Ward of the Vampire (7 page)
Read Ward of the Vampire Online
Authors: Kallysten
He drank deeply, refilled his glass, and then put the bottle away. With his glass in one hand and a second one in the other, he came back toward me.
“It’ll help clear your mind,” he said as he handed me the second glass.
This time, there was no order to take the glass and drink. I crossed my arms and refused to take it.
“I’m pretty sure alcohol is the last thing I need to clear my mind,” I said. “How about an explanation instead?”
Shrugging, he poured the contents of my glass into his and took another sip. Four plush armchairs were set in a semi circle around the fireplace. He sat in one and placed the empty glass on the floor.
“Lilah owes both of us an explanation,” he said, his eyes fixed on the flames behind me. “She’ll be here soon.”
Something told me it was useless to argue with him, but I’d only been too compliant so far. Now that I could fight back, I did.
“How about we begin without her? How about you start by telling me what the hell you mean by fantasy? Why did you say I broke her… her…” I struggled to remember the word he’d used.
“Compulsion,” he breathed. “It’s called compulsion. Or sometimes, thrall. That’s what she did to you when she told you to be nice to me. It was an order, like when I told you to follow me up here. You can technically refuse to follow that order. But if you do, you die. That’s why you couldn’t breathe. It was your punishment for not being nice to me like she told you.”
Punishment? Thrall? I wanted to laugh at the idea. It was ridiculous. Completely and utterly ridiculous.
At the same time, I remembered all too well being unable to breathe.
I remembered, also, how I’d been unable to even think of saying no, back in Miss Delilah’s dressing room, when she’d told me to try on the gowns. I remembered her tone of voice, the depth of her words. It had been the same strength in Mr. Ward’s words every time he had told me to do something. And every time, I’d obeyed without so much as a hesitation.
Feeling a little weak in the knees, I stumbled to the armchair opposite Mr. Ward and sat down, clutching the purse in my lap simply to cling to something.
“Is this… is this like… Did you… hypnotize me or something?”
Still a ridiculous idea, but I was trying to put things in a frame of reference I could at least recognize if not understand.
He took another sip from his glass, watching the fire over the rim for a while.
“Some people call it that,” he said at last. “It’s a bit more complicated—”
Heels clicking on the room’s wooden floor interrupted him. He didn’t look back toward the door, but I did. Miss Delilah had just come in.
She threw a glance toward me, but said nothing as she walked over to the liquor cabinet. She set down the empty champagne flute she was carrying, and picked up instead the last glass Mr. Ward had filled. She came over, then, perching herself on the arm of the chair next to Mr. Ward.
“Morgan.”
“Lilah.”
He still didn’t look at her.
“Do you like your gift?” she asked with a faint smile.
His jaw tightened. “Stephen didn’t mention—”
“That I supposedly insulted you? Yes, he did. I thought it was your sense of humor peeking through.”
That finally drew his eyes to her. Out on the balcony, I’d thought it was the night that made them seem so dark, but here, with plenty of light from the chandelier over us or the fireplace, they seemed as dark, as deep as ever.
“My sense of humor, yes. I’ve been told I’m uproariously funny.”
Delivered in such a deadpan voice, the remark
was
funny. Miss Delilah didn’t smile.
“Honestly, would it kill you to say thank you? She’s absolutely perfect, you can’t deny that.”
She gestured toward me at that, but barely threw a glance in my direction. It was like I wasn’t there. Or actually, more like I was an object, a thing that couldn’t hear, couldn’t understand what was being said about her. Annoyance flashed through me and I cleared my throat.
She raised an eyebrow in my direction. Every angry word that had filled my mind disappeared in a blink.
Mr. Ward’s eyes remained on her. “I told you repeatedly I don’t need you meddling in my affairs.”
“Well, if you
had
affairs I wouldn’t need to meddle.” She emptied her glass and set it on the chair, then stood, hands on her hips as she stared him down. “Mother agrees with me, so don’t bother running to her. It’s more than time you moved on. Put her in your bed, feed from her, kill her. I don’t care. She’s your charge, now. You’ll have to take care of her, one way or the other.”
A sound erupted through the room, a low, deep growl, and it startled me to realize it was coming out of Mr. Ward. I’d have been less surprised to discover a lion or a tiger crouching behind him.
