Called to Order (27 page)

“Lisey, where have you been? I have been trying to reach you, even sent Karen to check on you, but she said no one answered the door.”

Anna seemed relieved that this man seemed more concerned for her well being than the man Kyle. She detailed the same lie she had told the other man, and Adam did not interrupt her.

“Are you better now?” Jim asked with obvious concern.

“Yes, but some personal issues have come up. I need to leave town for a bit. It’s a… family emergency.”

The man looked at Adam and eyed him. Adam growled. “Who is your friend?”

Anna looked back at him then to Jim. “This is Adam. He’s been helping me with some things.”

“Annalise, if you need anything you know you could come to me. We’re always here for you.”

“I know, it’s just, this is personal.”

Jim didn’t seem to accept her excuses easily. Adam had the sense that the man did not like him because he had simply never seen him before. “Can I speak to you privately for a minute, Lisey?”

She looked back at Adam then opened her mouth to respond, but Adam placed a stilling hand on her shoulder and stepped closer. “I have asked Anna to marry me. Whatever you need to say to her you can say in front of me.”

This did not please the man. “Married? Lisey, you’re twenty-three.”

“I…I know. We’re still working things out. We haven’t even talked about a date yet. We’re going to take things slow,” she explained, sending Adam an irritated look.

“And how did the two of you meet?”

“That is none of your concern.”

“
Adam,
you’re being rude.” She turned back to Jim to apologize and gasped. Adam did not break eye contact with the other man to look at Anna.

Adam continued, “Anna will be moving out of the area for some time. You will find a new employee to take her place, and you are very happy for her.”

Anna continued to stare at him with her mouth agape. She turned back to Jim when he said in a monotone voice, “Well, congratulations, Anna. I’ll be sad to see you go and it’ll be hard to find another employee as dependable as you, but I wish you nothing but happiness. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”

Adam led Anna out of the office and shut the door. He could feel her rage in a way he had never felt it from her before. She kept her arms stiff at her sides and her lips pressed tightly together as he took her elbow and led her out of the bar. Their purpose here was complete.

When they reached the truck, Adam walked her to her door and Anna angrily yanked her arm from his grasp. “What is wrong with you?”

A car door opened and closed in the distance. Adam crushed his lips to hers, crowding her in the space of the open truck door, and she pushed at his chest, trying to break the kiss.

“Lisey, is that you? Where you been, girl?”

Adam broke the kiss and turned on a burly older man with a bushy mustache who had interrupted them. He hissed, fangs bared, eyes fully dilated and glowing in the dark night. “Leave!” The man froze for a split second then quickly turned back toward his vehicle and walked in a daze back to his car.

“Adam, what’s gotten into you?” Anna snapped as she shoved him.

He picked her up by the waist, plucking her from the ground and plopping her on the seat of the truck. “I do not like so many men looking at you. You are mine.”

She gave him a disbelieving look then hissed, “Not yet I’m not!”

His inner beast roared, and he forcefully pressed her back, her body collapsing upon the bench seat of the vehicle. She struggled to sit up, but Adam applied minimal pressure to her chest and held her in place. His thoughts were jumbled, his eyes searching every inch of her, for what he did not know. His vision caught on the fluttering pulse just below her delicate jawline. Lily-white flesh, as fine as the petals of a flower, called to him. His gums ached, his mouth feeling overly full. He wanted to sink into her in every possible way. His voice sounded nothing like his own as he warned, “Make no mistake
ainsicht,
you are mine.”

* * * *

Annalise did not understand what was happening. Adam was suddenly crazed and acting like a Neanderthal. He held her pinned to the worn-down leather seat, the shadows casting over corners causing her to feel as if she were being held underwater. The sky was dark; nothing like the masterpiece of stars that hung over the open land in Lancaster. Here it was just inky blackness where if one did notice a sparkle it would most likely be a jet in the distance.

The press of Adam’s palm accompanied by the sting of his sharp nails had her abandoning her astrological thoughts in exchange for more urgent issues. She carefully wrapped her hand around his thick wrist. His pulse pounded frantically under his tightly corded skin. She wasn’t sure what exactly had triggered this reaction in him, but for whatever reason he was acting nothing like himself, unpredictable. Tension breathed off of him like tongues of heat from a wild fire.

“Adam. Adam, look at me.” His eyes, not human eyes, but those of a crazed animal darted over her body, tripping over her face until they found an anchor in her own. “Adam, don’t do this here. We’re in a parking lot. Whatever you need I will give you, but you have to let me up.”

His chest heaved. Twin white points tipped out from between his parted lips. She could read the confusion in his face as if her words were reaching him through a haze, jumbled and broken, not quite making sense. She reassured him, “I will not run from you, Adam. You have to release me.”

“No!” he snapped, exerting more pressure over her chest, crossing the line between restraint and force.

She winced as her shoulders pressed deep into the old leather and her neck twisted at an odd angle so that she could maintain eye contact with him. He moved closer, and she could feel that he was severely aroused. The last thing she wanted was for him to take what he wanted brutally in a way that she would never be able to forgive.

