It made sense. As an experienced primary school teacher I’d learnt how to spot the lie. There was none in Alec Munro’s eyes—once they moved off my throat! ‘How many vamp- Brethren are there in the city?’
‘Not that many. Couple of hundred.’
Another eye-opener. Matt had quite a job on his hands if Alec Munro wasn’t the only vampire in town. ‘Then why don’t we, humans, know about it?’
‘Precisely what we try to avoid. We abide by certain rules too and one of them forbids the deliberate killing of humans although, every now and then, the blood lust can lead to… how can I put it? Accidents. Allowances have to be made. Generally, we feed from willing donors. There are enough people in this city who know about us and are quite willing to share their blood,’ he said. ‘They believe they’re doing a service to the local vampire community. I guess it’s their way of giving to the blood bank.’ A wry smile lit his face.
I blinked. The things I’ve been ignorant of! ‘I’m glad you don’t kill.’
‘I didn’t say that, and I certainly wouldn’t leave the body to be found by anyone.’ Alec sat back in his seat and watched me. Whether he was playing games with me or not, I wasn’t sure. But if he was my aunt’s guardian and he was now mine, I had nothing to fear from him. He needed me just as much as I needed him.
I leaned forward in my seat. ‘That’s because you don’t need to as long as you’ve got me. My aunt said our blood is more powerful than any human’s. Why would you bother going somewhere else?’
‘Humans aren’t the only ones who like a change in diet.’
Okay, I didn’t think of that. ‘Seriously?‘
He steepled his fingers and pressed them against his mouth as his eyes remained resolutely on mine. I’d swear they were laughing.
Well, two could play at that game! ‘Does that include feeding from animals?’
‘No.’
‘Pity. You could have kept the rat population down!’
His mouth crinkled up into a definite smile. ‘Are you baiting me, Miss Dantonville?’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it!’ Although that was exactly what I was doing. I didn’t know this man—this creature—and who knows what he would do if I angered him, yet here I was allowing my temper to control my tongue. It was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself.
‘Oh, I believe you are.’ His head angled to one side as he regarded me. ‘That’s a dangerous game to play.’
‘I’m only returning the compliment, Mr Munro,’ I replied, and a nervous tingle ran the length of my spine. I hoped that with that last remark I hadn’t gone too far. But it was too late to take it back.
‘Doctor Munro.’
‘You have a profession?’ I couldn’t hide my surprise.
‘Even the evil undead have a mortgage these days,’ came the dry reply.
‘Is that how you see yourself?’
My question stumped him. He was silent for a moment before he said, ‘Evil, undead, or a member of the legions of the debt ridden?’
I suppressed the laugh his dry comment provoked as a string of images, of vampires rising from their coffins to see their bank manager for a loan, flitted through my mind! But that wasn’t what I wanted to know. This man was supposedly a vampire yet so far I’d seen no tangible evidence of that, only sensed it.
‘Evil,’ I answered.
‘Everyone carries the potential for evil inside them and my kind has a greater propensity for it. The temptation to kill is stronger as human blood is our food. Your kind doesn’t hesitate to kill their food source and it’s not regarded as evil.’
Tell that to the vegans, I thought. ‘But humans are not animals. We have a soul. It’s immoral to murder.’
‘You’ll find that my kind live under a different set of moral rules.’
‘All of you were human at one time. Surely being transformed hasn’t destroyed your souls?’ I couldn’t possibly believe the man sitting before me was soulless. He wasn’t some sort of walking corpse.
‘Some believe so.’
‘Do you?’
He lifted his hand to his chest and fingered something lying beneath his shirt. ‘No. I believe in a God of mercy and retribution and, one day, I don’t want to find myself on the wrong side.’
‘I thought vampires were immortal.’ So much for that myth.
‘No, no one is. Yet I can understand how it arose. We age very slowly, around one year in every five hundred. Our blood is thicker and flows sluggishly, like mud almost. It considerably slows the metabolism.’
‘What about the myths? How accurate are they?’
