The Kingdom of the Nine; The Vampire Legacy IV (2 page)

“That wasn't nice.” Michael's voice whispered
in my ear. I turned, and looked back at him as he stood in the
doorway of the house, ten feet behind me.

“She doesn't come off as being very nice.” I
replied, and then caught myself. I closed my eyes and shook my
head. “Forgive me, Mike, I know she's your friend, and Quinn's
ex-whatever, and Julian's current... something, but she's going to
hurt him again, and knowing that hurts me.”

“Try to relax. He's not going anywhere,
especially from you.”

“I'm a secret, Mike.” I sighed. “A secret
that he obviously doesn't want out, and dare I say it out loud, I
want him, just as much, if not more, than she does and it hurts
that I can't have him.”

“You have him more than you know.” Mike
smiled. “Like you said to Quinn, things are going to happen to take
your mind from this, some adventure will come up.”

“Funny.” I replied and started to walk
away.

“Cait.” He hollered, which made me look back.
“You won't be a secret for long.”

“That's what I'm counting on.” I answered,
quietly and finished getting in my car. I looked at the big green,
three-story house in my rear-view mirror as I pulled away and
sighed. Life was about to change for me, after being someone that
Julian had protected for such a long time, the cat was being let
out of the bag, but it was the person finding out about me that
frightened me.

1

The clock struck twelve that night and there
was a light knock on my door. I had been sitting on my couch,
reading some of the old books that I had taken from Julian's
extensive library, when my visitor arrived. After a quiet dinner
and a few hours of packing, my husband was sleeping, and Damien was
fast asleep in his twin-sized bed up in his racecar bedroom.

Slowly, I rose from the couch and made my way
towards the door, which I opened slowly, feeling the strange
presence on the other side. It wasn't Julian, or Quinn, since the
two of them felt much the same way to me, but this one was almost
like Michael, but stronger, and I looked into the face of Ashley
Wolf as she stood on the other side of the threshold.

“Can I help you, Ms. Wolf?” I asked her. She
opened her mouth as if she were about to speak, then she closed
them and shrugged. “Would you like to come in?”

“Yes, please.” She replied and stepped into
my house. The two of us got comfortable in a little den that I had
off to the left of the living room where Julian and I usually went
to talk and I looked at her as I sat across from her, in silence.
“I'm sorry about earlier.”

“So am I.” I replied.

“It was hard, after all this time, to see him
like that in the presence of someone else.”

“Like what?” I asked, softly, thinking about
his pale face and frightened eyes.

“He told me about you.” Ashley sighed.

“What did he say?” I questioned.

“That you were someone very special to him.”
She smiled. “I was wondering, since he didn't feel like elaborating
on it, if you could tell me, exactly who you are to him.”

“Do you have time?” I asked; she nodded.
“Good, you might want to get comfortable this may take a bit.”

It started two years ago, and, this is how it
went...

*****

The dream had always been the same for me, a
large house, beautiful, but eerie at the same time, and I had been
standing in front of it, looking up at the night sky, taking in the
light of the full moon that hung above the house.

Without warning, I was standing inside this
house, looking at the expensive furniture that lined its corridors
and rooms, but it was always dark, not totally dark, but more to
the fact that there was just enough light to find your way around.
The same thing always happened next; I explored the halls and rooms
always looking for one thing, never finding it, but at the same
time, feeling the strange presence that seemed to be following me
around. It was then, as I stepped out onto the back patio, taking
in the almost picture perfect scene of green grass that met up with
the ocean view, that I felt the danger behind me, and I turned but
all I saw was blackness.

I used to wake up much the same way every
time I dreamed this particular dream, screaming, having to be
comforted by my husband. This last time, though, I didn't scream. I
controlled that fear and with my two year old son asleep in the
room beside ours, I woke with the strange feeling that my dream
wasn't meant to scare me, even though it did, but instead to inform
me about a situation.

I slipped out from under the covers and made
my way, quietly down the hallway, passed my son's room, and down
the stairs. The floor was cold under my feet and I felt it was
necessary to slip my shoes on as I began to head down to the
basement, towards the office that I had down there. It wasn't much,
a computer desk, a filing cabinet, holding my fictional stories
that I had written over the years, and three large bookshelves
covered, from top to bottom, with probably every book ever
published on the subject of vampires.

There were years that I didn't remember, or
that were so hazy, it was hard to make out the truth in my
memories, but I had always been obsessed with vampires, since I was
a little girl and the foster family that my three foster sisters
and I had grown up with had never really thought it was dangerous
for a little girl to be interested in bloodsucking monsters,
although my therapist wasn't that sure it was a good idea.

It wasn't the office that I was interested in
this night, but the small door that lead to a closet, just off to
the right of the bookshelves. I moved small boxes out of the way,
and then slowly opened the door. There, in the darkness of this
small room, were several boxes that had been sent to me by Connie,
the sister closest to me, after our foster parents had died in a
car accident.

They had been there for almost a year and a
half, collecting dust, unopened, because I had been too busy with
my son and working to care, but now I was drawn to them. I pulled
out the top box and set it on the floor, opened it slowly and
looked in at the contents of the box. It was mostly clothes, and
jewelry things that our mother would have wanted me to have,
nothing out of the ordinary, nothing important at this moment.

The second box was less helpful, more
clothing, more heirlooms and a couple documents on the name and
whereabouts of my biological mother, not that I cared to know now.
It had been, after all, 26 years.

The third box was one that made me stop and
stare. Inside there was a letter from Connie to me, telling me
about the house that we had visited several times during the years
I couldn't recall. She went on to say that she was enclosing the
pictures that we had both taken of it and she hoped it would remind
me of Julian.

