Rose: That man Jason was waiting for me. Kinda weird. Have you seen him before?
Just as I click send, my phone is smacked out of my hand. I gasp as I watch it fall to the ground and a large black boot stomp on it. I look up in time to see Jason’s hand coming straight toward my face with a rag, a rag with a funny smell, then everything goes black.
I start to regain consciousness and feel relief that I’m warm. I was so cold, shivering. I shake my head slightly, unable to open my eyes. They feel so heavy. My neck aches from my head leaning forward, so I roll my head back, placing it on the soft surface behind me. I adjust my legs and feel softness below them as well.
Am I in bed?
I slowly begin to open my eyes and don’t recognize the room around me. I blink repeatedly to clear my vision. It’s pink, so much pink. I’m in an old, four-poster bed with a pink, lacy canopy on the top. The pink comforter and duvet pillows seem timeworn by their pattern, and the room has the sort of musty smell of an unused area. The walls are covered in pink lace wallpaper and the carpet is a darker pink than the rest of the room. Several old white dressers are against the walls, and a very large mirror sits above a vanity table in front of me. Then, another smell hits me. Roses. There are roses everywhere. Interlaced within the canopy, in vases on the dressers, and large bouquets placed in giant floor urns. I gasp loudly as I take in the scene. I’m not home. I’m not anywhere I’ve ever been before.
I pull myself off the bed and thank all that is holy that I’m still in the outfit I remember wearing last—the black lace dress. I walk straight to the door and turn the old glass knob. Locked. I run to the windows and see that I’m high up, ten stories at least, and the windows are stuck shut.
Fuck.
I hear footsteps outside of the door and begin frantically searching for something I can use as a weapon. I rush to the vanity table and see antique silver brushes and a hand mirror. I grab the mirror as a last resort and hold it up, ready to strike whoever walks into the room. My heart beats loudly in my chest and perspiration covers me as I wait, listening to the locks click and the door handle turn.
I gasp loudly as the man from the bar last night walks in. Jason, I think? He’s dressed impeccably in dress pants and a nice button up. He’s gorgeous, but I’m too pissed to really notice. I fling the heavy silver hand mirror at his head.
“What the fuck, Jason? Why are you doing this?” I scream, too angry to care that I could potentially be pissing off my abductor. He moves faster than I’ve ever seen a person move, snatching the mirror out of the air before it smacks him in the face. What the fuck?
“Rose, I am so glad that you have awoken,” he says silkily, as he steps closer, setting the mirror on the vanity. He touches his fingers to my cheek and drags them down slowly. “I hated that I had to bring you here this way, but it seemed that you weren’t going to come willingly.”
My mouth gapes slightly as I watch him walk away from me, dragging his finger against the vanity and then over to the bed before sitting on it. He looks so ridiculous in his dressy attire sitting on the antiquated pink comforter. He gently pats the spot next to him and looks at me expectantly. “Sit, Rose.”
I clench my fist, allowing my nails to bite into my skin. “Why am I here, Jason?”
“I brought you here, to be my wife,” he informs me softly, as if it’s the most logical thing in the world. Confusion and surprise overwhelm me. That’s literally the last thing I expected him to say, and yet he just sits there, staring at me hopefully.
“Your wife? You don’t even know me. This is crazy.” I begin to laugh and shake my head as I back up, inching closer and closer to the door. To my escape.
Within seconds, he’s off the bed and in my face, his fingers clutching my neck. “I am not crazy,” he growls, flexing his fingers around my throat. My eyes widen in surprise and I struggle for air.
“Jason—” I pull at his fingers with my own, only to find that his grip is as hard as stone and immovable. “Jason, I can’t breathe.” I continue to struggle, pleading at him with my gaze to release me, only to see that his eyes are pure black. Just like Dean’s and Finn’s.
He shakes himself and releases me, looking at his hand as if he’s confused.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” He breathes in deeply and his eyes go back to their normal color. A weak smile appears on his face and he lightly touches my arm. “What do you think of your room, dear?”
