“Yes,” I said, swirling my feet in the water.
“Wow. That’s so hard to comprehend.”
I nodded. It had been awhile since I had talked about it. My life as a human was a memory now, and I didn’t stop and think back on it very often, used to my new reality.
“Mark tells me you’re going to change him into a vampire?”
I saw the flash of judgement in her eyes when she looked up at me from the bubbling water below. The fire crackled and sent embers floating up into the night sky. I watched them flutter about like fireflies for a moment before answering her burning question.
“Yes. That is our arrangement.”
“How do you do it? Does he have to die? What happens? Is it safe?”
She fired off questions as she leaned forward on the edge of the stones just beside me. Her face rested upon crossed arms, inquisitive eyes searching mine for answers.
“We discovered, quite by accident, that anyone who dies with our blood in their system awakens a vampire.”
“So, you’re going to kill Mark.” She scowled.
I shook my head. “No. I’m going to grant him eternal life.”
“But you need to kill him first. So, he’ll be dead.”
“Only for a few moments.”
“But you didn’t have to die to become what you are, did you?”
It was a good question. “The transformation had been excruciating for all of us. I had passed out during a particularly painful moment and awakened transformed. We all sometimes wondered if we had indeed died, and some of us just never returned. None of us can be sure though. So, answering your question, I don’t know. My heart beats. I breathe. For all intents and purposes I seem to be alive... just a different kind of alive.”
“So, to be a vampire you just need to drink blood every day?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And no sun?”
“No sun.”
“Ugh. I would hate that. I love the sun. Do you miss it?”
“I hardly remember it. It’s been six hundred years since I’ve seen the sun.”
“Can you be killed?” She arched a curious brow.
“Contrary to the stake through the heart theory, we can only be killed by beheading. And considering no human is strong enough to strike the blow, we can basically only be beheaded by another vampire.”
“So, you’re pretty much invincible.”
“Pretty much.”
“Wow. That’s a lot to digest. What about your family? Where are they now?”
That question caused a pang inside my chest. Rifts and pain followed when it came to talking about my family. It had been a decade since we’d parted ways. “Your turn,” I said dodging the question. “Tell me how Emilia Charles ended up sitting in my hot tub?”
“Oy. Where do I begin?”
Everything about this fascinating and beautiful woman intrigued me and I longed to know every detail. Where she grew up, what she loved, what she hated... everything. These thoughts never occurred with Jenny. She represented food, nothing else. Asking her about herself would have been as strange to me as Mark asking his milk where it was pumped just before pouring it into his coffee. It was different with Emilia. She wasn’t just food to me. She was already so much more.
Emilia sat back in the hot tub, her eyes meeting mine. “I grew up in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, just outside Milwaukee. Only child. Two parents. No other family that I ever heard of. My parents both worked two jobs to keep us afloat, so I rarely saw them. When I did, they were too tired to do much but stare at the wall and try to recover.”
“You must have been lonely,” I said, sadness creeping in as I pictured her small and alone.
“I was. I had a few friends but by high school they had moved away. My senior year, my parents went out for a very rare date night. It was January. They hit a patch of black ice. I’m told they didn’t suffer. Their deaths were instantaneous.”
Pain flashed in the depth of her eyes. She had suffered the same loss as me. I understood how it felt although at least I had been older and surrounded by family and my clan. Emilia had been left alone. I fought an urge to reach out and touch her, comfort her, take away all her pain.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. She nodded and continued.
“Since I was almost eighteen and without family, the courts emancipated me. I had a hundred thousand in life insurance and a few months before I had to move out of the duplex we rented. One night I saw a flyer that my favorite band was playing at a place called The Rave in downtown Milwaukee. I bought myself a ticket and went to the show. During the second opening act, I locked eyes with the lead singer. Jeff.” She rolled her eyes. “I was going through my bad boy stage and fell head over heels for his long hair and black eyeliner. He found me after the show, and we hooked up.”
