Forbidden Days (The Firsts) (10 page)

“No…no, it’s alright, I’ll take care of it.”

“Very good, sir.”

Now Bas was wondering if she was just being stubborn, difficult Park, or if something was wrong.  He turned to his second in command, a vampire who had been with him for over two hundred years.

“Jake, keep everyone here when they arrive.  I’ll be right back.”

Jacob Ward knew Bas well and rarely ever questioned him.  He nodded and scooped up a nacho chip full of cheese and jalapenos.  They had a new house girl who was from New York City and she was making every junk food dish under the forbidden sun for them.  Vampires didn’t ever have to worry about unhealthy junk food, and Jacob was loving this new gastronomic direction.   He’d take good care of their guests until his friend returned.  He was polishing off a good size plate of the spicy dish when a stunning six foot tall woman dressed in tight leather came into the room on six inch stiletto heeled boots.   Her hair was pitch black with bright purple streaks wound through it, twisted in a braid to just above her waist.  He snickered.  Every vampire movie cliché, right there.  Her most shocking feature was her pale blue eyes, unheard of in a vampire.  Regardless of a person’s eye color, they all went dark when the vampire took over.  She was the only person he’d ever known who hadn’t.

“Jakester,” she said coolly.

“Dez,” he acknowledged, “Have something to eat.  Bas is gonna be awhile.  He’d dealing with his new human.”

“Ahhh….” The amazon groaned.  “Another one?  I though after hearing what happened to that last one he might stick with his own kind.  But what the fuck do
I
know?”  She grazed on some of Jake’s chips.  “You guys always have the best shit.”

“You know, for a woman who grew up in polite society in downtown London during the early eighteen hundreds, you are outrageously coarse.”

“And you need someone to pull that stick out of your ass…or push it through.  I’d like to present myself for the job.”  Dez grinned and picked up the rest of the nachos and wandered to the other side of the room.

Jake fumed.  Bitch, he thought.  Not out loud, something about the point on those stilettos scared him too much.  They couldn’t kill him but they’d hurt like hell.

Bas gently knocked on the door of the Lavender suite, located conveniently just three doors away from his.  No answer.  He knocked again, louder.  Nothing.  Then, banged.  Again, no response.  Well it was his damned house so he shoved it open and went in.  It was dark, she had the lights off, the only light filtered in from the balcony, both doors swung open wide.  He continued through the room and found her, stretched out on a recliner.  When he came up behind her and said her name, she didn’t respond, then he realized her eyes were closed and she had earphones in her ears.  But she knew he was there because, without opening her eyes or turning to him, she said his name back to him, very, very softly.

He came around the front, scooted her legs aside and straddled the recliner.  There was enough light from the garden and the nearly full moon to easily see her face,  glowing in the reflected moonlight.  She looked at peace.  After he sat down, she opened her eyes and watched him.  He pulled the earbuds out of her ears and took the little machine away, set it aside.

“What’s going on, Park?” he asked.

She moaned softly.  “Just relaxing.  Had a headache.   Sorry about your meeting.  Didn’t think you really needed me anyway.”

“That wasn’t your choice.  I requested you attend.”

She closed her eyes again, waited before she answered.  Then opened them again and said, “Bas, you don’t own me.  I don’t own you.  And you don’t need a silly little weak human in your strategy meeting to discuss how to deal with some rogue vampires.”  She sighed.   “You don’t.”             

“I still asked you to attend.  I
asked
you, Park, I didn’t demand.”

“I’m sorry, you’re right.  Forgive me.”

Bas smiled.  “Now
that’s
unsettling, you giving in so easily in our verbal sparring.  But I
am
right.”  He paused.  “You really have a headache?”

“Sure,” she said.  And he didn’t believe her.  He felt her, as he had from the first moment with her.  Something was off.  He leaned in to touch her, and had no sooner touched her shoulder than his head reeled, he was dizzy, and then transported someplace else, somewhere he did not know, a horrible dark place.  The events that unfolded were heart rending…a young woman, girl, really, her long hair tied back with a rag, her green eyes stained with sorrow and fear.  An emaciated woman, heavily made up, heavily lined, was grinning evilly at her as she pushed her into the miserable room with a disgustingly nasty old man.  What happened next shocked him, from the beginning moment when they were alone to the moment he was made to leave.   His head pounded and he was dizzy again, then finally back in his own mind at this moment there on the balcony with Park.  She was leaning against him now.

