He pulls his eyes from mine to the road. I hear a slight chuckle escape him. “God, I love you.”
My head whips around. I stare at him, dumbfounded.
I don’t know if that was one of those things he didn’t mean to say, but did. Well whatever it was, he said it and now it’s out there.
“Love me?! You don’t even know me!”
“Yes I do. Better than you care to admit.” That’s it, end of, apparently. Well not for me.
“Have you lost your mind completely?!” I yell at him.
“Over you, yes.” He looks at me steadily again.
My heart drops off the radar.
“We’re not talking with about this!”
I grip my head in frustration. I feel like I’ve stepped out of reality and straight into the fucking Twilight Zone.
“Yes, we are.” Pause. “I know you feel the same. I know you love me.”
“No!” I cry, rounding on him. “I don’t love you! I’ve only ever loved one person, really and truly, and you are not him and never will be!”
I know I’ve wounded him. I can see it on his face. Good.
“I’m just sorry I ever fucking met you! Tragically fucking sorry!”
He says nothing.
My heart is raging a storm in my chest. I know I should be panicking right now, but anger is crippling all my other senses, blinding me to anything else. And his declaration of love has done little to help the situation.
I can’t believe him. I just can’t bloody believe him! What the hell is going on? My mind is reaming with possibilities of what’s going to happen to me, but I just can’t get it all to configure properly.
He’s an Original. The one who is out to hurt me. But he’s had ample opportunity to do just that, to do anything to me – a full week's worth. I’ve slept in his house. But he hasn’t once done anything to hurt me. If anything he’s helped me. Endlessly. He saved my life. And now he’s telling me he loves me.
Nothing about any of this is making sense.
But then he’s been around for four hundred years, he’s one half of the most powerful creatures on this planet. I’m sure he’s learnt a trick or two about deceiving people and getting them to do exactly what he wants.
He could just be saying these things to trick me. Get me to do what he wants in the easiest way possible. No fights. Just a clueless, lonely Alex, so desperate to fill the void that Nathan left in me.
But it doesn’t feel like Zeff. It doesn’t seem his style. But then really, what do I know about his style. Because he’s not Zeff, the guy I thought I knew. He’s one of the things that have me running for my life. He’s the bad guy. The reason I’ve lost everything I ever cared about. This isn’t any average Vârcolac I’m dealing with here.
And I need to be afraid of him.
Very afraid.
Then it kind of thuds into my head.
He is four hundred years old. Four-bloody-hundred-years-old.
I slide nervous eyes over to him. His face is calm, eyes on the road.
It’s so strange; he looks no older than thirty. But to have lived that long … I can’t even imagine the things he’s seen, or done. Actually, I don’t want to imagine any of what he’s done; I can’t see any of it being good.
Well, apart from helping me that is.
He’s Zeff. The nice guy who cooks me dinner and teaches me to fight, and shows me how to shoot guns. He helped me shift. He’s helped me to become a better version of what this life had left me with.
No. He’s not Zeff.
I have to stop thinking of him that way. That’s how he’ll trick me into doing what he wants.
He is Matthias. An Original. A monster.
And then all my anger and confusion shrinks as the reality of my situation finally sinks in.
I start to panic.
Complete and utter fear ripples through my blood.
“What are you going to do with me?”
My words are weak, my voice small. I know I sound like a victim but I don’t stand a chance against him. I just saw him take out four vampire’s single-handed, in a matter of seconds. My life is in his hands now. And whatever he chooses to do with it, will happen, that I know for sure.
He slides me a look. “Are you asking what I want to do with you, or what I am going to do with you?”
Is he joking? I’m not sure. I can’t get anything from his even tone or blank expression.
No, he’s not joking. He can’t be. He means it in the worst way possible. That’s the only thing it can be.
Fear ripples through me like a quick shot of adrenaline, straight to the heart.
I need to get out of this car.
Now.
I spin in my seat and pull on the door handle. It’s locked. I yank hard, but it won’t open. In blind panic, I start banging on the door with my hands, but it won’t budge. Is it iron plated or something?
Oh God. I’m trapped in here. I’ve got no escape.
“Calm down,” he says.
I’m not calming down for all the tea in fucking china. I need out of this car. Then I realise my only option is the window. If I smash through it, I can dive out. I’ll make the fall, but it’ll cut me up pretty badly with the speed he’s driving.
The injuries will slow me down until I heal, but I still might be able to outrun him. Anything’s better than staying put and enduring what I’m sure he and his brother have planned for me.
And, well, if he catches me, then at the very least I’ll know I tried to get away.
I clench my fist and pull my hand back. Closing my eyes for the inevitable shattering of glass. I punch it hard.
“Fuuuuck!!” I cry out, holding my hand to my chest with my other hand. I’m pretty sure it’s broken, which is the only thing that is. The glass is still intact.
