Bleeding Love (3 page)

Brianna was
grinning from ear-to-ear because of her friend's innocence. The debutante was
totally clueless about everything that was happening, and Brianna couldn't help
but laugh at the look her friend had on her face, one of regret. “You have
nothing to apologize for, Adie,” said Brianna. “That push was 
nothing
 to
him.”

“What?”

Adrienne's father
stepped in. “Sweetheart, to someone with Xavier’s strength, that push was just
a little love tap.”

Adrienne bit her
lip. She didn’t want to think about this, about what it could mean. She wanted
to go back downstairs and party with her friends and be an eighteen-year-old,
normal, and very pretty…human. “Dad, I have a party downstairs,” she reasoned
out. “I have to go back.”

Carter Stahl
simply chuckled at his eighteen-year old daughter. He may have been a few
centuries old, but he was still very much aware of the partying ways of today's
generation. And he knew his daughter; she would like to completely ignore what
she was starting to learn about herself.

“Relax, kiddo,
this will only take a few minutes.”

“But my party
ends in a few hours, dad.”

Adrienne wanted
to leave her father's office badly, so desperately that she considered just
running past everyone. She wanted to stick her fingers in her ears and sing so
she didn’t have to listen to this anymore. She knew this was going to change
her life, how could it not? And she liked her life, a lot. How do vampires play
tennis? Not to mention that she didn’t think cheerleading was high on the list
of vampire activities.

Oh holy hell! Did
this mean she had to switch her classes to the Night Class? Adrienne didn’t
even want to think about any of this. She just wanted to go back down to her
party and have fun.

“Six a.m. is five
and a half hours away, Adrienne.”

She rolled her eyes
at her father's remark. She 
really 
had to leave. “I'm tired,” She
closed her eyes for a millisecond and hoped her father and Xavier would buy the
lie, but unfortunately, they didn't. They only laughed at her.

“What the hell's
so funny?” she demanded. They were treating her like she was a dumb blonde, and
that was what was pissing her off. She didn't like feeling inferior, especially
to an eighteen-year old male who was as hot as 'hot' could possibly get.

“Umm, Adie,” It
was Brianna who answered her. “We don't really need sleep, you know that.”

“What do you mea—”
she stopped midway. “Wait. Hold on. What's happening here, Bree?” She looked at
her friend and started thinking about her attitude. Adrienne should have questioned
her best friend’s attitude and knowledge several minutes ago. But she’d been too
caught up thinking about herself she didn't notice Brianna's calm composure.
Brianna hadn’t blinked when Xavier said she was a vampire, his vampire. And
Brianna had known he was betrothed. She didn't look the least bit surprised
when Adrienne sent Xavier flying across the room. She had been thinking about
so many things in the last few moments that Brianna’s totally relaxed demeanor
never crossed her mind, and then something hit her hard.

“Oh my god.”
Adrienne was on the verge of tearing up. “Don't tell me you're a vampire, Bree!”

Bree gave her
friend a soft smile, but before she could say anything, Adrienne freaked.

“You are! Fuck.”
Adrienne ran a hand through her loose curls. “Why didn't you tell me?”

Brianna simply
chuckled as she fretfully held the fabric of her cocktail dress in between her
fingers. She knew this was going to be a tough thing for Adrienne to face. She
would have questions, her life would eventually have to change, and Brianna
would have to be one of the ones that helped her friend through this time. She
had in a sense, been trained for this moment.

“If I told you
before, it would pose a threat to the existence of vampires. And Adie, I am not
a vampire. I’m a guardian. I am one of those tasked with ensuring that no human
discovers that vampires exist. Humans can not learn the reality of vampirism.
She smiled at her friend. “I'm just the Night Class' guardian; I help keep
vampires secret from the world.”

“And what if
someone finds out about vampires?” she asked. And once she asked one question,
she had so many that she couldn’t even get them out. But she was angry, angry
that her friend had kept a secret from her. Angry, well, she wasn’t sure
exactly why, she just didn’t like this, so she struck out at her friend. “Is
being a guardian something you can put in your college applications?”
Adrienne's tone was bitter. She never liked feeling out of place, and
apparently, her best friend knew something about Adrienne, she, herself,
didn't.

Her friend chose
to ignore the nasty comment and focus on the serious one. Brianna pointed to
Adrienne's father and Xavier, “They can erase the human's memories. I didn't
sign up to be a guardian, really! It's just that,” It took a while for her to
continue. “I was attacked when I was young, and your father didn't want to
erase my memories as a kid, I think because he felt sorry for me.”

Adrienne then
felt a pull at her heart. She had never known this part of Brianna's life. She
said she had been attacked, but attacked by what?
Vampires?

“In dealing with
humans who discover your existence the choice is almost always death or memory
loss, and yet your father chose neither for me. He chose a different path for
my life.”

“He assigned you
the task of being a guardian.” Adrienne said.

Brianna chuckled.
“Not at first, you don’t just become a guardian overnight. He trained me to
fight first, schooled me a little in vampire history and the realities of a
vampire’s life, then he assigned me that position.” A small frown graced her
lips. “My parents don't know anything about this. Now you know why it takes
time for me to trust people.”

Adrienne nodded,
thinking she understood.

“So you actually
thought I was a vampire?” Brianna then asked after a few seconds had passed,
and the smile on her face grew impishly.

The debutante
nodded her head slowly.

Brianna giggled
and said,” Ha! I wish!”

Adrienne was
confused. “You actually want to be like one of 
them
?” she asked.

Xavier coughed. “One
of
 us
, you mean?”

