Since Sebastian would be sleeping, I thought what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. I wanted to say goodbye to my father and we could pick up some food and clothes for me. He said to buy heavy coats with hoods.
Ann and I would make a day of it since we wouldn’t see each other again for a while. We would travel to Seattle, which made me happy. I promised Ann she could pick up a few things and I would pay for it, and we were going in the Land Rover. That brought a smile to her face because she must have been sick of ferrying me around in her jeep.
After a shower and dressing in my usual uniform of jeans, sweater, and leather jacket for cool rainy weather, I headed downstairs and stopped at a table and picked up a pencil and paper. “No. I’ll text him. He probably won’t see the note,” I murmured. I turned back. “Oh what the hell. Better to be safe.” So I scribbled him a note.
Gone shopping in Seattle, took the Land Rover. Get around like most vampires. You’re not human. Stop trying to be one. Stop driving cars. An SUV is for your wife. Love and Kisses, be back by sundown.
Zoey
Dashing out of the house, I wasn’t thinking about a thing when I started the car and drove up to Ann and Robbie’s small wood frame home. Ann was looking through the window when I parked the car in her driveway. By the big smile on her face, she liked the notion that I would be driving and in my car.
She rushed out and in the passenger side and exhaled. “This is some car. It looks like we’ll be traveling in style for a change. I’ve never been outside of this small town. Where are we going?”
“Seattle.” Ann started clapping her hands as if she was a child waiting for her mother to give her a favorite toy or her favorite food.
Then her smiling face changed. “Do you think we should?”
“Why not?” I knew there were so many reasons not to go, but I didn’t want to think about them now. Ann looked to me as if I knew something she didn’t know, and she gave me that same ready smile she had for everyone she met.
“I have my enhanced driver’s license even though I’ve never been to Seattle. Do you have everything, because if not, we can’t go.” Her smile faded as she glanced over at me.
“I have a passport. Will that do?” I said showing her.
“Of course that’s better than what I have,” Ann said sitting back and enjoying the scenery flashing by. It was nine am.
As I drove along I had never seen that part of the country in the day time because when Sebastian and I left Seattle it was at night. “We should be back home by eight tonight.”
“That’s perfect,” Ann said with another similar smile.
“Perfect for me too. I can stop to see my father.”
“You have a father?”
“Everyone has a father,” I said. And then a sad strange look came across Ann’s face.
“I guess so.” And then she brightened up and she began to tell me about how she and Robbie got together.
“I was running from an abusive husband when I went into that bar we were in the other night. I needed a drink. My husband had just beat me and left for his job or his girlfriend’s house.”
Looking at the pain on her face I said, “You don’t have to tell me. I can see this is a memory that caused you agony.”
“Only if I don’t tell someone about it,” she said. I nodded for her to continue. I was listening. I was a captive audience for a young woman to bear her soul and for some reason she chose me. Maybe she saw the same pain in my face that I saw in hers.
Chapter Twenty-One-Zoey
“I walked into that bar and didn’t realize that it was a bar of shifters. I saw the men watching at me, but I didn’t know why. I ordered a beer because I wasn’t really a drinker and it wouldn’t take much for me to get drunk. That’s what I wanted to be, drunk, where I could handle the morning beatings and the shouts of slut and whore when I returned from the hospital,” Ann said. Her voice soft and broken.
“Was Sabastian working at the hospital then?”
“No. It was a year later when he came. By that time Robbie and I were a pair. A pair of misfits. Him a werewolf and me a human. They say opposites attract.”
“I think I heard that somewhere myself,” I said. “Finish your story.”
“Well my husband got off early and tracked the car to that bar and rushed in expecting me to be with some man. I was all alone and none of the werewolves or shifters came near me. That’s because Robert, I call him Robbie most times, but Robbie had said that no one should touch me or come near me because I was his.”
Ann smiled remembering the incidence but her smile turned and she had a hurting look on her face. “When my husband grabbed me by the hair and pulled me down on the floor, Robert stepped forward and told him that if he touched me again he would kill him and my husband pulled me up to my feet and slapped me.”
Robbie’s human’s face changed from a smile to that of a roaring beast on two legs in a few seconds, and he ripped my husband’s face off with his claws. Can you imagine how surprised I was? My tormentor of a husband bigger than life, who made my life miserable, was no longer alive. No longer able to frighten and abuse me.”
When I came out of shock, Robbie was standing with me in his arms. He had changed back to that handsome man I had seen about town but was afraid to look his way. Later he told me he had been following me and looking at me when I didn’t see him. At that moment standing over my husband, Robbie said that I was his. That he was claiming me and that he would take care of me. I had no objections. And we are still with each other and I love him more each day.”
“I hope Robbie knows how much I appreciate what he did for me.”
“I think he does. Sabastian thanked him and tried to pay him but Robbie is like that, he didn’t want money. He did it for me. But I’m not opposed to taking money.” She smiled. It was a closed smile, but her eyes lit up, and she turned and faced the door looking at the surrounding area of tall trees, to the sound of windshield wipers swishing back and forward.
