platinum chain with a platinum bird, looked like a crow, and set for its eye was an opal. She lifted it up to the light from the store window to get a better view. “I didn’t know crows had blue eyes?”
“They don’t! It’s not a crow, it’s a raven.”
“But why? Why would he give me this?”
“Though it is a lovely piece of jewelry, he didn’t give it to you for that reason. It’s for your protection. He wants you to wear it at all times…A sign to other vampires that you belong to him. And if they hurt you or try to hurt you, they will have to deal with him. ”
“But why would he think I need protection?” She asked, fastening the chain around her neck. Then the idea hit her. “Oh my gosh! Ravens don’t have blue eyes either, do they?”
He smiled wryly. “No they don’t.”
“But the bird that was hanging around my porch…I knew there was something about its eyes. They are blue!” She looked up at Klaus. “Not a real bird, is it?”
His grin grew.
“It’s Dorian?”
He nodded in the affirmative, smiling amusedly.
“I wondered what had happened to it. Haven’t seen it in a while.” She sniggered at the absurdity. “Because it was Dorian.”
“There are more of our kind around than you realize, Amber. This necklace will protect you to a degree. Some of us are pretty nasty…And many hunt together.
“Dorian and I were pretty much loners…That is I was…Now Sally will be with me. And…Dorian hopes to be with you.” He reached in his other pocket and took out a small bottle of pills and handed them over.
“What are these for?” She asked, taking them.
“Just in case your eyes start bothering you in the sunlight.”
“Why would that happen?”
“Just a precautionary measure.” His expression was unreadable.
“Oh?”
“He told me he didn’t think you would…but you two did a bit of sharing so there is still the possibility… that…they could become sensitive.”
“But I feel fine?”
“You probably have nothing to worry about…but if you do have any problems, the pills will enable you to move about during the day.”
“Oh…” She slipped the bottle of pills in her jeans pocket. “Thanks.” Then she suddenly remembered her neck. She reached up and touched the now smooth skin.
“Something wrong?”
“No…Just taking it all in.”
“Yes! It is a lot. Well…Sally is waiting for me.”
“Tell her hello for me…And thanks for bringing me the necklace and pills. If you hear from Dorian, tell him I miss him and love him.”
He gave a gentlemanly nod. “I most certainly will…Now remember…Don’t take off the pendant!”
“I won’t! Thanks!”
With a curtsy he vanished.
Amber didn’t sleep well at all, visions of Dorian going in and out of her thoughts and then Paul’s handsome, sweet face would be there, eyes pleading for her to choose him. Then the raven would be calling to her from somewhere and she would hear a fluttering of wings, but she never could see the bird. At one point, she woke up in a cold sweat, something she never did.
She got up and went to the bathroom, suddenly very sick at her stomach and washed her face off with warm water and stared at herself in the mirror. She lunged back and would have fallen had the wall not been there. The whites of her eyes were really red, bloody. Was she coming down with something? At this point, she didn’t much care; everything in her life was so screwed up anyway.
She heard the pitter patter of Star’s feet and turned to see her dog looking up anxiously. He was worried about her. “I’m okay, boy,” she said. “Just a bug of some kind that I’ve picked up.” She went on back to bed and Star took his place at the foot.
Each day Dorian was away from Amber seemed to last forever. He missed her even more than he had anticipated. The intoxicating taste of her blood lingered with him through the day and night, and though he had fed nightly while in France, to cope with his frustration of being away from her, and felt himself growing stronger day by day, he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts or out of his heart. He didn’t know what he would do, if she chose Paul.
It was not in his nature to be so magnanimous. It was only because he was so consumed by his desire and growing love for her that he found the strength to leave her to make her choice. Though he wanted her more than anything he’d wanted in three hundred years, he wanted her to love him freely most of all, which he realized he really had not been allowing her to do. It was only by this wish that he found the power to stay away from her. But it was growing more and more difficult with each passing day.
