Amelia Elias - [Guardian's League 02] - Outcast

by Outcast (lit)

  Diego’s jaw tightened. “I don’t want her here,” he repeated, putting an arm around Sian. “Get her out, Eli, or I’ll take care of the matter myself.”

  “Fine. Consider her gone.” Eli pushed past the pair, holding onto his temper. Diego was concerned for his bondmate, a perfectly natural reaction for any male vampire, but Eli thought he was taking it a bit far. Still, he’d come back intending to take Renee away and there was no reason to make Diego uncomfortable any longer.

  He paused outside the bedroom door, needing to rein in his anger before he saw the fledgling again. It wasn’t the poor woman’s fault she’d been sired by an Outcast. It wasn’t fair that she should have to live with this prejudice, but there was nothing to be done about it. All he could do was teach her well and hope she was able to overcome it.

  But no matter what he told Diego, Eli was worried. Diego’s fears, much as they angered him, were not unfounded. Outcasts infected everything they touched and Eli had never heard of any new vampire sired by an Outcast who had not turned Outcast themselves.

  But none of them, Eli reminded himself grimly, had been adopted by a member of the League. Even if it was him, that had to count for something. With that thought in mind, he pushed open the door.

  The fledgling spun away from the window as the door swung open, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “You again!”

  “You’re better,” Eli managed, holding onto the doorknob.

  It was the understatement of the year. He was stunned by her transformation. Her face was no longer discolored by bruises, and he noticed for the first time that she was absolutely lovely. Instead of the swollen and pitiful woman he’d held earlier, he now faced an exotic beauty with high cheekbones, glowing skin, lips full and lush and made to be worshipped—the face of a goddess framed in waves of rich, dark hair.

  But it was her gaze that caught and held him. She glared at him with eyes the exact color of topaz, golden and flashing with temper. Her cheeks flushed at his bold stare and Eli tore his eyes away and stared out the window, searching for his composure again.

  The idea of keeping her with him, of training and teaching her, had seemed a hell of a lot simpler when she’d been battered and pitiful. Eli had absolutely no business thinking of topaz or worshipping when he looked at the fledgling he might have to destroy.

  Distance was the key. He had to keep his distance.

  She straightened and faced him furiously. “Perhaps you’d care to explain to me why I’ve been locked in here for the last hour?”

  Diego’s paranoia had clearly struck again. “This isn’t my home, and the owner didn’t want you wandering around while I was gone. He must have locked you in.”

  His explanation didn’t soothe her at all. “Let me go,” she demanded. “I refuse to stay another instant in a house with a man who thinks he’s a vampire. I won’t even give your ridiculous notion that you’ve turned me into one the dignity of a reply. You’re insane and you need help. Now let me go before I call the police!”

  It sounded like a speech she’d prepared for his return, but the anger behind it was real. He smiled, hoping to assuage her temper. “All right,” he said, and her shock at his easy acquiescence was obvious on her face. “But first I want to show you something. Come with me.”

  She paled and took a step back. “I’m not going anywhere with you, and I don’t want to see anything you could possibly show me.”

  Her thoughts were easy to read in the way her eyes widened and she gripped the blanket closer. Eli fought not to smile again. “Have no fear, little one. That is forbidden between sire and fledgling.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, but her crimson cheeks gave her away. “I don’t know what sire and fledgling even means!”

  Eli smiled and held out his hand. “It means I’m not going to rape you. Now that I’ve spoken plainly, will you come with me? If you still want to go after you see this, I won’t stop you.”

  Renee stared at him for a long moment, obviously debating. Then she squared her shoulders and walked across the room to stop a few feet from him, ignoring his outstretched hand. “I guarantee I’ll still want to go,” she told him, somehow managing to look down her nose at him despite his much greater height. “But to make you feel better, I’ll look at whatever it is you’re dying to show me.”

  “How very kind of you,” Eli replied with a little bow. He took her elbow through the blanket. “This way, if you please.”

