Blood Secret: Paranormal Vampire Romance (Blood Immortal Book 4)

by Ava Benton

  Where was he? What was he doing?

  I opened my eyes slowly, cautiously, but I could barely see a thing without my glasses. They were on the table.

  When I put them on and looked around, my mouth fell open.

  “Did you sleep well?” Vale was placing the last of my books on the shelves he had magically hung while I was sleeping.

  Unconscious, obviously, since I had slept through it.

  “What the hell went on here?” I asked.

  It wasn’t just the shelves.

  He had straightened up my supplies, cleaned the paint brushes and set them to dry in cups on the windowsill. The kitchen, what there was of it, sparkled. He had picked up my clothes from the corners and put them in the hamper, lined up my shoes by the front door. Even the windows looked clean—not that I had much to see on the other side of them.

  “I had time on my hands,” he explained. “And you sleep like the dead.”

  “You would know,” I fired back, only half-aware of what I was saying. It was unnerving and endearing all at once. “I can’t believe I didn’t know you were doing all this.”

  “Don’t forget: I move fast, and I can be very quiet. I’m not the type to sit still and read for hours on end. I enjoy reading, but I prefer movement.”

  “You probably think I’m the world’s biggest slob,” I mumbled.

  “Not the world’s biggest.”

  It was the closest he would come to being nice.

  I decided not to press my luck.

  An awkward silence spread between us and threatened to choke me.

  What was a girl supposed to say to a vampire who’d just cleaned her apartment? That was something “Dear Abby” had never covered.

  “I like where you chose to mount the shelves,” I offered. They were along the wall across from where I normally worked, near the window. “That’s where I was hoping to set them up.”

  “I’m glad.” He pulled one of the many art books down and stood by the window as he flipped through the pages.

  I found myself watching him, looking for his reactions. The way his eyebrows rose when he saw something that interested him. The way his forehead creased when something challenged him. The quirk of a half-smile.

  I wondered what made him smile.

  He looked up from the pages and caught my eye. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just… wondering what you thought about what you were looking at.”

  “I have to admit, it doesn’t make much sense to me.”

  “Abstract art doesn’t make a lot of sense to many people.” I went to the shelves. “Let’s see how you feel about impressionism.” I flipped to one of my favorite paintings and handed the book to him.

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Ah, yes. I know this one. The Starry Night.”

  “You know it?” I couldn’t believe how glad I was that he did.

  Like there was one thing we could relate on.

  “My last charge, Larissa, was quite well-traveled. We toured Europe together, and she haunted numerous art galleries and private collections. This was before things became dangerous there, of course. I never saw the end of the Great War. My time in The Fold started before then.”

  “The good guys won,” I offered.

  “There were no good guys. Not really. Having a long view of history helps one understand this.” He closed the book. “Thank you. It’s nice, remembering that trip. I enjoyed it.”

  “I didn’t know you were allowed to enjoy things.”

  “It’s not against the rules,” he pointed out. “No, there aren’t many opportunities for me to enjoy my existence, but it’s all right if I do when possible.”

  “I see. What do you enjoy?”

  It looked like he was at least thinking it over. “I don’t remember. Seeing new things, experiencing life in its many forms. That’s one comfort about living for so long. Not everything is…”

  “Dark? Depressing? Violent?”

  He nodded with what almost passed as a smile. “Correct.”

  I tapped my forefinger against my chin. “I think you need an enjoyable day.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” I grinned. “And you saved my life last night. I had a lot of time to process everything while I was asleep and it’s obvious that I owe you.”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  “Just let me do this, all right? Besides, I can’t hang around here all day. It’s stifling.”

  He weighed his options, then nodded. “So be it. I’m in your hands for the day.”

  I couldn’t help but grin.

  Yes, he was.

  9

  Janna

  “This is what people do nowadays?” he asked for at least the third time.

  And for the third time, I elbowed him. “Could you not sound so obviously out-of-touch? Stop talking about nowadays. Now is now.”

  “Right. Of course. It isn’t easy to remember.” He took everything in through the lenses of his sunglasses. “This is what people do for fun?”

  I looked around at the view off the observation deck at the top of the Empire State Building. “I thought it would be something you’d like. Seeing the city from this high up for the first time. Seeing how it’s changed.”

  “Oh, I don’t need to see how it’s changed to know it has,” he muttered.

  My heart sank. Why did it matter if he was happy?

  He was obviously determined to feel miserable and negative.

  I should let him be that way and leave it.

  But he had saved me.

  And he had mounted my bookshelves, which for some reason meant even more.

  “Can you tell me about those times?” I asked in another attempt to reach out to him. “The last time you were here, I mean. I’ve always been fascinated by the Victorian Era, the Gilded Age. Those days must have been so much more graceful and beautiful.”

  “There was a beauty to them,” he admitted. “If one cared about such things.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  No matter how he tried, he couldn’t make me forget the way he’d smiled when he saw the Van Gogh in that book.

