Innocently Evil (A Kitty Bloom Novel) (30 page)

I screwed up my face at her words as the good half of me filled with disgust and my evil side cried internally that we belonged to no one. I took a side step and the vampire mirrored my movement.

All of a sudden, a smile crept over her face as though a thought had just occurred to her. “I guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” she said grinning. “Although I must admit that Max seems to lack the seductive charm of his father. When I’m around Louis, I never want to leave him. There hasn’t been a day since we’ve been here that I haven’t gone to see him. When I’m with him I know deep inside that we are meant to be, like our souls were destined for each other. I doubt that Max has the same effect on you.”

She raised an eyebrow at me questioningly
, almost as though she was challenging me. A strange feeling filled me and while my good side wallowed in denial, my evil half had to concede to a similar sense of destiny. At times, when the true Max shone through, an emptiness deep inside me seemed to disappear and I began to feel content.

As soon as the thought entered my head, my eyes betrayed me and seemed to shine the harmful truth out to the searching eyes of the motherly vampire.
“Ha,” she exclaimed, gleefully. “I knew it. We are destined forever to be part of the one family. Max is your soul mate and Louis is mine. Oh, Kitty, I’m so happy.” Biting her lip in joyful ecstasy, she stretched out her arms and took a step towards me, as though she was looking for a hug.

“
Whoa,” I said jumping back. “Um—remember the blood.” I pointed down at my ruined clothes after the admission of the quick-thinking excuse and hoped that it would persuade her not to touch me.

Luckily for me it appeared to work, because she stopped mid-movement, looking down at my clothes and seemed to think better of her desire. Her arms dropped to her sides, but her fiercely happy grin remained.
“Oh, baby,” she said sweetly. “We are going to spend eternity together.”

I tried for a reassuring smile, but all I could manage was a half-hearted twist of lips that soon collapsed into a frown. Then, a memory washed
over me, of darkness, of prison bars and of Sam. The dream I’d been drowning in only moments before seemed to fill my head more clearly and I remembered how much I missed Sam. I yearned for him and his help and then thought better of the silent answer my eyes had given my undead mother.

Although
I could feel how much the evil part of me cared for Max, so much that at times it felt certain that we were meant to be together, when I was with Sam I always felt like that. Even though my evil half often questioned the constancy of his love for me, due to her own insecurities, Sam and I felt like truly destined souls, like ying and yang, a matching pair, and I couldn’t just ignore that.

Tilting my head to the side with uncertainty, I stared at my mum with her bright vampire eyes and remembered what she’d told me about my father, Marcus Gray.
If Louis was so rightfully her soul mate, then what was Marcus, an unprotected fling?

Feeling defensive for both my father and myself, I decided, a little impulsively, to put the question to the source and find out her answer.
“But, Mother,” I said, finding it hard to call her that. “What about Marcus, my father? I thought you loved him.”

Swiftly, her smile disintegr
ated and her head shot back as though she’d been hit. Her red lips pursed together in anger and her eyes narrowed at me. “He was nothing,” she said quickly. “Just a fleeting affair, of which the only benefit was you. And I should have known back then, I think I did, that Louis Tiennan was the one. He’s always been the one for me.”

Her head shot up high and she looked down her nose at me, as her hands clasped nervously in front of her. “Marcus was a human,
an innocent,” she spat severely. “He had nothing to offer me. Just like Sam has nothing to offer you.”

My mouth dropped open and I couldn’t help but f
eel shocked and offended on Sam’s, my father’s and also my account. Sam was much more than just an innocent human. In fact he wasn’t even a human anymore anyway. He was my guardian angel and he had a lifetime to offer me, much more than what her precious new stepson Max could offer me in an eternity of death. Although, I felt my evil side complaining aggressively against some of my mental accusations, she could understand my point and didn’t fight to intervene.

“Did you think I didn’t know,”
asked my mum, the evil vampire. “I’m your mother. I know you and I know all about Sam. It’s a shame he’ll have to die, isn’t it? Louis has already made the plans.” She smirked devilishly at me as her hands rose to her hips and she waited eagerly for a reply.

I glared at her, wishing harmful tortures at her that no one should ever wish upon their mother. Biting the insides of my cheeks and pursing my lips, I tried to calm myself and think of a way to avoid escalating the situation. Bringing up Marcus had been a bad idea, but at least now I knew that I had to keep Sam securely out of the conversation as much as possible. If I was to protect
Sam, I had to pretend my feelings for him were obsolete and I had to bring the focus back to the other reasons why I didn’t want to be a vampire and spend an eternity with Max. I couldn’t live with myself if I was the reason for Sam’s death.

So, a conversation diverter
became a necessity, and while my mum’s dead turquoise eyes watched me waiting for an answer, I searched my brain for something to throw her off the scent of Sam. An idea hit me and my attention refocused on the reason for her troublesome visit, she had been sent to help me prepare for the evening’s events.

With a silent sigh and ignoring the niggling flight or fight response in the back of my brain, I took a step towards her.
“I need a shower,” I said, feigning defeat and tiredness. “What time are the festivities to begin tonight anyway?”

A sudden wash of surprise filled her firm expression and then a peaceful and pleasant smile returned to her lips. She stepped towards me, dropping her arms to her sides and then reached a hand out to my arm. With a great force of will and a total shot of numbness to the creepy feeling she exuded, I didn’t flinch away and stood still as her cold fingers wrapped gently around my arm.

“We have a couple of hours,” she said sweetly with a giggle. “After all, you are the guest of honor.” With her hand wrapped securely around my arm she began leading me towards the bathroom. “You know, you’re very lucky,” she said, as though we were best friends chatting. “All the most important citizens of Saint Jean will be here tonight to watch you turn. All I got was a private party with Louis and Max. You should be very grateful for what they are doing for you. They all consider you quite special.”

