Kindling Flames—Gathering Tinder

  ***

  Darien sat up and stretched as the Council broke for the evening. It had been several hours since he had arrived, and he was glad that the masters were done bickering. If it had been in his nature, he could have easily fallen asleep at the table listening to their petty squabbles.

  Michael stormed from the room without greeting Darien. He had been the center of most of the complaints raised. At one hundred fifty years old, he was a master, but he acted like an overgrown kid sometimes.

  “Looks like you have your hands full there.” Darien smiled at the brunette who led the mismatched group of vampires. He had turned Clara a long time ago and enjoyed the fact that she had made a place for herself in the world.

  Clara laughed at him. “You could always come in and take over,” she offered.

  It had become a running joke of theirs. Every time Darien showed up, she would offer him the Council’s head seat, and he would gracefully decline it.

  “No, thank you,” he replied. “I would rather sit through an audit every day.”

  Clara laughed again. “Are you heading straight back to Brenton, or will you be spending the weekend with us?” She enjoyed the nights when Darien came out to visit. He was the closest thing to a celebrity they could get, and everyone came out to see him when he stopped in.

  Darien was sure they were using his presence as a good excuse to throw a party. “I’ll have to head back as soon as I can get Charlie to come out with the wrecker. I blew out a radiator hose on my car on the way over,” he explained. “I had to bring my personal assistant with me, and she, well, she doesn’t know about us.”

  Clara stopped in her tracks and stared at Darien with an open mouth. “You brought an Innocent here!”

  “There wasn’t much I could do about that.” He defended himself. “We were in a meeting when you called, and I didn’t have time to take her back to the office. She was going to just drop me off and drive back, but that was before the car broke down. I couldn’t very well leave her sitting out there, waiting for Charlie, soaked to the bone.”

  Clara closed her mouth and thought about his situation for a moment. “You have a point,” she agreed before they resumed their walk out of the council chambers. “So where is she now?”

  “I ran into Tiffany on my way in and had her take Miss Westernly to Natalie, with instructions that Miss Westernly was mine, and no one was to touch her.”

  Clara stared at Darien as if he had made a massive mistake.

  “What?” Concern bloomed in his heart.

  “Tiffany’s a scatterbrain these days,” she said. “I hope she gave Natalie the full message.”

  Clara and Darien both picked up the pace. They ran down the steps and through the hall, trying to find Natalie.

  ***

  “Where is she?” Darien cried, as he followed Clara into the kitchen where Natalie was baking.

  Natalie looked up in shock at the greeting the normally calm man had given her. “Good evening, Master Darien. I assume you are looking for your pet?” She smiled.

  Darien groaned. That just proved that Tiffany hadn’t passed on his message properly. “She’s not my pet,” he explained. “She’s my employee and an Innocent.”

  Shock crossed Natalie’s face. “I... I didn’t know!” she exclaimed.

  “It’s all right.” Darien tried to calm himself down. “Where is she now?”

  “I gave her to Josie and the house crew.” Natalie found her way into one of the chairs at the table so her weakened legs wouldn’t drop her to the floor. Had she known Vicky was an Innocent, she would have made sure the house crew knew to keep her away from the vampires. As it was, she had turned the poor girl loose to be dinner, without as much as a warning.

  Darien pushed past Clara and jogged down the hall to the lounge. His eyes scanned the room to find all the regulars and a few vampires, but Vicky was nowhere to be seen. “Where is she?” he asked, with a note of urgency in his voice. Not all the vampires were there, and he knew the house rules said that anyone in this room was free game to all.

  “We put her to bed after her bath,” Brian answered.

  Darien let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.” The tension drained from his shoulders.

  “You were worried about her?” Josie asked. After listening to the way Vicky had spoken about Darien, she was sure he would be less caring.

  “Of course I was worried about her. She’s an Innocent.”

  Everyone turned shocked looks towards him.

  “You brought an Innocent here?” Terrance asked from where he sat on William’s lap.

