Scarlet Vamporium: Vamporium #2 (11 page)

Oh crud! She can hear ma thoughts, think of somethin' else. Golf. St Andrews. Glenfiddich whisky. The fish smokin' at home. They should be taeken out by now. Jamie surely didnae dae it fer me and Da is never home tae give a darn.

“Would you two hurry up!”

Ellindt snags ma arm and hauls me down the passage and intae the cheery kitchen.

The smell hits me and ma heart warms like an ember lit by ma soul, by ma memories.

Chapter 12

Ellindt:

Wow! Selene has used her magic and turned the kitchen into the quintessential goddess' domain, complete with cooling cookies on a wire rack, filling the room with the delicious scent of homemade treats.

She's putting on the normal act for Doug and I appreciate it so much.

My legs are still trembling from when Zarak pinned me to the front door, exhaling demonic air over me as if it blesses me and makes me holy. It was him I could smell in the kitchen earlier, and I know it means something but I'm just too shaken to figure out what.

What were they really talking about?

“Sit down, please,” Selene says to Doug, and he pulls out a chair for me at the counter which I slump into, grateful to get off my twitching legs.

Sitting next to me, he looks around the spacious kitchen, a wistful smile displayed across strong features. “Wow, this smells like home tae me. I hav'nae smelled freshly baked shortbread since my Maw passed.”

Selene woos him like a pro, lifting the cooling rack and wafting semi-warm squares glittered with sugar under his nose, “Please have one. In fact you can take some home with you, I always make far too much for just myself and Ellie to finish without help.”

His grin widens into a grateful smile and he inclines his head respectfully, “Thank you verra much, that's kind of ye. Ma brother Jamie will appreciate it tae.”

Leaving the laden grid next to the elbow he's leaning on, she sits opposite us, folding her hands primly while giving him a tight smile, “Are you okay?”

Still chewing, he nods.

“Good. Tea or coffee?” she asks, getting up again.

Lifting his hand in a stop motion, he swallows, “I'm fine, thank you.”

Ignoring me because she knows I won't want either, she sits back down, exhaling a heavy sigh, “Okay, which one of you is going to tell me what happened tonight?”

“I told him what I am,” I blurt.

There, happy now?

“It wasnae her fault. And there's nothin' wrong with her being different. I dinnae understand why she's in trouble fer existing.”

Selene hones in on Doug's answer, her eyes brightening to phosphorescent quicksilver, “What do you mean by
it wasn't her fault
?”

He glances at me, squeezing my leg under the counter where Selene can't see, “One of the local lasses wanted tae take her down because Roddie was being too attentive. Heather has a thing fer Roddie and she took offense tae Rod being friendly, plus she was well blootered. Ellindt reacted when Heather came fer round two. It wasnae her fault. None of it was.”

“Blootered?” I ask, lost again.

“Thoroughly inebriated,” he explains.

“What did Ellindt do exactly?” she interrogates Doug, as if I'm not even in the room with them.

“Her eyes lit up, like yers are busy daeing.”

Selene's frame goes rigid and she mutes her irises back to blue. “Then what happened?”

“We got the heck outtae there. We came straight here, tae sit in the moonlight and just talk.”

“So no one at the party witnessed this?”

Doug shakes his head, and I'm distracted by the way his sun streaked hair slips across the black leather of his jacket with the motion.

“So why did Ellie tell you what she is?”

“Ah guessed when her eyes brightened, and it was confirmed when she opened the road fer me tae drive up.”

Selene pounces out of her chair, “Ellindt!”

“What? He doesn't think we're weird! He wanted to protect me from any of his friends guessing. He didn't judge me or want to kill me, he thinks it's perfectly normal.”

Thinking hard to her, so she'll hear it, I yell,
We're here for human love. Half the battle is won!

She sits heavily back in her chair, pouting her lips when she exhales an exaggerated breath. “Ellindt, your uncle is on his way. What am I supposed to tell him? How do I prevent Zarak from taking you?”

“I'll talk to uncle Venix. This isn't Doug's problem, it's ours.”

He looks from me to her, and back again, “What exactly
is
the problem?”

“Zarak likes to whip me, he's just looking for an excuse to take me back to his dark cave and get me alone,” I grumble, folding my arms and glowering moodily at Selene.

