Serenity no longer cared about the practicalities; she would live on the street if that’s what it took. If she was treated like a dog in her own home, then she would roam the street like one.
Chapter Eight
Night had fallen once more.
Sebastian paced around his house, for that was all the building meant to him—a house, not a home.
A home should be filled with love and family and memories. This place contained none of those things. No family photographs filled the walls, no pets welcomed him home, and children’s laughter hadn’t been heard within the walls since Sebastian moved in.
The beautiful house had been filled with the finest furnishing and most expensive decor, but none of these things gave the building a soul. Like himself, the house was little more than a shell.
Loneliness had become a part of Sebastian. He thought he’d grown immune to the feeling. Loneliness and he walked hand in hand, joined together like Siamese twins. Only now the twin had become parasitic, the loneliness feeding on him to grow stronger.
As his solitude grew, Sebastian’s resolve to stay away from Serenity weakened.
He must be going crazy. He meant it when he’d told Serenity not to leave her husband for him. Their being together was inconceivable. He wouldn’t contemplate the events that needed to happen to make their union a possibility, yet he wanted to be around her. Being close to her healed his wounds but Sebastian knew his being there wasn’t good for her. He could bring her nothing but confusion, anguish and despair. With a single word, he would turn her whole idea of the world and what it contained upside down.
Serenity didn’t deserve any of this. She should be happily married with a couple of children, or have a high flying career or be traveling the world. She should be doing whatever she wanted to make her happy.
Frustration churned within him as he paced. He couldn’t stay indoors, the confining walls did nothing to help his pent up despair. He needed to be outside, be part of the night again.
Sebastian stepped out of the front door and headed down the driveway to the front gate. He hit the buzzer on his keys and the electric gates slid open before him.
An unused, silver Audi A6 sat in the drive. Despite having taught himself to drive many years ago, being behind the wheel made him nervous. Driving wasn’t in his nature. Anything involving technology and mechanics didn’t sit well with him.
What was the point in a car when he moved faster under his own power?
Sebastian didn’t intend to head down into the commotion of the city. Even at night, Los Angeles bustled with people. For every celebrity, several thousand wannabes lived in the metropolis. Every waitress, sales person, even the guy who pumped your gas, wanted to be an actor. Tourists intertwined with the dreamers, and dotted between them were the extremely rich who thought themselves famous. An undercurrent of kooks and weirdos also had their place in LA. Many could be found hanging out at Venice Beach. Sebastian found the area a good hunting ground. When that type of person went missing, it caused less of a stir. Those people disappeared all the time and normally had fewer people who cared about them
Even so, Sebastian hated to take life. He never killed unless necessary and he found he needed to feed once a month to survive. Even so, once monthly for centuries amounted to a lot of death. But he had grown used to it, dulled, anesthetized. He didn’t care about these people. Most of them were worthless pieces of space; drug addicts and dealers, lazy bums who never bothered to work.
But then who was he to play God?
He’d tried to starve himself, but the need grew overwhelming. The hypocrisy of looking down on drug addicts when, in many ways, Sebastian wasn’t much better himself didn’t evade him.
Tonight, he didn’t head down to Venice Beach. Instead, he turned away from the city and headed deeper into the hills toward the national park. He felt better being among nature, away from the bright Los Angeles lights. The giant, white Hollywood sign hung high above him.
I’ll go there, he decided. He would have space to think.
The cool October air bit at his skin but, immune to the cold, he didn’t react. He walked at a normal pace, at the speed of a man, up through the gravel paths where the joggers went through their paces and people took their dogs for walks. Tonight he was in no hurry, he needed time to think.
Sebastian had no reason to rush through time. He saw his future, the rest of eternity, stretching before him and Serenity wasn’t in it. He thought he had come to terms with being alone, made his peace, but the fact tormented him.
Sebastian scaled the wire fence surrounding the fifty feet tall letters of the famous sign. His fingers hooked into the wire mesh, pulling him up with ease and speed. Vaulting over the top, he dropped to the ground.
He walked up to the start of the sign, the letters towering over him. Someone had to paint the thing, he marveled. Perhaps a job for one of his kind?
He dropped to a crouch and sprung into the air, leaping to the top of the first line of the letter ‘H’. Steel girders held the structure in place and he stepped across them, balancing easily, until he reached the concrete and enamel frontage of the sign. He stood on the edge, the world dropping away before him. The view from the top always took his breath away; a sea of lights—reds, greens and yellows—the city with all its weird and wonderful inhabitants, living with no idea of what stood above, watching them.
Sebastian sat down, swinging his legs over the edge.
Normally, this was the only time he felt at peace with himself; alone in the night, seeing its beauty for all that it was. Yet tonight, he found peace only came with thoughts of Serenity, picturing her beautiful, haunted face in his mind.
The air moved behind him and he froze, no longer alone.
Sebastian turned to find a figure balanced on the steel girders, as he had been only moments before. Moonlight shrouded her face but he recognized her immediately. He could tell by her scent alone; a mixture of blood and darkness and night. Someone he’d hoped to never see again.
Madeline.
