Blood Destiny: Blood Passage Part 3

Chapter 3.

"Lissa? Wake up, angel."

I was swimming through mola.s.ses-at least that's what it felt like. Somebody was talking to me while sitting on the side of my bed.

"Whuh?" I finally managed to vocalize something, whether it made sense or not. I lifted a hand to my head; it felt as if it were stuffed with cotton.

"You're sleeping late this evening," the voice came again. It sounded familiar, but my eyes wouldn't open and my ears weren't connected to my brain so I might determine who it was. Rolling over on my side with the hope that it would go away only brought hands to me-big hands that gripped my body near my hips and pulled me toward the edge of the bed.

"Henri says that he's this way too, whenever he mists several times in a short time span." Another voice I should recognize but didn't.

"What does Henri recommend, then?" the first voice offered dryly.

"Here," something changed hands.

"Come, Lissa, I'm taking you to the tub. I do not wish to spill this on the sheets." I was lifted up and carried somewhere, and then settled against a cold surface. A hand gripped my jaw, forced my teeth apart and poured blood into my mouth. I choked and swallowed, fighting for air and struggling against whoever held me.

"Hush and drink this," he commanded. My eyelids finally unglued and I glared at an unsmiling and willfully determined Gavin, who was doing his best to get me to drink a unit of blood. Both my hands were held effortlessly in one of his while the other held a bag of blood at my lips.

"It would be easier if you'd let my hands go," I snapped as blood dripped off my chin. Yep-definitely not attractive, and I probably had bed-head on top of that.

"Are you going to drink?" A dark eyebrow quirked speculatively as blood continued to drip from the bag.

"Yes." My voice was sullen. I now had blood all over my face, my chest and my pajamas. Gavin was leaning over the side of the bathtub while I wriggled uncomfortably beneath his hands. Charles stood at Gavin's shoulder, watching the whole thing with a bit of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. Nope, not embarra.s.sing in the least.

"Drink first, then we'll clean you up," Gavin said, letting my hands go. I s.n.a.t.c.hed the bag of blood away from his hand and started sipping. Getting into a tussle with him while we had an audience seemed unwise.

Gavin sent Charles away when I was ready for my shower. I tried to shove him out the door too, but he wouldn't budge. It was like moving a mountain-a very grumpy and protesting mountain. Gavin wanted to a.s.sist me in the shower but I drew the line at that, so he was forced to wait inside the bedroom while I cleaned up. He did help me dress afterward, even though I slapped his hands several times.

"What are you doing here anyway? Aren't you supposed to be somewhere bas.h.i.+ng heads in or something?" I snapped at him as he b.u.t.toned my blouse.

"I don't have to bash heads every day. I get time off now and then," he corrected me. "And Wlodek is waiting to hear from you, so I will be going along for that."

"Oh, joy," I muttered.

"I wouldn't have gotten in if he hadn't decided to show off the tiaras," I informed Wlodek later. "And I took a chance, allowing him to lock me inside. That vault was completely airtight; I couldn't find even a crevice to fit in," I added.

"So what did you do?" Wlodek watched me, his face expressionless as usual.

I explained that I'd turned back, took the bag off and set it aside before turning to mist again, then coming back to corporeality but timing it so only my hands and feet became solid. Accomplis.h.i.+ng that, I was grabbing the tiaras and stuffing them into the bag. And then turning completely to mist while the alarms went off. I described how the vampire had returned to open the door, allowing me to escape.

"No wonder you were exhausted," Russell said. He, Radomir and Gavin were all inside Wlodek's study with me.

"So, only your hands and feet were solid?" Wlodek asked.

"Yes."

"Fascinating."

I just shrugged at him, wondering where the tiaras were. It was none of my business now; I'd done what he sent me to do. Wlodek wouldn't be telling me anything else-I could see it in his eyes. I thought about going home and sleeping in my own bed. I was exhausted and my sleep hadn't helped much.

Wlodek finished with us a few minutes later and Gavin took my elbow when we left the study. "Come with me," he said.

"Gavin, I'm tired," I complained. He didn't say anything, he just ushered me down the stairs, told Charles to have my bags sent to Merrill's and pulled me out the door with him. A car waited outside; a silver Mercedes SLR McLaren that gleamed in the moonlight. Gavin placed me in the pa.s.senger seat, fastened the seatbelt around me and closed the door. He was on the driver's side in no time, starting the car and crunching over gravel as we drove away.

