Maybe something had happened between them – something instigated by the kiss.
But something wasn’t right. Something deep in her gut told her that. He was too calm, too resolute. She’d seen that look before – seen that look when she’d first arrived in the apartment and when he’d stood over her on the dungeon floor.
Considering she’d attempted to kill him, he was too calm indeed.
She reached under the pillow for the syringe she had left there. Finding it gone, her heart both leapt and sank. But he hadn’t challenged her about it or let her know he had found it. She pulled all the pillows aside in case it had slipped somewhere. She moved off the bed and checked underneath it. It was gone. Well and truly.
Standing beside the bed, she looked down at the dress. She wrapped her own across her chest again. She couldn’t spend the rest of the day with her arms folded around herself. And the part of her that needed to retain some semblance of dignity wanted to freshen up. Desperately.
She picked up the dress box and stepped into the en-suite bathroom.
She closed the door behind her, used the toilet and washed her hands. Facing the shower cubicle, she unfastened the last three buttons that remained so she could slip her dress off down over her hips. She draped it over the bath before unclasping and removing her bra. The morning she had put them on felt like years ago, another life before Blackthorn. A time when she thought having any feelings towards a vampire was ludicrous. A time before she met Caleb.
She switched the shower on and held her hand under the water until it reached a comfortable temperature. Stepping inside, she let the spray trail over her body, taking some much-needed comfort in the wet heat. She let the water run through her hair and attempted to detangle the kinks whilst she shampooed. Turning to face the tiles, she let the water continue to saturate her hair, her body as she lingered longer than she knew she should have before stepping out of the shower and wrapping herself in a thick, warm towel.
She dried off her hair and then her body. Stepping over to the sink, she reached for the comb on the shelf and worked it through her hair. She thoroughly towel dried it, and then combed it again. Reaching into his cabinet, she found toothpaste and rinsed out her mouth.
She pulled on the strapless bra, the same quality silk as the dress, fastened the ties on her knickers and reached for the dress. It draped over her subtle curves with ease, the fabric smooth against her cleansed skin, fitting her to perfection.
Stepping back into the bedroom, she sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the sandals. She guessed he was looking for the full effect when she walked out there. She removed them from the box and rubbed them mindlessly with her thumb for a few moments before slipping them on.
She stood and composed herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she wore anything so elegant. She practiced in them for a few steps before crossing the threshold into the library.
Caleb was sat at the table at the far end of the room, the candles in the centre of the table the only source of light. A plate and bowl sat at the opposite end to him, a filled wine glass, a tumbler and bottle of water beside it.
He stood from his chair, inhaled smoke from the cigarette he held and strolled towards her. Her pulse raced as his gaze glided over her toes, up the length of her legs, lingered a moment at her hips and waist before sliding over her chest to slow at her neck.
He circled her in a painfully predatory stroll, raking his fingers up her back, making her spine tingle.
She flinched as he tucked her hair aside from behind, ran the cool back of his hand down her neck and over her shoulder – a slow, caressing move that caused her to catch her breath in her throat.
‘You look beautiful,’ he said, stepping back in front of her, her height now only a couple of inches less than his. Lifting the back of her hand to his lips, he kissed it tenderly, making her heart leap, before keeping her hand in his as he led her over to the table.
He pulled out the chair at the far end of the table from his, inviting her to sit.
She did so, easing it further under the table as he stepped away again. She took in the aroma of the pasta coated in sundried tomatoes and garnished with rocket, beautifully presented on its immaculate white plate and bowl.
She looked up at him warily as he resumed his seat at the other end of the table, the distance welcome as her stomach somersaulted.
He leaned back in the chair, pulled the ashtray closer so he could tap off some ash.
‘Are you not eating?’ she asked.
He shook his head, exhaled a steady stream of smoke, his gaze unreadable.
She looked back down at the bowl. She wanted to ask him outright if he’d drugged it, but like he’d told her before – he wasn’t that subtle.
And she needed to eat. The tempting aroma alone told her that much. At the very least she needed to keep her strength up. And for all she knew it could have been a simple, civilised attempt on Caleb’s part, and one she knew would be stupid and unreasonable to throw back in his face.
She lifted the weighty cutlery and took her first few small mouthfuls.
Something had happened, his silence only prodding her doubts, the room thick with tension. She needed something to break it.
‘How’s Alisha?’ she asked, lowering her cutlery to pour herself some water rather than opting for wine.
He tapped some more ash off his cigarette. ‘She’s fine. Suffering from an almighty hangover apparently, but she’ll get over it. She’s only been awake an hour or so.’
‘She must be wondering where I am.’
‘Jake told her you spent the night with me.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Apparently if I’ve forced you into anything or done anything to hurt you, my life won’t be worth living.’ He exhaled a steady stream of smoke. ‘She seemed to find it hard to believe that her big sister would willingly spend the night fucking a vampire, let alone one like me.’
Leila swallowed hard at his bluntness, at the way he made it sound like that’s all it was. And the way he said it made her flush in shame, no more so because for a short while, from the way he had kissed her, she’d dare wonder if it could be something more. ‘Jake reassured her I was fine?’
