Becoming the Enigma, page 37
Katey got the exact opposite impression from the third vampire. The last man was much older, with a graying beard, but gentler in demeanor, and had rich brown eyes that reminded Katey of Darren’s. They were soft and caring, full of feeling. His short silver hair was combed back behind his ears with a posture that proclaimed self-assurance, but not arrogance. She remembered that Martel mentioned he may have been more sympathetic to her need to see the loups-garous, but he had only just arrived that day. She wondered if he could be incorporated into her hopes to bust them out, but perhaps that was wishful thinking so soon before getting to know him. He could hate the loups-garous just as much as any of them.
This vampire, unlike the others, she knew could be trusted somehow. Not only that, but there was a familiarity about him that she couldn’t exactly place in her memory. It was as if seeing him for the first time had brought back an ambiguous image from her past that she couldn’t make out.
Everything seemed to have become blurry to Katey in such a short time. Her affections, her validity as a loup-garou, her loyalty, and memories were called into question, and she was lost in the chaos of it all. The only force that grounded her was the wolf that silently observed and gave unsolicited commentary. She watched them, studied and kept her claws gripped tight to the solid foundation that Katey was loup-garou. She did not belong here. For once, she wanted to hold onto that soul-wrenching sadness that came with being separated from Logan. It reminded her of what she truly needed.
“Katey, I’d like you to meet Raven, Lord Yaverik, and Lord Michael,” Martel gestured to the individuals he spoke of. All three bowed their heads and Katey attempted a curtsey. She smiled only to the elder gentleman who seemed to be eyeing her with peculiar interest. She didn’t want to believe that this vampire could be responsible for the imprisonment of her pack, and she would show absolutely no respect to the vamp that turned Martel. “Gentlemen, this is Katey.”
Lord Yaverik, the cold, derisive one, bowed his head. “Welcome to our party, Miss Katey. Martel has told me much about you.” He took her hand in his and kissed the back of it as Martel had. But, his touch was chilling and unpleasant as if she had just been touched by death itself.
“I hope all of it was good,” Katey replied cordially, masking her nervousness.
“Just that you are the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen and that’s one of the only reasons you were not our lunch the other evening,” Raven, the spikey-haired one, stated with a dry sense of humor that Katey couldn’t laugh at.
Martel gave a threatening hiss.
“Now, boys, none of that. This is a celebration. No fighting tonight.” Lord Yaverik gestured to the happy crowd of vampires.
Katey glanced around once more at the ballroom and finally realized how many vampires were there. There had to be close to a couple of hundred, if not more, bustling around the expansive ballroom. She was surrounded.
“So, do you all celebrate Christmas the same as we do?” Katey inquired, purposefully pushing back her anxiety just so she could portray some semblance of normal.
“In a way, but we don’t call it Christmas,” Lord Michael replied kindly, his voice heavily laden with an Italian accent. “It’s the winter solstice to us and it lasts for a few weeks. Tomorrow is the last night.”
“When we’re all going to hunt down those dogs as a last revel before the year is out.” Raven fired a pretend gun at an invisible target just over her shoulder. Katey could feel her blood boil just from the mention of their hunt. “Oh, sorry, I forgot Martel said you were a dog lover.”
“That’s enough, Raven,” Lord Yaverik barked. “As long as Miss Katey is a guest of ours, we will respect her as such. You have been taught better manners than that.”
Here earlier assessment of Lord Yaverik being an alpha was affirmed in this little exchange, but Lord Michael had yet to show his dominance. Maybe he didn’t need to.
She could feel Lord Michael’s gaze trained upon her and something told her that he knew something more than he let on. She also knew Martel watched her with piqued interest, but she tried to ignore it, despite her fluttering nerves. If she faltered now, her cover could be blown and any hope of helping her pack escape would be lost. She determined that she was here to gather information and make a plan, not get caught up in the festivities.
