B006XVUCOY EBOK Page 5

  The bike stopped in front of the mansion and I quickly got off. Jason took off his helmet and looked at me as I stepped up beside him. He smiled at me and then reached out and touched my hand.

  "I'll be close by." He said and his face became serious.

  "You're leaving?" I asked him

  "I don't want to interfere more than I have, besides, I don't really know if I'd be welcome there, after all, I did kidnap you for the night, I don't think that they'd find me very funny for it." Jason said softly.

  "Why don't you just come in and stay." I asked him. He shook his head and then looked at the house.

  "You'll be safe here, Angel, don't worry." He said and slipped his helmet back over his head. "Just think about me if you need me and I'll come by."

  "But, only when I'm alone right?" I said and stepped closer to him. He nodded and started the bike again. "Why are you so stubborn?"

  "Because, I can be." He replied. "Besides, doesn't the intrigue just kill you?"

  "Good-bye, Jason." I smiled at him and stepped back away from his bike.

  "Just until tonight." He replied and turned the bike around. He looked at me one more time before he took off down the street. I waved to him and then turned to go in the house.

  5

  When I walked into the house, all seemed quite, then suddenly, all the voices in the house seemed to come at me at once. I covered my ears as I backed up into a corner. I closed my eyes tightly and then waited until the voices faded. Quinn was standing in front of me when I opened my eyes, and his face was pale, full of worry, and his eyes seemed hurt.

  "What's the matter?" I asked him. He shook his head and held out his arms. I walked towards him and he wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly.

  "You can't do that again." He whispered in my ear. I smiled at him, and then backed away.

  "I was safe, Jason was there." I replied to him.

  "Oh, yes, our little guardian. The agency told me that he had you in protective custody." Quinn said and the two of us parted. "It's funny that he didn't stop in."

  "He says that he doesn't know who hired him, but he sure knew a lot about you." I said to him as we walked down the hallway. Quinn nodded.

  "Jason and I have run into each other a couple of times, but you're right, he doesn't know that it's me personally, but I'm sure he thinks it is." Quinn said and smiled. He ushered me up stairs and to my room. "Take a shower and relax, lunch will be ready very shortly."

  "Who's Lauren?" I asked him before he shut the door behind him. He looked at me and smiled. "You know that she doesn't like me, right?"

  "She doesn't understand you." Quinn replied and stood in the doorway. "Maybe later the three of us can get together and get rid of those misunderstandings."

  I watched him close the door and I sat down on the bed, again, I was in this house with no real friends, no one to really talk to, and Jason was probably miles away. I grabbed my bathrobe from the closet, one that a maid had given me the night before, and walked across the hall to the bathroom, where I turned on the shower and let it steam up the room.

  When I finally got in, all I could do was just stand there and hug myself, it seemed weird to be in that house. What was probably the weirdness that I was feeling, was the fact that I hadn't stopped to stay any place longer than maybe a day in the last few weeks, including my own house where my mother was killed. At that thought, I felt a chill race through me and I closed my eyes and leaned on the wall.

  "Knock, knock." I heard a female voice whisper as I stood there. Not sure if I was hearing it in my mind or not, I stuck my head out the shower door.

  "Who is it?" I asked sternly.

  "It's Cleo." I heard the voice say softly. "Is it all right if I come in?"

  "By all means, it is your house after all." I said and turned the shower to the tub to fill it up with water. She walked in and sat on the toilet seat, waiting for me to slide the door over, which I did when the bubbles were high enough. "It's beautiful, by the way."

  "What is?" She asked me. I smiled and looked at her, as if she didn't know.

  "Your home." I replied. "I haven't lived in a steady place since I was nine and found out that I could read minds."

  "You really are a unique person." Cleo said and smiled. "The energy that you give off is like nothing I have ever experienced before. You're so full of life and you're energy is overwhelming."

  "My powers can be at times, too." I said and played with the bubbles in my hand. "Sometimes, my mind hears every mental voice in the house, it makes me nauseous and I can't even stand. Michael has a strange way of distracting me from it."

