A Vampire's Promise

by Carla Susan Smith

  “This I already know!” The big guy folded his arms across his chest but refused to meet her gaze. He seemed fascinated by the pattern in the carpet instead.

  “You are closer to him than any of us,” Katja soothed softly. “Can’t you make him see how foolish it is to keep her?”

  What was I—a golden retriever?

  “You don’t understand—” Aleksei began.

  “What? That she intrigues him?” The roll of Katja’s violet eyes illustrated all too well her opinion regarding that suggestion. “I will admit he has kept her far longer than any of the others,” she acknowledged grudgingly, “but you must make him see reason.” Placing her hands on either side of his face, she tilted his head up so he was forced to look at her. “She needs to be gone, Aleksei. Surely you can see that?”

  “Uh, guys, you do realize I can hear every word you’re saying, right?”

  With my breathing now pretty much back to normal, I straightened up. Aleksei had the decency to look embarrassed, but Katja’s response was simply to shrug her shoulders and switch to her own language. I wondered how long it would take me to find the way out by myself. Surely if I just kept heading down, then eventually I would have to come to an outside door. I might even run into the smooth Vladimir, who surely knew the way out.

  Katja tossed her long mane of glossy black hair over one shoulder and began gesturing with her hands. The words might have been beyond my comprehension, but I could tell the Goth Queen was starting to get pissed. It seemed Aleksei wasn’t being quite as agreeable as she wanted. I began edging my way along the wall, wanting to get as big a head start as possible before I bolted.

  I froze when Katja shrieked.

  The sound was so sharp and piercing, I was surprised the light fixtures didn’t shatter. I whipped my head around to see she was once more in Aleksei’s grip, only this time she didn’t seem to be enjoying it. The way she was twisting and throwing herself against him, struggling to get free, I fully expected her shoulder to pop out of joint at any moment. But she was no match for his size and strength. She stopped fighting and started shrieking again. It took me a moment or two to realize she was cussing him out in English.

  “Stop it, Katja!” The big guy snapped his arm with enough force to make her head jolt back. “You’re behaving like a child.”

  Yep, a six-year-old throwing one hell of a temper tantrum. I waited for him to start with the dog and rat imitation again, but he didn’t. I think he decided to see how long it was going to take before Katja realized the futility of her efforts.

  “What is this obsession he has,” she wailed, “and why her? She is weak! If he wanted someone, then I would be the better choice—you know I would!”

  Oh Christ! Not this again!

  Something in Aleksei’s face changed. It reminded me of the expression the state trooper wore when he stood in my kitchen. The bearer of terrible, awful news.

  “He will never choose you, Katja,” he said, softening his voice as if that would make his words easier to hear. “This is not the first time he has found Rowan. You don’t know what she is to him.”

  I watched the fight go out of the exotic beauty, watched her go completely still. Her only movement was to tilt her head far enough to one side to clear the hair from her face. Aleksei’s statement had the same effect as a hose of cold water aimed at a couple of snarling dogs. Taking a deep breath, Katja gave her complete and undivided attention to the big Russian.

  And so did I.

  “What do you mean?” she asked in a voice that was filled with both disbelief and suspicion. “Why will he never choose me?”

  Aleksei sighed, and let go of her hands. “Gabriel is bound to Rowan in a way that cannot be broken, at least not by you.”

  “But . . .” She floundered, searching for an answer to a problem she didn’t fully comprehend.

  “Katja, if you are thinking that you can make Gabriel give Rowan up, I will tell you now, he will not do it. And if he cannot have Rowan, for any reason, he will take no other.”

  I gasped at the familiar phrasing and saw Katja stumble back until she hit the wall. If I hadn’t been so astounded by Aleksei’s words, I might have felt sorry for her.

  The big guy, apparently remembering I was still there, gave me a look that said he had broken some sacred trust. For a moment I thought he might ask for my forgiveness, but I guess the look on my face told him I was on a quick day trip to Clueless Land with no idea what he was talking about. If he didn’t pick up on this, Katja certainly did.

