Ward of the Vampire: Complete Serial

by Kallysten

  How could he be so stubborn! It had to be a vampire skill; there was no way anyone human could be so stubborn.

  “They were accidents, Morgan.”

  His head whipped back toward me. His eyes were blazing.

  “So what if they were? They’re still dead. I’m still responsible. Why do you want so much to add your name to theirs? Don’t you think my heart has been torn up enough as it is?”

  My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach, and I was suddenly speechless. There was nothing I could answer to that, was there? And even if I’d found the words, Morgan didn’t give me the chance. He stood and walked back inside the house. I thought about following him, but I figured I’d give him—and myself—a few moments to calm down. I approached the balcony railing and leaned against it, looking out at the ocean and trying to let it appease me. It might have worked better if the sky hadn’t been dark and heavy with the promise of a storm, the water gray like lead and tumultuous.

  After only moments, Morgan appeared on the beach. He’d apparently had the same idea I did. He walked close to the water and sat in the sand, his back to the house. I didn’t need to see his face to know how upset he was.

  It hadn’t been my intention to upset him, but I guess I should have realized it would happen. Besides, wasn’t that what always happened when we had a serious talk? Didn’t someone always end up upset? Didn’t he always leave rather than finish the conversation?

  Not this time, I told myself as I stood. We had to talk it out. I joined him on the beach.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, sitting in the sand next to him, close enough that our shoulders were pressed together. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  He sighed deeply. “That’s fine. Let’s not talk about it again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, “but I think we have to. I need you to—”

  “Oh, Angelina, come on!”

  He scrambled to his feet, and I have no doubt he would have walked away from me again if I hadn’t managed to get a hold of his hand. I held it in both of mine. He could easily have pulled free, I’m sure, but all he did was give me an impatient look.

  “No, please, listen to me,” I begged. “Just listen and tell me if I’m wrong, all right?”

  He looked down at me for a few seconds, his eyes as tempestuous as the ocean behind him. Finally he gave the tiniest of nods. Hopeful that he wouldn’t run off now, I let go of his hand. He drew a battered pack of cigarettes from his pants pocket and lit one, using the lighter I’d given him for Christmas. Seeing that lighter gave me a little more hope.

  “Melody,” I said, and was not surprised when he drew in a sharp breath. “When it happened, you were young. Very young for a vampire. Weren’t you?”

  He didn’t reply, blowing a huff of blue smoke into the wind.

  “What did Irene call it?” I insisted. “New blood, wasn’t it?”

  His eyes hardened a little more if that was possible. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Everything. Couldn’t he see that? How could he not?

  “You hadn’t learned control yet,” I pointed out.

  “I’d had thirty years to practice,” he snapped.

  I watched him pace in front of me and wanted to draw him back at my side, but he looked too agitated to be contained, and I didn’t dare reach for him again. It wasn’t that I was afraid. Not at all. If I’d been afraid, I wouldn’t have been asking for this. I could see how much I’d put him on edge, and I meant to keep pushing; I had to let him have something, and his pacing and smoking was it.

  “But how good were you?” I pressed on. “Irene said some of her control passed to you. How much of it?”

  “I don’t see how that matters.”

  That, at least, was easy to believe. He really couldn’t see my point, could he? Blinded by guilt, deaf to the words of those whom he considered as guilty as he was, numbed to love… Miss Delilah and Irene hadn’t just needed someone who was his type. They’d needed a human, someone who stood on the other side of that predator and prey line, so the absolution wouldn’t be self-serving.

  “It matters because, by vampire’s standards, you were a kid, right?” Had Irene known I’d need to know this to try to get to him? Was that why she’d come to the mansion? “And you didn’t have as good a grasp on what you are as you do now,” I concluded. “Correct?

  “I suppose that was true four centuries ago,” he admitted grudgingly. “But that was hardly the case twenty years ago.”

