What was the rush, anyway? They were immortal. Time didn’t have the same meaning to their kind as it did to humans.
Anna leaned toward the side table and poured herself another drink.
“Refill?” she asked.
Michael lifted his glass to demonstrate that he still had some and continued to observe her. She had an elegance about her that he’d only just allowed himself to notice. The way she poured the drink—stopping at exactly the right level both times—suggested she’d performed the same action many times over. Perhaps this offered a clue to her human identity?
Anna wasn’t his usual type; she wasn’t easily impressed by anyone, least of all him. The clothes he’d found her in were simple, with not a designer label in sight. That told him that either she couldn’t afford expensive clothes and accessories, or she didn’t care for them.
Basically, she was his exact opposite. Michael himself loved to surround himself with beautiful things. The luxury he lived in now compensated for the simple lifestyle he’d left behind upon being turned.
He clearly recalled the first time Alexander had brought him here, into his beautiful and unapologetically luxurious villa. Where he had reacted with instant awe and appreciation, Anna seemed to look at it all with a much more skeptical eye. Just the way she’d inspected the bottle and the old cut crystal snifter spoke volumes.
“Have you started remembering more?” Michael asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all very fuzzy.”
Michael took her response as a sign she wasn’t ready to discuss it.
So they continued to sit in silence for a while.
“There was a guy with red eyes,” Anna said finally.
Michael straightened himself and leaned toward Anna, waiting for more.
She turned to face him, her eyes wide with fear. “I wasn’t the only woman there.”
“Where? What was the place like?” Michael asked.
Anna looked away at nothing in particular and blinked a few times.
“Don’t know,” she whispered. “It was dark.”
Considering the state she was in when he found her, it was probably for the best if she never remembered everything that happened to her. Still, she was the only one who could offer clues regarding who these vampires were and where they were hiding out.
They were interrupted by the library door swinging open. Lucille had returned, this time unannounced and without invitation. Bloody great.
“I knew it,” Lucille snapped as soon as she saw Anna. “I knew you weren’t being totally truthful with me earlier!”
Michael rolled his eyes. “You asked if there was a mortal in the house. I only answered your question.”
Anna gave him a concerned look. Lucille was unpleasant company, but she wouldn’t do anything to harm a fellow vampire. They hadn’t broken any rules; the strange vampires who had attacked Anna were the ones who should be worried.
Michael patted Anna’s hand briefly in an attempt to reassure her, then immediately withdrew. A funny sensation had passed from her hand into his. It was unnervingly intense, but so tempting. He avoided eye contact with her and faced Lucille again in an attempt to divert his attention away from Anna. This wasn’t the time to give his carnal desires free reign. She was his fledgling, for Pete’s sake.
“Alexander should really ask for his spare keys back,” Michael muttered under his breath.
Lucille scoffed. “As if I need keys to come in here.”
Michael got up and offered her his seat. “Since we’re all here now, why don’t you make yourself comfortable? I’ll get us another chair.”
Lucille eyed Anna suspiciously. “What does she know?”
Michael grabbed the chair that stood in front of the large desk at the back of the library and placed it near Anna. The entire maneuver was over within the blink of a human eye.
“Painfully little, I’m afraid. She’s been suffering from a spot of memory loss since the attack.”
“I’m right here, you know!” Anna protested. “I can speak for myself.”
“I apologize,” Michael mumbled, then gestured at her to continue.
“I was just telling Michael that I remember a man with glowing red eyes,” Anna said.
Lucille glanced at Michael. “That’s hardly ground-breaking. They were drinking her blood, after all.”
Anna shrugged. “As you might imagine, I’m a bit new to this. Only trying to be helpful.”
Michael sighed. “Red eyes are a sign of blood lust in vampires. Happens whenever we’re thirsty,” he explained.
“Ah.” Anna shrugged. “Well that’s all I remember for now. And that they had captured more women.”
Lucille nodded. “Fine.” She faced Michael again. “Now, if you don’t mind sharing with me where you found her?”
“My name is Anna,” Anna interjected.
Michael suppressed a little smile. It was obvious that Lucille’s abrasiveness had rubbed Anna the wrong way. They had one more thing to agree on there.
If he had a choice, he wouldn’t even be entertaining Lucille. Sadly, one had to humor the Council’s Enforcer, especially when she arrived on Julius’ orders. Plus, Alexander owed her, meaning Michael did as well.
“Don’t know the address, but I can show you the place,” Michael said.
Lucille nodded. “Dawn is still a few hours away. No time like the present.”
Michael shot Anna a reassuring look. “We won’t be long.”
“Wait just a minute! You’re not thinking of leaving me here?”
“I don’t think—” Lucille started to argue.
Anna got up, both hands raised in protest. “Unacceptable. I’m coming with you.”
Michael shrugged. He’d had a good taste of how stubborn Anna could be when she’d first woken up. It was unlikely that he could talk her out of it.
“She’s not ready!” Lucille complained.
“You’re not hungry, are you?” Michael approached Anna, who now stood tall with her hands on her hips.
