Mia looked nervous for them but he was quick to reassure her.
“Don’t worry, Miss, those horses are well trained, never been known to throw a novice or even get above a slow walk unless they sense the rider’s ready for a little more speed.”
They were escorted indoors and Cain showed Mia to Helena’s old room. It was tastefully decorated in white with creams that complemented the antique dark wood furniture. Mia jumped on the old gothic-style four-poster bed, beaming widely.
“This is so pretty.”
“This room reminds me of her,” Cain said, and then he left Mia alone to unpack. He took the bedroom next door, which was furnished in a typical log cabin style.
After Mia had freshened up, Mrs Bates served lunch. Cain said he wasn’t hungry, so Mia ate alone. Shortly afterward, Mr Bates showed Mia around the ranch. When she eventually arrived back at the main house, Cain was sitting at the breakfast bar. “This place is amazing! I can’t believe how beautiful it is, and everyone is so nice.”
“So you like it then?” Cain said with a raised eyebrow.
The smile left Mia’s face. “Cain, I can’t accept this.”
He walked over to her and held her close to his chest. Mia thought she would faint. How she had wanted him to hold her. Suddenly she was back in the woods, scared of Phil, and Cain was saving her, holding her, telling her he would not let Phil hurt her ever again.
“Please don’t be hasty, Mia. It’s not somewhere you have to move to right away. Go to college, live your life. The Bates have been taking care of this place for years.”
Mia put her arms around his waist. “Can I think about it?” All she wanted right now was to feel safe in his arms.
“Take all the time you need.” He lifted her head and looked deep into her eyes. At last he knew she had forgiven him completely. She was holding him, looking at him the way she had when she was a child. He was not a monster in her eyes; he was again her friend, her hero. He had missed his angel.
***
Mia called her mother. She told her how wonderful everything was, and she explained how things were run, and the roles of Mr and Mrs Bates.
Jess gave a loud sigh. She was worried about what all this meant. Who was this man and why was he doing this? She was scared for her daughter, and asked herself what price the ranch might cost her in the end. “I am glad you like it, and that everyone is nice, but what exactly does this mean? Are you going to accept it?”
“I don’t know, Mom.” Mia closed her eyes. She needed more time to think things through.
“Have you spoken to Cain?”
Here we go, she thought as she took a deep breath. “Well…yes.”
“So what did he have to say for himself?”
Mia bit her bottom lip. “We’re talking about it.”
“Ask him why he gave it to you. Ask him what he wants in return.”
Mia closed her eyes. “He doesn’t want anything in return.”
“Mia, please listen to me. You can’t know that. This man is a virtual stranger. Granted, one we owe a great many thanks to, but in all honesty what do you really know about him?” Jess was beginning to get frustrated with her oh, so trusting and innocent daughter. Naïve was what Mia was. Always had been.
“Let’s just leave it at that for now, Mom. I’ll call you tomorrow. I’m still thinking it all through.”
Jess wasn’t happy but agreed to do as her daughter wished.
Mrs Bates served supper. Cain had an excuse not to eat, stating he had eaten while she was out.
“Do you like to ride, Mia?”
Mia chewed on a fingernail. “I don’t know, Cain. I’ve never really been up close to a horse, let alone ridden one. To be honest, they scare me a little.” She had always found horses to be amazing, graceful creatures but the size of them up close was a little intimidating.
Cain smiled at her. “Tomorrow I will teach you how to ride, then we can really explore this place.”
She felt nervous at the thought of actually sitting on a horse, but knowing Cain would be there eased her tension. She slipped her hand in his; he still felt cool. “Can we go for a walk by the lake now? It looked so peaceful there when we passed it.” The day had been mind-boggling and somewhere quiet was what she needed now.
Cain nodded. “Yes, I would like that.”
When they returned from their lake walk, Mia went straight to bed, but Cain stayed up; he wasn’t tired. Around eleven thirty, Cain heard Mia cry out loudly. He ran to her room and found her sitting up with her head in her hands. He sat on the bed next to her.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
She wiped the perspiration from her forehead with the back of her shaking hand. “A nightmare. I get them now and again. Don’t ask me about them.”
Cain could see she was visibly shaken. “You are safe now.”
She looked at him through her lashes. “Will you stay with me?” Cain looked worried. “Just until I go back to sleep.”
Cain nodded and lay down on top of the bedspread. He was nervous, but wanted her to feel safe so he placed his arms gently around her. Mia put her head on his chest. The night was humid so his coolness was a welcome relief.
When she awoke, his arms were still wrapped around her, and her head was still resting on his chest. She looked up and he smiled at her.
“Good morning, Mia.”
“Morning,” she replied in a rather sleepy voice.” Oh, no! Morning breath! She quickly put her hand over her mouth.
“Mrs Bates is downstairs cooking breakfast. Are you hungry?” Mia had started to blush with embarrassment. He chuckled. “I will see you downstairs,” he said with a wink. He’d not felt this happy in a long time. She did wonders for him and made him feel almost human again.
Chapter 31
By the time Mia showered, dressed, and made her way downstairs, Mrs Bates had left, much to Mia’s relief. There was a cooked breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes on the table waiting for her.