  He did have nice memories. I refused to believe his entire life had been nothing but darkness.

  “Beauty fades. It never lasts.” He walked from one corner of the observation deck to the other, looking pensive.

  “Art lasts,” I argued as I followed him. “The Starry Night lasted. And you remembered it, and it meant something to you.”

  “If it makes you feel better to tell yourself that…”

  “Stop making fun of me.”

  “I’m not. I would never make fun of ignorance. It’s not your fault that you haven’t seen enough of the world to truly understand it.”

  “I swear to God,” I muttered, and I poked him in the back to get him to turn around. “I’m tired of talking to the back of your head, and I’ve never in my entire life been called a Pollyanna.”

  “What’s…”

  “Somebody who’s always positive,” I snapped. “I’m probably the most negative person I’ve ever known, which is one of the many reasons I never fit in with the people around me. I’ve always seen the darkness instead of the light. But you’re, like, perverse about it.”

  “You don’t like hearing how much like your Pollyanna you are,” he observed with a wry smile, which only made me want to throw him off the building.

  “You’re right, because you make it sound like I don’t have a brain in my head. And that’s not so.”

  “Oh, I believe that’s not so,” he murmured.

  I couldn’t see his eyes behind those tinted lenses, so I didn’t know if he was being serious or just taunting me.

  “Just because you’re all emo—depressed,” I corrected, rolling my eyes, “doesn’t make you unique. That’s all I’m trying to say.”

  “You’ve made your point,” he murmured. “Anything else you think I should know?”

  “You’re a dickhead.”


  “Another point taken.”

  “I’ve bent over backward today, trying to be nice to you and make it up to you. Last night, I mean. I know I forced you into what you did because I ran away from you—though you could’ve handled that a lot better, honestly. You don’t have much of a personal touch. You suck at it.”

  He let out an exasperated sigh. “Is that what this was all about? Making something up to me? That’s not how it works, Janna.”

  “None of this is how it works, Vale, and in case you forgot, I’m new to all this.”

  “I don’t need you to make anything up. Why would you go out of your way, when all I’m doing is my job?”

  I looked out over the south side of the building, over the almost endless stretch of buildings.

  So many people. So many stories. None of them would believe what I had found myself stuck in the middle of.

  “I guess because I wasn’t raised with it. I don’t expect it. If it was an everyday thing, deserving your protection, I wouldn’t think it was a big deal. I would accept it.”

  “You weren’t raised with servants, then?”

  “You know I was.” I had seen the research peeking out of his backpack after he fed. “And I didn’t like that, either. It always felt unnecessary. Just another reason for me to never fit in. My brother? Oh, Jesus, he loved it. Probably still does. I could never get used to it.”

  “This is just the way things are. You’ll have to try.”

  “And I’m not supposed to care whether you’re comfortable, or bored, or miserable?”

  “No. You’re not. Our lives don’t intersect. They were never intended to.”

  “I don’t want any of this.” I looked up at him. The wind whipped through his hair, brushing it back from his face. His stupid face. “I release you. I won’t live in a single room with someone I’m supposed to ignore unless there’s an emergency—which, by the way, won’t happen now. If you think I’ll step foot in one of those clubs again, you’re nuts.”

  “It’s not a matter of you releasing me,” he explained. “It doesn’t matter whether or not you want me with you, because you’re not the one who assigned me. If your mother—”

  “Who I’ve never met,” I muttered.

  “—or the High Council want me here with you, this is where I’ll stay. It isn’t my fault you live in a single room.”

  “I don’t want this. There’s no reason for any of it.”

  “That’s not for you to say.”

  “I hate you,” I whispered, still looking out over the skyline.

  And it had started out as a nice day, too.

  I had wanted to make him happy as a way to thank him. Was I more naïve than I had ever imagined? Yes, and much less of a hard ass, too. I had finally found somebody I didn’t have to be hard toward, and all I wanted was to show him what he had missed over a hundred years. I wanted to share things with him because, damn it, I was desperate and lonely.

  “I really hate you right now,” I insisted.

  “Irrelevant.”

  My heart sank even further than before.

  He didn’t care.

  And I’d be stuck with him for as long as some faceless witches said I had to be.

  And I used to think my adoptive mother was a pain in the ass.

  10

  Vale

  Our ride home passed in silence. Silence between the two of us, at any rate. There was little silence around us, anywhere we went.

  It was the weekend, and there were dozens upon dozens of people ready to squeeze into every train. There was a heavy stench everywhere, the stench of human bodies and sweat. How could any of them stand it? Didn’t they smell themselves? Normally, I suffered through ignoring the tantalizing smell of blood. I could barely make it out from everything else assaulting my senses.

  She ignored me.

  I wasn’t disappointed—in fact, that was as it should be. I should fade into the background to be used when she needed me. Nothing more. We weren’t friends and would never be friends. It wasn’t done.

  She would get used to it.

  It was easy to forget she was so young.

