Exsanguinate (20 page)

“What?” I turned to face him. “Amicula? Darkrose is Amicula?”

“Yes, her formal name is Amicula Darkrose. She has gone by that name since, I dunno, forever.”

I stood there blinking at him.

My Roxas is dating Amicula?!

“Things are not always how they seem. Look, it’s almost one-thirty, so we’ll have just enough time to get you back home and me in position at the club. It’s the best plan and you know it. You can’t afford to miss Ludovic.”

I opened my mouth in protest, but I stopped myself. He was right. That kind of gamble wasn’t worth hurting Dakota and Sheridan. “Okay, but for the record – I don’t like it. I want to know for sure if Roxas is a vampire or not. If he or Amicula are behind my sister’s kidnapping, I’ll kill them both. I swear it.”

Khaldon crouched down on one knee in front of me and reached out with his golden skinned hand. He held his mouth in a half smile, as he held my chin up to his face once again. “Look, you won’t have to kill Roxas.”

I returned his gaze questioning his statement. He took a deep breath and changed the tempo, pitch, and dialect of his voice. In a clear distinct British dialect Khaldon said, “You’re gonna think this is crackers, m’lady, but I’ve been here all along.”

If my heart weren’t already dead, it would have been from his words.

Scooting my chair backwards out of his hand, I gaped at him. For the second time that night, I stood frozen, rooted in my socks, unable to comprehend the enormity of the bomb just dropped on me. I shook my head to try and clear the ridiculous hallucinations. My mind galloped with a thousand thoughts at once, none of them making an ounce of rational thought – except one.

With my heart on fire from the betrayal, the hatred, and the fear that I would never see my sisters again – furious anguish dashed my hands around Khaldon’s throat choking the ever-living life out of him.

“
W
hat the hell
have you done with him? I’m going to kill you … you sick, sadistic bastard! I should’ve known it all along. Where is he? I swear to the Mother Holy Goddess Herself if you have harmed him in any way, I will personally kill you!”

Both of us breathed hard, Khaldon held my arms as I attacked his face time and time again. I relentlessly kicked trying to hurt him in any way I could. His eyes wild at my explosion.

Khaldon threw me up against the wall and shouted in my face, “Just bloody hell calm down will ya! You’ve got to believe me – I am Roxas!” His green eyes squinted in anguish. Those gorgeous malachite eyes welled up with emotion. Something so familiar about those eyes ...

“Like hell you are. I can’t trust anyone and now this?” I thrashed out at him again. “I can’t feckin believe it. I gave you the security pass codes to access the databases. How very clever of you. You must have accessed our chat logs. How could you possibly tell me anything to prove to me who you are?”

I looked at the front door. He followed my eyes as I bolted toward it. Faster than me, he slammed the door shut after I just got it opened.

“Wait! Cheyenne, just listen to me.”

I stood there with my hands on hips looking around for anything wooden or silver to stake this a-hole with.

“M’lady, I ... I love you … I mean Lady Caz... and I’m just as shocked about this as you are. I couldn’t ever trust myself enough to meet you because I am Vampyre. I was born this way. I knew I would never be able to meet my Lady. But fate tipped the scales in our favor. I was assigned to Lord Stovall’s task force after the attack, but I didn’t know you were involved until after your father called me.

“When I saw you on the boat, I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before I had to reveal myself to you. Didn’t you see the shocked look on my face when I picked you up at the door to take you to dinner?”

Khaldon continued to barrage me with a thousand questions that I didn’t listen to, even though admittedly he was beginning to make sense. I had a thousand scenarios of images, chats, visuals, pose balls floating through my relationship with Roxas.

“I don’t believe this.” I slammed my fist hard against his jaw and wrenched open the door once again.

“Blimey, Chey, I know this is hard to understand, but there’s a reason you haven’t heard from Roxas. It’s because I was called by Stovall to watch over you for the past two days.” I stopped two steps outside the door and looked into his eyes.

“Why don’t you look like Roxas then? The Roxas I know has dark copper hair and a beard.” I pointed to the picture on the wall. “He looks like that. That is who came to see me in the hospital.”

Tears welled up in my eyes just thinking this creep had taken over Roxas’ life and was now trying to impersonate him. I turned to leave and felt that energy shift around me once again. In my frenzied manner, I looked back and watched how the man who stood two feet in front of me morphed into another human being.

Instinctively I stepped toward him, but stopped knowing this was just some kind of vampire illusionist trick I hadn’t learned. I couldn’t take my eyes off the exact replica of the man I met in the hospital a week ago.

“Cheyenne, you asked me what size I wore so you could send me that 3D holographic rendering suit. Do you remember? We were talking over Skype. I told you 34 waist and I was 5’10”. I also suggested you to send it to my post office box if it helped you feel better about the anonymity thing right? Remember?”