I had no idea where he was taking me and at the moment, I didn't really care. I just closed my eyes and catnapped. Vampires don't usually sleep during the night, I guess, unless they're really tired. I was exhausted, actually, and Wlodek's grilling had made the situation worse. I couldn't even keep my eyes open at times.

"Where are we?" I asked after a while when Gavin stopped the car and then came over to open my door and unbuckle my seat belt.

"My place," he said, lifting me in his arms.

"She's asleep," Gavin explained to Merrill over the phone. "Nothing happened. Nothing will happen. She's exhausted, that's all." He listened while Merrill informed him that Lissa could have slept in her own bed just fine.

"I know that. It was a moment of weakness, nothing more. You'll have her back in one piece tomorrow night."

"Lissa? Wake up, angel." There was a gentle kiss and a nipping on my lower lip. Part of that nipping was sharp. I was awake and huddled against the headboard of a huge bed in less than a blink.

Gavin was staring at me as if I'd lost my mind. At least he was dressed-in jeans and a polo. Me? I was naked, thank you very much. I wanted to smack him across the room.

"Lissa, calm down, love. We can get you dressed in no time. I thought you might like to bathe first."

His eyes were a deep, liquid brown and the term bathe held such a note of hope in it. "I can bathe by myself," I pointed out acidly, trying to pull the sheet over my nudity. It wasn't working; Gavin was sitting on the edge of it. "And why is it you always see me naked," I gave another jerk on the sheet, realizing that I'd rip it if I jerked any harder, "and I haven't even seen you with your s.h.i.+rt off except when you were burned." I gave up on the sheet and buried my head in my hands.

"I can remedy that," he said, pulling the tail of his s.h.i.+rt from the waistband of his jeans.

"No! No, forget I said that," I held out a hand. "Just tell me where my clothes are, and where the shower is."

"You're so sensitive about this," he said, sliding off the bed. "You know it's almost impossible to embarra.s.s an old vampire. That's an old saying, by the way."

"I'm not an old vampire," I snapped at him, sliding off the opposite side of the bed. His bedroom was dark and windowless; therefore, I had no idea where we were. We might have been on another planet for all I knew.

My clothes were on top of a tall chest on the other side of the bed. Gavin lifted them one-handed and shook them at me. I went over and s.n.a.t.c.hed them away while thinking about stomping on his foot. He had shoes on and I was barefoot, so I'd more than likely come out the loser in that little battle. He might retaliate, too, and I didn't really want to know what he'd do. I was turning on the taps in a huge walk-in shower when he came up behind me, his arms dropping around my shoulders. "Don't you want to know what it's like?" He nuzzled my neck and nipped it. I'd never seen Gavin this amorous before and it scared me a little.

"Maybe I will sometime, Gavin. But I need to stop being afraid of you first."

He backed away at my words, turning and leaving the bathroom after only a few seconds. We didn't talk much on the way home and I worried that I'd done something irreparable. Gavin walked me to the door, where Merrill stood waiting. If he'd been human, Merrill might have been tapping his foot impatiently. As it was, the mask was in place so I had no idea if I was in trouble with him, too. Gavin took my face in his hands before he left me, kissing me carefully before his deep brown eyes stared earnestly into mine. "I cannot take your fear away. If I could kill Sergio Velenci again, I would do it without hesitation." He kissed me once more, leaving me with Merrill.

"Did he harm you?" Merrill asked as we watched Gavin drive away.

"No," I replied. "He only kissed me."

"I could see that for myself," Merrill remarked dryly and led me into the house.

My lesson that evening was Vampire Law number six, when you were allowed to kill a human. "You may kill if the human is threatening your life or the life of another vampire or those of the vampire race as a whole," Merrill instructed. "Obviously, if a human has a flamethrower, as Niles Abernathy did and it is a life threatening situation for you or another vampire as in Gavin's case, you are justified in taking the life. However, if there are human witnesses, they must have compulsion placed to forget the incident. If there is a body, then you must make it appear to be an accident somehow. You should hide it as well as you can anyway, so that it will never be found."

"Please tell me you're not going to take me out and have me kill someone," I muttered, refusing to look at Merrill.

