Slade (Venom Series) Book Two

by Kristen Middleton

  I thought about holding her against me and felt my own blood begin to rush to sights unseen. I sat down at the table, hiding any evidence. “So, would you like to play some cards? To pass some of the time? Bradan gave me a new deck earlier.”

  She smiled and sat down across from me. “Sure. What would you like to play?”

  Strip-poker? Biting my tongue, I pulled the cards out of my back pocket, and removed the cellophane. “I don’t care. You pick.”

  “Poker?”

  I grinned. “Sure. What would you like to play for?” Clothing?

  Her eyes sparkled. “How about… confessions? Have you ever played that?”

  My eyes widened. “Confessions? I guess not.”

  “It’s fun and very easy. Since we’re going to be spending time together, I think we should learn a little more about each other. Don’t you?”

  “Sure,” I answered and then smiled wickedly. “But, are you sure you want me to confess all of my deepest secrets to you? I’m pretty sure some of them will make you blush.”

  “I don’t care.”

  I laughed. “We haven’t even started playing and you’re already red in the face.”

  She looked down, smiling. “Whatever, just deal the cards.”

  I dealt out the cards and won the first round.

  “Okay, so then I take it I get to ask you something? Or do you just have to make a random confession?”

  “Why don’t you just ask me a question?” she answered.

  “Ask you anything?”

  She hesitated. “Um, sure.”

  “Okay… Do I frighten you?”

  Chelsey actually looked relieved. “No. I have to admit that you did. At first. But after everything we’ve been through in the last few days, no. Not at all.”

  I grinned. “Good.”

  She took the cards from me and dealt. I won again.

  “Crap,” she said, folding.

  “Okay, another question… Hmm… what is your favorite food?”

  She smiled. “You don’t really care what my favorite food is, do you?”

  I grinned back at her. “Maybe I do.”

  “Fine. It’s pizza, and I’ll take it any way I can get it. Except I hate anchovies.”

  “I see.”

  “Have you ever had pizza before?”

  “No.”

  Her smile was sympathetic. “Really? Never? When did you become a vampire?”

  “You’re going to have to win in order to find out.”

  “Fine. Deal them.”

  When I won the third time, she gave me a pouty look. “Not fair,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, laughing.

  “You keep winning.”

  “Now, don’t be a sore loser.”

  “I’m not,” she insisted.

  Here,” I said, handing her the cards again. “Deal them out.”

  This time Chelsey won, with a full-house. She cleared her throat and smiled triumphantly. “Okay… so, when did you become a vampire?”

  “Eighteen-fifty-six.”

  Her eyes widened. “Seriously? You’ve been around since the eighteen-hundreds?”

  “Yes. I told you that I was older than dirt.”

  Her eyes searched my face as if looking for something that showed my true age. “That’s incredible. How did you become a vampire anyway?”

  “Win another hand and maybe I will tell you,” I said softly. It wasn’t my favorite subject, but, for some reason, I felt like I needed to tell her.

  She groaned. “Oh, come on.”

  I smiled again. “Hey, these were your rules. You can’t change them now.”

  “Fine,” she said, handing me the rest of her cards. “Deal.”

  “I won again,” she squealed two minutes later. “Okay, so how did you become a vampire?”

  “Someone bit me in the neck.”

  She gave me a dirty look. “I’m going to bite you in the neck if you don’t fess up. How did it really happen?”

  I smirked. “What is this – Interview With The Vampire?”

  “Are you seriously going to keep avoiding this question?” she asked.

  I sighed. “It happened one night when I was on my way home from work,” I said, lowering my voice.

  “Where did you work?”

  “I worked for the railroad. A company in Bazias. I was one of their accountants.”

  Her eyes widened. “You, an accountant?”

  I smirked. “Yeah. I was a damn good one, too.”

  “Wow. Sorry, I’m just surprised. You went from an accountant to a singer. It’s kind of cool, actually. Anyway, go on,” she said, looking intrigued.

  I thought about that night. How it had changed the outcome of my life. “I didn’t live far from the office and usually walked home from work most evenings. One night, I stayed late...” I paused, thinking back. It was so long ago, but I could still see it clearly in my head.

  She stared at me expectantly. “Okay, go on. You stayed late. What happened?”

  I chuckled. “Would you like me to get you some popcorn?”

  She groaned. “Slade. You’re the one who’s creating the suspense.”

  “Okay.” I sighed wearily. I had done my best to put most of it behind me, and now I was about to rehash one of the worst times in my life. “On the night I became a vampire, I rescued a young woman from what I thought was an assault. Little did I know that she’d lured the man into a dark alley and was about to make him her next meal.”

  Her eyes widened. “So, she was a vampire. Not a victim.”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. What happened next?”

  “He got away.”

  “I figured. Was she angry?”

  “No. In fact, Iona was flattered, I guess. Anyway, after he ran off, I offered to walk her home, and when we got to her house, she invited me in.”

  “To… thank you?”

  I nodded. “Yes, but she wanted to do more than just thank me.”

  “Let me guess – she wanted your blood instead, since the other guy got away?”

  “Actually, she wanted to have sex.”

  Chelsey’s eyes widened. “Did you?”

