“Who ... what ... am I?” I asked, fear creeping into my voice.
He blinked, a slow lowering and lifting of his eyelids, and he studied me for a second of two before running his hands through his hair. Settling on his haunches in front of me, he said, “I don’t know much about who you are today—” his voice broke with emotion “—I only know who you were and when you were. In the year 1658, you were Ceara, my fierce beauty. You were my wife and I loved you more than you can know.”
Chapter Seven
William
I paused, waiting for her to speak, but she didn’t interrupt me. She wouldn’t, I realized, not until I told her who she was, what she had been to me, and how she had died. Now that I’d shown her our history, it was vital to her I speak the words aloud.
“If asked, I would have given anything for you—my life, even. Instead, I took yours.”
I paused, lost in the memories of the things I’d shown her. My face settled into a mask of loathing as I replayed the moment I’d chased her down and snapped her neck as I sucked her body dry.
I’d shown her the love we had shared once upon a time, made her feel its realness, as potent as if it were happening today. How then, could I make her understand what led me to turn on her? What could I say to absolve me of our fate? She’d done nothing to deserve what had happened to her centuries ago, nor did she deserve to have these memories foisted on her today. Who was I to sit here now, forcing past into present, when she could have gone the rest of her life happily not knowing?
I was a monster, that’s who.
I was lonely and my shot at redemption had been within my grasp so I took it, heedless of what it might do to this fragile human woman sitting in front of me.
I didn’t think I could ever make her understand why I’d ripped her throat out, but If I explained the shock I’d received when I’d heard her voice, maybe she would understand why I’d forced the memory of it on her now?
I felt her temperature rise, my senses so attuned to the flow of blood beneath the thin layer of her skin and I worried she was getting ready to bolt now that she’d regained some of her lost strength. Settling my hands on her knees, she didn’t flinch as I’d expected and I didn’t know how to take her non-reaction. I’d expected hysteria and panic but what I saw in her face now was resolve and stoic fortitude.
Squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw, her eyes met mine and held them. “If I was … am … this woman … this Ceara, then who are you?”
“My name is William Macauley and I’m a vampire.”
Chapter Eight
Olivia
“Okay,” I answered on a weak exhalation. Then, stronger, more assured, “Okay.”
He was telling the truth; I felt it in my bones.
“You believe me?” he asked, his eyebrows kicking up under his hair.
I shrugged. “I have two choices. Believe you, or don’t. I choose to believe.”
I’d never believed in vampires, mostly because I’d never actually met one, but I knew an honest man when I met one and William Macauley was honest to the core. Plus, I had the memories of my death to confirm what he didn’t say aloud.
He shook his head incredulously, like he couldn’t believe I wasn’t going to put up a fight. My lips hitched in a rueful smile. He might have shocked me to the marrow of my being, but I’d surprised him too.
“I supposed you could have lied and said I’d had a weird freak out, that I’d been hallucinating, but you didn’t so thank you.” His eyes narrowed and he looked even more skeptical as I continued. “I’m sure you’ve spent centuries hiding the truth from the world but you chose to be honest with me. That has to count for something, right?”
“I’m sorry but you aren’t what I expected,” he answered after a several second pause. “Why aren’t you freaking out. I just told you I was a vampire, for fuck’s sake!”
It was the first time he’d said fuck and it did weird, wonderful things to my body. Like the very word itself could set my blood aflame. I wanted him to say it over and over again as he rocked into me, as he claimed me. As he made me his. Shaking the image from my head, I leveled my gaze at him.
“I know my reaction isn’t sane. Which has to mean I am sane, doesn’t it? Crazy people never know they’re crazy, right?”
I knew I should have high-tailed it out of the hotel—leave my belongings behind—and hop on the first plane back to America where I would pray he didn’t look for me, but honestly the thought never once crossed my mind.
“There’s no way you could know this, but I’m broken inside—” I settled my fist against my chest “—right here. So when you admitted what you are, the only thing I could think was, ‘finally, something makes sense.’”
Because as sick and twisted as it was, I thought William might help me understand why I’d been obsessed with death for as long as I’d lived.
“Maybe you can help me understand why I’ve always felt so disconnected from the world around me, as if I don’t belong.” A realization hit me then. Leaning forward I braced my hands on his strong shoulders. Flicking my eyes between his, I willed him to see that I needed him more than he needed me. “Maybe it’s because I don’t belong. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be me!”
William pulled me into his lap and tucked me in against his chest. Dropping a surprisingly tender kiss on my head, he said, “Sweetheart, I don’t have the answer you need.”
I looked up at him, “But I thought—”
“Olivia,” he intoned sadly. “I can’t help you there.”
I pushed off his lap. “Well, what good are you then if you can’t help me?” My voice rising, I shot to my feet and began to pace. “How lovely of you to drop this bomb at my feet and then not be able to help me!”