I slowly look from him to the room around us, afraid that he may attack me again. He obviously thinks I’m someone else, or he’s truly crazy. I need to placate him until I can escape. “It’s very nice. Did you do this for me?”
“Yes, I did! I so very hoped you would like it.” He walks over to the dresser and pulls a large, pink rose from the vase, placing the bud below his nose and breathing in deeply. “I have been so lonely for so long. I’ve been watching you with them.”
“Them?” I echo, focusing on the less scary part of his statement. We’ll come back to the whole watching me thing.
“The men that own the bar you work at. Your bosses. I’ve heard them talking about you, not wanting to have you because of what they are. I figure if you were willing to accept them as they are, then you will accept me as well.” He breaks the stem off the rose and sets it down on the dresser. He holds the bud in his hand and stares at it, as if afraid to meet my eyes.
My mind spins as I try to put together what he’s saying. The speed and the black eyes. The unnatural attractiveness. “Jason, what are you?” I question slowly, cautiously.
“They have not told you?” He looks at me with concern, then walks from the dresser back to the bed and sits down. “I like you very much, Rose.”
My heart beats so loudly in my chest, I just know he can hear it, and that terrifies me all the more. I walk toward him and grab the rosebud he set next to him on the bed, holding the large, delicate bud in my hand. “I can’t accept you if I don’t know what you are, just tell me, Jason.” I sit gently on the bed next to him and place my hand on his, refraining from wincing as I touch him. He looks at me when our skin meets, and he gasps quietly as I hear a small click.
His canine teeth elongate to create two sharp points that show slightly over his lips. “You-you’re a vampire,” I state with unsteady breath. Holy shit, a vampire? Dean, Finn, and Sebastian are vampires, I think, and my heart feels as if it skips a beat. The fear that fills my body isn’t from that realization though, it’s from the knowledge that I’ve been abducted by a vampire. A vampire who believes he is in love with me, and there isn’t a soul that knows I’m here.
Fuck.
Dean
LAST NIGHT
Finn glares at me with more anger than I’ve ever seen from him in the hundreds of years of our existence. Sebastian just looks sheepish and hopeful. I know I fucked up. I’m completely aware that I went against my own rules, that I’m supposed to be the sensible one, but fuck. I can’t be sensible when it comes to Rose. Seeing her talk to that man earlier tonight, I almost came undone. Especially when I scented that he was a vampire himself. I don’t want to end her human life just for us, even though I know that we would love her. We would treat her like the queen she is. I will not let another vampire take her, I cannot.
“What happened to your fucking rules, Dean?” Finn growls out, as he pulls his shirt off and throws it onto the couch in our loft. He walks to the fridge and grabs a bottle of blood that we keep for emergencies. Though I wouldn’t quite qualify this as an emergency, I knew none of us would be bringing women up tonight to feed on, especially when it could disrupt things with Rose.
“Oh, like you’re one to talk. I see the way you look at her, you’re just pissed that I was the first to break the rules,” I snarl back.
Sebastian clears his throat. “You were the second to break the rules.”
Finn and I both whip our heads toward Sebastian, and a slight smile graces my lips. Finn, on the other hand, is fucking fuming. “What the
fuck do you mean second? You too, Seb?”
Sebastian’s smile is the biggest I’ve ever seen on my brother’s face. Pure joy radiates through him and I feel sorrow that I was the reason he had been holding back. We love her, we really do. It’s been gradual and unexpected, but the gorgeous bartender that we hired two years ago has implanted herself into our hearts.
“She kissed me after you two left earlier today. I stopped it though, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I stopped it. But before I did, it was amazing,” Sebastian confesses, his eyes black with lust.
“So I’m the only one who has had the restraint not to kiss the beautiful human? I mean, for fuck’s sake, why wasn’t I included in the rule breaking?” Finn spits out.
“I think she’s pretty pissed off at you for your whorish ways,” Seb retorts with a smile.
Finn slams his hand on the table. “That was only because I had to! Fuck you guys. This is bullshit. I’m calling her right now.”
