Woman King (29 page)

“I warned you about friendships with
vampires. Did you really think that I would let you into my life,
my inner circle, and then let some human man come in and walk away
with you?”

I didn’t reply. Instead I scanned the room
for a ladder to get into the pool. I needed to cool down.
Unfortunately, Hearst’s pool was ten feet deep everywhere but at
the far end, where a small wading area had been created. I turned
toward the shallow end.

“Let’s swim,” I said, walking toward the
water.

William blocked my path. “Let me help you out
of your dress,” he said, reaching around to unzip the back of my
black sheath, then letting it fall to the floor.

Very suddenly I was wearing nothing but black
lace boy shorts, a matching bra and heels. William came around and
ran a finger under one bra strap pulling it down around my arm.

“There you go, walking away again, but I want
to finish our discussion. I saw the way he was looking at you,
Olivia,” he purred, and then he slipped his finger under the other
strap and pulled it down, exposing my breast. Slowly, he ran his
thumb across my nipple and then leaned in closer. “There is no man
alive who wouldn’t want you, the way you were dressed tonight.”

I grabbed his hand where it rested on my
breast and brought his thumb to my lips. “You fool,” I said, as I
slipped his finger into my mouth and gently bit it. “I’m not
interested in any man alive. I’m in love with you. Only you. But if
you want me to stay, you’re going to have to accept me for who I
am… my work… my ideas, all of it…or this night will be nothing but
a waste of time.”

William brought me into his arms and held me.
We stood there for some time, until finally he lifted his head and
began to speak.

“It’s been more than a decade since I’ve had
a mate,” he said. “In fact, for almost all my nearly two hundred
years I have lived my life alone. Then one day, you walked into
that tunnel, throwing all my plans to the wind.”

I smiled, squeezing his hand.

“What I’m trying to say is, yes. I agree,” he
said. “I will change. I will learn to be more flexible.”

I kissed him then, thinking it was the most
economical way to express my thoughts. It was hopelessly
impractical to bind myself to a vampire, but I was in love for the
first time in my life, and had no wish to sacrifice my happiness
for practical purposes. I had been that person who jettisoned her
emotions in exchange for a well-ordered life, and it had nearly
killed me. I was ready for a change, damn the complications. I
wanted a lover who understood me, maybe better than I understood
myself. So I kissed him again, and threw my fate into the hands of
the supernatural, just as my ancestors had done.

We undressed and climbed into the pool,
bringing our bodies together. I kissed his face, his eyelids. He
pressed his lips into the small of my neck and nibbled on my
earlobe. We floated in the warm pool for some time before he
spoke.

“Would you have slept with that
reporter?”

I shifted in his arms so I could look at him
more directly. “No,” I said. “In fact, I’d been dreading the date
since the moment I’d agreed to it. If you hadn’t kidnapped me, I’m
certain the evening would have ended badly.”

“I didn’t really kidnap you,” William said
smiling. “I knew you’d come with me.”

“How can you be so sure of yourself?”

“I’m not sure of myself, far from it,”
William said. “But, I’m sure about
us
. I know we’re meant to
be together.”

“I don’t know if I would have come for you,”
I admitted. “I was convinced you’d never be comfortable with my
work with the Council.”

William nodded, pulling me closer. “Darlin,
I’m certain you and I are destined to get under each other’s skin.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be together.”

Before I could reply, William kissed me
again. Our kisses quickly turned heated, as we pressed our bodies
together in the warm, salt water. Finally, he picked me up and sat
me on the edge of the pool, parted my legs and asked me to lie
back, leaving me exposed to him. He started at my ankle, placing
feathery kisses along my leg. Eventually he reached my center,
kissing me deeply at my core. Then he moved his lips back to the
tender skin on the inside of my thigh, where without warning, he
bit me. At the same moment his teeth pierced my skin, he used his
fingers to the same effect. This is what being hit with a Taser
must feel like, I thought, as my body bucked and rocked against his
mouth. I screamed at the shock of the pain and the pleasure.

