She is still shaken and confused by what Dee said before he left. How can she possibly be a mixed vampire? Wouldn’t she know?
She thinks back on her conversations with Alessandro and can’t recall him ever mentioning anything about female mixes. Surely it can’t be possible. Then she pauses and thinks about her life thus far.
She has known since she was young that she was adopted as an infant. This knowledge never upset her. She never even bothered asking any questions about her adoption. She recalls her mom trying to talk to her about it the day she found out, but Anna-Marie was uninterested. She knew who her parents were and no stranger was going to change that. After that day, the subject never resurfaced again.
But there are other things as well, things that were always normal to her, but maybe odd to others. Like her high school and college career as a track star. She has been the fastest runner compared to all the athletes she ever went up against for as long as she could remember. Had it not been for her devotion to Dylan and her desire to be in his proximity, she may have even had a chance to be in the Olympics.
She doesn’t remember ever being sick either, not even with a simple cold. She remembers when she and Dylan were eight years old and Dylan got the chickenpox. She never left his side, fearing the itchy little red bumps would completely devour him, yet she never came down with the virus.
She always thought her overactive immune system was normal because she was so fit and healthy, but now she’s not so sure.
Suddenly her door swings open with a loud bang as it slams against the wall behind it.
“Dee? Thank God! I have so many questions,” Anna-Marie says in a rush and struggles to turn her head to look at him.
“Ahh . . . but Dee is busy right now. He won’t be feeding you today, my pretty. It’s just you and me,” says the voice of the husky Rogue that had came in with Dee the last time she saw him.
He kneels down beside her with a plate of food in his hand. She tries to move away as much as she can, but it is pointless, and once she sees the food in his hand, pain radiates through her stomach.
“I won’t hurt you. You’ve seen. He won’t allow it. Besides, your blood is no good to any of us. Here, eat,” he says as he lifts a sandwich up to her mouth.
This makes Anna-Marie relax some. The sight of the sandwich in his hand makes her stomach ache from hunger and her mouth begins to water. She eagerly lifts her head up as far as she can for a bite of the heavenly meal.
Her first bite of solid food in who knows how long takes a few minutes to get down. Her throat is so dry and her stomach has shrunk so much that it is making it hard to eat it.
“Thirsty,” Anna-Marie whispers.
“Here,” says the Rogue as he brings the straw up to her cracked lips.
She drinks half of the cup and pulls away so she can have more of the sandwich. Once the sandwich is devoured, she lies back down on the mattress and closes her eyes to pray to any god who may be listening to her. She throws out a silent “thank you” to all of them.
“What is your name?” she asks.
The Rogue doesn’t answer. Instead he gets up from his seat and walks out of the room.
With a full belly, she doesn’t even wait for the Rogue to leave before she falls back into the most restful sleep she has had since being here.
She thinks she is dreaming when she hears a lot of commotion coming from all around her. People are yelling and there are sounds of footsteps coming from all around.
This is a strange dream, she thinks to herself.
She hears a loud cracking sound and her eyes shoot open. Her eyes dart wildly around the room trying to see what is happening.
“What the heck was that?” she asks out loud when she doesn’t see anything.
Then she hears it again. This time she notices it’s not a cracking sound, but a familiar sound of a thunderous pop from a gun.
Startled, she begins to yell for her guard, “Hey, what’s going on out there?”
Silence.
“Hello! Is anyone there?”
Still no answer.
Panic begins to flare up in her stomach. Something is going on out there, but she doesn’t know what it could be and she is still tied down to this damn bed. She starts to pull on her restraints with every ounce of strength she has, but it’s pointless.
With a loud thud, then a splintering crash, her door breaks in and a Rogue is thrown to the floor only a few feet from her. Anna-Marie holds her breath and is unable to speak as she stares at the crumpled Rogue laying on the floor, the same Rogue that kindly fed her the most recent meal. Like a flash of lighting, someone is on top of him. The person brings his arm up and swiftly stabs over and over again before he slits the Rogue’s throat and then jumps back up to his feet.
Anna-Marie is still unable to take her eyes from the now dead Rogue, lying on the floor in a pool of dark blood.
Slowly she breaks the trance and looks up at the man, or is he a creature, that just killed the Rogue. He is illuminated by the light from the hall behind him so all she can see is his form. It’s the most light she has seen since she has been here and it burns her retinas like fiery acid. As painful as it is, she tries hard to see this person.
As her eyes start to adjust she notices that he is familiar, yet not. His dark hair is loose and messy, covering most of his face. His head is bent as he watches the blood pool around the Rogue on the floor. Each silent breath he takes causes trembles to radiate through his body.
Anna-Maria bites her lower lip to keep her trembling lips from quivering so as to not make a sound. She bites down so hard she begins to taste the metallic flavor of blood. Quickly she gasps from the pain and the man growls a deep animalistic growl and whips his head around in her direction. Instantly, he bends down in a pose to strike. His loose hair is still covering most of his face, but his dark as coal eyes peer through the dark mass of waves straight at her.
Anna-Maria closes her eyes and holds her breath as she waits for her death.
