Serafina and the Silent Vampire

by Marie Treanor

  “Well, neither can I,” Sera said dryly.

  “I think you underestimate yourself. You were the deciding factor last night. But in any case, Blair is purely secondary, a fringe benefit, if you like, to my offer.”

  “Why?” she asked again. And this time let him come up with his own answers.

  He said, “I find I want you to be safe. If you’re with me, I can keep you safe.”

  She blinked. “Why?” she asked for the third time. “What the hell’s so special about me? You obviously don’t give a shite about all those other people you’re feeding to your tame vampires.”

  “You know,” Smith said.

  “No, I fucking don’t.”

  “Sera, you’re my daughter.”

  Once, long ago, when she’d been very young, she’d lain awake at night imagining scenarios like this, when some kind, handsome man radiating security and happiness would come and claim her as his daughter. She’d dreamed of his sweeping her away from the institutionalized dullness of the home and from the hidden dislikes and cruelties of various foster homes. He’d even looked a little like Nicholas Smith. That was dreams for you.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not.”

  “You are. I found your birth certificate.” He shoved some document in front of her eyes. The letters danced illegibly. She snatched it from him, blinking until she could take in the words. Serafina MacBride. Her date of birth. Mother: Rebecca Frances MacBride.

  Rebecca.

  She swallowed and dropped the paper on the desk. “Father conveniently blank. Insert as required. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Why would I make it up?”

  It was a good question, but she was in no mood to play. “Because you’re insane? How should I know?”

  He leaned forward, all but peering at her. “You’ve never seen that before, have you? You didn’t even know her name.”

  “Why should I? I’ve never needed it.”

  “Weren’t you the least bit curious?”

  “Why? The only thing they ever told me about her was that she was dead.”

  “But you can talk to the dead.”

  She didn’t mean to laugh, but it escaped anyway, short and strident and derisive. “Only those I don’t—” She broke off and straightened, brushing past him, but he wouldn’t make it easy for her.

  “Only those you don’t love?”

  Not Mattie. Not George. And certainly not her mother.

  “I have no interest in my ancestry,” she said coldly. “I’ve made my own life.”

  “Then choose to throw in your lot with me. Please, Sera. We have a lot to catch up on.”

  Somewhere, she registered the genuine pleading in his voice, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.

  “Oh, you’re right there. Two children’s homes and five sets of crappy awful foster parents. So great catching up with you, Dad. Run along and play with your vampires.”

  There was silence. Then he said uncertainly, “They can’t all have been crappy awful.”

  “No,” she admitted. “I just didn’t like most of them, and the feeling was pretty much mutual. And of course, there was Mattie and George. They were great. But Mattie went and died, and they wouldn’t let me stay with George anymore because he was a lone male.” She wouldn’t, couldn’t, go into what this separation had done to the already devastated George, but she couldn’t prevent the images flashing into her mind of his slow deterioration, so obvious to her every time she ran away to him. And yet they wouldn’t let her look after him, comfort him.

  She kept the cynical twist to her lips and moved on. “So they gave me into the care of some other bastard who hit me and then charged me with assault. Happy days. So yes, thanks for bringing up the family connections, Nick, but frankly, I’d be more inclined to ally with Jack the fucking Ripper than my old dad.”

  It was more than she’d meant to say and far more than she usually let slip, but somehow, she felt bloody good spitting out the venom.

  “You hate me for not being there,” he said. “It wasn’t my fault, Sera. Rebecca dumped me, said she didn’t want me to have anything to do with the baby.”

  “Not surprised,” said Sera nastily.

  He sighed. “Look. I know I should have taken my responsibilities a bit more seriously. I was young. But we can start afresh now. I knew as soon as I saw you at my door that night. You must have felt it too. I recognized you, wanted to look after you. It’s not too late for me to be a father to you.”

  She almost laughed again. Instead, she turned and looked him in the eye. “My father’s dead,” she said deliberately. George, her only true father, had died years ago. She’d never had the courage to find out if his spirit would talk to her.

