Protector (19 page)

Taking him by total surprise in the same moment, she parts her soft lips giving him permission to go further.  He takes her lead and strokes her warm tongue with his own.  He reaches up and caresses her warm flushed cheek. 

Oh god, but he feels so good.  I don’t have the strength to resist him.

Like a jolt of lightening through her system
, she grabs the back of his head and kisses him harder, forcing her heated lips open even more, needing to taste all of him.  They kiss fast and hungry, needing each other in unison.  

Like a cold shower
, his phone rings.

“
Dammit!”

“Shouldn’t you answer it?”
she asks breathless.

“Yes, I’m sorry, it’s work.”

“Oh.”

She lets go of his hair and straightens herself.

“Yes?” he barks into the phone.

“Hey
, Michael, what’s up?”

After a long tension filled pause
, he looks over at Anna-Marie with dread in his eyes.

“Okay, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

He hangs up and looks at his phone. 

“Alessandro, what’s wrong?”

“I need to go back.  There is a bad situation brewing in Wilmington.  It is worse than we thought it was.”

“What do you mean?  What’s going on?”

“Rogue, Anna-Marie.  There is a possible nest.  Michael was patrolling and found a dumping ground that could be from nothing but Rogue.  Anna-Marie, they have killed a lot of people, more than what has been reported.  I don’t know all of the details yet, but we have a fight on our hands.  There’s no stopping it.  We can’t let this go on any further.”

Anna
-Marie thinks about Dylan and how he died.  It has torn her world apart.  She has researched the odd happenings in the area for a little while now so she knows Dylan hasn’t been the only one and has feared for the safety of the local homeless people.  If no other reports have been made, it’s obvious whose bodies were found.

“I want to help.”  The words come out of her mouth before she can even process her thoughts and as insane as it sounds, she really does mean it. 

“No, Anna-Marie!” he says quickly.

“Yes!  I have lost my whole life to these so
-called Rogues, Alessandro.  I will never be able to live with myself knowing what I know and never being able to do anything to avenge Dylan.”

“
Anna-Marie, it’s too dangerous.  You have no clue how to fight them.”

“You can teach me
,” she says desperately.

He looks at her like she has totally lost her mind.

“Anna-Marie, I just found you.  I won’t be able to live with myself if something were to happen to you,” he says, pained at the thought.

“You can teach me what I need to know.  Don’t you think I should learn anyway?  Please
, Alessandro, I need to do this.”

“Let me think about it, okay?”
he asks just to appease her.

“Okay.”

“Alright, let’s go.  I have to get you home so I can get back to the manor.”

He grabs her hand and leads her back through the maze of flowers, past the plantation house and to his car. 

They drive back to Anna-Marie’s apartment in utter silence, neither of them knowing what to say.  Once they pull up alongside her car she turns to face him.

“Thank you
, Alessandro, for trusting me enough to confide in me.”

“I promise I will never lie to you again, okay?  I hope you know I had to.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Okay
.  Well, I really have to get back, alright?”

“Okay.”  She turns to open the door, but stops and turns back to face him, “Hey
, Alessandro, please be careful.”

He smiles a deep true smile for the first time in a long time.  It’s been a long time since anyone has expressed true concern for him.

He strokes her cheek and says, “I love you,” and pulls her close for a deep tender kiss.

1
3

Back at the manor the whole team of both Protectors and Brotherhood are in the main sitting room
waiting for Alessandro to arrive.  It’s not quite dark out yet, so all the shades are closed and the thick curtains are pulled for the vampires’ protection. 

The view from the foyer is a very impressive sight of thirteen of the order’s most deadly members.  It’s not every day that everyone is all together
at once in one room.

“Ahh
. . . Alessandro, why don’t you come in and join us so you can catch up on what’s going on,” Marquis says to him before turning back to Michael.  “Michael, please continue.”

“Like I was saying,” Michael says turning away from Alessandro and back to Marquis, “I was walking around downtown by the waterfront in the old district and decided to check
out some of the old buildings.”

“Michael, you know that is dangerous.  You should have had back up with you
,” Alessandro says angrily.

“Well, my back up was a little busy now
, wasn’t he?”  Michael says staring him down.

Alessandro looks away
, feeling ashamed.  He knows his family is and should be more important than anything else.

“Like I was saying, I went into a warehouse.”  Michael looks at Marquis now.  “I know we usually don’t go into buildings, but I had a funny feeling and knew I had to look.  It was daylight so I wasn’t too worrie
d about running into any Rogue.