  “It wasn’t by choice,” Darien defended himself again. “The car she was going to drive back in broke down, and I couldn’t just leave her to wait till Charlie came and got her. She would have caught pneumonia.”

  “But we thought she was your…” Jenny started, but Darien cut her off.

  “No, she’s my personal assistant. She runs my human life.”

  “But she said something about you putting someone on bed rest, and that you had been through another nine pets in the last two months!” Brian exclaimed.

  Darien now understood the reason Josie had been surprised he was worried about the girl. “I’m not that kind of monster,” he said, shocked. “Marianna’s on bed rest because she’s pregnant with triplets. And the nine women were temps trying out for the position as my assistant!”

  The entire room cowered back from the power leaking off the livid vampire.

  Darien closed his eyes and bit back his anger at them all. Of course they would want to ask her questions. He had never brought anyone here before. Calming himself, he tried to think of a way to salvage the situation. “She doesn’t know anything about vampires,” he informed the room. “What did you tell her?”

  Another shocked gasp ran through the room.

  “Completely innocent?” Liz asked.

  Darien nodded. “She doesn’t even know about me. Now, what did you tell her?”

  A whistle of amazement sounded in the stunned room as he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to fend off the headache threatening him.

  “Nothing, really,” Josie finally answered. “We had just started talking to her about, well, you, and she fainted from the heat in the onsen. We figured it was low blood pressure, and Brian and I put her to bed in one of the suites.”

  Darien let out another sigh of relief. This was not turning out to be as bad as it could have been. He looked around the room at the people that had gathered. The trickle of power that had been released during his outrage had drawn the rest of the Vampire Council into the lounge to see what had made the great man so mad. Darien noticed that everyone was there except for one face.

  “Where’s Michael?”

  A gentle tug on her hair pulled Vicky from a strange dream. She rubbed her face into the soft pillow and tried to recapture the sleep that had left her. Feeling the pressure on her head again, her eyes fluttered open. The light of the moon shown across a huge featherbed. She shifted her head as she recognized the pull of a brush through her hair.

  Vicky froze for a moment as she tried to figure out what had happened. One minute she was having a weird conversation with a strange group of people, and the next minute she was having her hair brushed in bed by a stranger. Vicky went to sit up, and a hand pressed against her bare shoulder.

  “It’s okay, baby, relax. I’m just sorting through your hair for you.”

  Vicky couldn’t see the man who spoke to her, but he wasn’t one of the men she had been introduced to. Keenly aware of his cool hand on her bare skin, she held still, trying to decide what to do. Turning her eyes down her body, she found the shine of a black silk nightgown. She let out a sigh of relief. As long as she was wearing clothing, she could handle just about anything.

  The brushing stopped, and the bed shifted as the man set the brush on the bedside table. It felt like he was lying next to her. Taking the opportunity to roll her head over, she lo
oked at the person invading her bed.

  Vicky could barely make out the well-built man in the soft, silvery light of the moon, but it was clear that he wasn’t wearing a shirt. She couldn’t see farther down his body, but she could feel the rough touch of denim against her leg. He had to be wearing jeans.

  She tried to roll away from him, but his hand came down, stopping her escape. Vicky’s eyes widened as she felt the material of her sleepwear slip around her. Yes, she was wearing clothing, but the low-cut nightgown split clear to the hip on both sides and was only held in place by thin straps over the shoulders.

  “Don’t go away, baby. We’re just getting started.”

  Vicky tried to move out from under his hands as Tiffany’s suggestive words came back to her. Under the right circumstances, a little uncomplicated sex was fine, but she wanted to at least know the guy’s name before he made it into her bed.

  “I promise not to hurt you,” the man whispered as he tried to get a better hold on her.

  She pushed his hands back and rolled away from him to get off the bed.

  The man was faster than Vicky was. He caught her around the middle and pulled her against him. “Oh, I like them with a little fight: it heats up the blood.”

  She stopped trying to get away without hurting him and started struggling to get out of his iron grip.

