It was getting very dark by that point, and the lights Ella assumed were supposed to keep the dam as light as day were inexplicably off. The only light she had to follow was the light from the few stars in the sky. She could hardly see the door that had been built into the side of the rock. Then again, it hadn’t been built to be seen.
She doubted that more than a handful of people ever noticed it, and the ones who did almost certainly assumed it was some kind of a maintenance entrance. It’s exactly what she would have assumed, under more normal circumstances. But her current situation was anything but normal, and a moment after Reagan rapped on the door (and why on earth would he want to do a thing like that?), a little metal slot slid open, revealing a suspicious looking set of unnaturally bright eyes.
“What is it?”
“Reagan.”
“I didn’t say who, I said WHAT?”
“Stop it, Michael. You know who I am. Open the door, unless you’re looking for trouble.”
“Alright, fine. I’ll open the door. For you. But not for her.”
“You’ll open the door for both of us, and you’ll do it quickly. I’m beginning to lose my patience. That won’t go well for you. I seriously doubt Gabriel will be pleased to hear the way you’re behaving with his patrons.”
“But she’s not like us.”
“Don’t whine,” Regan scolded in a cold voice that was both startling and strangely hot, “it’s childish. Open. The. Door.”
The authority in that voice was impossible to ignore, and the man behind the iron door opened the door grudgingly, muttering under his breath as he did so. Ella had a moment to feel terribly out of place and to think that she might rather not continue with this date at all, and then the door was open enough for her to see inside. That opening of a door changed her entire life. It changed her world in ways she would never, ever want to be changed back again.
“After you, my dear.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure it’s alright?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. That man didn’t seem too thrilled.”
“What the man seemed is neither here nor there. He doesn’t get to choose whether or not you come with me. It’s a very exclusive club, that’s true, but one I happen to be a member of. We can leave if you like, of course we can, but it’s a place I’d like to show you if you’re up for it.”
“OK. I’m up for it.”
Reagan smiled and led her down a terribly narrow staircase carved straight into the rock. There were no railings and the stone beneath her feet was so slippery that with each movement she made, Ella was sure she would plunge all of the way down the stairs and break her neck or split her skull open.
Those were the things she was worrying about, despite her telling Reagan she was up for anything, and so when she spoke that sentiment, her voice came out in more of a squeak then anything resembling human speech. Then she actually did start to slip, her nagging fear realized, but Reagan caught her before she could go much of anywhere.
His arms were strong and sure, his body easy and relaxed despite her obvious tension. He smiled at her, and after making sure she was solidly on the floor, kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“Remember, Ella. I’ll always catch you. For as long as you want me to, I’ll make sure I’m there to catch you.”
She nodded, and the two of them continued to descend down the stairs. Once at the bottom, she gasped. What she saw before her was amazing. It wouldn’t have been amazing in different circumstances, but given their current location, Ella was pretty much stunned. It was a bar. There was a bar at the bottom of the Hoover Dam. But how was that even possible? How could something like that even exist without everyone on the planet knowing all about it?
Unless it was one of those mega exclusive, members-only kinds of things. Those kinds of establishments could afford to be unheard of. They were the places where every member was rolling in dough and could pay enough dues to keep the place going for centuries, if that’s what they wanted to do.
Ella wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but she figured that had to be it. It was the only thing that made any sense to her. What didn’t make sense to her was how perfectly beautiful everyone in the club was.
She would have been convinced that they were all movie stars if it hadn’t have been for the fact that she didn’t recognize any of them. Even with that being true, she was half-convinced they were all indie stars she just wasn’t cool enough to recognize. How else could there be so many freakishly good looking people all in one place?
Freakishly good looking people who were all staring at her with looks ranging from curiosity to outright disdain. Ella looked down at herself and quickly came to the conclusion that she stuck out like a sore thumb. Awesome. Just perfect. Just when she was starting to feel more like herself than ever, she had to confront a room full of people who were all too pretty to live.
That had to be why they were looking at her, right? She couldn’t think of any other reason, unless there was something on her face that she just didn’t know about. But Reagan was walking her towards the bar as if there was nothing at all out of the ordinary. She followed him willingly enough, but she was feeling terribly uncomfortable and out of place.
Reagan ordered her a glass of champagne, but ordered nothing for himself. Come to think of it, almost nobody in the whole place was drinking anything and the ones who were had all opted for silver goblets of deep, dark red wine.