“Whatever you need you have it?” She gave out a sigh of relief and relaxed her shoulders as if there was something weighing on her.
“Let me think,” she said turning and looking pensive at me with her finger under her chin. I thought Ann would ask for a new car or home and I was prepared to pay for one with Sabastian’s money of course. Me, I didn’t have a dime. But as Mrs. Sabastian Vesper, I would be rich and could give my friends presents.
“All I want is for you to buy me some lingerie.”
I turned my head slightly from the road and said, “Is that all you want? If you need anything more, text me. “We’re moving you know.”
“When? Where are you moving to?” Ann asked with a raised panic voice.
“I don’t know. I hope it isn’t far. The way Sabastian talks it will be soon.” The silence grew between us and words became fewer. Ann’s face took on disappointment and sadness. She held her hand in her lap and twisted it as if nervous.
Maybe it was the loss of a friend that made her react that way because I felt the same panic and uneasiness when told I had to move again.
What started out as a bright cold sunny day turned into a dark and gloomy, rainy midday as we drove into Seattle. But I refused to let that put a check on the day. “We’re going to have lunch first and then shop,” I said to Ann.
She seemed to brighten up a bit. “Ok.”
“There’s this restaurant I’ve always wanted to go to but was never able to afford it. You and I will have the time of our life on Sabastian’s credit cards. “Let’s go spend some money.” I drove up to the restaurant to valet parking. We exited the car and both she and I looked around as if we had never been to a five star restaurant before. We glanced around as if we were tourist and we were.
Ann pulled out her phone and started taking pictures. When we got to the door, the guy at the front said that we had to put our phones away. We weren’t allowed to take pictures because there were very important people inside.
Looking at Ann, I made a decision, “Maybe this isn’t the place for us.” Surprisingly Ann agreed. We both felt uncomfortable, not because the people walking around were looking at us as if we had no right to enter a place like that but because it wasn’t our kind of place. We were fast food junkies.
We didn’t want to go where we had to feel we were using the right fork or spoon or have numerous people stand over us watching how we placed the food in our mouths. Or asking if we needed anything every second.
“Let’s go Ann.” I took her arm and we turned around and retrieved the car and headed to a small bistro. There we could talk and enjoy our food without the trappings of being too wealthy.
As we drove along Ann questioned, “How do those people at that restaurant do that? How do they eat with people standing over them?”
“They are used to people taking care of them,” I said to her.
We got to the bistro and ordered our cheese burgers, had a glass of wine, and after we finished eating, headed for a mall where we could buy food at a market, as well as the lingerie Ann needed to make her werewolf howl.
Walking with our hands full with bags of groceries, and laughing about Ann’s underwear, and how Robbie will be surprised, we didn’t observe our surroundings, otherwise we would have seen the two men following us to the car in the parking garage.
After loading the bags in the back, and closing the rear door, Ann said, “There are werewolves around.” She stood in one place shaking. Her arms and hands quivering. She appeared terrified.
“I don’t see anyone,” I said looking around and around. “Where are they?” I shouted.
Ann looked behind us. “I can smell them. Run. Run,” she said. And she bolted for the door to get to the inside of the mall. She screamed as the door to the garage opened, and a security guard stepped inside the garage. I watched at Ann unable to move.
“What’s wrong Miss?” he said holding on to her arm.
“He’s one. He’s a werewolf, Zoey. Run!” When Ann called out my name, the security guard a young dark haired man with dark skin looked across in my direction. She took out something and raked it across his face and chest and he let her go and rushed in my direction. As he neared me he had changed his appearance.
He was a wolf on two legs with a hairy beard. He wasn’t handsome like I had read, but hideous with hair all over his body and flashing red eyes. When it dawned on me that Ann was right about a werewolf, I tried to run, but by that time, it was too late.
Someone came behind me, sprayed something in my face, held my arms behind my back as I kicked and screamed for a second, as the werewolf placed masking tape over my mouth, and the other werewolf placed a cotton hood over my head.
In a matter of minutes, I became weak not wanting to fight. My arms became limp and my legs heavy. I slumped into a pair of hairy arms. They had subdued me and I fell quiet. I became no threat to them, and no one would know what had happened to me if Ann didn’t get away.
As I wondered what had happened to Ann, my ears rang and my mind scattered and weak, sent me back to when I was a child sitting in the back of a van wondering if I will ever see my mother and father again.
That was then, now I’m wondering about Sabastian and Ann and who are these people who would do such a thing. They loaded me into a van, but it had reinforcement on the sides and where I lay was cushioned and comfortable.
The werewolves climbed in and started the car. The last thing I remember them saying was, “I didn’t have time to go after her friend. This one is the important one. She will bring a lot of money.”
“But not as much as the bounty on that vampire,” one of them said. “He will come after her and his weakness will show, and then we will get out chance.”
“Do you know what it would take to catch him? I’m not greedy and I’m not stupid,” the smart one said. “We wouldn’t have caught this female human, if it wasn’t for the tracker that witch put under his vehicle.”
“She didn’t want a split. She just wanted her dead, but we can get more money for her if we bring her to the vampires.”