He pulled back sharply, his eyes captured hers.  She shook her head.

“What?” she asked, confused at his sudden withdrawal.

At first he couldn’t speak.  Then he scooted back in.  His eyes searched her face.  Yes, yes, he knew it.  It had been her.  Oh, god.  He knew her mother was a bitch, but this…

She searched his eyes again innocently.  “Bas, what is it?”  Then it dawned on her.   Their connection…oh, no, No, he couldn’t have…she couldn’t bear it if he had…

She pulled back and got up, went to the railing.

“What did you see?” she asked, her voice stoic.

“Park…I saw the…I saw what happened, why you’re up here struggling to forget it.”

She dropped her head.  Oh, well…it couldn’t really matter…she’d be leaving now.   It would have happened sooner or later anyway…no surprise it was sooner.

She turned to him.  “I’m sorry.  I’ll pack up.  Just my own things.  Can I get a cab out of here?  I hope I don’t need to take one of your staff away to drive me all the way to town.”

Bas was behind her, his breath on her throat.

“What are you talking about?  You are not leaving.”

“You can’t want me here now.  Not after you see what I am.  What I’ve done.  I’m dirty, Bas.  She always told me I was.  You don’t want me here now…I’m going to go.

He grabbed her and held her.

“You will not leave my sight.  What I saw was a beautiful young girl being treated horrifically by those she should have been able to trust.  There is
nothing
wrong with you.  You are smart and gorgeous and I want you more than anyone I have ever known.  You don’t feel that?”

She lifted her head, glistening eyes looking into his.  “I thought I did.  But now that you know how I was…how I lived…Bas, I was always told I wasn’t worth anything.  I try to get past it, but sometimes…”  She shuddered.  “Sometimes I’m back there and have to fight to get home again.  That’s why I have the music.  It gets into my head and helps me push it back.”

“You’re not going to push it back anymore.  You’re going to exterminate it.   Your past was the result of terrible people.  You were a
victim,
Park.  So do not ever tell me again that you are not worthy of me.”

He held her again, and then pulled back, looked deeply into her eyes, their connection intense, and kissed her, thoroughly, took her breath away, took her past away and left only the incredible present.  When he pulled away, his eyes were shining too.  Look at that, Park thought, a vampire with tears.  It showed how much he cared that he could let her see that.  It touched her like nothing else in her entire life.  She could feel the healing begin.  And touched his face.

“It means so much that you accept me.”

“I more than accept you. I want you and I’m going to show that soon.  But now, I really have to get to that meeting.  I want you to come with me.  Will you?”

Park nodded.  She’d go anywhere with him.  For him.  “Let me wash my face, fix my makeup.”   He nodded and followed her into the room, but she could feel the sadness in him for her because he had witnessed that man’s assault.

“Bas, he didn’t hurt me.”

“No, he didn’t get to.  But
she
did.”  He hesitated before he asked.  “Is she dead?”

“No, but I don’t know where she is.  When I was seventeen, I asserted myself.  I stood up to her and told her I was leaving.  She laughed, tried to kick me, but she was too drunk to stand.  Then she just started screaming.  Said she was well rid of me.  It was the first time I truly got to see the world.  It was the last time I’ve ever seen her.”

“If I ever do, I’ll tear her throat out.”

“Bas, she’s my mother.”

“No, she’s not.  She’s worse an animal than any vampire I have ever known.  It offends me that she is still breathing.”

“It’s over now.”

He stepped forward.  “When you can forget her, when you know how brilliant, how lovely, you are, without question, then it’s over.  I intend to start helping with that tonight.”

Park smiled.  “I think you’ll be an excellent teacher.”

As she walked away, he thought…
and eventually we’ll have to talk about a little girl who could use her hands to make a man fly across a room.

