Sun Kissed (The Guardian Angel Series Book 2) (18 page)

BOOK: Sun Kissed (The Guardian Angel Series Book 2)
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I found myself at the bottom of the
staircase by the front door. Music was coming from every direction; I didn’t
know which way to go.

“This way, ma’am.” An old man offered me
his arm. The old man walked me through a living room full of paintings. They
depicted Latvia; I recognized them because they matched those Eli had in his
house back at Sage Sanctum. The room was spacious; only three or four chairs
decorated the room. There was a fireplace on the far left wall, although it
looked like it had never been used. Vampires were scared of fires, or so I
read. Maybe that’s why it looked so pristine.

I peeked sideways at the old man, he seemed
human. His skin was normal and his eyes were a deep blue. Why would a human be
willing to stay here? Maybe he was under lure?

 

When I was a vampire, I used lure to get
out of things and to get what I wanted. Kyle’s face entered my mind. It had
been such a long time since I’d even thought about him. I hope he’d made new
friends or found a girl who appreciated him.

“My, my, don’t you look … delicious.”
Lucian smiled as the old man led me into a wide open sitting room.

I returned his smile with an awkward one of
my own.

“C’mon now, there is no need to be so
uptight. No one here is going to hurt you.”

I bit my tongue, forcing myself not to
reply with a witty response. What would happen if he wasn’t around and one of
his ‘pals’ got hungry? What if I accidently cut myself? It could start a frenzy.
I doubt even Lucian was strong enough to take on a swarm of angry, hungry,
frenzied vampires. My eyes scanned the room and I couldn’t find Eli.

“Slow your beating heart, my dear.” He ran
a long index finger across my chest, stopping above my heart. “I didn’t hurt
him.”

It took a lot of effort, but I managed to
keep from cringing. If I had any food in my stomach it would have been hard to
keep down. His skin was slightly warm, meaning he’d just fed.

“There are so many humans here,” I
commented, stepping back slowly. A few more humans were socializing with and
grinding on vampires in the spacious room.

“Yes. Most of them are feeders and the
others are servants. They stick around in hopes of becoming immortal.”

“And do they?”

“No.” Lucian chuckled. “They’re merely disposable
help. The lot of them.”

I wanted to be mad at him for saying that,
but I couldn’t be. These humans chose to be here. They were either addicted to
the bites or hoping to become immortal. It was stupidity at its finest.

“Ahh, Mr De Luca, just in time.” Lucian
called, gesturing behind me.

I turned around and my mouth almost hit the
floor. Eli was wearing a tuxedo. I’d never seen him so formal. I drank up his
appearance as he crossed the room. His black jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a
collared, white shirt. His long black pants were tight, not too tight, but tight
enough to make a fight more difficult for him. Usually he wore clothes he could
maneuver and fight in. As he walked toward me, I forgot where I was, forgot
that I was surrounded by dangerous monsters. It was just me and him.

“Did you get much rest?” he asked me as he
adjusted his long black tie.

“Not really, no. Did you?”

“No.” The corner of his mouth twitched
slightly and his eyes warmed as he looked at me. The electricity emanating off
him was hard to ignore.

“Well, if you two are finished, I’d like to
discuss the plans over dinner.” Lucian led us away from the room. I tried to
relax. It was evident by now that Lucian wouldn’t hurt me but I couldn’t trust
him, his word, or his cronies.

 

Lucian led us into a dining room. The
floors were tiled a nice rusty-brown color and a long dark wooden table rested
in the middle. Twenty big wooden chairs were spaced evenly along the span of
the table. I fell into step beside Eli, my eyes resting on the silver, unlit candelabra
that decorated the table, and then onto the food. There were mountains and
mountains of all kinds of foods. Chicken wings, mashed potatoes, salads, bread
rolls, and vegetables. My stomach growled. I hadn’t eaten since Eli and I had
stopped off at the diner.

“Please sit.”

Lucian dashed over to the seat at the head
of the table. It was bigger than the rest of them, like a throne. A servant
took me by my arm and guided me to the opposite side of the table. Another
servant sat Eli down across from me.

“The others aren’t joining us?” I asked.

Lucian clicked his fingers and a short Middle
Eastern woman poured him a glass of red… wine? Blood? I couldn’t tell.

“I don’t like to share the details of my
plans with too many people.”

“But there’s so much food,” I countered,
barely meeting Eli’s face over the salad.

“Eat what you can. The rest will be
disposed of.”

I couldn’t help but be a little sad. There
was so much starvation in the world and yet here I sat with literal mountains
of food in front of me.

“Shall we begin?”

As Lucian spoke, servants scooped piles of
food onto our plates but I was past the point of hunger. Nausea was the most
dominant feeling in my stomach now.

“As of tomorrow, you will start your
training.”

“I don’t need training.”

“You need training,” Eli interrupted. “You’re
impulsive, uncertain, and scared. Not to mention you have no idea how to use
the elements properly nor do you have any control over your Heelian side.”

“But I —”

“You need to train.”

Eli wasn’t playing around, he was serious.
His usual bright green eyes were dark and they narrowed in on me.

“Fine. I’ll train.”

Lucian rubbed his index finger along his
top lip, watching us intently. “Good. It’s settled, Ruby you will receive
training and we just happen to have —”

“I’ll train her.”

Lucian chuckled. “No, that isn’t going to
happen.”

“I wasn’t giving you an option.”

Lucian leapt from his chair in a blur too
fast for my eyes but Eli was ready for him. Lucian came to a stop and they were
inches apart. Vampires busted in through the surrounding doors, hissing and
growling. Lucian raised his hand in a gesture for them to stop.

“I’m her guardian. I will decide what’s
best for her,” Eli warned him.

