Family Secrets (Young Adult Edition) (Davenport Manor (Young Adult Edition)) (25 page)

“Elizabeth,” Emma’s voice cracked,
barely able to speak as she was stunned by the vision.

Elizabeth’s face smiled softly at her
sister that had brutally taken her life.

Emma’s mind frantically tried to
remember all the things she had wanted to say for the past two
hundred years. “I’m so sorry, my dear sister, I didn’t mean to hurt
you. I had no control over myself, you must believe me. I have
lived with this guilt for so long,” she pleaded.

“I know…and I forgive you. I’m sorry I
called you a monster, you are not. I have watched you try to be as
good as you were able to be. I have watched you love our family as
well as watch you grieve when they die. You have made the best of
the hand of which you were dealt, I respect that,
sister.”

“There’s so much I have wanted to say,
so much to talk about,” Emma said with the hopes that Elizabeth
could stay for a while.

Elizabeth shook her head, “I have to
go, it is finally time for me to reunite with Mother, Father, and
Christopher. I can rest now, thank you.”

“Please give them all my love, for
there will never be a reunion for me,” Emma said, knowing her time
with Elizabeth was short.

“I will,” Elizabeth answered as she
reached to touch Emma’s cheek, but was unable to make physical
contact. “I love you, Emma. And when you need to speak with Mother
and me, just come to the bench as you always do, you will hear our
whispers in the breeze as always.”

Emma’s eyes widened as she always
thought her mother’s voice that she would hear was a figment of her
imagination.

“We’re never fully gone…” Elizabeth
said, her voice and apparition fading.

“I love you, Elizabeth!” Emma
stammered out before her sister completely disappeared. She was
disappointed that her time with Elizabeth had been so short. There
was so much she wanted to talk about and to be able to see her face
after all these years. Through the disappointment, she smiled. She
was finally able to apologize to her sister, face-to-face. Her
emotions were all over the place; joy and sorrow battling against
each other. She couldn’t help but shed several more tears as she
stood abandoned in the middle of the family crypt.

When she finally emerged, she pushed
the door back into place and planned to seal it off for the last
time the following day. She wiped her face with the back of her
hand, which was smeared with her own blood. As she started back
toward the Manor, she berated herself for crying, it was always so
darn messy. She glanced back at the cemetery once more before
entering the woods in hopes of seeing another vision, but the space
was empty. She turned back to continue walking, satisfied that she
finally was able to close that chapter.

Emma entered the front door and
everyone had dispersed throughout the house since all the
excitement was over. Zachariah remained in the parlor with
Mackenzie, chatting about their experiences since the last time
they saw each other.

“He’s okay,” Zachariah said to Emma,
knowing she would ask about Daniel. “I’ve been
listening.”

She nodded and turned to go upstairs,
“I’m going to see Todd.”

She followed his recent scent to his
bedroom where she lightly knocked on his door. He answered it and
his tight-lipped smile made her feel uneasy.

“Come in,” he said, opening the door
wider. “Did you get everything taken care of?”

“I did,” she answered as she shut the
door behind her. “You know I saw her? She appeared to me…it was
something I had wished for so many years. My heart feels so light
now since I got to say what I have always needed to say to
her.”

Todd couldn’t help but feel glad for
her, no matter how strange the situation was. He wrapped his arms
around her and kissed the top of her head, breathing in the sweet,
light smell of her perfume.

“Although, I’m still miffed at her for
forcing us to pop open the can of worms about Dan’s parents. It
feels good having the truth out there, but at what cost? All that
pain he has had to get under control has just been unleashed once
again and I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to look at us the
same. But, he understands that it was inevitable and that we were
doing all we had to do to protect him.”

“What exactly happened? Why did Aidan
want to kill Dan’s father?” Todd asked as his curiosity got the
best of him.

“Eh, better if you don’t know, it was
vampire politics. There are rare humans that go their entire lives
not realizing they have a smidge of supernatural in them…he was one
of them,” Emma replied, choosing her words carefully.

“A need-to-know basis, I got
it.”

“I’m sorry you got stuck in the middle
of all this, I don’t know why she chose you to communicate with,”
Emma said as she hugged him closer and nuzzled her cheek on his
chest. She loved feeling the warmth radiating from him and
breathing in his musky, masculine scent. “Have you ever been able
to see ghosts before?”

He chuckled, “Not that I know of!
Although, I may have met one along the way and never realized
it…just like I didn’t realize that my girlfriend was a
vampire.”

She smiled against his
chest.

Like a dream that is suddenly
remembered in the middle of the day, their talk of vampires and
ghosts evoked the conversation he had with Elizabeth on the edge of
his bed the night before. “Oh my gosh,” he said as it all came
flooding back.

“What?” Emma asked, pulling away from
him.

“I think I had an out-of-body
experience last night; it seems like it was a dream, but very real.
I saw myself sleeping on the bed, Vivienne was watching TV, and I
was having a conversation with Elizabeth.”

“What did you talk about? Can you
remember?” Emma was intrigued.

“She kept telling me that
the reason I could see her was because I was special…and to find
out how special I am I need to…” he stopped short, realizing that
her ears weren’t the only ones that could hear their conversation.
He whipped out his phone and texted her,
I
need to provoke Aidan to bite me. I told Elizabeth there is no
chance in hell that I’m going to provoke an ancient
vampire.

Perplexed, Emma shook her head and
tried to figure out why on earth Elizabeth would want Todd to
provoke Aidan. She had a small idea creep through her mind, but
brushed it off because there was no way Elizabeth, a ghost, would
know. She took his hand and led him to the bed; his decadent scent
had awakened her carnal instinct.