Jealousy pumped through me, and I couldn’t mistake it. The thought of her wrapped up in the arms of a dirty, wannabe rockstar twisted my gut in knots.
“So young, naïve me falls in love and moves into his duplex the day I had to move out of mine. I was supposed to go to college that fall, but Jeff convinced me to postpone one year and work to support us while his band ‘hit it big’. Once he was a millionaire, I could go to school and he would support me. He blew through my parent’s life insurance building a recording studio in our basement. I was so in love it never even occurred to me to stop him from spending the money and use it for college.”
She tapped her head in disbelief. “Flash forward a few years, I’m still working as a receptionist to support us, he’s still promising this is the year he’ll make it big and I can pursue my own dreams. I threatened to leave, finally coming to my senses. He slapped a ring on my finger and like an idiot I tromped down the aisle with him. A few more years of me working, him partying and playing, he says he’s got a huge opportunity in Chicago. We spent the rest of my savings on a down-payment on an apartment he insisted was a great investment. I got a new crappy job in Chicago and he continued to play music and party. Finally, he does it. He actually fucking does it.”
“Does what?”
“Makes it. His band, the same one he’s been with since high school, gets a hit single. It’s on the radio, they have record labels banging on their door and we are on our way. I’m finally not going to be the sole income. Finally we catch a break.”
“So, what happened?”
“Sheena. Sheena fucking happened.” Daggers shot through her eyes. “I come home to find Sheena in my bed shagging my husband. I told him to get out and he barely even apologized. He left that day and has been with her ever since. I only found out during the divorce mediation that he had racked up seventy thousand in credit card debt. Since it’s marital debt, it’s half mine even though I didn’t buy anything with it. And because I couldn’t afford a fancy lawyer or legal fees, do you know what isn’t half mine?”
I shook my head while I watched her face scrunch up in anger.
“The record deal. He waited until after we got divorced to sign it, so I didn’t get a penny. Not. One. Penny. And right before he signed, Sheena and the label convinced him to ditch his band and get a new one so they don’t get a damn thing either. Now Sheena gets to enjoy all the fruit of the career that I made... and that his band made! Ugh!”
Rage flashed through her. Who could blame her? “What an asshole.”
My words stopped her in her tracks. She turned toward me and stared with wide eyes. “Did you, Mr. Prim and Proper, just say asshole?”
I shrugged. “It seemed fitting.”
Emilia laughed. “So fitting! Thank you! He is an asshole!”
I joined her in exasperated laughter. This Jeff character would potentially be the first casualty I’d caused in decades if I ever stumbled across him.
“So that’s my long, sad, pathetic story. And the reason I’m here. Though, I’m not complaining. This place is amazing. You might have to throw me out after five years. I’m not going to want to leave.” She laughed.
/> I don’t want you to leave either.
Not wanting to admit that illicit thought, I quickly changed the subject. “Can I get you anything?”
“No. I’m fine but thank you for asking. I feel bad. You must be starving and I’m just going on and on in here.”
I was starving, but I also loved hearing all about my new, intriguing guest.
“Here,” she said, slipping out of the water and settling at my side, her feet touching mine as they splashed beside them. “Eat.”
She tipped her head, offering her neck to me. It pulled me in and drew my fangs from their resting place. She didn’t jump this time when they made a sound as they popped out. Sliding my hand behind her head, I let them sink back into her warm flesh. The fire danced beside us as I sucked her sweetness and felt it tangle with my own. Her hand pressed against my chest, an instinctual touch as she moaned a soft tune.
Once again not just the exquisite taste of her blood flooded me with ecstasy.
She did.
Her touch that caused my heart to race and match her own.
Her warm breath ghosting my cool skin.
Her scent. An intoxicating blend of vanilla and lavender.
And once again I felt our bodies connecting as her blood coursed through my veins... thrumming through me and awakening every inch of my body.
And my soul.
