Chapter
11
Elena stared at Drake, some of her fear
receding as she considered what he had said. “But . . . I thought .
. .” She had never heard of anyone being born a vampire. In books
and movies, the only way to become one of the Undead was with a
blood exchange. She shook her head. “I don’t
understand.”
“We are not the monsters of myth and
legend, but they do exist, although they are now few in
number.”
“Have you ever met one?”
“Yes, years ago.”
“Do they live the way your people
do?”
“No. We are enemies.”
“Why?”
“The Others are a more violent, more
barbarous race. They tend to kill their prey and often each other.
They have no clan loyalty, no sense of family or honor, no care for
anyone but themselves. Centuries ago, the Others declared war on
humanity. They killed men, women, and children without reason or
mercy, threatening to expose us all. My father summoned the Master
Vampires of the other Covens and they destroyed all of the Others
they could find. It was a long and bloody battle, but it
accomplished its purpose. The Others who survived changed their
ways. They did not stop killing but they became more
discreet.”
“More discreet?”
“They stopped leaving bodies in the
street. They started preying on those who would not be
missed—transients and the like. But the war continued. Each Coven
vowed to continue to fight them, and to destroy any that they
find.”
“Oh.” She blew out a sigh. “I’m glad I
never met one of those. But tell me more about you, about your
people.”
“We are a very old race, once hunted to
near extinction by zealots and warrior-priests because we need
blood to survive. We were accused of witchcraft, or of consorting
with Satan, because, once we reach adulthood, the aging process
slows as the need for blood becomes stronger.” Though he spoke to
her, his gaze was on the flames. “Some give in to the burning need
for blood immediately. Some fight it, but the pain of resisting is
excruciating. Sooner or later, we all surrender to what is, for us,
a basic need for survival. Once we have ingested human blood, three
things occur—we are no longer capable of digesting mortal food, we
can no longer abide the sun’s light, and we stop aging. The first
year after we give in to the urge to drink, we must drink often. To
resist can be fatal.”
It was a fantastic story, Elena
thought, something one might read in an ancient book of fairy
tales. She looked at him closely as a new thought popped into her
head. “How old were you when you stopped aging?”
“Nearly thirty.”
She frowned, wondering how long he had
fought the compulsion to drink blood.
“Vampires are considered mature at
twenty.”
She marveled at his self-control. He
had resisted the urge to feed for almost ten years. It was a long
time to endure the kind of pain he had described, to fight against
something that was a basic need. “How old are you?”
“Five centuries as of last
month.”
The number was staggering. What would
it be like to live that long? To never age? Never see the sun?
Never consume anything but blood—no, that wasn’t true. He drank
wine. How was that possible? Curious, she put the question to
him.
“I can drink small amounts with no ill
effects,” he replied, “as long as I feed beforehand.”
“What’s it like, to live such a long
time?”
“It can be challenging. After a few
hundred years, you have done everything, seen everything there is
to see. For those who dislike change, the world can be a
frightening place. Like mortals, our kind respond to the
vicissitudes of life in a variety of ways. Some embrace them, some
reject them, some choose to seek their own destruction. There are
those who simply grow weary of living. They go to the Fortress and
bury themselves in the ground.”
Buried alive? She choked back her
nausea. She had always been afraid of small, dark places, couldn’t
imagine anyone willingly entombing themselves in the
ground.
Seeing the revulsion on her face, he
said, “For us, it is a way to rest, to rejuvenate ourselves when we
have lost the will to live.”
“Have you ever done that?”
“No.” His gaze caressed her face. “I
must admit, I was considering it, until I met you.”
“So, the vampires of fiction are just
that, fiction?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what, exactly?”
“The vampires of legend, Nosferatu,
also exist, but in very small numbers. I have never met
one.”
“Where did they come
from?”
“Some believe a fallen angel found one
of our kind thousands of years ago. The vampire was dying of
injuries inflicted by another of our kind when the angel found him.
With his last breath, the vampire bit the angel. The angel died.
The vampire was reborn as Nosferatu.”
It was too much, Elena thought.
Vampires who were made. Vampires who were born that way. It was all
too bizarre to consider, too impossible to be real. She pressed her
hands to her temples. She could feel a headache coming on, no doubt
caused by the fact that Drake’s revelations had turned her world
inside out and upside down.
“Elena, look at me.”
Though reluctant, she did as
bidden.
His gaze captured hers as he placed his
hands gently over her own. She stared into his eyes, deep, dark,
fathomless eyes that seemed to draw her in until she saw nothing
else. Gradually, the throbbing in her head disappeared. The tension
drained out of her body, leaving her feeling warm and
tranquil.
What was he doing to her? Was he
hypnotizing her? Erasing her memory? Maybe that would be for the
best.
“Relax, wife, the only thing I have
done is erase the pain in your head.”
Suddenly weary, she leaned against him.
It was too much to absorb—what he was, what he had told her. It was
all simply too fantastic to believe. Maybe she was dreaming. Yes,
dreaming. Sighing, she closed her eyes. When she awoke tomorrow,
life would be normal again.