  She sniffed at his sarcasm but let him lead her from the room. She was a prickly little thing, he thought as he steered her down the hall. Any other woman would have run screaming had she found herself in this situation, yet Renee stood wrapped in her blanket with all the dignity of a queen and made demands of him.

  He hid a smile. Dangerous she might be, but he couldn’t help but like her spirit.

  She didn’t balk until he opened the door and she saw the bathroom. “I don’t think so,” she said, stopping dead and resisting his gentle urging to enter.

  He shook his head in exasperation. “The mirror, you suspicious woman, I want to show you the mirror. What do you think I brought you here for?” She blushed again and he laughed. “Little one, the bathroom is not my idea of a romantic retreat. Haven’t I already told you such things are forbidden between us? Now come here—come on, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said in a tone he would have used to soothe a frightened animal. “If I wanted to hurt you, I had many chances before this.”

  Renee narrowed her eyes at him. True, he could have harmed her while she was unconscious if he’d wanted. She vaguely remembered his voice soothing her during the nightmare of pain the night before, just as she recalled him helping her to drink something a few hours ago. Whatever it was had made her feel even worse for a little while, but it had clearly helped her immensely. Now only a lingering soreness remained in her muscles and her headache had faded to a bearable level. He hadn’t done anything to hurt her, and yet…

  And yet every instinct she possessed screamed he was a predator. Deadly.

  Finally Renee made herself follow him into the enormous bathroom. It was larger than her entire bedroom at home, but she couldn’t spare her attention to admire it right now. Her skin tingled as she passed by Eli. She frowned, rubbing her arms, feeling like she’d brushed against the world’s largest battery. Some kind of…energy, electricity, something radiated from him like heat from a fire.

  Power, a hidden voice whispered to her. Vampire magic.

  She squelched the voice before it could freak her out even more. She couldn’t afford to lose her head and buy into his nonsense, but the goosebumps on her arms refused to go away. “You’ll let me go,” she said, stepping quickly away from him. “You promised. You’ll let me go after this.”

  He smiled gently at her and she wasn’t reassured. The man had a smile no smart woman would trust. “If you still want to go,” he agreed. “Yes, I’ll take you home if you wish. After this.” And he took her shoulders and turned her to face the full-length mirror on the wall across from her.

  Renee gasped and would have fallen had he not held her. “Easy,” he murmured in her ear. “Breathe, little one.”

  She couldn’t. She felt like she’d been hit in the gut with a sledgehammer. There in the mirror she saw Eli, his hands supporting—nothing. She was between him and the mirror, but she saw his entire form without interruption. There were two indentations in the plush carpet where she stood, but no feet.

  She had no reflection.

  Nothing at all.

  “How?” she managed to gasp, her heart pounding and head spinning. “How?”

  “You’re a vampire. You have to believe it. You can’t pretend it’s not happening. If you’re going to live, you have to believe.”

  His words, while spoken gently, hit her like body blows. “But—but you—I see—”

  He guided her to the vanity and eased her down on the little stool before kneeling beside her. “I am not a fledgling. You
, too, will learn to force a reflection in time. I’ll teach you.” As she watched his image suddenly vanished, the mirror now reflecting what looked like a completely empty room.

  Eli slowly reappeared, translucent at first, then solidifying.

  She finally managed to catch her breath, and with it, some of her reason. “It’s a trick,” she whispered. “It’s not a real mirror—it’s some kind of trick, a camera—”

  Eli rose with unnerving speed. One instant he was beside her and the next he was at the mirror on the far wall. “It’s no trick,” he said, and his fist shot out.

  Renee jumped as the mirror shattered. Only blank wall showed behind it.

  He picked up a piece of the broken mirror and brought it to her. She hesitated to take it from his hand, a hand which should have been lacerated by broken glass but was totally uninjured.

