Eternal Shadows (11 page)

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know Rhys better than anyone. You’re not even his type!”

“You’re insane!” I snapped. “I have no idea what you’re getting at, but you’ve got it all wrong. I don’t even want to be a vampire!”

“Well, how sad for you.” She left the wall and started towards me. “You get what so many of us want and you have the audacity to take it all for granted!”

Aurelia grabbed Olivia again, this time by the arm, and tossed her down the hall. Olivia landed with a loud thud, catching the floor with her hands just in time to save her head. “Enough,” Aurelia said. “Kassandra is your superior and you will treat her as such. We have talked about this before, Olivia.”

For a moment, I thought Olivia would continue the argument, but instead she took a deep breath and lifted herself from the floor. Straightening her dress, she composed herself. “You’re right,” she said, all proper and polite. “I apologize for forgetting myself. I suppose it was just my worry for Rhys.”

“Watch that it doesn’t happen again.”

“Yes, madam.”

Jeeze
. It was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The question was, which one was more dangerous?

And just how was she with Rhys, a tiny voice in the back of my mind spoke up. And what constituted a long time when you were human and he was immortal? She must be his feeder. What other possibility could there be?

A door creaked open—why had this one been left alone when they had ruined and quieted mine?—and all my thought processes came to a crashing halt. The scent of fresh earth washed through the hall and I knew before I looked that I would see him.

He was perfect. Not a hair out of place, not a single sign of discomfort in his expression. His blue eyes were clear of pain, and he had changed clothes at some point in the time since I had last seen him. He looked between Olivia and me, one single line creasing his forehead.

“What’s going on out here?”

I’d never been so happy to hear his voice. He seemed so normal, so okay, I started to ask—then squelched the urge. I wasn’t allowed to say anything to him about last night. I screamed silently to myself. Why? It made no sense!

Olivia lit up like the Fourth of July when she saw him and half-skipped, half-strolled back down the hall until she was directly in front of him.

Between him and me. Obscuring my flawless view of his inexplicably relaxed face.

“Rhys, I’m so glad to see you,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I was so worried when I arrived and they said you weren’t seeing anyone.”

Confusion furrowed what I could see of his brow. “I was with the general, Olivia. That’s all.”

“I know. But someone said they thought you weren’t feeling well, so I rushed here so you could feed as soon as possible.”

So, Olivia could ask, but I couldn’t? Something was wrong with that.

“I feel perfectly fine,” Rhys said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Okay, something was wrong with everything. Didn’t he remember last night? Or was he just covering, not wanting to talk about it?

Olivia shrugged. “All that matters is that you feel fine now. Should we go somewhere so you can feed?”

“Not right now. I have things to do. Kassandra.” He stepped to the side and looked straight at me. My still heart thumped once in my chest. “I assume you’ve met Aurelia.”

“Yes. We’ve been introduced.” I still didn’t believe everything was okay. I wanted to run up and shake some sense into him, to check him over for injuries and brain maladies myself. But that was out of the question. I would have to settle for him appearing to be himself once again.

“Good,” he said. “Then the hard part is over.” He smirked. Aurelia rolled her eyes, but didn’t look otherwise offended. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Olivia, rigid and glaring. “Come meet the general.”

“Just how much of an option is that?”

“None,” he said. “I’ll drag you if I have to. But you’ll make a better impression if you’re not flailing about in that dress.”

That was the second time someone had threatened to drag me today. Did I look like I needed to be dragged? “Point taken.” Doing my best to ignore Olivia’s fiery glare, I stepped past her and clapped my hands against my sides once, letting them bounce off. It relieved a bit of the tension that had sunk into my body. “I’m ready.”

“I hope so.” He stepped to the side, out of the way of the open door and laid a hand on my lower back. My heart thumped again. While annoying, I kind of liked it. It reminded me I wasn’t quite dead. Not completely, at least. However, I failed to step any further into the room. Rhys gave me a push.

I heard another pair of footsteps start to follow.

“Stay here for now, Olivia,” Rhys said. Then he shut the door.

I’d seen this room a million times before, and just last night when I had come in search of Rhys. It had been my favorite room in the house. The room where my father kept the good books. The fiction. We had everything here, from old classics like
Pride and Prejudice
and
The Iliad
, to every book that had come out in the past year.

