My Vampire and I (15 page)

I thought. "What about some of your friends you've spoken of? Thomas's friends perhaps? Wouldn't they help you defeat d'Arcy? They must hate him for what he's done."

 

"Vampires are expected to fight their own battles. To ask for help is considered divisive and is frowned upon. Many years ago, a war among vampires was almost our undoing.

 

Now it is expected that petty squabbles be settled between the adversaries."

 

"
Petty squabbles
?" I exclaimed. "That has to be the understatement of the decade. Those guys are threatening to kill you, Marcus. That's a helluva lot more than just a squabble."

"Still, I do not wish to involve anyone else." He paused, thinking. "There is one, however." he mused. "Someone I 142
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have not seen for some time and who hates d'Arcy even more than I do. She might just jump at the chance for vengeance." "She?"
"The Duchess of Andorra or so she was then. Now she is simply Andorra. I could reach out to her, I suppose."
"You don't seem too sure," I prompted. He walked over to the window, looking out for a long moment, before turning to me, with a rueful smile. "I'm not sure how she will react on meeting you," he said, with just a trace of hesitancy.
"Me? Why would she care one way or the other?"
"We had an ... um ... an affair of sorts, many years ago,"
he replied, before adding what I supposed was for my benefit,
"Many,
many
years ago."
An affair of
sorts
?
"That's okay," I said, already hating the bitch. "If she can be of some help, that's the main thing, I guess. What does she have against d'Arcy?" "He killed her entire family. Enslaved them and tortured them—he changed them then let them starve for want of blood." "But why?"

"Because he could. Because he is a monster who delights in torturing innocents, and because Andorra would not give him her youngest brother, Anton. D'Arcy took him anyway, while Andorra searched for her family, but rather than be coerced into vampirism, young Anton took his own life.

"In a matter of days, Andorra lost her entire family. She tried to kill d'Arcy herself, but without success, so, in despair, 143 My Vampire and I
by J. P. Bowie
she locked herself away for a period of mourning, allowing no one near her for several hundred years."
"My God," I whispered. "But how could she survive without blood for so long?"

"Remember what I told you before. We can put ourselves into a somnambulant state—suspended animation, if you will—for almost as long as we wish it. We require no sustenance during that time, simply a dark place in which to sleep, uninterrupted and undisturbed. This is, in fact, how I discovered her.

"I had returned to Rome to find an eternal resting place for Thomas. There is a place in the catacombs of St. Sebastian, in Rome, known only to we vampires, where the few of our kind who by accident or design have ceased to be are laid to rest. I had carried Thomas there and built him a sepulchre of fine, white marble. Alone, or so I thought, in those last moments before I said goodbye to him forever, I felt a vampire presence nearby. Suddenly, there she was, having just awakened from her decades of slumber.

"She asked me for whom I mourned and what had befallen him. When I told her Thomas had been a victim of the Comte d'Arcy, she let out a terrible, fiendish scream of rage. I thought her quite mad until she told me her story. That the first name she should hear after her awakening should be of her foulest enemy seemed almost too much for her to bear.

There and then, she pledged that should I ever devise a plan to avenge my lover's death, she would aid me in every way possible." Marcus paused in his story, and for a moment, I thought I saw just a hint of a blush on his pale, chiselled 144

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cheeks. Was he embarrassed to tell me what happened between them? My usually so forthright vampire?
"Go on," I said, resisting the temptation to smirk.

"Well, we were two lost souls really..." he began with a deal of hesitation. "My grief was so fresh in my mind and her grief was as palpable as mine, despite the years that had passed since her family's murders. We reached out to each other for comfort and support. It became something else—a need, I suppose. A need to love and be loved."

Now, I felt like a jerk. I'd been so ready to tease him, make fun of his fling with the lady Andorra, but seeing him look so sad and vulnerable made me just want to hold him tight, which is what I did.

"Roger," he said, stroking my hair and kissing my forehead, "Please believe me when I say that anything I felt then, pales in comparison to what I feel for you. When Thomas left me forever, I never imagined I would love that way again. My time with Andorra was pleasant. She is a very beautiful woman. She was changed at the peak of her loveliness, so that it was captured for all time, never to fade or tarnish. She perceived, I think, from the very beginning that our time together would not last, and of that, she was understanding. When last I saw her, she had a fine new beau.