  "His cool, little kisses." Cleo smiled and I nodded. "Just don't let your grandfather see that. He thinks that Michael is too much of a lady's man as it is. He wouldn't be very kind if he thought that Michael was going after you."

  "What about someone else?" I asked her. She smiled as if she knew what I was thinking. "I mean, you've known them both for at least a couple of centuries, do you think that he'd freak out if he saw me with someone?"

  "Spending the night with Jason Finn isn't always the best thing for a girl in your position to do, Angel." She laughed.

  "He didn't do anything." I laughed at her assumption and then glanced at her. "I mean, it wasn't like I had a choice, to be there, but, he didn't hurt me or make me do things that I didn't want to, but I couldn't help feeling this pull towards him. It was odd; I've never been quite that trusting with men, but I thought that I could tell him everything about my past and he'd still be there to protect me."

  "That's what he does for a living, protect people." Cleo said and shook her head. "You've been his obsession for almost a year. He would come here and tell me about how you were and how different you seemed."

  "He'd come here?" I asked her. She nodded and then smiled as I looked at her oddly.

  "Oh, so he didn't tell you?" She asked me. I shook my head.

  "Tell me what?" I questioned.

  "He and I are relatives, sort of." She giggled and then folded her hands on her lap. "I made him." She watched me sit up in the bathtub and stare at her. "No doubt he told you that you'd be safe here and if you needed him to just think about him."

  "Yes, that's exactly what he said." I replied.

  "Jason and Julian don't get along, they never have, but Julian trusts him enough to suggest him to his brother when Quinn wanted someone to protect you. They argued constantly, so to keep the pressure of having to keep them apart whenever Julian was here; Jason decided to stay in the lair under the house, until they decided to leave."

  "So, he's here, now?" I asked, feeling my heart beating quickly.

  "Angel, don't jump in too quickly." She warned. "Jason has a dangerous job, and whether he cares for you or you care for him, he still has the obligation to fulfill it. He still has to put his life on the line for other people."

  "I don't want him to be my guardian anymore." I whispered to her, she smiled at this. "I want him to be here with me, not in some cave."

  "That's his choice, Angel. I can't change the decisions that he makes." She replied and got up. She smiled at me as she turned back to look at me one last time before she disappeared out the door. "Lunch in ten minutes."

  That night, as we all sat down around the table for dinner, Julian put down his fork and knife and cleared his throat, making us all look up. It had been almost silent at the table, so much so that you could probably have heard a pin drop, but he decided that it was time to talk.

  "Tomorrow night," he started and looked at each of us, "the Council is meeting to discuss what to do about the hunters. All vampires have been asked to attend."

  "Where are they going to get a building big enough to house all of us?" Quinn asked.

  "We're meeting at the state house. Governor Paselie has agreed to let us use it and then the Council will be broadcasted, via satellite to each location." Julian said. I laughed at this, picturing the hundreds, maybe thousands of vampires living in New York state alon
e, being crammed into a three story state house. "This is no laughing matter, Angel. They want you to speak to them about the hunters."

  "Why me?" I asked him, looking at Quinn for an answer. Julian shrugged.

  "Probably because you're connected to them." He replied. I shook my head.

  "I won't do it." I told him.

  "You must. This is the Council of the elders that has requested it." He said.

  "You know what? Your ‘Council’ can bite me because I'm not getting up in front of people and telling the world about how they operate just so they can change their M.O. and kill me in a different way!” I hollered and stood up from the table. I placed my napkin on the table gently and looked around at the faces that were looking at me. In a calm, quiet voice, I said, "excuse me."

  I walked out of the room and out onto the balcony that overlooked the valley and the woods that were behind Cleo's mansion. I stared at the sky and watched the sun slowly set, but I felt a presence behind me and turned to look at Quinn.

  "Are they nuts?" I asked him.

  "No, they just want to know what you know."