  “Feisty aren’t we, baby!” The man sat up and brought her with him, pressing her back into his chest. He pinned Vicky’s hands together at her chest, and he brought his legs up around her, so she was trapped against him.

  “Please, stop,” Vicky begged as the man nuzzled his face in her hair.

  “But you smell so good, baby.”

  She felt her captor draw in a deep breath from the side of her neck.

  Shifting his grip on her, he pulled her loose hair back away from the right side of her face and neck. Bending her head over, he held it in place with a handful of her hair and nuzzled her behind the ear.

  Vicky shivered as she felt the tip of his nose drag across the skin of her neck. “Where’s Mr. Ritter?” she cried, remembering what her boss had said.

  “Oh, you came with Darien?”

  The breath from his words tickled across the side of her neck, making her shake. “Yes, Darien. He’ll be looking for me!” She hoped this would stop her assailant’s onslaught, but he just laughed against her skin.

  “He can have you back when I’m done, baby.”

  Fear tore through Vicky as she realized this man wasn’t about to stop whatever he was doing. She could feel the surge of adrenaline rush through her as she fought to get loose from his unyielding grip.

  “You smell so good like that.”

  Vicky couldn’t hold back the tears slipping from her eyes as the man tightened his grip on her hair and licked the side of her neck.

  “Mmm… you taste even better than you smell.”

  “Please, don’t!” she sobbed, as she tried in vain to stop him.

  “This is going to be fantastic, baby.”

  Closing her eyes, Vicky prayed for the strange man to stop. She mewed softly as she tried to figure a way out of this situation. Her eyes flashed open as she felt something hard and sharp drag across the skin of her neck. She could feel both of his hands on her, so the only other option was… his teeth.

  Vicky panicked as she realized the man holding her down was going to bite her. Driven by this new terror, she redoubled her efforts to get away. The man only laughed, as if he was enjoying her fear, and held her tighter. She felt the sharp points of his teeth against her neck again and let out another wordless cry as the fangs parted her skin to find their way into her pulse.

  ***

  “MICHAEL!” Darien yelled, as he slammed through the door where he had heard the cry from his assistant. The smell of fear, adrenaline, and blood hit him as soon as he was in the room. He met Vicky’s blue-gray eyes and saw the terror they held. She was fully aware of what Michael was doing to her.

  Outrage ripped through Darien and shattered away his control. That ass hadn’t even bothered to roll her before biting into her.

  Michael looked up from Vicky’s neck to find a very livid Darien staring at him. Not the proper, reserved man that he had been told was powerful. He found a very old, very powerful vampire in full fury bearing down on him. Michael loosened his grip on Vicky right before Darien ripped him away and threw him towards the door

  “Get him out of my sight before I kill him!” Darien bellowed to the people who had followed him in.

  Clara and Daniel gathered the terrified vampire up and removed him from the room.

  Darien turned on the bedside lamp and gathered his limp assistant up from where she had fallen on the bed. Between the shock from the bite and the massive power he was releasing, Vicky found that she couldn’t move in her boss’s arms. Darien rolled her over, so he could inspect the bleeding wound on the side of her neck. He held her gently as he lowered his mouth to capture the blood leaking from the puncture marks.

  Vicky gasped as she felt his tongue gather up the liquid, and a tingling warmth stopped the pain from the bite. When he placed a light kiss over the healed skin, her limbs found life, and she twisted her hands into the front of his shirt. She sobbed uncontrollably into the chest of the only person she felt she could trust.

  Darien held her closer and whispered soothing, apologetic words to her as he shifted them both up the bed, so he could lean against the headboard with her wrapped in his arms.

  ***

  Once they were settled at the head of the bed, Darien looked up at the crowd that had gathered just inside the door. He could feel the fear from the onlookers cowering in the darkness at the far end of the room. It had been a long time since he had released that much power, and it had been even longer since he had lost control of his temper. He sighed. If nothing else, he had reminded the vampires and their menagerie that there was a reason he stood apart from them.