“It’s bulletproof glass, Bunny. You can’t break it.”
“Arggh!” I cry out in pain and frustration. Tears squeezing out of the corners of my wincing eyes.
“Let me look at your hand.” He reaches out to me.
“Don’t touch me!” I cry, moving away. “Don’t you dare touch me. Ever again.”
“Bunny…” he placates softly.
“No! I won’t be what you want me to be! I won’t be your baby maker! I’d rather die than become that – so just fucking kill me now, because if you don’t, then I’ll do it the second I get a chance!”
He slams the breaks on the car. The force brings my head forward. I have to drive my feet down in the foot well to keep the rest of me on my seat.
Then it’s suddenly eerily silent. Only the rumble of the engine ticking over can be heard. That, and the sound of my ragged breath pumping my chest up and down, and my heart that’s setting a battering ram against my ribcage.
I’m not sure what is about to happen next. Either way, I know it’s not going to be good.
For one, or both, of us.
Chapter 19: The Truth
I lift my heavy head. Keeping a hold of my painful hand against my chest, I try to steady my breathing.
I don’t know if my hand is broken or fractured, but I do know I’m going to have to ride the pain out until it heals. Which shouldn’t be too long. Hopefully.
“How’s your hand?” he asks. His voice sounding ridiculously gentle for his size.
I look at him through my veil of hair. His eyes are set, with complete focus on me.
“Fine,” I reply, gruff.
“I don’t want to fight with you.” He pauses, blowing out a resigned breath. “And I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I thought it was plainly obvious what I want from you. And it isn’t for you to become my ‘baby maker’. I just want to keep you safe. Nothing more.”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. Just the breath I feel like I’ve been holding forever.
He takes his eyes off me, looking past, he stares out of the window screening the night.
“I’m not here for that. I never was. And I never intended to fall in love with you, either,” he
adds quietly. “I just–” Shaking his head, he exhales heavily and brings his dark eyes back to my light ones. “I just want to protect you, keep you safe from the ones who do mean you harm. I thought you would see that. I’ve been with you a week and I haven’t touched you, once. I’ve done nothing to hurt you. All I’ve done is try to help you become a stronger, more equipped Vârcolac – doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know?”
Well yes, I did kind of consider it before, but I’m not telling him that.
“But you’re an Original,” I press.
“I’m not that person anymore. I left him behind a very long time ago.”
I snort an accusing sound. “Yeah, sure you did.”
“And you know me so well, Alex?” He highlights my name. I don’t like the way it makes me feel.
“Obviously not!” I yell at him. I’m feeling kind of unreasonable here. I like to think it’s to be expected. “But you obviously know me – know my real name.”
Shifting his body to face forward, he rests his hands on the steering wheel and bows his head. It’s a long moment before he moves or speaks.
He glances at me sideways, through his thick lashes. “Of course I do.” His voice is intense.
It does a combination of things to me.
I like that he knows me. And I hate that I like the feeling. But mostly it worries me, and that worry grips a tight hold of my stomach and knots it, infinitely.
What if he knows about Nathan and Jack, and the farm? What if they’re not all as safe as I’d thought?
“What else do you know?” My voice carries like a whisper.
He lifts his head, but doesn’t move his eyes from mine. “If you’re asking if I know who you were with and where you were, after the change, then the answer is no.”
Relief floods into me. They’re still safe.
“But I do know who you were before that.” He pauses, deliberation passing over his face. “I know your name is Alexandra Jones. That you went missing after a night out with your friend, Carrie. You had a boyfriend – if you could call him that – Eddie, who you lived with in Scarborough. Your parents died in a car accident when you were sixteen …”
“Okay. Enough.” I hold a hand up not needing his reminder of my previous life. “I get you did your homework.”
“I just read the newspapers Bunny, that’s all. I needed a start in finding you. I needed to get a handle on you as a person. How you lived your life. Your typical behaviour. I didn’t get much from the papers, obviously, but just enough to get me started. When I looked back in the news, I knew I was looking for a girl who had recently gone missing in the UK. I figured whoever ‘Alex’ was, she wouldn’t have gone back home after what happened to her. Especially not when she’d been handed over by a shifter.”
“Shifter?” My throat closes up. “You know that?”
He raises his eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I didn’t get his name. Was it him – the boyfriend?” His says the latter part, softer, gentler. But it sounds kind of pitying too.
“No.” I give him a sharp look. “Just someone he trusted.” I lower my voice, looking away.
He starts to drum his fingers on the steering wheel. I get the impression that wasn’t the answer he wanted.
“It took me a long time to find you, Bunny. And a lot of resource. You’re good at disappearing, better than you realise. But I’m also good at finding. Then when I found you here two weeks ago–”
I tense up. “Two weeks?”
“Yes. I kept my distance for the first week. I thought it best to take my time before I approached you.”