"No. However, if there is a human taken down by an Enforcer or an a.s.sa.s.sin and there is time, you will be conveyed to the scene and asked to cover it up. Occasionally humans learn of us and they hunt us. Many times over the centuries they have even banded together to seek us out and kill us. This seems to go in cycles, actually. We worry over the next wave because of the technology available now."

"Yeah. I can see that," I said, lifting my head.

"On another note," Merrill said, "Wlodek expects you to attend the annual meeting." I nodded; Wlodek mentioned it when he'd given me the last a.s.signment. He hadn't explained what the annual meeting was and I was afraid to ask.

"It is a gathering of our most influential members," Merrill explained it for me. "There can be as many as five or six hundred there, so a huge ballroom must be provided. Several of us own appropriate facilities and it is usually held in one of those. There is a grand ball scheduled first, to which many of the attending vampires will bring human dates and companions. Some may even be married to those companions. I will explain the laws concerning that at a later time. You are expected to attend the grand ball so that the ones who have been asking after you may see you, all at once as it were."

"Gavin said something about that," I grumbled. "Merrill, what if I don't want to go? What if I don't have any desire to see any of these people? It scares me."

"Lissa, Wlodek recently informed me that you willingly went into a sealed vault, knowing you might not get out again. You risked your life, child, and yet meeting vampires frightens you?"

"Merrill, the next time you have compulsion laid so you can't even blink and are forced to follow along behind somebody that you trusted and thought was your friend, and that friend plans to kill you if so ordered, then we'll talk," I said.

"They can't get past my compulsion," he insisted, attempting to rea.s.sure me.

"Your compulsion. There's that word again. Compulsion." I said it with as much distaste as I felt I could get away with. "Free will among vampires is mostly a joke, isn't it?" I got up and walked out of Merrill's study.

He came to find me a few minutes later. I was sitting on my bed, pillows propping me up against the headboard, my knees drawn up to my chest.

"My compulsion is only to protect you and the ones who live inside this house," he said gently, sitting down on the side of my bed.

"I know that." My forehead was now pressed against my knees. "But that doesn't keep me from wanting to go out and do something because I want to," I mumbled. "I want to buy my own computer. Maybe go find a pair of shoes or just wander around London because I still haven't seen much of it. And I haven't been to the bookstore in ages. You and Franklin have some good choices in the library, but those things aren't all I like to read."

"You feel confined." It was a statement.

"Yes."

"Lissa, one of the reasons I am reluctant to allow you out on your own is because of what you are and why all those male vampires wish to meet you now. You are a rarity, something very desirable in our world. You shouldn't ever go out unattended, I don't think. London has a rather large vampire population. I would have failed in my duty if anything were to happen to you."

"Charles is so busy all the time or I'd ask him," I said. "We had a good time the night he took me shopping."

"I know. Perhaps I should look for a suitable companion so you may go out from time to time. And as far as a computer goes, borrow mine. Find what you want and order it online. I have a business address in London where it may be delivered; Lena can pick it up and bring it to you. She brings my deliveries from there when she comes to work most days."

"See, even Lena gets to come and go without supervision," I grumbled.

"Lena isn't sought after by a rather large number of males," Merrill observed.

"What makes me so special? They haven't even seen me."

"Thirteen of the sixteen female vampires are in a permanent relations.h.i.+p," Merrill sighed. "Most of those relations.h.i.+ps are a result of the female having been a companion to the male vampire while they were still human. Theirs were successful turns. The two female Council members are unattached and then there you are, Lissa. Male vampires sometimes seek a relations.h.i.+p that could last centuries. With a human companion this is obviously not possible; they will age and die unless the turn is successful and the attempts far outweigh the successes."

"Merrill, this isn't making me feel any better," I said rubbing my forehead.

"I know. I am only trying to make you understand." He scooted up beside me and placed an arm around my shoulders, kissing my temple affectionately. "Feel better now?"

"Sure, dad," I sighed. He laughed.

"We are going to Paris," Merrill announced a week later. "We must find a dress for you to wear."

"You're joking? There isn't anything here in London?" I stared at my surrogate sire in dismay. Merrill gave me the patient expression I'd come to recognize; the one that said he was dealing with my ignorance.