“Are you not eating?” she asked Cain.
“No, not just yet,” he replied with a smile.
He held out a chair for her to sit on. And then he pulled another one out for himself.
After Mia had eaten, she still had a strong urge to question Cain. Try as she might, she couldn’t put it off any longer.
He watched her face flush, her hands begin to shake, and heard her heartbeat quicken. She looked down and began to pick at her nails. He was worried when he spoke. “Is everything all right?”
Mia took a shaky breath. “Can I ask something?”
“Anything. If I can answer you, I will.”
She looked away. She could not look into his eyes as she asked the question that needed to be asked.
“What makes you think you’re a vampire?”
He blinked slowly. “Mia, I do not think I am a vampire. That is what I am.”
To her, he seemed so normal. She’d had a wonderful day with him yesterday. He had held her all night after the nightmares. So what was up with him? “I don’t understand, Cain. How can you be a vampire?”
“This world holds many mysteries.”
She straightened her back and then looked at him side on. Okay, I will play along for now. “How did you become a vampire then?”
“My mother turned me into one.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Your own mother? She‘s a vampire too?”
“Yes, she was.”
She looked down at her hands. “This is all…. Well, I don’t know, Cain. You’re a vampire. Your mother was a vampire. Do you see how crazy it all sounds?”
He nodded, and shrugged perceptibly. “Yes, I do know how crazy it sounds. But please believe me. I am not crazy and I have never lied to you.” Maybe it was time he shared the whole truth about his life, how it had all begun. “While I was away from home my mother was visited by a vampire. His name is Vasile. He turned her into a vampire against her will, and she in turn turned me into one.”
Her brows furrowed.
“But why would she do that, change her own child into a vampire?” She saw the pain in his eyes.
“Because I was dying. I had contracted tuberculosis. She could not bear to lose her son, watch me disintegrate in front of her eyes. She was still as loving and compassionate as she had always been, even as a vampire. She tried to teach me how to control myself and think of others.”
Her face softened. “Where’s your mother now? Is she still alive?”
“No. She killed herself.”
Mia closed her eyes. “Oh, God! I’m so sorry.”
His body stiffened. “I was partly to blame, but most of all it was Vasile. He will pay for it one day.”
“Was it recently that your mother passed away?” Is this how he has tried to come to terms with her death? Does he blame himself somehow?
“No, this happened in 1946.”
“1946? That’s impossible. You are how old? Twenty-eight? Thirty at most?” But then again, he always looks this age and he never seems to get any older.
“I was born on January 14th, 1917.”
Let’s see how far he can go with this, she thought. “Will you tell me about your life, and your mother and father?”
“I never knew my father. He was killed at the battle of Jutland on May 31st, 1916. The destroyer he was on was sunk by the Germans. My mother never remarried.”
“What about your mother? You said she was loving and compassionate.”
“My mother was the most loving and compassionate woman I have ever known. She had lived in London, witnessed the poverty, so whenever she went to London she would take extra money to help the children. She would often take me with her so I could see their suffering and so she could instill in me the value of human life, and how fortunate I was to have never suffered hunger. She taught me compassion for those less fortunate. You remind me a little of her, her kindness, her compassion, and a little of Emily too.” Cain smiled at the thought of Emily.
Her eyes narrowed. “Who is Emily?”
“My wife.”
Shit! A wife. Is he still married? “You’re married?”
“Yes. I mean no, it was a very long time ago. The marriage was brief; Emily was killed.”
Things were starting to get weirder, and the short answers were beginning to annoy Mia. You are not getting off that lightly, she thought. “I want to know everything about you, Cain, your whole life story. Don’t leave anything out. I need to understand you, and what you are.”
“Like I said, I was born in 1917. My full title is Lord Cain Joseph Sutton, the son of Lord Joseph and Lady Elizabeth Sutton. I guess I had a pretty normal childhood for someone born with a title, a privileged life with no money worries.” Cain thought about the words he had chosen. “I guess I was very privileged. I traveled the world every summer with Mother. I had private tutors from a young age, so I did well in school, highest in my class actually. In 1933 I joined the Government Code and Cypher school in London. I excelled and became an intelligence officer in the British Secret Service. That’s how I came to meet Emily in London.
“My mother had come to London to visit me and, as usual, she wanted to help the less fortunate while she was there. Of course I went with her. We were buying bread for the poor. Well, for the children mostly. I saw Emily. She was helping her father in his shop. Emily was a petite seventeen-year-old with long curly brown hair, dark brown eyes and dimples in both cheeks. She had a pinkish glow to her complexion. I was immediately besotted.”
Mia felt a little pang of jealousy at his words ‘immediately besotted’. She tried not to show it in her face.
“We courted for two years and my mother became very fond of Emily. Most of my mother’s family and friends thought that Emily was beneath my family, but my mother would hear none of it, and I did not care. I was in love with her. We married on June 10th, 1937. It was a lavish affair with five hundred guests. As usual, my mother went all out, over-the-top, but it really was a beautiful wedding.”
Mia was beginning to wish she had never asked about Emily.
