By My Choice...: A Valentine's Day Story (Valentine's Day Stories) (2 page)

Looking at her across the desk, he could almost superimpose the image of the little imp he had first met so long ago, when he had followed his master into the service of the Lady of Venice. He had been turned in a deliberate afterthought by a master who worked for the Law Clerks, the paranormal equivalent of the diplomatic service, and who had been in need of another assistant. His master had found that assistant in Fabian, a young German civil servant barely out of university, and for the first decade Fabian had followed his master across the courts of Europe.
 

Then, out of the blue, possibly in payment of a debt, he had been gifted to the Lady of Venice, Justitiana. Entering one of the oldest, and most formal, courts on the continent had been a shock for the bewildered young vampire, a shock dulled by the laughter and whimsy of a young girl dancing in the library, among dust and heavy tomes of law.
 

That is how Fabian had first seen her. He had taken refuge in the large room, hoping to escape the restrictions and constant reprimands levelled his way. The library was his home, a place he felt comfortable with. For his master he had mainly acted as scribe and researcher, compiling information on a myriad of topics. So it seemed natural that even in this new place he would take refuge among the books. Then, one evening, he had heard laughter and following its sound into a little alcove close to the garden, he had found a girl. She had been dancing on a table to music only she was able to hear, brown hair in pixie spikes surrounding a smiling, delicate face.
 

He had had to laugh, which did not endear him to the startled teenager. He simply had not been able to help it. Her bare feet had stood on a table clearly made for a much younger child, buried under books on maths and biology. The bright red chair had acted as another surface to hold books, as it was apparent she had long since outgrown its height. Her jeans grubby, her peasant top a little too grown-up for her still innocent eyes — and her glare had been fierce. So much fiercer than anything he had seen on her face in months now.
 

Then, she had felt so deeply, so absolutely and now she seemed to feel nothing at all anymore. As a child, she had surprised him. Jen had never bowed, had never shown any subservience as he had come to expect form the humans at court. He had begun to be complacent in his role as vampire, but at the same time had been only too aware he had more in common more with the human servants than with his fellow paranormals. Fabian had felt lost, torn and like a puzzle piece forced into a mould he did not quite fit. But instead of bowing to him this imp of a child had thrown a pen. And then she had captured his heart.
 

“What part do algae play in the carbon cycle?”

He had not known. So she had asked him to find out, and thousands of other questions had followed that first one in the days, years to come. They shared a love of knowledge and an irreverence for authority dangerous in court life. Through her he had had a lifeline to the world outside the paranormal courts, but also access to the courts.

Jennifer Ashton had grown up as the child of human parents attached to the court, her father a well-known business lawyer in the employ of Justitiana. She had been straddling the thin line between her restrictive life at court, where etiquette was rigorous and unchanged for centuries, and the life of a human teenager attending school, going to the movies and hanging out with her friends. It had been her guidance and patient tutoring in rules of etiquette she had assimilated from birth which had eased his path among his new compatriots.
 

Jen had been gangly and ungainly — but with a smile that could light the darkest room, loved and, for the most part, let lose to run where she pleased by all. There had never been anything erotic between them. He wished it were otherwise, that he could have claimed her in that way, but it was not how he felt, how neither of them felt about the other. Jen had become the little sister he had never had and, as she grew older, she had become his best friend. But, at twenty-nine, she remained human, a distinction he had never felt as keenly as in this precise moment, the moment he had to teach her what it meant to be a vassal and not a friend.
 

It was time to recognise, for him and her, that he was her liege-lord, first and foremost. She had agreed to it the day she chose to follow him to Tirana. They had both been surprised by Justitiana’s choice to send one of her youngest courtiers to the floundering court across the Adriatic. True, for his age, he held a surprising level of personal power, his strength increasing in an almost exponential fashion with each year he had spent under the aegis of Justitiana, but still, if one of the older vampires would challenge him, he would fall. And that is why he had been the only viable choice. He was neither a threat nor a challenge to others but with his link to the powerful court of Venice he was also protected, or as much as was possible in their world. No one had been surprised that he had chosen to take Jen with him, or that she had agreed to go.
 

Though neither of them had known how bad it would be before they had entered the city. The court had been virtually bankrupt for years. In those first few months they had slept in a leaking cellar without electricity or even a roof over the structure above them. The few paranormals remaining in the territory who had served in the old court had either been too corrupt or too vulnerable to leave.
 

Taking on Tirana had not been a prize, his chances of success had been slim and when he chose to take it, he had known one of the few things which might make it possible, bearable, was Jen’s promise to come along. Fabian had not realised, could not have foreseen, that something here would harm her without anyone noticing.
 

Jen was a wizard with organisation and had, by the age of twenty-six, carved out a reputation for considered, and profitable, investment advice in her position as financial manager at one of the main Italian banks. Even though, the first year had been harsh, whilst he had worked to consolidate his power and root out the last vestiges of the old regime she had tried to reinvigorate the court’s finances and establish an actual court for his vassals.
 

By winter she had managed to put a roof over their heads but it had still been outside their means to pay for electricity for more than a few hours a night. They had run most of their business needs from a laptop piggybacking on unsecured internet hotspots across the city. If he had not been so tired in those first few months, it might have been fun watching Jen replenish their dwindling finances by applying her not inconsiderable strategic ability to gambling with tourists. But they had made it — or so he had thought.

Fifteen months after entering Tirana he had realised something was wrong, that he might be losing his best friend over gaining a territory court. As life settled, it became more and more apparent it was not only the constant exhaustion which affected Jen — but something more fundamental. The warm and happy woman he had brought with him had turned into a quiet, cold, even distant, member of his court. After that one afternoon when he had found her in her study, dozing and unwell, he had set his mind on discovering what was happening to her — without avail. He had even consulted three doctors, medical and psychological, but the only result had been a further withdrawal when she had found out. He had had his suspicions, even then, and now he hoped, with all his heart, it had not been his own egotism which had kept him from acting on those. He hoped he had only acted out of concern for her as he dithered.
 

