“If I was … am … Ceara, who are you?” Olivia asked, not quite sure she was ready to hear the answer.
“My name is William Macauley and, as you might have guessed, I’m a vampire.”
CHAPTER 8
Olivia knew that William was telling the truth. She had never really believed in vampires, mostly because she’d never actually met one, but she knew an honest man when she met one and William Macauley was an honest man. Plus, she had the memories of her own death to confirm what he didn’t need to say out loud.
Olivia supposed he could have lied and told her that she was hallucinating or that she had an overactive imagination but he didn’t. And she was sure that while he’d spent the past several hundred years being able to hide the truth from those around him, he had instead chosen not to hide it from her. She felt he wasn’t one to play games. Without making her beg, without any guessing games, he’d told her who he was and who she apparently had been as well. And Olivia knew that he would now tell her how all of it came to be.
“What’s going on?” she whispered.
He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair again, and glanced at her. Olivia could tell he was thinking about how to start what would undoubtedly sound like something from a horror movie instead of their reality.
“Before I begin, knowing what you know and having seen what I’ve shown you, do you trust me? Can you be alone with me?” he asked.
Olivia didn’t know if it was because it was late, or because she’d just suffered the biggest shock of her life, but she was having a hard time following his line of questioning. The fact of the matter was that she couldn’t trust this man. Hadn’t she just remembered that he had killed her in a previous life? Not only was he a monster and a murderer, but he had also been her murderer. Her first thought was that there was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. After all, what was to prevent him from doing it all again in this lifetime? And yet for some inexplicable reason, Olivia knew he wouldn’t. Somehow, some way, she knew that would never happen again.
The two of them were connected in unfathomable ways and now that she’d met him, she didn’t know that she could ever leave him. She’d have to of course, someday, but she didn’t know how she would do it.
Olivia nodded her head in the affirmative, just barely, as she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself, settling in for the tale.
“We only have another few hours,” he said.
Right, she thought, vampires and the sun.
“If you don’t trust me, let me know now and I’ll leave you … forever.”
Olivia felt her breath catch. While realistically she knew this thing between them - whatever it was, however it could be described - couldn’t go anywhere, but emotionally she was already invested. She could tell herself that they’d have to part, that was all fine and good. But to hear him say it tore at her heartstrings. Here she’d just found him and already he was talking about abandoning her.
She couldn’t go back to the person she had been – the place she’d come from – without him. The bleak life Olivia had known had ceased to exist once he’d exposed himself to her. And she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he couldn’t go back to what had been before tonight either. They were connected, they’d always been connected, and he had been waiting for her across the ages as much as she had been meant for him in this one.
“No, you can’t leave me,” Olivia heard herself saying. “I need you. I need to know who I am, who you are, and who we were together.”
If she could just convince him to stay with her a little longer, they’d sit in front of the fire in this expensive hotel in this glorious city, and he’d tell her the whole story. Finally, she’d understand why all of it had come to pass, and at last maybe she would understand her fear of death, the heartache, and the paranoia that had been her constant companion for as long as she had been alive.
I’ll finally know the real me.
William stood up and walked back to the fire, warming his hands again. He’d done that a lot tonight, she realized, and then she remembered that vampires have cold skin. While Olivia was warm, flushed, and pink-cheeked with the heat of the room and the terror of the night, William would remain cold to the touch. While Olivia was trying to remember everything else she’d ever heard about vampires, the one universal truth came to her: their desire for blood.
Before she could stop herself, she gasped and closed her eyes against her next thought, only to remember the searing pain in her neck as William had bled her dry all those centuries ago. Olivia opened her eyes wide as she suddenly comprehended the danger that she was in – the vigorous beating of her heart was a detriment to her health and well being more so than any plane, or out of control car, or imagined killer lurking in the shadows could ever be. She tried to steady her breathing in an attempt to calm the erratic nature of her pulse because no matter who William was, or what he’d become since that fateful night hundreds of years ago, she knew his nature was first and foremost how he survived: blood.
He is a serial killer.
Olivia recalled the memory of that other life – the one where he turned on her without warning – and suddenly she grasped the enormity of his question. Did she trust him? Meaning, did she trust him with her life?
“You’re NOT going to kill me.”
The unspoken lingered in the air between them.
“No, I won’t,” he promised. “I’m in control of myself ... now.”
Olivia could see the anguish written plain across his face.
Olivia understood that he would never forgive himself for what had happened in that field in front of their home hundreds of years before. What she didn’t understand was if she was coming to those conclusions of her own volition or if he was putting the thoughts in her head. She stared at his back, willing him to turn around and face her.
“Yes, I can communicate with you through your thoughts. It’s easier when there is a powerful connection, but most vampires are telepathic in some form or other.”
I won’t hurt you, the thought came to her in his melodic voice.