Pale skin caught the moonlight, long red hair springing around her face in ringlets. Her green eyes glowed in the darkness, taking him in with a knowing, sly stare. She looked good; beauty had never been Madeline’s problem. Her exterior was perfect; doll-like, exotic, but poison churned on the inside. Her heart lay black and still inside her chest. Nothing gave her greater pleasure than messing with people, playing the puppet master. Madeline manipulated everyone to get what she wanted.
Sebastian knew all about her.
Long ago, she’d hurt the people he loved. He thought he’d escaped her but now, here she was again.
“What do you want, Madeline?” he regarded her coolly. “What are you doing here?”
She gave him a lop-sided smile and glanced up from under her eyelashes, her full red mouth pouting. “I missed you, Sebastian. I thought I’d see if you had changed your mind about me?”
The sight of her made him tremble with anger. “You’re insane. Get out of here.”
“But I thought you might have changed,” she said. “I thought you were interested in women again?”
“You’re not a woman.”
“Oh, not me, Sebastian,” she said with a light tinkle of laughter. “The other woman.”
His blood froze. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She laughed again. “I think you know exactly what I’m talking about. Dark hair? Big, sad-looking eyes? I would have thought her a bit plain for your liking, Sebastian, but then you never did have taste in women.”
She stopped and took a step closer, looking at him carefully, studying his face.
“Wow,” she said, her green eyes wide. “You really care, don’t you?” She smiled again, her false, bright smile. “Well, I guess that makes things easier for me.”
“What do you want, Madeline?” he asked again.
She sidled up to him, her long, lean body close, leaving only a sliver of air between them.
&nb
sp; “I want what I’ve always wanted. I want you.”
Sebastian reached out and shoved her away. The other vampire stumbled back, but didn’t fall. She glared at him, eyes now yellow with fury, burning in the dark.
“Don’t test me, Sebastian,” she spat. The seductive woman had gone, replaced by a vicious wild cat. “Don’t forget I can always take something away from you.”
Rage soared through him. “So we’re here again, Madeline?” he said, eyes narrowed with hatred. “The only way you can get someone to be around you is by blackmailing them?”
She looked at him with scorn, forgetting herself for a moment. “There are plenty of others to choose from. It’s easy enough for me to get who I want, and Sebastian, I always get who I want.”
Then she seemed to remember herself and turned again, meek and mild. “I just want a companion, Sebastian, you must understand? I get so lonely. I know you do too.”
“Why me? Why can’t you leave me alone?”
She placed a hand against his chest and he shuddered at her touch. “Maybe I only want you because you’ve made it so clear you don’t want me. I’ve always loved a good chase.”
He tore her hand away from his chest and stepped back. Inches from where they stood, the edge dropped fifty feet to the ground.
“Obviously not clear enough.”
Madeline turned away, her shoulders sagging. “I don’t know why you hate me so much.”
He barked laughter into the night. “You did this to me! You made me what I am and you wonder why I hate you for it?”
“You are strong and beautiful,” she breathed. “You will live forever. How can you hate me for that?”
“You took away everything I loved. Who wants to spend eternity alone?”
“So give in.”
Instantly, she stood directly in front of him, her long slim fingers touching his cheek. “Stay with me and you won’t be alone.”
Sebastian took a small step back, the solid concrete, enamel and steel no longer beneath his feet. He plummeted through the air, the cool wind whistling past his ears. His stomach lurched, like hitting turbulence on an airplane, and his feet hit the ground. Every muscle tensed to take the impact and he dropped to a crouch.
Within moments, Madeline was by his side again, dropping lighter than he had. She was more agile, faster than him.
He rounded on her. “Get out of my life, Madeline. I would rather spend eternity alone than one more minute with you.”
She glared at him, yellow eyes like beacons. “It’s that woman isn’t it?” she snarled, flashing her canines at him. “A fucking human! What do you want with another human? They’re weak, pathetic.”
“They have feelings, they care, they love.”
“I can love,” she pretended to be hurt.
“You only love yourself.”
He turned from her and started to walk away. His ears listened for the sound of her following but only silence greeted him. When he reached the chain-link fencing, he risked turning around. The space behind him was empty but Sebastian knew it wouldn’t be for long. Now she had found him again, she wouldn’t leave him alone.
Madeline must have searched every city to find him, or maybe she just got lucky? He thought by leaving Europe he’d escaped her. The other vampire thought America to be crass and uneducated, a new world version of ‘new money’. He thought Los Angeles was the one city Madeline would avoid, but he’d been wrong.
He needed to leave again, to lose himself in a world that was quickly becoming too small.
Chapter Nine
Jackson spent most of the next day nursing his sore head. By mid-afternoon, he announced he needed a medicinal brandy and was going to the bar.
As soon as he told Serenity, a flutter of nervous butterflies stirred in her stomach. From past experience, she knew Jackson never stuck to one drink. If he went down to the bar, he wouldn’t return until closing time.
Time to go.