“Ales, is everything cool in there?” says a voice not so far away. “Alessandro?” The man asks and walks from the open doorway into the room and sees the Rogue lying on the floor. He bends down to check his pulse, not really expecting to feel one. When he stands back up, he notices what Alessandro is glaring at.
“Well, I’ll be damned! Hey, we have a live one in here,” he says to a still unresponsive Alessandro.
The man pushes past Alessandro, who is still frozen in his defensive stance, seemingly ready to attack at any given moment, and walks up to the bed where there is a person lying.
“Hey, lady, are you okay?”
Anna-Marie averts her wide eyes from Alessandro and just stares at the stranger.
“Are you able to move?”
Slowly Anna-Marie shakes her head, “No.”
“Okay, what is your name?”
Anna-Marie swallows hard and whispers, “Anna-Marie.”
“Jesus Christ! Alessandro get your ass over here and help me. It’s Anna-Marie,” yells the man as he stares at Alessandro. He directs his attention back to Anna-Marie. “My name is Michael. We are going to get you out of here.”
Alessandro? Did he just say Alessandro is here? she asks herself.
The sound of his name makes her begin to cry.
“Oh, my God, I’m dead! It’s finally over. I’ve waited for what seems like eternity to see him again,” she says out loud and cries even harder at the thought of seeing Alessandro again.
“Anna-Marie?” She hears her name in the distance.
Then she hears it again, even closer this time.
It sounds like the beautiful voice of her mysterious protector.
“Oh, my God, Anna-Marie! Thank you, goddess,” she hears him say and feels her body being raised up and squeezed in a tight grip.
She smiles at the sound of his voice.
“I knew if I lay here long enough, my time would finally come and I would see you again,” she whispers to him.
“Somebody cut these damn shackles!” he demands.
“Alessandro?”
“I’m here, Bella. I found you. I’m taking you home now.”
With a loud bang, her shackles are broken.
Finally she opens her eyes into tiny slits.
“Alessandro, are you really here?” she asks.
“Yes, Anna-Marie, I’m right here. You’re safe now.”
“I thought they killed you.” She cries even harder at the thought.
He pulls her up closer to him and hugs her as deep as he can. Her body is weak and frail so she can’t cling to him the way she so desperately wants to. No matter how much her brain screams, her limbs won’t work.
“Alessandro, I can’t move.”
He pulls her away to arms length to look her over. She isn’t bleeding anywhere that would show evidence of a wound that would cause the paralysis.
“Okay, Bella, don’t worry. I’ll carry you.”
Gently he picks her up off of the bed and carries her out of the room. She never saw what this place looked like before. As she looks around now into open doorways as Alessandro carries her through the tight hallway, she is shocked to see that it looks more like a war zone rather than a place she would find in her beautiful town. Everywhere she looks she sees blood and bullet holes and an occasional body randomly scattered about.
“Don’t look. We’ll be out in a few minutes,” Alessandro says. But she is unable to close her eyes. She has seen nothing but darkness for so long, it’s the last thing she cares to see again.
Once out of the hall, she sees a group of men appearing very much like proud noble warriors after a battle, standing in wait with blood smeared on their clothes. All of them are staring at her, which makes her feel nervous and insecure. Among the group is the man, Michael, who had found her. He isn’t looking at her but rather glaring at Alessandro, but Alessandro doesn’t seem to notice.
“Alessandro, we must get her to the manor now so Jesse can check her out,” says one of the men.
“Is everything clear here?” Alessandro asks back.
“Son, what little may have gotten away is not that important right now,” he says and looks back down at Anna-Marie and smiles. “We will find them later.”
Son? She thinks to herself and looks back up at Alessandro’s serious face before turning back to the hulk of a man who would be fitting more as Alessandro’s brother, rather than his father. His stature is a few inches taller than Alessandro, his build larger, but there is an air about him that says, “Don’t mess with me,” but also prestigious at the same time.
He nods to his father and carries her outside to the waiting car.
“Here you go,” he says as he sets her on the cool tan leather in the front seat of the car. It’s not his Porsche, but rather a sleek black Lexus.
“Just sit here for one minute. I have to go back inside for a second, okay?”
“No, Alessandro! Please don’t leave me,” Anna-Marie cries as she feels panic course through her body at the thought of being alone again.
“I’ll only be a minute. I promise.”
He kisses her on her dry cracked lips and locks her door before he closes it.
Alone in the car, she begins to get nervous. After everything she has been through, the last thing she wants is to be alone. As seconds pass, she franticly starts looking around, feeling completely paranoid now. She feels like she is being watched, but she doesn’t know from where.
She scans the grounds, but doesn’t see anything but darkness, so she looks back up at the warehouse. Silhouetted by the enormous full moon, Anna-Marie sees a man standing on the roof of the warehouse staring down at her. She leans closer to the glass to get a better look at the man.
She studies his illuminated face. Her heart begins to pound in her chest even harder. Her muscles are still tight and tingling, but they seem to be getting better.
