by S. J. Wright
I tried calling and texting Katie for several days after her abrupt departure, but she had not returned them. I wanted someone to blame for this. I thought briefly of asking Alex if I could borrow his cell phone so that I could call my mother and give her a piece of my mind. What good would that have done? It did not matter that she had sent her boy toy to “help” me. She had written me off long ago.
Alex and I were keeping out of each other’s way. I really wanted to ask him to leave, but he was turning out to be a lot of help around the Inn, given that Joe’s arthritis was beginning to act up and he could only come out to help a few days a week. I was sure that I would not be able to find a decent replacement before the fall rush, so I avoided Alex as much as possible.
Occasionally, I would catch him watching me with those incredible emerald eyes. His expression was contemplative. When I would catch him doing it, he would find an excuse to leave the room or suddenly think of something he needed to do.
One night when I had trouble drifting off to sleep, I kept going over in my head what he had said about my mother and Michael. Questions about the whole situation made it impossible for me to relax. I needed some answers. Clenching my pillow with both fists, I realized that the one person other than my mother who might be able to help me was the vampire who I was now in charge of keeping out of trouble.
I turned on the lamp by my bed and grabbed the journal from my nightstand. After a good deal of searching through the entries of my grandfather, I found what I needed. Snapping the journal shut, I rose from my bed and went to the window. I was about to do something that might be incredibly stupid.
It was 2:46 a.m. The night beckoned.
“Hello, Michael.”
He had been waiting for me under the tree, leaning against it as if he did not have a care in the world. His powerful arms were crossed and a devious grin curled his lips as he watched me. I had approached from the rarely used dirt lane that ran along the edge of the creek and came to a standstill fifty feet away from him, keeping a close eye on the distance between the boulders and me.
“You knew I was coming?”
His smile deepened, “I do have certain abilities that alert me when someone’s coming my way.”
“Did you see my mother before she came here?”
“Ah. So that’s why you’re here.” He uncrossed his arms and took a few slow steps toward me, “I’m disappointed.”
Fight it, Sarah. Watch the boundary line. Don’t give him control. I raised my head and trained my eyes on the boulders set back from the creek.
“You turned my mother?” My voice came out tight as I tried to ignore the fire he had ignited inside me by being so close.
“I did.”
“Why?”
He chuckled quietly and turned away from me. His shoulders were so wide and the muscles there moved so fluidly, I found it hard to concentrate on the conversation. Especially when I accidentally let my look travel further down to the seat of his jeans. I drew in a sharp breath and pressed my fingernails into my palms.
“You’re better off without her, Sarah.”
“Answer the question, Michael.” I hissed back.
There was a long pause before he turned back to me with a heated stare. He took two deliberate steps toward me, his fists clenched against his sides. When he spoke, his hypnotic voice was edged with steel.
“I refused in the beginning. Then she threatened to do harm to your father and both you girls if I didn’t make her one of us.”
I took a shaky breath, “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. I did what I thought was right at the time.”
My brain was suddenly struck by the idea that my mother’s threat would not have mattered if Michael were the cold-blooded, calculating vampire that everyone thought he was.
“Why would my mother use that threat? You’re a vampire, right? My father was your jailer. Why would it bother you to know she might harm us?”
His laugh rang out, dark and hollow in the night, “If your father died and his children with him, do you think I would ever have a chance to get out of here?”
“I don’t know. Nobody seems to be telling me very much about what I’m supposed to be doing or what the rules are. No one has explained anything to me about vampires.” I crossed my arms and shivered as I felt the cool night air begin to seep through my jacket. I knew it was ridiculous for me to be out there, trying to get honest answers from someone who probably had centuries to perfect his lies.
“Cold?” He had moved closer, his dark silhouette looming before me like an animal about to strike. His brilliantly colored eyes narrowed and he held out his powerful arms.
“I could warm you up, Sarah.”
The power his voice had over me was still strong. I noted again how far out I was from the boulders and took an additional couple steps back just to be sure.
He shot me a mischievous little smirk, “Ah, yes. The boundary.”
He moved forward yet again, this time more slowly and gracefully than seemed possible, until he was only a foot from me. I was holding my breath but my heart was thumping like a wild drum, seeming to drown out all my other senses. Had the diagram in the journal been wrong? How else could he keep getting so close? Panic had begun burning me from the inside out, and my hands were trembling.
His rumbling laugh came rolling over me in delicious waves, “You need to relax, my dear. Given the faith you have in that mad man’s journal, I would think you would understand that I am forbidden to cause you any harm.”