A musician, I think."
"A vampire?"
"No, a mortal human, like you, though not as comely and charming."
"Flattery will get you everywhere," I said, teasing his lower lip with mine, "and every
thing
." I snuggled into his arms, 145 My Vampire and I
by J. P. Bowie
revelling in the feel of his cool, muscled flesh. "I have to go to work," I moaned, thinking of the boring day ahead.
"Unless..."
"Unless?"
"You make time stand still—just for a little while?"
"Consider it done."
I sighed. He was definitely the best boyfriend in all the world.
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146
My Vampire and I

Chapter Twelve

That night, Marcus took me back to his house in the hills to meet Andorra. With very little convincing on his part, she had agreed to help him rid the vampire world of the d'Arcy-Gregory plague. She would travel, vampire-style of course, from her villa in Valencia, Spain and be at Marcus's home just after sunset.

I hadn't expected that she would bring her 'beau', as Marcus so quaintly called him, but she had. He gave me some idea of what might lie in store for me if Marcus and I became

 

'forever companions'.

But first, Andorra ... It would be almost impossible for me to describe her eloquently enough without resorting to comparisons. So, if I say she looked like a young Catherine Zeta-Jones and Selma Hayek, combined into one taller, slimmer, even more beautiful woman—I'd still not get it quite right. She was stunning, breathtaking—the perfect yin to Marcus's yang. The sight of the two of them standing side by side was almost too much for me. I mean, how much beauty can you stand at one time?

"Andorra," Marcus was saying, "This is my friend, Roger."

 

She seemed to glide towards me. The shimmering stones on the black dress she wore gleamed and glinted in the soft lighting of the immense living room. She stopped about a foot away from me, her dark eyes sweeping across my face and body, her face impassive, coolly detached.

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"So, you are the one who has stolen my Marcus's heart?"
Her voice was low, melodic, but with a challenging edge.
I have to admit, I was lost for words. I mean, how d'you answer a question like that? Yes, bitch, so fegedaboutit?
Maybe not the best reply at that moment, so I just smiled and nodded, while I stared into those eyes of obsidian.

"Hey, Andy, quit scaring the kid." This from the lanky guy leaning one elbow on the fireplace mantle. He walked towards me, hand outstretched. "Tony," he said.

 

"Roger." I shook his hand, with a certain amount of relief.

Tony put his arm around Andorra's waist with an easy familiarity that made me wonder just how long it had taken him to be so comfortable with her. She looked formidable to me, a dangerous beauty and not one I could ever see myself being chummy with. Tony was, well, unremarkable for want of another word. Nice looking in a rumpled, untidy way, thick eyebrows over brown eyes, a friendly smile.

Andorra leaned into him, an affectionate gesture which gave me hope that she was not the callous bitch she looked.
She smiled slowly and extended her hand to me, palm down.

Was I expected to shake it, or kiss it? I chose the former, and her grip almost made me gasp with pain. I say almost, because I suddenly felt up to the challenge and gripped back harder. Okay, so it's no big deal to beat a woman in a hand-gripping test, but I honestly believe that I would have lost to her had I not recently been imbued with some of Marcus's blood.

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Seemingly satisfied that I was not a wimp, she smiled and kissed my cheek. "He is delightful, Marcus," she cooed. "You are right to want to keep him for yourself."

"Not quite the way I would phrase it, Andorra," Marcus said, with an apologetic smile to me. "But I am glad you approve." "Andy always likes to test the new guy on the block," Tony said, grinning at me. "Ready for a drink?"
"Please," I said, and he led me over to the bar. "She lets you call her Andy?" I whispered, climbing onto a barstool.

His grin got wider. "Well, it took her some time to get used to it, but hey, after nearly a hundred years of togetherness, you have to ease up on the formalities, right? What'll it be?"

 

"Vodka martini, please." A hundred years? He didn't look a day over twenty-eight. "So, are you ... changed?"