It was then I faded away. Not waking for what seemed like days or hours. Maybe it was days because I had a hunger inside of me I had never felt before. When I woke, somewhere I had been bathed and placed in a white gown.
Looking around the room, I knew it was nowhere I had ever been or would want to be. It was a cold huge stone room with white pillars and only a bed. Nothing modern. It was a holdover from the dark ages where men were kings. The only light and warmth was from the large fireplace setting before me burning large pieces of wood.
On a table set fruit in large bowls. I rushed to eat it because I didn’t know how long I had been without anything. Now a great pizza would have hit the spot.
I padded over to the window which was high. I would have to stand on tiptoes just for my eyes to reach the ledge. I could smell the sea air, but I couldn’t see it. I could smell flowers. I wanted to get a look at what was enticing my senses and making me feel at ease and safe. Maybe because it was the middle of the day and the smell of death wasn’t in the air which gave me a false sense of security.
Then the door opened.
Chapter Twenty-Two-Sebastian
I woke thinking I had finally found the peace and meaning of my existence. I now had love, something that had alluded me for over five hundred years. If I were to die today, I couldn’t have been happier in these few weeks with Zoey.
Today I will look for a home where we can live together in peace. I have made up my mind that when she dies, I will submit myself to my father and ask for death, too. But now I have to protect her from an untimely death because there is so much I need to show her. I want to show her the world and give her a life that was taken from her at an early age.
Although it was unusually quiet, I didn’t question anything. Zoey had been through a lot with me and if she needed to sleep when I wanted to make love to her, I decided to let her rest. There will be time for that. I dressed and drifted down the stairs only to see someone climbing the outside stairs to ring the doorbell.
It was Robert, and I readily opened the door. He stepped in with pain in his eyes that were etched in a stone face. He had no expression on his face but his eyes spoke volumes and I knew something had happened to Ann. At that moment I felt a sense of relief that it hadn’t been Zoey.
“What is it, Robert?”
“Ann said she and Zoey were going to Seattle to shop.” My hands clenched into a fist. Hadn’t I warned her against going out without my permission and protection?
“What?” I turned and hit a marble table and shattered it. I saw Robert’s expression as if he wanted to turn and flee. “Don’t go. Tell me what happened. I promise you I’ll get this under control,” I said my voice unsteady.
Robert knew once anyone made a vampire angry, a vampire was able to do all kinds of unspeakable damage. Therefore, I had to calm him. “Tell me what you know.”
“Ann was on television saying that werewolves kidnapped her friend. Of course the humans thought she was out of her mind and sent her to a hospital. Everyone thought so until Detective Cole interrogated her. He said he knew the case and he knew the woman. He called Zoey’s name.”
“Yes. Ryan Cole. I know his name. He flew to England to bring Zoey back and he has had and unnatural interest in the case ever since,” I said to Robert blowing out a hard breath and clenching my teeth.
“I know Ryan Cole also. He knows things about our world that everyone wants to deny. That we exist. That werewolves and vampires exist. He wrote his thesis on the existence of paranormal occurrences. He has been shouting about it to everyone who will listen. He devotes a podcast to the existence of werewolves, and vampires.”
“No one will believe him.”
“He has over ten million listeners.”
I looked at him. “Are you serious?” He didn’t have to answer because by the look on his face he was dead serious.
Detective Ryan Cole was the on
e who found your Land Rover and traced the registration back to you, Sebastian. The FBI wants to talk to you. Cole mentioned that he knew where you were and was getting a warrant for your arrest. They think you had something to do with Zoey’s kidnapping.”
Robert paced back and forth and stopped, then turned to me, “You can’t go in there. They will keep you all night and day and then they will discover what you are.” I placed my hand on his shoulder.
“I have no intention of going to see them. And as far as Detective Cole, I will deal with him later. He has only suspicions. He knows nothing about this world we travel in.” I tried to make Robert feel relaxed but I don’t think he believed me.
“But they will think that you are involved in the kidnapping and will hunt you down.”
“Let them,” I said. “I have to find Zoey and you need to have Ann released before they give her drugs to make her tell them what happened to Zoey.”
Robert looked over to me and said, “I need your help.”
“What can I do?”
“You’re a doctor. Have her released to you and send her home.”
“I can do that. What else do you need?” He glanced down on the ground.
“We need to get away from this town, but we don’t have the right kind of money.” He appeared ashamed that he wasn’t able to make a new life for him and Ann. I understood. I had been ashamed of my existence as this unholy creature, but I could now make amends for that by doing something for a friend.
“Whatever you need to get you away from here, I’ll do it. I’m looking for a place to take Zoey.” And then I said to Robert. “I know who has her, but my father and mother will not harm her. They want me to change her so the family can be complete. I took her from them and now they finally have her back and I know who’s behind Zoey’s abduction.”
“Who was it?”
“My brother and that witch Samantha.” When I glanced at the glass door, Samantha and Aare were standing in front of my door. It surprised me and Robert. The last thing I thought would be those two making an alliance.
The Soul of a Vampire #1 Page 13