He stood and faced Miss Delilah. In his hand, his glass was empty. It shattered in his fist, sending shards flying as far as the fireplace. A few landed at my feet. Mr. Ward and Miss Delilah didn’t even seem to notice. They continued to glare at each other. Anxiety surrounded me like a cold, unpleasant fog until I wanted nothing more than to hide, but I didn’t dare move.
“Do you think I have any desire to play this childish game?” He all but growled the words. “Do you think I’ll take that child as a replacement?”
“Like I said, I don’t care what you take her as. But she’s yours.” She glanced at me, and the cold smile on her lips sent a shiver to me. “Your ward, Morgan. See? I have a sense of humor, too.”
“A sense of humor? Is that what you think this is? A joke?”
But she wasn’t listening. She came to me, and glass crunched under her feet. I flinched when she reached for me and cupped my face in her hand.
“Tell me something, Lina. Do you remember what I said to you when we arrived?”
I nodded, as unable to look away from her gleaming eyes as I was to speak.
“Tell my brother what I said to you, dear.”
Again, that voice… My mouth was opening before I even decided to say a word. I tried to fight it. Hypnotism, thrall, compulsion… I didn’t care what it was, I didn’t care how she did it, I just knew I was me, and I had free will, and I wouldn’t let her manipulate me.
The words spilled out and there was nothing I could do to stop them.
“You told me to be nice to Mr. Ward,” I heard myself say. “And not to leave without you.”
She smiled that cold smile again. Her nails were pinpricks against my cheek and it was all I could do not to whimper at the pain. “That’s right,” she murmured, and while her voice was lower, her tone was the same. “Don’t leave without me. Not tonight. Not ever.”
She leaned down. I remained frozen, encased in ice, and shuddered when she lapped at my cheek where her nails had pricked me.
“Lilah!” Mr. Ward’s hand settled on her shoulder and he pulled her to face him. “If you think I’ll let—”
She was gone before he could finish, before I could even blink or let out the breath I’d been holding.
I say ‘she was gone’ but really it’s something else that happened. I’d almost say, ‘she ran,’ but nobody can run that fast. She flew? Nah, vampires can’t do that, Mr. Ward told me as much. She just left. To her, it might have been little more than a stroll. To me, it was just a blur of movement, gone before I knew it.
The next second, Mr. Ward disappeared as well.
I sat there, alone, for a few minutes. And again, ‘sat there’ is so, so far from what actually happened. There was a war raging in my mind. I wanted to leave. I’d never wanted anything more in my life. But I simply couldn’t move.
The more I thought about it, of going down those stairs, going to where sane people were drinking champagne, eating finger food and laughing at their own jokes, of moving past them, all the way down to the front door and out, the less I was able to move. Tears of frustration started running down my face, and I now regretted refusing that drink when Mr. Ward had offered it to me.
No sooner had I thought about it, about going to the liquor cabinet and helping myself to something strong, that my legs started obeying me again. I took three steps to the cabinet before shaking my head at my own silliness. I’d get a drink when I was away from this place.
My legs locked. I wavered, and had to catch myself on the back of the closest armchair or I would have fallen down.
It didn’t take me long to understand. She’d told me not to leave without her. If I even thought about doing so, my body stopped cooperating. But if I thought of something else…
I looked at the liquor cabinet again and stumbled forward as my feet moved before I even knew it.
“She’s gone.”
I let out a gasp at Mr. Ward’s quiet words. I hadn’t noticed his return. When I turned to him, he was standing by the door, hands in his pockets, deep frustration inscribed on his face. He wasn’t looking at me.
“She just… left?” I asked in a small voice.
He nodded.
“That means… that means I can’t leave, doesn’t it?”
He snorted. “You tell me. I assume you tried?”
I swallowed hard.
“What she said… about you… about you killing me… She was joking, right? She didn’t mean…”
His gaze finally came up to me. In his eyes, his dark, bottomless eyes, I could see the answer to my question without him needing to say a word.
I didn’t know, still, what he was. It was only later that he told me about vampires and compulsion, and it took a lot more time before he finally told me why Miss Delilah had chosen me as her gift to him—why, probably, she had hired me as her assistant, years earlier, in anticipation of the right moment.
At that time, however, I only knew two things: no, she hadn’t been joking. Yes, he was perfectly capable of killing me.