When I realized I’d drank too long, I forced myself to break our connection. She settled back and eyes shielded by heavy eyelids met my own.
“Are you all right?” I asked, examining the neck that showed no sign of my presence.
“Better than all right. It really is as good as they said it was. It puts sex to shame,” she said, her voice still dazed.
Her hand stayed splayed on my chest. Emotions long thought dead flooded my body under the warmth of her touch. Like the embers of a smoldering fire I’d extinguished centuries ago, they crackled and sparked as she dragged her fingertips across my chest. My emotions had been buried along with Isobel when her mortal nature had ripped her from my life. I had begged for death, desperate to rid myself of the pain her loss had seared into me. I’d mourned for a century, and then I’d mourned even more.
Emilia evoked a feeling in me that no other had ever awakened. None but my Isobel. But like Isobel, Emilia was mortal. I couldn’t bear the thought of mourning another woman when old age ripped her from my arms and my life.
No. These feelings for her can’t happen. I won’t let them.
“Thank you. I hope you have a good night,” I said as I pulled myself to my feet, her hand slipping off my chest as I rose.
She frowned, confused eyes searching mine. “Did I do something wrong?” She sat back on her hands.
“No. It’s not you. I’m sorry. It’s just...” Words eluded me. I barely understood my own roiling emotions, let alone explaining them to the woman who’d caused them. “Goodnight.”
Without another word I spun and hurried off, closing myself behind my heavy bedroom doors. I wanted to go back out there, grab her and pull her into my arms, drink more of her blood, and listen to her stories. And then I wanted to do something else I hadn’t done in centuries.
Kiss her.
At times over the centuries, my grief and loneliness had driven me into the bed of a woman that I’d used to ease the ache Isobel’s loss had left behind. But I’d found nothing but more loneliness awaiting me in their arms. And even though I’d tried to find solace in their bodies, I’d never allowed their lips to touch mine. My lips, my kiss, belonged to Isobel and Isobel alone. But for the first time in five hundred years I longed to touch them to another.
Emilia.
Though I knew I couldn’t submit to my growing feelings for her, I had been rude tonight. Tomorrow I would make it up to her. Tomorrow I would do better.
CHAPTER SIX
Emilia
“DESSERT?” MARK ASKED, pushing back his plate.
“No way. I will be five hundred pounds by the time my contract ends if I keep eating like this.”
We had just dined on another one of Nancy and Mary’s incredible creations. Butternut squash ravioli. It was to die for, and I had eaten way too much.
“You’re probably right. I need to keep my abs in check, so they stay with me for the rest of my eternal life. I worked my ass off for these things. No sense in seeing them go to waste now.” He patted his washboard stomach.
“My abs were much flatter before Jeff left. I swear I did nothing but eat ice cream and watch The Notebook every night for a month straight. The only thing that stopped me was lack of funds. I was so broke, I couldn’t afford all the ice cream and then I had to get that stupid cocktail waitressing job.” I groaned.
“Lucky for us or you wouldn’t be here. And you look great. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Thanks, Mark.”
“Only an idiot would walk out on you. And I still can’t believe Aiden called him an asshole.” His eyes tripled in size before he sputtered out laughter. “He really said that? Asshole? It’s so not Aiden! Hoodlum or scoundrel, maybe even rapscallion, but asshole? Man, I would have killed to hear it.”
I threw my hand up in the air like an oath. “What an asshole. True story.”
“Well, that closes up that short mystery. He definitely likes you.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, “I got all swirly and a little too handsy after he fed on me and he freaked out and ran away.”
“Trust me. He likes you. Being weird, that’s just Aiden. He’s a strange bird.”
“I think he thought I might kiss him or something, which I wouldn’t. It’s just after he feeds on me, I feel... I can’t explain.”
“Please. Please try.” He lurched forward onto his elbows, expectant eyes wide with anticipation. “Jenny just shrugged when I asked. I need to know. I’m living vicariously through you. I would kill to have that man sucking on my neck... or on my... sorry, go on.”
