He waved a hand through the air as if to dismiss the subject.
“What?”
“Scarlet, it’s nothing that you have to worry about. You’ll never come in contact with those sorts of vampires. They keep to themselves and live in rotting graveyards and still believe in the old fallacies about our kind.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry, Scarlet. I’ll always be there to protect you.” He spoke as if he would be around forever. Around her forever. It seemed that he was confident that she would choose to do the same.
“I’d like to go now. I’ve had enough of this.”
“Now what’s wrong?” He stood and looked down at her with a sneer. How quickly his emotions changed! “Why is it that I always seem to say the wrong thing around you? Look at me! ” He bent in front of her, forcing her to meet his eyes. “I am flesh and blood. I am a man, not a monster. Will you never accept that I love you?”
He spun around and paced to the other side of the roof. Scarlet didn’t know what to say. It seemed as though there was still so much he wasn’t telling her.
She sighed and turned to the edge of the roof, pulling her knees up to her chin, and stared at the shiny silver moon that was framed between two bare-limbed trees across the field. From where she sat she could hear Sebastian going on about something and she listened quietly. He stood at the edge of the roof just over the door and I spoke into the wind, releasing his demons to the dead below.
“I am being punished, is that it? I’ve walked this earth for over two hundred years as a vampire. A monster in the eyes of man and a monster to the woman that I love.” He kicked at the edge of the mausoleum, sending dried twigs to the ground. “I was born into this world a bastard and I’ve been punished for it every day that I have breathed the air. What do you want from me?” He looked up to the sky and then down and across the ground, over the tombstones that marked the graves of the dead. “Is it so wrong for me to want someone to love me?”
“No, it’s not.” Scarlet felt compelled to speak, and her voice brought him back to earth and halfway across the roof.
“But it is wrong to force someone to love you.”
She turned and looked up at him. He was a lost child, searching for something that he’d never received and he only wanted her to give it to him. Why was it so hard for her to love him?
He crossed the roof and stood beside her.
“I’m sorry.” He sighed deeply. “I’ll take you home now.” He waited but she didn’t move. She was still staring at the brilliant white circle in the sky.
“No.” Her voice was quiet but sure. “I want to stay.”
For what seemed like hours, Sebastian stood silent and unmoving. She could feel his dark eyes upon her, but she remained, her eyes cast over the gray-purple sky before her. She couldn’t leave. Not like this. Maybe there was something she could say, something to ease his pain. Finally, she took his hand and pulled him down beside her.
“I’m sorry too, Sebastian.” His little speech had made her look deeper. He was human and he did have feelings. He was just as capable of feeling pain as she was.
She caressed his face with her hand and he tilted into her palm.
“You are not a monster, and I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way.” She moved up onto her knees, swung one over Sebastian’s legs so she was on top of him, and then cradled his face in her hands. With tender kisses to his forehead, his eyes, and finally his mouth, she followed her heart.
“I love you, Scarlet.” He hugged her, resting his face against her chest while she stroked his hair. She felt so close to him and for long minutes of shared understanding the two held each other in the foggy night. Again, their hearts beat as one.
“I won’t force you to be with me anymore,” he said finally, and looked up to her, his eyes watering with fresh tears. “I just—”
“Sebastian,” she whispered and brought her finger to his lips.
He buried his face into the softness around her neck and she felt a hot tear fall from his eye. “Say my name again.”
She obliged him, bending so that his name touched his ear and drifted into his troubled mind and at her voice, Sebastian let the pain overtake him and began to weep in her arms.
Scarlet dared not move or stop him. Oh Sebastian, if only you could trust me enough to tell me everything. I do want to love you. She stroked his cheek and tilted his face up to look into his eyes. He shuddered and stifled the sobs as she wiped away the tears.
With great care, she smoothed the long strands of hair from his face and pulled them over his shoulders to bunch behind his head, releasing his splendid mane down his back. Sebastian, you make it very hard not to love you.