The lightheaded sensation of hunger rushed upon her so suddenly she visibly winced and wrinkled her face in pain. She took a deep breath and tried to hold the hunger at bay for just a little longer. Once she regained a bit of her composure, she turned back to the group and immediately met the compassionate eyes of Lord Michael.
“Miss Katey, you look ill. I hope our presence isn’t bothering you.” His deep voice soothed a bit of her dizziness somehow.
Katey forced a smile. “No, it’s not bothering me... I’m just a little hungry.”
Lord Yaverik appeared sheepish. “My apologies. Someone should have made sure that you ate with the rest of the blood servants earlier this evening. I’ll have one of my servants take you to the dining hall. They’ll serve you whatever you’d like and we’ll be here when you’re finished. We still have some time before the gift exchange begins.”
Chapter 24
Lord Yaverik waved over one of his servants to accompany Katey to the dining hall and gave explicit instructions that whatever she asked for, she could have. Of course, he didn’t know that she already knew what kind of food she had to choose from in the blood servants’ kitchen.
As she was led away, Martel remained with the others. Lord Michael’s eyes were still fixed upon Katey until she disappeared into the foyer. Now, more than ever, she wished she could have read the vampire lord to understand why he stared so intently and why he seemed set apart from the rest. There was a thread of authority about him that told her he carried weight within the community, but if that were so, why didn’t he dominate the conversation as Lord Yaverik did?
In the dining hall, one long table occupied the center of the room, able to host at least twenty guests with complete table settings and several candelabras down the length to provide light for the diners. The décor and design of the dining room and ballroom matched almost perfectly, from the cut of the crown mold to the distinct coloration of the marble slab floor. She could still smell the hint of blood from the meal the vampires shared the night before and sighed when she thought of Helga’s poor uncle who had become the main course.
The servant seated Katey near the middle of the empty table and asked what she would like.
“This is going to sound weird,” she began, “but all I want is a tall glass of water and a plate of sandwich meat or whatever other kind of meat you have available. It doesn’t have to be warm.”
The servant bowed and hurried off to fetch her meal without so much as a suspicious look. If he had worked for the vampires for long enough, perhaps he was accustomed to strange requests.
As soon as the servant walked out of the dining hall, Katey rested her elbows on the table and buried her face in her arms, uncaring if she messed up her makeup in the process. The hunger was taking hold faster than she had expected. It’d been almost a whole day since she had eaten and the wolf within her grew restless. She wished that she could have been immune to the hunger like she was before when her loup-garou blood faded for a day or two.
Katey began to perspire as every pore of her body cried out for relief from the intense nausea that swept over her. Her vision blurred and she held on tightly to her humanity, pushing back the wolf with promises that food was on the way.
Just moments later, Katey heard frightened squeaks, shuffling feet, and manic chuckling burst through the dining hall doors. Her head shot up and through her dizziness, she saw three vampire boys, who didn’t look much older than herself, dragging Helga into the dining hall and toward a shadowy corner. One held her legs and half carried her, while one held her mouth and around her torso. The other smacked his lips like a psychotic monster, ready to devour their meal.
Helga’s frantic eyes fell on Katey and her arms reached out for help as the boys set her down and detained her against the wall. The girl put up a good fight, but the vampire’s incredible strength couldn’t be matched by a mere human.
She remembered what Martel told her, about vampires taking blood from someone of the opposite sex. This wasn’t just taking blood, this was to take something else from Helga.
Katey burst up from her seat and charged toward the boys, fire in her eyes and rage boiling through her veins. It didn’t matter whether she lashed out from hunger or righteous anger. They were about to harm the maid she had grown so attached to, an unwilling victim to their thirst. These boys would feel her fury if it was the last thing she did in human form before her wolf would make an untimely appearance.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Katey roared. She hoped to possibly frighten them into submission without resorting to forceful violence. Along the way down the length of the table, she grabbed a sharpened dinner knife from a place setting.