  I took a deep breath. “Yes… but not by choice.”

  She smirked. “Right.”

  “Just because someone offers me sex, doesn’t mean I’m up for it,” I said a little too sharply. “I told you that before.”

  She suddenly looked embarrassed. “Yes. You did. That was unfair. I’m sorry.”

  I relaxed. “It’s okay. I’m sorry for snapping at you. That was unfair of me.”

  She brushed it off. “It’s okay. I get it. I’d be mad, too, if everyone was always making assumptions about me.”

  I shrugged.

  “So, you went to her house and she charmed you into going inside? To have sex.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Were you even attracted to her?”

  I could barely remember what Iona looked like. It had been so long. “Whether or not was irrelevant. The fact was that I needed to get home to my brothers and sisters. They were expecting me home. Unfortunately, I never made it.”

  Chelsey stared at me in horror. “You had brothers and sisters waiting at home for you? How old were they?”

  “I was the oldest. It was me, Constantin, who was seventeen, and then there were Mirella and Anca, who were only ten and seven at the time.”

  “And… you were going home to them the night that she… she basically kidnapped you?”

  I stared blindly ahead, thinking back to my younger sisters. They’d both been so young. So innocent. So beautiful. Mirella, with her long, dark hair and doe-eyes, and Anca, who’d looked a lot like me. My sisters and Constantin had meant everything to me, and I, to them. Until I’d tried to play hero one night and messed up my life. “Yes. I was all they had. I provided for the four of us.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “My mother had died during childbirth, delivering my y
oungest sister, Anca, and my father drank himself to death when I was nineteen. So, it was up to me and Constantin to look after the girls.”

  “That’s horrible,” she said, touching my hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  I shrugged it off. “It was many years ago.”

  “But it was your entire life that was affected. It must have been so difficult for you at the time.”

  “It certainly wasn’t easy.”

  “So, Iona talked you into entering her home?”

  I smiled grimly. “Charmed me. After that, I couldn’t remember much of anything, only that I woke up naked and in bed, with teeth marks on my skin.”

  She covered her mouth. “Oh, my God. She bit you all over?”

  “It usually takes three bites to turn someone into a vampire. I don’t know if she was actually trying to turn me into one, or just got carried away. All I know is that when I regained consciousness, I was a vampire.”

  “Wow, what an evil bitch.”

  I smiled. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Was she there when you woke up?”

  “No. She left and I soon found out that it wasn’t even her house. It was one of her other victims’ places. He’d been dead for a couple of weeks and she’d apparently needed a place to stay.”

  “Did you ever see her afterwards?”

  “No,” I said, still frustrated by that. I’d searched high and low for her for several years, in fact. But had never found her again.

  “You must hate her terribly.”

  “Not as much as I did back then. She destroyed my family, though. The only life I knew or wanted.”

  “What happened with them?”

  “Well, when I went back home the next morning, Constantin and I got into a heated argument. He was angry and didn’t understand why I’d disappeared. Hell, I didn’t even really know. I was still in a fugue. All I knew was that I was different and could do things that I’d never done before.”

  “Were your sisters angry?”

  I smiled sadly. Just thinking about them still made my heart swell. “No. They were confused by my absence, but forgave me within seconds. That’s just the way they were. Sweethearts.”

  Chelsey smiled and then frowned. “Why do I get this feeling that something bad happened between all of you?”

  “Because it did,” I replied. “A few days later, Constantin found out that I was a vampire.”

  “What did he do when he found out?”

  “Actually,” I rubbed my forehead, “it wasn’t what he did. It was what the people in town did.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

  “I tried to go back to my old life, but my appetites had obviously… changed. And I was different physically. Nothing terribly noticeable, but nonetheless, someone at the railroad found out that I was a vampire. I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t very good at hiding things back then. Anyway, a lynch mob was formed and they went after me.”

  She sucked in her breath. “No.... What happened?”

  “Fortunately, I was able to escape with Constantin and the girls. I relocated them to another city, far away from Bazias. After they were settled in, and Constantin had a job, I left them.”

  “You did? Why?”

  “Early on, I couldn’t always control the cravings. The hunger for blood. Quite honestly, I was terrified that I might hurt one of them. I was also frightened of the possibility of another attack by more vampire hunters. There was more to fear with me in their lives than without me there.”

  “That’s horrible, Slade,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “You had to abandon your family? The people you spent your life taking care of? It must have hurt you terribly to have to give them up.”

  “It was the hardest thing I’d ever done,” I admitted. Even harder than losing Vanessa.

  She shook her head and wiped a tear from under her lashes. “I… I just can’t imagine how you must have felt. Leaving all of them.”

  “It was very painful,” I replied, thinking back to the last time I’d tucked young Anca into bed. The way she’d stared at me. The love and trust reflected in her eyes. She had no idea that I was about to leave them. No idea that she’d never see me again. I was about to break her heart and I hated myself for it.

  “Slade, what’s wrong? You look sad. Are you crying?”

  I brushed the hair away from Anca’s green eyes. “Maybe.”

  “You are… Why?”

  “Don’t worry. These are tears of joy,” I answered, smiling down at her. “Have I told you how precious you are to me?”