“I won’t kill you,” he said in a gruff voice, and I wasn’t sure I could believe him.
I wasn’t sure either why it felt like a ‘yet’ should have ended his sentence.
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure about much that night. But I was pretty certain my life was about to change.
I could never have guessed how much.
To be continued in May 2013 in
My Reluctant Warden
.
Excerpt from
Out of the Box
I had managed to calm down on my way home, being out of his presence helped. But now that I’ve picked up the pen to put all of it in writing before I forget, my heart is trying to break free of my chest again. He’s so different from the other men that passed through my nights. I knew he would be, of course, it was part of the thrill, but while he did what I wanted, what I expected, it’s everything else that made me wonder about possibilities I had never considered before. I’m not a prude, but what I saw in that box…
I guess I should start from the beginning.
I went to a new club last night. I heard about it when I first moved here, but it took me a while to work up the courage to go. It’s a vampire-friendly place. There isn’t a single mirror in it, not like regular clubs where it’s easy to know if you’re dancing with a human or a vamp. It was hard to tell, of course, but I think maybe half the crowd last night had fangs. And the other half… Well, most of them weren’t shy about showing off their bite marks. Necks, wrists, shoulders, it was almost like showing off tattoos. I felt a bit naked, with no marks of my own to display. And yes, I’ve got to admit that’s the reason I went there in the first place.
I’ve always been fascinated by vampires. I guess it was just a matter of time before I slept with one. In a way, it’s a bit surprising that it took me so long. It’s been fifteen years since I left home for college and started that long string of charming princes that turned into lousy frogs after a few nights or a few months. Fifteen years since I first had sex on that too small dorm room bed. Last night, when he touched me, I felt like a virgin all over again.
I had been at the club for a little while when he arrived, but when he came onto the dance floor, my eyes went straight to him—and never left. He isn’t particularly tall, and his clothes weren’t flashy in the least, suit pants and a beige shirt unbuttoned halfway down his dark honey chest. But something in the way he stood, in the way he moved, drew me in. I was caught the moment I saw him, and he didn’t even know I was there. Three or four girls descended on him and started dancing around him, close enough that they were practically humping him, but at the same time he seemed to be alone, dancing by himself, for his own pleasure. And let me tell you, he knows how to dance. He dances… It’s going to sound stupid, but I was going to say, he dances the same way he makes love. With the same sensuality, the same strength, and that look in his eyes… Yes, I got to compare both things firsthand.
When I stepped onto the dance floor and toward him, I just wanted to get close. I wasn’t planning on actually trying to talk to him or anything else. The girls around him were younger than me. Prettier. Sexier. But his eyes looked past them and into mine, he raised his hand toward me, and before I knew it, I had taken it and I was dancing with him. Against him. Close enough that I could tell he had no body heat, but by then I was already sure he was a vamp.
As we danced, his fingers fluttered over my arms, my back, my sides, barely brushing wherever my dress left skin exposed through those diamond cutouts I love so much. I love them even more after last night. To feel his touch like that, so innocent and at the same time a promise for much, much more… It was intoxicating. I didn’t drink more than a glass of wine last night, but I felt a little drunk when I was in his arms, moving alongside him. I was drunk on his touch, on the slight smile on his lips, and on the heat in his eyes. They are very dark, but I could have sworn I saw flames dancing through them.
I don’t remember what words exactly he murmured when he leaned so close that his lips brushed against my ear. I remember only that I trembled when I said yes, and his hand slipped down my arm to clasp mine. He led me through the crowd, and a few dirty looks were thrown my way. A few envious ones, too.
When we reached the parking lot, he opened the passenger door of his car for me and I had this fleeting thought that if I climbed in, there was no turning back—and no telling how the night would end either. I had that fantasy of being bitten by a vampire, of being needed on that very primal level, but I guess one can never know until after the fact whether a vamp is out to feed or kill.
He gently closed the door after me, and only then did I realize that I had made my decision when I had come to the club, before I ever laid my eyes on him. That thought calmed me enough that, once he had started the car, I managed to ask his name.
“Anando,” he replied, flashing me a smile. “What’s yours?”
“Virginia.”
Continued in
Out of the Box
.
Part 1
available for free on the author’s website.
Complete series available on Amazon and other retailers.