Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (13 page)

“
I know that, Sara. I’ll need to show myself soon, very soon, I’m afraid. Changes need to be made, Sara. I’m not the same queen I was when you put me here to rest. I’ve made some decisions that will affect a great many people, you especially. You have sacrificed so much for me and our magic. My first priority is to have you exonerated of all charges as well as those who fell to save me. You need to be recognized for what you did. Then I’ll need to deal with Sherman. It’s time for that as well
.”

Sara was afraid for Mel. And then she wondered if Mel realized that she was not the same either. “
I never expected anything from you
.” She had been working too. “
Nor do I now. I didn’t do anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done. I’ve given up nothing that you wouldn’t have done for me. As for Sherman, you aren’t to worry about him until you’re stronger. I’ve been working on my powers daily, and he won’t get the better of me again
.” Amazingly enough, since meeting Aaron, she had wanted to be better at a lot of things.

“
Oh Sara, do you think I wanted you to give up your life to hide away from everyone so you could shelter me? Do you think I like knowing that you have been paying so much money to have me protected and taken care of while I healed? No, love. Never
.” Sara could feel Mel’s anger even over the long distance. “
My duty as your queen was to be the one offering and guaranteeing your safety, not the other way around. I know you aren’t going to like what I’ve done, but I have decreed it to be so. When we finally get to talk, you will begin to understand what I have decided
.”

Sara was reasonably sure she was not going to like whatever it was. It angered her that Mel was making decisions on her behalf without asking. It reminded her of someone else in her life, she thought with a grimace.

“
I have to go to sleep now
,” Sara told her. “
I’m mad, as I’m sure you are aware. I’ve had a really long day and need to rest
.”

“
Goodnight, Sara. I love you, daughter of my heart
.” Sara felt the warmth Mel sent her, but she was too pissed off to acknowledge it.

“
I love you too, my queen
.”

~CHAPTER TWELVE~

Aaron watched as she walked into the office the next morning and stopped dead when she saw him sitting in her chair. Not exactly the reception he was hoping for.

“You might as well come on over. We have a lot to go over before tonight, and I still have to travel back home,” he told her.

“You said that you were going to call. I’m reasonably sure whatever you have to say to me could have been said over the phone. In fact, I would prefer it that way.” She didn’t move from her position when she asked, “Why are you here?”

“I just wanted to see your lovely face again, isn’t that enough?” Her glare nearly made him laugh. “No, I can see you don’t believe me. Oh well, have a seat, let’s get tonight finalized. I will have a car pick you up at your home at four o’clock. I’ve already asked and found out the Carlovettis are closing at two, so that will give you plenty of time to get there and wait for the driver. What is your address, by the way? All I’ve been able to find is a post office box number.”

Aaron picked up a pen off the desk she had been using. It smelled of her, he had discovered. It was a very neat desk, everything in its place. He wondered if she would be willing to help with his at home.
Nah
, he thought,
she would probably set fire to it and start over
, which, come to think of it, was not a bad idea.

“No, I’ll drive myself. I’m quite capable of getting to and from there on my own. You know, I have had a life up until you,” she told him. Quite impertinently, too, he thought.

“Have you noticed that you are forever saying ‘no’ to me? It’s getting quite old.” He leaned back in the chair. “Now, as I was saying…no, you won’t drive yourself there. Someone will pick you up. Where do you live? I’m quite serious about this, Sara. Tell me.”

“Did you ever think to listen when I say ‘no’ to you? I doubt you think you’re ever wrong either, do you?” She flopped down in the other chair before she told him, “I live two point three miles from here, due west. I can give you the longitude and latitude if you’d like. Let me see, for Columbus, where you live, it’s thirty-nine degrees north by eighty-three degrees, zero minutes west. Now where I live, it’s a little different, it’s forty degrees, four minutes, fourteen seconds north by eighty-two degrees, ten minutes, thirty-three seconds west. Is that specific enough for you, your dickship?”

“That’s very funny. Don’t be a smart ass, Sara. What is your physical address?” She looked away from him and out the window just over his shoulder. This is not going to be good. Deep in his bones he knew without a doubt that whatever she was trying to avoid telling him, he was not going to like. “Sara?”

“There isn’t an actual address there. I just know where it is. I...like it there, it’s very quiet.” She turned and glared at him as if to say he was the cause of all the noise in her life.