  “I think you have been drinking too much vodka,” she said, snapping her spine back into place and giving Aleksei a scornful poke in the chest with her finger. “You are speaking more stupid than normal.”

  I could see her calculating something, and I knew the minute everything slotted into place for her. Pushing the long curtain of hair back from her face, she moved toward me but found her way blocked by Aleksei’s arm.

  “Gabriel has been waiting a long time for Rowan,” he told her, “and this time he will not give her up.”

  “Did you ever think, Aleksei, that perhaps Gabriel will not be the one to do the giving up?”

  Glancing in my direction, the big guy gave me another look that I didn’t understand, which actually was okay because my powers of comprehension had fallen right off the grid. His massive chest moved as he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. Like Katja, I realized something had fallen into place for him also.

  “There’s something you don’t know,” he said solemnly.

  It was good to know I wasn’t the only one. Was someone finally going to start making sense? After all, I was involved in all of this, quite intimately as it happened.

  “What?” Katja’s voice reverted back to the anxious six-year-old whose promised treat was in danger of being taken away. “What is it you think I don’t know?”

  C’mon, Aleksei, cough it up, I want to know as well.

  The Russian rubbed his hand over his bristled head before suddenly pointing a finger in my direction. “Rowan is his Promise.”

  Get outta here! No shit—really? I’m his what?

  The intake of breath from Katja was so loud it sounded like a whistle. And then she began to laugh, a low chuckle that quickly climbed in volume and pitch before exploding in hysteria. I jumped at the sound of Aleksei’s hand slapping her, the resonance bouncing off the ugly wallpaper.

  “I don’t believe you!” Katja exclaimed. Her eyes glittered wildly as she held her hand to her cheek. It didn’t cover the big guy’s imprint.

  “Is the truth,” he hissed back. “Gabriel told me that night at the movie theater.” Aleksei didn’t apologize for striking her, but he did look somewhat ill at ease, telling me he was more than a little uncomfortable disclosing whatever it was that had been discussed. “Now do you understand why he won’t let her go—why he cannot?”

  I sure as hell didn’t, but that didn’t matter because Katja did. And judging from the shocked look on her face, it wasn’t something she was about to accept.

  “No, no, no!” she sputtered angrily. “No one believes a Promise to be real—”

  “Gabriel does,” Aleksei interrupted firmly, cutting off whatever else Katja might be thinking of saying.

  I watched both of them as my passport got stamped and I crossed over from Clueless Land into the Continent of the Totally Lost. What were they talking about? I was a Promise? What did that mean? The only definition I knew of a promise said it was a pledge, an oath, or a solemn agreement. But how could a person be a promise? I tried telling myself it was all a ridiculous misunderstanding due to semantics, but I had the sinking feeling there was another meaning I was missing completely. A meaning that had implications I knew nothing about.

  I desperately wanted to ask Aleksei what the fuck was going on, but he had his hands full with Katja again, only this time she wasn’t being aggressive. She looked very much like someone who was about to have a face-to-face meeting with the carpet. Clutching his mus
cular arm, she stared into his face, searching for something. A denial would be my guess.

  “I don’t believe you,” she muttered, glaring at me, “and even if you speak the truth, I refuse to believe Gabriel would have chosen someone like her.”

  Loathing spilled out of her cranberry-stained lips, the depth of her antipathy reaching a level that unnerved me. Katja’s visit to my house tonight had revealed her feelings for Gabriel. Her reaction now was a testament to the strength of those feelings, and a warning of how dangerous she was because of them.

  Murmuring her name soothingly, Aleksei put his arm around her shoulders and patted her back. Katja dropped her head and gave what sounded like a strangled sob, her hair cascading about her like a mantle, hiding her face. Things had taken a definite turn for the significantly weird. I was also fed up with both of them talking about me as if I wasn’t standing less than ten feet away.

  I gave up the idea of running down the hall. I doubted I could have outrun Katja anyway, and I knew for sure I wouldn’t be able to escape Aleksei. Suddenly jerking herself out of the Russian’s hold, Katja stared at him. The amethyst eyes continued to glitter, but now it was with something wild and dangerous.