“No! We need to discuss this,” I declare sternly, already knowing that my arguments won’t hold any weight anymore. “We’ll have her, I honestly can’t not have her at this point. We just need to do this right. We need to tell her what we are and let her make the decision. If she denies us, then we have to respect that.” The last part causes me to wince. I know respecting her wishes if she does not want this life will be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to endure. I sit down on the couch and feel exhaustion flow through my body—a feeling I have never truly felt. I lean my head back and close my eyes just as my phone beeps loudly in my pocket.
“She won’t say no. I know it,” Seb says hopefully, sitting down next to me. I open my eyes slowly and grin at him.
“I truly hope she doesn’t say no, Seb.” The smile that graces my own lips is filled with hope I never thought I would possess. I pull my cell out of my pocket and see that she’s texted me. Rose. I slide my finger across the screen and open her message.
Rose: That man Jason was waiting for me. Kinda weird. Have you seen him before?
My hand clutches the phone too tightly and the screen cracks as a growl escapes my throat. Finn’s and Sebastian’s eyes flash up to me quickly and they jump to their feet.
“What is it?” Finn asks, and he’s at my side in a second, reading the message over my shoulder. “Who the fuck is Jason?” he growls.
“A man, vampire, at the bar tonight. He was speaking with her, flirting with her. I got jealous and pulled her into the back room and, well, you saw the rest,” I reply, unable to remove my eyes from the message.
Finn pulls his own phone from his pocket and holds it to his ear. “I’m calling her.” His tone leaves no room for argument or question. He slams his finger on the red end call button in anger. “Straight to voicemail. That’s very odd.”
“You don’t think she went home with the man, do you?” Sebastian inquires, his voice cracking slightly.
I slide my phone back into my pocket. “After our kiss? Not a chance.”
“Pretty fucking cocky, aren’t you?” Finn snarls at me, as he begins pacing the apartment. “I’m going to her apartment,” he declares, walking back to the couch to grab his shirt. He pulls it back onto his body and strides toward the door.
I step toward him. “Well, that seems like an overreaction. I asked her to come in early tomorrow, we should wait.”
“I’m not going to do anything, I just want to make sure she made it home. To her home. I’ll follow her scent, if it leads to her apartment, then I’ll come back,” he explains, as he walks down the stairs and into the nightclub.
“What if it’s more than her scent that leads to her home?” Sebastian yells down the stairs after him.
There’s a moment of silence before Finn answers, his voice carrying up the stairs. “Then I’ll be gone for longer than planned!”
Sebastian and I look at each other before we race down the stairs to follow Finn outside.
The cool air hits my skin as I step outside, but the temperature has no effect on me. I’m never cold or hot. I can feel that it would be too cold for a human, though, and Rose wasn’t wearing a coat. I see Finn walking ahead on Rose’s normal route to and from work. Always on this side of the street, past Jewels Café, then to her home. He’s standing near the café with a strange look on his face as he looks around at the ground. I head toward him, making use of my ability to move quickly. Rose’s scent is strong here, as well as another scent—his.
Finn roars in anger as he bends to the ground and picks up small, black pieces that have been crushed. “This is her phone. Her scent stops here, with another’s.”
Sebastian and I echo the angry snarl as we step closer and take in the crushed phone on the ground. “She wouldn’t just leave her phone here, and there is no way that it got to this state just from being dropped. It was crushed.” My hands shake with anger as the words leave my mouth.
“Do you think she went with him?” Seb asks, looking toward her apartment.
Finn grabs Sebastian’s shoulder in a comforting way, pulling his gaze back to us. “I think he fucking took her, Seb. Who was this man, Dean? Did you recognize him?”
“No, I’d never seen him before. He seemed to take a liking to Rose though.” I shake my head in rage, annoyed that I didn’t pay more attention to the man. “Finn, can you still smell her scent? Maybe we can follow it and find where he took her.”
“Maybe, I don’t know. It’s harder to track when she isn’t on foot.” He walks around, sniffing at the air like a bloodhound. Not all vampires can track as well as Finn, and I pray he is able to track her now.