“How quiet, and what does the house look like?” His head was beginning to ache again. He had lived for over fourteen hundred years, and in only two weeks of knowing her, he wanted an aspirin and hard liquor. Not necessarily in that order.

“There isn’t a house,” she said quietly, still not looking at him.

“The apartment then, or trailer. What’s the building look like that you are staying in?” He was so frustrated, which to his way of thinking was a foregone conclusion when talking with her.

“There isn’t a building there, none of any kind. There might have been at one time, I suppose. I think I saw a foundation once when I was on my way to the little creek.”

He stared at her for a full minute. “Are you telling me you are sleeping outside? Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

“No, what?” He didn’t even try to hide his anger. “You aren’t sleeping outside, or no, you’re not kidding me? Which is it? Because either one you answer ‘no’ to is gonna piss me off.”

“Like there’s a big surprise,” she snarled at him. “You get pissed about everything. And the answer is ‘no’ to both. No, I’m not sleeping outside, and no, I’m not kidding you. At least I’m not sleeping outside right now.”

“Where exactly are you sleeping?” he asked her quietly.

“In my van.”

“How long?” His head now was at the about to explode stage. His eye started to twitch a little too.

“I don’t know, about eight feet long, I guess.” She grinned at him then. “Shall I satisfy your curiosity and go out and measure it for you?” She had a tone. She had the nerve to have a tone with him!

He slammed both hands down on the desk as he rose over her, making her jump.

“How long...have you...been sleeping...in your van?” He said each word slowly, and each one enunciated so as she would not misunderstand what he was asking her. He was beyond mad at this point, and wanted her to answer the damned question.

“Since it got warm again, March twenty-second.” She stood too, her anger evident in every part of her lovely body. “I don’t really keep track of the precise date. Do you know the date of things you do? Yes, you probably have this note pad just filled with stupid information like that.”

“Again? Where were you sleeping during the previous months, and I can only assume that it was during the winter months, correct?” He moved away from her before he did something stupid…like pull her over the table and claim her, drink from her, strip her down, and fuck her.

He wasn’t going to justify his notebooks of dates to her. He began to pace. She just would not understand. Sometimes, to be honest, neither did he, but that was beside the point.

“Yes, the YWCA. They have rooms to let for a low price.” As if that should explain everything to him. He stopped pacing.

“And again, meaning that you have been doing this for a number of years, also correct?”

“Yes,” she hissed at him. “Not that it’s any of your business, but four.”

“Four. Four years. You’ve been living out of your van for four years and you didn’t think to tell anyone?” He needed a drink…not just a drink, he thought, but the entire bottle. No, maybe the entire keg, maybe that would be enough.

“Tell anyone what?” she asked him. “It isn’t anyone’s business where I live, what I do, not so long as I do my job. And I do my job. I’m very good at it too.”

He turned and stared at her. She was serious, he realized. She actually believed that it wouldn’t be a problem to anyone, her living in the wilderness alone.

“You don’t think anyone would care enough about you to want to know this information?” he said softly. “That, like you said, as long as you were doing your job, it would be okay with them? Okay that you were out there unprotected, alone, just three miles down the road? That you’d have no heat, no way to cook? Where did you bathe...the creek?” He paused when she flushed. “You bathed in a creek bed?” he shouted.

“Two point three miles, not three,” she corrected. “If you’re gonna yell at me, get your facts straight.”

He roared. Three pilots came rushing into the room to see what animal he was torturing. Mrs. Davis, one of the cleaning crew ladies, crossed herself and said two Hail Marys as she came to a screaming halt just inside the doorway.

“Get out!” he roared at the room. Then, just as quickly as they entered, they ran out again.

His eyes had turned in his anger; his fangs had dropped as well. He knew this because he could see the red haze through his eyes, her body, and her anger, brighter to him. He felt his fangs explode from his gums. He wanted to bite, to take, to make her body his. His heart was pounding and his blood was roaring hotly through his veins. He did not think he had ever been so pissed in his entire life.

“Sara.” When she started to say something, he raised his hand. “No, don’t speak. I don’t know what I’ll do to you if you say one thing more.” He took a deep breath, then another. “There will be a car out front at two o’clock to pick you up. They will deliver you and all your belongings to my house. If for any reason whatsoever you are not here to go, I will punish the driver. Do I make myself clear?” Even in his anger, he knew that threatening her personally would do no good.