Nausea churned inside her. Was she actually going to leave her husband? She planned to pack a bag, take three hundred dollars out of a machine, and find a hotel for the night. She’d decided not to take the first bus out so she could try to get her hands on another three hundred dollars in the morning. Jackson might cancel her card as soon as he realized she was gone, but she suspected he’d most likely keep quiet in order to track her by her cash withdrawals. Staying in town for one night would allow her the extra money without giving Jackson any idea which direction she was heading. As soon as he figured out where she was going, he would follow to make sure she never got the chance to leave him again.
Serenity hadn’t booked a hotel or decided at which one to stay. The less she planned, the more unpredictable her movements were, increased the difficulty Jackson would experience trying to finding her.
Heart thumping in her chest, Serenity went upstairs and started pulling bags from the closet. Her hands shook and her stomach cramped in a ball of knots. They owned a set of large silver suitcases, but she didn’t want to pack anything big so she could be as mobile as possible. Instead, she found a black, canvas backpack; one Jackson bought at the airport when his hand luggage had been overweight. She wouldn’t be able to fit much into the bag, but enough for her to survive.
Serenity sighed. Beautiful things filled the house, items she had worked hard for; stupid little trinkets to make her miserable life happy—pretty picture frames, delicate wine glasses, embroidered cushions. She shouldn’t get sad about such frivolities, but she couldn’t help it.
They’re just things, the little voice whispered to her. They can be replaced.
The voice spoke the truth. Material belongings didn’t matter. What mattered was getting out of her present situation with her dignity, soul, and most importantly, her body still intact.
Somewhere, at the back of her mind, Sebastian lurked. Two days had passed since they’d visited the pier together. She knew he wouldn’t come to the house with her husband home. The two days felt like a lifetime. Serenity wished she could tell him she was finally leaving Jackson. She wanted to see the look in his eyes, knowing how proud he would be of her.
But she wasn’t doing this for Sebastian. Serenity was leaving for herself, for her life and sanity. He had opened her eyes to the possibility of another life but that didn’t mean she was leaving her husband for him.
Did it?
Serenity sighed again. She didn’t want to be a woman who couldn’t stand to be alone, always jumping from relationship to relationship.
No, it wasn’t like that. She had no idea if she would see Sebastian again. She had no way of getting in touch with him and didn’t know where he lived or worked. Tomorrow she would leave the city and never come back.
She wasn’t only leaving Jackson, Serenity realized. She would be leaving Sebastian too.
A hard lump tightened in the back of her throat and her eyes flooded with tears. She reprimanded herself. She needed to focus; she had bigger things to worry about.
Filled with sadness, the thrill of possibility gone, she pulled open her top drawer and pulled out a selection of underwear. From the other drawers, she took out t-shirts and sweaters and stuffed them in the bag. She packed her toiletries and then wondered what else to take.
Serenity looked around the bedroom she had shared with her significant other for the last ten years. Bad memories lingered everywhere; the dresser he had pushed her up against when she knocked over a glass of water in the middle of the night. The door he slammed her fingers in when she’d been late home from work. The wall he threw her against because she dared to ask how much money he’d spent at the bar.
This place held nothing but bad memories
She was nearly thirty years old and, once she left, wouldn’t have more than a few hundred dollars and some old clothes to her name.
The threads of depression threatened to bind her heart and drag her down.
Jackson had done this and she’d let him. If she didn’t get out of her marriage, she would look back
when she was forty, fifty, or God-forbid, sixty and realize her life had amounted to nothing and she could never get the time back.
She glanced at the clock. Almost five. Jackson wouldn’t be home for hours but she had no reason to hang around.
Except this is the only place Sebastian knows where to find you.
Serenity shook her head. She needed to stop thinking about him. This was her life now and she had to take control.
She remembered a photograph of her mother as a teenager, which she kept in her nightstand. Despite Serenity’s feelings about the woman, it felt wrong to leave the photo behind, so she fished it out of the drawer and added the picture to her bag. She didn’t have a passport, but kept her birth certificate in the same drawer, so she stuffed the slip of paper into the side pocket of her bag.
She picked up the pack and slung it across her shoulder. A compulsion to say goodbye to her bedroom, as though the room was a person, swept over her.
From downstairs, came the sound of the front door slamming open.
Oh God.
Serenity’s breath caught in her chest, every muscle in her body tensed, ready to run. Her head swam with the sudden rush of blood and she forced herself to focus.
What the hell was he doing back so soon?
Her heart pounded and her eyes darted around the room, searching for somewhere to stuff the bag. He would notice something was wrong, he would see it in her face.
“Serenity?” Jackson called up the stairs.
“I’m here, just putting away some laundry.” Her voice was unnaturally high and she cleared her throat. “You’re home early.”
“I forgot my pills,” he said, his voice growing louder as he started to climb the stairs. “Figured I would have more fun with them.”
“I’m coming down!” she shrieked. “I’ll bring them with me.”
His footsteps paused and then, to her relief, he turned away and she followed the sound of his progress as he headed to the kitchen instead. Her palms were slick with sweat and she pulled open the closet door and shoved the bag into the bottom, quickly covering the backpack with a pile of shoes and an old golfing jacket Jackson had never worn.
The Serenity Series: Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 7