by Kallysten
It was clear as he said it that he hadn’t put it into words for himself before, but yes, it did make sense. I pressed a kiss to his shoulder.
“That’s pretty much what all relationships are about, isn’t it?” I murmured. “Not a vampire thing, just a—”
“People-in-love thing?” he finished for me.
I kissed him again.
And I guess if there’s a point to my story, it has to be this one. In the end, does it really matter that Miss Delilah compelled me to stay with Morgan through some vampire trick? Had she been human, she might have found another way to make us meet and spend time together. It also doesn’t matter that Irene is the scariest person I know; she is, for all intents and purposes, Morgan’s mother, and she cares about him and meddles in his life the way many human mothers do. And it doesn’t matter that Morgan has fangs, that he’s lived and loved for more years than I can even fathom. It doesn’t matter that some day he’ll ask to make me the same thing he is rather than to become his wife. My answer, either way, will be the same.
In the end what does matter is that this isn’t a vampire story.
It is, and has always been, a love story.
Excerpt from the freebie Overture
the first part of the Serenade Serial
All the trouble started because of a human. A human. Honestly. After six hundred years, I should know better than that. I do know better than that. So maybe it didn’t start because of a human. Let me begin again.
All the trouble started because of my idiotic offspring.
All right, maybe calling him idiotic is a bit unfair. Morgan has brains. Before I made him one of us four hundred years ago—four hundred years to the day when this all started, actually—I’d made sure he was smart. Vampire families stay close, or at least mine does. My offspring don’t call me ‘Mother’ for nothing. Because of that, I try not to saddle myself with anyone susceptible to boring me to death within a decade. I’ve had three offspring, and they were all intelligent. Even Ethan, whose vampire life ended much earlier than it should have. He was smart, that was one thing I loved about him, but in the end maybe he was too smart for his own good and…
Never mind that. I wasn’t talking about Ethan, that’s done and gone. I was talking about the most infuriating man I know—or at least, the most infuriating one I knew when this all started, Morgan Ward. Another man may have taken the crown since. Possibly even two. It’s a close race.
Morgan decided a quarter of a century ago that he wouldn’t feed off living humans anymore. He started buying blood from hospitals, blood banks, butchers, and the First Maker knows where else, and starving himself both of fresh blood and of physical contact.
His sister Lilah and I watched him for a while, waiting for him to snap out of it. She worried more than I did—or at least, she worried more than I let her see I did—but I got tired of waiting first. When you get to my age, waiting starts to become really annoying.
I enlisted Lilah’s help and our plan was to come to fruition the very night this story starts. Morgan didn’t want to have close contact with humans, but he wouldn’t have a choice, not when we inserted a carefully chosen girl into his life and forced him to deal with her. That plan was the reason I was in Paris, where Lilah would join me as soon as she set things into motion. If we remained close to New York, Morgan would pester us to set him and the girl free.
Once he figured out where we were, he might come all the way to France to do the pestering in person, but I suspected he would not. The last time he’d been in Paris, he’d almost been outed as a vampire, and he had sworn never to set foot in the city again. Granted, a century had passed since then, but Morgan has a thing about keeping his promises, even those he makes to himself. He and I are alike in that regard, so I can’t fault him.
And there you have it. I was in Paris because of Morgan, and it’s because I was in Paris that all this started. Frankly, the last thing I was looking for, let alone wanted, was a romantic entanglement. I’m much too old for that kind of nonsense.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not too old for the chase. I’m a vampire, hunting is what I was created to do. I hunt prey for blood or sex, and often both at the same time. I’ve bedded men on all continents. I used to have a journal in which I kept track of my progress through men of the human species. I’d made it my goal to have at least one man in every town over a certain size. And then the nineteenth century came, the world population exploded, and I might be the next best thing to immortal but there are just too many towns in the world to keep track of anymore.
With the time-zone difference, it would be hours before I could call Lilah and ask how our plan was progressing, and staying home to wait wasn’t my style. So, upon waking up that evening, I slipped on a tight little dress that stopped over my thighs and always caused men to stare at my legs like they’d never seen anything of the sort before, put on a coat over that for appearances’ sake since it was, after all, the middle of December, and left our townhouse with the intention of going clubbing.
The advantage of dance clubs for someone like me is simple: I get to see a lot of potential prey all in one place, I can choose as easily as though browsing from a catalog, and in the end it doesn’t take much more than batting my eyelashes or crooking a finger to show I’m interested. After that, it’s a matter of ‘allowing’ my prey to seduce me.
Not to be obnoxious, but when one has the body of an eighteen-year-old fashion model and the confidence borne of six centuries of inhabiting that body, attracting male attention isn’t much of a challenge.
No, the challenge is to find someone interesting. Someone worth more of my time than it takes to feed and thrall him into forgetting me. What they look like is not as important as the way they move, the way they dance, the way they hold themselves, whether they smile at the people around them and make eye contact, whether they’re a little too free with their hands or wait for an overt invitation before stepping closer to a new dance partner—to me.