“Which one was Zarak?” he asks.

Selene goes so pale she looks like an opal, “You saw them? Outside?”

“Aye,” he says.

“Then it's their fault for exposing the community, not yours Ellie,” she says to me. “You were completely within your own boundaries to do what you did. You trusted your intuition and it wasn't wrong.”

She looks delighted, clapping her hands together and prancing back out of her chair to withdraw the amphora of blood from the fridge. “Doug, are you sure I can't get you a drink?”

“Dae ye ha'e somethin' stronger than coffee?”

“Just name it and you can have it,” says Selene.

“I wouldnae mind a dram of whisky if I'm honest.”

“Sure thing,” she smiles, a crystal glass appearing in her hand half filled with amber fluid.

Placing it down in front of him, she refills my goblet and magics one for herself.

“So Douglas MacLeod, what do you do for a living?” she asks, making the amphora disappear and taking a long sip of hormone enriched blood.

“I'm studying. I dinnae work yet.”

“What are you studying?”

“Nature conservation,” he smiles warmly, his eyes alighting back to cheer.

What am I? Invisible?

Selene probes, “What do you need to study exactly? You're twenty-one aren't you? Surely you're almost done with your studies.”

Why is parental interrogation so darn predictable? I'm tempted to roll my eyes.

“Aye.” He nods, tucking his long hair behind his ears while creaking the leather at his elbows. “Em, well I need ma degree. I'm daeing animal welfare science, ethics and law; ecology and environmental biology which includes marine and freshwater ecology, and I'm hoping tae get a placement here in Glencoe with the NTS when I get ma Phd.”

Selene glances at me, gives me a fleeting wink, then looking back at him she lifts the shortbread and offers him more with the gesture, “That's why you were bending Ellie's ear when you met. She told me about the swans and fishing.”

He tinges a ruthless shade of pink, “Och, I didnae mean tae bend her ear, it's just I love this place and want tae preserve it fer ma children.”

She leans across the nook, squeezing his hand, “And for us. As long as you preserve the forests you are also helping our ancient sites be preserved in the process.”

I clear my throat, reminding them I'm still sitting here. Isabelle jumps up onto the breakfast counter to wriggle her long tail in my face and I sit back to avoid it, scratching under her chin. At least Izzy acknowledges me.

Releasing his hand, Selene sits back, behaving.

Doug strokes Izzy too, then looks at us both with evident glee, “This is a Scottish wildcat. Where'd ye get her?”

“We have three of them. Cats choose their owners, not the other way around. She came in during a particularly severe storm when she was still very young, and simply never left,” explains Selene.

“They've been around fer over nine thousand years, then mankind comes along and now there's barely four hundred of them left. They're one of the last truly wild cats still around.”

Cuddling Izzy while she purrs and flirts with him, he gestures to her fur, “See this line down her back? Domesticated tabby cats have it gaeing all the way intae their tail, but with a true wild cat it stops at the base here, and they ha'e nae spots on their flanks. Och, she's a beauty. Ain'che pretty girl,” he croons, rubbing under her chin while she leans down so low her head is almost flush with the counter, adoring the attention.

“Someone's in instant love,” grins Selene, indicating Izzy. “So tell me about your ancestor who married a fairy.”

“A MacLeod chieftan married a sidhe. They were only allowed tae stay taegether fer a year and a day, efter that her Da insisted she return home.”

“Go on,” she encourages him, giving me a kick of excitement under the counter.

“They had a baby boy before she had tae return home. But she warned the MacLeods she must never hear her bairn cryin'. At a ceilidh the nanny left the bairn unattended, and he was wailin' somethin' fierce, so his Maw came back from her realm tae soothe him, and he went back tae sleep. She wrapped him in her shawl, and it's still on display at the castle.”

Her eyes ignite again and Selene says with determination, “I'd like to see this shawl.”

“Och, it's verra old now. It's fragile and faded, and parts of it ha'e been cut off and stitched back. It's a magical flag fer the MacLeods, one that saves us if we ever need the help, but we can only use it thrice, and it's already been used twice,” he says, lifting Izzy up and putting her back on the floor, watching her tiptoe to her food bowl.

