Resurrection_Part One of the Macauley Vampire Trilogy

by Rebecca Norinne

Chapter Nineteen

  Olivia

  Watching the sun set out my bedroom window I wondered how long it would be before William would wake up. Would he come straight to me? What was the protocol of this arrangement? We hadn’t discussed specifics so I wasn’t entirely sure what was, or wasn’t, expected of me. It’s not as if we’d moved in together after a long courtship and had established patterns that we fell neatly into. I’d literally just met the guy yesterday. Unless, of course, you didn’t count those years he’d been my husband hundreds of years earlier. I rubbed my temples. Goddamnit, life was complicated.

  I shouldn’t have been nervous to see William, not after everything we’d shared, but my heart was racing and my palms were slick with sweat as I watched the sun slide below the horizon and dusk arrive. I checked myself in the mirror, and fidgeted with my hair. I’d decided to go without makeup as that’s how William had been used to seeing me in my other life. Thankfully, I’d been born with good genes that had given me my mother’s flawless skin and my dad’s jade eyes. While it might not have been my favorite look, fresh-faced was at least something I could pull off without any great shame. Still, I was eager to see his reaction to this more wholesome version of me than he’d seen the night before. Funny, I realized, since he’d already seen me as natural as it came.

  A light knock sounded at the door and without waiting for a response, William popped his head in the room. “Am I interrupting you?”

  “No, of course not,” I answered, nervously clasping my hands in front of me.

  When he stepped inside I had a moment to wonder whether I was projecting my own insecurities or if he was acting as timid as I felt.

  “I’m not really sure what the protocol is here. Do I kiss you hello? Wave? Say ‘hi, how was your nap’?”

  “You could do all three if you wanted,” he answered, stepping to me.

  “I don’t know which feels the most natural,” I admitted. “I know I shouldn’t be shy around you after last night, but in the grand scheme of things we’re still relative strangers and I don’t know what to say or do. Now that I’ve basically been moved into your home, I’m feeling a bit discombobulated. We’ve basically condensed what could be years of a relationship into one 18-hour period and I just don’t know how I’m supposed to behave.”

  I stopped talking when I realized I’d been babbling. I was out of my comfort zone and when that happened I turned into a Chatty Cathy.

  William approached me incredibly gingerly and I wondered if he was taking pains to move more slowly than he normally would in order to keep up his human charade. He was deceiving himself if he thought walking like that would make me forget his true nature, especially after our night together.

  “You don’t need to walk on egg shells around me, you know,” I told him. “You can move exactly as you would if I wasn’t here.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh come off it. You’re practically tiptoeing when you could just as easily be standing in front of me before I could even blink.”

  William let out a huge laugh that caught me by surprise. “What’s so funny?”

  “You are.”

  He grabbed my hands and intertwined our fingers. A very normal pose for a very not normal couple.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you worry too much?”

  “Yes, all the time. But why were you laughing at me?”

  “I was laughing because you’re a delightful surprise. You put on this tough, devil-may-care attitude but inside you’re worried about what everyone is doing, why they’re doing it, and what it has to do with you. You’re a walking contradiction. In one way it’s very cynical and narcissistic and in other ways it’s just naïve.”

  “I’m not narcissistic or naïve. Cynical yes, but you’re wrong about me. I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.” I turned my head and lifted my chin in defiance, a look I’d perfected at the age of ten.

  Taking my chin between his thumb and forefinger, careful not to exert too much pressure, he dragged my face back to his. “You care what I think of you.”

  Shit, he had me there.

  “So?”

  “So nothing. I like it. But you shouldn’t be so concerned about what I think. I can’t imagine not finding you completely captivating.”

  “You used to think I was annoying.”

  “That was before I knew you.”

  His statement caused an uncomfortable tug at something in my chest. “You don’t really know me now.”

  He stared at me, considering. “That’s true. So let’s talk. Tell me all about you, Olivia Donnelly.”