“I’m not a child, and I’d appreciate it if you’d just mind your own fucking business. I don’t need you to treat—”

He cut her off before he did something drastic. “You should really shut up now. I’m not finished.” He took a deep breath before he continued. “Another driver will bring your home to the estate and you will remain a guest in my home until such time I see fit to let you go, if ever. You are a danger to yourself, and if I have to have you declared unstable, I will. You need a keeper, and you are going to get one.”

“You bastard. I really hate you,” she snarled at him.

“Yes, and with all probability, you will even more so before this is over. You will not run, Sara, or so help me when I catch you—and I will, make no mistake about that—I will make you very sorry. You hear me?”

“Yes,” she hissed at him. “You’re a prick. I hope you know that. ”

“Nice. Very mature. Polite, and name-calling too. Now, be a good girl and do as you’re told. I will see you this evening.” With that, he turned and left.

Sara sat down in the desk chair and burst into tears for the second time since meeting with the overbearing vampire.

~~~

At five minutes until two, two werewolves showed up at the hangar to do just what Aaron told her they would. When the younger man asked for her van keys to drive it to the estate, she refused to give them to him. He did not even bat an eye, turned, broke into the driver’s side door, hotwired the ignition, and drove off as simple as you please.

The older man looked at her. “You can either get into that monstrosity of a vehicle all by your sweet little self, or...and I gotta tell you, I’m hoping you opt for door number two here…I throw your cute little butt up over my shoulder and carry you to it. It don’t matter none to me, darlin’.” He grinned at her, showing her just a little of his canines.

Mustering as much dignity as she could, she snatched up her backpack and followed him out to a dark green Hummer. When he opened the back door for her to enter the dark car, she looked at him, pulled open the front passenger door, and got in. She heard him laugh, and that made her angrier.

“The man said you’d be madder than a hornet, but you’d be polite to me. I gotta hand it to you, little lady, you sure have him all in a twist.” She looked at the man, wondering if he was angry at her for making the vamp mad. He looked genuinely amused by it.

“Good,” she said. She did not say another word all the way to Columbus.

The wolf threw back his head and laughed. And he continued to laugh all the way to the estate.

~CHAPTER THIRTEEN~

Aaron was in his lair, well beneath the main house, when quite suddenly, he was awake. No one, not even Duncan, could get into those rooms without his permission, but something, or someone, had woken him from his deep, healing sleep.

“Who’s there? Where are you?” He sat up cautiously, pulling the silk sheet over his bare body.

“I am Melody, Mistress of Light, and Keeper of All Magic. I have a need of you, Aaron Xavier MacManus, and would like to speak to you privately, please.”

The room suddenly became ablaze with candle light. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the soft glow, Aaron spied a tiny woman sitting,…well, on closer inspection, floating…above the arm chair across the room from his bed.

“How did you get in here?”
Or better yet,
he thought,
why are you here in my lair?

“Actually, I’m not really here. I’m in Nevada, Reno actually. Have you ever been there? It’s very hot, but the room I have is quite lovely. I’ll only be there for a short time more before I move back to Molavonta.” She smiled at him. “I’m hiding, you see. I wanted to see you, to see your worth before I came to talk to you personally. I hope you don’t mind.”

She got up and floated toward the dresser closest to where she sat. He watched as she leaned down and looked at the photos on it.

Most of the pictures had been taken by Duncan. They were of him and his friends over the centuries. His favorite one, the one of him and Duncan together in the early nineteen hundreds, she now held in her hand.

“You aren’t here, yet you can see me and I you,” Aaron said, more to himself than to her. “You can pick up things too. How is that even possible?”

After setting the gold frame back down on the dresser, she moved over to the suit of armor that graced the far corner of the room. He had worn that particular suit during the Crusades in the thirteenth century when he fought for the Holy Land versus Muslims. He had been a Templar Knight. He had just avoided being arrested with Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and sixty of his senior knights in Paris that night on October thirteenth.

The men and Jacques had been charged with heresy and accused of homosexual acts, crimes punishable by death. The admissions of guilt were extracted with the use of torture. The pope initiated inquiries into the order, and thousands of Knights Templar were arrested across Europe. Aaron had been away in America and not a part of the group that fateful night. When word had reached him of what happened, it was too late for him to help. He kept the armor as part of respect for the last Master of the Knights.

“I’m magic,” she told him without turning. “It’s as simple as that. You are Sara’s vampire, are you not? She didn’t tell me how big you were, but then she isn’t very little herself, is she? I’ve come to talk to you about her.”

“Sara told you about me?” Aaron didn’t like the sound of that. “Not everything she said can be held against me. She and I haven’t seen eye to eye on much since our acquaintance. Really, I don’t think we’ve agreed on one thing since we’ve met. Did you know that she is living in her car? Stupid girl, what does she want? To get killed? Well, that could be her intention, as she has asked me to end her life before. But she did say that it was a lapse in judgment, so perhaps she’s changed her mind about that.” He stopped talking when he realized the woman was staring at him quite alarmingly. Oh, maybe she did not know about his and Sara’s little conversation when they met.

“I do now, thank you. Did she tell you who beat her up? No, I can see that she didn’t. I won’t either. Tell you, I mean, at least not until I get to know you a little better. As a matter of fact, I only just found out myself, by accident.” She sat over the chair again. “Now, I want to tell you a few things, ask you some others, and see what we can come up with, vamp.”

He leaned back on the headboard to his bed. He figured they were going to be a while if they were going to try and understand Sara. The woman across from him laughed.

“You might be right on that. But she is a good person.” Mel grinned. “And quite stubborn, too. She will make you a good mate if you want her.”

“You read minds too.” He marveled how he had not felt the slightest intrusion from her touch. Then he realized something else. “You’re the one she’s protecting out west.”

“Very good, vamp. Yes. Sara’s been hiding me away for some time now. She’s been waiting for me to heal, to get stronger,” she told him. “Sara has sacrificed so much to keep me safe. Now I’d like to make sure she is safe as well.”

He stiffened at that. Sara was his to protect. Sara was his. “Tell me who is beating her. I’m assuming it’s the same one she’s protecting you from, right?” Mel nodded at his question. “She’s mine to...Sara’s my mate, as you’ve said. I need to protect her.” He felt her this time. Her touch moved through his mind, through his memories. He let her.

“Well, Aaron Xavier MacManus, let’s you and I talk about the stubbornly beautiful Sara Temple, shall we?” Then she looked away from him for a moment. “You will know that the man she is protecting me from isn’t her only tormentor. I will not give you the other because it is not safe for too many others just yet.”

It was nearly sunset when she faded away. Aaron fell into a deep sleep once again, wondering as he drifted off if it had all been a dream.