Anna shook her head. The way her hair fell around her face, she looked fierce. Determined. Sexy. Michael averted his gaze instantly. His thoughts were inappropriate. Plus, he couldn’t allow let himself get distracted in Lucille’s presence.
“See? No problem. She’s already eaten today,” Michael told Lucille.
Lucille’s concerns were valid, since Anna had no idea of the temptation the outside world offered. But how much trouble could she really get into with two strong vampires accompanying her? If anything happened, they’d take care of it.
“Whatever.” Lucille didn’t sound convinced.
It didn’t matter to Michael if she was. Just hours into her new life, Anna already was a force to be reckoned with. It pleased him greatly that Anna’s rebellious nature was now aimed at Lucille and not at him anymore.
“Follow my lead,” Michael whispered to Anna. “You’ll be safe.”
“Of course I’ll be safe. I’m immortal now, aren’t I?” Anna grinned.
Michael was about to interject that immortal didn’t mean invincible, but decided to let it go. They’d have plenty of time to go through the finer points of being a vampire later.
Together, the three of them left, sprinting through the city faster than the human eye could see. Luckily, moving at superhuman speed was the one thing that came easy to newly turned vampires. Deliberately slowing things down to fit into human society? Not so much.
It didn’t take them long to reach the courtyard where Michael had found Anna only hours earlier. At this time of night, the streets were empty enough that their activities went unseen.
The smell of blood still hung heavy in the air.
“Holy shit,” Anna said, covering her mouth. Her eyes glowed red. “Is that me? My blood?”
“Told you she wasn’t ready,” Lucille said, folding her arms.
Michael shot her a nasty glance. “Not much of it was left, but yes.”
Anna wrinkled her nose and
inhaled deeply. “How could you resist it? Oh my God, how did you not tear me to pieces and drink the last drops?”
Michael glanced over at Lucille, who had wandered off to start investigating.
“It takes a little while, but you’ll learn to resist it too.”
“Okay, but why would you want to?” Anna rambled. “I mean, it smells so… delicious. Why wouldn’t you want to just give in?”
Anna breathed in deeply again and sharply turned her head away from him. Her body seemed to have tensed up as she stared in the direction of the main road, just a dozen or so feet away. Michael followed her line of sight. Footsteps approached. Human footsteps.
“This isn’t the time,” Michael said.
Anna snapped her head in his direction for just a split second, then turned away again. “So tempting. I can smell it.”
Michael reached for Anna’s arm. “Lucille. If you don’t mind…”
Lucille joined him and held Anna back from the other side.
“Don’t you say it,” Michael warned her under his breath. He did not need another lecture right now.
For a tense thirty seconds or so, the three of them stood in silence, Michael and Lucille holding Anna back, until the human had passed their position and his footsteps faded.
“Whoa. Okay.” Anna’s body relaxed underneath Michael’s grip. “I’m okay.”
Her eyes were once more the same warm amber color he had tried to avoid catching a glimpse of for most of the night. The threat was over.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” she muttered.
Lucille let go of her and silently went about her business again, inspecting bits of paper and other assorted rubbish strewn around the spot where Anna’s body had been dumped.
“It’s perfectly normal. You’ll get used to it,” Michael tried to reassure her.
“I could have. Oh God.” Anna covered her face with her hands. “If you hadn’t stopped me, who knows what I would have done.”
I know exactly what you would have done. The same thing I did during my first night.
Michael didn’t respond. Airing his own dirty laundry in front of Lucille wouldn’t help anyone.
“You don’t need us anymore, do you?” Michael called out to her.
Lucille shook her head and continued to ignore the two of them.
“Let’s just head back home, what do you say?” Michael suggested.
Anna nodded and took his hand. He looked down, but didn’t comment on it or pull away, no matter how intense the buzzing that traveled from her palm into his was. A whole barrage of conflicting emotions tugged at him. If this was what holding her hand felt like, what would it be like to take things further? No, she was his fledgling. It was wrong to think of her as anything else.
He tried to shut down his straying mind and focused on just one thing: if she needed to hold his hand to feel safe, he owed it to her to comply. Her safety was his responsibility, after all.
Neither spoke another word as they broke into a sprint together. They didn’t stop even once until they made it back to Kensington Palace Gardens and Alexander’s mansion.
Chapter Six
They still stood hand in hand on the gravel driveway right in front of the house when Anna came back to her senses. Their little excursion back to the scene of the crime had overwhelmed her. The smell of her own blood, and then the footsteps that promised her a meal thousands of times better than the raw steak she’d eaten earlier…
It was a lot to take in. And yet, she didn’t want to think about any of that.
She looked down at Michael’s hand, which still surrounded hers. He had made sure she hadn’t done anything she would regret. As intensely thirsty as she’d felt in that strange courtyard in the city, she wasn’t ready to take a life. The guilt would kill her, she was certain of it.
What a night. Although only a few hours had passed, it now felt like years ago when she’d first woken up inside the house. She was a vampire now.