  “Right.” I had to roll my eyes at how utterly unyielding he was. Couldn’t he see that I was trying to help? Without my consent, sarcasm crept into my words. “You had a complete and absolute grasp on yourself, on your actions and feelings when memories of killing a woman you’d loved flooded your mind to the point of making you black out. I wonder why I couldn’t see that earlier.”

  Morgan stopped pacing and stared at me with a look of outrage, the half-smoked cigarette forgotten in his hand.

  “You think this is funny?” he snarled.

  “No,” I said, more softy now. “I really don’t.”

  I stood, and I wavered a little, my footing unsteady on the shifting sand. He helped me by clasping my elbow. He was mad at me, but I hadn’t lost him. Not yet.

  “I think it’s the most tragic thing I’ve ever heard,” I continued. “But it wasn’t. Your. Fault. The reason you killed her was you were out of your mind. Literally. What’s the likelihood of that happening again? Do you think you have other dark secrets waiting to burst to the surface?”

  “No,” he said, all but biting the word. “I don’t.”

  He sounded absolutely sure of himself, and I thought I understood why.

  “You asked Irene, didn’t you? You asked her if she’d compelled you to forget anything else.” At his small nod, I couldn’t help adding, “Now that must have been some conversation.”

  The shadow of a smile brushed against his lips.

  “More like a shouting match,” he said grimly. “I even threatened to kill her. That’s… a big no-no. Killing your maker is the biggest of our taboos, but just saying the words is still pretty high on the list of ‘thou shalt not’ commandments new bloods are taught as soon as they rise.”

  I could see another way of attack opening to me. Could this angle make him see the light?

  “Did you threaten her about me?” I asked, laying my hand on his face where, two months earlier, angry slashes had appeared on his skin. “When she clawed your face, was it because of an argument you had about me?”

  He covered my hand with his and led it to his mouth so he could lay a kiss in the center of my palm.

  “Something like that,” he said after he’d let go.

  I can’t deny I felt a little stunned. He’d just said threatening their maker was something vampires didn’t do, but he’d done it. For me.

  “Oh,” I said in a small voice.

  Arching up on my bare toes, I rested my hands on his shoulders for balance and leaned in close so that my face was only a couple of inches from his. I looked into his eyes for a few seconds; they were as dark as ever, but I’d long since lost my fear of falling and losing myself in them. I closed the distance between us and pressed a chaste, gentle kiss to his lips. I pulled back again without either of us trying to deepen things, and laid my head on his chest. Immediately, his hand was at the back of my head, his fingers threading through my hair.

  “So…” I struggled to find my words. I couldn’t let it go so easily. “You’re ready to break the biggest taboo of all for me, but you won’t trust yourself to bite me.”

  Morgan’s chest moved against me as he heaved a deep sigh.

  “Are we still talking about this?” he asked, grumbling.

  “Yes, we are.” I wrapped my arms around him. “Do you want to know why? Because I trust you. I have complete and absolute faith that you won’t kill me. And you deserve to know you’re a good man. Not a monster. You deserve to be able to trust yourself.”


  When he pulled back, I thought he’d try running from me again, and I clung to him. All he wanted, however, I soon realized, was to look at me.

  “You do mean that, don’t you?” he murmured. “I look into your eyes, and I can see how much you mean it.”

  “I do.”

  Was this progress? I wanted to believe it was.

  “But I don’t understand why.”

  “Yes, you do,” I said, gently chastising. “I’ve told you why. You always refuse to believe me, but it’s still true. Stopping me from saying it doesn’t change that.”

  “Go ahead, say it,” he said in such a neutral tone that he might as well have given me permission to use his phone or, I don’t know, take his car for a ride. I tried not to let his nonchalance affect me.

  “I love you,” I said. “I know who you are, I know what you’ve done, and I’m telling you. I love you. I only wish you could believe me.”

  “I do believe you.”

  Such a nice admission, but why did he have to spoil it by stepping out of my embrace?

