A Vampire's Honor (21 page)

“S
o how long were you in the sarcophagus with Gabriel?” I asked, watching Aleksei get up out of his seat. An unexpected twinge of jealousy flared at knowing I wasn't the only person Gabriel had taken into his coffin. It was unreasonable, I know, and I felt horrible about it.

“I'm not sure,” the big guy said with a frown. “Three days, maybe four?”

“And you looked like this when you came out?”

He nodded and grinned at me. “Yes. Even more handsome than before.”

“Any regrets?” It was an unfair question, but I was curious to see if he fully understood that when Gabriel had asked him to make his choice, he was hardly in a clear state of mind to do so.

“Being a vampire has allowed me to see the world in a way I never knew was possible. That alone has made every minute of every night worth it. So no, I have no regrets about what I am.” He narrowed his eyes slightly. “No matter the circumstances, Rowan, believe me when I say I would always choose to be vampire.”

“And how bad was the transition for you?”

“For me? Not so bad, but I was lucky. I had Gabriel to help me.”

“Yeah, I can imagine having to drink blood took some getting used to.”

“That was not problem.” He chuckled softly at my puzzled expression. “Rowan, you don't think about needing food or drinking. You know is necessary to keep body alive. When you are vampire, blood is same thing. You need it to keep body alive.”

“So you never had a problem drinking blood?”

Clasping his hands together, Aleksei rested his chin on them and stared at me. “You are wanting to know if I thought it was wrong to drink blood, yes?” I suppose I was, and I gave him a small nod. “No,” he replied. “I have never been confused about what I was doing or the reason why. And I never felt guilty.”

“But can't a vampire kill someone by draining their blood?”

“Of course,” he said with no hesitation whatsoever. “It happens. In the beginning it cannot be helped. It takes time to learn how to control the feeding and there will always be vampires who use it as a form of execution.” He paused, giving me a few moments to let his words sink in.

“But you have killed people, haven't you?” I asked, with morbid curiosity. He hesitated for only a moment before nodding his head. “So . . . how?”

He held his hands out and then made a quick twisting motion in the air. “Snapping neck is faster and cleaner, unless, of course, message needs to be sent.”

Message?

“Besides,” Aleksei continued, dropping his hands to his knees, “blood from those people leaves bad taste.”

Those people
were the corrupt and depraved, and how their blood would taste was something that, in a million years, would never have occurred to me.

“But have you ever drunk from someone . . . and killed them accidentally?”

The way his eyes darkened told me I was skating on very thin ice, but I needed to know as much as I could. Aleksei was the only human Gabriel had ever turned, which made him special. And I didn't mean riding the short bus special. I could feel the link between the two of them, and in light of what Aleksei was expecting Gabriel to do when Anasztaizia died, I felt I had the right to know as much about this vampire as possible. After all, he was expecting me to help Gabriel pick up the pieces.

“Only once,” he said in a voice so low I almost didn't hear him. “It was few months into my transition. As I already said, I had no problem with drinking blood, and Gabriel was teaching me how to regulate my feeding so I never took too much from one person.”

“But something went wrong?”

He nodded and lowered his eyes. “You must understand that as vampire I was much bigger and stronger than before. I had to learn how to use my new body. Holding something small was challenge. It was six months before I was allowed to drink from a glass.”

The difficulties were perfectly relatable, and I could understand that it took time to adjust to the new parameters afforded by the physical enhancements. “What about your senses?” I asked. “Were you having trouble with those as well?”

He shook his head. “The improvement there did not happen until after I was in more control of my body. Is too much to deal with all at once. I had to get used to the changes in . . .” He held his hands up, palms facing each other about an inch apart.

“Baby steps.”

“Da, baby steps.”

Okay, that made sense. “So how did that feel?”

His face lit up like the Fourth of July. “Amazing! I could smell when rain was coming, I could hear people in next house arguing, I could taste blend of grapes in wine,” he paused and smiled at me. “But you want to know what the very best is?” Returning his smile, I nodded. “Seeing colors. Seeing
all
colors, seeing
colors
that make up colors.”

“It sounds fantastic, but kind of one step away from a nervous breakdown,” I told him.

He shrugged. “Yes, is true, and Gabriel has said some new vampires cannot deal with so much, um . . .” He screwed up his face as he searched for the right word.

“Stimulus?” I offered.

“Yes, is too much.” He beamed at me, pleased that he had not succumbed to such a fate. “But Gabriel was big help. He taught me how to turn it down. How to hear everything, but not so loud and not so much.”

This time he made a lowering gesture with his palms facing the floor. I understood exactly what he was saying. He needed to find a way to be aware of everything around him without letting it overpower him. Teach his brain how to compartmentalize all the information his heightened abilities were sending him.

“So what happened?” I asked softly, bringing him back to my original question of whether he'd ever killed anyone by accident.

He lowered his eyes, concerned with the dregs of coffee in the bottom of his mug. “Has Gabriel ever fed from you while you are . . .” The color crept up from below the collar of his shirt, flushing his neck and jawline.

“What? Having sex?” I couldn't decide if his embarrassment was over the subject of sex in general, or as it pertained to me and Gabriel. The blush grew deeper in color.

“Then you know how closely linked the two appetites are,” he said after clearing his throat a couple of times.

Oh yeah, I knew. Did I ever.

I stared at the big guy, wondering which appetite had gotten out of control, because from the way Aleksei was now squirming in his seat, one of them had. With really, really bad consequences. I hoped it wasn't lust because having so recently been threatened with it myself, I couldn't bear it if Aleksei turned out to be a rapist.

“Tell me about it,” I murmured in a low voice.