  “Then come for the money,” Nicholas Smith said softly. “Come for the fun of it. I suppose I can’t expect you to feel the family connection overnight.”

  “Oh, I feel it,” she murmured.

  Slowly, he stretched out his hand to her. “Do we have a deal, Sera?”

  She looked at his well-manicured fingers, his shapely, cared-for hand. She wanted to kick it upward, make him hit his own face. “I’m not always honest,” she confessed. “I’ve scammed people, taken money under false pretenses. But even I have standards. And trust me, Nick, you fall considerably below them.”

  His hand fell slowly to his side. “I’m sorry you feel like that.”

  “Funnily enough, so am I.”

  “You’re angry. You’ll change your mind later, I know, but for now… I need you to be safe, Sera.”

  She curled her lip, ready to retort, but her skin prickled, and she realized too late that it had been doing so for some time. There were vampires close by, and they weren’t Blair or Phil. A glance at the window showed her the light was fading. Thick cloud, an impending downpour had further darkened the sky. Even as she looked, a shadow, two well-wrapped-up shadows, jostled the glass door of Serafina’s, and two vampires came in. Ella and Jason.

  Sera bolted back to the desk that held her jacket and the sharpened wooden stake, but Smith was before her. As the vampires advanced, Smith held the stake in his hand. “Come, come,” he chided. “You can’t kill your client’s son, anyway.”

  “I can if it would save my client himself from the trouble,” she retorted. Jason looked at her without emotion and kept coming. She kicked out, and he dodged without difficulty. Ella moved closer.

  “They won’t hurt you,” Nicholas Smith assured her. “We’re just going to take you back to my house.”

  “No point,” said the voice she hadn’t expected. “I’d only come and take her out again.”

  Blair stood framed in the inner office doorway as if he’d just come from the flat. And yet she hadn’t sensed him there. It didn’t matter. The balance of power changed immediately. That was in Smith’s venomous glare, as well as in the sudden halting of the vampires. They might be in thrall to Smith, but they recognized a threat when they smelled one.

  As Blair strolled into the outer office, Smith seemed to issue some silent command, for the vampires began to move again, blocking off the way between Smith, Sera, and the shop door on one side and Blair on the other.

  Smith grabbed her wrist, “Run,” he commanded. She tried to shake him off but found herself being dragged inexorably toward the door. She kicked him in the kneecap, then brought her own knee up to connect with his groin. She missed only because he dropped her hand and leapt backward.

  “Sera,” he pleaded.

  “Fuck off.”

  Her crude command seemed to be all Blair needed. He leapt so fast she didn’t see him move. But Jason and Ella were flung to either side of the office, and he reached for Smith.

  Smith cringed as if he knew he was dead. His mouth opened, presumably to try to talk Blair out of it, but Blair didn’t wait. He lunged for Smith—and staggered backward as if he’d encountered a brick wall.

  He looked briefly stunned. So did Smith until Blair tried again from either
side and still seemed unable to cross some invisible line around him. Then Smith began to smile.

  “I didn’t think it would work on you,” he confessed. “I am truly invincible. You people should really consider your options more carefully. So long, Sera. You know where I am when you change your mind.”

  Jason and Ella picked themselves up and moved after him, giving the baffled Blair a wide berth. Ella was jerking her head, as if there was a crick in her neck

  “He’s used a protective spell,” Sera blurted as the door closed on them. “To make sure his own guys don’t turn on him.”

  Blair dragged his gaze from the window to Sera. “Well, that’s a pity. I’d just decided the best way out of this mess was to kill Smith. You‘ll have to do it now.”

  “I can’t kill the bastard,” she said bitterly. “He’s my father.” Her breath caught. “Or at least, he says he is.” Hope sparked, faint but definite. “He couldn’t have known how that would alienate me,” she murmured, “and he was hoping to get to you through me.” Eagerly now, she crossed the room for her bag and found her phone, swiftly scrolling down for Melanie’s number.

