by Marie Dry
“The only thing I’m searching for is to get this function over with so I can make love with my wife.”
He leaned down and kissed her. His hand cupped her shoulder and then moved until he cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing her nipple through the thin material of her evening dress and gossamer bra. She shivered and clung to him, pleasure stealing her mind. Even as she trembled in his arms, she knew he hid something from her. This bitter chocolate and red wine kiss that owned her body was a way to distract her, and it hurt. It hurt that he didn’t trust her enough to tell her the truth. Though if he hid the fact that he was a vampire, ignorance might be bliss. Sometimes late at night, it kept her awake, the thought that she might be living with evil. If vampires existed, what else was out there?
A shrill whistle from across the street broke them apart, right at the moment she broke away from Mark. Her cheeks burned. “We’d better get going.” She stepped back with a nervous look up and down the street. “Not here.” She’d forgotten where they were while she kissed her husband. Her vampire husband.
They’d been as intimate as a man and woman could be, their chemistry super nova hot from day one. They’d been married two weeks when she realized she never saw him in daytime.
Mark swung around and stepped between her and the street. His body held ready as if the whistle signaled danger to her. For a moment, so fleeting she knew it had to be her imagination, the texture of his skin changed, appeared like black marble.
Sabrina waved at Yousef, turned, and then swore in a mixture of Afrikaans and Klingon, when her knee tripped her up. Mark grabbed her arm and held her until she was steady on her feet. She hated this clumsiness she’d had to live with since the accident. It reminded her she had no family.
“DenIb Qatlh?” he said, very polite.
Sabrina could feel her cheeks heat even more. “Denebian slime devil in Klingon,” she mumbled and ignored his laughter. Being a vampire was much more freaky than speaking Klingon.
“I have to be the only man with a wife who swears in Klingon.”
“I have a friend who speaks it. She’s married too.” Could she sound any more nerdish and awkward?
“Maybe we should invite them over sometime,” he said politely.
Sometimes she worried that it bothered him that she was such a nerd. Her friend Mikaela always said she could be hot if only she would stop being so geeky.
He took her arm and helped her to the car, the wolf at her back and Mark’s chauffeur in front of her. Samuel, a tall muscled, black man who never smiled, stood at attention next to the car. She’d met Samuel after she’d married Mark. His unblinking stare had unnerved her and she’d chatted to him in an overly friendly way that came across as false. She’d mentally cringed at her behavior the whole time. Now Mark’s unholy dog and lethal-looking chauffeur both hated her.
“Good evening, Samuel,” she said and widened her smile. It might be childish of her, but she enjoyed irritating him with friendliness. She had a bet with Mikaela, her best friend since childhood, that she’d get him to smile at her before the end of the year. He had no idea how stubborn she could be. She’d get him to smile at her if it’s the last thing she ever did.
He ignored her and looked at Mark. “Good evening, sir.”
“Samuel,” Mark said, but he’d tensed and looked around, as if looking for something. Every now and then, when he acted like this, tense with his body held ready as if for battle, he reminded her of a warrior of old. He was a business man, but to her eyes also a modern soldier and a warrior from times gone by, when men fought with swords, and going to war meant riding off on a horse in heavy armor.
“Get into the car, Sabrina.”
The alert way Mark scanned the street outside the car window reminded her of a predator scenting prey. She stiffened, conscious of the way both Mark and Samuel tried to shield her with their bodies. He murmured something to Samuel that she didn’t catch, his body tense.
Samuel opened the car door and, mindful of her knee, Sabrina carefully entered the car. She rubbed her arms. It was getting chilly at night. Soon, she’d have to wear a coat when they went out in the evening. Though this chill felt different, as if premonition manifested as cold. She shivered, in spite of the warm interior of the car. It was as if the air around the car turned to ice. Mark was about to get in, but he stiffened and stepped back, looked around again, his hand inside his jacket.
Did he have a weapon? He stood like that for a long time. Samuel turned and scanned the street as well.
“Better get in, if they’re here, we’ll be safer in the car,” Samuel said.
Samuel closed the door and went to the driver’s side, his body as tense as Mark’s. Like this, Mark was the scariest man she’d ever encountered. His driver was without a doubt the second scariest. “Who was he talking about?”
Mark settled back into the leather seat, trying to appear relaxed, but she could see the alert way his scary eyes observed their surroundings. “No one you need concern yourself with.”
She clenched her hands in the silk shawl her grandmother had given her on her sixteenth birthday. “Please don’t brush me off. What’s going on?”
“Why would you think anything’s going on?” He took her hand, opened her fingers. He sat so close their thighs touched, but suddenly there was miles between them, in spite of the fact that he held her hand in his.
The car melted into the Cape traffic.
“I’m not blind. A lot of strange things are happening.”
“It’s your imagination.”
The shivers down her back felt like ice cold blood. He’d said that a lot lately, and she was starting to fear her marriage to Mark had drawn her into a very dangerous world. One she would’ve preferred to remain ignorant of. “You can’t keep telling me it’s my imagination when I notice what’s happening.”
“What do you think is happening?”
“That’s not--” She stiffened when she recognized the street they turned into. “Where is this function?”
