He smirked and stood with graceful ease, like a panther. Tabitha's fingers froze, halfway to opening the first drawer. There weren't any knives in there anyway when she snuck a peak. She quickly shut it, giving Keller her undivided attention.
“Out. He’ll be back soon. Did I mention that you killed one of my closest friends? We’ve known each other since 1804. And you murdered her,” he growled, a threatening undertone to his voice.
“I believe you did. Sorry bout that,” Tabitha said, shrugging nonchalantly. “Business is business and your bestie was trying to kill me.”
He snorted bitterly as Tabitha snuck a glance at the contents of the drawer and almost cried out in relief. Knives and lots of them. “I watched you murder my friend in cold blood. Alistair says that you've been picking off his recruits from the city for the last few months, years even. You've been a particularly annoying thorn in his side.”
“Good,” Tabitha sneered, closing her hand around the hilt of a knife.
Keller sneered right back and stalked toward her. She shut the drawer and held the knife to her back, waiting for him to get closer. “You hunters are evil, despicable beings. Playing god.”
Tabitha made a face at him. “And you don't? You kill for pleasure. We kill for survival. You are the evil ones.”
“Even your precious Sebastian? Is he a monster?” He got closer and closer. Tabitha's instincts coiled. Her muscles tensed like a cat ready to pounce.
“At least he doesn't go out of his way to hunt people down and kill them.”
Keller laughed and stopped just a mere step away from her. He sat his hand on the counter to her right and Tabitha froze. “That's one twisted logic you've spun for yourself. He still drinks human blood, and he's still a vampire. You know what the worst kind of hunter is?”
Tabitha shook her head, her grip tightening on the hilt of the knife. “What?”
Keller leaned in close, his face inches from hers. His fangs gleamed and bared in front of her, his eyes turning a bright ruby red. “The kind that makes excuses for us. The kind that fall in love with us and believes that one of us is better than the others. We're all equally monsters. We've all killed, and we'll all continue to kill because it's our nature. It's who we are.”
Tabitha sneered. “Maybe your right. I am deluding myself but to tell the truth, it's none of your business.”
And then she struck. Wicked fast she plunged the knife into his hand. He howled as blood seeped from his palm. Without giving him a chance to recover, Tabitha pulled the knife from his hand and plunged it into his stomach. He gasped in pain and collapsed. Tabitha held the knife with a white-knuckled grip and bolted for the door.
She was going to make it. Tabitha could hotwire a car–with the intention to return it of course–and get them both out of there before Alistair returned. Get away. Tabitha readjusted the knife in her grasp and threw open the door... To find Alistair standing there in his impeccable suit.
His eyes widened in startled surprise, and he froze, a grocery bag in his left hand. “Miss. Sterling, you woke up earlier than I thought.”
His eyes fell to the knife in her hand as she froze. “I hope you haven't given Keller too much trouble.”
A growl came from behind them. Before Tabitha could react, a hand grabbed her shoulder and whipped her around. She shrieked as the knife clattered from her hand and Keller shoved her against the wall. He hissed, his fangs bared.
Tabitha hit and kicked even as his head came down, his eyes focused on her neck. He would have sucked her dry if Alistair hadn't reacted with vamp speed. One-minute Keller was fixated on her neck and ready to rip into her skin, and the next he was across the room. Alistair stood in front of her, shutting the door with a snap.
“Good try. I applaud your bravery, but I'm afraid you won't be escaping. Not alive or dead,” he directed that last comment at Keller, glancing over his shoulder.
Tabitha followed his line of sight and found Keller getting to his feet. The angry vampire growled through clenched teeth and clutching his healing stomach.
“Don't touch her again,” Alistair commanded.
Keller snarled something nasty under his breath, grabbed his drink and stalked off into the room. Alistair gracefully swooped down and grabbed the bloody knife from the floor. He didn't bother to even give Tabitha a glance as he went to the kitchen and set his grocery bag on the counter and the knife in the sink. He grabbed a wash cloth that hung by the fridge, watered it and began to mop up all the blood. Tabitha was frozen, maybe in shock.