  “I believe you, but I can’t be that close to someone again. Surely you must understand—”

  I didn’t let him finish. “You think we weren’t close last night?” I asked, feeling a little stung.

  I thought the shake of his head was an answer to my question, but his words made me wonder.

  “Why do you always ask so many questions, Angelina?”

  “Why do you always dance around the answers?” I shot back.

  He turned his back to me with a muttered, “I need to go,” that turned my blood to ice.

  “Go where?” I asked, sounding more needy than I felt comfortable with. I crossed my arms and tried to sound reproachful instead. “Are you running away again?”

  “I’m not…” He sighed and raised his gaze to the sky. “Getting blood here is more complicated than in New York,” he said. “I’ll be back late. You can take the car and go explore if you want.”

  But exploring paradise held little attraction if he wasn’t with me. I wanted to ask to go with him, but my insistence about the biting thing had unsettled him, and I figured it’d probably be best if I gave him space. Still, watching him leave wasn’t pleasant. He did look back to give me a small wave, and that small gesture made me feel a little better.

  If you can believe it, my day only got worse from there.

  *

  Morgan had said he’d be back late, and that much was true. I was in bed when he came back, although I wasn’t sleeping, just dozing, waiting for him to return. He sat on the bed next to me and leaned in, pressing his face to my neck. For a brief moment, I thought that was it, he was going to bite me, but all he did was brush a kiss to my pulse point.

  “Can we not talk about this?” he whispered. “I just want to be with you.”

  I’d have been hard pressed to refuse when he sounded like that, almost… No, there was no ‘almost’ about it. I’d hurt him. I’d awakened painful memories and hurt him. It didn’t matter that all I’d wanted was to help him get past those memories.

  “Okay,” I whispered back, and turned my head to find his lips.

  Far too soon he pulled away from me, ending the kiss rather abruptly. He looked at me with widening eyes then asked, harshly enough to startle me, “What did you do?”

  At a loss as to what he meant, I didn’t reply and only stared at him. A horrified expression settled on his face as he sat up, took hold of my hands, and turned them in his, inspecting my wrists.

  “Did you hurt yourself?” he asked, anger growing in his voice. “Do you think that’s going to make me change my mind?”

  His hands were becoming a little too rough, a little too tight. I tugged myself free.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, confused.

  “I’m talking about your blood.” He all but glared at me. “If you think I can’t resist the smell, you’re wrong. Hurting yourself won’t get you anything.”

  Understanding hit me like the proverbial anvil. I wasn’t sure whether to be angry, amused, or mortified; I probably was all three.

  “Huh. Okay.” I shook my head and made a point of rolling my eyes. “I don’t know what’s more disturbing. That you’d believe I’d hurt myself over you or that you couldn’t think of one other reason why I might be bleeding. For the record, I wouldn’t try to trick you like that. For one thing, hurting myself over a man doesn’t sound all that healthy to me. And for the other, do you really think I’d try to manipulate you like that?”

  He knelt on the bed next to me, emotions flickering over his face until his expression settled on something I’d have called ‘flabbergasted.’ It was a rather odd expression on him, one I’d never seen, and despite myself, I couldn’t help but feel a little mollified.

  “No, I…” He tilted his head, frowning. “That’s all you were talking about earlier, so I… But then why...”

  I could tell the very moment he understood, and felt heat flooding my cheeks. I cleared my throat.

  “Right. So. Now if you’re done accusing me of doing silly things, I’ll go back to sleep if it’s all the same to you.”

  I settled down again, hyper-aware that Morgan had stood. He turned off the light in the bathroom, and I heard him move around the bedroom; undressing, I thought. Soon, he climbed into bed and molded his body to my back, curling an arm around me and pressing a kiss to the nape of my neck. I tensed a little, unsure if he’d try to push things further. He didn’t.

  After a long while, he said very quietly, “I don’t want to argue with you, Angelina. Can we not argue about this anymore?”