‘Which particular ones?’
‘You know, sunlight, garlic, crucifixes, holy water—the usual,’ I replied, trying to sound casual about it.
He looked down onto his breast, pulled out a delicate gold crucifix with its chain and dangled it before me. ‘My mother’s. I keep it for sentimental reasons.’
So, that’s what he was fingering. He dropped it back into place beneath his shirt, held up his fingers, palms forward in the surrender position and said light-heartedly, ‘Look, no burns.’
So he had a sense of humour. Great! But at least he wasn’t laughing at me, I think. ‘That’s one,’ I indicated with my index finger. ‘What about the others?’
‘My kind can’t tolerate direct sunlight. It kills. Vampirism creates a, kind of, allergy to sunshine so understandably most of my kind prefer the evenings. And before you ask, no, SPF 30 does not help.’ He gave me another broad smile. ‘Being your family’s guardian sets me apart from the others. My feeding from a Bloodgifted Dantonville provides me with a certain tolerance to daylight. I can come out during the day and even sit in the sun for an extended period, though not for too long. It dangerously weakens me.’
‘No “poof” and a pile of dust then?’ I asked.
‘Not me, no. Sorry to disappoint you.’
I couldn’t tell if he meant that last remark to be taken seriously or not. His mouth did twitch a bit, but he could have had a muscle spasm for all I knew.
‘What is it in our blood gives you this ability anyway?’ Perhaps he could provide the answers my aunt hadn’t.
He gazed at me a while as if unsure whether to answer or not. ‘How much has Judith told you?’
‘She mentioned some distant ancestor who was cursed and became what you are. His DNA was altered.’
‘Yes, that’s true. He was a Roman—Marcus Antonius Pulcher. But enough of his humanity was allowed to remain to pass down to his descendants. It’s that which lives on in your veins and gives me immunity to daylight, plus a few added extras.’
‘Like strength, supersonic hearing.’ I deliberately whispered those last two words.
He chuckled. ‘I wouldn’t call it supersonic, but it’s very good. Judith managed to tell you quite a bit.’
‘As much as she could, I suppose. What did he do to earn such terrible retribution?’
‘Nothing any other soldier in his position wouldn’t have done.’ He paused a while and a slight frown appeared on his brow. ‘I’m not the one to reveal his story though, Laura. That’ll come from another.’
The tightness of his mouth indicated I’d be getting no further information out of him on that subject. So I made a mental note to ask my aunt at the next opportunity and went back to my interrogation. ‘Okay, what about the garlic and holy water?’
‘Well, if you eat it, I’ll certainly taste it.’
‘Like a baby at its mother’s breast?’
He placed both hands on the carved wooden arms and contemplated me for a while before a letting out a little chuckle. ‘Touché.’
Blast. I was beginning to like him, when he wasn’t being patronising. He gazed at me at length, possibly trying to gauge my mettle as much as I was trying to gauge his. To a certain extent we were both in foreign waters.
It was then I glimpsed the ring. He wore an identical type as mine, so there had to be some significance. He saw my eyes widen in recognition.
&n
bsp; ‘Yes,’ he answered my silent question. ‘It’s the twin of the one Judith passed on to you. It’s known as the Serpent—’
‘Ring,’ I finished for him. ‘She told me, but never mentioned there were two, nor that you’d be wearing the other one.’
‘What exactly did she say?’
I repeated what Aunt Judy had told me, including the strange word she’d used.
He nodded in affirmation and twirled it around his finger as he listened. Then he added, ‘The rings were created from the same source by your ancestor. One always passes to the current Ingenii and the other to their Guardian. I was Judith’s and now I’m… all yours.’
A mischievous smile lit his face as he leaned forward and interlaced the fingers of his right hand with mine. For the briefest moment the red stones in the serpents’ eyes flashed as they met and our hands were illuminated in a warm, rosy glow.
‘Is it supposed to do that?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but I’ve never seen such an immediate and strong reaction.’ He sounded just as surprised.