“You don’t live here.” The truth thuds into me.
He shakes his head, no. “I needed it to appear that way. I wanted you to feel safe with me, so I rented the lodge.”
God, I’m so slow.
And then I feel tricked and violated, and stupid and enraged, all over again. But more than anything just confused. So utterly, bloody confused.
“Why have you been keeping me here with you if you’re not planning on hurting me? I’m guessing you kept me here by ruining my passport?” I add as the thought occurs to me. And then I start to feel angrier at the realisation.
“I haven’t been keeping you anywhere. I’ve been trying to keep you safe – am trying to keep you safe, but recently it’s like you’re a magnet for trouble.”
He doesn’t deny ruining my passport though, that doesn’t escape me.
“Did you ruin my passport to keep me here with you?” I demand to know.
His eyes meet with mine again. He takes in a deep breath and runs a hand over his black hair. “Yes.”
I should have known. I always kept the passport in the zipped pocket, with the picture of Carrie and my money. I just thought the blood had seeped through and ruined them. Stupidly, I trusted his word.
“You ruined the only picture I had of my Carrie! She died and I have nothing left of her! Why would you do that to me? God! If my right hand wasn’t broken right now, I’d punch you!”
“I didn’t ruin the picture, Bunny. The blood had seeped through; it just hadn’t affected the passport.” He presses his lips together, looking helplessly at me. It only proves to make me madder. “I only ruined your passport because I needed time; time to gain your trust – that was all. You have to believe me when I tell you I am trying to keep you safe from the one person who does want to hurt you.”
I still don’t know if I believe his story, but I ask, “Your brother?”
He nods.
“But why? I don’t understand any of this. I don’t understand you!” Feeling frustrated again, I push my good hand roughly through my tangled hair, trying to grasp hold of a clear thought, any thought, really. “I thought you wanted what he wants?”
Me, for unspeakable things.
That’s what I was told to believe. Not just by Nathan, but Albino too. He’d called them. They were both on their way to come and get me from the mansion.
“You were coming for me. When I was been held at that mansion. He said you were coming to take me away.”
“Isaiah. Not me. I knew nothing of it at the time. Believe me, if I had I would have been coming there to get you out.” He turns, looking away from me, ahead, out of the windscreen and into the night. “I haven’t seen my brother in a really long time. I only found out about your existence after you escaped.”
“Who told you?”
His shoulders tense. “I still have people I trust, who are, let’s say, around Isaiah.”
“Why haven’t you spoken to him in so long? And why do people still think you are.”
He stays silent.
“Tell me,” I press.
“It’s just easier that way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s strength in numbers, Bunny. If Elijah knows Isaiah and my relationship has broken down, he’ll use it to his advantage. I may not want to be around my brother, or like what he stands for anymore, but I also don’t want to see him dead. And, I’d kind of like to keep breathing too.”
“Why don’t you want to be around him? Did you have a falling out or something?” I probe.
“Yeah, something,” he murmurs.
It’s obvious he doesn’t want to tell me.
“What about?” I ask, softly, using womanly tactics.
He casts a glance at me. There’s harshness in his gaze. I don’t like it.
“There are things you don’t need to know.” His tone is final, but I’m not having that.
“That’s bullshit! I have a right to know!”
“No, Bunny, you don’t.” His voice is suddenly rough, affected. I’ve never heard him sound this way before. He sounds almost, pained, regretful. I can see his jaw working angrily, but somehow I don’t think the anger is placed with me.
He looks back at me with those dark eyes of his, intricate darkness in them, as he says, “Look, we just don’t share the same vision – I don’t think we ever really did. He’s my brother.” A shrug.
“I went along with things until I no longer could.” A breath. “Now you’re my priority. I need to keep you safe from him. I won’t let it happen again.”
My body stiffens. “You won’t let what happen again?”
I can see it in his face. He didn’t mean to tell me that.
“Nothing.”
“This has happened before. I’m not the first?” Suddenly I don’t feel so lonely. Which is a crazy thing to feel at this time, I know.
He pushes his hands over his hair, hanging them off the back of his neck, exhaling loudly. “No. You are the first of my kind to be female. I just – I failed someone, a long time ago. I won’t make that mistake again.”
I feel this sudden urge to hug him. It makes me want to slap myself.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth in the beginning?” It’s an accusation, not a question.
He gives me one of his looks. “Would you have believed I didn’t mean you any harm? Would you have listened to me? I know what you thought I was, the Matthias me, and I thought the best way was for you to get to know me first before I told you who I am – was. I was going to tell you the truth tomorrow, when I gave you the passport … the vampire’s just kind of speeded things up for me.”
“That’s utter crap!” I say venomously, angry again. “You could – should have told me; trusted me to make my own decisions. But instead you spend a whole week with me, lying to me. Pretending to be my friend. Letting me believe you’re someone you are clearly not.”