A Forbidden Taking (16 page)

“Sit down, Megan, please. I’m so
tired and cranky with this baby I don’t think I can watch you pace anymore.” Megan
did what Sara asked. “You are part wolf mostly, I would suppose would be a
better term. Your father was part as well, but your mother was full. Her
brother, Michael, placed you with the Reeds when you were a baby.”

“So, he’s the ‘he’ they were talking
about? This uncle of mine sent them here to do what? Spy on me? Kill me? I
doubt very much it was supposed to happen the way that it did.” Megan sat down
only to bounce back up again. “And do you believe they thought we were telling
them the truth about the blood? Oh please. How stupid do you have to be to
think we can tell what kind of blood it was and whether or not it was
virginal?”

Aaron shifted in his chair. He
wasn’t sure how to answer that one, but was saved from doing so when Beau stood
again.

“We do know. You should as well.
Know it’s wolf and if it’s a virgin. It’s what keeps you safe, keeps you from
drinking blood from someone tainted with black magic or a woman who is pregnant.”
Megan looked over at Sara as Beau continued. “Her blood wouldn’t poison you, it
wouldn’t even make you sick…well, hers might. But as part of our DNA we neither
drink from the young nor the pregnant.”

Megan stared at Sara. Aaron could
almost see her mind at work. She was shrewd, Aaron would give her that. And she
was smart too.

“I smell nothing, nothing at all
on you. I can smell him.” Megan pointed at Aaron. “But nothing else on you. Why
is that?”

Aaron had wondered the same thing.
“When I first met you the night that you saved the little cub I could touch
your mind. And since I have taken your blood I should have a connection to you
that can’t be broken. But I don’t have that, not anymore. You are as lost to me
as if we had never met.”

Megan started to pace, but stopped
suddenly and went to Sara. Gently she reached out her hand and reverently laid
it on their unborn child. Aaron stopped Beau with a simple lifting of his hand.
Aaron wasn’t worried about Megan hurting his mate or the child. He wanted more
than anything to see what she would do.

“It’s a boy. He’s…he’s happy. I
can feel his happiness. He told me that you talk to him, both of you and his
brother and sister…he thanked me for saving Mac.” Megan looked at him. “You
told him, he said, while his mother slept, you told him how I had saved his
brother.”

“Yes. He has a right to know that
you are a part of our family now. He needs to know you saved Mac, his brother,
from certain death. And you are, Megan, a large part of my family, my kiss.”

Megan moved away from Sara. “I’m
tired. I can feel the sun coming up. I should…I have to go now. I have a lot to
think about and some things I have to decide on.” With a quick nod Megan left Beau
standing there looking after her.

“A man came to visit me today. Not
physically, but mentally. He told me that he would speak to me in my dreams,
that he would tell me what I needed to know.” Beau turned and looked at first
Sara then Aaron. “He said that I can’t tell the beast what her name was and
that I was to protect her at all costs. Then he changed.”

Aaron felt the room tighten with a
surge of magic as Mel, the queen, and her father and grandfather shimmered into
the room. They looked to Aaron like they had been up for days; their usual
calmness now looked back with untold stress.

“Michael came to you in a dream
because he knows that you’ll help her. He can no longer protect her. He’s
hoping you will,” Mel explained with a catch in her voice.

“Mel and I have been over the
records of birth. We’ve traced down what may have happened to young Michael and
who he is with now. But the monster he has become, he needs to be destroyed.” James
had his books as he spoke and Phillip had some charts he began to spread out on
the tables. “We’ve narrowed it down to four men, all vampires and all with
considerable powers.”

