Authors: Joey W Hill
Tags: #Vampires, #Horror, #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Fantasy, #Erotic Fiction, #Erotica, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural
Vampire Instinct (32 page)
19
S
HE couldn’t believe he’d agreed to let her have a schedule of daily visits, but in truth, she was glad, because her focus on that kept her away from making too much of the things he compelled her to do in the hours near dawn over the next couple weeks. It was how vampires were, she reminded herself. Again.
HE couldn’t believe he’d agreed to let her have a schedule of daily visits, but in truth, she was glad, because her focus on that kept her away from making too much of the things he compelled her to do in the hours near dawn over the next couple weeks. It was how vampires were, she reminded herself. Again.
Before Danny had come, it wasn’t unusual for Lady Constance or Ian to enjoy various marked humans in such ways. It was no more to them than sitting down and enjoying a fine meal. There wasn’t even a contempt to it, for they valued the humans for that and other things. It was simply the way it was.
But she no longer entertained any comparison of this with past human employers. If there had been, she was pretty certain she might have been willing to do all manner of unspeakable things to stay in Perth instead of going with Lady Constance.
There was a disquieting element to this, however. She’d once worked in a laundry, and there’d been a widow there who’d had an ongoing assignation with the baker’s assistant down the street. The widow told her that a woman who’d lost her man welcomed the right man’s touch as a comfort, and it need be nothing more than that. That might be true enough, but the fact was how she responded to Mal had nothing to do with Willis. There were times Mal touched her that she couldn’t even see Willis’s face in her mind. She didn’t like what that might say about her.
When she’d had such a thought around Mal, he’d said it made her human and left it at that. Given that vampires didn’t always think so highly of humans, she wasn’t sure that was a compliment. It all confused her, particularly the grin he’d given her for that parting thought.
All in all, it didn’t matter. For now it was what it was. Since she couldn’t really make heads or tails of how she felt about all of it, she set it aside and settled into a routine. Upon rising, she would run through the chores with Kohana, and then she’d collect the things she wanted to bring to the fledglings. Their blood allotment, of course, as well as a bite-sized variety of foods from the kitchen. She’d also pack things she’d found on her short walks in approved areas, and a couple books from Mal’s library to read to them. Promptly at nine p.m., she’d be on the porch, expectantly waiting for Chumani to arrive from her first round of duties at the preserve.
She enjoyed her drives with the Indian woman. Chumani not only gave her more anecdotes about the island’s residents, two- and four-legged, but she also had an uncanny way of determining Elisa’s state of mind and helping her to arrive at the fledgling’s area in the proper frame. Tonight was a prime example of that.
“Mal’s right,” the woman told her as they navigated the curves of the barely there dirt road. “Animals pick up on agitation or fear in a heartbeat, and it makes them look around for trouble or—worse—consider you the cause of it. Those little ones of yours, they’re more dangerous than that. They use it to catch you off guard, take advantage. So what’s got you worked up tonight? You came out of the house with that nervous energy sparking off you like fireflies gone berserk.”
Elisa gave her a wry smile. “Nothing. Just . . . Mr. Malachi, he sometimes makes me unsettled.” He’d been doing some work in the study when she left, had come in the kitchen for his blood. He’d told her he’d take it from the reserves Kohana kept for him. She’d absurdly felt a bit disappointed by that, even though she knew he wasn’t using her as his sole blood source. But she was the only one from whom he was getting it fresh.
She’d fixed him a glass from the refrigerator stores, the same as she’d fix a meal for any of them. But when he came to the counter for it, he trapped her with an arm on either side of her, then dipped his finger in the blood and painted it on her bare wrist, lifting that taste to his mouth and suckling there. “Just warm enough,” he’d said after a moment. “Thank you, Elisa.” Then he’d picked up the glass and off he went, leaving her torn between the desire to put a foot up his backside or simply stand there and tremble with the feeling. The practically edible smile he tossed over his shoulder only made it worse.
“Mal can do that.” Chumani snorted. “Lately he seems to have you in his sights.”
“Have you . . . ever been in his sights?”