It was the middle of September and the only things that had changed for me was the fact that I had more knowledge of the vampire race because of my lessons and I was now the proud owner of a nice Mac laptop. I know-Gavin has one too. We had high speed, wireless internet at Merrill's manor. Franklin bought a laptop for himself after seeing mine and became addicted to solitaire. I sometimes sent him emails, just for fun. The other thing that was different was Franklin's lover from New York had come to visit. His name was Greg and he'd voluntarily submitted to Merrill's compulsion. He also didn't live with Franklin and hadn't ever. Franklin went to stay nights with him occasionally in New York on his days off and they'd been together for nearly twenty-five years.

"I almost had a heart attack when Merrill called and said Frank had surgery." Greg was a little more demonstrative than Franklin but not overly so. I liked him; he was warm, witty and treated Franklin very well. Franklin introduced us when I'd come downstairs on the first night of Greg's visit.

"Be careful, she'll have you drinking berry smoothies and taking vitamins and flaxseed oil," Franklin put an arm around Greg.

"Well, it's good for you," I chastised Franklin.

"Honey, are you sure you're a vampire?" Greg asked.

"Honey, that's not the first time somebody asked me that," I put my hands on my hips.

"I like her," Greg declared and that was that.

Franklin and Greg went with us to Paris. Merrill has his own private jet (go figure). We stayed for nearly a week. Merrill took us out each evening while Greg and Frank offered advice on ball gowns. I got a closer look at some of the landmarks, too. Merrill told me that he'd once climbed the Eiffel Tower, scaling up the sides when it was really dark one night. I almost laughed out loud, that was so unlike him.

I was also the only one in the party who didn't speak French like a native. I suppose I should learn. I suppose. The word I spoke the most, and even the designers and the sales a.s.sistants understood, was no.

"Merrill, this all looks like it was patterned after men's pajamas," I said, after viewing a very big name designer's current collection. I was doing my best not to gag. We weren't asking any prices but I had the notion that most of what I was looking at would cost more than I made in a year's time at the courthouse in Oklahoma. Some of it much more.

"Little one, we are running out of time," Merrill murmured against my ear. Franklin and Greg weren't saying anything but I was beginning to feel pressured. Was I supposed to wear something I hated with a capital H, just because it had a name attached to it? "Come," Merrill said wearily and we walked out of the showroom. Greg and Franklin stopped to get coffee at a little cafe before we walked farther down the street.

"Now see, why can't I wear something like that," I pointed at a dress displayed in a window. The gown was a midnight blue silk with a sweetheart neckline. Thin straps crossed over the back, holding the dress up on the mannequin. The dress was simple, hugging the body around the b.r.e.a.s.t.s and waist, and then falling to a flared skirt that might float around the ankles.

"Let us look at this," Merrill was taking in the dress along with a few other things in the window.

Franklin interpreted what the sales a.s.sistant was telling Merrill when we stepped inside the shop. "She says this is an up and coming designer, who is only beginning to make a name for herself," he whispered.

"I want to try on that one," I said, pointing to the midnight blue ball gown. I got my wish.

"I think this is nice," Greg said. Turning this way and that in the mirror, I agreed with him. A pair of shoes were brought out-Jimmy Choos. This would be my first pair. They were silver, a heeled sandal in a watersnake pattern-at least that's what I was told, with crossover straps at the toes. I tried them on and the dress was like a dream, no longer dragging the floor. The a.s.sistant went into raptures over how I should do my hair, I think, according to her gestures.

"We'll take it," Merrill said, and also bought a couple of other things there in the shop, including a white dress that he liked very much when I tried it on and one in black as well that had a deep V-neck and a very low back. I almost felt naked in it. We bought three more pairs of shoes, too. Merrill spent a truckload of money that night. I hoped he was taking it out of what I now had.

The ball was scheduled for the first Sat.u.r.day in October, beginning around nine with dancing and the whole bit. The meeting would occur on Sunday and I wouldn't be going to that, thank goodness. Franklin and Greg taught me how to dance. Not up close dancing, I could do that well enough. They taught me ballroom dancing, but only the waltz and foxtrot. I was good on the waltz, a little shaky on the other.

"No rumba or any of that other stuff," I explained my dancing lessons to Merrill, who took me a couple of turns afterward. My first dance at the ball was to be with him.