Laying a kiss upon her two fingers, she gently placed them to his lips. “Are you going to be okay?”
He took her hand and pressed it between both of his. “Yes, I’m sorry—”
She silenced him again with her fingers to his mouth and then leaned in to replace her fingers with her mouth. A simple kiss. That was all she was ready to volunteer right now.
“We should go now.”
Sebastian sighed “Yes, let’s go.”
He was deathly quiet as they drove back down the gravel road. What had taken only minutes earlier, now seemed to drag on endlessly, as Scarlet scanned the swiftly moving horizon out her window.
Over and over she replayed the scene on the roof. Sebastian had been so vulnerable. He had poured his heart out, crying centuries of lost tears on her shoulder.
Her head bobbed against the car seat and she looked across to him. He was mouthing the words to the song on the radio, his hands clutching the steering wheel while his thumbs tapped out a rhythm on its circumference.
Everything seemed to return to normal, until her body jerked forward violently. Scarlet grabbed the dashboard before her face hit it and Sebastian pulled the car to the side of the road.
Chapter Fourteen
Scarlet’s body clenched with the insidious monster inside as she pressed her back into the seat and pushed Sebastian’s hand away.
“Is it the blood hunger?”
He had said it would come. Yes, this was a familiar pain, not unlike the pain she’d felt the morning after her transformation. But this was more insistent, demanding.
She breathed deeply, sucking the air through her clenched teeth. “You said I’d have time.” Again she pulled the air in, fighting back the panic that the pain would become worse. “I don’t feel like I have time. I—I need help right now.”
“Don’t be afraid, Scarlet.” Sebastian stepped out and ran around the car to open her door. “Just relax and concentrate.” He knelt on the gravel before her. “Remember what I told you? You can control this.”
“But why do I have to? Can’t I just take from you?”
“No, you need mortal blood to sustain your energy. My blood is now just an exotic treat for you. I can’t maintain your life like the blood from mortals.”
She clutched her stomach and inhaled as the emptiness struck fiercely in her chest. “But you gave me life. I was almost dead and your blood brought me back to life. I don’t understand.”
Again, the hunger overtook her, hurtling her body toward the dashboard. Sebastian reached in and stopped her before she crashed into the windshield.
“Relax, Scarlet, breathe deeply and concentrate on controlling this. As soon as you’ve settled down we’ll go find a donor.”
She let him push her back against the seat, and drew in a breath according to his example, exhaling deeply as he did.
“That’s good, relax.” He kissed her fingers. “It’s true that my blood gave you new life, but unfortunately, part of the vampire’s curse is that we must feed on mortal blood to sustain ourselves. It would be wonderful if I had only to live and drink with you but we will always need others. You’re doing fine, just keep breathing deeply. In time you’ll sense the hunger before it strikes and you’ll have more control. Are you relaxed now?”
“Yes, I think it’s getting better.”
“It will grow worse. We’d better get going.”
***
“Did you see that, Matthias? Follow them!”
Francesco gripped the back of the driver’s seat as Matthias sped toward the main road, recklessly clipping the corner of a box hedge as he turned sharply out of the parking lot.
“Careful, love, or you’ll kill yourself.” He snickered at his words. Yes, please live just a bit longer for me, my precious child. Don’t go and spoil it all by getting us in a wreck.
Not that Francesco worried about surviving the crash. That was inevitable. But he could not wait to see the look on Sebastian’s face.
***
Silently, they walked through the city park, Sebastian in the lead, sneaking among the thick-trunked oak trees, easily blending into the shadows that laced in and about the grounds. The breeze whispered through his shirt, and he rubbed his arms, before draping one around Scarlet, but she said that she wasn’t cold. Thinking it odd that he was cold and she wasn’t, Sebastian scanned the shadows. It wasn’t the weather that was making him shiver.
Where is that bastard?