Though she told herself not to react like a child, she felt a sharp pain at Chumani’s nod. “When he wants his blood fresh from the vein, he prefers a woman for that. I was willing to donate, and as you know, that can lead to the other things. I didn’t mind it. It wasn’t like he made me. Mal doesn’t do that. If you don’t want him, he doesn’t pull that vampire routine on you. He just shrugs it off and goes on. But a woman has needs as strong as a man’s, and he’s more than equipped to take care of them.” Chumani tossed her a grin. “Though most of the time he takes his blood from a glass. Doesn’t seem to get the itch as much as most vampires, or maybe he just channels it into all this. Like that monk who brought you here, channeling energy to God.”
Elisa thought Mal must have decided to split off from his usual channel, because she’d been getting her fair share of that rush of energy. In fact, his sexual intensity bathed her like a steam bath when he merely stepped into a room.
As if reading her mind, Chumani gave her a small smile. “With you he’s a little different. You’re all innocent and earnest, yet you’re not innocent. From what I’ve put together, it should have been beaten out of you, but it hasn’t been. There’s a foolhardy strength to you that stands up to anything. It interests him. Here.” She pressed a brief palm over her heart. “As much as his kind feels things that way, of course. I’m thinking that something about you may remind him of his life before.”
“Before?”
“When he was a human.” Chumani considered her. “He’s never told me it’s a secret, and he told me straight enough when I asked. Pillow talk, you know.”
Elisa nodded, trying not to get distracted by the intimate idea of Chumani lying in Mal’s arms, with him making “pillow talk” against that shining wing of ebony hair. Chumani currently had it braided, but Elisa had seen it loose and flowing in the dawn hours, right before they turned in. The other men teased her, but the woman’s sculpted face and pouty lips, as well as dark, thickly lashed eyes, were any man’s ideal of beauty, no matter her six-foot height and the fact she’d obviously been strong as an ox even before being given two marks. Maybe because Elisa ran up against so many obstacles with her not-overly intimidating stature, she saw everything to admire in the smooth muscles in Chumani’s arms, the architecture of her shoulders and proud bosom. She emanated a warrior’s confidence.
Because of that, despite her sour reaction to Chumani being Mal’s lover, her compliments flattered Elisa deeply. It amazed her that the woman could see such admirable things. It must have shown in her face, for Chumani gave her a pinch. “You don’t value yourself enough. You don’t see anything remarkable in convincing your vampire Mistress to let you bring six vampire fledglings across an ocean, particularly after one of them damn near killed you? Or that you’ve stood up to Mal every different direction, even when he’s set you back on your heels, time and again? You don’t intimidate. Your jaw wasn’t the only one that about dropped on the table when he agreed to let you do this. You just tunnel under, around and wear holes through your opposition until it gives way out of pure resignation.”
Elisa found a smile. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard that.” Dev had said it once when she’d insisted on something to the point he’d given her a smart slap on the buttocks with his hat . . . before going to do as she’d asked.
“Well, it’s impressive. I’m not sure anyone other than Kohana would go up against Mal like that. And that includes me.”
“You could take on any of these blokes one-armed.”
Chumani chuckled. “Not Mal. But I admit, I’ve beaten a couple of the others arm wrestling. Male pride is a tricky thing. I don’t get caught up in it, but every once in a while, I wouldn’t mind being short and cuddly like you.”
“Cuddly?” Elisa echoed.
“Cuddly.” Chumani gave her a poke in the belly and pinched her cheek before Elisa slapped her away good-naturedly. “Sometimes a tall, strong girl would like to have that advantage. You know, ask a man to get her something out of a cabinet because she can’t stretch far enough.” She batted her eyes, making Elisa bark with laughter. “You ever see the way a man looks when you do that? For just a minute, he’s your hero, and he likes that. Not saying I want to tease or put on feminine wiles.” Chumani shrugged. “But it’s hard to convince a man you’re interested in him if he thinks you can wrestle him to the ground.”
“I think Kohana could take you in a fair fight.”
Elisa bit back a smile as Chumani jerked the wheel in surprise. She gave Elisa a narrow look, made that noncommittal Indian grunt. “That one doesn’t see the forest for the trees, for all his putting on airs that he’s some great shaman’s son. Old coot.”