“That depends on what kind of harm you’re referring to.” I said weakly. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I found the courage to look into his eyes, “What do you mean by ‘mad man’, anyway? I assume you’re referring to my grandfather?”
“Yes. Jonathon had some issues, I hate to tell you.”
“Such as?” My heart was finally slowing down its ferocious cadence.
His tone was flippant, “He had a little trouble adjusting to the idea that this piece of land had another purpose besides growing corn. I am sure my attitude and threats did not give him much peace of mind either. In the end, it was the combination of alcohol and overwhelming responsibility that did him in.” He retreated to the tree, sitting on a small boulder at the side of the creek and stared at the water, “I didn’t mourn him. By that time, I’d developed a fragile truce with your father.”
He cast a little smile at me over his shoulder, “Friendship can take many forms, you know.”
I felt my mouth fall open. Could it be true? Forgetting my own safety, I went to stand by the tree.
“Friendship? Are you serious?”
“Completely. I watched him grow up. We even had several short conversations before your grandfather kicked the bucket.”
I blanched at his casual disregard, “Somehow I find that hard to believe.”
His head turned in my direction, and he watched my face. Before I even took another breath, he had risen from his spot. The touch of his fingers against my jaw was surprisingly warm. Far too warm for my comfort. Every fingertip that touched my skin seemed to feed me with a heat that traveled swiftly from my face down into my neck and then my chest. Painful little pinpricks of sensation flooded my head and left me swimming desperately for some solid ground.
“You’re going to find a lot of things hard to believe, Sarah.” He whispered sweetly, “That’s one of your greatest qualities. Innocence.”
His head dipped down as he took in the scent of me, seeming to draw everything of me into the core of him. I cannot recall a time I’d ever felt so helpless against my fate. So lost. We were so close. Every breath I took seemed to be shared with him. His fingers curled against my face and trailed down to my neck.
“So sweet.” He murmured, the words sending tremors through my every limb.
Then I felt the firm pressure of his hands sliding against my scalp. Their grip tightened in the lengths of my hair, forcing m
y head back.
“Look at me.” He growled, “Damn you, look at me.”
I did. It was a mistake to give in to any of his demands, but this one was the worst. Because the entire field—the tree, the stones, the creek, all disappeared into nothingness. Every thought I had had, every precaution I had taken floated away from me into the ebony sky when I witnessed the hunger in Michael’s features. In the set of his parting lips, the angular planes of his beautiful face. And the undeniable desperation that radiated from his eyes.
It would be so easy to let go and to give him what he wanted. It would be so natural to let him take it. To take me. Then I began imagining the fallout. The tiny red warning light in my brain became a blazing neon sign. His motions ceased as he felt me begin to pull back from the fantasy. I did not want to be used as his way out. I did not want to be used at all. Cherished? Revered? Yes. But not this.
Conscious sensation rushed through my legs and arms, and I yanked myself back with a curse. I stumbled backwards away from the tree and turned down the lane that led back to the house. Surrender was not in my vocabulary, I reminded myself. His fingers had left warm little trails across my skin that I tried to ignore.
“I know you feel it, Sarah.” He said.
Feeling his eyes on me, I did not look back but marched ahead.
“Go to hell.” I replied.
Chapter Seven
His face seemed to have been permanently branded on the surface of my subconscious mind. Sleep became an impossible feat. I did not even toss and turn. I lay perfectly still; the covers gathered close around me and I kept my eyes closed. However, inside, the image of him burned me. It was the last thing I wanted. Succumbing to Michael would not only put my own life in danger, but possibly Katie’s as well. I knew that. Nevertheless, the need growing in me was overwhelming. It was taking over everything inside me and eating away at the edges of my good sense.
I went through my daily routine in a daze, moving like a mannequin. One afternoon as I was peeling potatoes for dinner, Alex approached me with a worried look in his eyes. I motioned at the unpeeled potatoes in my basket. Without a word, he washed his hands carefully at the big sink and then settled in the chair next to mine to help.
We worked quietly for a while, dropping the peelings into a double-layered paper bag between us and slipping the naked spuds into a huge bowl in the middle of the table. He was taking his time, if he had wanted to talk.
“You’ve been different lately.” He said quietly, his knife continuing to move.
“Things on my mind.”
“Anything I can help with?”
I dropped another potato in the bowl and turned to him with a sigh, “Not unless you know how to get me out of being a jailor.”
A smile curved his lips and he shot me a glance, “Wish I could. It’d make things a lot simpler.”
Sharing my feelings about Michael with Alex was definitely a bad idea, so when the words came tumbling out of my mouth, I think I was more shocked than he was.
“I’ve been having some… thoughts about Michael.” I dropped my peeler and covered my mouth with trembling fingers.