The bartender handed her drink over willingly enough, but he didn’t take his eyes off of her. It wasn’t really in an admiring, appreciative kind of a way, either. It wasn’t exactly a what the hell are you doing here kind of a look, but to Ella it seemed close. She felt like she was an animal in a zoo, which was something she was not at all familiar with.
She had made a lifetime of blending into the background of her own life and to all of a sudden be the center of attention was pretty jarring, to say the least. She was doing her best to roll with it, but it was hard. And she didn’t want to ask Reagan about it, either, because she didn’t want to come off as too crazy or insecure.
So she drank her glass of champagne and tried to pretend that she didn’t see the looks she was getting. The more she looked around her, though, the less she thought about her own place in the bar and the more she gawked at the people around her. They were definitely more interesting than worrying about the amount of attention she was getting, that was for sure.
She watched their sparkling eyes, the way their hair gleamed in the light. She watched the way they laughed and spoke to each other in hushed tones, the beautiful yet at the same time unnatural hue of their skin. All of them had the same sort of skin as Reagan. Each of them had that alabaster skin that never seemed to flush or color in any way.
It was skin that made them look more like statues than human beings. Actually, come to think of it, these people reminded her of statues in more than one way. They could stand perfectly still, so still that they didn’t look like there was a breath in their body. Then, all of the sudden, they would move so quickly she couldn’t even see it while it was happening.
It reminded her of some kind of fantastic special effects in a movie, except that she wasn’t watching a movie. This was real life, and it was definitely starting to feel stranger than anything made up could ever be. And speaking of strange, whatever wine these people were drinking was much darker than anything she had ever seen before.
It wasn’t like she was a connoisseur or anything like that, but she had seen enough to know that what was being served was unusual at the very least. The look of the thick (and speaking of weird, since when was wine thick?) red liquid on their lips was jarring, unsettling for some reason.
At first she couldn’t quite figure out why, but the longer she looked at them and the more champagne she drank, she got an image in her mind she just couldn’t get back out again.
“Blood.”
“What was that?”
If Ella had learned anything in her brief amount of time in Las Vegas, it was that it was a city where the impossible went right ahead and happened whether it was supposed to or not. And anyway, Reagan was just looking at her now, waiting for her to repeat herself. Maybe it would have been best if she had just shrugged him off and pretended that she hadn’t said anything to begin with, but she thought better of it.
There was no point in lying to him. She knew without having to be told that he would be able to see right through that. So instead of lying, she plucked up her courage, lifted her chin, and repeated herself.
“Blood. What they’re drinking. It looks like blood.”
“Does it?”
“Yes, it does.”
Reagan looked at her levelly, looked at her like he was waiting for something. And he was. Waiting for her was exactly what he was doing, Ella realized, waiting for her to come to the truth of where she was and what she was witnessing without him having to spell it all out for her.
Because she did know. She knew what she was looking at, and she realized in that moment that she had known all along. The unnaturally cold skin, the marks he had left on her neck after their first night together. Jen, Pamela, and Kristy had all assumed it was a hickey and called it a day, but Ella had known it was more, known it meant more.
Even the way Reagan spoke was a clue as to his true nature. There was, more often than not, just a hint of the old fashioned in the cadence of his voice and the words he chose. Because he was older than her, and not just by a couple of years. When Ella said that Reagan was older, she meant OLDER. By how many years she couldn’t begin to guess.
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Is what? I can tell you if you like, Ella, but I think it’s better if you come to it on your own. Remembering that you’re safe. You’re safe with me, from me, and when you’re with me you’re safe from everything else, too. Everything and everyone.”
“Blood. They’re drinking blood. This isn’t just some swanky club for rich, pretty people. It’s-it’s...”
“Yes?”
“Vampires? That’s it, I’m right. It’s vampires. They’re all vampires. And you.”
“And I?”
“You’re one of them, too.”
Ella half expected to feel like a complete idiot as soon as the words escaped her, but with a dull shock she realized that wasn’t at all what she felt. Instead, she felt as though she had finally discovered the answer to a riddle that had been plaguing her for quite some time. This was what she had felt about him from almost the minute their eyes had met. She had known he was different. He was beautiful, but also an old soul, if he had a soul at all.
But it was more than THAT, too. She had known because he had wanted her to know. She had known on some primal level and, despite that knowing, there had been nothing on the planet she wanted more than him. She had walked into the arms of something many people would call a monster and she had done it with a smile on her face.
It was something she thought a great many people would have been horrified by, and with good reason. Any person in her right mind would be scared shitless by the idea of being underground with a bunch of things that would gladly suck her dry.
