by Lisa Olsen
“How do you know so much about me?” I doubted Bishop knew what I liked to nosh on when I felt peckish. I only wished I could actually eat more than a taste of the macaroon. Solid foods and me equal non-mixy things.
“I know many things about you, petal. I watched you for a long time before I chose you for my own.”
“Okay, that’s… kinda creepy.” I took another sip. “Why did you choose me, by the way?” I already knew the answer though. “It’s because of Carys, isn’t it? Do I really remind you of her that much?”
Jakob drained his teacup, pouring out another to cool before he answered. “It was your resemblance that caught my eye, but in truth, you’re nothing like her.”
“Nothing like her as in good, or nothing like her as in bad?” If I wasn’t much like her, why did he still want me? Hadn’t he been crazy, jealous, insane in love with her, according to Bishop?
“As in very good,” he chuckled, and I breathed easier. “Carys was much more childlike for one thing, but she was only fifteen when I met her. She retained something of that childlike innocence even after all the terribly sordid things I exposed her to over the years. Your innocence does remind me of her to some extent.”
“Fifteen?” I gasped, and it took me a few seconds to remember back in the day she would’ve been considered a grown woman of marriageable age. At least, I thought so. “How long ago was that?”
“In… 1275 Wales. Carys was the eldest daughter of some minor nobility, I can’t even remember his name. There was a lot of warring going on back then, Lords were a dime a dozen, so that meant very little to me. Her father presented her to me like a gift, all wrapped in brocade and lace hoping to catch my eye… She caught my eye alright,” his smile curved as he thought back to that moment so long ago. “Of course I didn’t quite play into his plans for gaining my support in his petty wars. I simply took what I wanted and returned home.”
“What did Carys think about that? Did you give her a choice before you turned her?”
“No, I did not,” he sobered, taking a slower sip of tea. “She came around though. It was easy to keep her happy for the most part, as long as I kept her distracted.”
I opened my mouth to ask him how he kept her distracted, but thought better of it. The less I knew about the private details of a woman intimately involved with both of the men in my life, the better. “You were together a long time then?”
“More or less,” he shrugged. “It would amuse her to disappear for years or even decades sometimes, but she always came back to me.”
“You know you can’t recapture what you had with her through me though, right?” It needed saying.
Jakob picked up my hands and held them in his, his eyes holding me even closer. “Your passing similarity to Carys is undeniable, but I see the woman within well enough. It was your face that first drew me to you, but it was your soul that made me decide to spend an eternity with you.”
Pretty words, but still kinda creepy when you thought about it. “Eternity is a very long time. How can you make a decision about me like that without my input?”
Instead of answering my question, Jakob pressed a kiss to the back of each of my hands. “It’s time to go.”
“Go?” I blinked. “Go where?”
“To the next part of our evening,” he smiled mysteriously, throwing down a sheaf of bills to the table.
“Um… I thought this was it? You said coffee date.”
“Do you have some other place to be?”
I thought about the homework waiting for me and decided I could easily get it done in less than an hour. “No, I guess not. Where do you want to go?”
“Let me surprise you.” His eyes flashed with mischief, and I let him tug me outside, expecting him to hail a cab or to his car. Instead, we walked a few blocks hand in hand before catching a street car.
“You’re definitely surprising me so far,” I admitted, holding tight to the railing as the car lurched forward.
“You said no limousines,” he reminded me with a quick wink.
“Have you spent much time in San Francisco before or is this your first trip?” I remembered Bishop telling me no Ellri had set foot in the United States as far as he knew. Then again, Bishop didn’t know everything.
“I have been here before,” he admitted. “But it’s been quite some time since I’ve had occasion to stay. I’ve traveled along both coasts of these United States extensively.”
“I thought you were in hiding or something. How come no one knows where you’ve been for the past few hundred years?”
“One grows tired of pomp and circumstance. I found it preferable to drop out of society for a time.”