Anna still could hardly believe it. She might have rejected the idea further if she hadn’t felt the blood lust Lucille and Michael had been talking about. Had her eyes turned red too, like that man who had attacked her? The memory was so faint, she could just see those eyes staring at her, boring their way into her soul through the surrounding darkness.
You will come with me, the man had said. She’d heard him clearly, but his lips had never moved. Was that the hypnosis thing Michael had been talking about earlier?
“You want to go in?” Michael asked.
Anna looked around. The gravel drive they stood on was lined by neatly kept hedges, beyond which there lay a sprawling lawn. The frost on the blades of grass sparkled in the starlight. It was magical.
Would all this make up for never seeing the sun again?
She wanted to believe so. It was too late for regrets. She glanced up at the house, with its large pillars surrounding the impressive front entrance. Above, ten windows marked the upper floor, each of them surrounded by carved stonework. Did one of these belong to the bedroom she’d woken up in? Or had hers been located toward the back?
“I have an idea,” Michael said.
Anna glanced up at him and was captivated by how the soft light bounced off his chiseled cheek bones. In this light, his skin seemed to be glowing faintly. Was that how she looked too?
“What idea?” she asked, then stared at his lips, waiting for them to form a response.
He winked at her. “Trust me?”
She pressed her lips together. Should she say yes? What did she have to lose?
She nodded and was instantly whisked away, toward the side of the villa, beside a tall oak tree.
Michael jumped up into it, catching hold of the first branch that hung at least twelve feet off the ground.
“Follow me,” he said.
No way can I make that, Anna thought. But she took a deep breath and jumped, and to her surprise, found that she was hanging just next to Michael. He swung his legs up and got up on top of the thick branch, then climbed up into the next one, and then the next.
She followed right on his heels until the very top. From there, Michael leapt across to the roof of the house and turned around, waiting for her to catch up.
Anna looked down. This tree, which looked to be at least a hundred years old, was huge. She was so far off the ground, the old her would have been terrified. I was afraid of heights, she thought. But now I have no more reason to be.
She didn’t hesitate anymore and jumped across the gap. It was effortless.
“That’s amazing,” she mumbled to herself.
Michael gestured at her to join her as he sat down on top of the ridge at the top of the roof. She did, then followed his line of sight across the front gate to the substantial villa across the road, which adjoined the park.
The view was breathtaking. She’d never seen anything like it.
In the distance, lights twinkled in the distance as they moved around the pathways in the park. Perhaps they were people out for early morning walks or cycle rides. Off to their right, Kensington Palace stood proudly in its manicured lawns, bathed in an orange-red glow. They would have turned off the main illumination of the palace as well as the other landmarks in the city hours ago, but she could still see the building clear as day thanks to what must be its emergency lighting. From here—a good 500 feet away—she could see every detail of it. Right down to the crack developing in one of the window sills on the second floor.
“Wow,” she said.
Michael took her hand and pointed further ahead, to the other end of Hyde Park. “You can see the Marble Arch from here.”
He was right. Although it was quite far off, the sight of it blew Anna away.
Anna pointed even further away, just more to the south. “Those lights beyond the buildings, that’s what, Buckingham Palace?”
“It is indeed.”
She turned to face him. “Thank you.”
“Ah, forget it. I just wanted to
show you the good parts of being turned. That’s all.”
Anna had misjudged Michael earlier. Not that he’d given her much choice. Michael hadn’t shown much tact after she’d just woken up, but perhaps that wasn’t his fault. This situation they found themselves in was new to the both of them.
But this little gesture of his proved that he actually did care. She’d been shaken by her experience earlier, and this had done a lot to make her feel better.
He looked over at her, letting his eyes linger on hers for a moment too long.
Anna felt a sense of familiarity now that she looked into his eyes. Like she’d seen him somewhere before, even if she had no actual recollection of it. That was silly though, obviously. Her memory or lack thereof was playing tricks on her.
She scooted a little closer to him. He wasn’t so bad after all. And damn, the subdued light from the stars above made him look even more handsome. If that was even possible.
Earlier, he’d kept their eye contact to a minimum. He’d even avoided physical contact, until their outing earlier. Now, her hand rested on the roof just beside his, their little fingers touching. He didn’t pull away, and neither did she.
And he continued to stare into her soul, making her heart beat faster. Was that her heart, though? Did vampires even have heartbeats?
She felt giddy and lightheaded. No matter how quickly he’d brushed it away, she was certain that this gesture meant something more than he was willing to admit.
“Do you come here often?” she asked, then grinned when she realized the cliché.
Michael smiled subtly. “Often enough to recognize a new face.”
This man had an infuriatingly gorgeous smile. To go with his infuriatingly gorgeous face.
Anna’s thoughts were swimming. She found it hard to focus on anything but the curve of Michael’s lips.
“It’s not so bad, this new life,” she mumbled.
His smile widened.
She leaned in, closer and closer. His scent filled her nostrils. Intoxicating and seductive, like an expensive cologne.
Michael similarly leaned toward her until their faces were only an inch apart.
Michael's Soul Mate: A Steamy BBW Vampire Romance (Vampires of London Book 2) Page 4