She simply rolled
her eyes at him. It took a lot of control not to look directly at his face. She
feared that if she did just that, she'd lose all her sarcasm and stubbornness,
all because of a pair of blood red eyes. She would have to figure out quickly
what was fact and what was fiction about vampires. Wasn’t’ their something
about vampires being able to control you if you looked in their eyes? She
looked away from him before she turned her attention back to Brianna.

Adrienne couldn't
figure out why someone, her best friend most especially, would want to be a
vampire. “So I don’t understand the attraction. You want to drink blood?” That
was the first thing that entered her mind. Shortly followed by, “How about
Cabo? You wouldn't be able to go out into the sun!”

Adrienne's father
laughed at the things his daughter said.

Brianna explained
her wish, “I'd give that up for increased sensory perceptions.”

Adrienne shook
her head obstinately. “We're talking about Cabo, Bree! You can't just say 'no'
to Mexico!”

Xavier chuckled. “There
are other more important things than Cabo, Adrienne.”

Adrienne. He said
her name, and she had to control herself from blushing because of the way it
rolled off his tongue. He made it sound like such a sexy word that she wouldn't
mind him saying it repeatedly.

“What could
possibly be more important than Cabo?” she asked, skeptically raising an
eyebrow at him.

Xavier merely
shrugged his shoulders before answering,” Oh, I don't know, our marriage
perhaps?”

Not in this
lifetime
, Adrienne
thought. “I have a boyfriend,” she said venomously, and that was when a thought
hit her. She turned to face her father. “Ethan's probably waiting for me
downstairs, Dad. Can I go?” She would use any reason to get out of this
conversation.

“He's having a
conversation with a redhead and her boyfriend.” Xavier was the one who
answered. “He's not looking for you, and even if you have a boyfriend now, I
have eternity to wait for you.”

“What redhead?”

Brianna laughed
for the nth time tonight. “He's probably talking about Sabrina and Max.”

“Yeah, them,” said
Xavier, running a hand through his jet-black hair as he made his way closer to
Adrienne once again.

“Don't tell me
you can see through walls?” The birthday girl, who was missing her own party at
the moment, couldn't help the sarcasm. “Is that another one of your vampire abilities?”

“Vampires can't
see through walls,” he answered, laughing and patting her mop of hair like she
was a kid. “But we have more-than-perfect vision. We can see a few miles away.
Imagine though if we can see through things, see through clothe-”

Adrienne
immediately cut him off. “So how'd you know Ethan wasn't looking for me?”

He smirked at his
advantage over her, and in turn, she rolled her eyes at him. It wasn't her
fault she’d only found out the truth about what she was, literally minutes ago.
Besides, she wasn’t fully convinced yet.

“I didn't see
them talking. I heard them.”

Adrienne
frowned. 
Wasn't she a vampire?
“How come I can't?”

“Probably because
you aren't trying.”

“What?”

“Concentrate.
Focus,” he breathed beside her ear. And she did just that, and with the first
word Xavier spoke out, Adrienne closed her eyes.

“Think about who
you want to listen to, who you want to hear.”

She contemplated
about the things Xavier was telling her, and then she saw different pictures
inside her head—scenes of her talking to Ethan and her friends, memories of
what they did during Holiday breaks, experiences with her father and many other
events that had happened in her life. She opened her eyes once more.

“Did you hear
anything?” Xavier asked her.

Their proximity
to each was other unnerving. He held her hips, and leaned in to her, pressing
against her body. She tried stepping away but she couldn't since her back was
already pressed against her father's office wall. “My imagination was just playing
games with me.” She let out a slightly irritated sigh before she looked up to
face him. His eyes were still the color of blood and his mouth was still as
luscious as ever. She needed him to back away. Her hormones were starting to
act up.

“Get off.”

He shook his head
and smiled, exposing his fangs. “You're going to have to get used to 
this
 sooner
or later.”

“I pick later,
now
off
!” she tried once more, her tone more forceful and more
persistent.

Xavier didn't
budge when Adrienne tried pushing him away from her, and she realized he was
using his own strength to counteract hers, and God was he strong. He didn't
move at all, not even a freaking millimeter. She closed her eyes and exhaled
heavily, and suddenly, pictures of Xavier clouded her mind. She just wanted him
off her. Was that so hard?

Adrienne opened
her eyes once more, and exasperated, she tried to push him off her, trying to
exert not only her physical strength, but her willpower. She put everything
that she had into her wish that he'd back away, that he’d weaken and she’d be
able to move him. She focused on the need for this to come true. Within a
second her eyes turned red.

Soon Xavier was
cringing away from her and slowly sinking to his knees. He placed his hands on
the carpeted floor to support himself, his back bowed in almost pain, his
breathing heavy. He needed blood.

“What the hell
did you do to me?” he asked.

When he looked
up, Adrienne could see that the redness of his eyes had paled, leaving his eyes
a dark hazel. He winced, in pain, and she was sure he blamed her for that.
What
had she done?
“It's what you call karma,” she said, defending her actions. “I
told you to back off. You knew I was getting pissed with your sexual innuendos.”

“It's not karma,”
was his stern reply. “You did something to me!”

Before either of
them could hurl smartass remarks at each other, Adrienne's father interrupted the
two of them. It certainly wasn't karma, he was sure of that, and having been
alive for more than a number of centuries, he could explain things Xavier or
any other Night Class student couldn't. Only one possibility came to his mind
that would explain his daughters actions—his wife, Adrienne's mother. “You're a
symbiotic psychic vampire,” Carter Stahl said, and for the first time, Brianna
and Xavier were genuinely surprised though for different reasons. “Just like
your mother was.”

“She can't
possibly be one.” It was Xavier who spoke up. “They're extinct.”

Brianna voiced
her own thoughts. “If Adrienne is one, then obviously they aren't, extinct I
mean. But what exactly is a symbiotic psy—whatever vampire?”