Misty (6 page)

His voice was so low, so reasonable. How could any of this be reasonable? She thought maybe she was the one going out of her mind.

“Why me?” She still hugged the pillow, but she slowly moved to the side of the bed away from him.

“Good question. I don’t have an answer to that. Every once in a while there is someone who comes along that has blood that just tastes better, smells better, is better. No one knows why, but it’s rare. You are one of those people. But we cannot allow anyone to get carried away and drain you. So I am here to see that you only share if it’s your wish.”

Now she was at the other side of the bed. She sat up, still holding the pillow. “Let me get this straight. You are a Vampire, right?”

“Yes.” He dragged the word out to a point that left her uncomfortable.

“And you live by sucking blood from people, right?”

“Yes.” Now she watched the little crooked smile on his lips. Was she entertaining him?

“My blood is special and you really, really would like a taste of it?”

Now he was smiling. She was amusing him. “Oh, yes.”

“There is more?” She watched his face. She couldn’t read anything except the crooked smile but she sensed he had other plans.

“I would like to fuck you.”

She gasped. “Shit, that was rather crude. No foreplay, no flowers, no nice sweet words?” She was squeezing the pillow so hard that her arms hurt. Finally, since he did not move, she stood up and had to back up against the wall to help support her. She still had her pillow. “Is there more?” This came out almost as a whisper.

“Well, I don’t know what kind of details you want?” He had the nerve to raise an eyebrow.

“How long are you staying, who sent you, why do I need you to protect me, why are you in my house, how did you find me, what if I don’t want to
—
what did you call it,
share
—
oh, and especially what if I don’t want to have sex with you or anybody else that sucks blood from people? Shit, this can’t be real.” She slowly sank down the wall and finally let go of the pillow and instead hugged her knees.

He left the room and returned back to her side of the bed, knelt down and held out a Gatorade. “You need to replace some vital elements. You haven’t eaten, and your bout in the bathroom left you depleted.”

She saw him take the pillow and toss it on the bed as she finally took the bottle. He was right. She could feel the light head you got from lack of potassium and sugar. She tipped the bottle, swallowed and waited to see if it was going to stay down. The cold liquid actually felt good. She slowly stood up and drank some more. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he also rose up.
O M G,
he was huge. She moved around him, grateful that he didn’t touch her, and went into the main room. This time she walked around behind the lunch bar, hoping to keep it between them.

He was right there. She had not heard him move, but she felt him following her and when she turned, he was standing by the bar. She took another drink and tried her voice. “Do I get any answers?”

“Sure. I am staying for as long as you need protection, I was sent here by the Council, which is sort of our governing body. You need me because you are mortal and any Vampire, even a new one, can overpower you when it comes to strength. I am in your house because you invited me, which is important
—
a Vampire can’t enter a mortal’s nest unless invited by that person. There has been a rule placed on you by the Council. No one can take your blood without your permission and they can’t fuck you without your permission. Again, it is my job to enforce that rule, because some Vamps are not strong enough to resist, and some will just not care. Actually, the act of sharing blood and having sex at the same time is very pleasurable to both the mortal and the Vamp.”

She shook her head and pushed her hair back behind her shoulders. She had lost all track of time. She looked at the big old clock above the stove but it finally had failed her. It had stopped at 11:15. She did not know if that was morning or night or when the clock had stopped. She looked towards the window and thought that it must be late afternoon.

“You went out in sunshine. I thought Vampires slept in caskets and burst into flames in sunlight.” She looked at him, right in those unusual eyes.

“Almost every book of fiction about Vampires has a lot of misconceptions in them. Where is your furniture?” He looked around for a place to sit and pulled out a stool to straddle it.

“Can I kick you out and refuse you entry?”

“No, once in, I get entry whenever I want. Sorry, well no, I’m not really sorry.” He finally gave her a full one hundred percent smile. It was really the type of smile that if she had been out with the girls and it was in a bar, they would have been climbing over each other to get to him. That was before she knew he wanted her blood. She took a deep breath and looked away.

“How do I get rid of you?” She sounded petulant even to her own ears.

“You can’t.”

“How do I get my life back?”

“You don’t.”

She slammed the bottle down so hard the small amount of yellow fluid splashed out. Someone knocked on the door.

“It’s your friend Terrie,” he stated and just sat.

“You know this how?” But she heard Terrie’s voice. He didn’t move, so she went to the door, going around the bar and leaving as much space from him as the room would allow. Terrie was her hyper self as usual and pushed in all bubbly. She stopped and gave a big smile to Rad.

“Oh I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Terrie babbled as she held out her hands full of mail.

Suddenly she felt him behind her and a strong cold arm reached around her shoulder and across her neck. “Terrie, Misty and I would never think of you as an interruption. What do you have?” He reached over her with his other hand and took the mail from Terrie. Terrie just stopped and smiled as she turned to walk to the door, waved a small goodbye as she left.

Misty stood in utter terror. She was afraid to move and she was praying that he would move away from her but he held her against him, not saying anything. She realized that Terrie had not acted normal. He had done something to her friend. She felt the anger. She slid down to get under the arm. She turned around, away from him but faced him.

“Damn you, leave my friends alone.” She wanted to hit him but realized it probably would hurt her hand more than it would hurt him. Then, what the hell, she swung and hit him on the jaw. She was right
—
her hand stung as if she had slammed it into a cement wall. But she did see a complete look of surprise on his face. She pulled her arm back again but he had his hand around her wrist. This resulted in her arm in the air and being pulled up against him with her breasts being smashed into his broad chest. She took a deep breath and bit her bottom lip as she looked in anger at those amazing pale eyes so close.