Drake stroked Elena’s hair, her cheek,
the curve of her neck. He had violated vampire law twice now, first
in telling her who and what he was, and then by not wiping the
knowledge from her mind. He refused to consider taking her life.
The rules of the Coven didn’t seem important when she was near. The
beat of her heart was music to his ears, the scent of her skin more
fragrant than the primroses that grew in the garden, the heat of
her body a welcome warmth against his own cool flesh.
After five hundred years as a vampire,
there was little left in the mortal world that surprised him, but
sitting there, with Elena sleeping beside him, he discovered that
he cared more deeply than he had imagined for the woman who was his
wife in name only. Even more astonishing was the realization that
he wanted her love more than he had ever wanted anything in his
life.
With a shake of his head, he stared
into the fire, certain that he had a better chance of gaining
heaven than winning the fair Elena’s love.
Eyes closed, Elena turned over on her
stomach and tried to go back to sleep. After last night, she was
reluctant to face a new day, although a glance at her watch told
her that the day was already half gone. Plagued by scary dreams,
she had awakened several times during the night. Each time, Drake
had been there beside her, his voice lulling her back to sleep.
Odd, that finding him in her bed hadn’t frightened her, considering
all she had learned.
With a sigh of exasperation, she
flopped over onto her back. A quick glance showed that she was
alone in bed. Well, not exactly alone. Smoke lay on Drake’s pillow,
regarding her through half-closed eyes.
Elena turned onto her side, her chin
pillowed on her hand. “So, cat, whatever am I to do? How can I stay
here with him, knowing what he is? How can I ever trust
him?”
The cat blinked at her, then yawned,
revealing very white, very sharp teeth.
Elena stared at the cat, and the memory
of how Drake’s fangs had looked when he’d bent over one of the
robbers rose in her mind. His teeth, too, had been very sharp and
very white.
She shook the image away. All
felines—and vampires, she supposed—came equipped with very sharp,
very white teeth.
After slipping out of bed, she washed
her face and hands, brushed her hair and her teeth, then pulled on
her khaki shorts and a T-shirt and went downstairs. She was too
upset to eat. Instead, she paced the great hall and then, on
impulse, she went to the front door, which still refused to
open.
She uttered every swear word she knew,
but it didn’t make her feel any better, and the darn thing still
didn’t open.
Turning away, she practically tripped
over the cat. “Must you always be underfoot?” she muttered
irritably.
“Meow.”
Sidestepping around the cat, Elena made
her way to the kitchen’s back door. Maybe it would open today.
Working in the garden might help to calm her nerves, help her to
think of what to do next.
She wasn’t surprised when the door
still refused to open.
“This is so unfair!” She shook the
handle with both hands, and then, her frustration rising, she
kicked the door. “I feel like I’m suffocating in
here!”
“Meow.”
“Oh, go away.”
But the cat didn’t go away. Slipping
between her legs, the big gray tom lifted one paw and gave the door
a push.
And it swung open.
With another meow, the cat darted
outside.
Elena stared after the remarkable
creature for several minutes. Truly, it was a most unusual cat.
Drake admitted to being a vampire. Was he a warlock, as well?
Everyone knew witches often kept cats as familiars. But he had said
he didn’t own a cat. She frowned. Maybe it was just semantics. Or
maybe, she thought with a rueful grin, the cat owned
Drake.
With a shake of her head, Elena stepped
over the threshold. She didn’t care if the cat possessed some kind
of feline mojo or not. All that mattered was that she was
outside.
She took a deep breath of the clean,
fresh air as she glanced at the high walls that surrounded the
castle. There must be a gate. Maybe she had missed it the first
time she’d looked. Starting at the corner nearest the house, she
made a slow exploration of the wall, but there was no gate, no
trellis, no way out. If only she had a ladder.
With a shrug, Elena found the gloves
she had worn before and set to work on another patch of weeds. She
tried to keep her mind blank as she knelt in the dirt, but, perhaps
inevitably, Drake intruded on her thoughts. He was a vampire. It
was impossible but true. Try as she might, Elena couldn’t decide
how she felt about him now, although, in truth, she had never been
certain what to think of him. He was unlike any man she had ever
met. Of course, she hadn’t met very many men, especially men who
were five hundred years old.
She wasn’t surprised when the cat
appeared. Sitting in the shade of an old oak tree, it watched her
with a faintly bored expression.
“Too bad you can’t make yourself
useful,” Elena muttered. “This would go a lot faster if I had some
help.”
With a flick of his tail, the cat
curled up and closed its eyes.
An hour or so later, Elena decided she
needed a rest. Rising, she stretched her back and shoulders. The
exercise had done her good. Feeling suddenly hungry, she peeled off
her gloves and dropped them on the iron bench.
Smoke trailed her into the
house.
Elena glared at the cat. “You are such
a pest. Can’t you find something else to do besides follow me
around?”
A loud “meow” was her only
answer.
In the kitchen, Elena washed and dried
her hands. As always, Drake had provided her with a tasty meal.