 

"No, we're taking it nice and easy. Maybe in another hundred or so, we'll seal the deal." He slid my drink towards me. "You decided yet?" I shook my head, glancing over to where Marcus and Andorra were in deep conversation. I couldn't believe we were talking so casually about immortality. "We haven't really talked about it in detail. We've exchanged blood a couple of times."

"I thought so," he said, popping open a can of beer.
"You've got the look."
"The look?"

"Yeah. Vampire blood has certain qualities that start some subtle changes in you. When I met Andy I was a soldier in the trenches—1914, one of the first big battles of the First World 149

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War, and I was shot to pieces. I was left for dead, but I managed to crawl out. That's when she found me, took me to her home and fixed me up, giving me some of her blood to replace what I had lost. I thought I was hallucinating—I mean this incredible woman tending to my wounds. I was in love with her before I found out what she was—is—and then, it didn't matter."

"Marcus said you were a musician."
"Right. I played violin for the London Symphony."
"You don't sound British."
"Canadian. But I got drafted into the British army anyway, first year I was with the Symphony."
"Bummer. Do you still play?"

"You bet, but only at informal gatherings." His smile was a tad rueful. "Being considered lost in combat for the past hundred years, doesn't exactly enhance a guy's résumé."

 

Marcus joined us at that moment. He stood behind me, massaging my shoulders with his strong fingers. "Andorra has gone to freshen up a little," he said, then added, "She likes you."

Tony chuckled. "By freshen up, he means she's gone to find someone's blood to keep her going."
Marcus's fingers froze on my shoulders, and I heard him suck his breath in between his teeth. "Tony," he said quietly.
"I don't think Roger needs to hear that, just yet."
"Sorry." Tony grinned at me again. He wasn't sorry at all.
"You'll get used to it," he said, passing a glass of red wine to Marcus.
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I had a sudden urge to be alone with Marcus, and he, of course, knew that without my saying a word. "Tony," he said, after taking a sip of his wine. "You and Andorra will have the guest room on the second floor. Why don't you go up there and wait for her to return?"

 

"Sure thing," Tony replied easily. "I can tell you guys need to talk." Picking up a couple of cans of beer, he left with a wink at me. Marcus turned my barstool around and kissed my lips gently. "Are you all right?" he asked, his lips travelling along my jaw line, then nibbling at my earlobe.

"Yeah ... just a little overawed by all this," I admitted.
"Andorra's ... uh ... Marcus, that's very distracting."
He chuckled in my ear, sending shivers all through me.
"You look so delicious with that worried little look on your face," he murmured. "Come with me."

I slid off the barstool, taking his hand as he led me through the French doors and out onto the veranda. The night air was cool on my skin, and the scent of the night-blooming jasmine that covered the walls behind us, filled my nostrils with its sensuous perfume.

 

He enfolded me in his embrace, holding me with a sensual tenderness that made me love him even more. He seemed so in tune with my feelings, my doubts and yes, my fears of what might lie ahead for both of us. Andorra's presence, I found unsettling and, strangely, somehow I felt she could be a danger to him. There was something about her.

"Andorra troubles you."
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I nodded then rested my head on his shoulder. "I don't know why," I said. "I know she's your friend, but there's something there. Something I can't quite put my finger on."

 

"You are very intuitive," he murmured. "But your sweet nature rebels at seeing too deeply into dark souls. I must make you stronger. Let you develop your own special gifts."

 

"Gifts?"

 

"Many mortals have latent abilities. Some find them unnatural and try to suppress them, while others, finding they can enhance their livelihood, abuse them in order to make a profit."

 

"You mean like psychics?"

"Yes." He took my hand, leading me across the veranda to the entrance of his bedroom. "Psychic powers can be very useful, when used properly. Although vampires can read minds and communicate mentally with one another and with some mortals, we do not possess that particular power. It seems to be a human trait—and one, which I believe you may possess."

"Me?" I looked at him with a mixture of surprise and disbelief. Mark and I had always laughed at those TV shows with so-called psychics and channellers calling on dearly departed souls, who'd much rather be left in peace.