I looked at him and everything around me.

“I helped you pick out the name for Beano. We talked over your cell phone when you were at the breeder’s house. You aren’t going to find that information anywhere, in any database. Remember how you wanted the female, but her underbite was too big?”

“This is your place?” Remarkably, this man knew specifics that no one else could possibly know and hadn’t been recorded in any database.

He nodded and held is hands out to me.

“Why do you live this double life?” I walked back in to his house and looked at him closer.

“My true name is Khaldon Seters.” His shoulders dropped. “ I have kept my anonymity for hundreds of years, because my lineage is at war with dragons. I am a direct descendant from Sekhmet, the Egyptian Warrior Goddess. To keep things amicable now, I go by Roxas Morgwain.”

I closed the door behind me and sat on the leather sofa.

“M’lady I can’t express to you how I have wanted to tell you. I knew one day it would come out, but I didn’t expect you to be so protective of me … of Roxas. I shouldn’t have brought you here.” Khaldon kneeled in front of me. “I was so afraid of hurting you, possibly even killing you since you were human. I never wanted to take that chance.”

“Then why did you agree to meet me at the theme park?” Tears broke over the brink, a single drop cascaded down my cheek as I watched his frustration. The more I listened, the more I realized he was right. Undeniably, Khaldon Seters was Roxas Morgwain. I turned to look at him for the first time in a completely different light.

“I didn’t really have a choice now did I? Everybody set us up. If I had backed out, it would have crushed you. I had to take the chance and find a way to make it work.” He stood up and grabbed the bottle of bloodwine I had set on the table. “Bollocks, look at the mess this has become.”

He left the room for a moment as I contemplated what to do next. Not sure if I had been zapped with some kind of vampire hypnotic voodoo or this was the real deal, I threw my head back against the couch in exasperation. A few minutes later, he came out of his bedroom with a clean shirt on looking like Khaldon once again. I stood up to stand face to face with him. He handed me a tissue, my face bloodied and smeared.

We just stood there looking at each other. Really looking at each other for the first time – completely revealed as our true selves. No avatars, no secrets – just vampire to vampire – man to woman.

Knowing and remembering all of the late night conversations until five in the morning I’d had with this guy, he knew me better than I knew myself. I remembered all of the hidden shared dreams and emotions we revealed from deep buried depths. Those truth-or-dare erotic phone calls in the middle of the night, drunk off my ass. So many things about our relationship clicked. Why we hadn’t met. Why we decided early on never to video chat or send pictures of each other. Why we both worked professionally under pseudonyms to protect our identities. Why we both promised to not search for each other on the Internet. It was
all
making sense. He was a vampire. Tumblers fell into place on the rock hard, rebar-cemented safe guarding my heart.

Was the conversation between him and Harris at the hospital real? It wasn’t about the game?

Khaldon reached out for me. My eyes blurred as emotion overcame the reality of the situation. He caressed my cheek as another tear slid down his thumb. Finally I had the nerve to stare into those brilliant green eyes once again. I saw the truth. He had been the man of my dreams for over two years and he knew things about me that I wasn’t even willing to admit to myself.

I reached up and held my hand to his face, feeling the warmth of his skin next to mine. Was I dreaming? Had the shock of the kidnapper’s call been so much for me that this was my defense mechanism?

He pulled me close and hard as if our bodies would never have another moment to touch and he kissed me with all the life left in him. As if this would be the very first and last kiss he would ever have, his hands folded into my hair and held my jaw close to his face, unrelenting, as he kissed me with a fury of a thousand soldiers returned home from war. I gave way and struggled to get as close to him as possible. My breasts inflamed with the touch of his chest and the anticipation of his mouth biting at me.

“Roxas, is this for real?” I questioned his eyes as I tore myself away from his mouth for just a moment. He stopped and slid his strong arms down to hold my hands. “I really have no idea what this is, or why the Norns have given us this second chance, but together I know what we have. What we have experienced in the past, and how much I knew Roxas was in love with Lady. We will find our way with these two real humanoid vampire bodies, just as we fell in love with one another as avatars online.”

Khaldon’s eyes were now the ones flowing with tears of joy and I cradled him in my arms. I never knew a man to weep before, but I sure felt the power behind it. His ability to show emotion in that way sealed any doubts I had anywhere. I knew this man loved me ... and everything about me. My avatar, my person, my vampire! No one knew more about me than this creature I was holding in my arms.

“I can’t tell you how I have prayed to the gods to allow me to have you.” His eyes glowed crimson under the green.