She didn’t know if it was because of their strange connection, or if it was because she had become far too trusting for her own good, but she believed him. While she knew nothing of his current … habits … she felt complete certainty that he would control whatever blood lust he might currently have, at least where she was concerned.
Olivia also understood that she was about to give her life over to a man that occupied a world that until moments ago had been nothing more than fairytale or nightmare, depending on your point of view. The implications of her decision were overwhelming. As she put her head to her knees, slowly breathing in and out to calm her beating heart, Olivia steeled herself to choose which it would be – dream or nightmare.
Olivia knew what he wanted from her – full acceptance – but she was hesitant to give him anything until she knew what he would give her in return. He was desperate for her to trust him, but what did she want? Instantly Olivia knew the answer to that question. Him. The thought was so emphatic in her mind that she briefly wondered if it was her own desire or if it had come from him telepathically. Prior to his earlier revelations, she had been thinking that she wanted to make love to him.
And now?
Absolutely.
Olivia wanted him to show her how much he had loved her once upon a time, and maybe still did even today. Strange, she knew, but she had made her decision and was going to see it through. But she wondered what this decision would mean for her future? For their future.
Olivia steeled her nerves before looking up, only to find him staring back at her, the silence enveloping and suffocating them like the air after a summer rainstorm – thick, heavy, and full of expectation and longing.
“Not here. Not in this sterile hotel, rank with the scent of a thousand other humans, a place that holds no meaning for either of us.”
He walked forward and dropped to his knees before he
r, reaching out to caress Olivia’s cheeks, wide palms enveloping both sides of her face.
“Let me take you home and I’ll tell you everything.”
Home?
Her bewilderment immediately evident; he sat back, removing his hands from her face, an action that left her feeling strangely bereft.
“I’m sorry. Of course you won’t remember it as home. After … well, afterwards, when I was in control of myself and realized what I had done, I had to make amends. Fourteen years ago I began the process of rebuilding it – I restored what was once our home. You’ve seen it, of course.”
As if Olivia hadn’t been faced with enough information for one night, the comprehension of why she had been obsessively drawn to his home – and him, it seemed – blindsided her.
His home was her home. She had lived and loved there. She had been happy there.
Olivia closed her eyes, trying to grab on to some memory – anything that would give her some grounding – but found nothing. She knew his castle had been her home because she knew he had been her husband. She knew that she had lived there because she knew she had lived with him. The home that lay in a fiery ruin in her vision was the same building he’d spent the past several years restoring, the same building that had lain vacant for hundreds of years before.
Then it hit her full on.
I’ve been obsessing about my own home!
“Tonight, how long do we have?” she whispered, all the while knowing that the more questions she posed, the more time she wasted.
“We can be there in an a little over an hour, and then we’ll have another three hours together before I’ll need to ... sleep,” he said, clearly struggling with how to communicate the intricacies of a vampire’s life in a way that wouldn’t scare her off. “You’ll be safe, and you can leave whenever you want. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Olivia felt like he was going to say more, but he stopped, stood up, and walked back to the fire, turning his back on her. She realized that he stared at the flames when he was thinking, and then wondered if he had always done that. Sadly, she couldn’t say.
“I want to be with you, but I’ll understand if you can’t,” he said, once again breaking the heavy silence.
Olivia had come this far and she knew to the depth of her soul that even if she wanted to, she couldn’t have stayed in the hotel … not knowing what she did now. She had to go with him even if it was the last thing she ever did. At that moment she would have walked through fire for him, and she knew that maybe she already had.
“I can’t leave you. I don’t want to leave you. But you have to understand, this is terrifying and I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t afraid,” she explained.
They were entering unchartered territory and no matter what happened between them, Olivia had to be completely and unequivocally honest with him. She never wanted him to doubt her intentions or think that she wasn’t fully cognizant of the situation she was putting herself in. She needed him to know that she wasn’t walking into this blindly. She was quite literally putting her life in his hands and she knew exactly what that would mean to him.
“But I’m going with you. For as long as I can, I’ll be with you. I dreamt about you before I knew you. I wanted you before we met,” she said, heat once again rising to her cheeks.
He turned to face her and she saw something that hadn’t been there before. Hope? He nearly glowed with it.
“I didn’t know it then, but I’ve been looking for you my whole life,” she continued. “The second I laid eyes on you, I was pulled to you in a way that I’d never been pulled to anything. I can no more fight it than I can deny it.”
He drew near to Olivia, unhurriedly, in an effort not to scare her any more than she already was. Slowly, deliberately, his eyes never leaving hers, he gently placed his two cold, pale hands back on her face. He lowered his face nearer to hers and she could feel that electric spark flare between them once again. Her heart pounding louder than it ever had before, Olivia yearned for even more contact with him. She wanted to know what it would be like to kiss him. She wanted to remember what it had been like to lay with him as man and wife.