He mentioned an address and she relaxed, it was far away from the house she and her parents briefly lived in before they moved into her grandmother’s house in the Bo-Kaap.
They stopped in front of a large mansion with rolling grass lawns, lanterns lighting the garden, and young men in white uniforms available to escort guests inside and park their cars.
Her parents had almost broken up because of an endless round of parties at houses just like this.
And ever since this frantic socializing started, Mark had changed.
“This discussion isn’t over,” she said as they stopped in front of an impressive gate that stood open to admit a long line of expensive cars. Mark helped her out, all the while scanning everything around them. She thought Samuel would park the car, but he handed the key over to one of the young men and accompanied them to the imposing front door. They kept her between them, almost shielding her body with theirs. She shivered again and drew her shawl tight over her shoulders. What could scare two dangerous men like Mark and Samuel?
Sabrina wanted to walk with her hand resting lightly on his arm and her chin proudly held high. With her knee, she had to cling to him and look down to carefully watch where she was going. The way up the long agonizing steps was illuminated with beautiful wrought iron lanterns.
Inside the foyer, a portly man and two beautiful women greeted them. Mark had told her on the way here their host’s name was James Greyling, owner of one of the biggest transport companies in South Africa. His wife was tall and thin and, though Sabrina thought she might be well over sixty, she obviously had the money to keep the wrinkles at bay.
In spite of her expressionless botoxed face, she had kind eyes. The daughter had her mother’s excellent bone structure and was stunning, with blonde hair that had a golden tint and big brown eyes. Her skin was a beautiful porcelain color. Beside her, Sabrina felt short and uninteresting with her long straight black hair, light brown skin, and washed out blue eyes she inherited from h
er father.
Mark dipped his head at the beautiful woman. “Jo.”
“Mark, I’m so glad you made it.” She rushed forward and kissed him on the mouth. She lingered for a few moments, her body rubbing subtly against him.
Sabrina heard someone gasp and realized the sound came from her. It was wrong. A heart breaking didn’t sound like a gasp. It should sound like crystal when it shattered. Like her heart just shattered. The woman kissed Mark as if they’d been intimate before.
Like a crystal statue dropped from a great height, Sabrina’s heart shattered into a thousand little pieces.
Chapter 2
The sound of people talking, the soft chamber music, and their hostess’s voice receded until she only saw, through a long dark tunnel, her husband in the arms of another woman. The tunnel evaporated and the scene flashed like garish disco lights in front of her. Sound rushed back, assaulting her ears with the chink of glasses, conversation, music, and the very faint hum of arriving cars.
Sabrina’s heart missed a beat when, instead of moving back after a perfunctory kiss, Mark stood staring down at Jo. Big and masculine opposite Jo’s slender model-perfect figure, he drew several envious female eyes. Jo’s golden hair formed a foil for the darkness of his.
Sabrina stared at her husband. Something was off about the look on his face. She knew what he looked like when he desired her. That was not the way he looked at Jo. Those dark hooded eyes gave the impression of slumbering sensuality. She’d been so shocked by his behavior, it had taken her a few minutes to realize the look on his face wasn’t that of a man attracted to a beautiful woman. If Sabrina had to describe it, she’d say it was the look Van Helsing gave Dracula right before he staked him.
Mark gently put Jo away from him and she shook her head, as if she’d been in a trance, golden hair rippling around her face in a beautiful display that made Sabrina check her nails to see if it had actually turned into claws. Jo looked around as if dazed and then visibly shook it off. “Let’s move inside. Would you like a drink?” she asked.
Sabrina was left standing there. Humiliation burned in her gut, bubbled into her throat and up, until she feared it would burst through her skull. How could he do this to her? She didn’t care if he desired Jo or not. Sabrina was not like her mother, who’d smiled and glossed over Sabrina’s father’s love of other women.
With great care, Sabrina moved forward on the flat evening slippers, feeling frumpy in her sensible shoes and with her limp next to Jo’s feline grace in her elegant high-heeled sandals.
Sabrina was tempted to just leave, to call a taxi, and go back home. She started to carefully turn toward the door and then hesitated. This had something to do with the way he sometimes moved so fast, the way his incisors seemed to lengthen.
The look Mark gave Jo had scared Sabrina. Not hatred precisely, but something akin to it, mixed with pity. If she hadn’t seen the speed with which he moved, the way his eyes sometimes glowed, she might’ve thought he was about to cheat on her with Jo.
At first glance, Jo looked like a woman flirting with a handsome man. The way she watched him without taking her eyes off him reminded Sabrina of a snake mesmerized. Sabrina had the strangest impression that Jo had no choice in what she did, as if drugs or some compulsion drove her.
Jo’s mother smiled at Sabrina, clearly uncomfortable at her daughter’s behavior. “Welcome, Mrs. Dimir. I’m Joyce Greyling.”
Sabrina forced a smile. “Please call me Sabrina.”
“Sabrina, what a lovely name,” Joyce Greyling said and then seemed at a loss for words.
They both stared at Mark and Jo, who was oblivious of the world around them. When she was a child, Sabrina frequently had the feeling of being an interloper and always had the vague fear that she’d be discovered and sent away from gatherings like these. For the first time in years that same feeling of not belonging settled over her.