“Really? Because it feels like you might enjoy the whole adulation of the masses. No offense,” I added quickly. So far I found Jakob to be very different than the portrait Bishop painted of him. Sure he was a bit domineering and entitled, but I could understand that, given his position among vampires. But I saw no trace of the brutal possessiveness Bishop spoke of. So far, he’d been nothing but nice to me, if a little lax on boundaries.
“I prefer to travel light,” he shrugged carelessly. “Most of my staff here has no idea whom they serve.” I couldn’t help but laugh over that. “This amuses you?” he quirked a brow.
“I think your definition of traveling light and mine differ a little,” I grinned. I’d started to picture him tramping across the countryside with little more than the clothes on his back, but obviously he liked to do it with a bit more style if a staff was involved.
“Would you have it be just the two of us, petal?” Jakob wrapped an arm around my waist, enveloping me with his warmth. “It could be arranged.”
“Ah, don’t go counting your chickens before they’re hatched.” I ducked out from under his arm. “Are we there yet?” Deliberately, I put a foot of space between us, looking for the nearest street sign to tell me where the heck we were. I’d been so distracted, I didn’t realize we were so close to Fisherman’s Wharf. That couldn’t be where we were headed, could it? “Are we going to the wharf?”
“We’re nearly there,” he replied, taking my slight in stride. “In fact…” Jakob took the thin, pink scarf wrapped around my throat and pulled it free. “I think you must learn to trust me.”
“Trust you?” I took a half step backwards. “What do you mean?”
“Trust me, älskling,” he smiled, wrapping the scarf like a blindfold around my eyes. “I won’t lead you astray.”
“Oh sure, trust the big bad Ellri who wants me to run off to Rio with him.”
“Is that where you’d like to go?” he chuckled, low and intimate by my ear, and I shivered.
“You agreed to confine our date to the city limits, remember?” I replied, holding tighter to the railing as the car lurched to a stop.
“I remember. Come now, trust in me.”
Trust in me… Cartoon snakes sang in my head as I stepped off the bus, clutching at his arm to keep from keeling over on the uneven pavement. Was it pavement? After a few steps, the hollow ring of wood reached my ears, confirming my earlier guess we were bound for something on the pier. Jakob wrapped one arm around my waist, gently guiding me forward, the other arm available for me to latch onto. If the people we passed thought our game of blind man’s bluff was a little strange, no one commented on it.
Finally, we came to a halt and I felt him fumble at the knotted scarf. “Here we are,” he pulled the scarf away with a flourish and I blinked at the sign for Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Odditorium. Of all the places he could have taken me in the city, it was about the last thing I’d thought of. I expected maybe the Palace of Fine Arts or the San Francisco symphony, something riddled with culture and refinement. Don’t get me wrong, I love both of those places, I’ve been to them many times, but the quirky charm of the Odditorium was a welcome substitution.
“What do you think?”
I realized I’d left him hanging, waiting to see if he’d pleased me or not. “I think yo
u hit the nail right on the head,” I grinned. “I can’t think of a more casual, fun place to go on a first date. I have to admit, I’m a surprised you even knew about this place. Have you been here before?”
“I have not,” Jakob admitted, his smile stretching wide at my obvious approval. “I thought it would capture your interest though. Shall we?”
This time when he offered me his arm, I didn’t think twice about accepting it. Most people probably found it kitschy or even shabby, but I was fascinated by the display. Jakob didn’t mind at all that I wanted to read the little cards in their entirety at each exhibit. We saw shrunken heads (creepy), a poor Chinese girl with three inch feet (ouch!), the usual things like the world’s tallest man or ugliest woman, and some amazing works of art like a bust of Abraham Lincoln made entirely out of pennies. We giggled over a vampire killing kit and a wedding dress made out of toilet paper (eewh) and he seemed as baffled as I over some of the oddities of human society.