Caleb nodded.
She swallowed hard, needed to lower her fork-holding hand to the table so he wouldn’t see it tremble. ‘So what happens now?’
‘Just concentrate on getting some food in you. I don’t want you flaking out on me. Then we’ll talk.’
Her heart pounded. ‘About what?’
‘About what we do from here.’
‘You make it sound like we have a choice.’
‘There’s always a choice.’
She wanted to ask him what the kiss had been about. If it meant he had softened, even if only a small amount, towards her cause.
If maybe, just maybe, he had believed her.
She took a few more mouthfuls, glanced up to see he was still watching her.
‘What’s this about?’ she asked. ‘The dress. The food. Candlelight.’
‘I told you I can be nice.’
‘After I tried to kill you?’
He flicked some ash into the tray beside him, a glimmer of a smile escaping. ‘I can hardly blame you for that, can I?’
‘Can’t you?’
‘Let’s just say the sex made up for it.’
His gaze was impossible to read. She wanted to believe it, needed to believe it, but every survival instinct in her sparked.
She took a few more mouthfuls, each one increasingly hard to swallow. She had the feeling she was going to get nowhere until she cleared her plate. She reached for the jug of water, filled her glass, hoping a few mouthfuls would lubricate her throat enough to continue.
‘We just need to think of something Feinith might want more than she wants you.’
She glanced up at him again, unease stirring at the pit of her stomach. If Feinith had even an inkling of the truth, there would be nothing she want
ed more. ‘Like what?’
‘Maybe those books of yours.’
‘What books?’
‘The ones your grandfather left you. All those prophecies.’
Her stomach clenched. She reached for more water.
‘Alisha seemed to think you were some kind of expert on them all,’ he added.
‘Far from it. I haven’t read them since our grandfather’s death and maybe for years before that.’
‘But you do still have them all. And you can still read them.’
She looked up at him, unease ricocheting through her at his steady gaze. ‘I’m not trading those books for anything.’
‘Not even your life?’
Her heart jolted. ‘I was entrusted with them.’ She returned to eating, now more as a get-out clause than a need to consume any more, her already weak appetite depleting by the moment.
‘You brought one here.’
‘I had no choice.’
‘So you choose your sister over a book but you won’t choose yourself. Or is it just because you don’t want the Higher Order in particular to get their hands on them?’
‘Those books don’t belong here.’
He rested his forearms on the table as he leaned forward, exhaled another stream of smoke. ‘Books? Or the secrets they contain? Because I bet they’re just full of them, aren’t they? Like how to cure a vampire of dying blood. It makes me wonder what other useful information is lingering beneath the covers.’
Discomfort rooted deeper. ‘It sounds more like it’s you who wants to trade.’
He sent her a fleeting smile before extinguishing his cigarette. He stood and sauntered across to the sofa to return with a book – her book – his finger seemingly marking a page as he held it closed. Her heart pounded painfully as he brought his chair around from his end of the table and placed it adjacent to hers.
He pushed her plate and empty bowl aside to lay the book in front of her as he rested his foot on the rung of her chair. ‘I want you to take a look at something.’ He opened it to where his finger marked the page and pointed at the symbol. ‘What do you know about that?’
Her heart skipped a beat. A cold chill of dread consumed her as she stared down at the all-too-familiar symbol. She snapped her attention back to Caleb, forcing herself to hold his gaze as calmly as possible despite her insides wrenching with terror, her anxiety dissociating her from anything but him and the detached look in his eyes. ‘Nothing. Why? Should I?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything to you?’
‘Does it mean something to you?’ She already knew that answer. Why would he pick it out from all the others littered through the book if he didn’t recognise it? And if he recognised it, he’d seen it somewhere. And if he’d seen it, he knew who owned it. And if he knew who owned it, it was even more important that she said absolutely nothing.
Her tired brain needed to kick in. And quick.
‘This is your book,’ he said.
‘Yes. But it doesn’t mean I’ve read it all.’
‘But you can read it. That’s the whole point.’
‘Is that what you want me to do?’
‘If you would,’ he said, his gaze unflinching.
Leila stared down at the beautifully embossed page and the slanted, cursive writing. She skimmed the overly familiar words, words she hadn’t read for years, but that she knew almost by heart. The section had been one of the focal points of her grandfather’s teaching – his warning. A warning that had never resonated so loud or so clear.
Parts. She just had to tell him parts.
She glanced back up at Caleb. ‘It says it’s a symbol of protection.’
‘Protection against what?’
‘It doesn’t say.’
‘Then what does it say?’
Under the intensity of his gaze, she looked back down at the page, pretending to scan as her mind ploughed into creative overdrive. ‘It protects all who have it. All who are chosen to have it. Protection from…’ She shrugged. ‘There are all sorts of mythological and metaphysical hierarchies and orders mentioned here. I haven’t even heard of half of them. They probably don’t even exist anymore.’ She glanced back up at him. ‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but most of this book is like that.’