  I didn’t like the direction our conversation was taking. We’d spent too much time already dissecting my life. What I really wanted to talk about was him. Specifically, how it was that he’d become a vampire and killed me. Err, Ceara. Whoever. Pulling his hand from my chin, I leaned into him and nuzzle the spot where his neck met his collarbone. I licked playfully, hoping to distract him. He shuddered when I nipped at him playfully.

  Mission accomplished.

  Or maybe not.

  “People, and I count myself among them, are very instinctual,” he continued while I tried to divert his focus. While my attempts weren’t one hundred percent effective, he was having a hard time keeping his train of thought, his sentences starting then stopping as he tried to remember what he’d been about to say.

  “A lot of what we do is because we feel like it, not because we’ve plotted, planned, and assessed our actions from every angle. As shocking as it may be to hear a vampire so such a thing, but there doesn’t exist a sinister motive behind everything.”

  So caught up in trying to drive him wild, I couldn’t remember what his original point had been or what he was talking about, so it was a good thing when he dragged me from his neck and captured my glazed eyes to make she I hear what he said. “I approached you slowly because I enjoy looking at you and I wanted to prolong the moment.”

  Well damn. Nothing sinister there, exactly as he’d said. I’d never been so touchy before at the start of a new relationship so I couldn’t figure out why I was doing so now. It was completely unlike me. And then something occurred to me.

  “By any chance did you have to do a lot of reassuring with Ceara?”

  His eyes caught mine and held them. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because this isn’t me. I’m not the girl who needs to be told everything’s all right, that I’m perfect and nothing is wrong. I’m not the girl who worries about what people think of me.”

  He studied me for a few seconds. “Now that you mention it …” He trailed off, but he’d said enough.

  Pulling me into him, he rested his chin on the top of my head and then kissed my hair so tenderly I wanted to cry. “I’m sorry. I forget how confusing this must be for you. It’s not enough to find yourself with a vampire, but there’s also the question of how you came to have Ceara’s memories, how it is that you’re the spitting image of her.”

  Speaking into his chest, I asked, “So you don’t think it’s reincarnation?”

  “I don’t know, Olivia. I wish I did, but there’s no precedent for this that I have knowledge of. I’ve contacted a colleague who might know something about it. He’s a scholar with deep knowledge of obscure religions and occult practices. If something like this has happened before and was documented, he should know about it.”

  “The thing I can’t wrap my head around,” I told him, “is the whole doppelgänger thing. I’m willing to accept something like reincarnation exists—I mean, I kind of have to—but as far as I know, shouldn’t it just be Ceara’s soul in my body? I’ve never heard anything about carbon copies.”

  “I know,” he said, softly running his hand over my hair. “It’s unfathomable, and yet here we are.”

  “Yet here we are,” I repeated.

  “We have plenty of time to figure it out, but for now, let’s just relax and enjoy what is.”

  “You realize that’s a lo
t easier said than done, right?”

  He brought my hand to his lips and kissed each knuckle before opening my palm and nipping at its center. “Relax,” he whispered.

  Exactly how he thought any woman was supposed to relax when he was seducing them was beyond me. And it’s not like I didn’t want to relax. The idea of letting everything go and just living in the moment sounded fantastic, but so much of what Seamus had said earlier still rang in my ears.

  “I spoke with Seamus today.”

  “Yes, he told me.” William’s voice was clipped when he responded and I realized he must have checked in with Seamus before coming to see me.

  While I knew it was probably part of their long-established routine, it hurt to know that when he’d woken, I hadn’t been first on William’s mind.

  “And I imagine I have some explaining to do.”

  Yes. Yes, he did.

  Chapter Twenty

  Olivia

  “I don’t mean to sound suspicious or anything, but my conversation with him when you were ... sleeping ... was rather strange. It left me feeling out of sorts.”