She pushed him down on the mattress
with a force that made him bounce a few times after landing. She
took his breath away; her seductive beauty and delicate features
masked the predator that lied beneath the surface. Her brute
strength and the potential danger she posed enchanted him more than
any woman he had ever met. Emma climbed onto the bed and crawled on
all fours to reach his face.

She leaned down, her lips hovering
over his, feeling his warm breath escaping from his slightly-open
mouth. She inched forward and tickled his top lip with the tip of
her tongue, teasing him with an impending kiss. He lunged upward,
grabbed her by the back of her head, and forced her mouth down onto
his.

He kissed down the side of her
jawline, where he lingered to lick her neck as her head was tilted
back and slightly to the left. His teeth scraped against her skin,
lightly biting her, taunting her. He knew he was no match for any
vampire she had been with, but he was bound to try to get as close
as he could. His free hand ran down the length of her throat while
he hovered, admiring the porcelain-white skin of her neck. He
opened his mouth and placed his teeth on her neck once again,
biting harder than he did before. She responded by clawing her
fingers into his shoulder blades, careful not to use her nails
knowing her strength would cut into him and painfully draw
blood.

“Can I bite you or is that weird?”
Todd whispered as his breath became ragged.

“Please do, we like to bite
during…intimate moments,” she replied as she pushed her neck up to
his lips.

He had never bitten someone to the
point of breaking skin before and was nervous, yet excited. He
remembered when she had fed him her blood when they were attacked,
the night he found out what she was, and how fantastic he
physically felt for days afterward. Every little ache and pain he
had even before the attack was gone, his body completely healed of
all injuries. He was energetic and had never felt so alive, his
senses were slightly amplified, and his libido was through the
roof. At this moment, he was looking forward to taking her blood
and experiencing its after-effects once again.

He licked his lips in nervous
anticipation, eager to bite her, but naturally afraid of what the
sensation of biting through skin would feel like. Her willingness
gave him the courage to go for it, he leaned in, and clamped his
teeth down on her neck, feeling them penetrate through her bare
skin. She moaned in pleasure; she never experienced a human biting
her. It was different since he didn’t have fangs to easily cut
through the skin, so the bite was more forceful and a larger area
as opposed to two puncture wounds.

She wrapped her arms around him as
tight as she could without snapping his bones, pulling him as close
as nature would allow. Todd felt the warm, thick liquid begin to
leak from the wounds he caused, covering his lips and drizzling
onto his tongue. He wrapped his lips around the bite marks,
drinking the blood that drained from her neck. The more he drank,
the more invigorated he felt as if it was taking over his body. The
magic from her blood pulsed through his veins; he felt empowered,
strong, and completely alive, he was high while being completely
coherent.

With the excitement of Todd sucking on
her neck and drinking her blood, Emma’s fangs slowly emerged and
her mouth was open with desire. Her body had healed the bite wounds
on her neck and Todd’s face returned to hers as he kissed her
deeply, feeling the tip of her fang lightly poking at his tongue.
With her strength and speed, she flipped him onto his back and took
power over him. She pinned his arms above his head, pressing his
wrists into the pillows as she gained complete control over him.
She scrunched her nose and opened her mouth, ready to strike and
drink from him for the first time, something she had wanted to do
for weeks. She tilted her head and arched her back, and came down
on his neck faster than Todd could see. But, she abruptly stopped
before touching his skin.

“
Emma!” She heard Daniel
calling in the hallway. “Emma, I’m leaving for a while.”

She heard Zachariah trying to reason
with him not to go, apologizing profusely and begging him not to
leave the family on Christmas.

Emma pressed her face into Todd’s
shoulder and groaned in frustration. “I’ll be right back, I need to
get this ironed out with Daniel.” She climbed off of him and ran
out of the room so fast all he saw was the door open.

She approached Daniel, who was
standing in the hallway with a packed suitcase. Zachariah looked at
Emma with a sense of hope, thinking that maybe she would be able to
talk Daniel out of leaving.

“
Why are you leaving,
Dan?” She asked.

“
I just can’t be here
right now,” he replied as he shook his head and blankly looked
away. “I’ll come back when we resume filming, but for now I just
need to get away from all of this.”

“
From us,” Zachariah
added.

Daniel sympathetically looked at him,
unable to answer that he was correct. “I know you both had no
choice about what happened to my parents…I know you were just
trying to protect me. But, everything that happened that day just
came rushing back; all the pain, but it is altered now knowing that
you knew the truth all along.”

Emma’s brow was furrowed with a
mother’s worry. “Where will you go?”

Daniel shook his head and gave her a
slight smile, “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.” He looked back and forth
to Emma and Zachariah, who both knew they couldn’t stop him. He was
no longer a kid under their guardianship anymore and it was
difficult for them to bite their tongues and let him leave. He gave
Zachariah a quick hug and patted him on the back then hugged Emma
and kissed her on the cheek.

As he turned his back and walked away
with his suitcase, Emma and Zachariah communicated with each other
without speaking a word. He knew what she was thinking and she gave
him one affirmative and commanding nod. She followed him with her
eyes as he took his cell phone out of his pocket and slipped into
her bedroom. She stood in the hallway by herself for a moment,
closed her eyes, and tilted her head back to take a mental
breather. She wanted to return to Todd to finish what they had
started, but found herself being pulled into her bedroom with
Zachariah instead.

As she entered, Zachariah had just hit
the “end” button on his phone and said, “All is taken care of.
They’ll let us know where he is when he gets to wherever he’s
going. They’ll make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“
Good,” Emma replied as
she sat on the couch and rubber her forehead.