  The witches I had guarded always looked decades younger than they were and possessed a much broader understanding than she did. She knew nothing of my world, of the blood she came from.

  I couldn’t hold that against her.

  And her feelings did her credit. I could admit that to myself.

  She put on a show, pretended to be tough and hard. She hadn’t had an easy life, probably never had friends. No sympathy from her family. It made her wary of showing her true nature. But that nature was there. She was kind, caring, deeply emotional. An artist.

  That didn’t make her any easier to handle.

  Just my luck.

  Why couldn’t I get somebody boring? Even vapid would be better than emotional. Trying to create a relationship where there wasn’t one.

  “Are you hungry?” I asked as we walked up the stairs from the last subway ride.

  Night was falling by now, and she had only eaten a small muffin while riding into Manhattan hours earlier.

  “I’ll live.”

  “I didn’t ask if you would live. I asked if you were hungry. I’m sure you’ll live, though from the looks of you there’s no telling for how long.”

  “I’m too skinny now? Sorry. I’ll add gaining weight to my list of things that would make your job easier. Right under ignoring you.”

  “Good. If I can think if anything else for you to work on, I’ll let you know.”

  It was better this way. If I told myself so enough times, I’d even believe it. We were coming up to the corner store.

  “Stop in and get yourself something to eat. I would rather not have to leave the apartment again tonight.”

  “Do you really have to come with me when I go down to the corner for milk?”

  “Yes.” I left it there.

  She sighed softly, but kept her mouth shut.

  Miracles were possible, after all.

  I followed her into the tiny store and walked behind her as she picked up dried pasta, sauce, bread, milk. And more ice cream than any human could crave at one time.

  “So you’re hungry,” I observed wryly as she dropped three containers into the basket over her arm.

  “You’re the one telling me I’m too skinny.”

  “I didn’t mean you had to gorge yourself to prove a point.”

  She threw a withering look my way. “I like ice cream. I can’t decide which kind I want. I have a freezer. It doesn’t take a genius to understand this.” She pushed past me on her way to the counter.

  I was about to follow her and come up with a retort when something else caught my eye.

  Someone else.

  Watching from just inside the door, though he pretended to thumb through a magazine.

  Not a vampire—I didn’t sense it about him, and his eyes were still like a human’s. But he looked exhausted, with heavy circles under his eyes and sallow skin. His long, brown hair was greasy and lank. His clothes hung on him. He was one of their minions, no better than a cow for repeated milking.

  And he was looking for her.

  I kept my eyes focused on the back of her head as I walked to the counter, but he was always in the corner of my vision.

  He watched her the way I did.

  Who sent him? Did the one I killed in the alley have a mate? It was likely. Perhaps the male she danced with, the one Janna had watched.

  I leaned in and caught the scent of her hair, her skin. She was still warm from all the sun she had soaked in throughout our day.

  I brushed my lips against her ear, like a lover’s caress.

  She went stiff.

  “Relax. Act like nothing out of the ordinary is happening.”

  “Why?” she breathed.

  I could almost hear her heart racing. Even now, when I felt the stranger’s eyes on me, I could barely resist the temptation to taste her skin.

  “Someon
e’s watching you. Do not look. He’s by the door.” I wrapped my fingers around her shoulder and held her in place. “Everything will be fine. I’m going to take him outside. You wait here.”

  “And do what?”

  “Just wait. You don’t have to do anything.” I squeezed a little harder than I needed to for effect.

  She needed to remember who was in charge. This wasn’t the time for her to get ideas in her head about taking care of herself.

  All I had to do was stand in front of him and flip up my sunglasses. As soon as he saw my eyes, he knew who he was dealing with.

  “Outside,” I muttered. “I don’t want to do this in front of humans.”

  “You… you don’t know who you’re dealing with…” His voice was high-pitched, anxious.

  “Neither do you.” I took him by the arm and half-dragged him out the door, then around to the side of the building.

  There were no prying eyes there.

  I slammed him against the wall hard enough to make his teeth rattle.

  “Please don’t hurt me!” he pleaded, shaking from head to toe.

  I reminded myself he was just another stupid human who’d gotten in over his head.

  “Who sent you here?” I snarled as my fangs descended.

  His eyes went wide and perfectly round, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of horror.

  I could smell the fear coming out of his pores.

  “I—I can’t tell you,” he whimpered. “He’ll kill me.”

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t,” I promised. “And I’ll take my time.”

  “I’m not allowed!” His voice turned into a whine.

  Killing him would be worth it if only to get him to stop whining.

  “I only need a name. You don’t even have to tell me where to find him—I’ll find him on my own. Just one little name is all.” I looked deep into his eyes, pushing his thoughts aside, demanding answers.

  Nothing he felt or thought mattered, anyway.

  Only what I needed.

  He was going to give me what I needed.

  “Bradley,” he whispered before squeezing his eyes shut. Tears squirted out from under his lids and his pale eyelashes. “Please. Let me go now.”