  “He can do that to people,” he answered, seemingly resigned to the fact that his friend had rattled me, almost as if he’d expected it.

  When William moved to the tall, lead paned window and pulled aside curtain aside, I expected him to elaborate on his statement. Instead, he simply stared out at the night sky. After a few moments of quiet, he turned back to me and I was surprised to see his tension gone, replaced by a completely different demeanor. Having spent a great many hours in therapy over the years, I’d grown used to diagnosing destructive behaviors and I’d call his current mood manic.

  “I’d love for you to come downstairs and join me for dinner,” he said apropos of nothing, his blue eyes alight with something I didn’t quite understand.

  “It’s probably presumptuous of me to have done so but I took the liberty of having my chef prepare a very traditional Irish dinner, complete with lamb stew and soda bread.” He smiled, and it was hard for me to be annoyed with him for having avoided a very important conversation, again.

  “I’m famished. I’d wondered how we were going to handle human food around here, but I’d love for us to talk as well.” He was crazy if he thought he could distract me with promises of succulent meats and hot, toasty bread.

  “Of course we’ll talk about whatever you want. But first—” he dragged me to him “—I’d like a kiss hello.”

  Food might not have been enough of a distraction, but William’s mouth certainly was. As his chilled lips brushed over my warmer ones, I wanted to kiss him all night. And then my growling stomach proved why that wasn’t a good idea.

  He laughed and stepped back, holding on to my hand. I’d noticed he need to touch me whenever he could. “Okay, food and conversation it is,” he said, pulling me alongside him.

  When we entered the dining room, I was baffled to see the table set for what could only be described as a small feast. “Are we having company?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  William’s genuine look of confusion made me laugh. At times he could be so hard-nosed and practical, then at other times he’d say or do something silly or mischievous. Sometimes, some of the things he said or did reminded me of a little boy who was only now discovering the joy that could be found in something simple or mundane. It hadn’t occurred to him it was preposterous for me to eat even a fraction of what was on the table.

  “This is a bit much for just me.”

  As I circled the table taking it all in, I gawked at a basket of bread that was overflowing with every type of loaf you could think of. And it wasn’t a tiny, decorative basket either. I’m talking a basket the size of a beach ball. Filled. With. Bread. I didn’t know if this was heaven or hell. I loved carbs; they hated me. I wasn’t ungrateful he’d gone to so much trouble on my behalf; I just didn’t like the idea of laying down naked with him at the end of the night rocking a bread baby.

  When I choked back a snicker, he scrutinized the feast with a more critical eye. Letting his own snicker loose, he looked at me with laughter in his eyes. “I guess I went a little overboard in my instructions to the chef. I’m sorry. It’s been awhile since I’ve had to think about food.”

  I eyed the rest of my repast with some trepidation. A whole leg of roast lamb; the afore mentioned bread; salad greens dressed with shavings of parmesan cheese, cherry tomatoes and vinaigrette; a cheese course; a dessert that looked like some sort of bread pudding; and three bottles of red wine. The savory smell of the lamb mingling with the sweet aroma of the bread made my mouth water. My stomach growled for the second time in ten minutes to remind me how famished I’d said I was. Taking it all in, if I sampled everything the chef had prepared, I’d need to replace my skinny jeans with leggings to account for my extra girth.

  “Don’t apologize. I love that you thought of me. And it all looks excellent. Please thank him for me.”

  William pulled out a chair for me and dropped a kiss to the top of my head before pushing me back to the table. It’d been ages since a man had done such a simple thing for me and while I shouldn’t have been surprised he had excellent manners, it pleased me nonetheless.

  “And while I appreciate all the extra work he that went into this,” I told him as he sat next to me, “a simple bowl of soup would have sufficed.”

  I’d meant what I’d said to Seamus. I didn’t want to be a burden on him or the staff. They needn’t go to any extra trouble on my account. That is, any more so than they already were.