The room looked exactly the same as it had when I had last seen it, comfy chairs, bookshelves and all. This was the room Rhys had chosen as his own, but he hadn’t moved in yet. Unlike Millie, he had no pictures scattered about, no belongings, and no shoes or socks left carelessly on the floor. Maybe I had been mistaken. Maybe he hadn’t been staying here. Just because he had been here
before didn’t mean it was his room. It made me curious though. We did have one closet here, off to the right. The door was closed currently, but a large gash ran down the length of the wood.

I remembered the crash I had heard before.

But one thing stood out in the room that kept me from investigating further, though it was not so much a thing as it was a man.

A huge man. Tall and dig
nified, with just a touch of gray through his otherwise dark hair. His features looked like they could have been carved from stone, and the thin lines that ran across his face were indistinguishable as scars or wrinkles. He probably had both. His arms were huge, easily as thick as my skull, and from what I could tell those tailored dress pants covered legs that matched. He wore a cobalt blue dress shirt, which had been left unbuttoned at the top, and thank God for tailoring, or he never would have fit into it.

This man was pure muscle, and had been for centuries. No, for nearly two millennia. That odd sense of age and position returned, and even if Rhys hadn’t brought me here for the sole purpose of meeting him, I would have known who he was.

All business, he came forward and extended his hand to me. “Kassandra Thomas, allow me to introduce myself. I am General Julius Augustus, Chairman of the Western Alliance of the Vampiric Order. Welcome to our family.”

Chapter Nine: The General

I took his hand cautiously. His huge fingers curled around mine, dwarfing them. But instead of shaking, he leaned down and ever-so-graciously placed a kiss on the back of my hand. I felt my cheeks go hot. Not what I had expected. A bone-crushing handshake wouldn’t have surprised me at all. Did they shake hands in ancient Rome? I guess two thousand years was enough time to pick up an assortment of greeting customs.

Releasing me, he chuckled. Another surprise. “My dear, I can see you have not been warned about me.”

“Warned?” I expected my pulse to race, then remembered I was dead.

“We didn’t think a warning was needed,” Millie said, her voice all bells and chimes. I hadn’t noticed her before. She and her sister sat off to the far left, surrounded by a scattering of books. “After all,” she said, p
lacing a book back on the shelf. “You’re such a gentleman.”

“Only you girls think so,” the general said.

Madge put away two more books. “It’s always fun to watch someone meeting you for the first time. Such an array of different reactions.”

“My girls flatter me too much,” he said to me, as though it was a secret no one else should hear. Against my initial judgment, I found myself liking him. He wasn’t nearly as frightening as I had thought he would be.

He laughed again, stepping away from me and clapping his hand against Rhys’s back. “Rhys, she barely speaks. Whatever have you done to her?”

“Trust me, she speaks just fine.”

The general’s laughter continued to fill the room. Millie stepped around him, then leaned down to whisper in my ear, placing a hand on my shoulder. “He’s not what you expected, is he?” I shook my head, still wordless. “Don’t be completely fooled though. He may be a big teddy bear with us, but he’s deadly outside of the home.”

Good to know. That didn’t apply to me though. Right?

“Kassandra.” His deep, bass voice made me jump. I almost knocked Millie’s hand into her teeth. “You’ve been with us for how long now? Two weeks?”

Oh, God. I had no idea. “I’m not sure,” I said, forcing myself to look him in the face and not stare at the floor. “I know I, uh, woke up on my birthday. On the eighteenth.”

“Really?” He looked at Rhys.

“Yes,” Rhys said. “She took her time.”

Booming laughter, yet again. “Good for you, Kassandra. Good for you. Strong will. I like that. Of course, it is to be expected when you don’t know beforehand what’s going to happen to you.”

“Some notice would have been nice, yes,” I said.
Dammit
. Pretty much the first time I open my mouth and what happens? I get all snippy.
Dammit, dammit, dammit
.

“Well, I could apolog
ize for that,” the general said. “But what would be the point? It’s all in the past anyway, and I think you’re adjusting to life here with us quite well.”

I crushed my lips together to keep from lashing out verbally again. This was the man whose invasion had resulted in the death of my father, as well as mine, regardless of the different outcomes. I had to remember that.