Anyone watching the two of them could have plainly read the lust on Olivia’s face – and she thought she saw it echoed back in his own – but she knew that now was not the time or place to explore her emotions. He seemed to agree for he pulled back ever so slightly, hands still cradling her face.
“My love,” he whispered reverently. Olivia could feel the rush of his breath caress her lips.
“I want you too, more than you can know. I’ve waited hundreds of years for you, but not now, not here. Please be patient, we have a lifetime ahead of us.”
And they did, but – she thought sadly – just the remainder of this one. For as a mere mortal, every day she was closer to dying. For her entire life she’d been obsessed with her death, but it had just now taken on new meaning. Every minute she was getting older and closer to the end of her lifetime. He would stay the same, forever. He’d always be William as he was today and she would eventually become an old crone, wasting away to nothingness before him.
Olivia’s emotions had reached their highest peaks and plummeted to their lowest depths in the space of a minute. She was overcome and weak-willed, but she knew that what William was saying made sense but she didn’t want to think about what would come tomorrow. She had only today to think of and she couldn’t afford to give in to flights of fancy and tales of a long ago love. Right now she needed information about who she was as much as she needed to feel his body inside of her.
She needed answers, and he needed to take her to the one place he could explain everything properly.
“My room is paid for through the end of this week so I can come back and get anything I need tomorrow. Let’s go before I realize what it is I’m doing and come unhinged.”
“I promise, you can come back anytime you need to.”
He paused, as if weighing his next words. “I will never hurt you again. Please believe me … Olivia.”
Olivia didn’t think his words were for her benefit alone. She couldn’t help but feel that he was trying to convince himself as much as – if not more – than he was trying to convince her, but she was ready to make the leap of faith, regardless of the outcome.
“I know. I trust you. But let’s go.”
CHAPTER 9
Some days William would stand in the castle’s great room and wonder what it was all for. Why, after all this time, was he bothering to restore the falling down heap of ancient rubble? Ten years ago he’d been living in a posh flat in Dublin, roaming the streets at night in search of prey, finally able to move among humans without detection. He had moved about easily in society and no one ever really suspected what he truly was. They bought into the story as sure as he was selling it – self-made millionaire, technology and stock market genius, works all day, parties at night. He lived the life they expected to see: a wealthy playboy at the top of his game, aloof, and slightly mysterious.
But through it all, he had kept asking himself why … much like he was doing today. The truth was, William didn’t much care for this modern era, and he didn’t much like the company. The men were crooked and the women were sharks. Sure, they were good in bed but he always walked away from his encounters feeling hallow and empty, longing for real release after having to hold himself back. And after a while he had started to get sloppy – a bruise here, a small nick there. Nothing, to be sure, that would give away his true nature, but enough to dare any of the brazen, modern women he slept with to voice their suspicions.
And then it – she – had happened. Nadia.
William and Nadia first met at the theater. She was on the arm of some up-and-coming politician, a gorgeous, exotic Eastern European beauty. She was dark and luminous, standing out in a sea of alabaster-skinned, milk-and-honey farm-raised lasses. William couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. He was bored with every one and every thing aro
und him and she was something new. He wanted her, and he could tell she wanted him.
They’d see each other every now and then as they ran in many of the same social circles. Him the rich, celebrated womanizer; she the vaunted beauty and political escort of the year. She was never attached to anyone for long, and speculation ran rampant that she was actually a high-class escort from Russia. After many superficial conversations across dinner tables or at cocktail parties, she made the first move.
As William excused himself from the post-theater revels and stepped out into the cold winter air, he sensed her presence immediately, her desire for him wafting on the night’s wind. Looking up, he saw her leaning against the driver’s side door of his car, her body an open invitation. He looked her up and down, showing her that he appreciated what he saw. Raising his right eyebrow at her in invitation, she chuckled and beckoned him over. Without pause she leaned into him, rubbing her long, lithe body up against his own. William’s cock responded immediately, throbbing with need. Nadia licked the side of his neck, where his pulse would have been if he had one. She nibbled his ear, breathing into him.
“I know what you are,” she said.
William froze, but she continued, undaunted. “I want you to fuck me, and I want to come while you feed from me.”
William’s gums ached, his fangs at the ready. He stepped away from her even though he wanted nothing more than to take her right there. One breath, then two. He willed his fangs into retreat. Fists clenching and unclenching multiple times, he took another step back, and ignored the throbbing down below.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“No one special,” she demurred. “Just a woman that knows your kind when I see it. A woman who’s had your kind in my bed and wants it again.”
“My kind?” William asked, wanting both to get out of the situation but also to take her up on her offer.
A Time Apart: Book One of The Macauley Series Page 7