And then Alistair straightened. He rung the bloody cloth out in the sink, set it down and turned to her, resting his hands on the counter, a faint smile on his lips. “Now I believe I have some explaining to do. And so do you, Miss. Sterling.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Tabitha watched as he pulled such ordinary groceries from the bag. Bread, butter, water bottles, a bag of chips. He put it all away with swift, graceful motions that reminded her of Sebastian.
She kept her attention trained on Alistair who was pouring the water out of the water bottles and down the drain.
“That's a waste you know,” she commented casually, willing her voice not to crack.
He glanced over his shoulder, flashing her a fanged humorless smile. “It isn't a waste for us. We have to put our... ah, special drink somewhere. Keeping blood bags in the fridge is awfully conspicuous.”
Tabitha snorted. “And blood in water bottles isn't?”
He smirked, turning his attention back to capping the empty bottle and opening the next. “I suppose not, but it makes me feel a bit more... human.”
“Well you're not, so get over it.”
He capped the third bottle setting it down on the counter by the fridge. Tabitha watched, her hands clenched into fists as he opened the fridge and pulled out two blood bags. He uncapped the tube hanging down from the top of one. Her gag reflex took effect, but she managed to keep her food down.
She covered her mouth and swallowed. Her stomach churned as he set the tube in the bottle, the plastic filling with red.
“So, Miss. Sterling tell me, why do you think you’re here?”
“Because you want to try and recruit me for what? You’re little crusade against the Moirai? Make me your big bad ultra-strong vampire hunting weapon?”
Alistair shot her a sharp grin. “You’re spot on. I didn’t think you knew about your, ah, family history.”
Tabitha shrugged, folding her arms in front of her.
“Hmm, so you found out your parents and all your little hunter friends have been lying to you all your life and you don’t think that’s odd?”
“They had their reasons,” she said coolly. She may still be mad at them, but the last thing she needed was for Alistair to think she was doubting her family and the Moirai.
From the narrowed look on his face though, she could tell she wasn’t doing a very convincing job of hiding her doubts. “Let me ask a question though,” she spoke up, folding her arms. “What’s stopping you from grabbing me, feeding me your blood and turning me right now? You really don’t think you’ll get me of my own free will, do you?”
Alistair chuckled, stopping the flow of blood in the tubes and capping the first bottle and moving on to the next. He never turned around to watch her as if he had complete confidence that she wouldn't run away or try to escape again. She would if she didn't think Alistair had planned for that. “That’s just the thing. I do want you of your own free will. I want you to see the truth of your family, of the Moirai. You will, it’s just a matter of time.”
Tabitha’s eyes narrowed. “How can you be so sure? It could take an awful long time to wear me down.”
He smirked. “I have all the time in the world Tabitha. I can wait.”
Tabitha sighed in exasperation. She was getting tired of this back and forth. “What did you think you would achieve by kidnapping me and bringing me here? What could you possibly say that could make me change my mind?”
“Oh, quite a bit in fact. Starting with your new friend: Sebastian.”
“What about him?” Tabitha snapped.
Instead of answering her question though, Alistair asked one in return. “Do you think he’ll come for you?” he asked over his shoulder as he filled another water bottle.
Tabitha scowled. “He knows I can handle myself.”
“Yes, but will that stop him from coming to your rescue? Sebastian has always been a rather... chivalrous and noble man. He will come for you whether he thinks you can handle yourself or not, he can't help himself. It's his nature to want to swoop in and rescue the damsel in distress.”
Tabitha shook her head. “Why do you want him to come here anyways? If you guys were such great friends back in the good old days, then I'd think you two would have exchanged phone numbers ages ago. Can't you just shoot him a text and ask if you can meet up?”
Alistair smirked over his shoulder at her, finishing the second bottle. “So, you know a lot about Sebastian, then? He's told you all about his past? His mistakes, how he turned, when he turned, how the beautiful Emmeline turned?”