I look over and see Sebastian pulling out his cell and scanning through his contacts. “I’m going to call some people, see if they recognize this Jason fellow. Maybe someone can tell us where he lives.”
I nod my head in agreement. “Yes, I’ll call some people too. Finn, you concentrate on finding a scent to follow.”
We have a plan, and I can only hope that it works. I can’t imagine not finding her, I won’t allow it.
Rose
PRESENT
I lay back on the ridiculously pink bed in the abominable pink room. I mean, I love pink, but this shit is obnoxious. The smell of all the roses is also slowly killing me. Death by allergies in a house with a vampire—perfect. My mind is still whirling over the knowledge that my bosses are vampires. Vampires are real. This is all insanity.
I’m listening to the sounds of food being made downstairs. Jason took it upon himself to make what he so lovingly called human food for me. I don’t know what the smells are, but it certainly isn’t food. The best part about being abducted by a vampire is that he can literally hear your every move. I stood up about ten minutes ago to walk over to the adjoining bathroom and boom, there he was, standing right next to me.
“Is something wrong, my lovely?” he asked with concern lacing his tone.
Oh, so much is wrong, you fucking freak of nature.
“Nope, just have to use the restroom,” I said with a forced smile.
So obviously escaping is out if I can’t even use the restroom without being noticed. I’m well and royally fucked. That’s what I am.
“Are you ready to eat, my lovely?” Jason yells up the stairs.
I groan internally, afraid that if I did it out loud he would hear. I’m trying to keep up the façade that I’m semi-okay with this catastrophe. I don’t know how someone so attractive could be so fucking creepy. I’m positive he could land someone by regular means, but instead he’s gone the abductor route. Hooray for me.
I get out of bed and walk out of the room, my feet sinking into the soft carpet below me. When I get to the top of the staircase, I see him standing at the bottom, staring up at me with a huge smile on his face. Yesterday, I would have found the smile gorgeous, but today it makes me feel stabby. As far as I can tell, there are no phones in this place, I haven’t even seen a computer, so I’m at a loss for how I’ll notify anyone of my capture.
You can
run, but you can’t hide, has never felt more real to me than it does right now. I walk downstairs, dragging my fingers along the wood of the railing. When I reach the bottom, Jason puts his arm out, looking at me expectantly like I’m the best part of his life. I try to force a smile onto my face as I accept his arm and he leads me toward the dining room. A huge, beautiful table awaits us with gorgeous china at each place setting. “This is beautiful, Jason. What are we eating?” I ask, as I sit in the seat he pulls out for me.
“Well, I have made you a last meal of sorts,” he replies with a sheepish smile, causing me to take a soft intake of breath.
I force a chuckle and look up at him from my seat. “Last meal? Are you planning to kill me?”
He laughs hysterically and I grind my teeth, trying not to show fear on my face.
“Oh no, my beautiful Rose. No. I should rephrase. A last human meal.” He walks over to the silver pan at the edge of the table, lifting the lid slowly to reveal roast beef and mashed potatoes covered in gravy. Although the food looks delicious the smell immediately gives me a sick feeling in my stomach and his words make me even more nauseas.
“My last human meal,” I mutter quietly, staring between him and the food.
“Yes,” he says with a small laugh. “For I’ll be dining on you tonight.”
A hysterical giggle leaves my lips as I stare at him, waiting for the punchline. When he just stares at me eagerly, my smile begins to falter and my voice comes out in a squeak. “What do you mean?”
“If you are to become my bride, you must become like me. I cannot have my bride aging away on me. No, no. You, too, must become vampire.” He grins at me in an almost manic way as I gulp audibly.
Thoughts spin through my head quickly as I take in his words. He plans to turn me into a vampire. Like him. Like them. If I was a vampire, maybe I could escape. I would be as fast and as strong as him. If I could escape, I just need to get to Vee.
Rose: A Standalone Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance (Jewels Cafe Book 12) Page 5