Blessed (Book 2, The Watchers Trilogy; Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (7 page)

In no time at all, Brand had a roaring fire going to drive away the chill in the room. When he came to sit beside me on the couch, I did what any newly-engaged female would do. I grabbed my man and pulled him down on top of me. I think what followed is called snogging, in England. Eventually, I fell asleep in his arms and didn’t wake up until the next morning.

CHAPTER FIVE

Apparently, Brand had planned for everything I might need on our London excursion. When I woke up the next morning, he showed me a wardrobe full of clothes just for me, in his bedroom.

“I wasn’t completely sure what you might want to wear, so I had Abby buy you a few things to keep here when we visit.”

From the collection of clothes, I picked out a black and white abstract print shirt with a V-neck, flutter cap sleeves and banded empire waist with ruching at the sides, black slacks and black loafers to wear that day. Brand dressed simply in a light grey knit shirt with a darker grey trim along the V-neck and cuffs, dark blue jeans and black sneakers with grey stripes on the sides.

“Are we going to see your friend with the lab?” I asked him, sitting on the side of the bed, slipping on my shoes.

“Yes, he lives here in London. His house isn’t very far away.”

“Good. I hope he can find something. Otherwise, I’m not sure how we’re going to figure out what’s different about me.”

Brand took me in his arms and kissed me. “We’ll find the answers, Lilly. I know we will.”

We went down to Brand’s garage and got into his car. He told me it was a Weismann GT MF5. It was pearl-white with a black leather interior. It looked a bit like an old-fashioned roadster with a modern twist. Almost everything inside was covered with premium black leather, except for the central panel where the gauges and radio were housed. Seeing expensive things like this car and Brand’s house kept reminding me how different our worlds were from one another. Would I ever get used to it all?

As we drove out of the garage, I was finally able to see what Brand’s home looked like from the outside. It was just as I had thought from the way things looked on the inside. It was a mansion built of dark red brick covered in English ivy. As we drove off the estate, I turned to Brand.

“What’s your friend’s name?”

“Allan Westwood.”

“Does he live alone?”

“He has a daughter named Angela, who takes care of him. She and Abby are good friends. I think she might have helped Abby pick out the clothes for you.”

“Is something wrong with him? Why does she need to take care of him?”

“Allan has a mental compulsive disorder. It makes it hard for him to go out in public. After you add in the fact that he has the same craving for human blood that all the Watchers like me do, you have your classic shut-in. It’s one of the reasons we couldn’t come here until today. Allan likes for everything to be in order, and he never starts a new project until he has every little detail worked out.”

“He doesn’t go anywhere?” I asked, never having heard of someone who didn’t go out at all.

“He has to change residences every once in a while, so people don’t get suspicious, of course, but Angela usually handles those details for him.”

“Sounds like a lonely life for both of them.”

“Angela has her friends. She’s never acted like she minded taking care of Allan, at least not that I’ve seen.”

The drive to Allan’s took about twenty minutes through the lush green English countryside. I suddenly felt like a world traveler, having already traveled to Paris, Venice, Egypt, Hawaii, and now London. It still amazed me how much my world had broadened in just a few short weeks.

When we reached Allan’s house, we were met by an imposing black iron security gate with two large Ws in the middle of each door. Brand rolled down his window to push the button on the intercom system.

“Yes,” a very proper male British voice said through the speaker. “Can I help you?”

“Brandon Cole, here, to see Allan Westwood. I have an appointment.”

“Come right in, Mister Cole. He’s expecting you.”

The gate swung open and we drove onto the property. Allan’s house looked more like a medieval castle than a home. For someone with his phobias, I had to assume the formidable stone exterior made him feel more protected than just living in an ordinary home made of brick. Before we got out of the car, the front door opened and a young girl came bounding down the steps, which lead from the door to the gravel drive.

“Brand!”

The girl didn’t look much older than sixteen, but I knew from what Brand and Abby had told me about the children of the Watchers that she was certainly much older. She flung herself into Brand’s arms like a kid who was being visited by a favorite uncle.

Brand hugged her tenderly and turned her around to face me. “Angela, I want you to meet Lilly.”

“Hiya,” she said, holding out a slender hand to me in welcome. Angela was a pretty girl with naturally wavy, long white hair like Abby’s.

I shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Angela.”

Angela’s light blue eyes took in the outfit I was wearing. “I’m glad to see the clothes Abby and I got you fit. You know how it is with clothing these days. You never know if anything’s going to fit right until you try it on. Come on into the house. Dad’s ready for you.”

“Is he having a good day?” Brand asked, taking hold of my hand as we walked up the steps to the manor.

“As good as he gets,” Angela shrugged. “I think he’s looking forward to meeting Lilly, though. He’s been intrigued ever since you told him about her, and you know how hard it is to get him excited about anything.”

After we walked in, Angela shut the front door behind us and escorted us to a study to the left of the entrance. She went up to a wall of books beside an unlit fireplace, and tilted a series of them onto their bindings in what looked like a sequence. There was a rattling, which seemed to come from behind the shelves. Angela took a couple of steps back as the bookshelves swung open to reveal a metal door with an electronic key pad. After tapping in a numerical combination, the door slowly opened inward by itself. We walked into a small room with little white circular nozzles on the walls, floor, and ceiling.

“Decontamination chamber,” Angela told me as the door to the study closed behind us. “Don’t be scared.” She smiled reassuringly.

There was suddenly a draft of air hitting us from all sides, which only lasted for a few seconds. I had seen such things on movies and TV, but never thought I would actually ever be in one.

“Come on in,” Angela said, opening the door on the far end of the chamber. “He’s waiting for us.”