I got dizzy in the kaleidoscope tunnel, and was glad to escape to the relative normalcy of the mirror maze. Armed with the required disposable gloves, we entered the maze, and I immediately took off with a dorky laugh. Instead of chasing after me, Jakob stalked me through the maze. Slowly. Methodically. Rhythmic trance music blared through the sound system, distorting my senses. Every once in a while I’d turn a corner and catch his image, give a squeal of discovery, but it wouldn’t really be him, until I started to wonder who was following whom.
Confronted with his image when I turned a corner, I reached out to touch the mirror, my hand colliding with the man himself. Slowly Jakob advanced on me, a predatory gleam in his eye as he backed me up against the mirrored wall. This time I didn’t duck away when his body pressed close, I wanted to see what he would do. No clever quip, no endearments, Jakob’s mouth claimed mine, and I surrendered to the heady pull for once.
The feel of his gloved hands over my bare skin and the cool mirror at my back didn’t distract from the heat of his questing lips, so different after kissing Bishop. I could feel his pulse quicken with the contact and the throb of his blood called to me.
That’s the only way I can explain it. I felt his blood call to me. A sharp longing swept through me and I felt my fangs descend a little. All the reservations and frustrations I had about Jakob flew out the window as the powerful need took hold of me.
I wanted only him.
I needed only him.
“Get a room you guys.” The catcall came from a passing group of teens like a bucket of cold water and I felt a soft growl go through Jakob.
“Don’t you dare!” I whispered, catching hold of his arm before he could do or say anything to scare the bejeezus out of the guy, or worse. With visible effort, the tension left his body, and Jakob leaned down to take a softer kiss.
“Let us leave this place,” he growled again, nuzzling at my jaw.
“Do you mean the exhibit or something more permanent?” I pulled away, nervous again now that the spell he wove over me was broken.
“Stop this torment, älskling.” The frustration poured off of him in waves. “I can feel that you want me as I want you. There is so much more than this small corner of the world. Don’t you wish to see what you’ve only read about in books?”
For the first time I actually considered it. What would it be like to leave everything behind and travel the world with an intelligent, knowledgeable, sexy guy who claimed to be crazy about me with unlimited wealth as near as I could tell? I wouldn’t have to worry about school, or staying up during the day, paying the rent or avoiding police investigations that cropped up whenever I turned around.
My family would probably be safer with me out of the picture for a while too, and just think of the education I’d be getting. I could embrace my inner vampire and stop clinging to the human morals that pulled me in such opposite directions. Jakob could teach me control, or maybe in time, I’d learn to stop caring who I ate.
He’d lay the world at my feet. There’d be nowhere we couldn’t go and nothing we couldn’t buy. I could keep the famed treasures of the world in my pocket for my own particular enjoyment, or preside over the highest in vampire society like royalty. There were none higher in the social order than the direct progeny of the Ellri, I’d be an instant celebrity.
“Anja?” his outstretched hand pulled me out of my reverie as Jakob looked at me expectantly.
Chapter Nineteen
I couldn’t do it. At the end of the day that wasn’t who I was.
“I can’t. You seem really nice and I admit, I do feel an attraction to you,” (understatement!) “but I can’t leave everything for anyone right now, I have too much going on.” If Bishop had asked me the same thing, what would I have said? I shoved away that thought, the only thing it brought me was pain.
“Too much what?” Jakob pressed, and I could tell he wasn’t used to taking no for an answer.
“Everything,” I said vaguely, scrambling for something that sounded important in the face of what he offered without hurting his feelings. “School, for one.”
“What can school teach you that I can’t?”
He had me there. “Okay, but how can I leave when someone out there is picking off members of my family?”
“I vow, your family will have my protection at all costs. If this is all that stands between us, I’ll make the call now.” Jakob reached for his phone, but I caught hold of his arm with a shake of the head.
“That’s not all of it. I have to know how much of this is real and how much is a biological or even mystical bond just because you’re my Sire. I don’t know much about you.”
