Innocently Evil (A Kitty Bloom Novel) (29 page)

I let out a small sigh and
a sob of relief at his concern for my wellbeing and I finally began to feel a bit safer. Pressing my head close to the prison bars, I tried to get as close as possible to the only person who could help me. I smiled half-heartedly up at Sam, and then bit my lip as I attempted to come up with the best way to explain my situation. “So much has happened,” I said woefully. “I just don’t know where to begin.”

Sam’s eyes looked deep into mine and they reassured m
e that he was willing and ready to understand. I took a deep breath and sighed. It was now or never, I had to tell him.

I opened my mouth and the necessary words just flowed out. I told him about the note I found upon coming home, about
sharing consciousness with my evil side and about the werewolf. Tears filled my eyes as I told him about Max coming to my rescue and about how close we’d gotten before he showed his true colors once more. I explained to him how worried I’d been about my mum after finding the other letter and how desperate I was to try to save her before it was too late. Then, through burning hot tears, I told him what Max and his father had done to her, how she’d become a vampire and how all three of them had the same plan for me.

Sam’s fingers left my chin and crept up my cheek to wipe away the warm, falling tears escaping from my eyes. His expression was filled with empathy and love, c
ompletely unlike the I-told-you-so or you’ve-betrayed-me expressions I had imagined. I looked deep into his eyes, forcing myself to be strong, and I prepared to tell him the last important point.

“Max bit me,” I said quietly. “S
ometime while I was unconscious after Louis hit me, he drank from me. Plus—he knows. He tricked me, her and me, and she took control before I could stop her. So, he knows. He knows that we’ve connected, that we share a consciousness and that we can join together and become one if necessary.” I let out a hopeless sob, feeling the weight and reality of my words as I verbalized the truth. I shut my eyes tight and bit my bottom lip hard, fighting back the chest shaking sobs that I could feel dying to flow out of me.

Sam’s fingertips wiped several more tears from beneath my damp eyelashes and then stroked lightly over my cheek bone.
“Don’t cry,” he said compassionately. “It won’t help. You’ve got to take it in and make yourself stronger. Dwelling on the problems and mistakes of the past will get you nowhere. You have to focus on the future, your future. You have to get through this. I know you can.”

I opened my eyes, feeling my wet eyelashes separate and set free a couple more painful tears. Sam stared
at me, his face filling with worry as my bottom lip quivered. His fingers left my cheekbone and travelled down to my chin once again. Then, he leaned in and before I realized what he was doing, he kissed my lightly on my salty, tear covered lips. As he leaned back, the corners of his pink lips lifted in a tiny smile of encouragement and his eyes shone with assurance.

I frowned and shook my head at him in disbelief.
“How come you’re not mad at me,” I asked, a little confused by how well he’d taken all of my explanation. “I betrayed you with Max. If I was you, I’d be angry.”

Sam’s small smile grew and he touched his lips briefly to mine yet again.
“How can I be mad,” he asked, genuinely. “I don’t own you, Kitty, and neither does Max. You are your own person and unfortunately for you, you’re also stuck with two personalities. I’ve known this for a long time and although at times I wish that I was the only one you could see, the only one you could feel for. Even if that had been true I would be ignoring the fact that there are two sides to you. If I want one, I have to deal with the other, and clearly the other side of you has a soft spot for Max and there isn’t a lot I can do about that.”

Sam glanced around at my prison once more and then grinned at me.
“Besides keeping you in a cage, I guess,” he smiled, “but how would I ever get to be with the true Kitty Bloom then, hmm?”

At his cute, baby-boy grin, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling, too. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was, how much Sam seemed to care for and understand me. A part of me, the evil part, just didn’t believe that it could be real.

“But, you were so mad,” I said, feeling the need to clarify our last moment together. “When I left you I told you I couldn’t promise not to go to the ball, because I had to be there for Mum. Of course, I had no idea that all this would happen in-between, but you were mad at me. I know you were.”

Sam smiled at me and touched his nose lovingly to mine.
“I never said I was perfect,” he said softly. “I might understand you and want you just the way you are. But when it comes to your safety, I can’t help but want to be there to protect you from everything before you have to deal with it. I couldn’t live if something happened to you. You are my world, what I live for. I never want to see you in danger. But now I fear that my desperation for control, the need I had to make sure you didn’t go to the Tiennan’s Welcome Ball, actually ended up putting you in danger.”

“No,” I said, incredulously.
“I did this. It’s my fault. I should have listened to you.”

Sam shook his head and smiled sweetly at me.
“No,” he said firmly. “As the elder in this relationship and the one who knows you enough to be able to predict your stubborn responses, it is definitely my fault. I shouldn’t have asked that of you.”

As
I went to shake my head and deny Sam the claim to error a second time, he stopped me with a finger to my lips and then looked curiously around my barred cage.

“Is there no way out,” he said as his violet eyes came back to mine.

His finger left my lips as I turned my head behind me and glanced around at the strong, fi
rm bars of my prison cell. Then I brought my eyes back to him and frowned desperately. “No,” I said, in a frustrated sigh.

“Then you must still be at
the Tiennan’s castle,” said Sam. “There is magic surrounding the walls, so the only way in is physically. In fact, I’m surprised that I was actually able to find you at all. Usually spells as strong as those surrounding the walls of the castle prevent any mental or magical intrusion.”