That night, I was in the mood for loud and crowded. The trouble was, the night life in Paris only gets really fun after midnight. I had two hours to kill and some interest in seeing the sights by night, as it had been a while since I had walked up the Champs Elysées or strolled through the Quartier Latin.
So many places in the world, so much to see and experience…
Paris was and always will be on my list of favorite cities, but it is a long list. Besides, it is always fun to come back to an old friend and discover all the small and not-so-small ways in which it has changed. The last time I’d been around in May 1968, the youth of the country had been staging an uprising against its elders. Being in the midst of all that exuberant life had been thrilling. I’d marched with them, confronted the police with them, felt alive with them. When it all calmed down, I left the continent for a while; the aftermath of revolutions, when things settle back into a routine, really isn’t my scene.
So, to pass time until the night life started to become interesting, I found my way to a bar off Pigalle, one of Paris’ raunchier neighborhoods. I’d heard about it from Lilah, who had been in Paris much more recently than I had. She’d said she’d enjoyed the music a lot, and that I might, too.
As soon as I entered, I knew what she’d meant—or at least, I thought I knew. I only truly understood a few minutes later when I recognized the music.
A baby grand was set on a platform right in the center of the large room, and a pianist was playing, competently enough I thought as I listened distractedly while handing my coat to the attendant. Metal tables were set around the platform, some tiny, just large enough for two people to huddle together, others larger to accommodate groups of four or more on the crimson chairs.
A bar stood along the entire right-side wall, black wood topping the red half-wall. High stools of black metal and red leather lined the bar.
Red and black—a bit boring, if you ask me. That was also Morgan’s color scheme for his birthday party tonight. He’s not the
most imaginative of men, and the owner of the bar clearly didn’t have the most imaginative of decorators.
I took a seat at the bar, ordered a martini, and turned sideways to look at the pianist. From where I was, I could see the well-defined lines of his profile. Light caramel skin was topped by a mop of dark hair that had been carefully crafted into chaos. He wore a white shirt that was stretched taut over his broad shoulders, and his striped gray tie matched his slacks. He was smiling, I noticed, and he played with his eyes half-closed behind his glasses, his hands flying over the keyboard. More competent than my first impression had warranted, then.
Taking the glass the barmaid had set in front of me, I turned fully toward the piano, with my back to the bar and my legs crossed, one foot kicking lightly, black leather catching the light. There was something about the melody filling the bar, fast, airy, familiar…
I took a sip and grimaced at the taste. It seemed I’d lived on the other side of the Atlantic for too long, and had forgotten that asking for a Martini, in France, was likely to yield different results than in America. I caught the attention of the barmaid again and let a bit of an accent slip into my voice this time when I corrected my order.
“Oh, sorry,” she said in passable English. “I thought you are French. Let me arrange this.”
She fixed me a new drink, and I turned once again to watch the pianist. I took a sip… and froze again.
It wasn’t the drink that shocked me this time, but the new piece of music rising from the piano.
I knew, suddenly, why the first piece had sounded familiar. And I knew why Lilah had sent me here.
I’d composed that piece of music, as I had composed this one.
It had been decades since I’d heard or played either of them, and I’d composed hundreds more since, which might be why it took me so long to recognize them. Or maybe I simply hadn’t expected to hear them in a bar, which had slowed me down. But I couldn’t not recognize them. They were as distinct to me as the faces of my offspring. They were mine in a very primal way: parts of me that had been born and shared with others but still, intrinsically, my own.
After the first moment of surprise and bafflement, outrage was quick to follow. Those compositions were private. I’d created them for my own enjoyment and my family’s. How did this man dare play my notes like that? Where had he even found the sheet music? I had dozens of folios full of my compositions scattered through the different houses where I lived, but I’d never published any of it. If he had my music, it could only mean one thing: he’d stolen from me.
If you want the plain, hard truth, here it is: I had killed men for lesser offenses than playing my music without my permission.
Of course, that had been during less civilized times, when a man found in a ditch somewhere with his throat torn out would be buried without too much of an investigation as to how he’d died. Some farmer’s aggressive dogs might be blamed, or a wild animal, but certainly not the proper lady who’d been seen traveling through those parts recently.
A well-lit, fairly busy bar in the middle of Paris was not the ideal place to take a life, far from it, even with a very good motive. And besides, I hadn’t killed in a long time, not because of misplaced sensibilities but simply because it was too much of a bother to engineer a proper cover-up.
I was still pondering my options when a man sat next to me before leaning in close—much too close, actually, as the cologne he’d liberally doused himself with threatened to make me gag.
“Do you enjoy classical music?” he asked in what, I supposed, he believed was a sultry voice, and with an accent that hinted he’d spent some time working on his English in London. He must have heard me speak to the bartender.
I’d raised my glass to my lips to breathe in the scent of the martini. I lowered it again without taking a sip, scoffing. As far as pick-up lines went, this one didn’t rate very high.
“Classical music?” I repeated. “Is that what you think he’s playing?”