She slowly and clumsily moves her arm onto the door handle and squeezes hard on the handle. After two tries, the door finally comes open. Slowly she lifts her right leg, then the left, and helps them to the ground outside of the car. She grips the side of the car and lifts herself out of the car. Standing up, she supports herself with the side of the car and looks harder at the man on the roof.
She can see his features even better now. He is staring down at her with serious, sad eyes, eyes she would know anywhere. She leans against the car and slowly walks around it to get an even closer look.
Barely hanging on now to any sense of reality, she lets go of the car and takes a few wobbly steps in his direction, then stands up straighter.
“Dylan?”
19
As soon as Alessandro’s feet hit the gravel walkway, his heart stops in his chest. He runs to Anna-Marie as fast as he can, where she is lying on the ground a few feet from the car. “Anna-Marie!” he yells. He knells down beside her and pulls her in his lap and brushes the wild hair from her face. “Anna-Marie, honey, wake up.”
Slowly her eyes flutter open, “Alessandro?”
“Yes, I’m right here.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. When I came back out I saw you on the ground. What were you doing out of the car?”
“I don’t know,” she says then rubs her head and looks around. Suddenly her eyes shoot up toward the warehouse window, but she sees nothing. Confused, she searches around desperately trying to find him.
“Here, come on. Let’s get you up off the ground and back into the car.”
Without a word, he wraps his arm around her waist and helps her up. She doesn’t have a lot of strength after all that she has been through and has to lean on him for support. Slowly they make it back to the car. With one last look up at the rooftop, she gets in and closes the door.
The ride back to the manor is made in total silence. Anna-Marie has too much on her mind that she has to work out.
I must have been seeing things, she thinks to herself. There’s no way that was Dylan. I saw him that night. He was dead. I watched him get buried. And then there’s the mixed vampire thing. How am I going to tell Alessandro this, knowing how he and his people hate the Mixed Breeds?
She bites her lower lip and looks over at Alessandro. His intense dark almond eyes look so serious and guarded as he stares at the road ahead.
He looks so sad. Is it possible that he has aged since the last time I saw him? she thinks to herself.
Slowly he turns in her direction and notices her stare. He gives her a forced smile and she gives one back before she turns away to look out the window.
A few minutes later they pull up to a massive set of iron gates at the manors entrance. Anna-Marie cranes her neck to look out of the windshield at the top of the gate and its intricate patterns of swirls. They look every bit like flowing iron wind.
Alessandro waves at the camera and types in a code which makes the huge gates swing open. It takes what seems like minutes to drive down the curvy driveway that is eclipsed by rows of blooming dogwood trees. Anna-Marie stares out of the window in silence at the wonders of this grand estate. Unfortunately, it is too dark to see too much, but the blackened sky doesn’t stop her from trying.
Anna-Marie is speechless as Alessandro drives through a circle driveway and parks in front of one of the biggest houses Anna-Marie has ever seen. She doesn’t make a move to get out of the car, but instead stares at the prestigious house. The longer she stares at it the more she finds herself recognizing the architecture. It is an almost exact replica of the plantation house.
Anna-Marie turns to Alessandro in surprise than back up at the house. “Oh, my goodness, Alessandro, is this yours?”
“Yes, this is where I live, but it’s not just mine.”
Anna-Marie could have gotten whiplash from turning her head so fast in his direction. “What do you mean, it’s not just yours?”
“Well, the Brotherhood owns houses all over the world. We move all around, spending time in each for a few years to make sure ever
ything is going okay in the area before moving on to the next one. There are members and families that stay in one place among society, but my group, the Brotherhood, travels in a pack. There are seven warriors and seven Protectors in my pack. There are also two females that live here. They are the wives of two of the members.”
Alessandro notices the tension in Anna-Marie’s expression. “I know it is strange for you, but I promise, you are very safe here.”
Anna-Marie nods her head in understanding.
She holds her breath when they reach the door, anticipating what may lay behind it. Her only real contact with a vampire has been with Rogue. The fear still remains in her mind that these creatures live off of the life force of humans. How can someone like that be trusted? Good or bad, to her the line is still undefined, especially after her ordeal.
She grabs Alessandro’s hand as they pass over the threshold of the expansive mansion.
“Oh, my goodness, Alessandro! It’s so much more beautiful than I thought it would be.”
Alessandro laughs, “What did you expect, coffins?”
“Umm . . . no. I don’t really know what I expected.”
The view from the foyer is a grand sight to be seen. It’s not old and stuffy looking like you would expect with most old mansions. Actually, it’s quite the opposite.
There is a typical grand staircase straight ahead leading to the upper levels; but instead of wood railings, the old wood has been replaced by something that looks like thick black steel. To the right of the foyer is a sitting area with a massive widescreen television and an incredible black marble fireplace. Even the furniture is a plush black leather material. On the left side of the foyer there is a dining room with a kingly medieval table. The kitchen appears to be on the far side of the dining room past double swinging doors.
“Come on, I’ll show you to my quarters.” Alessandro squeezes her hand and helps her climb the stairs to the third floor. They come to a halt at the last door on the hall. Alessandro slowly opens the door and stands to the side to let her in first. The sight from the doorway is of pure destruction.
Protector Page 18