Whatever faults he might have, he always made sure she had plenty
to eat. Sometimes he left her prepared meals; sometimes just the
ingredients.
Munching on a slice of bread smothered
in butter and honey, she wondered if he ever missed real food—meat
and potatoes, fresh peas and corn, hamburgers and hot dogs, potato
salad, freshly baked bread warm from the oven, cakes and cookies,
pie and ice cream, grapes and strawberries, malts and sodas and all
the other good things to eat and drink that she took for
granted.
She lingered at the table, her thoughts
drifting. She wondered how long Drake was going to keep her here.
Now that she knew what he was, would he ever let her out of the
castle again? Take her to the city again?
She lifted a hand to her throat. He had
admitted to tasting her. Was that why he kept her here? How much
was “a taste”? How could she sleep through such a
thing?
So many unanswered questions. She
pushed them out of her mind. She would think about all that later.
Right now, she was going back outside.
Rising, she headed for the garden, the
cat at her heels.
Muttering, “Silly beast,” Elena made
her way toward the iron bench. Grabbing her gloves, she pulled them
on while she regarded the ground she had cleared earlier. It looked
barren now.
Returning to the shed, she found a
shovel and began to dig up one of the rosebushes, intending to
replant it in the newly turned plot of ground.
She dug a wide hole around the bush,
then reached down and gently pulled the roots out of the earth. A
bit of blue-and-white striped cloth was tangled in the roots.
Taking hold of the cloth, she gave it a yank. . . .
And screamed when a desiccated hand
appeared, tangled in the material.
Elena stared at the skeletal hand and
at the small blue stone ring on one finger for several seconds,
then dropped to her knees, retching. Jenica had been wearing a
dress made from that very same cloth the last time Elena had seen
her.
Smoke padded up beside her. The cat
took one look at the contents of the hole, hissed softly, and ran
into the castle.
Moments later, Drake appeared at her
side. “Elena, what is it?”
She looked up at him, sobbing, then
pointed at the grisly find. “It’s . . . it’s . . . Jenica. . .
.”
Lifting Elena to her feet, Drake drew
her into his arms. He didn’t have to look into the hole to know
what was there. The stench of death and decay was sharp in his
nostrils. “Are you sure it is her?”
“She . . . when she ran away . . . she
was . . . was wearing a dress made out of that same cloth. Uncle
Tavian,” she said, hiccuping, “he bought her the dress for her
birthday. And the ring . . . it was a gift from her
mother.”
“Come inside and sit
down.”
She looked up at him through
tear-filled eyes. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Come inside,” he repeated, leading her
toward the back door. “I’ll unearth the rest of the remains. We
need to make sure it is your cousin.”
After settling Elena on the sofa and
covering her with a blanket, Drake returned to the garden. In his
five hundred years, he had seen death in all its forms and he
studied Jenica’s corpse dispassionately. An examination of the body
showed she had died of a broken neck. He frowned as he detected
Dinescu’s scent on the body. It proved nothing, of course. She had
lived in the man’s house.
Squatting on his heels, he recalled
reading in the local paper that there had been speculation that
Jenica Dinescu had eloped with one of the neighbor boys. He
remembered Jenica as being a quiet, frightened child, too timid to
run away from home. Odd that Elena had never mentioned that her
cousin had eloped. Drake grunted thoughtfully. Was the boy also
buried here?
Rising, Drake brushed the dirt from his
hands as he debated what to do with the body. There weren’t a lot
of options. He could rebury it here, wrap it in a blanket and take
it to Dinescu to gauge his reaction, or drop it off at the local
undertaker.
Drake shook his head. As callous as it
sounded, it mattered little to him who had killed the girl. Except
for Elena’s well-being, he rarely took any interest in what went on
in human affairs. At the moment, he had far more important things
on his mind—like how he was going to explain to his sire why he had
violated one of the Coven’s most basic laws.
One thing was for certain, he couldn’t
leave Jenica’s body lying out in the open while he made up his
mind. Using his preternatural strength, he quickly dug a hole six
feet deep, wrapped the corpse in a length of burlap he found in the
shed, and reburied the body. He would let Elena decide what to do
with the grisly find after they returned from the
Fortress.
Elena looked up when Drake entered the
room. “Was it . . . ?”
“I am afraid so.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt Jenica?”
Elena dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.
He shrugged. “Who can say why people do
what they do?”
Elena stared at him, ashamed of what
she was thinking. He lived in the castle. He was a vampire.
Vampires drank human blood. . . .
“You think I did this?”
“I . . .” A guilty flush stained her
cheeks.
“I did not kill her.”
“I’m sorry for thinking that
you—”
He brushed her apology aside with a
wave of his hand. “Considering what you know about me, I cannot
blame you.”
“We need to find whoever did this! He
could live in our town. We have to stop him before he kills someone
else.”
“We will. But not now.”
“Not now?” She stared at him in
disbelief. “If not now, when?”
“I have something I must attend to,
something that cannot be postponed any longer.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing! What
can be more important than finding out who murdered my
cousin?”
“Explaining to my sire why I disobeyed
the law of the Coven and married a mortal.”