The Vengeful Vampire (6 page)

So he stayed, waited and watched.

When her husband grabbed her by the neck and threw her to the floor, Sebastian fought to not leap through the window and rip the man’s throat out. Only his desire not to interfere with her life held him back.

But still, he didn’t leave.

Sebastian wanted to
know
this woman. He needed to discover who she was, what drove her.

He couldn’t understand why she stayed with the abusive scum, what prevented her from packing her bags and leaving. Sadness radiated from her. If she was so unhappy, why not do something about it?

Sebastian hadn’t been given a choice of how his own destiny would unfold. The choice had been taken away by someone who thought it all right to be possessive, to take what they wanted at any cost, to own another person.

He wouldn’t do that to her.

Guilt had weighed heavily upon him as he watched her change for bed. He’d been unable to tear his eyes away when she slipped out of her jeans, exposing her long, bare legs. She stood with her back to the window, her arms raised up and pulling her sweater over her head. Her long hair caught in the material before falling in a cascade around her shoulders. Reaching behind, she unhooked the clasps of her bra, revealing her naked back, a long line ending in a simple pair of white cotton panties and the gentle swell of her bottom.

How badly he had wanted to reach out and touch her skin. To lay his head against her chest; feel her warmth and the thud of her heartbeat beneath his ear. The longing gripped him like an addiction and he thought he might lose himself in it; hell, he
wanted
to lose himself in it. He craved, just for a moment, to forget his nature.

Such desire and need for her.

The only thing he had ever desired so strongly was blood.

Sebastian had watched her husband come to bed and force himself upon her. He watched as she begged him to stop and her pleas were ignored.

Then he could watch no longer.

After two hundred years, he moved beyond the capability of the human eye. Rage descended like a red haze across his vision and he no longer wanted to control it.

He wanted to kill this man, make him pay for harming her, but forced himself to stop.

If he killed her husband, he would only be doing what had been done to him. He would be taking away her choices. By injuring her spouse, he’d hoped the balance of power would shift to her, giving her the strength to leave.

Sebastian had been naive to think she would choose to escape. God, the word ‘naive’ made him laugh. To think that even after two hundred years he could still be such a thing.

He’d meant it when he told her he wasn’t asking her to leave for him. Their being together was impossible, but it didn’t stop him wanting her to be happy. To go through each day knowing some creep tormented her while he remained helpless to do anything, filled him with fury and made his heart ache in some inexplicable way.

Many years had passed since he’d last felt this way. He thought the part of him that knew how to love had died along with his humanity.

Torn between going back to make her change her mind, and leaving for good, he hesitated on the precipice

He needed to leave. The only one who could save her was herself.

Sebastian walked the circumference of the roof until he faced the opposite building.

He lifted his face to the night sky.

Blood hung on the air tonight.

Another of his kind hunted in the city; maybe more than one. Sebastian grew uneasy. Vampires were uncommon and, like other large predators, hunted alone. Their solitary nature made them unnoticeable. Los Angeles was his city; he didn’t need, or want, another of his own moving in on his territory.

Without another thought, he leaped into the night, one leg outstretched, arms raised. He soared through the air, relishing the moment of weightlessness before hitting the concrete roof at a run. The impact jarred his bones, muscles tightened to breaking point, but he felt no pain.

He moved stealthily, leaping from building to building, heading home. If he stayed anywhere near her, he would go back.

Sebastian owned a house in the hills; a luxurious, eight bedroom mansion with a pool and an acre of grounds. He never had any trouble procuring money; rich people—especially those who had grown rich doing something they shouldn’t—left huge amounts of cash in their homes and never reported it stolen. Of course, a few centuries ago acquiring property had been an easier process. Simply knocking on the owner’s door and offering a disgusting sum of money had sealed the deal. Now he had to deal with ‘identity theft’ and ‘fraud’. Luckily, heudid purchased his house before celebrities decided the hills were the place to live. At least many of those celebrities kept the same timetable he did.

Los Angeles was one place where night-living went completely unnoticed.

Chapter Five

Serenity lay in bed, fully
clothed, waiting for him to come to her.

The nurse at the hospital sent her away from Jackson’s bedside, saying she would be better off at home. She would be more use to her husband by getting some rest.

Sleep, however, eluded her.

An unread book lay discarded at her side and the bedside lamp cast a warm glow across her pillow.

The bedroom window stood wide open. The night’s air hung thick and muggy around her. Jackson always hated to sleep with the window open, so why not? Doing so defied Jackson; at least so she told herself. Serenity refused to admit the real reason for lying in bed with her clothes on at two-thirty in the morning. She ignored how every fiber of her soul listened for her stranger; every tiny creak, scratch, or thump making her leap out of her skin and sit up in anticipation. Her whole body ached for him and the open window invited his presence.

Didn’t she think it strange how she didn’t listen for the doorbell instead? She didn’t want to face the obvious questions, like how he knew where she lived and why he’d been in her house? To any outsider, wouldn’t this man look like a stalker?

Serenity sighed and rolled over, resting her hand beneath her cheek. What was wrong with her? A married woman shouldn’t act this way. No matter how bad the marriage, she’d made a promise when taking her vows, one she had intended to keep.

What about him?
a voice whispered in her head.
What about Jackson’s vows? Do you think he cares about them when he’s smacking you around?

Serenity clung to the hope that she stayed because she might still love a part of Jackson. If things were good, he made her feel like the most special person in the world, but a long time had passed since he’d instilled such emotions in her.

When she first met Jackson, Serenity thought he was the solution to her problems. She’d been desperate to get out from under her stepfather’s roof and Jackson had told her all she wanted to hear; she was beautiful and he would take care of her. So she moved out from one man’s roof and straight under another’s. At first, everything had been great. He hadn’t laid a finger on her until nearly a year after their wedding day.