Tabitha kept her snarky remarks down. Truth be told she'd known him for about two weeks and yet... she felt as if he'd known her their whole lives. She felt like she'd known him their whole lives. Even though she didn't actually know anything about him...
Alistair smirked at her over his shoulder. “I'll take your silence as a no. Well allow me to enlighten you.”
Tabitha didn't say anything. She knew she should. She knew she should defend Sebastian and defend her feelings for him. The blood bag ran empty, and he capped the last bottle. He set them all in the fridge, threw the plastic bag away and faced her, a grim smile on his face.
Tabitha didn't move and didn't stop him as he explained what had happened to Emmeline and Sebastian. “It was 1863 and I had been a vampire for about twenty-five years. The day he turned, a horrible storm had rolled through town and Sebastian got caught up in it. He was in town to gather medicine for his sister Emmeline and took shelter at one of the pubs, which at the time was in the large town square. And... coincidentally at the time I was rolling through town with the storm and a friend of mine, Mary Jane.”
Tabitha shivered. Alistair had turned Sebastian. But why would Sebastian befriend the man who destroyed his life?
“I was otherwise engaged at a table playing cards with a few young men. While I was busy, I left Mary Jane to her own devices.” Alistair waved his hand in the other, brushing off the thought. “Now I realize I should have entertained her, kept her by my side. But I didn't... And she had to find other ways to amuse herself. Turns out she met a kind, genuine and chivalrous young man named Sebastian Davis. Long story short, she lured him up to a bedroom under the pretense that she needed some help moving her luggage upstairs. Next thing he knew he was compelled to fall in love with her. She had him drink her blood and then she strangled him to death.”
Tabitha covered her mouth. Sebastian was strangled to death?
Alistair nodded, genuine regret in his brown eyes. He leaned against the counter, his gaze looking straight through her. His eyes far away in another era. “When I came up, buzzed and ready to lure my own victim upstairs, it was too late. Sebastian had woken up, and Mary Jane let him leave. Leave! A newly turned vampire with a thirst for blood, his transition already completed with a taste of her blood. It was a disaster,” his voice took on a whisper, “I tracked him down and found him at his house... blood all over himself. Turns out he had gone up to give his sister some healing tea and her medicine. He'd knelt to give her a kiss on her forehead, had smelled the blood pumping through her neck and couldn't resist. I got there in time to give her my blood but by then it was already too late.”
Tabitha's eyes widened. Alistair shook his head, his eyes so full of regret Tabitha couldn't help but feel a tinge of sadness for him. “Emmeline woke up a vampire, died of consumption with her brother racked with guilt. I had to pick up Mary Jane's pieces, train them to survive and feed before anyone discovered what they were.”
A shiver ran down Tabitha's spine. “And... and Mary Jane? What happened to her?”
Alistair scowled, his face twisting with anger. “She disappeared before I got back to the inn with the two siblings. I tried hunting her down, but I could never find her. She is the reason Sebastian and Emmeline have suffered so greatly in their lifetimes.”
Tabitha frowned, transfixed with Alistair's story. “But if you were trying to help then why does Sebastian hate you so much?”
Alistair chuckled humorlessly and sat up from leaning on the counter. He took a seat at the little metal table. Tabitha followed him, never taking her eyes off him.
He leaned back in his seat, calm and at ease. “That came some years later. For a long time though we were... family. Sebastian and Emmeline stayed in the town with their family. I stayed with them until their brother left to fight in the war. Sebastian felt duty bound to go and so... he did. He left Emmeline in my care, and that's what I did. I took care of her.”
Tabitha frowned, the dots starting to connect. “And by taking care of her you two fell in love. While both her brothers were out fighting a war and risking their lives.”
Alistair shrugged. “Yes. We fell in love. Sebastian must have told you that I'm using Emmeline. That I don't actually love her, but I do. I love her more than anything...”
“So what? You two fell in love, Sebastian got home. Sebastian found out and hated you for stealing his sister from him?”