  “Mel, it’s me again. Listen, was my mother’s name Rebecca?”

  A brief silence, then, “Yes. Rebecca Frances MacBride. I thought you knew.”

  “I never asked. A child’s mother doesn’t have a name, does she? Another question, Mel. You know you said you didn’t know who my father was because my mother never told you?”

  “Yes.” Mel sounded wary.

  “Was that because she didn’t need to tell you? Did you already have a good idea?”

  Another pause. Then: “I might have guessed. I never knew for certain.”

  “Please tell me it wasn’t Nicholas Smith.”

  In the silence, Sera closed her eyes, let the pain batter her.

  “I’m sorry,” Mel said, barely audible. “I never liked him. I didn’t want it to be him. And I didn’t want him to influence you or—”

  “Good-bye, Mel.” She broke the connection and threw the phone on the desk. “Seems there are some things even your best friends can’t tell you.”

  ****

  Blair felt emasculated in some bizarre way. It had been a long time since he’d come up against any being stronger than him on any suit, and although he could see the funny side of it, being unable to so much as slap a puny and frightened human male was galling in the extreme. His damsel in distress however, seemed curiously unaware of her knight’s failure. In fact, she seemed to be lost in her own suddenly unpleasant world.

  After locking the front door of the shop, she marched through the inner office to the open door of her flat. “Lock it, will you?” she threw over her shoulder. Blair followed and locked the door behind him.

  From the top of the stairs, Sera turned and frowned down on him. “You were here all the time? Since I arrived this evening?”

  Blair nodded. He wanted to impress her by leaping up the stairs faster than she could see and be sitting on the sofa waiting for her. It might give one of them a kick, but right now, he doubted it would be Sera. She radiated distress like a warning beacon.

  “But I didn’t sense you. All I could feel was the echo left by the fact that you’d been here.”

  “I was hiding,” Blair told her, coming to stand on the top step beside her. His body stirred at her nearness. There was an instant when he knew she felt it too, when her pupils dilated and he smelled the sudden musky heat of her arousal. But she brushed past him as if irritated by her own reaction.

  “Hiding from me?” she demanded.

  “No. From Smith’s vampires. From Smith himself, if he can sense me as you can. I don’t want you caught in the crossfire when they try to kill me.”

  She scanned his eyes for a moment, then walked into the kitchen, throwing over her shoulder, “You really think they would?”

  “Kill me? Sure, if they could. If I don’t join them.”

  “Do you suppose Smith will let them kill me? If I don’t join him.”

  “No,” Blair said truthfully. “I don’t think he’ll let them. But he knows it’s a risk. Which means his spell only protects himself. How the hell do I break that?”

  Distractedly, Sera opened the fridge, rummaged briefly, and closed it again, only to begin the same process with various cupboards. “Why is there no food in the bloody house?” she exclaimed, slamming the final door.

  “Because you ate it all for breakfast.”

  For a moment, her eyes lightened, softened. “You made me breakfast,” she observed.

  “I had an ulterior motive. I need you to replace the blood I took from you as quickly as possible.” He took a step closer, touched the fine, blue vein in her neck with the tips of two fingers. “So I can take some more.”

  He felt her moist heat as lust surged in her. “This is perverse,” she said shakily. “Did you hypnotize me to make me like it?”

  At least she wasn’t denying that she had liked it.

  “No,” he said, caressing her throat. “Most people like it. If it’s done properly.”

  For no obvious reason, the soft tenderness in her eyes vanished. “Most people,” she repeated dully and slid away from his questing fingers. “Just another bite. Just another willing blood source.”

  “And a damned good fuck.”

  Her smile was bitter. “Is that meant to lift my spirits?”

  “I don’t know. It certainly lifted mine. What’s the matter, Sera? I was enough for you last night.”

  She spun away from him but not before he saw her eyes closing. “More than enough for me. Too much.”