The first time happened shortly after their first miscarriage. They had been so excited about the baby, but then she woke up one morning with blood in her underwear—too much blood—and a visit to the doctor confirmed their worst fear, she had lost the baby.

The physician told them miscarriage was normal and gave them some worryingly high statistic how one in every five pregnancies miscarried before twelve weeks. He said losing the baby wasn’t her fault; she couldn’t have done anything to cause or prevent it. Of course, his reassurances didn’t make her feel any better and she replayed the last few weeks over in her mind. Did she lift something heavy? Did she accidently eat something with raw egg?

Serenity kept blaming herself and saw the accusations in Jackson’s eyes. Ruining one of their pans while cooking dinner was enough of an excuse for him to take his loss out on her.

Afterward, he’d been so apologetic. They cried in each other’s arms and he promised it would never happen again. Except she would hear those words over and over.

Then she fell pregnant a second time and, once again, lost the baby. With the next she managed to reach twenty weeks gestation but, at their twenty-week scan, the technicians were unable to locate a heartbeat. That one had been the worst. She gave birth to the child, an impossibly tiny, doll-like baby her body had killed.

The next time she became pregnant, Serenity couldn’t even bring herself to tell Jackson. When she lost that one at eight weeks, she sobbed in private and tried to act like nothing was wrong.

Her life had no meaning. Incapable of nurturing a child inside of her, what was the point in her existence? Her body killed her babies; as though she was poisonous, toxic. Serenity hated herself.

Consequently, the beatings she received on a regular basis were nothing less than she deserved. She couldn’t blame Jackson for hating her. After all, her body denied him a family. She wondered, if they had children, would their lives be different?

Would she still love her husband? Would he love her or continue to hurt her?

So now she lay in her marital bed, with her husband in the hospital, praying another man would come to her.

Serenity’s emotions churned; a guilty, sick feeling, with a spark of something else—hope?

You don’t even know his name.

Almost imperceptibly, the air moved around her, a tiny change in the molecules, like the air right before thunder rolled across the sky. She held her breath, too scared to turn around in case she had imagined things, but knew she must.

He stood framed in her bedroom window wearing the same long overcoat she’d first seen him in. His shock of dark hair set off his serious green eyes. The hard set of his jaw erased the usual playful teasing expression he wore.

Even though she had expected to see him, the sight of another man in her bedroom shocked her and she pulled the sheets closer, as though they might protect her.

Serenity dared to speak. “What are you doing here?” She wanted to be brave, but the shakiness in her voice betrayed her fragile state. “You can’t just come barging into my bedroom in the middle of the night. Do you have any idea how creepy that is?”

For a moment, he didn’t answer.
Did his stern expression mean he was still angry
? But then he smiled and took a step toward her.

“I couldn’t stay away,” he said.

“Don’t you like to use the front door?”

He smiled again, glancing at the floor, as though hiding a joke from her. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I should have used the door. Sometimes I forget these things.”

He gestured to the end of her bed, “May I?”

Serenity looked at the empty space, the sheets smooth and undisturbed, and nodded.

She couldn’t tear her eyes from him as he crossed the room with an unworldly grace. He sat down beside her, his weight creating a dip in the mattress.

His presence was so
intense
and took up more physical space than normal people. The overcoat he wore stretched across his broad shoulders. His hands, large and inviting, lay folded in his lap. Beautiful and strong, his face betrayed nothing.

She wanted to grab hold of him and never let go.

“What’s going on here?” she asked in a hushed voice. She was scared, both of the stranger who had suddenly appeared in her room, and of her husband finding out. Though her common sense told her Jackson lay in the hospital, miles away, the fear continued unabated. Would he somehow sense another man had been in their bedroom, or would her stranger leave something for her husband to find?

“You need to explain what’s happening?” she said.

Her fears amounted to nothing in this man’s presence. Nothing existed except for him. Intensely aware of the space between them, she longed to close it. She wanted to reached out and touch him, explore every arch and curve of his skin with her fingertips.

“What part should I explain?” he said. “Who I am, or why I’m here?”

“Everything. I need to know all of it.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

Serenity lifted her eyes to his, her lower lip trembling. “I don’t believe you. You’re hiding something from me.”

He pressed his lips together. “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know where to begin.”

“At least tell me your name.”

He smiled. “I can do that much, can do he said, and then, as though they were being introduced at a formal party, held out his hand. “Sebastian,” he said. “Sebastian Bandores.”

She smiled back and took his hand. His fingers were cool from the night, but she didn’t drop his hand; she didn’t ever want to let go.

“Serenity,” she told him. “My name is Serenity.”

“I am honored to meet you, Serenity.”

“Your accent?” she asked. “You aren’t from here, Los Angeles.”

He laughed. “I cannot believe I still have an accent. I was born in Spain, but I have spent many, many years in America.”

Serenity took the nugget of information and stored it inside her heart.

“And what about your name? Serenity,” he said her name slowly and carefully, as though tasting each syllable. “Unusual, but beautiful.”

She shrugged and glanced away, unable to take the compliment. “My mother was a modern hippie,” she said, by way of explanation. “The kind that liked to interpret free love as being a slut, and smoking weed as taking and drinking whatever the hell she could get her hands on.”

Serenity couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice.

“What happened to her?” he asked.

“Drug overdose when I was fourteen. She went to a friend’s house for a party and I never saw her again.”

“I’m so sorry,” he told her. “What about your father?”

Again, she shrugged. “I never knew who he was. I don’t think my mother did either. After she died, my stepfather took charge of me, but I was nothing more than a housekeeper to him. He was free and easy with his fists if I didn’t do things exactly the way he liked. I counted myself lucky he didn’t want anything else other than cooking and cleaning from me.”