Before he could stop Scarlet from venturing further, she skipped ahead and ducked under the bough of an elm tree. He saw what she was looking at and forgot his concerns for the moment.
A man sat on one of the red park benches. Must have been jogging, from the way his head rested against the back of the bench, the sweat dripping from his brow, his ribcage panting aggressively beneath his t-shirt. He was young and quite thin, causing Sebastian to wonder if he was sick, but the boy’s face brightened when he looked up to see Scarlet. She approached with calm assurance, much to Sebastian’s surprise. She was certainly taking things into her own hands.
Deciding she must accomplish this first bite on her own, he stayed in the shadows, ready to sprint to her side should she need help.
Fangs slipped down in Scarlet’s mouth, and she didn’t notice the smile on the boy’s face. Sebastian clutched the tree trunk and stepped out, but then stopped. What man wouldn’t smile seeing Scarlet approaching him so intimately?
She moved quickly, surprisingly deft at her new skill. Yet Sebastian knew when she had taken enough.
***
Much to Scarlet's surprise and disappointment, Sebastian pulled her away from her first feast of human blood. She balked, but he admonished her gently, explaining that soon she would learn how much to take without causing more than a slight memory lapse in her donor.
She smiled a silly smile, the swoon waning slowly, her body giddy with drunken pleasure.
The boy’s head hit the bench with a thud as she released him. Sebastian bent over him.
“What’s wrong?” She wiped the blood from her mouth and observed as he fingered the boy’s neck and then held up his wrist, checking his pulse.
“He’s dead,” he said with disturbed amazement.
“Dead? How can that be? I just took a little—” She bit her lip and jumped as she felt the razor-sharp teeth that were still down. “Sebastian, what’s going on?”
He tilted the boy’s head to the side and studied the havoc Scarlet had left on his neck. He seemed concerned as he circled the wounds with his finger. “Just be quiet, Scarlet.” He looked past the boy and stared into the trees. “And stay close to me.”
“Close?” She hugged up near his elbow. “Why, what’s wrong? Did I really kill him?”
He stood and closed her in his arms. Glancing over her shoulder, he saw an elderly couple walking under the fan-shaped glow of the streetlight, but they were walking away from them.
He whispered in her ear, “He’s dead, but it wasn’t because of you. The skin is swollen around the wound and it’s black and blue. It’s very faint, but I can tell.”
“You don’t mean—”
“He’s been bitten by another vampire. Many times. I think we should get out of here.”
“But we can’t leave him here. What if someone finds him?”
Scarlet was silenced by Sebastian’s finger to her lips. He motioned for her to stay put then wandered to the edge of the trees a few feet from the bench. But he turned at the sound of Scarlet’s muffled scream.
Her feet dangled inches from the ground. The intruder had grasped her around the stomach and his gloved hand covered her mouth. She struggled, but he held her easily.
“Francesco,” Sebastian whispered.
“It has been a long time, Monsieur DelaCourte.” The tall figure squeezed tightly, grinding his fist into Scarlet’s stomach until she stopped her frantic squirming. “Quite a wild one you’ve got here.”
“Let her go, Francesco!” Sebastian stepped forward, his fears coming full circle.
The man he had dreaded seeing again stood before him, dressed in modem clothes, and looking healthy and muscular. He had always been the fashion plate in his youth and was now dressed in a tailored dark suit, his long hair cut to shoulder length so that it outlined his pale eyes, and a goatee framing his lips. The years had been good to him, it seemed, but how good had they been to his tormented mind?
Sebastian knew he had to be careful, but had a hunch that Francesco wouldn’t harm Scarlet. Not yet.
“I said let her go, she’s done nothing to you.”
“Certainly.” Francesco released Scarlet, dropping her to the ground. She scrambled to her feet and ran for Sebastian’s protection. “But on the contrary. This lady has done me a terrible injustice.” Francesco motioned to Matthias. “She has killed my friend.”
