Blood Life Seeker (18 page)

If Michel was surprised he didn't show it. He had his game face back on and was wearing it well.

“Alessandra. A pleasure, as always.” He bowed slowly, arm across his chest, bending at the waist. It was the formal greeting vampires reserved for those they respected. Somehow I was getting the impression that Michel's was all an act this time. I could feel through the Bond how tightly coiled he was and it wasn't pretty.

“
Mio caro
, it is good to be back.” She was, of course, talking to Michel, but her eyes were on me. No doubt looking for a response. She didn't get one. How stupid did she think I was?

Gregor was watching Michel, almost hungrily. As though he thought this surprise would elicit the reaction the
Iunctio
was after. Luckily, Michel was back on form and as much as Alessandra being with Gregor was a shock to him, and I'm betting it definitely was, he was that consummate politician again. Never let them see anything.

There was a brief silence hanging between us in the room, not so much tension, but just the quiet you get before a storm. You can tell something is building, you can feel it in the air, but when exactly that first thunder clap and lightning bolt will strike, is still a little mystery. I forced myself to keep breathing evenly. I'd leave this one up to Michel, it was aimed at him, not me.

“I look forward to our evening together,
dolce
.” He bowed again, then put his arm out for me to take. I didn't hesitate, I
really
wanted out of here now, so I placed my arm in his, his other hand taking hold of mine on top of his arm and we swept out of the house. Bruno flashed past us in a blur and by the time we came to the bottom of the steps at the front of the property he was already holding the door to the car open for us.

I could feel the proximity of Michel's vampires, they had closed in and although not visible, their
Sanguis Vitam
filled the air. Michel had obviously been closer to the edge than I had realised, to have called his vampires in like this.

He let me get in the car first and I scooted over to the other side, so he could follow. Bruno shut the door behind him and was in the driver's seat before I had taken a breath. He wanted out of here too it seemed.

Nothing was said until we were a few hundred metres down the road and making steady progress away from the house. I figured I'd have to confess to knowing Alessandra was with Gregor. I didn't like secrets and I most certainly didn't like having secrets from my boyfriend. I'm old fashioned like that. If he's good enough to sleep with, he's good enough to deserve honesty.

“
Michel. I'm sorry, I forgot to mention Alessandra was with Gregor when I last Dream Walked.” I had turned slightly in my seat to look at him. He was sitting vampire still, not looking at anything in particular, pulled in on himself, thinking, protecting, doing God knows what it is that they actually do when they
disappear
like that.

He didn't answer me straight away, just let me sit there watching him do nothing. Not the most pleasant of experiences.

“A rather interesting piece of information.” That's all, no inflection in his voice, just words.

I took a breath in, just a small one, nothing too obvious. I wasn't scared yet, he wasn't flashing magenta in his eyes, his
Sanguis Vitam
was in check. Nothing to raise goose bumps along my skin, just an unnatural calm, that didn't feel quite right.

I broke first. “Say something. What are you thinking?”

He turned his head slowly to look at me, his eyes were a flat blue. A dark pit of blue, the darkness becoming stronger, deeper, more obvious the longer he looked at me. OK. So, maybe I was starting to feel a little scared.

“What else have you failed to tell me?”

I thought about that for a second. “Nothing.”

“You don't seem so sure.”

“I am.”

He just watched me with those dark, deep blue eyes, blank of all expression, unnatural, otherworldly, not right.

For the life of me I didn't know how to reach out to him. It should have been easy. He was my kindred vampire, I'm joined to him, Bonded, but it was like there was a wall between us. Not just separating us, but shielding me from all those connections to him. I'm not sure if it was Michel who had put up that wall, intentionally maybe, either to protect himself or keep me out from what he was feeling. It didn't matter who or what had put it up, or even why, it did what it was meant to do. It dulled my feelings towards him and made it impossible for me to take the final step and pull him back towards the Light.

My little internal monologue chose that moment to pop up. It's the voice of reason inside my head. Some might say I'm losing it, listening to a voice inside my head, but it's never let me down before. It's made me run, when I needed to run; fight, when I needed to fight; hide, when I needed to hide. It was like a guardian angel on my shoulder, always watching and only interfering when things got really bad. I guess we'd entered the
really bad
territory tonight.

This isn't right
,
it said.
Do something.
Usually I listen to it. I may not like what it has to say, but I listen. Tonight, I just brushed it aside as though it was a nuisance, an annoying little fly buzzing around my head.

Michel just continued to stare at me, but it was like he was looking through me, not really seeing me. He didn't say anything else and neither did I.

The next thing I realised was we had pulled up outside my apartment. The surprise of that jolted me out of the stupor that had enveloped me and I blinked a few times to clear my head. I had expected us to go back to
Sensations
,
to discuss this further. There was so much to talk about, to prepare for. Michel was about to be challenged and tested and I was, it seemed too. We needed to have a united front, to work on this together. Did he want to have this talk here, at my home? Privacy maybe?

Bruno had my door open, so I stepped out and turned to make sure Michel was following. He wasn't, just sitting in his seat staring forward, at nothing again.

“Aren't you coming?” My heart was in my throat. I think I knew the answer, before I had even asked it.

He kept staring forward, didn't look at me, just said, “No.” Nothing more.

“We need to talk about this. We need to prepare.”

“I think you are more than prepared, my dear. You do not need me.”

“What does that mean, Michel?” I was staring to feel the beginnings of anger. Good. Anger I could use, despair, not so much.