“Adam, you have to listen to me.” He shifted his legs and she could feel his other hand moving over his own clothing. “You cannot do this. Please! Listen to what I’m saying. Look at what you’re doing. This isn’t you. Don’t do this.”

His shoulders bunched. She held tight to the wrist above her chest with both hands. He was so incredibly strong. He didn’t seem to be using any effort at all to pin her in place. She suddenly felt very frightened for herself, but also for him. She couldn’t get through to him. Would he force her, take her against her will like an animal? Lost in a sea of confusion was her sweet Adam. Not this man holding her down. This was his beast. A beast she could not overpower or reason with.

Annalise was afraid of what he would do but not terrified. Some deep down part of her knew he would not endanger her life. She was too important to him, necessary. Yet she was frightened about the damage he would do to the fragile balance of trust they had only recently established. He would never forgive himself for hurting her, and she would not be able to overlook such a betrayal.

He tugged at the tangle of limbs between them in the cramped space. A wash of emotion flooded her, so many feelings at one time, not pain, but hurt, a hurt that spread through her chest like fire that he could do this. She repeated his name over and over, a plea on her lips, but the thin thread of communication she held had been severed. She was reasoning with a deaf animal. He was no longer seeing her, but seeing his own irrational fears of her belonging to another male. Ridiculous.

Anger and inadequacy flooded her. She had never in her life felt so small, so helpless, so utterly human. It was in that moment that she truly accepted that she would never be as powerful as him. He was not a man, but a vampire possessed by baser instincts and strength she had no weapon to defeat.

Her grip slackened in surrender as his whispered name fell from her lips one last time. A numbing rage filled her at the reality that he would give up so easily on his control. She thought he was stronger than that. It was so naive of her to think he could outrun what his uncle could not. She wanted to punch him for letting his emotions win over common sense. Would he ever come back from this dark place inside of him that now had full possession of his gentle mind?

A tear slipped from her eye and she turned away from him. Ashamed that she was not strong enough to get through to him, heartbroken that whatever beautiful thing they had was about to be destroyed, and she was helpless to prevent it.

It took her a moment to realize his movements had stilled. Her wet lashes clung to each other as she opened her eyes. She blinked through the blurred images before her. As her vision slowly focused, she saw Adam watching her, his head cocked to one side like a dog watching something peculiar and curious. She had let go of his wrist some time ago, and she realized he was no longer forcing her down. A frown knitted across his brow as he watched her through eyes still not his own.

She looked at him, her lips pressed in a resigned line. A stuttering breath clattered through her nose, small, incapable of filling her lungs, yet her body reverberated from its force. She had not cried like that since she was a child. Not even when her mother died did she suffer those kinds of torturous sobs that silently wracked her entire body.

He blinked. She watched the smooth-shaven skin of his neck roll over the lines of his throat as he swallowed. His mouth opened, the confusion in his expression clearly stemming from his brain as not a single word crossed his tongue. Yet she noticed a change. His fangs were no longer showing.

He slowly reached for her face. Hands belonging to a craftsman, strong and unthreatening in any bestial way showed before her. The soft pad of his thumb came down gently upon her cheek, rubbing out the evidence of her tears. He blinked several times, and Anna found a thread of hope that he was returning to himself.

She prayed to his God that he was out of his haze, that what he was about to do would not happen now. She prayed that she possessed some small characteristic capable of reaching him. She had to be something more than the biological carbon filling a body that matched a woman in his dreams. She needed him to recognize her as something personal and intrinsically unique. She needed to be more than the candidate paired with his destiny. She needed to know, for her own peace of mind, her own self-value, that there was something about her that made her right for this man. She had not realized until the moment that she could lose this man, how much she truly cared for him, how much she would actually be losing.

She needed him to love her for more than the reward she brought him, for more than the salvation she guaranteed him. She could not just be a body. She needed to hold worth to him in more than just the slot in his fate she filled. Otherwise her sacrifice would be meaningless. If he did this thing, took from her what she did not fully consent to, well, it would be worse than being attacked by a stranger on the street. It would be the betrayal of someone she had trusted with her life. She needed to hold onto some part of herself through all of this, and she needed Adam to recognize her as more than something his traditions claimed he was owed. She needed him to need her, her mind, her soul, her foibles, and rough corners. Could he be seeing her now? More than the body she occupied in this confusing world. More than the cosmic pull from some unknown part of her that called to him.

She lay beneath him completely helpless. Against his strength she had no defense. Her only weapon was her soul, and unless he could see those hidden parts of her, she was doomed.

“Anna?” His voice creaked as if it were a forgotten door. “You’re crying.”

She watched as his pupils slowly returned to normal. His eyes moved over their bodies as if he were considering how they had come to be in such a position. He gently fixed her skirt, as a parent would lovingly adjust their child’s. His hand went to her hair, and he carefully folded a few strands back to their rightful place. She recognized this side of him, the side that favored propriety and modest calm.

He still seemed disoriented, but his first concern appeared to be her disheveled appearance. He looked at her as if trying to read her emotional balance. He sucked in a deep breath and took a hasty step back. He looked down at his own clothing then and seemed to process the wrongness of their predicament.