  She grinned, two of her top teeth missing. “Yes. You said it a lot today. Maybe even ten times.”

  I laughed. “Well, that’s not nearly enough. You are so precious to me, Anca. So very precious. I love you so much. You have no idea how proud Constantin and I am of you and your sister.”

  “I love you, too. Now, can you tell me that story you made up last week? Pretty please? The one about the mermaid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, thank you, Slade. Can we pretend that I’m the mermaid again?”

  “Of course, but before I do, I want you to remember something, Anca.”

  She absently rubbed the edge of her blanket with her first two fingers. “What?”

  I stared into her eyes. “That if I leave this place, you’ll still know that I love you. With all of my heart and soul.”

  “You’ll love me with all of your heart and soul.”

  I smiled. “Yes. You and Constantin and Mirella.”

  She tilted her head to the side and looked at me with intelligence beyond her years. “I already know that, Slade. Don’t be sad.”

  Sighing, I told her the story she wanted. As her eyes fluttered to sleep, I pressed my lips against her forehead, inhaling her youth and innocence. She smelled like honey and the wildflowers that had been growing along the side of the house. I would never smell anything again as sweet.

  “Slade?”

  I cleared my throat. “Sorry. I zoned out there for a minute. Another game?”

  “We don’t have to,” she answered softly.

  “Hey, what are you two playing?” asked Liam, walking toward us with Melody.

  “Poker,” I said, shuffling the cards.

  He grinned. “Sweet. Can I play?”

  I nodded. “Sure. Have a seat. You want to play, Melody?”

  “Yeah. What are we playing for?” she asked, sitting next to Chelsey.

  “Well, we were playing for confessions,” said Chelsey.

  “I’d rather play for clothes. It would be less embarrassing,” joked Liam.

  “For you, maybe,” said Chelsey. “I’m sorry, but I’m not playing strip poker.”

  “Oh, don’t be a wimp,” said Melody. “It would be fun.”

  “I agree with Chelsey,” I said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate. If you and Liam want to have your own poker game, take it to another section of the plane.”

  Melody looked at Liam. “I’d be open for it.”

  “Not that I don’t want to see you naked, because believe me, I do, he’s right. It just wouldn’t be appropriate,” answered Liam, shocking the hell out of me. Normally, he would have jumped all over an offering like that. “Let’s just play for peanuts. I found a stash of them in the kitchen earlier.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. I’d already confessed more in one day than I had in the last century.

  BY THE TIME we landed in Dublin, I felt entirely comfortable around Slade. I’d learned so much about him, and if anything, I had a deep respect for the way he’d tried to live his life as a vampire. It was clear that the situation had been forced upon him, and because of it, he’d lost so much in his life. It really touched my heart.

  “Can you believe we’re finally here?” said Melody, as we prepared to get off the plane. It was dark outside and neither of us had any idea of what time it was. “It seems like we’ve been flying for days.”

  I handed her one of the p
lastic bags from the sporting-goods store. “Yeah. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, though.”

  She laughed. “Right. I thought you were going to have a conniption on the way to New York. What changed?”

  “Slade calmed me down.”

  Her eyes widened. “He charmed you?”

  “Yeah. I’m glad he did, though. It made the trip slightly more enjoyable,” I said, smiling.

  “You’ve really warmed up to him, haven’t you?”

  I shrugged. “He’s a nice guy.”

  “Oh, he’s a guy now? Not just a ‘freaken vampire’?”

  I lowered my voice. “So, I was wrong about him. He’s not at all what I’d expected. Besides, you were scared of him for a while there, too.”

  “Yeah, until after he saved us from Sheriff Caleb,” she replied.

  “You girls ready?” asked Slade, coming up behind us.

  “Yes. Where’s Liam?” asked Melody, looking around.

  Slade pointed. “He’s talking to the pilots.”

  Bradan, Jimmy, and Sean joined us near the exit.

  “So, what’s the plan?” asked Bradan. “You leaving for Romania right away, or hanging out at the castle?”

  “Oh, my God, that’s right. We’re going to a real castle!” squealed Melody. “Liam said he lives there with Aiden and a couple of his cousins. I can’t wait to see it.”

  “I’m not sure what’s going on yet,” he answered. “I’d like to make sure that the girls get to the castle, though.”

  “Are we staying there permanently?” I asked, remembering that he’d mentioned his condo in Constanta.

  “If you want to. It will be your choice,” said Slade.

  “Liam said there was plenty of room for us in his family’s castle,” said Melody. She grinned. “No offense, Slade, but my first choice will always be a castle.”

  Or anywhere near Liam, I thought.

  “I have to admit, it’s breathtaking,” answered Slade. He looked at me. “And I’d understand why you’d want to stay there. If you change your mind, however, you can always move to my place.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “We really appreciate everything you’ve done for us. All of you.”

  “No problem,” said Slade. “As far as I’m concerned, I owe you. If Faye wasn’t trying to screw with me, you would be in this mess.”

  “No,” said Melody. “This is my fault. For sneaking into the club. If I wouldn’t have done that, then Chelsey wouldn’t have tried looking for me.”