  “Prove it,” she said, staring hard into his face. “If she’s his Promise, then she will be marked.”

  The big guy began mumbling in frustration. Irritated and angry all at once, he narrowed his eyes and looked at me in such a way that I began assessing my chances of making a break for it. They weren’t good. I had absolutely no idea what was going on inside the Russian’s head, had no idea what was going on outside of it for that matter, but I wanted to let him know I wasn’t going down without a fight. I didn’t care how big he was.

  Unfortunately, like everything that had taken place so far, I was three steps behind everyone else.

  “Rowan—” He stood before me, and I looked up at the ruined face, noting he had made a deliberate effort to calm himself. “I must ask for your forgiveness.”

  Only he didn’t wait to get it. Before I could take another breath, he spun me around, pulling me out of my jacket, and throwing it on the floor. Yanking up the back of my shirt, he tugged at the waistband of my jeans, exposing my lower back.

  And my tattoo. The one Gabriel had said was meaningless.

  I flailed pathetically against the sold block of granite that doubled as the big guy’s arm, stopping only when I heard him utter, “She carries his name.”

  Setting me back upright, Aleksei apologized while trying to straighten my clothes. Angrily I slapped his hand away, but not before seeing the look of admiration he tried to hide as I did so. Guess he was impressed by my show of temper.

  Katja, however, seemed completely devastated. Whatever had been on her mind when she had first shown up tonight, whatever she’d thought she needed to tell me about Gabriel had just been airmailed out the window. By some permanent artwork inked on my back.

  “Do you think that is just coincidence?” Aleksei asked.

  “Okay,” I said, tugging on the bottom of my shirt. “I’ve had just about enough of this bullshit.” I fixed both of them with a hard stare. “What do you mean I carry his name? Whose name?”

  The sound of female laughter filled the hallway again. Not quite as hysterical this time, but it was walking a knife edge.

  “She doesn’t even know that!” Katja spat out in disgust, looking at Aleksei. “And you want me to believe she’s his Promise?”

  Folding his arms across his chest, Aleksei ignored Katja and addressed me. “The tattoo you have on your back is a name,” he told me gravely, “and it is Gabriel’s.”

  “Get the fuck out of here!” I so wasn’t buying that one.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Of course, I don’t. It’s just a meaningless design.”

  “No, it isn’t,” the big guy said firmly. “The symbols on your skin are a language, one that only a handful of living creatures know. It is the Old Tongue, and what is written on your back is the word Gabriel.”

  “What do you mean . . . Old Tongue?”

  “The language of the Fallen.” Aleksei placed his hand over his heart in a gesture of reverence.

  I could feel my temper rising. Would these people never stop speaking in riddles? What the fuck was Aleksei talking about? Who had fallen? Suspicion suddenly blazed a path in my brain. “Would Gabriel recognize this language, if he saw it?” I demanded.

  “Of course,” Aleksei answered, looking slightly perplexed. “It is his true voice, it always has been.”

  I could hear Katja’s laughter edging a little further up the hysteria scale, and it began to grate on my nerves. The enormity of the big guy’s words hit me. If I believed what I was hearing to be true, then Gabriel had lied to me. My legs suddenly felt weird, as if my muscles were collapsing, and my stomach rolled in a way that was definitely nauseating.

  A hundred voices began to shout inside my head all at once, demanding answers to questions I didn’t even know how to ask. I braced myself against the wall with one hand and wrapped the other around my waist as I leaned forward.

  Deep breaths . . . inhale through the nose . . . exhale through the mouth . . . inhale . . . exhale . . . deep breaths.

  Aleksei stood between Katja and me, as solid as a giant sequoia, trying to decide what the next course of action should be. My being here was turning out to be a disaster in the making, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. But the big guy had the advantage. He knew the reason why. I did not. He turned his attention back to Katja.

  “You must take Rowan back to her home,” he said in a low, urgent voice, “before Gabriel senses her presence.”