“Ya
y,” I said under my breath, then remembered how her super vampire hearing would have picked up on the clear sarcasm. I looked up at her quizzical frown and I frowned back. “You know I’m not good with crowds, Mum,” I said, hoping she’d buy it. “I’m going to be so embarrassed. I think you would have got more out of a big special occasion than I will. Is it much too late to just have a private party for me, too? Just a family gathering?” I gave her my best anxious puppy-dog eyes and prayed that I hadn’t laid it on too thickly.

She raised an eyebrow at me curiously and then seemed to think better of it. Smiling reassuringly
, she patted me on the arm, while I tried hard not to shudder at her touch. “I’m sorry darling,” she said, sounding genuinely apologetic, “but everything’s already been arranged. I promise you’ll love it. I’m sure you will. You deserve to be special once in a while. Just think of it as the eighteenth birthday you should’ve had.”

Her grinned widened and she snuggled into my side. “Come on,” she said, as
we reached the bathroom doorway. “Let’s go make you the belle of the ball.”

Twenty-Two: The Memory of Meeting

I stared glumly into the antique mirror hanging on the wall in the elegantly furnished hallway, while my mum’s undead fingers fidgeted with my hair.
She’d not left me alone for more than a second since she’d come to my room earlier to prepare me for the evening. She’d even insisted on sitting inside the bathroom while I hid behind the shower curtain and let the warm water of the shower wash all the congealed blood from my body. It seemed as though she was just a tad paranoid that I might try and do something crazy, like escape from three insane vampires before they could turn me into one of them.

A deep, peaceful sigh escaped the motherly vampire’s lips and her turquoise eyes connected with mine in the mirror.
“Don’t you look lovely,” she said, more to herself and the emptiness of the room than to me.

She reached forward, brushing her cold fingertip
s across my left temple as she stroked a mischievous curl behind my ear and I fought back a creepy shiver. Stealing my eyes from the cold deadness of hers, I looked over my appearance and had to agree with her. Although I was mightily unhappy, I had to admit I looked decent. Beautiful enough to spend my last couple of hours, or less, appreciating the life left in my body anyway, before those fanged vultures chose to strip it away.

Aside from the dark
bedroom eyes and scarlet colored lips my vampire mother had painted on me, I was dolled up quite plainly with no expensive jewelry or accessories, which I would have expected. The stunning, halter-neck, blood-red gown from the cupboard clung seductively to my curves, accentuating my toned, hourglass figure and the red hues in the curls of my loose, burgundy black hair. Against the vibrant red of the dress and the heavy darkness of my hair, my peaches and cream skin seemed dramatically pale, making the deep sapphire of my eyes more strikingly blue.

With a frown, I g
lanced down at my feet, wiggling them uneasily in the matching red, satin pumps, while a part of me hoped desperately that I wouldn’t stumble or trip in front of the supernaturally scary audience. Raising my eyes back to the mirror, I sighed involuntarily and then tried to hide the hopelessness and dread I felt for the coming events of the evening from my miserable expression.

The vampire with my mum’s face frowned sympathetically at me and then hugged me from behind, squishing the chilly skin of her arms around my chest and shoulders.
“Don’t worry, Kitty-cat,” she said softly. “It won’t be as bad as you think. There’s no need to be nervous. Everyone will love you.”

I smiled half-heartedly at her, glad that she’d completely missed the point of my unhappiness and then prayed for the icy hug to end.

After a moment longer than I would have appreciated, she let go of me and
smiled, her face filling with something resembling pride. She rubbed a cold hand up and down my arm reassuringly and then took a step back. “I am a very lucky mother to have such an incredible daughter,” she said, proudly.

Then she stepped away
out of sight of the mirror, forcing me to turn around and find her for fear of my paranoia starting up again. Walking slowly, she was heading towards the two delicately decorated double doors at the closest end of the hallway on my right.

With a final step towards them she stopped and turned her head to face me. “It’s time for me to make an appearance now, darling,” she declared
pleasantly, but as though she was preparing herself for an important task. “Max will be along shortly to keep you company until it’s time to present yourself.”

Her face returned to the doors for a moment, while her right hand struck out and grabbed a hold of the left door handle, and then she looked back at me once more. A sad, but somehow h
appy expression covered her face and she smiled encouragingly at me. “Tonight will be a night you will never forget,” she told me quietly. “Please remember that I love you.”

With those final words and a departing nod, she twisted the door handle, opened the door and slipped out of the room. As the door shut with a slight thud, I finally noticed how much agony I was in. My entire body ached with the lonely depression of defeat and my heart felt as though it had been put through a wood chipper.

My mind drifted back to the early morning of my eighteenth birthday and of how wonderful and normal everything had been. I was so lucky, so happy and so innocent of the horrors of the world back then. Even though it was only four days ago, it seemed like a lifetime. I just wished that I had been more appreciative of what I had when I had it. Now I had nothing, except maybe Sam, if I was lucky enough not to get him killed. But my mum, my only living family, was now dead, or undead and she wanted the same for me. It felt like my life was ending, so why fight it? There was no way that little, old me could fight and win against an entire room of evil was there?

I covered my eyes with my palms and let the tips of my fingers run through the soft roots of my hair by my forehead as I sighed in frustration. I didn’t want to give up. I didn’t want it to end like this. There had to be another way.

“It can’t be that bad,” said a deep, English-accented voice.

I lifted my head up towards the direction of the
comment and peered through the protection of my hands. Max was stalking casually towards me, dressed handsomely in a stylish, black and white tuxedo. He had his hands in his pockets, giving him a somewhat sexy swagger to his walk.