The three vampires looked at her with hungry, crimson eyes, irritated that some other human girl interrupted their unauthorized snack. They didn’t know what a threat Katey could be when she was hungry, too.
“Fuck off! We saw her first!” The vampire grabbed Helga’s wrist and pulled back her sleeve to expose her fair, unblemished skin.
“Oh, look! She has a knife. I’m really scared!” another mocked, imitating fright. He then let out a rowdy laugh as he pulled back Helga’s ruffled collar.
Katey growled deep in her throat and flung the knife toward the adolescents. The blade soared through the air and nailed the mocking boy’s fedora hat. The sharp tip pinned the hat to the wall behind him.
Now she had their attention.
They looked to her as Katey snatched up another knife from the table and rapidly closed the distance.
“Let that girl go or I won’t miss next time.”
Their eyes drifted over her shoulder to something behind her and genuine fear flickered in their faces. They slowly let go of the terrified Helga and fled out of the dining room doors in such a flash that Katey could feel the rush of air blow past her, but only saw the blur of their bodies as they left.
She dropped the knife back to the table and hurried to Helga’s side as she whimpered and collapsed to the floor, gaping at the same thing that had frightened the boys away.
Katey finally had the sense to turn around and see what it was, though her first priority was to comfort Helga.
Lord Michael stood with his arms folded over his thick chest, watching them with a calm but calculating gaze. Katey wasn’t frightened of him as the others were. They might have known him better, but Katey had a feeling she was in no danger from the vampire lord. If the boys ran at the sight of him, then Lord Michael must not have approved of taking blood unwillingly from a human. Katey was on his side.
She turned her attention back to Helga and looked her over for any bitemarks. “Are you okay?”
The girl nodded urgently, and tendrils of hair that had escaped from her bun fluttered around her cheeks. Katey helped the trembling girl to her feet.
“You threatened those boys pretty boldly,” Lord Michael commented as he soundlessly walked forward to meet them.
Katey looked over her shoulder as she supported Helga up by her forearms. “I’m not afraid of them, and I don’t mean any disrespect, but I’m not afraid of you either. I know what they were going to do to her. I wasn’t about to stand by and let that happen.”
Katey had no idea where such audacity came from all of the sudden, but Lord Michael seemed to be impressed by it. He gave her a pleased smirk and then issued a dismissive wave to Helga. The maid hurried from the dining hall as fast as she could carry herself, still shaking and on the verge of breaking down into sobs.
Once she was gone, Katey felt another wave of faintness swamp over her, the adrenaline fading from her system in one bitter rush. She braced herself on the back of one of the chairs and took deep breaths through her mouth.
Lord Michael peered curiously at her. “Are you well?”
She caught the note of sincerity in his tone and pressed her fingers between her eyes to will away the pounding headache. “I’m just really hungry.”
A moment of silence passed, and she wondered why Lord Michael was still standing there. She could feel his eyes focused attentively upon her, studying her with unnerving concentration. Was he waiting for something? Did he see through her brushoffs and lies?
Not a moment too soon, the servant entered with a glass of water and a plate piled high with slices of deli meats. He set the plate down at a setting between Katey and Lord Michael, forcing her to venture closer to the vampire. She dropped into the chair and inhaled the delicious aroma before taking the deli meats and rolling them together so she could get as much of the meat into her mouth as possible.
Lord Michael eyed her choice of food questioningly and took a deep breath, his chest expanding under his arms. “Come with me, Katey... You can bring your food with you.”
She felt a hot flash of anxiety skitter down her back as the meat chased away the worst of her hunger pains. Did he suspect something?
Lord Michael turned on the balls of his feet and made his way out of the dining room. Katey swiftly grabbed her plate and glass of water, and followed him.