‘Go on.’
The nausea rose in her throat, worsened by the lingering scrutiny in Caleb’s eyes. ‘There’s nothing else to say. It’s just a brief reference.’
‘It says something about a prophecy.’
She knew the flare in her eyes had not gone unnoticed.
‘You’re not the only linguist, Leila. Some vocabulary transcends languages. So tell me more.’
Leila stared into his uncompromising eyes. He couldn’t know. He couldn’t possibly know. None of the vampires knew. Her thumping heart overrode the silence in the room. But if he did, he’d know she was holding back. She had to tread carefully. ‘It says it’s reserved for those of a certain lineage. The Higher Order probably – that’s what it usually means.’
‘You mentioned the word chosen. Chosen for what?’
‘I don’t know.’
Caleb kept perfectly still, his eyes narrowing slightly. ‘Why’s it in that book?’
‘Probably because of the reference to the bloodline. It contains everything to do with blood. I’d need countless other reference sources to connect it all together. All the books link together like a puzzle if you want the whole picture. I haven’t read them for years. Some I’ve never read. You’re expecting me to pull out one tiny fragment from a whole tapestry. It doesn’t work like that.’
Something was simmering behind his eyes – an icy purposefulness, a look that, in contrast to his earlier gaze that could have been mistaken for affection, was now clearly one of a vampire face-to-face with a serryn. ‘You’re lying.’
Her stomach flipped. ‘I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are. You’re trying to hide something, which tells me there’s more going on here. Something you don’t want me to know.’ His gaze lingered to the point she felt he wasn’t going to look away again. ‘What’s so special about that symbol?’
Her stomach wrenched, her pulse racing, her mouth arid.
Saving a vampire was one thing. Disclosing a secret as ancient as her race that could put her in the heart of her worst fear was another. She had to protect the secret. She had to. The very reason the book should never have been in Blackthorn in the first place.
The secret could never come out.
She flashed back to Beatrice gazing empathetically at her with those soulful eyes.
‘You understand why your grandfather had to bring you here,’ Beatrice had said. ‘He tells me of your studies, how attentive you are. Your knowledge is already impressive, let alone the fluency of your interpreting, even in such a short space of time.’
‘I told you, I like to read.’
‘And of the prophecies, you have read of the Tryan?’
Even back then it had made every hair on the back of her neck stand up. Of course she knew of the prophecy, it was every serryn’s responsibility to know the prophecy. ‘Yes.’
‘And your grandfather has spoken to you of it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And, Leila, more than anything else, you have to understand and accept it. If I can convince you of anything today, it will be that. Because if it is you, if you are the pre-destined, then you have to hone your skills better than any other. The survival of humankind depends on it.’
She’d held her gaze, every part of her utterly resolute. ‘All the more reason for me to never go near one.’
‘Leila, if it is your destiny, your paths will cross and you have to be prepared. All the training serryns go through, all the studies, yes, it’s about destroying our enemy but above all, above all else, it’s about being ready. If you are the one, and you are found lacking, then everything, everything we have fought to protect, will be theirs. You have to accept this possibility, Leila. You cannot hide from your fate.’
&
nbsp; ‘What if I don’t want to be a serryn? How do I get rid of it?’
‘Two options – one impossible and the other unthinkable. But neither of which you want to consider. The consequences are too great. You are what you are. The calling is there, Leila. That much you cannot ignore. And if you are the chosen serryn—’
‘I’m not. And I don’t think I need any more of these meetings, Beatrice. Thank you for your time, but I think I understand enough now.’
Leila had tried to march away but Beatrice had caught her arm.
‘Live in the world, Leila, not locked away from it. Books hold no comparison to life experience. Mix with people and learn from them. Fall in love. Get hurt. Know what real emotion is. Let it scar you. All of that will give you the best defence should your time ever come. Innocence will teach you nothing – only numb your awareness of your true feelings. You need to play them at their own game. You must in order to survive.’
How right Beatrice had been – how painfully right. And the reality was hitting her so hard she was almost breathless.
If Caleb had seen it, it was already in form. The mark of the new era had arrived. And the one secret she had been warned to contain was at risk of being in the hands of a vampire who potentially knew the carrier.
There was only one Higher Order vampire he got up close and personal with.
Feinith.
Feinith was the one. Feinith was the chosen one. That’s why she’d wanted her alive.
Dread seized her.
Somehow she had found out. Somehow she had uncovered the secret – the key to activate the Armun.
This was it, this was her worst fear – not just being discovered by a vampire, tortured, abused and slaughtered or captured by those who wanted to mercilessly use her blood to slay them. Her greatest fear was the possibility, the tiny possibility that the Tryan would rise in her lifetime.
And if Feinith did know and, in her desperation to get her hands on her, had given Caleb even an inkling of the truth, her chances of getting out alive had just fallen to zero.
This was no longer about just her and Alisha anymore. Her decision to go there hadn’t just been stupid, it had been potentially catastrophic.
02 Blood Roses - Blackthorn Page 21