“Ask me anything you like.”
“Really?” I raised a dubious brow and Jakob took my hand, leading me from the maze and out into the cold night air.
“Ask me anything you like,” he repeated, keeping hold of my hand as we walked.
I liked that he was an open book, so unlike Bishop in that respect. “I um, I have a list.” Digging in my pocket, I pulled out my crinkled list and smoothed it out with one hand against my stomach. I glanced at him from beneath a veil of hair, looking for signs of disapproval or amusement, but Jakob waited patiently for me to ask my first question. “Okay then, tell me about where you’re from.”
“The Sogn district in Western Norway, in what is now known as the village of Vadheim. It lies deep inside one of the Fjords, one of the places left on this Earth where the water is still pure and full of life. Our people were Vikings of course, we lived a simple life.”
I nodded, my mind supplying a panoramic landscape with crystal clear water and snow tipped mountains from my memories of junior high history class. I could almost picture him there, wrapped in bearskins with a full beard and a silly hat.
“My mother was a simple woman too, and by that I don’t mean simple minded, she had simple wants and needs. She was strong and very beautiful. Her husband died during a raid, leaving her with two small boys. That’s when he found her.”
Caught up in the story, I couldn’t help but ask, “Who?”
“My father.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t actually know,” he admitted, his eyes taking on a faraway cast. “I only saw him once after my baby brother was born. I remember him being huge, bigger than any man I’d ever seen, though I was very small at the time.”
“And you really don’t know who he was?”
“Not which one specifically, no. But I’ve always had my suspicions.”
I stared at him wondering if I’d missed something. “Not which one what?”
Jakob dropped my hand, sketching a half bow. “You see before you a child of the Gods. My father was one of the Elder Gods of Asgard.”
“Shut the front door! You are not!” My mouth dropped open in disbelief. He had to be putting me on. I knew I was a pretty gullible person, but really? The son of a God?
“You doubt me?” Jakob looked offended, drawing himself back up to his full height. He sure had the stature of a d
emigod.
“Well… it’s not that I don’t believe you, but… come on… that’s… are you saying the god of thunder could be my grandpa?”
“I wouldn’t quite put it in those terms,” he replied, taken aback by my interpretation. “Have you never been told the origins of our race?”
“Sorry, before a few weeks ago I had no idea our race existed outside of fiction.”
He shook his head, tucking my hand back into the crook of his arm again as we resumed our stroll. “It’s said the Gods once walked among us, some as benefactors and some addicted to the worship of the simple people. They mingled with human women and their offspring were as demigods, powerful in their own right. Many stories are written of their exploits, some good, some bad, they held the strength of the Gods without the wisdom to control it.”
“I love mythology,” I grinned enthusiastically. “Greek mythology is my favorite, Hercules, Perseus, Andromeda… all those guys.”
“I speak of history, not mythology,” he shook his head in disapproval and I gave him a sheepish shrug. It seemed to mollify Jakob and he continued his story. “The time came when they discovered that by drinking blood they gained eternal life and unspeakable power, but with it came a terrible thirst and dependency on the blood of humankind. Great violence was committed and many of their number were destroyed, hunted down and killed by their brethren who rose in outrage over the atrocities committed. The surviving brothers became the Ellri, the original vampires. The Gods withdrew, never to consort with human women again for fear of creating a race of monsters.”
He kept saying they, but Jakob meant him. Jakob claimed to be the actual son of a god. I’d never heard of any connection between vampires and Viking mythology before, but then again, I had no idea vampires were real before I became one. “Wow, that’s quite a story. So you um… you were born the way you are?”
“No, I was not born the way I am,” he said quietly. “I changed when I first tasted human blood, much as you did.”
“But you’re alive…”
“Very much so,” he patted my hand with a smile. “But I’m not the same man as I was before I took that drink nearly three thousand years ago.”