Katey obeyed him out of respect rather than fear of punishment if she disobeyed. Out of all the vampires she had met, she felt like she could trust him, but there wasn’t a single point in their brief acquaintanceship that would have given her cause to believe that. All she knew was the aura he put off, and even if she were human, she would have been able to detect that credibility.
They traveled out into the foyer, up the stairs, and toward another wing of the castle that she hadn’t explored yet. The rest of the castle seemed deserted since every guest and servant was down in the ballroom. He led Katey to a large oak door and held it open for her to walk into a large library with bookcases lining the walls on all sides. Katey saw absolutely no windows, but a few kerosene lanterns cast amber glows from side tables scattered amongst velvet armchairs and sofas.
The room was warm, filled with the aroma of old parchment, leather, and dust. It reminded her of the old bookstore that she and Logan visited the other day. The memory sent a pang of loneliness to her heart, wishing that she were with Logan in that moment instead of Lord Michael.
The low-pile burgundy carpet muffled their footsteps as they crossed the floor to a pair of armchairs near the center of the room.
Lord Michael motioned to one of the plush wingback chairs. “Take a seat.”
They were completely alone in the library, and she had a feeling that as long as Lord Michael wanted it that way, it would stay that way.
Katey clumsily sat herself down, grappling with the fluffy skirt of her gown and set her plate and glass on the end table next to her. Lord Michael twitched his finger at an adjacent armchair and it slid itself closer so the vampire lord could ease himself down without having to drag the chair forward himself.
She froze in amazement as he gingerly lowered himself into the chair, as if he had done nothing out of the ordinary. It shouldn’t have been surprising that a vampire could have such power over inanimate objects. She saw them do that in some movies. It proved she still had a lot to learn.
Lord Michael settled himself into the chair and laced his fingers over his lap before turning his stare to Katey. He gave her a reassuring smile. “Please, eat if you need to.”
She didn’t have to be told twice and shoveled the meat into her mouth again, but with a little more decorum that she had before. She didn’t want to risk dropping any on the carpet or upholstery. Slowly, the last of the dizziness faded away and the wolf within was put to rest once more. She took a long swig of the water and set the glass down before looking up to Lord Michael again. His gaze never wavered, as if reading her thoughts or seeing something peculiar that interested him.
“Why have you been staring at me like that?” Katey asked, unafraid to offend her host, despite his obvious power.
Lord Michael smiled and shook his head. “You remind me of someone... Especially in that dress,” Sadness feathering his words. That was the second person tonight who had said she reminded them of someone because of this dress.
Normally, Katey would not have taken the bait, but the heaviness in his countenance prompted her to ask, “Who?”
“My daughter...” His voice seemed to drift into the air and swirl between them.
She blinked and felt her full stomach turn hard.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he added quickly. “I know that you aren’t her. It’s just you two are… very much alike. You both have a fiery spirit and a similar face.” Lord Michael’s gaze lowered to the floor for the first time since they came in, and the easy smile faded from his lips.
Katey couldn’t help but notice that it was the identical look that Julia gave when she made a comment about how the dress reminded her of an old friend. It was possible that Michael’s daughter and Julia’s friend were the same woman.
“What happened to her?”
“She was killed eighteen years ago.” The words seemed to take on a life of their own and inundated the room with its own haunting energy that gave Katey chills.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, wishing she hadn’t asked.
“It is all right... Does anyone else know?” Lord Michael looked back up to Katey with fresh determination.
“Know what?” Katey gulped and a cold sweat began to form at the nape of her neck.
“That you’re not human?”
Her heart fell to the floor between her shoes. She expected guards to come barging into the library to cart her down to the dungeon. But no one came and the silence between them stretched for a hard moment as Katey neither agreed nor refuted his statement.
“Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me,” Michael continued. “A person is a person, no matter their race or species.” Katey let out a breath of relief that she had a vamp on her side for once. “This little feud is the most foolish thing I have known, and I can’t wait for the day when it ends.” The disdain in his voice was keenly felt.