  “Our first meal together was not going to be some gruel and stale bread,” he remarked, an edge of steel to his voice. “I want you to feel welcome here, like the honored guest you are. I want to dine with you in the manner in which you deserve.”

  Pushing aside the niggling feeling I got when he had called me a guest, I laid my hand atop his. “William, I very much doubt your chef even knows how to prepare gruel. I just meant that this is all too much.” My eyes roamed the banquet. “Literally and figuratively.”

  “What would you be eating tonight at home?”

  “Honestly? I probably would have been out at some hip new restaurant or standing at the counter in my kitchen shoveling pad thai down my gullet.”

  “So you are accustomed to fine dining?”

  “Yes, but …” How to describe it? “The restaurants I frequent serve much smaller portions. Think tiny puffs of salmon mouse with a dollop of wasabi, served in soup spoon so you can consume it in one quick bite.”

  “I know what an amuse bouche is, Olivia,” he sneered, and I realized I’d offended him.

  He was no country bumpkin; he’d attended more than his fair share of cocktail parties for longer than I’d been alive and would have been exposed to whatever was considered fine dining at the time. He could picture the food I’d described, but he wouldn’t have the first idea how it might taste or why those flavor combinations were something restaurants were lauded for.

  After all, it’s not as if there was a whole lot of wasabi in Ireland’s midlands in the mid-1600s. I closed my eyes and tried to pull up a memory. There, at the very recesses of my mind, an image flickered. Roast pheasant and potatoes. No, wasabi certainly hadn’t been on the menu.

  “Of course you do,” I answered. “My mistake.”

  “If I want to serve you a meal fit for a queen, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he snapped.

  Rather than continue fighting with him over what was actually a beautiful, kind gesture, I chose to stay quiet. If William wanted to have his chef prepare a meal for twenty, who was I to object? I just needed to make sure he knew he didn’t need to go through the whole production every night.

  “Okay, big fancy dinner it is then.” I pasted a false smile on my face. “But please tell me we don’t have to say grace,” I added, fanning the cloth napkin out over my lap.

  My dad had made a big deal out of thanking Jesus before all of our large, formal meals, as if he actually
believed the words he said. My mother and I humored him, but the words had always rang hollow.

  “There is no God in this house.”

  “Well, there’s something we have in common.”

  “You’re not a Christian?” William’s voice came out a little too nonchalant as he scooped food onto a plate and then placed it in front of me. I could tell how I answered mattered to him. Maybe even a lot.

  “I’m an atheist.” I said as he passed me a glass of wine. “I’ve never believed in God or miracles.”

  “And have you always felt this way?” he asked.

  Here I was, sitting in a castle in Ireland with a vampire who drank wine and he wanted to talk theology! In the past I would have said I didn’t believe in fairy tales either but hello … vampire to my right. And um, said vampire’s dead wife’s soul having out in my body? I was kind of living in a type of sick, Tim Burton-style fairy tale right now. I might have to re-evaluate my stock answer to his question. Instead I changed the subject, much as he did when he hoped to avoid something I’d asked.

  “I should have asked before since I saw you with whiskey last night, but you also drink wine?”

  “Yes, but only very good wine.” He smiled over the rim of the glass and took another sip.

  “I thought vampires only consumed blood?”

  “Myth.”

  “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. What else is myth? What can and can’t you do?”

  I figured him teaching me the basics—Vampire 101, if you will—was as good a topic as any to start with, especially since I apparently needed a full education on what I was in for with this new life.

  “I can drink pretty much all liquids and I quite enjoy red wine and whiskey. There’s a theory that the alcohol dulls our … um … other cravings … but I’ve not found that to be the case. It can, however, help me relax and that’s a very good thing since vampire emotions are constantly heightened.”

  “Good to know, what else?”

  “I can consume food if I have to. For example, to keep up my human charade, but my body can’t process it so I need to rid myself of it later. And this is not mealtime talk.”