~~~

“Is she here?” Aaron asked Duncan as soon as he walked into the kitchen. Aaron felt...rejuvenated and alive, like he had gotten a shiny new toy for Christmas. Too bad this toy was extremely powerful and pissed off at him as well. Well, he thought, she had really left him with nothing more to do than he’d done.

“You gave her little to no choice in the matter, my lord,” Duncan told him with a sad look. “You had a werewolf pick her up and bring her here as if she was something you picked from a catalog. Of course she is here.”

“I couldn’t let her live in her car, Duncan. It isn’t safe, not even for her. Surely you can see that? I had to do something. Did William have any trouble with her?”

Aaron had met William Daniels a few months ago while out walking in the moonlight. He had been stalking a deer on the property just beyond his. William had shifted to human from wolf as soon as he had seen Aaron coming toward him. It was a courtesy to let one supernatural know that you were not hiding to cause the other harm. Aaron had been using him as muscle ever since.

“No, sir. No trouble whatsoever. He said that he had never enjoyed doing an errand so much and that he thought about paying you to let him fetch you a human more often. I did explain to him the circumstances surrounding the ‘fetching’ of the young miss. It upset him a bit that she had been out when he could have been keeping an eye on her. He said that she is too…let me see...‛too prime to be out alone.’ He was quite taken with the little miss, it seems.”

“Hummm, so long as he’s taken with her from a distance, I don’t care. Duncan, there is something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a few days now. It’s about Sara. I know you like her. I’m glad for that. I don’t know for sure, but, well….”

“She’s your mate, sire?”

Aaron looked up sharply at the man. Duncan really had become quite wily indeed. “I…how did…yes.” Aaron threw his hands into the air. “I believe Sara is my mate. Why is that the first guess everyone makes concerning her and I?”

“How do you feel about that, sir, if you do not mind my asking?” It was a good question, one he had been asking himself for two days.

“I don’t know. Ask me after tonight. That is, if I’m still alive. She may be the death of me yet.” He patted his good friend on the back and went in search of Sara.