We both raised our eyes and gazed at each other simultaneously. My mouth went dry and, self-consciously, I tried to take my hand back, but he simply held on.
‘The eyes light up whenever one of us is near. They also signal danger by turning black, although that hasn’t happened during my guardianship,’ he said.
‘Has it ever?’
‘I think once, during my predecessor’s time, several hundred years ago.’
It rolled off his tongue so easily that I wondered whether I would ever get used to the concept of the world being inhabited by beings who were centuries, or even millennia, old.
‘How old are you?’
‘One hundred and twenty-three.’
‘Humph, so you’re a veritable youngster,’ I replied glibly.
Alec’s eyes narrowed, he released my hand and shifted back in his seat. For some reason my comment hit a nerve. ‘Among my kind, yes, although I was twenty-nine at my transformation.’
I was tempted to make some kind of patronising remark, but the forbidding expression on his face made me rethink it. Instead I asked, ‘How did it happen?
‘My predecessor transformed me. His name is Lucien Lebrettan and he was your grandfather’s guardian.’
‘Why didn’t he stay on for my aunt? Or is there a time limit for guardians as well?’
He looked at me as if deciding something. ‘No, we can stay on indefinitely as long as the Ingenii accepts us. Luc had another reason for stepping down. But that’s another story and not for me to tell. When you meet him you can ask him.’
‘Luc?’ He pronounced it, Luke.
‘He prefers that to Lucien.’ He reached down to touch the ring on my hand, outlining its shape before lightly stroking the length of my finger.
It was such a simple action, yet the effect it had on me was astounding. It was almost erotic. Delicious warmth spread from my belly to my legs. He smiled and I had a dreadful feeling he knew. If he could smell fear, then… heat suffused my cheeks at the implication. I moved my hand out of his reach.
‘The rings,’ he said, ‘enable the wearers to communicate telepathically. Comes in handy if one of us is in trouble and there’s no mobile phone at hand.’
I blinked and refocussed. ‘Hear each other’s thoughts?’ That was spooky. ‘Like, right now?’
‘No, it usually happens only in extreme circumstances.’
By that I guessed he meant danger and it didn’t exactly thrill me. Maybe it was the fact that I came from a fairly sheltered environment and my experience of anything remotely resembling danger only came at the post-Christmas sales when I was liable to be trampled to death by some maniacal bargain hunters.
‘It never happened while Judith was Ingenii, and I see no reason why it should be any different with you,’ he said.
Either my face was an open book, or he lied about the not-being-able-to-hear-each-other’s-thoughts-till-we-were-in-danger bit. Most likely it was the former. Alec Munro didn’t seem the lying type to me and under the current circumstances it would have been pointless, especially as we were going to be together, so to speak, for the next fifty years. There was something about him that made me want to believe him, as well as a certain predatory charm that drew me like a magnet. Yet, at the same time, the sense that I was in the presence of something powerful and dangerous lurked at the edge of my consciousness and, rather than be afraid, I found it strangely exhilarating.
I needed time to take it all in. ‘Can you give me a few minutes?’
‘Of course.’
I took a deep breath, rose from my chair and walked to the alcove entrance. There were people about. Some sat in the pews in quiet contemplation, while in the background I could still hear the choir rehearsing. Behind me Alec waited. My earlier fantasy—seeing him with a stake through his heart—was now repugnant to me. I took another deep breath and came to a decision. My aunt trusted me to accept my scary family legacy and even though I wanted nothing to do with it, I felt I couldn’t let her down.
A faint pulsing light filled the room.
‘The rings,’ Alec murmured. I jumped for his voice came from directly behind me. How hadn’t I heard him move? ‘Look at your ring.’
I did. The serpent’s eyes were pulsing and as I watched they gradually died down until once again they looked no more alive than any other piece of jewellery.
‘Okay, so what does that mean?’ I asked.
‘Were bonded.’
‘Excuse me?’ I angled my head to look up at him as he loomed over me. Why did he have to be so tall? He had at least a couple of inches on Matt. At this rate I would need some serious physiotherapy on my neck.