Hard to believe, but I had forgotten for a
moment that I was making love with a vampire. Your imagination only
goes so far when it comes to day dreams of moments like these.
Imagining being bit is nothing like the real thing. It’s shocking,
but perhaps not as scary as one might think. This wasn’t an attack,
at least not the lethal kind. He was a gentle lover and true to his
word that night at his house, seemed to take only a sip before he
raised his head to gauge my reaction. I sat up and smiled,
beckoning him to join me. William climbed out of the pool, standing
above me, his long red hair matted against his shoulders,
glistening from the water. He was beautiful and menacing to behold,
pale and thin, his body marked with tattoos and ancient scars he
must have received on the battlefield before he died. He sat down
next to me.

“Dar-lin,” he said, his twang more pronounced
tonight. “Are you ready? ‘Cause this is the point of no
return.”

“Which point?” I asked playfully. “The
trespassing on state property, or the part where you make love to
me?”

“Both,” he said, smiling as he slipped inside
me, “Both.”

Our first time together was slow and
languorous.

“This is why you belong in a castle,” he
whispered. “Good things happen to you.”

The second time, after he had fed me
strawberries and Champagne, was different, rougher. William
approached me from behind, and ran his hands down my back and bent
me over at the waist as a ballet dancer would with his partner. I
could feel his sharp nails, the ones he used to play guitar, as he
ran them along my spine to the top of my neck. Then he ran his
sharpened teeth along the same path, reaching the top of my neck
and grazing my skin at my nape, a place that would be covered by my
hair in the morning. The rest of his body followed as he penetrated
me. My senses were overloaded, overcome by his sensual nature and
my own lust and desire pouring through my body. Sex had never been
this good, or this intense, before and I wondered for a moment if
it was because I allowed myself to feel so greatly now, or because
I was with someone who made me feel so much.

When we were finished, I slumped over onto
the pool floor. “My God,” I said, deciding to leave it at just
that. I looked over at William and knew he was thinking the same
thing. We had truly given ourselves to each other tonight. Our
emotions had been as exposed as our bodies, but neither of us had
any regrets. I could feel it.

We dressed and walked hand in hand back to
the car. My body began to ache as soon as I slid into the seat. I
was sore in places I knew many women would never be. I smiled,
amazed at what I had done with William and how badly I wanted to do
it again.

“You tasted my blood,” I said, as he pulled
his car back onto Highway 1.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t,” he said, his
voice drifting off a bit. “In the end, I had to take a small taste.
Did I hurt you?”

I yawned, overcome with fatigue before I
said, “I’m fine,” I said. “It was magnificent, but I have to tell
you I don’t think I can stay awake much longer.”

“Go to sleep then,” he said. “I’ll wake you
when we’re home.”

As I drifted off, I wondered which home he
meant.

It was disorienting to wake up in bed and
feel another body next to mine. It wasn’t something I’d done very
often, and at first my mind could not reconcile the facts. A moment
of panic set in as I tried to retrace my steps from the night
before. A horrible image of JP jumped into view for a moment. Then,
slowly, my body began to register the sensation of the cool mass
beside me. A tumble of memories came flooding in, causing me to
blush, and I realized that it was William next to me.

What confused me at first, too, was the bed,
which had not existed in his house when I’d first visited. Made of
a dark wood, the queen-sized frame sat in the middle of his bedroom
against one of the walls. I knew instantly that he had made the bed
for us. I was touched at his thoughtfulness, but also chagrined at
his expectation of success.

I sat up to get a better sense of things. As
I placed my hands down on the sheets to push up, I became aware of
something else that was new and unexpected: the trio of copper
bands with the sapphires I had admired at the jewelry gallery was
sitting on my ring finger. I examined my hand, not sure what to do
next. An image from a vintage horror movie popped into my head: the
scene where the innocent, impoverished girl is lured from the
village to a fate worse than death…to be the bride of a
vampire.