  “Bad luck,” she heard herself whisper as though from a great distance, noticing the palm-sized shard he held still didn’t reflect her. She took it gingerly, not wanting to cut herself, and tried to see herself as hard as she could.

  “Seven years isn’t long when you’re immortal,” he replied. “But it’s a chance we don’t have to take.”

  And before her eyes the broken mirror flew back into its frame, the shards rising up and falling seamlessly into place, the fractures in the glass melding into nothing. One hole remained about midway up on the left. Like a woman in a dream, she found herself crossing the room to fit the shard she held into its spot. A moment later the mirror was whole again, completely unmarked. Vampire magic, her inner voice whispered again, and this time she couldn’t ignore it.

  “Your old life is over. There is no going back. No one from your world will help you and right now I’m the only friend you have. I can teach you everything you need to know, but you won’t survive alone. Do you still wish to go?”

  She couldn’t answer. It was hard enough just to breathe, much less think. She slid to the floor and fought against a reality which couldn’t possibly be real. “You’re a vampire,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he agreed calmly. “As are you.”

  She shook her head. She remembered the searing pain of fangs ripping into her throat, the certainty that she was going to die, the agony of the Change. How could she inflict such things on others? “I can’t do this,” she told Eli, her voice shaking with terror. “I can’t—drink blood, I can’t kill people—I can’t do this!”

  He came and knelt beside her again. “You won’t kill,” he said, and she looked up at the sudden steel in his voice. His dark eyes were hard and cold as jet. “Killing is not a requirement of being a vampire, it is a choice. Should you choose to kill, I warn you now, I will slay you myself.” He paused to let his threat sink in before he continued in a much gentler voice. “And you’ve already drunk blood, though you didn’t know it at the time.”

  Her memory flashed back to the warm drink he’d given her when she’d been mostly asleep. It had given her violent stomach cramps, but she’d been too exhausted to call for help. She’d wondered if he’d poisoned her until she’d woken feeling much stronger. Had it really been blood? She covered her mouth but the nausea she’d fully expected to feel at the thought didn’t come.

  The thought of drinking blood wasn’t instantly repulsive. More than anything else, that terrified her, even if actually doing it had made her ill. “You didn’t give me blood. Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “How do you think you healed so quickly?”

  Oh God, he had. She shuddered. “Yours?”

  “Not mine.” Eli’s voice was suddenly several degrees colder. “Never mine.”

  Her body wouldn’t stop shaking. Renee wondered if she was going to faint. She wasn’t the fainting sort, but right now it would’ve been a relief. “But you gave me someone’s blood,” she whispered, still waiting for the nausea. “That’s—that’s just sick.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a vampire, whether you choose to believe it or not, and I simply gave you what you needed. It’s natural, not sick.”

  “Oh, God,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. He was silent beside her, letting her work through the shock. Finally Renee looked up at him, not trying to hide the tears in her eyes. “Why did you do this to me?”

  Eli touched her cheek gently. “To save your life, little one. Only to save you. If you would rather have died, I can grant your wish and I’ll make sure it’s painless.”

  She knocked his hand away before wiping her eyes impatiently. She didn’t know what to make of this man. One minute he was offering her help and sympathy, and the next he spoke calmly of killing her—and gave every impression of willingness to follow through. She didn’t know how to respond. “I wish you’d stop calling me little one. It’s insulting.”

  “I don’t mean it to be,” he said, smiling at the return of her temper.

  She sighed and looked back at the mirror, still empty but for his reflection. “This isn’t a bad dream, I guess. I’m really not going to wake up from this, am I?”

  He shook his head, wishing he could give her any other answer.

  Then her spine straightened and she met his eyes. Never in her life had she been a quitter and she wasn’t about to start now. “All right. Teach me, or whatever. I don’t want to die.” There was no way she’d calmly accept death, no matter how weird the alternative was.

  And this alternative gave new meaning to the word weird.

