know all of her. It was an intimate thought. She had wondered her entire life if the stories of houses was true. Rhett had given her a gift.

“Please, will you show me more?” Hope asked.

Rhett took her by the hand and swooped down to pick up the raincoat off the ground outside as he flew by. Only this time, Hope looked at the scenery below. She was amazed as her face was bathed in wind, there was no rain and she thought it odd. Hope had always thought everywhere in the world was covered in ice. She had thought the weather was the same all over; what a revelation.

Big houses, small houses and tiny houses whipped by. The trees and foliage was different from Tavish’s coven, less wild perhaps amidst human-made structures, strange structures. A larger building was where they stopped next. Hope gazed around looking into room after room.

“What an interesting place.”

Rhett laughed. “If you were thirteen, you would think it was jail. It’s called a school.”

“A school?”

“A place where children were sent to learn.”

“Learn what?”

“How to read, and write. Lots of things humans don’t need anymore.”

“Read.” Hope pondered. She went to a far wall and picked up a square object. It was dusty and smelled funny. She had spied Mercy with one of these objects. She had grown fond of Mercy in her short time at the coven but had been too embarrassed to ask her what the object was.

“You’re holding a book.” Rhett came to stand beside her. “They stopped making them before the ice age. A shame really.”

“Do you know what these markings are?” It seemed so strange to Hope.

“Yes, I can read in just about any language, speak in any language.”

“I must seem so stupid to you,” Hope muttered.

“I prefer the term innocent.”

Hope put the book back. The room was a mess. Rhett strolled over to a big board that was black. He picked up a small white thing. Then magically he used the white thing to write on the board. Hope had no idea what it said. Rhett turned to smile at her.