That struck me as odd. I had never remembered
ever meeting a man named Julian, but, of course, there was a lot
that I didn't know. I was about to find out just how strange my
life had been those three years, and it all started when I picked
up the book of photographs that lay on the bottom of this last
box.

When I flipped open the cover of this small
album, the photo on the first page made me smile. There we were,
the four of us, Beth, Laura, Connie and I with our arms around each
other, standing in a field of lush green grass, smiling at the
camera. I shook my head, knowing that I should remember this, but I
didn't. It was the next photo that made my heart almost stop.
There, on the matted piece of professional photography paper, was
the house from my dreams.

I stared for what seemed like hours before I
had the nerve to change the page, and like a movie, the inside and
outside of this dream house was laid out before me. I felt as if I
were on a tour, for there were little captions on the bottom of
every page. Oddly, everything started to look familiar and when I
finally closed the book, holding it pressed tightly to my chest, I
knew that I had to go back there. My mind had surpassed memories of
this place and of the years that surrounded our visits to it. For
some odd reason, I thought that maybe the dream had something to do
with the missing memories, if I could make heads or tails of it. I
had to know if going back would bring them to the surface, and to
do that I had to call Connie and get directions, but for tonight,
it was time to go back to bed.

I closed my eyes as I settled in against the
pillow. My husband, Robert, was sleeping soundly in the bed beside
me, and I fell almost instantly to sleep. When I opened my eyes, in
what I was sure was a dream, I began to see things that seemed all
too real. At first, there was a haze around me, and then I stepped
out into the bright white light of the day…

The sun shone brightly in the sky above us,
and the green grass below our bare feet, was lush and soft. It was
the perfect summer day, or at least it was for me. I was only 18 at
the time, what felt like eons ago, and it was my first trip to the
New London, Connecticut Park, both Connie’s and mine. The two other
girls we were with had been there many times before us.

Every time they came home from visiting this
place, they spoke of the magic they felt when they were there, and
magic was just the word I would use to describe the feeling that I
got when I stepped foot on the property. It wasn't your normal
state park, to say the least. On the property, was a large
three-story house with a high green roof and servants’
quarters.

There were two gardens, one on each side of
the house; one was a large oval garden, with a large U-shaped
gazebo at the end of it, to give shade to who ever needed it on the
hot summer days, and shelter to those who were out in the rain. I
loved this place, my heart beat faster as I looked around, with the
ocean on one side and the house and its five acres of land on the
other. I was almost in heaven.

It was then, as we walked the path that
followed the ocean, in what might have been called the backyard of
this large estate that I felt this overwhelming sensation come over
me and I stopped walking. Connie looked back, her brown eyes
smiling at me. I waved her on, thinking that this was probably my
overactive imagination kicking in and she ran to catch up with Beth
and Laura.

As I looked around, trying to find the spot
where the feeling was coming from; I found that my attention was
drawn to the steps at the end of the oval garden, the one we were
told was called the East Garden. That's when I saw someone looking
at me. He was tall, and beyond gorgeous. I was captivated by him at
first sight.

From head to toe, he was stunning. He had
long, silky black hair, which was loosely pulled back in a
ponytail, and the sun reflected purple highlights off it, because
of its dark color. His face was childish, full of life, and at the
same time, pale as if the sun had never touched it, but it suited
him.

His eyes stared at me, and even from that
distance, I could see their color. They were grass green, and just
as bright, but I saw something else in them, a ‘darkness’, and that
frightened me a bit, but also drew me more to him.

He wore a white dress shirt, unbuttoned to
his chest, and pulled out from his black dress pants. I could tell
that he liked to appear well educated, not that he wasn't. His
hands were in the pockets of those black pants, as he stood
casually on the steps, looking down at me, as if he were bored of
this world. I shook my head, thinking that he was just a figment of
my imagination, only because Laura would have been all over him if
she had seen him first, but she hadn't noticed him at all.

I looked back up at his eyes, and was caught
in a stare, his stare, one that I didn't want to break away from.
He smiled, handsomely, and it eased the strong feelings of danger
that I got from him.

A name whispered in the wind, towards me. I
had never heard anything quite like it before, I had never heard
the wind talk before either, but it was a strong masculine voice,
and the name that it whispered was Julian. My eyes widened, knowing
full well that this was HIS name, and I watched as he turned back
to the view that he had been looking at before. I looked, quickly,
at Connie, who was calling my name and glanced in the direction of
the young man, but then looked back at me as if he were not there.
Confused by this, knowing that she would at least comment about
him, I turned and looked back. The young man was gone.

My eyes opened quickly, and then shut just as
fast, blinded by the morning sun that streamed into my room. I
could hear Robert talking to Damien, telling him that Mommy was
still sleeping, but who could sleep. I had just seen the man that I
was suppose to know, the gorgeous, black haired, young man who
stole my soul just by looking at him. Quickly, I looked up at the
clock, then at Robert who stood in the doorway.

“I have to go to work.” He whispered. “Are
you getting up, it's almost ten-thirty?”

“Ah, yeah, I'm getting up.” I sighed and
slowly made my way out of bed. Robert looked at me and smiled.

“Are you feeling well? You look a bit drawn.”
He asked.

“Fine, thank you.” I smiled back, then
stretched and slipped by him into the bathroom. “I just had a late
night.”

“I heard you get up, what were you doing?” He
asked, again, watching me brush my teeth. I shrugged and looked at
him, spitting out the foam from the toothpaste.

“I was thinking about my parents, that's
all.” I replied, rinsed and walked out of the room, followed by
Robert, who slipped on his coat. He kissed me on the lips, quickly,
and then waved to Damien, who waved back then continued to play
with his toys.

Shortly after Robert left, I picked up the
phone and dialed my foster sister's number. I knew that Connie
would be at work, and when her secretary answered, I wasn't sure if
I wanted to reply.