  “Good girl.” She bristled at the condescending words but he didn’t seem to notice as he rose and helped her to her feet. His eyes were almost kind as he looked down at her. “You’ve been reported missing to the police. I checked while I was out. You’ll have to decide what to tell your family and friends, but I would advise against seeing them for a while. At least learn how to feed and control your hunger first.”

  Renee winced. There was no one she could notify of what happened, no close friends in San Francisco since she’d only been here a few weeks. In truth, she was a bit surprised someone had reported her missing. She supposed she had family of a sort, but she didn’t imagine they’d miss her too much if she went missing. Her mother was gone and she’d seen her father twice since her birth.

  Eli frowned when she didn’t reply. “I’m not forcing you to stay,” he said. “You can leave at any time and I won’t stop you.”

  Leave? She almost laughed. Where would she go? For a moment she thought of trying to reach her father. When she’d been small, he’d always been too busy with his other children to care much about the one born out of wedlock, but surely he’d help her if she needed it. Wouldn’t he?

  She sighed. She was twenty-six years old, too old to go running to her parents when something went wrong. Besides, it wasn’t like her father had ever been a supportive part of her life. He’d be more likely to have her committed than help her out.

  She could just see it now. “Hi, Dad, I know you haven’t seen me since I turned eighteen, but I need a little help. See, I’ve developed this strange allergy to the sun, and don’t mind the teeth. I’m sure a good dentist can fix them—and would you mind robbing a blood-bank for me on a fairly regular basis?”

  It was almost laughable, only there was nothing funny about this situation. She looked at her hands instead of at Eli and forced herself to speak past the lump in her throat. “There’s nothing for me to leave for. No one who’ll miss me.”

  Renee pressed a hand to her forehead against a sudden surge of weakness. Her head throbbed miserably. Eli touched her temple and she jumped at the slight electric shock she felt at his touch.

  No, not electricity. It didn’t shock and it didn’t burn, but the sensation of power flowing into her was strong all the same. At once her headache eased considerably and her whirling thoughts calmed.

  “What now?” she asked, not looking up at him for fear of what she would see in his eyes and too wary of him to question how he’d eased her headache. She was fairly certain she didn’t want to know. As much as she still stru
ggled with the revelation that she was a vampire, she found she had absolutely no problem believing Eli was one. And it had nothing to do with his rather imposing appearance.

  “You’re weak. Your transition was difficult and your body hasn’t fully healed yet. You need to feed.”

  She shuddered at the thought. “I’m not sure if I can,” she whispered. And even if she could, she certainly didn’t want to.

  He guided her toward the door. “Instinct takes over when you need it,” he reassured her. “You won’t have any trouble.”

  She let him lead her out of the bathroom, hardly noticing where he took her. Her life as she’d always known it was over, he’d told her, and she knew it was the truth. She couldn’t go to her family. They didn’t know her well enough to believe her if she said she was a vampire, and she had absolutely no desire to end up in a padded room. Whatever future she was to have lay with this strange, powerful man, at least for now. There was nothing to do but trust him and hope for the best.

  Eli stopped suddenly and Renee looked up. Whatever she’d expected to see, it wasn’t a lovely, tall woman standing at the top of the stairs, holding a folded bundle in her hands and looking at her with pity and understanding in her clear blue eyes.

  Eli placed himself between Renee and the woman. “You shouldn’t be here,” Eli told her sternly.

  The woman shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You and Diego, you’re exactly the same. Don’t go into the north wing, don’t talk to the fledgling, don’t this and don’t that. Anyone would think I was a creampuff instead of a Slayer.” She snorted. “I never took orders well and I don’t intend to start now.”

  Brushing past Eli, she stepped to Renee’s side and took her cold hand. “I’m Sian Leonides,” she greeted her warmly. “Diego’s bondmate. This is our home, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome here.”

  “Th-thank you,” Renee replied, thrown off-balance. It hadn’t occurred to her to think she’d ever been unwelcome there, and if it was possible she suddenly felt even more uncomfortable. “I’m Renee Hardin.”