But I knew that wasn’t my story. I had walked
into the castle as a willing participant. I was curious to know
what significance the rings had for William. I looked over at the
body next to mine. My suitor seemed to be asleep, or at least in a
deep trance. Just as they do in fairy tales, I kissed my sleeping
prince, gently biting his lower lip. I pulled the blanket away,
running my tongue across his chest, savoring the cool, smooth skin.
I found his nipple and bit it to see if I could wake the dead.

Instantly, I felt his senses alight, and once
again I experienced the merging of our desire. I was hungry and
impatient, my teeth suddenly set in a clench. My awareness was
instantaneous to his, and quickly I was rolled underneath him as he
slid into me. I would have howled at the sun had William not kissed
me. My body was inexplicably ravenous and I bit down on William’s
lip, impatient for something I could not name. Despite my
provocation, he did not drink from me.

After we’d finished making love, he
wordlessly left our bed, put on a robe and walked out of the room.
When he returned, he was carrying a tray with a glass of juice and
whole-grain toast.

“Wow, a bed and food,” I said. “You were
certainly confident your campaign to kidnap me would be
successful.”

William looked mildly rebuked. “I was
hoping,” he said. “I figured I could always throw the food
away.”

“Yes, but the bed, that took some work,” I
said, sitting up to sip the juice. “What would you have done with
the bed, if I’d refused?”

“I would have worked to get you in it, of
course,” he said, coming to sit next to me. “Eventually I would
have worn you down.”

I held up my hand and wiggled my finger with
the ring. “You have a good memory,” I said. “Usually, though,
people ask before becoming engaged.”

William took my hand, and stared at the
rings. “My mother had a set very similar to these. When I saw you
admiring the trio at the gallery, I knew I had to buy them for
you.”

“Are we married?” I asked, unsure if vampire
courting rituals skipped some of the crucial steps humans found
necessary. He shook his head as he squeezed my hand.

“That would be a little fast, darlin, even
for a vampire. Think of it more as a set of commitment rings,” he
said. “A sign that we’re together.”

“Are we bound to each other?”

“No, I didn’t drink enough of your blood, and
you have not drunk from me, but after last night I would say that
we are unquestionably
committed
.”

I was more than fine with that, but I
wondered how people would react when I appeared with what looked to
be a set of wedding bands on my finger, with nary a mention of a
man in my life.

“These are beautiful, but I think we need to
ease into my wearing them in public; at least until the campaign is
finished. I don’t want to draw attention to myself, especially from
JP. Please don’t mistake me; I do want to wear them. But I can’t
show up overnight with three rings on my finger.”

I was being scrutinized, but eventually the
former Resistance fighter saw the elegance of my strategy.

“You’re right,” he said. “When you get home,
take off two of the rings and leave the single plain copper band.
That doesn’t look like it has any significance and people won’t
notice.” It was good advice from someone who’d managed to blend in
for decades.

I would have been happy to sit in bed and
chat all day about rings and commitment, but all of the discussion
of JP had given me an uneasy feeling. I scanned the room for my
purse, realizing that I hadn’t heard my phone ring. I also had no
idea what time it was. I assumed it was late, given what time we’d
left Hearst Castle and because the sunshades had been drawn on the
skylights in the bedroom.

“Where is my purse?” I asked. “I need my
phone.”

William walked over to one of the leather
chairs and retrieved my purse. I dove in immediately looking for my
iPhone. The ringer was off. “Did you turn off the ringer?”

“We didn’t get home until dawn, I thought it
better to let you sleep.”

“Very sweet of you, but campaign managers
have to hear their phone ring.”

I would have said more, but my eyes fell upon
the clock, which read 11 am, and the number 50 that appeared next
to the telephone icon on my screen. “Shit, someone has been trying
to get in touch with me.” I looked at the texting icon, where the
numeral 30 sat, unblinking. My email was similar; there were 250
outstanding messages waiting in my inbox, which was more than twice
what I usually had for this time of the morning.

I knew without a shadow of a doubt that
something had gone wrong with the campaign. My heart was in my
throat as I opened my email. I quickly began scanning the subject
lines to see what I had in store. The first headline I saw sent my
pulse racing.