  I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to lie to him. Of course I didn’t want to argue any more than he did. It was worth arguing, though. He was worth fighting for. Because it wasn’t about biting or blood, of course not. It was about Morgan, about the way he refused to trust himself completely around me. The biting issue was the only way I could think of that would prove to him that I trusted him, and that he could trust himself, too. And I intended to make that point again.

  In the morning, I woke before Morgan and managed to slip out of his arms to go take a shower while he was still half-asleep. When I joined him in the kitchen a little while later, he gave me wounded eyes.

  “I meant to scrub your back,” he said with an exaggerated pout. “Why did you lock the door on me?”

  I took the cup of coffee he’d prepared for me and sighed at how good it was. It had to be in my mind, but somehow knowing that the coffee grounds had come from a plantation just on the other side of the island seemed to heighten the taste. Or maybe it was that good.

  Morgan was still waiting for an answer to his question, so I gave him a shrug.

  “Why wouldn’t I lock the door?”

  “You didn’t before,” he pointed out.

  I raised a pointed eyebrow at him, silently challenging him to figure out for himself what was different now. I can’t say I wanted to discuss the topic at length.

  “I don’t mind,” he said.

  I turned my back on him to refill my mug from the coffee pot.

  “Well, I do,” I said tartly. “Can we talk about something else?”

  I practically jumped out of my skin when his arms slid around me from behind. His lips brushed against my ear lobe when he said, “Yesterday all you wanted to talk about was blood. You wanted me to taste you.”

  It was absolutely unfair how his voice could slink down my spine like this, giving me goose bumps as though he’d been brushing his fingertips all over me.

  “This is different,” I said as strongly as I could muster.

  “How so?” His voice dropped an octave lower. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. I never understood why women get ashamed about something so natural. It’s just blood, no different from—”

  It finally dawned on me where he was going with that train of thought, and it wasn’t anywhere I cared to follow.

  “All right, no
,” I interrupted. “Stop right there.”

  I pulled out of his arms and stepped out of his reach, wishing my cheeks didn’t feel so warm and taking a sip of coffee to settle my nerves. It didn’t help that he was looking at me like I didn’t make sense.

  Did he truly not understand? I thought I’d explained what it was all about, but maybe I hadn’t done such a good job. I gathered my wits and tried to do better.

  “The point wasn’t for you to taste my blood. If that’s all I wanted, I’d cut my finger, stick it in your mouth, and that’d be that. The point was for you to bite me. For you to trust yourself enough to do it, and for me to show you that I trust you enough to let you. That’s the point.”

  His expression fell with each word I added, until his gaze was as dark and stormy as I’d ever seen. Still, his voice remained gentle when he spoke.

  “Angelina… That’s not going to happen.”

  Was he going to say I was wrong to trust him? He’d implied as much before. After all, that had been the whole point of the last mind trip he’d subjected me to: to prove he was dangerous and I would do better not to forget it. Well, I wasn’t interested in hearing that again. We disagreed on how dangerous he was, and this particular conversation wasn’t going to change either of our minds.

  “I’m a tourist,” I said, a little more abruptly than absolutely polite, but then my patience was running thin. “Take me to do touristy things, or I’ll go on my own.”

  The ultimatum worked. Good thing it did, too, because the prospect of running around by myself, even in such a lovely place, wasn’t that appealing.

  He took me around the island. He showed me beautiful waterfalls and gorgeous beaches, and we watched surfers for a little while. For lunch, he took me to a nice little restaurant, and I think I was the only tourist in there. After that, we got back in the car, and he drove for a while. The signs on the road indicated that we were going to some kind of canyon.

  To tell the truth, I didn’t care where he was taking me, only that we were together. We didn’t even need to talk. Being next to him, resting my hand on his thigh was enough. Nothing was solved between us; the situation was still the same as it had been back in New York, but I didn’t want to think about that at the moment. I just wanted to enjoy his company, nothing more.