Alistair sighed and straightened, tucking his hands into his pockets. “Something like that. Sebastian came home. Emmeline wanted to keep our love a secret, but Sebastian is no idiot. He found out and we had our first... spat. He spent an entire relentless year hating me and trying to bring Emmeline 'back to sanity' as he'd said. But when the year was up his brother, Milo, came home. Milo had decided to stay to fight the war but instead of coming home with a grin on his face he came home in a coffin.”
Tabitha’s eyes narrowed and she folded her arms. “I already know this. Sebastian told me about his brother. He… didn’t tell me the specifics of how he or Emmeline turned but he did give me the overall gist. I’m not completely clueless.”
“You must be truly special to him for him to have shared such details with you… Their mother had always had a weak heart, an unfixable condition back then, fatal even. So when she learned that one of her children, her oldest son had died her heart couldn't take it. Not a month after the funeral she had a heart attack. Emmeline and Sebastian were again dressed in their finest funeral clothes and forced to mourn the loss of their mother. Their father fell into a deep depression... he had loved their mother so much.” He shook his head and folding his hands on the table.
Tabitha gaged his expression, seeing the earnest and sincerity and maybe even a little jealousy at the love between Sebastian's parents. “He managed to get through a year. A year of hell as Sebastian would say, of drinking, gambling and destroying his life and his children's livelihoods. Then one morning he was found dead in a ditch somewhere. He left Emmeline and Sebastian orphans and the only family each other had.”
Tabitha's heart cracked at the thought of Sebastian going through all that with no one to help him. She wished she could have been there to help him through it... He and Emmeline had lost their brother, their mother and father in a span of two wicked years. How awful. Tabitha couldn't imagine losing her mom. She'd already lost her dad, but both parents? She wouldn't be able to handle it.
“That's...”
“Horrible? Awful? Terrible? I know,” Alistair said, his eyes refocusing and sharpening as if coming back to the present.
A small smile snaked across his lips as he remembered something else. “Sebastian never forgave me for taking his sister from him and for a while we parted ways. We tried to reconcile over the years, but nothing ever come of it, unfortunately. Emmeline still hopes one day her brother will come to her senses, but I’ve given up on him long ago. He�
��s a lost cause.”
Tabitha wished she had heard this story from Sebastian himself. That he had had the guts to tell her the truth from his own lips… but despite now knowing his story it still didn’t explain why Alistair had her here. “So you brought me here to tell me about Sebastian? Was that little story supposed to turn me against him and the Moirai? Because if it was, it didn’t work.”
Alistair smirked at her, leaning against the counter. “No, no. That was to prove to you that I am telling you the truth. Ask Sebastian when you see him next, he’ll confirm every detail I just told you. No, I just thought you should know that people have been lying to you for a very long time about a great deal of things. When you see Sebastian, ask him what happened to your father. Ask him who killed him.”
Her blood ran cold in her veins, her hands fisting at her sides. “What are you talking about?” she whispered.
Alistair quirked an eyebrow. “Why, I would be surprised if Sebastian didn’t know I sent his sister to kill your father. Emmeline was the one who disposed of him.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tabitha's hand went to her parted lips, and she stumbled back a step, hitting the wall next to the door.
No...
No.
Emmeline couldn't have done it. Her father had been hunting a... a random vampire. Tabitha had never even been able to find the one who had killed him to begin with. She had given herself over to the realization that she would never get revenge for her father’s death… Until now.
Could Sebastian have known about Emmeline killing her dad? Would he really keep that from her and still protect his sister despite knowing what she had done? Tabitha couldn’t believe Sebastian would do that… or at least she didn’t want to anyways.
Alistair nodded, smiling as if pleased with this reaction, pleased with what he had done. “Yes, let it sink in my dear. I had your father killed. I would have done it myself, but I was otherwise engaged. But I made sure to send a person I could trust to get the job done. It was revenge for hiding you from me. I could have trained you. If I had had the opportunity to train you since you were young, you would be living up to your full potential right now Tabitha.”
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