Then, two months ago she had fainted and he had realised time had run out. In desperation, Fabian had turned to Lady Justitiana, asking her to recall Jen under her care. Instead, she had suggested he offer his best friend to someone who was better placed to take advantage of the situation. That was why he was sending her away.
 

“I am sorry, Jen. Your train leaves tonight — he insisted on your arrival before Thursday, before the 14
th
.”

“Well, I have always dreamt of Valentine’s Day in Paris.” Bitterness suffused each word. He hated the resignation in her eyes, a capitulation to a hopelessness he could not explain. When she spoke, he realised he would be unable to spare her even more pain. He hated the position he, they all, had forced her into and with a sinking feeling he admitted to himself that he was to be blamed for it, at least to a large part.
 

“You have not left me a lot of time to pack my things. I will get on with it then. Don’t expect me to say goodbye, Milord.”
 

He had not. He could have argued it was all because he had so desperately searched for another solution, but in the end it did not change the facts. She did not look at him, dismissing him and her anger at him. Her hand had reached for the computer bag at her feet, the constant companion of her life. How often had he offered to replace the threadbare bag with something more durable or stylish? How often had she told him she loved that bag and its patches because it was a record of her life? How could he take the last bit of safety, of dignity, from her? But he had to.
 

“You won’t be able to take anything with you.”

She had already risen, turned to the door but his words halted her, drew her back to face him seemingly against her own will.
 

“What?!?”

He took a deep breath and realised, with a bitter sense of amusement, that his shoulders had tensed in a discomfort bordering on fear. He was a vampire, for Christ’s sake! And she was nothing more than a slip of a girl, no matter how much he loved her. At least so he told himself as he tried to find his spine. Then he exhaled with his own, personal realisation of defeat. Five years ago she might have exploded, yelled, given him a precious spark of temper before cutting him down with cold sarcasm and sharp logic. Today, he would be lucky if she raised her voice, though he was certain her fear, the source of the temper, would be nonetheless real. The tight control she did not let him break was strangling her.
 

“I am sorry. Lord Adrian has requested you bring nothing with you — he will provide all you need.”
 

Fabian saw the disbelief in her eyes, held them and watched the emotion be replaced by terror and anger as she realised he was not in jest, that she would be leaving her home, being handed over into the charge of a man she had met only a few times before, without even the comfort of her own possessions. He saw how the realisation of utter vulnerability, of the loss of control and the trepidation of what was to come settled on her shoulders, tensed the small muscles around her mouth into hard lines, darkened her eyes and he cursed the orders he had been given. Adrian, the Lord of Paris, the man he entrusted with his best friend because in reality he had no choice either, had known exactly what he demanded, what he would be doing to her with those demands. Her new liege had wanted her completely at his mercy — physically, emotionally and mentally. Fabian could see the beginning of it settling into her subconscious now.
 

“You cannot expect me to simply leave everything behind. My whole life.”

“Everything you leave behind will be kept in storage for you, safe and sound, until you can return for it or have it shipped to you.”

“So you have not only sold me; you have also robbed me of all my possessions. Has someone reminded you that you are not God — and that I am not your slave?”
 

“No, you’re not. But you swore an oath of fealty for five years, so until the time when the oath expires in three months, you are under my protection and under obligation to follow my orders. All my orders.”

“It’s archaic. It is not even legal.” Even though she had grown up in a vampire court, her modern mind was unable to truly comprehend some aspects of their lives. She would learn. Unfortunately, she would have to. In the end, she would not have a choice but to learn. No human court would be able to enforce the oaths she had sworn, but any paranormal would, and there was no place on this earth she could have run to in order to escape their rule. She knew at least that much.
 

“I truly am sorry, Jen.”

There was a long silence, not any less bitter for the empty space it seemed to fill between them.
 

“You bastard, you utter bastard.” And then, so quiet a human would not have been able to make it out: “I hate you.”
 

He did not doubt the honest depth of feeling in her voice.

“I know.”
 

Did his voice hold even a modicum of the pain in his heart? He doubted it. No matter, she did not react to it anyway. She turned to leave, her steps stiff and ungainly as if she were an old woman. In the door she hesitated for a moment, her hand on the doorframe and he hoped, just for a moment, she would say something, anything, to indicate he had not destroyed their friendship entirely.
 

“Please send my possessions to my parents. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

As the door closed behind her he felt a tear on his cheek, its heated path so unfamiliar it took him a moment to identify its source. He had not cried since he had been a young child but then, his heart had never broken before.
 

Paris

The train entered Paris’s Gare de Lyon with a ten minute delay, a circumstance which gave Jen a strange kind of satisfaction. It was 22.34 on the evening of February thirteenth. She had taken the latest possible train which would get her to Paris in time to meet the deadline imposed on her. The small, childish gesture gave her a peculiar sense of satisfaction. It was a rebellion of a kind and it felt good. She might be helpless, might have no way to resist the order, the summons; but at least she could stretch it to its breaking point.
 

The first impression she carried of Paris as she stepped off the TGV she had boarded at her last change in Karlsruhe, was that of cold misery. Tirana was further south and its proximity to the Mediterranean made for a milder climate than that of the rainy February night in Paris.
 
She shivered, realising the last few years had spoiled the continental weather for her. The icy wind plastered her too thin black coat to her body, the rain drenching the platform, penetrating almost painfully to her skin within seconds. Her shoulders hunched in misery when the icy drops infiltrated even her heavy hair, running in glacial paths along her scalp and into her nape.