‘It only happens when an Ingenii has accepted her guardian.’
‘But I never said…’
‘There’s no other explanation.’ I must have had a shocked look on my face for he added, ‘Don’t worry it’s not like a marriage but, as long as you’re under my protection, where you go I go and vice versa.’
‘You’re not serious!’
‘Indeed I am.’ Seeing I was not impressed, he added, ‘I can’t protect you if we’re in separate states or cities and since you’ll be sharing your blood with me, it’s imperative we live close by.’
Well, I guess that makes sense, I thought. As long as he doesn’t move into my apartment. That’d be fun to explain to Matt!
‘All right then,’ I sighed. ‘What happens now?’
He lifted his hand and traced a trail down the length of my cheek ending at the hollow of my throat. It was so unexpected and sensual my body responded with a deep, and delicious, fluttering in my stomach while the pulse in my throat throbbed almost painfully. His eyes lightened for a fraction of a second and when I saw his head dip and lean in, I took a compulsive step backward. His gaze was on my throat as if deciding which side was the tastier. I had a feeling he was not admiring my lovely new opal pendant.
‘Oh, no you don’t Alec Munro,’ I said firmly, and placed my hand on his chest.
He straightened and a smile lit his eyes. ‘It’s your choice. My place or yours?’
‘Um, yours.’ I didn’t want to risk any of my friends, especially Matt, seeing a strange man entering and leaving my unit on a regular basis.
‘Which days do you prefer?’
‘How often do you need to see me?’ An image of myself reclining on an old-fashioned chaise lounge, with Alec leaning over me, fangs deep in my throat, sent a shiver through me. The trouble was, I couldn’t tell whether the shiver came from fear or… something else I wasn’t willing to admit to.
‘Every third day is sufficient,’ he replied.
‘Don’t you need to—um, eat or feed every day?’
‘No, your blood is very rich.’
Oh lovely. ‘Mondays and Thursdays I suppose. Weekends I’m with my boyfriend, Matt.’
‘I see.’ He pulled out a business card from his trouser pocket and handed it to me. ‘My apartment is walking
distance from here. I’ll send a car for you.’
‘No, thanks. I’ve got my own car,’ I said.
‘Not a good idea. The first few times I feed from you, you’ll experience a slight weakness till your body begins to compensate for the blood loss. You could pass out at the wheel. Either I drive you, or you stay the night.’ A wicked glint lit his eyes.
Was he serious? As far as I was concerned this was going to be a strictly platonic relationship. ‘I doubt my boyfriend will like that.’
He gave me an enigmatic smile. It was infuriating, as if he knew something I didn’t.
‘You know what, for all I know this could be a con. How do I know you are what you really say you are?’ Yet as I said it, I knew it to be wrong. My aunt hadn’t been fooled these last fifty years and the bite marks on her wrist were real. Besides which all my instincts told me that what he had revealed tonight was the truth. But there, I’d said it. I just challenged him.
A crease appeared between his brows. ‘You do like to live dangerously, don’t you?’ Something about his eyes changed, just for a split second.
I blinked. I’m sure it wasn’t my imagination as I don’t have one that good. ‘Your eyes changed.’
‘Did it frighten you?’
‘Not really.’
‘That’s interesting.’ He cocked his head to one side as he regarded me.
‘So what does a vampire look like?’ I ventured to ask. By now my curiosity was at the point of no return.
‘Terrifying.’ His voice deepened slightly, and there was a cold edge to it which made me all the more curious.
‘Can I see it?’
‘Why?’
‘Are you afraid I’ll run screaming out of here?’
His eyes narrowed and pierced me with such a stare I wondered if I’d said the wrong thing. ‘Fear is a vampire’s greatest weapon, Laura. We smell it on a human and it acts like a magnet, drawing us to the prey. We love to hunt and the adrenaline rushing through a human’s body intensifies the blood making it thicker, richer and thereby, tastier. If you were to try to run, you’d only be doing me a favour.’
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