  He followed her and put his arms around her. Ignoring her halfhearted push to free herself, he drew her back against his body and listened with pleasure to the drumming of her heart. She radiated some deep desperation that would make for intensely passionate sex. The jumble of her need and lust washed over him, urging him on. He buried his mouth in her hair, inhaled her scent, listened to the pumping of her blood.

  The vampire in him was already tearing her clothes off and pinning her to the wall. And yet he said, “There’s no food in the house. Let me take you out for dinner.”

  He had his reward in the stunned pleasure of her mind and expression. She turned in his arms, half smiling. “You don’t eat.”

  “No. But it’s damned sexy watching you eat.”

  “You’re weird, Blair.”

  He drew back his lip to reveal his fangs and she let out a shivery little laugh before slipping from his arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  He took her to a place Sebastian had gone on about during his last “state visit” to Edinburgh. Almost in the shadow of the castle, it was atmospheric and expensive, and Blair could see at once what had so appealed to the older vampire. With its thick, stone walls, low ceilings with dark, exposed beams and atmospheric lighting, the place looked and felt medieval, almost gothic—a fitting setting for ancient, dangerous beings to wine and dine their prey.

  Blair’s prey, Serafina, looked suitably impressed as she took her seat opposite him at the corner table by a window. Casually gorgeous in a fresh pair of jeans and a sexy red top that hugged her breasts and flowed elegantly beneath them, Sera gazed around her and accepted the menu from the waiter with a quick murmur of thanks.

  “Blair, I can’t afford this,” she hissed after scanning the menu.

  “You don’t need to. And if it ruins me, I’ll just arrange a loan with my banking colleagues.”

  She glanced up at him curiously. “How do you pay for things? What do you live off?”

  “My wits,” he said blandly.

  “No wonder you’re poor.”

  “Cheers.” In fact, he rarely needed money, but he doubted she would approve of his method of helping himself to whatever he required. “What sort of wine do you like?”

  It was certainly easier in this age of sexual equality to order in restaurants. Sera ordered for both of them, including the wine he chose, while he sat back in the s
hadowed corner and watched her. He liked to look at her when she was unaware of him, see the play of expressions across her beautiful, vital face. He made conversation, just to watch the effect of her thoughts on her face, but ended by paying as much attention to what she said, because it nearly always amused or interested him. She had no shortage of opinions, some of them charmingly naïve, others world-weary and cynical. A woman of fascinating contradictions.

  “What about the girl who works for you?” he asked once. “Jilly.”

  “What about her?”

  “She’s very protective. In fact, they both are. They came up this afternoon to warn me off.”

  Sera grinned. “Did they really?” She shrugged. “It works both ways. We watch each other’s backs.”

  “You and Jilly against the world? And Jack, when you let him.”

  “Something like that.” She hesitated, twisting her wineglass between her slender fingers. “Jilly had a hard time as a kid. Worse than me. We never talked about it—still don’t. But we both found we could bear it in alliance. We even discovered fun. What do you do for fun, Blair?”

  He waited until the waiter had placed the fillet steak in front of her and watched her inhale the delicious smells before cutting into the meat and placing a morsel into her mouth. Then he said, “I watch you eat.”

  “That’s a new hobby. A week ago, you didn’t know I existed. Mmm, this sauce is so good!”

  He played with the salad he’d ordered to look “normal,” pushing leaves and tomatoes around with his fork while he contemplated licking sauce from her thighs.

  By the time she’d eaten pudding, he was so hard he could barely stand up to go to the bathroom. Fortunately, he discovered a young man there washing his hands. It had to be quick and clinical, so he simply seized him, stared at him to prevent the startled shout already forming in his throat, and bit into his flesh. The blood was a relief; the old, familiar pleasure kicked in as it always did. But it was easy to stop, easy to close the wound and release the boy from his trance with a quick apologetic grin, as if he’d just bumped into him by accident. No regrets, no desire for more. His blood wasn’t Serafina’s.