I began to feel my inner core heat up in a way I hadn’t experienced before. A primal surge swelled inside me. The relief became a voracious hunger and I wanted him. I wanted to drink him, to consume him, to have him inside me – flowing through me. I wanted to be filled to the brim with ecstasy as we feasted on the pleasures of the flesh. Desire pushed me forward as he kissed me holding me so tight in his hands. I reached to touch at his chest, maybe dare to unbutton his shirt.

My cell phone went off. I didn’t want to look at the damn thing, I only wanted to ravage on this man. The caller ID showed it was from Ludovic.

Shite!

“Khaldon, it’s Ludovic – Dakota’s boyfriend – he’s calling back.” I showed him the phone.

“Can you put it on speaker?”

I nodded and opened the phone. “Hello?”

“So I see you aren’t at home. You have been naughty, Cheyenne. Who are you with, my dear?”

“I just went out for some fresh air. I needed to focus and to think. To get ready for your game. I went to get some bloodwine, that’s all.”

Ludovic was silent over the line.

“Are you still there, Ludovic?” I swallowed hard and looked at Khaldon. “Do you need me to go home now?”

“I think I’m going to give you a pop quiz, since you left the house. Are you ready for your first clue, Cheyenne?”

“I want to talk to my sisters first.” An evil-sounding laugh came across the receiver as I tried in vain to keep my composure.

“Now, now, my pet, you aren’t the one making the rules here. If you win the puzzle clue, then I will give you one minute to talk with one sister. However, if you get the question wrong, you will receive a surprise present in the mail.”

I bit my lip till it bled to keep myself from any further outbursts.

“You do understand that no cops and no outsiders can help you now, or you will pay the consequences, right?”

“Yes – I understand.” I looked at Khaldon.

“Good, because you wouldn’t want anything to happen to your precious siblings, now would you? Oh and what about Harris, Briggs, or even that chump Roxas. They can’t help you now.”

Khaldon clenched his fists.

“So here’s your first riddle to solve.”

Scrambling for a piece of paper, I scribbled a pen to get the ink flowing. Khaldon stood at his computer ready to type the question into the search engine. Afraid Ludovic would hear him typing, I put my finger to my lips for him to be quiet. He nodded acknowledgment. It was like our avatars giving silent signals when we played inside ExsanguiNation. We could almost read each other’s mind. Still reeling from the shock that I stood in Khaldon/Roxas’s living room, I looked at him wondering what the hell I was going to call him now. I was quickly brought back.

“What do you get when you cross a yeti with a vampire?”

“What? What do get when you cross a yeti and a vampire?” Stunned that my sister’s fate rested on a schoolyard joke for third graders, I threw the pen down onto the table. “Is that what you said?”

“You have thirty seconds to give me your answer – I’ve set the timer.” Ludovic hummed the theme song to Jeopardy gleefully onto the phone.

“Shite, Shite, Shite!” I muttered under my breath and prayed for the Goddess to send me clarity. I took in a deep clearing breath of oxygen and concentrated on the obvious. “What do get when you cross a vampire with a yeti?”

“Fifteen seconds left.” Ludovic’s humming got louder as he started the final chorus. Khaldon had typed the question into the Google search engine as quietly as possible and turned his laptop screen to me. I widen my eyes and looked at him. Khaldon shrugged.

Tentatively, I said, “Frost Bite?”

“Ding, ding ding, what do we have for her, Bob? A lovely set of cutlery and a year’s subscription to
You’re Still Screwed,
” Ludovic answered in a ridiculous game show host voice.

“I answered your question. Now let me talk to them.” My skin crawled when I heard him cackle in such a maniacal tone.

“Tut, tut, tut my little impatient one – not so fast. I didn’t say
when
you could talk with them.”

“You lousy, cheating sonofabitch, you let me talk to them right now. I answered your stupid question. You put one of them on the phone, or I’m going to call the police and have your ass nailed to the wall with a power hammer!” Shocked at my outburst, I immediately knew I had made a mistake. My chest heaved as I realized that he could still harm them no matter what I said.

“Oooooh, Bob – what’s that? The penalty round? I’m afraid you’re all the way back to zero, Cheyenne, and we’ll just have to send you Dakota’s consolation prize instead.”

What have I done?

“But wait! There’s more! You also qualify to receive a vacation for one in Nowhere Hole, Arizona. In August. Shall we have your mail forwarded?”

“NO!” I cried out. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean, I’ll do anything you want me to, just please don’t hurt them!” My fingers nervously shoved hair out of my face. My stomach curdled from the stress coursing through my body.

“Be sure to watch for the Fed Ex guy tomorrow morning. And don’t be late for our six a.m. appointment in just a few short hours. My, my, you must be exhausted. Better get some sleep – ‘cause you’re gonna need it,” Ludovic cooed into the line as it went dead.