Frantically I paced back and forth and I was dimly aware that he was speaking to me, but I had no room in my head for his nonsense. I knew even less about reincarnation than I did about vampires, but I recalled hearing once there was a religion that believed you got to come back again and again until you lived the life you were meant to. Ceara’s life had been cut tragically short. Was her soul with me now, guiding me back to the man she’d loved with her whole being? Had she brought me here—untethered and alone in the world—to right the wrongs of their past?
Oh shit. No. Surely not.
“You’re here to kill me before I kill you, that’s it, isn’t it?”
“What?” he barked. “Don’t be daft, woman. I heard my dead wife’s voice cussing me out, saw her face looking back at me from the computer, and had to know for myself. That’s all this is, nothing more. I’m as confused by this as you are.”
“What are we doing to do?” I whispered, sitting back down on the couch.
William sighed, ran his fingers through his hair again, and glanced at me. Earlier I’d thought I could read him like a book, but now he was a mystery to me. I braced myself for his answer, which I assumed would undoubtedly sound like something out of a horror movie. Therefore, when he spoke, his words caught me off guard.
“Before I tell you what I think, knowing what you know and having seen what I’ve shown you, do you trust me? Can you be alone with me?”
The fact of the matter was that I couldn’t trust this man, this monster. Hadn’t I just remembered he had killed me in a previous life? My first thought was there was no guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. And yet for some inexplicable reason, I knew he wouldn’t. Somehow, some way, I knew that would never happen. We were connected in unfathomable ways and now that I’d met him, I didn’t know if I could ever leave him, not when there was so much I didn’t know, still needed to learn. I got the impression he felt the same way. I was part of his story now and he needed to know why I’d come into his life this way as much as I did. Maybe even more.
I nodded my head in the affirmative, just barely, and pulled my knees to my chest.
“We only have another few hours,” he said.
Right, I thought with sudden clarity, vampires an
d the sun.
“If you don’t trust me, let me know now and I’ll leave you … forever.”
I felt my breath catch. Emotionally, I was already invested in him. I could tell myself I could walk away anytime, the lie was all well and good. But to hear him say it tore at my heartstrings. I’d only just found him and already he was talking about abandoning me.
I knew then I couldn’t go back to the person I had been. The bleak life I’d known had ceased to exist once he’d revealed his true nature to me. And I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he couldn’t go back to what he’d been either. We were connected, had always been connected. I didn’t think it too fanciful a notion that he’d been waiting for me across the ages as much as I’d been meant for him in this one.
“No, you can’t leave me,” I heard myself say. “I need you. I need to know who I am … who you are, but more than anything, who we were together.”
If I could convince him to stay with me just a little while longer, we could sit together in front of the fire in this expensive hotel in this glorious city, and he’d tell me our whole story. Finally, I’d understand why everything had come to pass.
I’ll finally know the real me.
William stood and settled in front of the fire, warming his hands again. He’d done that a lot tonight, I realized, and then I remembered vampires had cold skin. I was warm, flushed, and pink-cheeked from the heat of the room and the terror of the night, but William would always be cold to the touch. As I tried to remember everything I’d ever heard about vampires, the one universal truth came to me in a rush: their desire for blood.
Before I could stop myself, I gasped and closed my eyes against my next thought, only to remember the searing pain in my neck as William had bled me dry. I opened my eyes wide as I suddenly comprehended the danger I was in. The vigorous beating of my heart was a detriment to my health. More so than any plane, or out of control vehicle, or imagined killer lurking in the shadows ever would be. I’d spent my whole life afraid of everything, wondering when the reaper would claim me but I shouldn’t have been. Everything that had ever come before had led me to this one moment. Had led to straight into the path of the man who’d already taken my life once before.
I tried to steady my breathing and calm the erratic nature of my pulse. Another truth remained: predators loved their prey frightened, ready to bolt. I needed to tread very carefully.
“You are NOT going to kill me.”
The unspoken “again” lingered in the air between us.
“No, I won’t,” he promised. “I’m in control of myself ... now.”
I saw anguish there, the immense guilt he must have lived with and I understood he would never forgive himself for what had happened in that field in front of our home hundreds of years before. What I didn’t know was whether I came to this understanding of my own volition or if he put the thoughts there.
“You put those memories in my head before. Are you doing that now?” I crossed my arms over my chest as I narrowed my eyes at him.
He laughed, but the sound held no mirth. “Yes, I can communicate through your thoughts, but no, I’m not doing that now.”
“How does it work?”
“It’s easier when there’s a powerful connection between me and the human, but most vampires are telepathic in some form or another.” He shrugged, as if the knowledge was mundane.
I won’t hurt you Olivia, the thought came to me in his melodic voice.
I couldn’t say if it was because of our connection, or if I’d just become far too trusting for my own good, but I believed him—on all counts. I might know nothing of his current … habits … but I felt a complete certainty he would control whatever blood lust he might have, at least where I was concerned.