Aaron stood and watched Beau leave
the room. He would fill the young vamp in later. He knew that he had to see to
his mate.

~~~

Beau found her in their room. She
had locked the bathroom door, but that wouldn’t keep him out if he wanted in. He
knocked on the door gently, hoping Megan would let him in.

“I’m thinking. Don’t you have
something to do? Drain a young virgin or something? I’m kinda busy in here and
I’d like some quiet time.”

Beau grinned. “No, no virgins
tonight. I’d like to talk to you, Megan. We have to talk about what happened tonight
with your parents.”

“They aren’t my parents, you
idiot. Don’t you pay attention? They aren’t my parents and they hate me.” He
pressed his hand against the lock and unlatched it from his side. “What do you
think you’re doing?”

“Talking to you without a door
between us. And I doubt anyone could hate you after they get to know you. They
were scared, that’s all. You aren’t the little girl they raised.”

Megan was sitting in the tub with
her back to him. He didn’t mind the view from this end and sat down on the
floor with his back against the counter. Every time she raised her legs or
moved her arms, it was like a sensual moving art with muscle and skin.

“No shit, Sherlock. I’m a monster.
And now a monster is coming here to get me. How wonderful.” She raised her leg
again and ran the sponge down it; water streamed along it in sparkling rivulets.

Beau lifted his hand and several
candles that had been placed around the room lit. Then he turned the light off
without getting up. The room was bathed in sensual light and soft scents, the
smell of her soap and the candles mingling together to make his mouth water. He
doubted that Megan had any idea what picture she was painting for him.

“Nice trick.” She lay there for
several minutes without speaking. Beau wasn’t worried. He knew she had to work
out whatever it was she wanted to say. When she did he found himself hurting
for all that she had lost.

“When I woke up that first night I
didn’t have a clue where I was or what had happened to me. When Alfred bit me
he kept telling me he was hungry and that he was sorry. He hurt me. He bit me
so hard and so deep that I hurt for days afterwards. Is it supposed to be like
that?”

“No. You know when I bite you it
doesn’t hurt like that. There is more pleasure than pain when we bite, isn’t
there?” He held his breath waiting for her to answer.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. It’s not
painful when you do it, but…I don’t know what you feel. I know that men
get…they like it when I bite them.” He couldn’t stop the growl and wasn’t even
sure he wanted to. “Don’t be all stupid on me. I had to eat and it creeped me
out when I drank from women.”

“There will be no more men or
women for you. You’ll only be able to drink from me anyway.” She giggled and he
sat back again. “What were you told about being a vampire, Megan?”

She lifted her leg again and
wiggled her toes. Beau thought it was the most erotic thing he’d ever seen.
When she lifted her other leg he had to adjust himself or he was going to hurt.

“Nothing. I didn’t know what to do,
but I figured out quick enough that the sun was painful. Then I would get so
tired during the day. It was as if I couldn’t keep my eyes open at all. I went
to the library to see if I could figure out something, anything, but all I got
was stupid stories about Dracula and some silly stories about how much fun it
was to become a vampire. It’s not fun, nor is it anything I would recommend to
anyone.”

“The sun will pull at you less and
less as you age. After a few decades you’ll be able to withstand more of it,
but never full sunlight. Aaron can, but he is very old and he has Sara to help
him with her magic.” He thought about his turning. “Your maker, he was supposed
to tell you everything you needed to know to survive, but he didn’t seem all
that much older than you in terms of being a vampire.”

“No. Alfred had only been missing
for about two weeks when he approached me in the parking lot. And until then he
was a doctor like me. We were both waiting on our boards to come back.” She
turned to him then. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. Ever. If there’s some rule
that I have to change some people to live, then somebody might as well kill me
now.”

Beau stood up and gathered her out
of the tub. She soaked him and the floor, but he needed to hold her more than
anything. He sat on the toilet with her and started to dry her off with the
towel on the counter.

“There are rules about changing
humans to vampires. A vampire can change his mate if she is willing, or not if
she chooses not to. She will still live a full and long life, but she will die
if she is hurt. A vampire can make a person a servant, someone that they trust
to watch over them during the light hours, and they too will live for a long,