“No, I—” Scarlet stepped from behind Sebastian but he stopped her with a hand to her arm.
“He would never have died if he hadn’t come from you,” Sebastian said, knowing now that the boy had been Francesco's victim. “Look at him! He’s a skeleton. You must have drained him nearly dry. You knew that the next time would be the end.” Slyly, he added, “Was he your lover, Francesco?”
Sebastian’s teasing tone angered Francesco and he stalked over to the boy’s body. “This is the second time, Sebastian DelaCourte! You have been instrumental in removing two things from my life that have mattered more than my life itself.” He tilted Matthias’s head up until it lolled against his chest and then gently lifted the body in his arms. “My precious Serena, and now this lovely child.” He snarled at Sebastian, “You knew how much I loved her!”
“This is your own doing, Francesco.” Sebastian clutched Scarlet's shaking hand, pushing her behind him until she rested her forehead on the back of his neck and he could hear her sniffling. “But I must say I have been expecting this for some time.”
“Expecting what?” Scarlet whispered.
Francesco narrowed his eyes on her as she peeked around Sebastian’s head. “So, Sebastian has not told you. It is revenge I seek. And it has begun. Stay close to your precious master, my sweet vampire child, if you value your life.”
With a heartless, deep-throated laugh, Francesco bounded across the lighted path and disappeared into the trees with Matthias dangling limply in his arms.
“Aren’t you going after him?”
“No.” Sebastian pulled her from the lighted path toward the car.
“Why not?”
“Scarlet.” He stopped by the car. “All that matters now is that I protect you and keep you as far as possible from Francesco. There’s no telling what he’ll do. The man is crazy. He must have orchestrated this entire scene tonight.”
“I don’t understand. Why is he after me? How do you know him?”
“Get in the car.”
He opened the door but Scarlet pushed his hand away. “Not until you tell me what’s going on. I have a right to know if someone wants me dead!”
***
Francesco stood over the narrow grave he had dug and kicked dirt onto Matthias’s chest. He would miss him, with his puppy dog smile and his eagerness to please. But most of all, he would miss the life he had drained from him.
He kicked mounds of soggy dirt over the body a
nd made quick work of his task. The park bordered a cliff, and beneath that a field of sunflowers. Having found a grooved niche that hadn’t been plowed or touched for years, Francesco laid his friend to sleep beneath a shroud of weeds and tall grass.
He stepped over the mound, compacting the dirt beneath his boots, dropping clumps of grass over it and stamping them down so no one would notice the earth had been disturbed.
The rush of cars passed over his head and he stared at the moon in the deep turquoise sky. There was something familiar about that woman. What was it?
***
“How do you feel now?” Sebastian asked as the Corvette rolled onto the city street.
“The pain is gone and I feel—refreshed,” Scarlet said, surprised at her vigor. “Like I could run a marathon. But quit avoiding the subject. I killed somebody. Is there a soul inside of me that’s going to die?”
“No, Scarlet.” He reached over, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand. “That boy’s soul was long gone before we ever got to him. I’m sure he’s been with Francesco for some time. I’m also sure that Francesco was drinking from him daily. When that happens, the soul dies slowly, until eventually you become a living zombie. I should have been more observant. I did sense something strange when we entered the park, but didn’t pay close enough attention to my instincts. I should have seen it in the boy’s eyes. I thought he was exhausted from jogging. We have to be more careful now.”
“Sebastian, I’m scared.” She shivered. “What did he mean by starting his revenge? What’s going on between you and this guy?”
He sighed and pulled the car into her driveway. “His name is Francesco Volierre. I’ve known him for a long time. There were things that happened . . . events that changed our relationship. We were once friends.”
“How long ago did you know him?”
“I grew up with him in Paris. We used to play together as boys and we were tutored by the same teacher. Mon dieu." He looked down at his hands.
“Did he become a vampire the same time as you?”
“I don’t want to go into this.”
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