Then I saw the thick piece of wood pressing
on Lucian’s chest, directly above his heart. In the heat of it all, I hadn’t realized
I had risen from my seat as well.

“Eli can teach me how to defend myself and
you can sort out who helps me with both my sides of magic. Deal?”

“That’s fine with me,” Eli replied, not
taking his eyes of Lucian.

“I suppose that would be okay.” Lucian
grinned.

“Then let’s continue, please?”

Lucian slowly backed toward his chair, not
taking his eyes off Eli. Once he was seated, Eli dropped back into his own
chair, concealing his stake in the sleeve of his jacket once again.

“Go,” Lucian ordered the vampires, and as
quickly as they appeared, they disappeared.

I exhaled loudly and dropped back into my
chair. “What is your next request?”

“You shift your time to vampire time.
Meaning, you will sleep during the day and be awake during the night.”

We resumed our conversation under civil
pretences but the tensions and anger in the room were obvious.

“I want to train during the day.”

Lucian clenched his jaw in frustration and
exhaled loudly out his nose. “Without supervision? Not a chance.”

“We’re on a mountain, at least twenty-four
hours from the nearest town. We aren’t going anywhere.”

“You two running away is not my biggest
concern.” He glanced sideways at Eli, who was eating a chicken drumstick.

I knew what his biggest concern was. He
didn’t want Eli and I to have unsupervised sessions because although he was a
vampire, he still had strong feelings against goddess and guardian angel intimate
relations.

“I can assure you that that should be the
least of your concerns. Eli and I care for each other but it’s strictly
professional.” I may have bent the truth a little. “Besides,” I said,
swallowing hard. “I just lost my boyfriend.”

Of course he knew that, he was the one who
gave the order to take Hunter away from me. I had to play that card. When
Lucian first arrived at Sage, I told him Hunter was my boyfriend.

“A one hour session at dawn is all I’m
allowing.”

“That’s all I’m asking for.”

 

Lucian rattled off more rules and routines
I was expected to follow.

At no time during the night was I able to
walk the house or grounds alone. When I was in my room, my door had to be
locked from the inside and I wasn’t allowed to open it to anyone that hadn’t specified
beforehand they needed to see me. Under no circumstances could I offer a
vampire my blood or drink blood from a vampire.
Well, that’s a no brainer.

 

By now it was very late. I ate my dinner; once
I started it was hard to stop. I ended up being a lot hungrier than I thought.
My heavy stomach made it almost impossible to fight away the sleepiness that
was catching up with me.

“Is that everything?” I asked.

“For now.”

“Then if you don’t mind, I’d like to go to
bed.”

“Both of you should sleep. Take her to her
room, but keep in mind that I will know if you linger,” Lucian warned Eli.

Eli, too tired for words, simply nodded.

We walked back through the lively sitting
room. The party was still very much alive, only this time there were less clothes.
I kept my eyes on the floor. I had only been in this room for a few seconds and
I’d already seen enough blood and breasts to last me a lifetime. We passed
quickly through the orgy and into the living room.

“What the hell was that?” I blurted when we
reached the staircase.

“A blood orgy,” Hunter replied, floating
down the stairs toward us.

No other term could describe the way he
moved, he appeared weightless. His black eyes watched me curiously as I
instinctively stepped closer to Eli. Hunter’s face flinched, hurt by my
movement. I thought about treating Hunter a little better than I had been, but
I needed more time to adjust. I was a little relieved to see he wasn’t a part
of the blood exchanging orgy in the next room.

I wasn’t in the mood to say ‘I told you so,’
but I could tell by the way Eli tensed up when he saw Hunter he was in as much
shock as I was when I first saw him.

“Don’t look too surprised, De Luca, surely
you were hoping for something like this to happen to me.”

“I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, let alone
you, Hunter.” Eli’s voice was sympathetic and polite.

“Yeah, sure,” he snorted. Hunter came to a
stop a few steps in front of us, towering over us. He flicked his fangs out. “Now
if you’ll excuse me, I’m hungry.”

He brushed passed me and I was left
staring. Eli tugged gently at my hand and step by step, we made it up the
stairs and back to my room.

“Now I believe you,” he finally said.

His words annoyed me. “You should have
believed me when I told you the first time.”

“I saw him die. He wasn’t moving. Then I
wasn’t sure if you’d hit your head or not when we crashed and —”

“Well, now you know I didn’t.”

“Move on.” I heard the ice cold voice
before I saw the vampire. Behind Eli was the tall, blond vampire that had
killed Hunter. If I recall correctly, his name was Liam.

Eli turned away from me and Liam stepped
away to let Eli pass. “I’ll see you at dawn.”

“But that’s only a few hours away,” I
called after him.

Eli looked back at me with a smirk; his
eyes alight with humor. I closed my door, avoiding Liam’s cold stare.

 

I turned and noticed my stuff in boxes on the
bed. When I found the box with my clothes in it, I pulled my dress off and
slipped into a pair of checker-patterned boxer shorts and a navy blue tank top.
I wasn’t going to have a shower, what was the point? In four hours I’d have to
wake up and get dirty. I’d shower after my training session with Eli. I pulled
a small alarm clock out from a box and set it for five a.m. and then set it
down on the bedside table. I pushed the boxes off the bed and over to the
window before sliding in between the silk sheets. I stared up at the pretty
chandelier. I didn’t turn it off, I wasn’t comfortable enough to sleep in the
dark here. On the other hand, I didn’t think I was tired enough to sleep in the
light, either. I closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to come. When I saw Mila,
Hunter, Camilla, Mr Aleksandrov and Eli smiling at me, I knew sleep had taken
me.

 

 

Training

BOOK: Sun Kissed (The Guardian Angel Series Book 2)
5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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