He looked at me then and let me see the magenta bleed slowly into the blue of his eyes. I refused to show fear, to show anything. What was
his
problem? I should be the one pissed off here, or had he forgotten that little bit of misleading information about our Bonding and it not necessarily being an irreversible truth.

That thought alone was enough to tip the scale and I felt my anger turn into something more. It morphed from a fury, to a rage, to a deep seated desire to strike out. I stood back from the doorway to the car I had been leaning into to look at Michel, took a deep breath in and let my anger, frustration, rage and fury build. Until I could contain it no more and thrust it out towards him, into the car, letting it swirl around the cabin of the vehicle and bounce along his skin.

Michel blanched, the first sign of true emotion on his face. The magenta in his eyes stilled, faded slightly and then he gasped as my emotions ran through him. I had hurt Michel once before with my emotions and I had sworn I would never do that again. He's not as accomplished as humans at controlling and dealing with strong emotions. Vampires have a limited range, that's why it's so hard to pull them back towards the Light. If you can't feel emotions such as empathy, compassion, sympathy and love, how can you feel Light? Most vampires are full of only the negative emotions, allowing only the Dark to prevail. My job as a Nosferatin is to turn them towards the Light. Let them relearn to have emotions that fill you with warmth. Somehow I'm guessing my ancestors hadn't picked my using this talent I had, to instil rage.

I didn't feel any guilt. I didn't care. That alone was a little strange.

I turned from the car without another word and slipped my key in the lock of my door. Opened it, walked through and closed it, without a second glance. I knew my emotions would still be playing over and over in his mind, I hadn't stopped projecting them yet. I vaguely realised they had snapped back to me, when I heard the Land Rover squeal tires out of my building complex's drive as Bruno took Michel away from the threat at high speed.

I leaned my back against the door and closed my eyes. With Michel not close I was starting to lose the rage, starting to realise a Darkness had settled over me and was only now lifting as I found peace in my small flat. I always did feel safe and at peace here. I shook my head as the last vestiges of Darkness left and the full realisation of what had happened sunk in.

“Shit.” Nero had warned that I would be closer to the Dark now, that I would have to battle it too. Not good.

I wanted to run to Michel, but I didn't think he'd see me. I wanted to pick the phone up and call him on his mobile. That thought made me glance at my own land line in the kitchen. It was blinking a red light, someone had left a message. Could I even face that right now?

I took a steadying breath in. So, Michel was pissed off at me. Because why? I had forgotten to tell him about Alessandra? I shook my head. I didn't think that was it. Maybe the straw that had broken the camel's back, but it was more than that. There was more going on, but the harder I tried to figure it out, the further away an answer seemed to be.

OK. So,
I
was mad he hadn't told me about the Bond not being exclusive. I had a right to be angry. He had led me to believe we were destined to be in each other's beds, not just each other's lives. I don't like being backed into a corner and this was an enormous corner if I had ever seen one. But, I loved him, didn't I? Was that love because of our joining and Bond, or did it develop before then? The sixty-four thousand dollar question. One I didn't have an answer for right now, despite it being the question I had played over and over in my mind for weeks now. Maybe I would never have the answer I sought.

I banged the back of my head against the door, not too hard, but enough to make me wince slightly. Pain is my friend. It cleared my mind enough for me to concentrate on the here and now. No point getting all philosophical, there were more pressing matters. How to prepare for Gregor's challenge. How indeed.

Arghh!

This was getting me nowhere. My gaze rested back on the blinking light on the phone across the room. May as well deal with that, at least it was something to do with myself.

The first message was from Jerome, the Alpha of Rick's Hapū. He was back in the country and suggested we meet. Great. I'd add it to the To Do List, along with fighting off Gregor's advances, passing whatever challenges the
Iunctio
had planned and getting back on better terms with my kindred Nosferatu.

Fucking great.

The second was a surprise.

“Lucinda, it's Pete. We need to talk. I'm at the bar all night. See you soon.”

Pete was never one to waste energy on small talk, short and sweet and to the point, although there was no point in the message he had left. Pete was my eyes and ears in the city. He's a ghoul and ghouls are very good at finding things out for you. If there's a rumour, they probably started it, or at the very least, were there when it began. Every Nosferatin needs a good network of information, mine just happens to be headed by a ghoul.

But, Pete had never voluntarily offered up information before. It was always,
always
, me who went to him. I didn't even known he knew my phone number. But then again, Pete could find out anything if he wanted to. The problem was, to a ghoul information was their currency and nothing was for free. If Pete was going to tell me something, he would expect something in return and it needed to be good. I didn't want to tell him about Gregor, but if I didn't have something good to give him, I'd owe him. And owing a ghoul was never a good thing.

I sighed and picked up the phone to call a taxi. Pete's bar was across town, in Newmarket, a bit too far to walk.

Guts and Glory
was doing a right roaring trade this evening. It's possibly one of the most popular sports bars in the district. Clean as a whistle, well maintained and swimming in a relaxed Kiwi kind of way. We Kiwi's love our sports and our bars come to think of it.

There were a couple of ghouls in the corner. They never seemed to be the same ones, but they were always there. I gathered they were Pete's henchmen, but I couldn't be sure. Pete was behind the bar, he's always behind the bar. Cleaning glasses, pouring beers, making the customers feel welcomed. Friendly, but not in your face, that's Pete's motto.

I slipped into a tall bar stool at the counter and waited for him to finish serving the big brick out-house of a guy at the other end, no doubt a former rugby player, a forward I'm guessing. He looked right at home here, that's for sure.