I also understood I was about to give my life over to a man who occupied a world that, until moments ago, had been nothing more than fairytale or nightmare, depending on your particular point of view. The future implications of my decision overwhelmed me. As I put my head to my knees, slowly breathing in and out to temper my nausea and dizziness, I steeled myself to choose which it would be: dream or nightmare.
“What do you want from me?”
“You don’t know?” he asked, an eyebrow raised, his eyes flashing blue.
Your complete surrender. Full acceptance of what I am. Your loyalty and fealty. Your body.
I wanted those things too but was hesitant to give in until I knew for certain what I could expect in return. He was desperate for me to trust him, but what did I want? Instantly I knew.
“And so I ask you in return, what do you want from me?”
A thousand filthy images burned in my brain, all the dirty ways he’d take me, how he’d make me scream his name as he impaled me on his stiff, massive cock.
“All of you,” I breathed out. “No secrets, no barriers,” I added more emphatically. What I didn’t say, couldn’t bring myself to share with him, was that I also wanted his love. Desperately. I’d felt it there when he’d shown me the life he and Ceara had led before that tragic night, how he had adored her, worshipped the ground she had walked on, and I wanted a tiny sliver of that love for myself.
“And my love?” he asked hesitantly, answering the question I’d had about whether he’d been rooting around in my head.
I swallowed and decided to be honest with him since he already knew what was in my heart. There was no use in prevaricating. “Absolutely, without reservation. I want to know what it was like, how you loved me … before.”
“Olivia,” he whispered, my name coming out as a warming. “I can’t ever love you like that, how I loved Ceara. It wouldn’t be fair to you. You’re not here.”
With shame and mortification, I dropped my head and stared at my hands, clenched tight in my lap.
“I don’t understand,” I murmured. “I thought I was her and vice versa. I thought that’s what you were telling me.”
He growled low in his throat. “I don’t know.” Then, more emphatically. “I don’t know.” He shot to his feet and stood with his back to me. “She was my life Olivia. Please understand.”
“How can I though? I have no idea what’s happening to me or why.” On a sob, I admitted, “I thought that’s why you showed me those things, why you made me feel what you had with her. So that you could have it again, with me. With her. Whoever the fuck I am!”
I dropped my head into my hands and cried out frustration, rage, confusion, unhappiness. Everything I was feeling came out in a torrent of salty tears. After several moments, I got ahold of myself and tamped those emotions down. I’d committed to this course of action and I was going to see it through.
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered. “It’s okay. I get it.”
I steeled my nerves for his response before raising my eyes to find him staring back at me, the silence enveloping and suffocating us like the air after a summer rainstorm—thick, heavy, and full of longing.
“I don’t know if I can love you like that, but I want you all the same,” he growled as he stalked forward. Standing scant inches from me, I felt his presence like the mystical being that he was, the essence of his power dancing over my exposed skin. Desire unfurled low in my belly and my gut clenched with expectation.
“Make love to me William. If you can’t love me, make love to me. I want you too, and if that’s all you can promise me, it’s enough. It’ll have to be enough.”
On a low growl, he dropped to his knees in front of me. Reaching out to caress my cheeks, his wide palms enveloped both sides of my face. “I’ll make it enough; I swear on my life. You’ll never want for anything.”
Just your love, I thought bitterly, as my body traitorously leaned into the caress.
“Take me upstairs,” I said, planting a kiss on his palm.
“Not here. Not in this sterile hotel, rank with the scent of a thousand other humans. I want you in my bed, in my home. Let me take you home, Olivia. I’ll make love to you and then I’ll tell you everything I know.”
My bewilderment evident; he sat back, removing his hands from my face, an action that left me bereft. “I’m sorry. Of course you won’t remember it as your home, not yet anyway. After … well, once I was in control of myself and realized what I had done, I needed to make amends. Fourteen years ago I began the process of rebuilding it—I restored our home.”
As if I hadn’t processed enough new information for one night, the comprehension of why I’d been obsessively drawn to his castle blindsided me.
His home was my home. I had lived and loved there. I had been happy there.
I closed my eyes and tried to grab on to some memory—anything that would give me some grounding—but found nothing. Castle Macauley had been mine because he had been mine. The home that lay in a fiery ruin in my vision was the same building he’d spent the several years restoring, the same building that had lain vacant for hundreds of years before that.
“How long do we have together?” I whispered. “Tonight,” I clarified in case William thought I was asking for forever.
Thankfully, he didn’t misinterpret my query.
“We can be there in an a little over an hour, and then we’ll have another three hours before I’ll need to ... sleep,” he said, struggling with communicating the particulars of a vampire’s life in a way that wouldn’t scare me 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.”
Resurrection: Part One of the Macauley Vampire Trilogy (A Paranormal Romance) Page 5