long time.” Beau stood her up and wrapped the towel around her body then picked
her up.

“Like Mr. Duncan. I guess he’s
been around for awhile too. How old is Dingdong anyway?”

Beau laughed. “Aaron is fourteen
hundred years old. Mel, the queen, is ageless. I think I heard Kyle say that
she is older than time. I’m over four hundred years old, a mere baby in the
scheme of things.”

He put her on the bed and tucked
her in. When he was satisfied with the blankets he went to the other side and
stripped down as she watched. He wanted her in the worst way, but he knew that
she was exhausted too. The sun was high in the sky and he could feel its pull
too.

“Tonight you are not to leave our
bed. I plan to make love to you very thoroughly,
mon amour
. Then, when I
have had my fill of you, I plan to do it again.” He slid into the bed. “Now
sleep. You will need your strength.”

When Megan rolled over and wrapped
her body around his he sighed. She felt good there, almost as if she had been
doing it for centuries. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her
naked body over his. Beau didn’t think he’d be able to sleep with her nakedness
over him, but he was out in no time.

~Chapter 19~

Michael knew the moment that Beau
fell asleep. He knew the man had his mate close and was pleased by that. Very
gently he moved into her mind, careful not to leave anything of himself or the
beast behind.

She was brilliant. Even in her
restful sleep her mind was working on problems, issues. He even found her
working on a math problem, running the figures in neat columns in her mind as
though it were a sheet of paper. Michael was happy to see that when she did get
her part of him she would not be hurt by it. Moving out he did give her a
little of his magic, just a bit to keep her safe, to keep her from being too
overwhelmed with everything. Next, he moved into the mate’s mind.

Beau was more complex. He was just
as brilliant, not as much as the girl, but he was a fast learner. Michael was
glad for that; he would need to be in the coming days. He hated to wake him,
but time was running short and Michael needed to talk to him before the beast
woke again.

“You are very lucky, you know,”
Michael started out with.
“Your mate, she loves you very much. Some days she
wants to bash your brains in, but she does love you.”

Beau came to him slowly, the sun
and the time of day beating at him. Michael gave him a bit of magic too, just
enough to help him wake and stay that way more so in the day.

“You said you’d come. I
didn’t…I thought perhaps that I had dreamed you and that you were not real.”

“I am real enough.”
Or
,
Michael thought,
real as I can be like I am
.
“We do not have a great
deal of time so you must listen. The beast that comes for her, you understand
who he is now?”

“Yes, well, no. He’s you, but I
don’t understand how that is possible. How can you be two different people like
that?”
He could feel the man’s struggle with it and wished that he had more
time to explain.

“I am us both but not. The
beast, he is the part of me that is evil. More than evil, he is all evil. I
didn’t mean to create him. I only meant to bring out what I thought was the
best in me, the part of me that would make me stronger, more aggressive. I got
too greedy. I went too far.”
Michael wished daily that he’d had the
strength in those first days to have ended his life. Now he had no control over
any of it. The beast and the man, the one who caged them, controlled them now.

“There is a man, a vampire,
that has us in his power. I’m not sure what he has, but he can keep the beast
and me in turn in his dungeon. You must find him and destroy him as soon as the
beast is destroyed. He has been working on a way to make more of the magic that
made the beast. I cannot…I’m not strong enough to hide the information from the
beast and he shares it with the vampire.”

“Is the other, he calls himself
Creature, is he…can he be killed? And what happens to you if he is killed? Do
you die as well?”

Michael could be impressed if he
was sure the man would do what he asked if he knew the truth. Michael was
attached to the beast, attached to him because they were one.

“I will have peace from him. But
you cannot destroy the beast,
mon ami
. Your
mate must do that. When she does then she will be able to destroy the vampire
and all those that come after him. The magic that holds the beast, within it is
the ability to destroy the power.”

Michael
could feel the beast pulling at him, waking from the sleep that Michael put him
in to rest himself. He was getting stronger and soon, Michael thought, very
soon, he wouldn’t have any rest.

“She
isn’t very old. Her…my mate, she doesn’t even know what she is capable of yet.
How will she destroy the beast when she can’t even do the things her kind can
do? I can’t let her be hurt. She is my responsibility to care for, to protect. I
don’t think I can allow her to do what you need.”