“The Second World War broke out in 1939. My mother and my wife became very close because I was away for months at a time with my work in the British Secret Service. Emily was glad that I had suggested we move to my family home in Essex and live with my mother once we had married.”
Mia watched the expressions flit across his face while he gazed into space, lost in the memories.
Cain coughed as he realized what he had been doing. “May 1940, Emily found out she was pregnant.” A slight smile appeared on his face. “I was overjoyed. I could not wait to get home and see my family. I hoped that I would be home for the birth of my first child.”
Mia blurted, “You have a child?” before she could stop herself.
Cain looked away, but not before Mia had seen the sadness in his eyes. His evident sorrow cut into her heart. “I’m sorry.”
He continued quite calmly, “Emily was killed not long after she found out she was pregnant. I will never forget that day as long as I live. September 7th, 1940.”
He breathed out long and hard. Mia waited patiently for him to start again.
“Emily was visiting her father at his bakery when the first air raid over London took place. She was killed during that bombing. I was devastated. My mother and I never really got over Emily and my unborn child’s death.” He brushed his hand across his eye as if he were brushing away unshed tears.
“My mother rarely left the house or grounds of the estate and I became obsessed with defeating the Germans. I took very little leave during that time. I wanted them to pay for what they had done and anything I could do to help bring them down I did. That’s when Vasile visited my mother and killed all the staff before turning her into a vampire.”
Mia sat with both hands over her mouth. Was he telling her the truth? Surely you couldn’t make this stuff up. Had he really lost a pregnant wife? Fought in the Second World War? His mother was a vampire? He was a vampire? Altogether too much! She couldn’t think any more.
Cain saw the confusion on her face, the panicked look in her eyes, the look you have when you hear something too incredulous to believe. He leaned over, picked up Mia’s fork, and crushed it into a ball in one hand as if it were paper. Then he picked her up and ran upstairs to the bedroom in seconds with her in his arms. “We are a lot stronger and faster than humans. I like the taste of wine, but I do not eat food. Well, not unless I have to. I feed on the blood of the living.” He paused for a reaction.
Mia’s eyes were open as wide as they could be but she did not speak one word.
“Everything I told you is the truth, the only other way to prove this to you is for you to watch me feed, and I do not think either of us wants that.” He put Mia down and braced himself, not knowing what she would do or say next.
Horror and realization were hitting her hard, but she could only think of one question. “Did you ever feed on me?”
He looked away. “Yes. Do you remember offering me your blood, that day in the tent when I was injured?”
“Yes, I remember that. But I don’t remember you ever biting me or whatever it is you do.” A shudder raced down her body.
Slowly he turned toward her. “That is how we survive. Nobody remembers my kind when we have fed on them, which is why most of us do not hurt your kind.”
Her head was making tiny shaking movements. “It all seems so unimaginably impossible, I don’t know what to believe.” She felt like her head was going to burst trying to comprehend it all, and the big possibility that he was telling the truth.
“You will understand one day.”
She needed to think of something else to say, but all she could do was think about him. He stood there, rigid, as though expecting anger and recriminations. “Whose room was this? I heard you say it reminded you of her?”
“This was Helena’s. Come, I will show you who she was.”
There were photographs on the dresser in his room. There were two pictures of Helena, retrieved from the
safety deposit boxes, and one that he had found among her things after her death, a picture of Helena and Karl.
“She is very pretty. Are these as old as they look?”
“Yes. She was pretty, and yes, they are as old as they look. Now, let’s change the subject, shall we?”
“Was she a vampire too?”
“Yes. Now I think I said I would teach you to ride. Come on. Let’s go see Bryce and sort out some horses.”
“Okay, but will you tell me about Helena one day?”
“Yes, but not today. Today we are going to have fun.” He knew she was pretty freaked out and he wanted to take her mind off everything he had just told her. Mia smiled. He knew she had many more questions she wanted to ask, but she accepted she would just have to wait.
Bryce gave Cain, Dusty, a large quarter horse. Mia was given, Twinkle, an even-tempered albino normally kept for novices, or nervous riders.
After falling off the horse only once, and Cain catching her before she hit the ground, Mia began to enjoy riding, and had even got up enough courage to attempt a gallop. Cain made her stay on the path though she really wanted to go into the woods. Always so protective! Jeez! I feel like I am ten years old again! She shook her head at that thought, but did not argue with him.
At the end of the day, she was exhausted. She walked stiffly into the kitchen and groaned as she sat down. Cain set a glass of juice in front of her. She took a sharp breath as she leaned forward with her arm outstretched.
Cain winced. “That bad, hey?”
“I didn’t know it was possible to be this sore. All I’ve done is ride a horse, and now all I want to do is relax in a nice warm bath.”
He seemed to vanish before her eyes. A bare second later she heard the water running, the aroma of jasmine and lilac flooding her nose. In very short order she was sliding into the refreshing warmth of the bath. She relaxed and thought about all that Cain had told her. To her surprise she was not scared, not of Cain and not of what he was.
She felt wonderful after her bath. She still ached a little, but was definitely relaxed. Now her thoughts were more ordered she wanted to phone her mom, especially as she saw there were five missed calls on her cell phone from her.