“It has been a very long time since someone has been able to hit me without having ended up dead. But you only get one.” There they stood, face to face, her arm held in the air. She watched and suddenly those pale blue eyes began to darken. She was fascinated watching the change. She had seen people’s eyes change when light had hit them, but this was different. Then she suddenly remembered where she was and who she was with.

“I really think I want you to let me go.” It was barely a whisper, but it was all she could get out.

He held her a little longer, but at last he nodded and let her go. “I need to go out.” He started towards the door.

“I don’t want to question a gift, but am I safe alone? Aren’t you afraid I will run away as soon as you are out of sight?”

He didn’t turn around. “I can find you in the middle of a riot of 10,000 in thirty seconds. Don’t wear yourself out by running. I won’t be very far away.” Suddenly he was out the door.

* * * *

As soon as he was out of sight of the house he began to slow down and take deep breaths. The sweet smell of her was inside him and he needed to get his head on straight. Maybe he needed some blood, that might help. But the thought of tapping someone right now just didn’t have any appeal.

He was still walking, as he had left his car in her driveway. He got a couple of glances. He was use to that and didn’t even take the time to wipe memories. He was tall, broad and people looked at him, women with an invitation and men with a look up then away.

Even though he was distracted, his instinct as a soldier kicked in when he saw the two who stepped back into a deep doorway. They did not know him but they also had good instincts and knew someone was on the street that had authority and it was not a cop.

He went into the coffee shop that was the next open door, so that it would look natural. He went on through and out the back exit, into a surprisingly clean alley. He moved against the back of the buildings of this small strip of shops and sent out a thread of thought. It did not take him long to locate the two of his kind. Unfortunately they were slowly moving towards the area of her home and very carefully looking at all the sites. They were also trying to wipe out some of the memories of those who were seeing them. Unusual move for just a couple of tourist Vamps.

He went shadow
—
something that not all Vampires could do, but it was almost as if he disappeared into a shadow
—
and followed, knowing that they would enter the area of homes with very little traffic. Maybe he could get them into the back of the homes so that he could take them on, first to see if he could convince them to move elsewhere. Right now he needed somewhere to put his fists so he was really hoping they didn’t want to move out of state.

* * * *

She didn’t know what to do. First she went and made herself a salad. She added a couple of hardboiled eggs and some ham in order to get some protein into her body. She took the salad into her computer room and started hunting for chat rooms on Vampires. She immediately forgot about the food as she searched the web. She had never tried these sites before as she had always felt these people were kooks. Now she wondered if any of them were real.

She just watched the chat in one site for a while until she went in and typed,
has anyone actually met a real Vampire?
and waited to see the responses. Of course it was the usual, my friend Bob met one, I heard of one in New York, there is supposed to be a lot in New Orleans, my cousin said she dated one, etc, etc. But no one actually said they had one living in their home. No one had firsthand knowledge of Vampires.

She went to a web site that was advertised to belong to real Vampires. She soon found out it was a fake. It was for people who wanted to be like Vampires. They talked about having teeth implants. There was advice on how much blood you could consume before you got sick. Where the next party was taking place. Yuck.

Okay, real Vampires were too smart to be advertising on the Internet. How many were out there? She sent off an email to her agent saying that she was sick and she would be late on one of her deadlines. Finally she shut down her system and went through the house locking up. It was now dark out. She wondered if he would knock.

She took an extra-large sweatshirt she liked to use as a nightgown into the bathroom, with a pair of lace panties. She got into the shower, washed her hair and stood in the hot water for a very long time. She towel dried her hair, leaving it hanging down still damp. She gathered up her clothes and put them in the hamper. Carrying her brush, she went into the bedroom. She had taken four steps into the room before she saw him.

There was only one light on, beside the bed on the nightstand. The room was mostly in shadow and he was a shadow by himself, waiting.

“What now?” She stood beside the bed. She was almost afraid to hear the answer.

“You need rest. Go to bed, I’ll see that you are safe.” His voice was low.

“You can’t stay here. Go away. I won’t be able to sleep with you here. This won’t work.” She was between anger and tears. But she preferred the anger, so she did a silly thing, she threw the brush, but with amazing speed he plucked it out of the air and he was beside her.

“You, my dear, have a temper. Now, you are going to bed, you can do it your way or my way. Choose.” His voice was very quiet.

She tried to move away from him, but there was nowhere to go. Okay, she would not win against his strength. She slowly sidestepped to the bed and slid in under the covers, not taking her eyes from him. She would lie down in the bed but she wasn’t going to sleep while he was in the room. So for an hour she half sat and half lay in the bed and he didn’t move. Because of the shadows she could not tell if his eyes were open.

She did not know when she fell asleep but she woke up to find him in bed, face down and completely naked. She also found she had one leg over his and he had a very large heavy arm over her. She lay there for a few moments, trying to decide what to do. She slowly turned her head to look at him and was staring directly into his pale blue eyes.

“Move your arm.” She pushed against the arm. For a moment he didn’t move and she was ineffective, but at last he did lift up and she slipped out to go into the bathroom. She did the unusual and examined herself in the mirror. Well, she had slept with a Vampire. She looked for any bruises or puncture marks but didn’t find any. She knew he had held his arm on her for a moment longer to prove a point. Maybe to pay her back for the slug she had given him. She had to pull herself together and go back out. Her clothes were in the bedroom and she did not know what was in store for them today.