“The Bothas have arrived, my dear,” James Greyling said pointedly.
He didn’t have a kind gaze like his wife.
“Please excuse me, Sabrina. If you need something not served on the trays, a waiter will get what you need from the kitchen.” Joyce turned away with a thinly veiled look of relief.
Sabrina walked through the foyer and limped down steps into what looked like a big old-fashioned ballroom. Glittering crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling and marble floors shone with a beautiful rose sheen beneath the expensively shod feet of the guests.
A white clad waiter hurried over to offer her a drink from a gleaming silver tray. Sabrina took a glass and looked around, a little lost. She clenched her hands around the stem of the elegant flute, not caring if she broke it, Mark hadn’t even spared her a glance when he went off with Jo.
Sabrina stumbled, and her aching knee gave way under her. Desperate not to fall flat on her face in front of everyone, she grabbed the arm of the waiter next to her. The silver tray and glasses shattered on the floor. Alcohol fumes drifted up from the mess on the floor. Everyone turned to stare while Sabrina desperately clung to the waiter’s arm. She swallowed tears of anger and humiliation, wanting to crawl into a deep dark hole and just curl up and cry. “I’m so sorry.”
“Not a problem, madam.” The waiter was stoic and several of the catering staff quickly cleaned up the mess.
Sabrina closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them, and stepped away from the waiter. She stilled, unable to take another step. Cold dread suddenly slithered down her spine. She forgot her embarrassment, even her hurt over Mark’s behavior. The awful feeling of dread and evil hung over the large ballroom like a specter hiding in the rafters at a feast.
A woman screamed and, at first, Sabrina thought it was because of the dropped tray, because no one seemed to feel the same chilling presence she did.
“The window, my God there’s glowing red eyes staring right at me.” There was something beyond hysteria in the woman’s voice, a primal fear.
Mark stood with his arm around Jo, his hand resting intimately low on her hip. His eyes narrowed on the woman behind Sabrina who’d screamed. The other guests either laughed or discreetly turned away from the hysterical woman. Mark seemed deadly serious. He followed the woman’s terrified gaze to the long windows.
“It’s a bat, a giant bat,” the woman screamed. “It’s staring right at me.”
Letting go of Jo, Mark came over to Sabrina, Jo shadowing him. Sabrina faltered. His eyes glowed white hot, nearly no blue visible, backlit like a cellphone.
Sabrina looked around, but no one seemed to think anything strange was going on. Maybe she was schizophrenic? Did she see glowing eyes where none existed? No one took notice of the hysterical woman, her husband leading her off while she still insisted she saw a bat as big as a man. If it wasn’t for that strange moment of recognition, Sabrina might have thought the woman was hysterical over nothing.
“Are you all right?”
She couldn’t break the hold that glowing gaze had on her. Slowly, so slowly, the white fire dimmed until he looked at her with intense, but normal blue eyes. Normal for him, anyway. The strange hold he had over her lessened as his eyes dimmed.
“I’m fine, I’m afraid the glasses didn’t fare that well.”
How could they have this inane discussion while Jo gazed up at him with an unblinking adoring gaze, as if he was a single man?
“Do you have an injury? I noticed you stumbling before,” Jo asked.
She didn’t seem aware of the woman who was still hysterically crying over the giant bat that stared at her through the window. Sabrina shuddered. Jo sounded like an animated corpse. Sabrina had the impression she only showed concern toward her to get Mark’s attention again. Sabrina wanted to push her away from Mark, and not only because he was her husband. She had the strangest feeling that she had to get him away from Jo, that she was transmitting some evil to him. More than that, she sounded dead.
“My wife sustained a knee injury during a car accident,” Mark said. Such simple words to d
escribe the horrific events.
She’d lost her only living relative, her cousin Jennifer. She’d even lost her cousin’s fiancé Christopher who’d been heartbroken and lost after the accident. Sabrina had woken one morning, and he’d disappeared from his home. It was as if he never existed, never loved her cousin. It had been a betrayal, him leaving as if he could leave Jennifer’s memory behind.
“I have to powder my nose,” Sabrina murmured.
She had to get away from her husband who had glowing eyes, moved faster than any human could, and still had his arm around another woman. Mark nodded, but didn’t look away from Jo. A look of such contempt flashed over his face, Sabrina faltered, but Jo didn’t react.
What was going on here? Why would he zone in on Jo and then look at her with such contempt? He’d done the same at the other functions they’d attended this last month. Honed in on women, but almost immediately moved on. This time, he didn’t move on, seemed intent on getting something from Jo. That look disturbed Sabrina greatly. Again, she had this sense of danger simmering under the surface of this polite gathering. Something so evil, her creepometer was screaming.
No matter what this was about, when they got home they’d have a serious discussion. About the future of their marriage. I’m not like my mother, she reminded herself again. I won’t try to seal over the cracks in my marriage by looking the other way. It was almost a relief not to have to wait for the moment when he realized he didn’t love her and left her.
“You’ve got the right idea,” Michaela said behind her.