“What an enchanting story!” effuses Selene.

“It's no' a story. It's true.” He looks at me as if wanting to bang some sense into Selene for disregarding something so dear to his heart as a fable.

“Of course it is, but it makes you two the perfect couple. You're reliving history,” she beams.

Doug shoves his hair back off his face, his voice raised a bit, “Are ye tellin' me I can only see Ellie fer a year?”

“Oh no,
no
. We don't do that any longer. The reason for that was because we age much faster than humans and it would raise eyebrows and get the normal folk asking questions we aren't prepared to answer,” she assures him.

The grip he planted on my leg during her answer bites when he flexes, and I take it as a sign of his relief.

Secretly I'm thrilled he seems dead set on dating me, on keeping me around. Hell, he's seen it all tonight and he hasn't run or wet his pants. Zarak is a 7'2 tall demon, Arelstin is a 6'6 tall vampyre, both of them built like the Hadron Collider, and yet Doug didn't flee. That counts for everything in my book.

That, and he kisses like an angel who wrote the gospel on how to do it right.

“Can I ask ye somethin'?” he looks at us individually.

“Sure,” I nod, happy to be acknowledged and included in the conversation.

“Why blood? Dae ye need it?”

My cheeks heat up and I squirm upright in my seat, “Um...”

Selene answers for me, “We don't need it, but we do like it.”

“Why?” This time he directs the question at me.

Staring at his chin instead of his eyes, to avoid embarrassment, I mumble, “It's an aphrodisiac. It gives us much pleasure and puts us in the mood, but in return the recipient receives more than we do.”

“Spontaneous combustion,” sniggers Selene, like a mischievous teenager.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe she's thousands of years older than me.

He shakes his head at her, “I dinnae understand.”

“Oh deary, how do I put this politely? It gives both of you an abundance of physical ecstasy at the same time,” she says, managing to look chagrined.

His eyes widen and he immediately looks down, distracting himself by twirling the whisky glass between his fingers, staring into its malty depths, “I see.”

I detect him struggling with a smile. He gives me a sidelong glance, his eyes reflecting confined laughter. Regaining his composure he sits straight, swigging the last of his drink.

A blast of displaced air slams our hair forward and I peg to face the source, looking into the nebulous eyes of Uncle Venix.

Selene instantly loses her coy smile and snaps out of her chair, keeping her eyes on my uncle but talking to me, “Ellie, it's time to take Doug back to his car. Circumvent the thugs outside by breaking a few more rules. I'd like to have a word with your uncle alone.”

Watching him warily, I stand too, grabbing hold of Doug's hand and drawing him up out of his seat.

“Doug, this is my Uncle Venix. Venix, this is Doug.”

Douglas steps forward, proffering his hand to my enormous uncle, “It's ma pleasure tae make yer acquaintance, sir.”

To his credit Doug doesn't break eye contact or flinch.

Venix glowers at me, mutes his enraged eyes, and stares down at Doug, shaking his hand with obvious resistance. “Hello.”

“Out!” yells Selene. “It was nice seeing you again, Douglas. Drive safe. Now go, both of you.”

“And you, I will,” he nods, then turns to face me, wrapping his arm protectively around my shoulder and striding with me back into the passage, giving me the 'war is about to explode' wide eyed stare.

Stopping at the doorway to the lounge, I curl in and wrap my arms around him, transporting us back to his car.

It's an instant relief to breathe in the cool freshness, the air fragrant with moss and growth, old leaves and eons of soil.

His grip on my body is so forceful with the transition that it makes me pant a little. “Are you okay?”

Nodding, he slowly releases me, looking around at the vague shapes and closer dark looming trees, then up at the canopy overhead. His hold on me tightens, encouraging me to follow his line of sight.

Looking up I see a curious little face staring down at us, two rounded ears in a face patchy pale and dark, furry and so darn cute. “What is it?”

“It's a stoat. They're naughty as anythin' but I just luff 'em. They've got loads of personality, tae much fer their wee bodies really, and they're like little rebels always lookin' fer trouble.” Looking away from the branch where our voyeur sits, he stares into my eyes, and his are dark as flint in the gloom. “A lot like ye actually.”

“Oh really?” I laugh. “What's that supposed to mean?”