I giggled and shook my head. “You know that feeling that builds right before you have an orgasm?”
“I know it well.”
“It’s like that, but everywhere. Not just down in the happy bits.”
“Happy bits?” He bit his lip to suppress a smile.
I shrugged off his inquisition. “Whatever. Anyway, it’s like the orgasm is pulsing through my blood, my muscles, my everything. There’s no release like the other kind of orgasm but the peak is ten times higher. It’s... amazing.”
He sighed. “I’m so jealous. It sounds like tantric sex. I’ve never had the patience to withhold an orgasm, but it’s supposed to be mind-blowing.”
“If it’s anything like this, it’s awesome.”
“He’ll be up any minute. Almost time for your orgasm.” Mark wiggled his eyebrows and pushed up from the table.
The thought tightened my stomach. I began to wish he had to feed more than once a day. It had crossed my mind to put it out there that I’d be game if he got hungry again. Hell, he could live attached to my neck and I would be just fine with that.
When the sun dropped behind the horizon Mark grabbed a newspaper and headed off to Aiden’s room. Apparently, he did this every night. Not because Aiden asked for it, but because before I came, Mark’s loneliness made him resemble a puppy waiting for his owner to come home from work.
While waiting for Aiden to come feed, I wandered into the study just off the main sitting room and I walked over to the large tapestry covering the wall. Embroidery of a large circle with a hand and a dagger emerged from it.
“My clan’s badge.” Aiden’s voice startled me, and I spun around clutching my chest. “This, over here, is the white banner of MacKay.” He gestured to a large flag hung on the opposite wall. A blue X formed across it. A gold and red lion emblem sat dead center. “We flew it when we charged into battle.”
I tried hard to picture Aiden, so formal and well-spoken, draped in a tartan, hair flying behind him covered in mud charging into battle. The not-at-all-unpleasant vision now invaded
my mind and it caused me to stare at him and try to envision him in nothing but a kilt.
Yep. That worked for me.
“Were you in a lot of battles?” I asked, my mind still undressing him and putting him in different barbarian clan outfits.
“It was a way of life back then.”
With a shake of my head, I broke the fashion show and forced my eyes elsewhere. “What are these?”
Carved wooden sculptures covered shelf after shelf along the end wall. They ranged in size from peanuts to one the size of a football. The beautiful, intricate pieces mesmerized me. Animals and statues of women and warriors dotted each shelf. I reached for one, a horse rearing, his mane blowing in the breeze, but jerked my hand back, realizing I shouldn’t touch it without permission.
“It’s all right, go ahead.” He nodded and encouraged me to pick it up.
Pulling the tiny figurine off the shelf, I turned it over in my hands. “It’s beautiful. Where did it come from?”
“I made it.”
My head snapped back. “You? You carved this?”
“I carved all of them.”
Stunned at the skill and the beauty in each piece, I looked back to examine him again. A wild Scottish warrior with a gifted artistic side lied buried beneath that cool exterior. I had seen glimpses of him and now I really wanted to see more.
“Where did you learn to do this? They are incredible.”
“My father. At night when I was a young boy, we would sit by the fire and he would teach us how to whittle wood.”
I had a hard time picturing Aiden as a child. It was easier to think he’d popped out of the womb a full-grown man already brooding. But at one time he had been a child. Carefree and wild, racing through Scottish fields and likely pulling his sister’s hair. The thought of it made him a little less intimidating.
“I’m sorry for running off last night. It was rude and I apologize.”
“Oh, please. It was no big deal. I was a total bore just whining about my pathetic life choices.”
“No.” He stepped forward, his tone startling me. “No, you were not a bore. I... I enjoyed our talk. It’s just that, I’m not good at this whole socializing thing. I haven’t done it in a very long time. I just wanted to apologize.”
Into The Light (Immortal Hearts Book 1) Page 8