He raised an unc
ertain eyebrow at me and seemed to ponder his own thoughts silently for a moment. “If what you told me about you and her, your other half, is as incredible as you imply,” he began again slowly. “Then maybe, just maybe you are stronger together than apart. If that’s so, then there’s no knowing what you’d be capable of doing. You would be the very first daughter of Lilith to join forces with your evil half. It’s unwritten territory, anything could be within your reach.”

At his words a feeling of hope seemed to wash over me and I was grateful to no longer feel as though I would forever be at the mercy of others. If Sam was right, then there could be a chance for me to save myself, and to get revenge for what Louis and Max had done to my mum.

I smiled lightly at the thought and then returned my attention back to Sam. “So, what do we do now,” I asked him, hoping for instruction.

He frowned at me and caressed the side of my cheek with his fingertips.
“You wake up,” he said sadly, “and I’ll find you. Besides, I have a feeling that things will all work out okay.”

“Wake up,” I said, feeling a little shocked, “but this couldn’t be a dream.”

Unfortunately, deep down, I knew for a fact that it was, even though I didn’t want it to be. I may have been able to reach out and touch Sam’s mind with my own and he, in turn, had reached out to mine. But all in all, I was still asleep in the guest room in the Tiennan’s mansion and no amount of wishing was going to free me from being under lock and key.

Sam’s
mouth covered mine for a final time and his lips tickled mine as he whispered a sweet goodbye. Darkness filled the room once more and I knew that it was time.

“Alright,” I said, conceding. “It’s time
I woke up.”

Twenty-One: The Mother-Daughter
Vampire Talk

A soft crooning of words brought me gently back to the land of the living. Through a sleep filled haze, I struggled to open my eyes and find the origin of the noise. In a flicker of eyelashes, a face appeared. A grin of perfect white teeth glittered at me as the glowing turquoise eyes observed me curiously and attentively, like a predator watching prey.

“Good evening, my darling,” said th
e vampire replacement of my mum. “How did you sleep?”

I sat up swiftly and pushed myself
up higher on the bed, further away from where she was sitting near my legs on the opposite side. “What do you want,” I asked sternly, feeling somewhat agitated by her unannounced visit.

She frowned at me playfully and looked as t
hough she were trying to feign injury. “Is that any way to talk to your mother,” she said glumly. Then a slight smile covered her large, cherry collared lips and she reached out a delicate hand towards my left leg.

Realizing
her intent to touch me, I shot up and off the bed in a flash and stood warily behind the protection of the mattress. An amused chuckle rang out in the silence of the room, bringing my eyes back to the unnatural glow of hers.

“You can’t be serious,”
she laughed at me in disbelief. “You’re afraid of me, your own mother. After what you did last night, I think I have more reason to be afraid of you.”

The ferocious
glare that filled her eyes at her final words seemed to promise violence, making my skin crawl and my heart beat quicken. My hands curled into fists, as I clenched my jaw tightly and stared at her, trying to prepare myself for the payback that I was sure she’d eventually give me.

“What,” she asked, the aggression in
her expression turning innocent. “You going to hit me again?”

I didn’t know what to say. As I stared at her face, my mum’s
beautiful, youthful, familiar-looking face, I found it hard to keep my expression stern and my mind focused. A part of me felt guilty and ashamed for physically hurting her, even though her immaculately healed wounds had proved that she was not the woman I remembered.

My tense muscles loosened and I unclenched my fists.
“No,” I said, softly. “I’m not going to hit you. What do you want?”

A sly smile returned to her lips and in one graceful movement, she turned, grabbed a hold of the bedpost beside her with her right hand and swung herself up and around to face me.
“I’m here to help you get ready, of course,” she said sweetly and as if I should have known.

My mum the vampire stalked around the edge of the bed towards me, then turned and twirled giving me a full view of her outfit. She was dresse
d in a snug, cerulean blue silk Chinese patterned dress with gold edgings, a large split up her left thigh and one, triangular shaped strap over her right shoulder. Her dark, auburn hair was piled high on her head in fragile curls and wrapped securely in place with luminous gold ribbon.

Her girlish twirl ended and she faced me once again.
“How do I look, Kitty-cat,” she asked me kindly, as she smoothed down the soft fabric of her dress.

I smiled half-heartedly, trying to be considerate, even though my evil half yelled at me not to be.
“Beautiful,” I said quietly, as my evil half retorted wryly in my mind, ‘like a vampire in a blue dress’.

The vampire in front of me smiled
contentedly, unaware of the verbal abuse she was receiving from my other half in the safety of my head. In a second, her cheerful expression changed and she became inquisitive. She took a step towards me, staring at me, then stopped and crossed her arms over her chest. “Now,” she said, thoughtfully, “what are we going to do about you?”

Instantly remembering the filthy state I was
in, I glanced down at my blood-stained shirt and pants and began feeling desperate for a shower. When I looked up again, my undead mother was standing less than a meter in front of me and was staring at the thick blood-stain on the top of my pants. I jumped back a step, surprised and annoyed at myself for dropping my guard. I had to remind myself that even though the face staring back at me was my mum’s, she was now a vampire and still had plans to make me just as much of a bloodsucker as her.

Ignoring my retreat, she took a step forward and reached a hand out towards the waist band of my track pants.
“I see Max marked you after all,” she said, plainly, without clear emotion.

As her hand brushed the clothing around my hips, I recoiled back another step and then moved around her.
“You don’t sound surprised,” I said, as irritation made my voice deeper.

She frowned at my movement and then seemed to follow me, keeping a safe
meter between us, while she did so. “I expected as much,” she replied, flatly. “The way he talks about you is so possessively fatal. He seems to act as though you are already his, like you belong together.”