Kohana covered it well under his gruff teasing, taking her barbs and cracks about him being an old man, but in truth Elisa didn’t think there was more than about a decade between them. Willis had been nearly ten years older than her, and Mal . . .
She stopped herself with a fierce shake. That wasn’t the same at all, and no good would come from her mooning about it that way. She cleared her throat. “I think you
should
challenge him to a wrestling match one night. You know, there’s that pretty glade near the house. Private, and lots of soft ground if he puts you down hard.”
should
challenge him to a wrestling match one night. You know, there’s that pretty glade near the house. Private, and lots of soft ground if he puts you down hard.”
Chumani’s eyes narrowed further, the long lashes becoming a bristling frame for glittering coal. “So confident of that, are you?”
“Just depends on how much you’re hoping that you’ll lose.” Elisa slanted her a grin.
After a weighted silence, where Chumani made an obvious effort to hold her aloof expression, she relented, letting out a snort. “You are one
hell
of a maid.”
hell
of a maid.”
“I was second to Mrs. Pritchett,” Elisa said proudly. “When she retired, I was going to . . . Well, I guess I still can.” Clearing her throat, she changed the subject. She wasn’t able to imagine herself on the station, wanting the things she’d wanted before, so it would be too difficult to paint that picture for another. “What did you mean about Mal . . . before?”
“I know he’s told you some basics. He’s Cherokee, and his people were getting Westernized, even had a newspaper and a church. Then the settlers got greedy for their land and figured out ways to steal it from them. He was part of the thousands forced to walk the Trail of Tears. Did you read about that in your history book?”
Elisa shook her head, and Chumani’s lips tightened. “They took most of them out of their homes at gunpoint, with little more than the clothes on their backs. Put them in camps where a bunch died of disease. Then they walked them over a thousand miles to a new reservation. Nobody knows for sure how many of the sixteen thousand died; probably about three or four thousand.”
Elisa thought of the things in her own history, the Aborigines fed poisoned bread by settlers or hunted down like vermin, and closed her eyes. “Mal was six,” Chumani continued. “His white father died in a hunting accident a year before, else he might have been able to give them an option to go elsewhere. Instead, they were forced to go. His mother died on the trail, and something happened after that where Mal got separated from the others. Ended up on a farm.”
She came to a stop on one of the elevations that provided an ocean view, whitecaps and rushing noise coming through the night. It was a steadying reminder of where Mal had ended up, what he’d built. It helped Elisa remember she was in the present, not Mal’s past. But there was still a cold feeling in her stomach as Chumani pressed on. “A few decades later there would be a real hard-core attempt to ‘whitewash’ Indian children.” Chumani’s voice tightened with sadness, a history she’d not experienced but that connected to her blood. “Unfortunately, Mal became one of the early experiments. They put him in a mission school with a bunch of orphans.
“The guy who ran it was a real fire-and-brimstone kind of bastard. They cut his hair, gave him the name Malachi, wouldn’t let him speak his language. He was young, but he was rebellious. They had to beat him a lot, and they’d tie him to his bed at night like a prisoner to keep him from running away. Eventually he was broken, trained to do manual labor, gardening. As he got older, he was sent back East as an indentured servant to serve in the house of a rich Boston woman. Filthy streets, noise, too many people. That’s how he remembers it.
“He couldn’t figure out how to leave all that maze of streets, so he ended up being there for ten years, until he was a young man. Then another woman bought his contract to serve in her house. She was a vampire. He won’t say more than that. That’s always the way of things. The things that don’t matter, you spit those out right fast. They’re the unpleasant truths, straightforward. But the things it made him, he doesn’t talk about that. This is what he is now.”
Elisa gazed out over the night terrain. “So he does know what it’s like to be a servant,” she said quietly.
To be insignificant.
“I did him an injustice.”
To be insignificant.
“I did him an injustice.”
“He’s a long way from that, and sometimes we have a tendency to put the painful past behind a heavy door, to the point we forget some of the things it teaches us. But he’s definitely different than the few vampires who’ve visited this place. Maybe that’s because he’s ‘young,’ or maybe he’ll always be that way. I’m hoping he’ll always be that way.”
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