Klaus had delivered the pendant and pills as requested, said Amber looked okay. But he was preoccupied with changing his female, and probably couldn’t be relied on as much as Dorian wanted, and that wasn’t mentioning Klaus’ natural savage nature that could ignite under little provocation. Something Dorian fully understood, being a vampire himself.
He just hoped the big German wouldn’t get pissed off about something and go off on some wild killing spree and forget about watching over Amber, which was entirely possible. Had the situation been reversed, such concern could easily be applied to him.
Paul would be no help whatsoever against the powers that roamed the night.
There was something else playing on his mind – Amber could be changing. He had, somewhat deliberately, allowed her to drink a good deal of his blood, more than he should have, but he had believed at the time that she was fully his, in spite of Paul, and that he would be around should that happen, had thought he’d be taking her all the way. And soon.
She had confessed that she still loved Paul, but he had had no idea that she loved him so strongly. It had been his selfish side to let her drink so much, but he had stopped her when he realized what he was doing.
Albeit, the chances of her changing were very slim – but still there. He hoped she had read that book, for if she did turn she would die as a human first. If he had given her too much of his blood at once, she could just go to sleep one night, die, and wake up a vampire. He hoped that the pills and hints about the sunlight hurting her eyes would alert her to the possibility. He didn’t want to tell her, should that not be the case, because it probably wouldn’t be. In his three-hundred and thirty- two years he’d only heard of anyone turning without dying first. That had been Knapa, Aptyp’s niece.
Normally, one had to share several times, slowly altering the blood of the one being changed, up to the point of death. Once the individual died, it would be anywhere from a few hours to several days and they would arise a vampire. Knapa’s case had been pretty much a fluke, but one Dorian never forgot, and it was also well-known among the vampire community. With this on his mind, he decided to leave the women he’d been toying with in France and pay Knapa a visit, and also to see how her herb growing was doing.
He was entertaining the idea of bringing some back to the states and see if he could get it growing at his cabin; build a special greenhouse for it. He was sure he could start his own business, selling the pills to vampires in the states. As it was, his Russian friends, who had taken on more clients recently, could barely keep their orders filled.
It was a dreary Sunday morning when Amber awoke. She was still upset over the night before. Why couldn’t things have been simple? Why couldn’t she and Paul just have a normal relationship as it had started out to be?
Life would have had its problems, but would have been a lot less complicated. Still, she was crazy about Dorian and knew that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Then there was the profound secret she had to keep, the knowledge of who and what he was. Now, she had another vampire’s identity to keep secret, actually two more, as Sally was probably now turned.
She got out of bed, let Star out to potty, and put coffee on and sat down to her table to wait for it to brew. Just as she was pouring her cup full there we
re two light raps on her front door. Through the window, she saw that it was Grady and Sheriff Brooks! “What in hell?” she mumbled to herself. She opened the door.
“Morning, Amber,” Grady said, tipping that hat.
“Good morning!” Brooks added.
She held the screen open, “Come on in…”
“Thanks,” Brooks nodded.
“Have a seat.”
“Nah…” Grady informed. “We won’t be long…We’ve been looking for Dorian Lodovico…but Paul says you said he was in Europe. Is he?”
“Yes he is.” She wondered where this was going. Had he been seen attacking someone?
He exhaled strongly. “I’m having trouble believing this, but a young woman finally came forward and reported that she witnessed someone – who kind of fits Lodovico’s description – and another man kill those young men that tried to gang-rape that girl not too long ago.”
Amber stepped back, shocked. Not so much that Dorian would kill, after all, he was a vampire, but he had expressed certain scruples. She was more shocked that anyone saw him or possibly suspected what he was. Only, she had no way of knowing if it was him.
She shook her head, “No! Dorian couldn’t have done anything like that! He has only been nice to me.” This was true, from her point of view.
Sheriff Brooks interrupted, “We hoped that maybe you would know where he was during that time period.”
“I’m not absolutely certain.” She thought about it a minute. Then said, “I believe that was later in the night
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