  The dark curtain of hair swung as she stared at him. I didn’t know if she was going to agree with his suggestion or not, but I wasn’t about to let her off the hook that easily. I rounded on him as my temper got the better of me.

  “Wait a minute—she has the nerve to come to my house in all her Goth Queen glamour”—I stabbed an angry finger over his shoulder—“and tell me I’m not good enough for Gabriel, and then, as if that isn’t enough, when I refuse to back off, she kidnaps me and brings me here!” I spread my arms expansively. “And I haven’t got a friggin’ clue where the fuck I am, but now you think she should just take me back home? And do what? Play nice and pretend this never happened?” I made a sound of complete disgust and put my hands on my hips while Aleksei looked dismayed. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, or what you guys are up to, but I can tell you I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers!”

  Anger is an intense emotion. It can either propel you to great acts of courage or ones of complete stupidity. The jury still hadn’t reached a decision in my case.

  “Rowan, now is not the time,” Aleksei implored. “Please just allow Katja to—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Aleksei!” I couldn’t believe he was pleading with me. “This is between your girl there and me.”

  Katja was staring at me, her eyes wide with disbelief at my outburst; her lids began to shutter, and that beautiful pouting mouth set itself in a grim line. Refusing to back down, I dared her to take me on.

  “I want you to explain just what the fuck is going on, and you can begin by telling me what it is about Gabriel that I don’t know!”

  Aleksei took a step toward me, holding out a placating hand. “Rowan—”

  “I already told you to back off!” I snapped, so pissed off, I forgot how big and menacing he actually was. I focused my attention completely on the beautiful girl next to him. “What was so important, Katja, that you felt compelled to abduct me and drag me here? What did I need to see that would make me think twice about, how did you put it, inviting Gabriel back into my bed?”

  I could see Aleksei from the corner of my eye. If he’d looked horrified before, it was nothing compared to how he looked now. Clutching his forehead with one massive hand, he began shaking his head back and forth and moaning under his breath. Katja remained silent.

&nbs
p; “Cat got your tongue?” I goaded.

  That worked. Her head snapped up and her eyes glowed like hot coals. I never saw her move. One minute she was standing next to Aleksei, and the next she barreled herself into my midriff, and I was flying down the hallway slung over her shoulder.

  “No, Katja! No!” Aleksei shouted behind us.

  But he was already too late. She was definitely much stronger than I’d realized because carrying my weight over her shoulder didn’t slow her down at all. Coming to a stop, she dumped me on the floor in an undignified heap and dropped to her haunches, squeezing my jaw painfully between her fingers.

  “So you are Gabriel’s Promise, are you?” I could hear humiliation behind the anger in each word as it fell from her perfect mouth. “Well, Little One, better find out exactly what it is you’ve been promised to.”

  And grabbing my arm, she pulled open the door before us, and flung me inside.

  CHAPTER 29

  I landed on my back on thick white carpet, bouncing my head and feeling the air whoosh out of my lungs. Disoriented, I lay still, trying to catch my breath. Movement in my peripheral vision made me turn my head to one side, and I frowned. The wall was moving. The fluidity of motion suggested it was liquid. I was staring at a wall of water.

  I felt my eyebrows pull together. A wall of water seemed a little excessive to have inside a room, no matter how eccentric or rich you were. It took a few more moments of focused observation before one of my other senses kicked in, telling me this must be a strange type of water because it was falling without a single splash, gurgle, or drip.

  I blinked and refocused, and sighed with relief. It wasn’t water after all. What I was looking at was a panel of silky blue material that was moving by some unknown means. Rippling like a waterfall.

  Only then I did hear something. A noise that made the hair at the nape of my neck stand up. It sounded part animal, part something I prayed to God I would never meet, not even in my nightmares. Fear got me to my hands and knees, scrambling back against the wall to conceal myself in the shadows. My flight-or-fight response kicked in, its thumb punching my flight button for all it was worth. But the door Katja had thrown me through was no longer open. Closed, it blended seamlessly with the wall, and I had no idea how to locate it. My bounce across the floor had really bamboozled me.