  "But, I don't know anything except that they're trying to kill me and succeeded in killing my mother." I told him. He stood beside me and sighed. "If they really want to know, I'll write them a letter and they can read it by themselves. I want nothing to do with this."

  "I understand your fears, Angel..." He started.

  "No, I don't think you do, Quinn." I stopped him suddenly. "I don't think anyone really can."

  "I think I may be able to identify with what you're feeling." A voice interrupted. We both turned and looked at Lauren, who was standing there with her hands folded in front of her.

  "You?" I asked.

  "I have...memories, of what my people, my family, went through a little over three hundred years ago." She said and stepped forward. "You see, I come from a long ancient line of Celts and my family has been ridiculed for being witches and have been burned at the stake because of their beliefs."

  "Yes, but beliefs and religion is different from being born into a life where someone has tried to kill you since the day you were born." I said softly to her, hoping not to scare her away. "I know what happened in Salem, and I know what happened overseas when Christianity became the "religion", and some of my family suffered right alongside of yours, I'm sure, but as for the feelings that I have now, I'm not sure anyone really knows them."

  "That's true." She said and turned to leave.

  "Lauren." I said and watched her stop. She turned and looked back at me. "Thank you for trying to help me."

  "Maybe when this whole thing is through, you and I can share some of our past with each other." She said and smiled. I nodded and watched her walk back into the house. I looked back at Quinn and then out over the valley again.

  "Where do you think Jason is now?" I asked him. He smiled at me.

  "Probably watching us from a point in the woods and laughing because he can see us, but we can't see him." Quinn said and walked back inside, leaving me outside alone again.

  My room was dark, but as I tossed and turned, the light from the window seemed to help it get brighter. I finally got up, tired of fidgeting under the covers and sat on the large cushioned chair in the corner. I was there for only a little while, not even twenty minutes, when I watched the window open slightly and a dark figure sneak in. I watched him walk over to the bed, looking around for me no doubt, and feel the covers.

  I was interested in what he was doing, because I all ready knew who it was. I snuck up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder as he knelt on the bed.

  "Excuse me." I said as I tapped him. Jason jumped and spun around, losing his balance and falling on the bed. He looked up at me as I flicked the light switched to the small end table lamp. I stared at his face for a moment, and then climbed on the bed beside him. He looked at me, never moving from the spot that he had fallen on. "Do you always sneak into girl’s bedrooms in the middle of the night?"

  "Do you always scare people sneaking into your bedroom, by tapping them on the shoulder?" He asked me back. I looked at him.

  "Good evening, Mr. Sarcastic." I said and laid down across the bed, looking at him.

  "I'm sorry; you just caught me off guard." He whispered to me.

  "I caught you off guard?" I smiled and shook my head. "I probably would have screamed if I had been really sleeping. How come you didn't tell me that you lived here?"

  "What?" He asked me and sat up. "Who told you that?"

  "Cleo. She said you spent the day in the lair under the house." I said softly. He looked at me, with his cool face and shrugged.

  "So what if I do, you don't want to be attracted to me anyway." He said and got up. I closed my eyes and sighed. How I wanted to tell him that it was all just a big lie; that I was attracted to him, so much so that I couldn't stop thinking about how he had kissed me, but I couldn't.

  “Yeah, well, it would have helped to know." I said and closed my eyes. "I mean what if I really needed your ‘protection’?"

  "Yeah, right." He laughed, walking over and sitting on the chair I had just been in. "With your uncle around, who needs protection?"

  "Hey, I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk about my family like that." I told him and sat up, staring him directly in the eyes. "And, by the way, the reason you came here was what?"

  "I came to check on you." He said softly and looked out the window. "I know you were having trouble sleeping and I thought that maybe it was because you were afraid."

  "Yeah, well, you know me and sleep, we don't see eye to eye." I sighed, walked over, and sat on the window ledge he was looking out. I was quiet for a moment and then I looked at him again. "I'm glad you came." He looked at me oddly and then nodded as if he knew that I was, smiling like he knew that I wanted him there. This made me mad and I stood up. "Look, just because you think you're all that doesn't mean that everyone else does."