  Darien closed his eyes for a moment and schooled himself into a calmer state so that he didn’t terrify everyone completely. Opening his eyes again, he looked down at the girl crying into his chest and patted her back softly. He glanced over the thin material of her nightgown and the way it didn’t cover her legs curled under her. There was no way he was going to get the comforter from the bed over her.

  “Could you please get us a blanket and some orange juice?” Darien left the question open-ended, so that anyone present could answer the call. He nearly laughed when the entire group scattered to fulfill his request.

  Within a few moments, Darien was presented with three blankets, a goblet of juice, a bottle of water, and a plate of cookies. He thanked the group and had them tuck one of the blankets around Vicky, so she wouldn’t get cold. The girl’s racking sobs had subsided to a case of sniffling hiccups, but she hadn’t moved from where she had buried herself into Darien’s chest.

  Darien didn’t know what to do now. The little bit of blood he had gotten from Vicky’s neck had reminded him that he hadn’t eaten since the morning, but he could tell Vicky wasn’t stable enough for him to leave her alone long enough to feed. There was no way he was going to take blood here and remind the traumatized girl that he was one of the things that had scared her. Darien’s gaze fell upon the bottle of water on the bedside table with the cookies and juice. If he couldn’t get blood, maybe he could trick his body into holding off the hunger by giving it something else to process until he could feed.

  He turned his attention to the people still hanging around. Except for Michael, Clara, Daniel, and Marsha, the entire house menagerie and council stood in the dark, waiting for something from the pair on the bed.

  “Could I get someone to open that water bottle, please?” Darien nodded to the bottle on the bedside table.

  Jenny jumped up, twisted it open for him, and placed it in his hand. He thanked her as she dropped back to the place where she had been standing.

  A collective gasp could be heard when Da
rien raised the bottle to his lips and took a drink of the water.

  He suddenly felt like a circus freak show and lowered the bottle from his lips. “Do you need anything else?”

  After a wave of negative answers, the group quickly vacated the room, and Darien was left alone with Vicky curled in his lap.

  Letting out a sigh, Darien drank the entire bottle of water. Now that his hunger was held off for a little while longer, he tucked the empty bottle up in the pillows and leaned his head back against the headboard to wait out Vicky’s breakdown.

  ***

  Vicky’s mind churned as she lay in her boss’s arms. She could feel him breathing and hear his heart beating, but both were much slower then she would expect from a man of his age and health. He was also much colder than any man that had held her before. But it was the blazing green eyes and the fangs that had shown in the moonlight that shocked her most. A huge chunk of her mind screamed for her to run away from him as quickly as she could, but her heart told her she was safe. Darien was nothing like the guy who had sunk his teeth into her neck. Vicky shivered at the memory, and Darien rubbed her back, gently. One word kept floating around in her brain, but she just couldn’t bring herself to believe it.

  Vampires were myths, legends, and the things bad romance novels were written about, not rich businessmen who ran large corporations. Vicky just couldn’t bring herself to believe that her boss was part of the legion of undead. Weren’t they supposed to hide in the dark and eat nothing but blood? This wasn’t true for Darien. She’d seen him walk in the day. True, he didn’t like sunny days, but he didn’t burst into flames when the light touched his skin.

  She also knew he had a passion for his coffees, and she had seen him put away an entire box of clementines in one sitting. Sure, he did look a little green afterwards and complained about heartburn the next day, but he still ate them.

  Vicky sighed as she tried to wrap her head around this. A strange thought hit her, and she laughed despite the fact she was still confused and terrified.

  “What’s funny?” Darien asked as he patted Vicky on the back.

  She pushed back from him and looked up into his face. His eyes were still a brilliant green, but they no longer held the fire that burned in them when he had first burst into the room. She was also glad to note there were no signs of sharp teeth poking from his mouth. “I think my sanity just cracked a bit,” she admitted, sitting up. Vicky folded her hands and looked into the concern-filled eyes of her boss. “Are you really a vampire?”