Alex’s face transformed into an expression of worry and intense anger. He dropped the potato he had been working on and it tumbled onto the floor.
“You went to him?” His fingers gripped one sleeve of my corduroy shirt as he loomed over me. His eyes were a fiery green, pulsing with repressed hostility.
I jerked my arm from his grasp, “Cut it out. I wanted to ask him about my mother.” I picked up the peeler and began with a new potato, ripping at it in frustration, “Nothing really happened. But I can understand now why she was tempted.”
He eased slowly back into his seat and put his hands over his face, “You can’t go out there again, Sarah. It’s too dangerous.”
“I thought he couldn’t hurt me.”
“It’s a rule of his detention.” He sighed and stared at the table before him, “He’s not supposed to hurt you. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”
I shrugged, trying to ease the tension between us, “Well, I tried to stay outside of the detention border. There’s a diagram in the journal that lays it all out.” Then I hesitated, remembering how far Michael had managed to get from where the border should be, “But I don’t think the diagram is right.”
Alex pushed his chair back and went to one of the two windows across from the table, staring out into the darkening day, “His powers may allow him to extend the original field. There’s no way to know how far he can go at this point, if that’s true.” He turned back to me, alarm sketched over his handsome face. He approached the table, leaning on it with his palms flat against the tabletop and fixed his eyes on my face.
“Sarah it may be possible for him to get to the house.”
Oh, God. What if he got to Nelly? The guests could even be in danger. My breathing became ragged and my pulse raced as horrible images flooded my head; Nelly, eyes wide open, throat slashed open, lying in a pool of her own blood, drops of scarlet falling onto the floor beneath her bed. I imagined everything in silence, as if a demon had passed through and destroyed everything that was real.
“No, no. He can’t.” I whispered.
“If he’s managed to stretch the detention field, he certainly can.”
I nibbled on my thumbnail, trying to come up with some solution. The only one here who could tell how far the field extended was Michael. However, someone else must be able to sense it, to give us some idea if we were safe in the house. Another immortal, maybe. However, I refused to consider asking for the help of my mother.
“The Council.” I stood up from my chair and began pacing from the entryway to the dining room and back across the kitchen, “Someone from the Council should have some answers for us.”
“How can we contact them?” He asked.
I raced upstairs to my bedroom. Nelly’s head popped through one of the bedroom doorways as I flew by, “Where’s the fire, dear?”
Instead of answering, I grabbed the journal from my nightstand and began flipping through it desperately to find anything my grandfather might have written about contacting the Council. There had to be something there; some kind of “contact in case of emergency” phone number or something. All I kept seeing were names that meant nothing to me. Isaiah, Eleanor, William, Chester.
Chester Fleming. I whipped my cell phone from my dressing table and made the call.
“Sarah those horses are loose again!” Nelly called from down the hall. It was true. From my bedroom window, I could see Lenny stretching his neck over the short garden fence trying to get to the last few green peppers left on the plants out there. Messenger was loping around the side yard, trying to avoid Sadie who was barking and appeared greatly disturbed at having the horses invade her space up near the house.
I turned toward Alex, who had followed me upstairs and stood waiting by the door to my room. As I waited for Dr. Fleming’s answering service to pick up, I covered up the phone with one hand and said, “I hope Messy didn’t kick that gate down again. Can you try to get them both into that pen behind the barn? I’ll be out as soon as I can.”
He nodded shortly and headed outside. I gnawed a little more on my thumbnail until the doctor’s answering service finally answered my call. I asked them to have the doctor call me back then headed outside to help Alex round up the horses.
Several hours later, I collapsed in a heap on the sofa in the den. I was completely exhausted. Three hours of chasing a frisky and rather stubborn mare around our property could do that to anyone. We had both finally thrown our hands up in defeat, closed and locked the gate at the road and left Messenger to her own devices. In the end, we had lost sight of her in the woods behind the barn and hoped she might be tempted by an open stall door and a couple of scoops of grain in her feed bin. We were both unwilling to do anything more about it that night.
Alex had headed over to his cabin for a shower and Nelly was busy preparing us a small dinner in the
kitchen when the phone rang. I struggled to my feet and went into the entry, where we had one of those old-fashioned phones sitting on a table near the stairs.
“Woodhaven Inn. This is Sarah. How may I help you?”
“Sarah this is Dr. Fleming. You need to come on down to the end of your driveway. I’ve got a couple of guests that need to be let inside.” He sounded a little odd. Nervous.
I held the phone away from my ear and called into the kitchen, “Nelly, did we get another reservation that I didn’t know about?”