  He looked at me as I walked back over to the bed and grabbed the covers. I looked at him one last time, then lay down on the bed and covered up. I turned away from him, curled up under the covers and watched the wall.

  "Go if you want." I told him sternly, and then I sighed and closed my eyes. "Stay if you wish."

  I heard nothing from him, no sarcastic remark, no sigh, no whisper, but I felt him there, still and it helped me fall asleep.

  I looked around the room, chains dangling from the ceiling, whips cracking, women screaming for mercy. I tried to move, but the robes that were around my wrists and ankles held me there. I could feel the sting of little cuts all over my body, the fiery ache of burns from my head to my toes. I was naked, bound and bleeding and had no clue as to where I was.

  I couldn't feel my toes, and once that set it in, the pains of the broken bones in my feet and legs became quite apparent. I was dying, I could feel it, but I was still unsure as to where I was, until I heard it. A woman was screaming her innocence, in a language that I know I shouldn't understand, but clearly did. Some men were torturing her, slicing her, cutting her, but calmly telling her that if she confessed to witchcraft, she would get a quick death.

  I knew where I was then; the Burning Time was what they had called it. My ancestors and I'm sure Lauren's also. It was the time when Christianity was taking over, trying to get rid of the old religions that had been practiced across Europe and Asia. It was a time when women were considered soulless and entwined with the devil, accused of witchcraft merely for being women, and I was there, in the middle of it, dying.

  The ropes around my wrist loosened and I looked up into the face of a man that I was becoming quite familiar with. He untied the ropes, quite quickly, then, while trying to be gentle, he picked me up and took me out of the room, almost invisible. We were in a carriage being driven off into the dark woods to a place that must be long forgotten.

  He carried me into a brightly lit tunnel and deep underground, where he tried to set me down as gently as he could on a cot. He looked at me as I shook with
cold, and wrapped his heavy cloak around my body. I watched his eyes fill with fear as he looked over my broken body.

  "Why, Daniella? Why didn't you listen to me when I told you not to go there?" He asked me sternly, and ran his hand through his long black hair. I smiled and started to cry, and he bent down and took my hand. "Don't be afraid, you're going to live."

  "No." I whispered to him in a weak, shaky voice. "I'm dying."

  "We can change that." He said softly and kissed my hand. "If you will let me try..."

  "No, I don't want that." I told him and took a ragged breath. I looked at him suddenly, my eyes wide with shock and then I smiled. "My body has gone numb, I feel no more pain." I said softly and then touched his face. "I want to die now, Alexander, I want to die the way I was meant to die. Free. Free of all the religious persecution.”

  "I can help you." He said and I watched as a tear slid down his cheek. I nodded at him and felt him move me from the cot, gathering me into his arms. I looked up at him and stared with wonder as his teeth sharpened and grew longer. He took a deep breath and pushed my hair aside. "Is this really what you want?" He asked me. I nodded and closed my eyes. "Do you love me, Daniella?"

  I felt him move down towards my neck and could feel his teeth brush against my skin. I had only a few breaths left in my body and I took one of them and answered his question.

  "Yes." I whispered to him and felt him bite down on my skin, ripping through with power. I felt the life being drained from me, but my body had become numb to any pain, and all I could feel was him taking me into him, in a sense, healing my wounds. The darkness took, along with the cold icy feeling, just before my world went completely black.

  I sat up in bed and looked around the room, my eyes were watering and my pillow was wet. I could still feel the small cuts on my skin and they seemed to itch. Jason looked over at me from where he stood at the window. He walked over slowly and sat in front of me on the bed. He reached out and brushed my hair back from my eyes.

  "Why did you let me die?" I asked him softly, holding back the waterfall of tears that wanted to get out. I could feel my chin quivering as I felt his fingers brush my skin. "Why didn't you make me one of you?"