So then, why wasn’t she? Why wasn’t she out of her mind terrified at this point, trying to think of any excuse at all to get her above ground and back to the land of the living? It didn’t make any sense, seemed to go against all of a person’s biological instincts, but she didn’t have any desire at all to make a run for it. If anything, she felt better. She had known since the very beginning that there was something more to Reagan that he was letting her see.
Not knowing what it was had driven her crazy. She thought it must be that way with a lot of people. Not knowing what was really going on with a person or a situation was a perfect breeding ground for all kinds of wild speculations, none of which were comforting in the least. Now that she knew what was really going on, she felt just fine.
It didn’t matter to her that he was a vampire. Even if it should have, it didn’t. She was just glad and slightly in awe that he had chosen her. She was also stunned by how deep the connection she felt to him really was. Somehow, knowing what Reagan was and that it wasn’t something most people would even consider to be a real thing made that connection feel more serious. Even though the situation she found herself in was totally unreal, her ties to Reagan were feeling more real than ever.
“Ella.”
Ella’s eyes flew to Reagan’s face, but she saw that he hadn’t spoken to her. His mouth was shut, and he was looking at her intently, a serene, impassive kind of a look on his face. Only that didn’t make any sense! She knew Reagan’s voice, and that was what she’d just heard. Just what in the hell was going on here?
“Ella, try to stay calm. You’ll call too much attention to yourself, and it won’t be good. It will make things...difficult.”
Ella’s eyes hadn’t left Reagan’s face since she had first heard him call her name, so now she was sure. He was speaking to her, but his mouth wasn’t moving. Was she going crazy or something? Was learning the things she had learned just too much for her to handle? She felt panic begin to rise up inside of her like fire and she knew that very soon, she really was going to freak out. And no, it would probably not be good.
“Ella!” The voice came more urgently now, Reagan’s eyes practically burning her with their intensity. “Ella, please listen to me. It’s inside of your head. I’m speaking to your thoughts. Please, try to calm yourself. I’m sorry that I put you in this position. It was a mistake. If something were to happen to you…”
“Can you hear me as well?”
“Yes.”
“You can hear me the same way you would if I were actually talking to you?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Is it because you’re a vampire?”
“I suppose it is.”
“So we’re like, having a conversation with our minds right now? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“It is indeed.”
“I’m not gonna lie, that’s pretty freaking cool.”
Reagan’s serious expression broke and he smiled, then laughed a laugh that sounded like the sweetest music to Ella’s ears. He pulled her in close to him, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her on the forehead.
“You know something, my dear? You’re something. You really are something.”
And for maybe the first time, she felt like she was really something.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was becoming increasingly difficult for Reagan to let her go. Not that he thought of her as a possession or anything. He might have been a monster, but he wasn’t that breed of monster. It was just that being with her, being near her, made him feel as close to whole as he expected one of his kind could ever feel.
He was convinced now, completely convinced that the legends of vampires finding their one true mate wasn’t a bunch of bullshit fiction, after all. They were real. He should know, shouldn’t he? He was experiencing them first hand. All thoughts of following in the footsteps of so many of the ancient ones before him were completely gone.
For the first time in a long while, maybe in his entire life, he had a real something to live for. He didn’t care if it was conventional or convenient. All he knew was that he wasn’t about to let it go. As long as she wanted him around, he was going to be there.
And that was the most astounding part of the whole thing, wasn’t it? The fact that she still wanted him there? Even after making the decision that he was going to show her exactly what he was, he hadn’t been convinced that she wouldn’t run away from him as fast as her legs could carry her. He wanted to believe that she wo
uld stay, but he just hadn’t been sure.
Although Reagan rarely admitted to being afraid, that thought was enough to do the trick. It was more than fear. It was something very close to terror and it made him feel utterly stuck between a rock and a hard place. It was a saying he hadn’t ever really understood the point of, but he did now. Neither one of his options seemed like a great idea.
The first option was that he keep his identity to himself. That would be the safe play, but it would also mean that Ella never really understood him. It also, at least as far as Reagan could see, made it much more likely that she would pack up at the end of her girls’ weekend and go back to Austin. He knew how things would go if that happened.
They would make promises to each other to keep this thing between them going, and more quickly than either of them would have imagined possible they would lose touch completely.
Then there was his second option, which was to reveal to Ella his true nature. That presented a whole other host of problems, although it was certainly the more exciting of the two choices.
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