“Well, what do you call it?”
Robbery, for the most part, but I didn’t feel inclined to share that sentiment with this man. For that matter, I didn’t feel like talking to him at all.
Turning my face fully toward him, I caught his gaze. His mouth curled up in a grin; no doubt he thought he’d captured my attention. The important part, however, was that I had his.
“Go home,” I said, and if my voice was quiet, it held all the strength a centuries-old vampire can put into a compulsion without even trying hard. My eyes bore into his, reinforcing the order and turning it into something he literally would not be able to refuse. Had he tried, his own body would have rebelled against him, and the consequences would have been less than pleasant.
He didn’t try to resist, however. Instantly, he turned back to the bar, paid for his drink, and left. I don’t know how human women deal with annoying people, but for me compulsion is both fast and easy. That guy was lucky I told him to go home rather than throw himself into the Seine River. A few decades earlier, I might have done just that.
Free from that unwanted distraction, I turned my attention back to my drink and, more importantly, the piano.
The more I listened, the better the melodies sounded, as though the pianist had been warming up earlier and was now hitting his stride, finding the rhythm of the musical phrases, along with their heart.
Along with my heart, I guess I should say, although it’s been the subject of some debate between my offspring and me as to whether I do have a heart or not. They’re much too sentimental.
By my second drink, I’d mellowed enough that murder, as impractical as it would have been to attempt it, was not the main thing on my mind anymore. Instead, I wanted—no, I needed to know where the pianist had found my compositions, all of which he played from memory. And, as far as I remembered, without ever missing a note.
When I ordered my third drink, I asked about sending a glass to him. The barmaid gave me a knowing look, and mentioned that he was fond of red wine. Moments later, she delivered a glass, which she set on a thick coaster on the piano. She murmured a few words to the man, and even through the music and low chatter, I only had to pay close attention to hear her describe me as ‘The brunette American woman at the bar in the short green dress.’
Not exactly flattering or even all that accurate a description. Despite appearances, I’m not a brunette. In its natural state, my hair is red—bright red, and fairly distinctive. Too much so for someone who tries, for the most part, not to be too memorable. My dress was green, yes, to match my eyes, but I’m not American, despite what my passport or my accent might claim. Not that it mattered.
I expected he might join me when he finished playing the sonata, but all he did was pause just long enough to pick up his drink, turn toward me, and raise the glass in a toast before he took a sip. Then he was back to focusing on the piano, and while this particular piece was more lively, it was, like every single note I’d heard him play tonight, mine.
The difference was that this was much more recent, dating from the couple of years I’d spent in Paris in the late sixties, while everything else so far had been composed during the same period of my life at the turn of the previous century.
If I’d been stunned when I first recognized my notes in what he was playing, now I was mystified. There was nothing —nothing at all and very much on purpose —to link this last piece of music to the other ones. The style was different, the mood, the rhythm, and even the name I’d written on my sheet music. I’d been wearing different personas when writing those pieces of music, and they very much reflected that fact.
It seemed an extremely unlikely coincidence that he would happen to play pieces from two of my alter-egos without knowing they were related. Still, I couldn’t begin to fathom how he could possibly know those two composers, separated by decades and the English Channel, had anything to do with each other.
One more question I’d ask him when he finally joined me, I decided.
I’d b
een in bars like this before, or in clubs with bands. I’d sent drinks to musicians whose skills I enjoyed, and few of them had refused to join me to share another drink, a few words, and when they were so inclined more than that. Usually it didn’t take long before my invitation was answered.
That night, it was another hour—another five music pieces—before the pianist took his bow to some applause from the patrons. Another man walked onto the scene, and they exchanged a handshake along with a few words. I finished my drink and ordered two glasses of wine, expecting the pianist to finally join me. When I turned back, he was disappearing past a door marked private at the other end of the bar. He returned moments later minus the tie and wearing a leather jacket and started walking through the bar, saying goodnight to a couple people on the way. When he passed by me, he gave me nothing more than a smile and an inclination of his head.
He wasn’t going to stop, I realized with a burst of very unpleasant surprise. He wasn’t even going to say one word to me.
I’m not used to people paying me so little attention. I can’t say I liked the feeling.
“Is that all?” I blurted out in French, loud enough that he’d hear me over the new melodies—not mine anymore—rising from the piano. “You’re not even going to say thank you for the drink?”
He paused, and I could see him hesitate before he turned to me. He opened his mouth, but I had no interest in whatever he might say in reply to my outburst, not when I had much more important questions to ask him. Before he could say a word, I locked eyes with him and demanded, “Sit with me.”
I hadn’t meant to compel him, or at least not unless he was reticent to answer my questions. It’s not that I have a problem using compulsion on humans, I think I’ve already made that clear. I am a predator, and compulsion is one of my weapons, the same way my attractive clothes, careful make-up, or fangs are, each with a different purpose, each used in its own time. However, using compulsion to force a human to talk to me… that felt like a waste of my time and talents.