When she was ready, she smiled sweetly, and he wondered how anyone could ever have treated that beautiful child so badly.  He was half in love with her already.   Somewhere in the back of his mind something told him to be careful…he didn’t need the distraction of love.   That same voice scoffed…he hadn’t been in three centuries…it wasn’t a worry.

“Bas, where’s Bernie?  Is she okay?”

“One of my oldest friends is taking point on her care.  He volunteered to stay with her and make sure she makes the transition okay.  His name is Vasali, and I’ve known him for nearly two hundred years.  He’s a good man, I trust him completely.  He’ll see she makes it through.  I have to feed her still, but he’ll keep her from hurting herself.  Yes, I know that sounds odd, but it’s a problem.  She’ll be fine, I promise.”

144

Chapter Seven

He’d been in jail for twenty four hours already.  He
did
know his rights.  They would have to let him go soon.  He pulled the thin smelly blanket up and rolled over.

What the hell happened to her?  He’d left the restaurant only moments after she had and he’d seen her go around the corner to her car.  She’d gotten in, he knew it, because he saw the interior light come on.  After that, he’d gone to his own car and headed home.  He’d been sorry it hadn’t worked out.  She was gorgeous, obviously very bright, and he thought she seemed like a truly interesting person.  But there was something…something he couldn’t touch.  She was closed to him, almost from the beginning.  Bernadette Meyer, the ex-girlfriend of an old roommate, had set them up.   He’d gone only after his buddy had shown him a video of her from an old office party where Park had been telling a joke about two amoebas.  It was her smile and then her laugh that caught him as much as her classic beauty.

But she had been missing from that night, and he stood accused.  This was going to go well with his career path in the partnership.  Even though it was his grandfather’s firm, being his only grandson did not make him a shoe-in for partner.  If anything, it meant he had to kick ass to get it.  This would not help.

The hard bench was playing hell with his back and shoulders, which had been complaining every time he worked out lately.  His doctor had advised him to take a break, but he couldn’t.  His workouts were important to him, having lost his father and two brothers to heart disease due to obesity and bad family genetics.  He determined he’d find a way to defeat the family legacy.  Well, the food he was getting in here wasn’t going to pose any weight gain issues.  And neither was too much sleep.

Zach finally got up and did some stretches.  The lights were still low, meant to simulate lights out for the “residents” here in city lockup.  He was feeling pressure in his chest, but even with the family history of heart attacks, he wasn’t worried.  He figured it was stress…being accused of abduction or worse wasn’t exactly harmonious with a state of calmness.  He hooked his feet around the bottom of the cell door and started some crunches.  

His mind kept returning to that night she disappeared.  Yeah, it pissed him off that he was accused, and that they had some evidence that might place him at her home.  They’d found a slightly muddy shoe print that perfectly matched the shoes he’d worn for their date that night, size and shape identical.  So some other creep wore the kind of shoe he did.  The most damning though, had been the maître d had told the detective that she was upset when she left and he’d followed her.  He knew it looked damning, but he also knew how innocent the whole thing had been.

And although it upset him to be accused, he was more concerned with what had really happened to her.  He’d really liked her.  And  kind of felt like whatever had happened to her had happened on his watch.  Felt responsible for not making absolutely sure she was safely in her car and on her way home.

Okay, he flashed back to the night again.  She’d only been a little ahead of him.  He’d thrown down a couple hundred dollar bills to cover the tab and smiled at the waitress as he’d walked out.  As he’d walked through the exit, he saw her go around the corner and since his car was parked in that direction, he followed.  She was parked down from the corner, but he’d been able to see her.  The interior lights seemed bright when he glanced down the dimly lit street.  Did he actually see her get in the car?  He was wracking his brain and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t remember.  As he struggled to push out a few more crunches, his mind kept returning to that one moment, over and over.  If she never made it into her car, he felt it was on him.  When they released him today, and they would have to , they really didn’t have enough to hold him, then he was going straight there.  He had to find out what happened to her.  If it was the last thing he did, he would find her.