“So,” he continued, “I am told you have taken a feeder.”

“Yes, sir.” Safe. Be polite.

“Warren, is it?”

“Yes.”

“And you get on well?”

“I like him, yes.”

“Good, good. Liking him will help you avoid mistakes this early on in your new life. Millie was wise to choose him for you.”

Millie beamed.

“I’m glad she did,” I said.

“But I hear you still will not bite him.”

Crap
. Who’s been telling on me? The man’s been here less than a day and already he knew everything. He was as bad as my father.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to.”

The general folded one arm across his chest and rubbed his chin with his free hand. “Yes, well, that’s fine for now. But you will not be able to avoid it forever, young lady. Biting becomes a necessity. Warren cannot be with you every second of the day, and times arise when we are often on our own for days or weeks. This life is not simple, Kassandra.”

“I’ve never thought it was.” What the heck was he talking about?

Millie walked back towards her sister, waggling her finger in the general’s face when she passed. “Don’t scare her, you big bully.” I caught her smiling just before she sat down and went back to helping her sister replace the books.

“I’m not trying to scare her. I am reasoning with her.”

“You like to scare everyone when they’re first turned. You did the same thing to Madge and me.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You told us that story about the vampire who dried up,” Madge said, trying to hold back the smile I could see pulling at her lips.

“It’s a true story,” the g
eneral defended himself.

“Not in the context in which you told us,” Millie said, whacking him on the leg with one book. “Madge and I could barely go an hour without thinking about blood after that.”

“You exaggerate.”

“Julius, you are a trickster and you always have been.” Aurelia had opened the door and stepped inside. “I had to personally go five days without feeding just to show the girls that they would not dry up.”

“Aurelia, my goddess, you wound me. I taught the girls to feed, did I not?”

“You did. But the thirst would have accomplished that just as well.”

The general shrugged. “Life is more fun my way.”

Aurelia huffed.

I was confused.

Cade followed Aurelia in. Though, I could have sworn I had smelled him in here earlier. When had he left? Maybe while Aurelia was busy frightening me in the study. I really needed to be more observant. But maybe it wasn’t even possible to be that observant, even when you were a vampire.

“Julius, the package is here,” he said.

“Ah, good. Well
, then.” He swept towards the door, catching Aurelia’s arm in his as he went. “Come, Kassandra, I have a bit of a test for you.”

Test?

“No, you don’t,” Rhys said, suddenly right at my side. “You tried that one with me.”

The general stopped, turning back to look at Rhys. “Did I? Imagine that. My memory must be getting rusty.”

“Your memory is perfect,” Rhys said, not amused. “Of course, I’m sure you’ve improved upon the trick in five hundred years.” Now he sounded amused.

“I have, but now you’ve ruined it. I will have to think of something else for Kassandra.” He and Aurelia glided out the door.

I whimpered. I hated practical jokes in the human world. I knew I would hate them more now in the vampire world.

Rhys grabbed my hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll talk him out of it. Besides, he should be too busy with other things to have time for playing tricks.”

“Okay,” I muttered, not sure I believed him.

“Come on, he’s not done talking with you yet.” He pulled me out of the library.

“Oh God.”

Olivia was perched on a decorative bench out in the hallway. She jumped up the moment she saw Rhys, placing herself at his side as we walked. I suddenly had the urge to walk faster. Fast like a vampire, just so she couldn’t keep up.

Rhys just silently accepted her presence, almost like she wasn’t there at all. Had he grown that accustomed to her? That even after weeks without her she could follow him around like a lost puppy and go unnoticed? I was always acutely aware of Warren. I wondered once again why Rhys had left Olivia behind when he had first come here.

The general and Aurelia had disappeared from sight, but I could still smell their path. Rhys followed it down two flights of stairs to the ground floor. We wove our way through the staff, all of them pointedly not staring. Down the main hall and around the far corner, I breathed a sigh of relief when we passed the dining room. I’d feared the general would want to talk there, and I still cringed at the thought of returning to the site of my last argument with my father.

I wondered what would have happened if he had believed me.

When we reached the study, Rhys ushered me inside, then once again told Olivia to stay outside. “We’ll be a while,” he said. “Don’t wait.” Then he shut the door.

Just before the door closed, I saw Olivia’s dumbfounded expression. Clearly, she was not used to being left behind.

