Alone (20 page)

Finding
the energy to raise her head, she
discovered Sebastian standing before her.

“
Going someplace?” he said. With
tight features, he glanced down at the bag.

Serenity gasped. Despite her prayers, she
hadn’t expected to see him.

He took a step forward and she reared
back.

“
Please don’t be frightened
of me,” he begged. “I would never, ever hurt you.”

The sound of his voice was enough to
ensure another break down and she put her head back in her hands,
painful sobs wracking her body.

He sat on the step beside her and gingerly
touched her back. This time she didn’t flinch at his touch, but
continued to cry. On the road in front of them, a car passed by,
the headlights momentarily illuminating them.

Gently, he rubbed her back and remained
silent until she managed to restrain her tears.

When she calmed, she looked up at
him.

“
I can’t be frightened of you,”
she said, her eyes searching his. “I don’t know how.” She sniffed
and wiped at her face. “I know what you are, and... God, I can’t
even bring myself to
think
about what you are. All I can see is you, the man
I met, the man who’s always there when I need him.”

“
I’m still that man,” he
said, pulling her into his arms. “I’m just something
more.”

She resisted him for a moment, but then
she relaxed and pressed her weight against the comforting bulk of
his chest. Everything about him was so familiar; the breadth of his
shoulders, the strength of his arms, his scent. He felt like
home.

“
I know I should run right now,”
she said into his neck, “but I can’t imagine going on another day
knowing you won’t be part of my life.”

“
The woman at my house,” he
began. “Her name is Madeline and she wants me to join her. She
wants me to spend the rest of eternity with her.”

Her hold on him tightened. “You
can’t!” The thought of Sebastian with that woman hurt deep
inside.

“
If I don’t leave with
Madeline, she will come back and kill you.”

“
Let her. If I can’t be with you,
I have nothing else to live for.”

He pulled away, shock registering in his
beautiful green eyes. “You don’t mean that?”

She held his gaze. “Don’t I? What do I
have, Sebastian? No family, no friends, no job. My life is
empty.”

“
Now that Jackson is dead, you
can have those things.”

“
I have no life. Anyway, if
Madeline doesn’t kill me, she’ll make sure I’m locked up for
Jackson’s murder.”

“
Not if I leave with
her.”

Jealousy burned inside of her. “Is
that what you want?”

“
No! Never! You have no idea what
she’s done to my life.”

“
Then kill her,” Serenity
said fiercely.

The shock never left his face. “I can’t.
No vampire can kill another. It’s impossible. Believe me, if I
could kill her, I would have done it a long time ago”

Serenity couldn’t hold back her
curiosity. “What did she do to you?”

“
She’s done this
before—blackmailed me so I would stay with her,” he said. “She
stole me from my family and told me if I ever tried to contact them
again, she would slaughter them all.”

He looked away, his eyes haunted. “Did I
ever tell you I had a family, a long time ago?” His face was cast
in shadows, lost in the pain of memories. “I had a wife,
Antoinette, and a daughter, Isabelle. My daughter was only four
years old when I was taken. Madeline made me what I am. She’s a
creature who believes she is entitled to whatever she
wants”

Serenity absorbed his words. It occurred
to her on a deeply selfish level that she should be thankful to
Madeline; if she hadn’t done what she had Serenity would never have
met Sebastian.

“
Did you ever...” she sought
for the words. “Were you ever tempted to take your family with
you?”

He didn’t look at her. “I want to tell you
the thought never crossed my mind, but I would be lying. I was
desperate for them, I missed them so much. All I wanted was to be
with them, but the thought horrified me. I mean, my daughter was
four years old! Could you imagine what it would do to her? A child
vampire! I loved them so much; I would never have done it to
them.

“
I also had Madeline to worry
about. If she thought I still loved my family, she would kill them.
I was forced to watch them from a distance; first mourn my death
and then get over my passing.

“
I can’t tell you how hard that
was; my family living their lives without me. My wife remarried, my
daughter had a new father. Over time, time that seemed to run
frighteningly fast for me, they grew old and died; first my wife
and then my daughter.”

Serenity asked,
“Didn’t she have any
children of her own, your daughter I mean?”

He nodded. “But I had to make a
choice. My presence in their lives endangered them and I had to let
go. I was a ghost to them.”

“
God, Sebastian,” she reached out
and touched the back of his hand, the fine hairs soft beneath her
fingertips. “I’m so sorry.”

“
I don’t want you to be sorry for
me, Serenity. I didn’t tell you to gain your pity. I want you to
understand why I can’t be in your life. I would be repeating what
happened all those years ago.”

She grabbed his other hand.

“
Please don’t leave me,” she
begged. “How am I supposed to live my life knowing you’re out there
somewhere?”

“
I can’t be with you.”

“
But I have nothing! Can’t you
understand? What would I be losing?”

“
Oh, Serenity, can’t you see?
It’s for the possibility. The life you can live. You can remarry;
even have children of your own.”

At the mention of her own children, pain
stabbed in her stomach, a psychological, yet ever so physical pain
she couldn’t ignore. The one thing she’d always wanted in her life
was to give birth to children, to give her own child the adoration,
love and support she never had.

However, she couldn’t carry children of
her own. Nature’s cruelty had shown her as much by killing her
unborn babies over and over again. Whatever she could do to rebel
against nature was all good in her viewpoint.