When we walked across the threshold, it felt like I’d stepped inside a hospital. The antiseptic smell of bleach and other cleaners was almost overpowering. The floor was lined with white linoleum, and in the center of the room was a circular glass chamber where the man I assumed to be Allan was sitting on a silver stool in front of a white marble counter. The room contained a few pieces of equipment I didn’t recognize, but assumed were used in Allan’s genetic studies.

Allan was a handsome, slender man who looked no older than thirty-five, with neat short black hair and a clean-shaven face. He was of average build and height, dressed in a crisp white lab coat and shirt, black pants, shiny black dress shoes, and slim black tie.

Allan opened the door to the glass room and came out to greet us.

“Hello, Brand.”

He may have been addressing Brand, but his eyes were locked on me. I could tell he felt the contentment my presence had on his kind by the welcoming smile he gave me. He held out his hand in greeting.

If Angela hadn’t been standing across from me with a stunned look on her face as I shook her father’s hand, I might not have known what a departure the handshake was from his usual routine.

“It’s nice to meet you, Lilly, very nice indeed.” Allen had a smooth, cultured English accent, which had a soft, almost innocent, quality to it.

“Thank you for helping me, Allen. I really hope you can answer some questions for us.”

“Well, we’ll see what we can do.” He looked to Brand. “I assume you want the full work up?”

“If you can give us as much information as you can, it would be helpful. As I told you earlier, we don’t have a full picture of Lilly’s heritage since she never knew her father. I’ve met the mother and haven’t detected anything out of the ordinary about her, but you may find something I can’t sense.”

“Please, come inside. I’ll need to take some blood samples.”

We all stepped inside the glass chamber. There was a central cabinet in the center of the room, where it looked like Allan did all his work. He walked over to the sink and took out a wrapped bar of soap from the glass cabinet which was suspended by wire cables over the counter space. He twisted the knob for cold water exactly twice and the knob for hot once. He opened a fresh bar of soap and threw the paper into a metal trashcan to his left. I watched as he rubbed the soap onto the palms of his hands exactly three times each before throwing the bar of soap into the trash. After rinsing his hands under the water at least ten times, he reached for a white towel to his right on the counter and dried his hands. He held the towel in his right hand as he turned off the water in the opposite order he had turned it on. He then threw the towel into the trashcan.

After putting on a fresh pair of green rubber gloves, he instructed me to sit in a metal chair that had an attached small glass table. He brought over a silver tray with two sterile syringes laying on its surface. It didn’t take him long to draw the blood he needed for the tests. I was thankful for that. I hated being stuck with needles, mostly because the nurses and doctors who had taken my blood in the past always had a hard time finding a vein in my arm, and ended up making me feel like a pincushion by the end of the ordeal. Thankfully, Allan had no such problem and drew the blood in under a minute.

He put a cotton ball and piece of white tape on the puncture site.

“I should know something by tomorrow if you would like to come back. Same time?” The hopeful note in Allan’s voice was hard to miss.

“We’ll be here,” Brand answered.

“Will said he would like to come with us,” I said to Brand. “Would that be ok?”

“Is he the one you told me about?” Allan asked Brand in an aggressive tone I had not expected to hear.

“Yes.”

“Then, no, he is not welcome in my home. I don’t mean to sound rude, Lilly, but I would rather not have him around me or my daughter.”

“No, that’s fine,” I said, slightly taken aback by Allan’s vehement answer.

“We’ll go so you can get to work,” Brand said, taking my hand.

“See you tomorrow.” Allan turned around and seemed to completely dismiss us from his mind as he set to work on my blood samples.

Angela escorted us back out to the front door.

“Hey, could you bring Abby with you when you come back?” Angela asked.

“Sure,” Brand said, giving Angela a peck on her dimpled cheek. “I’m sure she’d love the visit.”

“Ok, see you guys tomorrow then!”

When we got back into Brand’s car and were driving away, I asked, “Why did he react like that when I asked if Will could come?”

“Most Watchers don’t associate with Will’s kind. We rarely associate with one another, much less his type.”

“Why is that? Why don’t you like each other?”

“Seeing them just reminds us of what we lost, so we don’t seek out each other’s company very often, usually only when we need help with something.”

“Seems like a lonely existence. I would have thought you would want a friend who lived as long as you did.”

“Not when it reminds you of why you were sent here in the first place. A lot of us still feel a lot of guilt over the decision we made.”

“Yeah, that’s what Malcolm basically said.”

“He feels guilty?” Brand asked, surprised by my statement.

“Of course,” I said, wishing Brand could see Malcolm the way I did. “He said he didn’t like the monster he’d become through living here.”

Brand seemed lost in thought after my statement. I turned my attention to the rolling hills of the green pastures we passed, lost in my own thoughts about the Pandora’s Box we might have just opened by delving into my genetic background. What would Allan find out about me? Did I really want to know? If I were honest with myself, I was afraid he might find something I didn’t want to know. What if it ended up being worse than anything I could imagine? What if there was something about me that would be repellant to Brand, causing him to fall out of love with me?

After a few minutes, I felt Brand take my hand and kiss the back of it with his warm lips, gently reminding me of his presence.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked softly.

“I’m scared.” I admitted.

“Of what?”

“What if Allan finds out something I don’t want to know?”

“He’s only looking for the truth. There can’t be anything wrong with that. And there’s no denying that you are special, Lilly. Just look at how Allan accepted you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him shake anyone’s hand before.”

“What if he finds out something about me that you don’t like?” I asked, finding it impossible to hide all of my worries now that I had started to voice them.

“Please stop worrying about the impossible,” he gently chastised me. “There is nothing he could ever discover about you that would make me feel any less in love with you.
Nothing
.”