He put the coffee mug on the table between us and clasped his hands together, holding them so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“Tomas had very strict rules for the house servants,” he began in a voice only a little lower than mine had been. “If any of them began to ask questions or show too much curiosity about Gabriel, then he found them another position somewhere else. The servants had no concerns about Gabriel as far as I knew, but my presence in the house was causing some . . . unease.”

I could well imagine that. It would be hard to not notice this newly turned and improved version of Aleksei.

“The servants were told not to go into my room when I was in the house, and even when I was gone to never go in without Tomas. It was for their own safety. My behavior was erratic, unpredictable, which is why going through the transition without the help of another vampire is so dangerous.” Unclasping his hands, he now began rubbing them together. Kind of like air-washing. “You must understand I was a peasant with no knowledge of women, so when I experienced lust—real lust—for the first time, it was both terrifying and wonderful. Please believe me, Rowan, when I tell you I never meant to harm her.”

“I believe you,” I said. Even if it turned out that Aleksei had assaulted this girl, I was certain he had not been aware of his actions. And the fact that whatever happened still haunted him was proof of his remorse.

“There was a new girl in the house, and she either forgot or decided to ignore the instructions about being in my room.” He shook his head, recalling the foolishness of the girl's actions. “She came in alone, without Tomas, just as I was rising. Gabriel had told me that he had made certain arrangements for me”—the color began creeping up over his collar again, and I could appreciate just how difficult this was for him—“and so I assumed . . . seeing a girl alone in my room . . .” Placing a hand over his mouth, Aleksei began shaking his head slowly.

“You attacked her?”

He gave me a stricken look and nodded.

“How?”

“I fed from her.” I could only imagine the terror the girl must have felt at having Aleksei grab her from the shadows, but I was relieved there had been no rape. “But with the lust so strong in me, I could not control the feeding.” He slumped back in his seat, and the hand that had been covering his mouth earlier now covered his eyes. “I didn't even know what I had done until Tomas and Gabriel pulled me off her.”

“Was she . . . ?”

He nodded. “It was almost ten years before they told me I had killed her that night. So yes, I do regret taking a life, but that is the only one, and I will carry it with me to my grave.”

There was nothing anyone could say to ease his guilt, me least of all, but perhaps that was the way it was supposed to be. In the grand scheme of things, he needed to carry the burden of an innocent death. To remind him just how fragile we all were. Even vampires.

“You said Gabriel made certain arrangements?” Aleksei stared at me, his face unreadable, and now it was my turn to feel my face pink up. “Was it with another vampire or . . . ?”

“Do you remember your first time with Gabriel?” Remember? It was something I was never going to forget. “And you were virgin, yes?”

I was definitely feeling a five-alarm burn on my cheeks, but it seemed ridiculously hypocritical of me to refuse to answer the question. My relationship with the big Russian vampire had gone past awkward to more than congenial two pots of coffee ago, but I just hoped he never asked me anything that was even slightly intimate when Gabriel was around. I nodded and mumbled something under my breath that could have passed for a yes. In any case, Aleksei took it as such.

“But you didn't know Gabriel was vampire, true?” Not expecting me to answer, he continued. “And once you knew, you could appreciate how much restraint he used that first time, yes?” Apparently this time he did expect an answer because he waited until I managed to squeak out a faint affirmative. “Now imagine if it was Gabriel's first time, and he had no control over the impulses, the physical desire and need that drove him.” Oh shit! Not good, not good, not good! “It was how I first met Katja.”

I felt myself stiffen. Of course I knew he had a history with the psycho vampire bitch. I just never expected it to be a physical one.

“Is best you know all of this now,” Aleksei said with a sigh. “Gabriel would not risk my hurting another girl. The best way to control my lust was to have sex with someone I couldn't kill. Bruise a little maybe, but not actually kill.”

“You might have done us all a favor,” I mumbled under my breath.

“Rowan!”

“Don't ‘Rowan' me. You know as well as I do that girl's a serious whack job!”

He may have looked shocked, but I could see the corners of his eyes crinkle as he tried not to laugh. Ready to leave the subject of sex and Katja behind, I said, “So you got through your transition, and then what? You just hung out with Gabriel and Tomas?”

He nodded. “For a while. Gabriel taught me to read and write, and then had scholars continue my education in whatever country we were in at the time.”

“And did you ever return to your home village?”

“Once it was safe and everyone who had known me was dead, Gabriel took me back. It was about a hundred years later. Of course he didn't know it at the time, but we could have returned sooner. After Petrov's disappearance, and with no son to take over, the village was abandoned. A few houses were still standing, but the dacha had fallen into disrepair. Still, I was able to pay my respects to my family in the field where Gabriel and I had buried them.” He gave me a sudden, unexpected smile. “It was nice. I had, um, what's the word? Closure. Yes, that's it. I had closure.”

“And what made you decide to come to America?”

He got up from his seat and gathered our empty coffee mugs and took them into the kitchen. I'd been sitting for too long, and my butt was numb, so I got to my feet and did a quick circumnavigation around the room, stopping at the sliding-glass doors that led onto the terrace. It wasn't quite nightfall but close, and even though the rain had stopped, the gloom and darkness lingered.

“America was the last place Gabriel had seen you,” Aleksei said, answering my question as he returned with fresh supplies. He brought a tray of cookies with the coffee. “So it seemed the best place to look for you. And he was right. It just took a little longer than expected.”

“Aleksei . . . can I ask you something?”

“Of course, anything.”

“Did you ever see that other vampire again, the one like Gabriel?”

“You mean Kartel?” His pause told me he was thinking. “No, I have never seen him again. Trust me, I think I would remember.”