“Come and sit, Kassandra,” the general said, far on the other side of the room.
He was
bent over one of the tables that stood between the chairs of various shapes and sizes. Aurelia had set herself in the high-backed wooden chair, carved sometime in the late nineteenth century, or something like that. Cade stood beside the general, quiet.

I chose one of the plush armchairs, tucking my legs under my skirt and drawing them up onto the cushion. I had a feeling I might have to wait a bit before the talking commenced.

I was right.

The general pondered over whatever occupied the wooden box on the table in front of him. My view was mostly of his back, though I had placed myself slightly off to his left side. I could see his hand stroking his chin, his other arm firmly braced against the table, muscles taught. Cade said nothing.

Rhys had become distracted by a painting that hung over the mantle—an Irish countryside by some little known artist my mother had met once in her travels. Aside from the blue sky and gray stones, almost everything was green. Yet nothing was the same exact shade. Tiny yellow flowers accented the differences here and there. I loved that painting, though it had taken me a few years of growing up to really appreciate it. That, and a trip to Ireland. Before that, I had always seen the painting as a sort of fairy tale, a myth. But afterwards, I knew it to be truer than most things. Green really did exist like that.

Had Rhys seen Ireland? If he couldn’t remember his human life, then perhaps he didn’t know just how beautiful his home was. But, that would have meant he hadn’t been back in five hundred years. Watching him study the painting, I didn’t doubt my sad hypothesis.

“Kassandra.”

“Yes.” I snapped to attention when the general said my name. Too quickly. I winced and rubbed the back of my neck where I had pinched a nerve.

“You are in your final year of secondary school, are you not?”

Wow. Hadn’t heard anyone put it that way in—okay, never. “Yeah. I’m a senior. Rhys said something about me going back, but I’ve missed a lot of school now, I don’t see how I’ll ever catch up.” Don’t send me back, I prayed silently to myself. Don’t make me risk killing my friends. Warren I could manage, but he was just one guy. A whole school full? I didn’t think so. I’d had a lot of time to think since Rhys first mentioned it. My friends were better off without me now. Safer. I wanted to see them, but not at such a high price.

The general waved off my concerns as though they were nothing, still concentrating on whatever was in the box. “Missed time is no difficulty. It has been taken care of.”

“Excuse me?”

“My dear,” he finally turned and looked over his shoulder at me. “Do you really think I would not have protocols in place for instances such as this? You will finish school, I insist.”

“My papers are really late. I’ll have a failing grade.”

“Nonsense.” He went back to the box.

“Everyone may think I’m sick, but I don’t have a doctor’s note to excuse me, and I don’t see how I could get one.”

“Gia will write you one.”

“Gia?”

“My feeder. She’s a doctor, you know.”

Fabulous. Of course. Why wouldn’t he have a doctor on staff? Silly me for not thinking of it myself.

He reached into the box with one hand. “And if there are any further problems, I will have them taken care of. So, you shall return to school and you will earn your diploma. Then, we shall discuss a higher education.”

“College?”

“Education is very important, my girl. I will give you a few years to finish adjusting to this life, but yes, you will go to college.” He withdrew his hand, folding it into his other arm across his chest. “I am at a loss. What do you think, Cade?”

Cade didn’t move from his spot against the wall. “I think it’s Petri. It’s the only possibility. Despite the tampering of his scent.”

“If it was Petri, why would they disguise the identity rather than throw it in our faces?”

“To confuse us. To weaken our resolve. Petri has been missing for years. We have no way of acquiring immediate proof.”

“You have a point. Aurelia, do you think you could see anything?” The general turned to her, offering a strong hand to assist her from her seat. It had to be all manners. Aurelia was not a woman who needed help standing.

She regarded him for a moment, still sitting. “If I touch it, I may catch a glimpse of something.” She took his hand and floated to her feet.

Was it the product of two thousand years of practice, or had she simply been that graceful in life? I couldn’t imagine myself ever moving like that, even when dancing.

Aurelia dipped her hand into the box and closed her eyes. For a moment, I felt the presence of the power I had felt before, that push on the air, then it faded away. She opened her eyes, disgust written in every line that creased her normally perfect face. “Petri. Without a doubt. They dismembered him while still alive. Drained him.”