“
So now do you understand why you
can’t come with me, why we can never be together?” he asked.
Reaching up, he touched her face. “I will be forced to watch you
grow old and then you will die without me and I will be left here
alone.”

She was dying inside.

“
Your world will be
changing,” he said, “but I will remain the same.”

“
So make me one of you. Make me a
vampire.”

“
You don’t know what you’re
asking.”

“
All I want is you.”

“
You would forget me in time,” he
said. “If I turned you, it would be forever.”

“
Forever with you sounds
pretty good to me,” she said, managing to smile through her
tears.

He grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers
hard enough to hurt.

“
I will never allow myself
to put you in my hell. I kill people, Serenity. Do you understand?
I murder people. Do you think you could do that? Murder someone and
drink their blood so you can survive?”

“
I murdered someone so I could
survive.” She spoke quietly, staring into his eyes.

He shook his head and glanced away. “It’s
not the same.”

“
No, it’s not. You kill people
you have no connection to. I killed the person I stood in a church
with and professed to love until the day I died. Which is
worse?”

“
It’s not the same,” he said
again, but without the same conviction.

They sat in silence for a moment,
listening to the city rush past.

“
So,” he said. “Are you
going to tell me where you were going?”

Serenity looked down at the bag and
laughed. “I told myself I was going to a hotel, but I think I was
really waiting for you.”

“
Lying to yourself,
huh?”

“
I discovered I’m very good at
convincing myself of things over the years.”

“
I told myself I wasn’t even
going to talk to you. I just wanted to see you one last
time….”

She smiled at him. “I’m glad you
did.”

“
I guess you’re not the only one
good at self-deception.”

The silence settled back upon them. There
was just the touch of hands; one warm, the other cool.

“
So now what?” Serenity
asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. All
I want is for you to be safe and you won’t be with me
around.”

“
Don’t even say it!” she said. “I
will not stand by and watch you leave me for
her!”

Sebastian didn’t speak.

Serenity filled in the silence. “I packed
the bag because I couldn’t stay at the house. The guilt was too
much. I thought about going to a hotel, but the police have been
sniffing around. Someone—Madeline, I think—has told
them....”

Sebastian interrupted, “It was her, she
told me.”

“
I didn’t want the police to
think I was running away. I figured if they couldn’t find me, they
would immediately think I was hiding something.”

“
You’re right, but we can’t go
back to my house. Madeline will know to find you there.”

Her heart lifted. He wasn’t going to
leave her.

“
It’s just for tonight,” he
said, bringing her back down. “I won’t put you at risk.”

She would take it. Even if they only had
one night, she would take it.

“
We have to get a cab,” Sebastian
said. “I own a car but I
rarely use the vehicle unless I need to be viewed
as human.”

“
Don’t vampires fly like bats?”
she asked, teasingly, partly testing for the truth.

He grinned. “Not when they’re
travelling with humans,” he said, not answering the
question.

Sebastian managed to wave down a cab. He
opened the door for Serenity and she climbed in the back. Sebastian
slid in beside her, leaned forward and told the driver to take them
to the Hilton Airport.

“
It’s a busy hotel,” he told her.
“People are constantly coming and going. We can be
anonymous.”

They needed to disappear for the
night, hide from Madeline, if possible.

The driver dropped them off at the
hotel’s entrance and accepted Sebastian’s generous tip without so
much as a thanks. Sebastian took Serenity’s hand and with the
other, carried her bag.

Feeling
conspicuous, Serenity stood beside
Sebastian while he booked a suite for the night. The receptionist
behind the desk was all smiles and hair flips as she served
Sebastian, trying to impress the intense, gorgeous man in front of
her. The woman glanced at Serenity and her eyes flicked back to
Sebastian. Serenity blushed; the receptionist probably wondered
what someone like Sebastian was doing with her.

They rode in the elevator in silence,
close together, their arms touching.

The doors pinged open and Serenity’s
whole body tensed with excitement. To be alone with Sebastian, just
the two of them, with no threat of Jackson ever finding out and
safe from Madeline, made her head swim. She followed his broad back
out of the elevator and down the long corridor until they reached
their room.

Sebastian used a keycard to open the
door and Serenity walked in, her mouth dropping open.

They entered into a sitting room, complete
with couches, a huge television, and a separate bathroom. Another
door led to the bedroom, which had a bathroom leading off it. She
didn’t even have two bathrooms in her house! The bed was huge. As
wide as it was long, she could have slept lengthways. Crisp white
sheets covered the mattress and soft feather pillows sat at the
head of the bed.

She ran her hand across the sheets,
relishing the softness of the material and imagining how she would
sink right into the bed.

“
You can sleep,” he told
her. “I’ll be right out here.” He gestured to the couch.

“
Stay with me till I fall
asleep?” she asked, reaching her hand out toward him. “I don’t want
to be alone.”

He took her hand. “You’re not alone.
Not anymore.”

Serenity turned her back on him and
quickly slipped out of her jeans. She slid beneath the sheets
wearing only panties and her tee.

Sebastian
sat on a chair opposite but she
pulled back the covers, exposing the other side. If she only had
one night with him she was determined to make the most of
it.

He hesitated for a moment, and then
went to her, slipping into bed fully clothed.

With a shy smile, she tugged his shirt up
over his hard stomach. Pulling the shirt over his head, she exposed
his perfect upper-body. A ridge ran down between his abs, leading
to a line of dark hair, contrasting against his pale
skin.