“I kept to the upper floors just in case.  On the first floor, in what looked to be a kitchen galley area, there were several refrigerators.  I don’t
know what possessed me to open one of the refrigerator doors, but for some reason I did.  Man, inside there were dozens of containers of blood and bundles of wadded up stuff.  The whole compartment was full of these things.  With further inspection I saw that the bundles were really assorted human body parts.”  He looks back at Alessandro.  “Dude, I didn’t know what to expect, but definitely not that.

“I got my ass out of there right away but once outside, like the refrigerator, something compelled me to look in the cellar windows.  Man
, there were bloody mutilated bodies all over.”

“I think we may have a bigger problem than we originally thought
,” says James, one of the Brotherhoods and Marquis’ right hand man.  “Marquis, we need to get more aggressive.”

“I am aware of that.  First, we have to stake out that building to see if it’s a Rogue nest.  If it is, we need to take care of it.  There has to be one close by
, if it isn’t.  We need to shut these bastards down.” 

Marquis looks around at all of his men.

“Now that we are aware of how bad the situation is here, we have to keep in mind that the more Rogue there are, the greater the number of Rogue possibly being created.  As you are all aware, the greater the number, the harder it’s going to be to wipe them out.

“The human death toll is going up and it will only get worse.  We also have no idea how many Rog
ues we are dealing with either. 

“I want everyone to go out in groups for the next few nights.  Sinc
e there are an odd number of us, the Brotherhood, I want each of you Protectors to rotate with me.  Alessandro, you’re on first shift with me tonight.” 

All of the men nod their heads in agreement. 

He looks at Alessandro pointedly, “Alessandro, I know you are on special assignment right now, but that is going to have to be put on hold until this situation is under control.”

“Yes
, sir.”

Dammit
!
Alessandro thinks to himself, how is he supposed to do that?  He has to talk to his father about this.

“Alright men, meeting adjourned.  Be safe tonight.”

“Father, can I speak with you in private?”

“Yes
, Alessandro.  Let’s go sit in the chapel.”

They take the elevator down in silence.  Alessandro knows his father will be happy to know about these crazy feelings that he is having and maybe help make sense of them bu
t he may not be so happy if it interrupts their work.

They sit in the second pew in Marquis’s usual spot.

“What’s going on, Alessandro?”

Alessandro has no clue where to begin.

“Well, there have been some new developments with Anna-Marie.”

“Ahh
. . . yes, Anna-Marie.”

“Yes
, Anna-Marie.  A month ago I was at a club with Michael and I ran into her there.  She went outside upset about something that happened and after a long debate, I decided to follow her.  I didn’t see her anywhere, but while I was out there I got a whiff of a Rogue in the air.”

Marquis frowns, he loathes the very thought of the Rogue.

“I followed the scent to an alley.  He was there, but so was Anna-Marie.  He threw her and knocked her unconscious but not before pulling me into an argument about our world.”

“
Dammit!”  Marquis yells.  “Why have you not told me this before?”

“
I didn’t know what to say.  Father, I had to tell her everything.  I’m sorry if I have disappointed you.”

“Alessandro is has been a whole month and no word.”

Alessandro looks down at his lap, feeling like a child, just like he normally does when he feels like he has disappointed his father.

Marquis looks at his defeated son
and his anger subsides.

“Son, I’m sure if there was any other way
, you would have found it.  You have always been so careful and responsible.  I’m sure you did what you had to do.  Why did it take so long for you to tell me this though?  Is she to be trusted?”

Alessandro looks his father in the eyes.

“I was trying to figure it all out.  I don’t know why but I feel like I can trust her.  She has been through a lot and she doesn’t exactly know what to think of all this.  Despite what she thinks, she is a very strong woman.”

“You love her
?”

Alessandro looks down again, “Yes
, father, I do.”

“And she loves you?”

He shrugs his shoulders, “Honestly, I don’t know what she feels.”

“Then so be it.  Don’t look away ashamed of this
, Alessandro.  I loved your mother from the very start and I will continue to do so for the rest of this life.  It doesn’t make me less of a man or a warrior.  I told you before, you can’t control who you love.”

“I know, which is why,
because of all this going on, I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around not being able to see her until all of this is done.”

“Alessandro
, it is a dangerous time.”

“I know and that is another reason I feel uneasy.  She has been attacked by Rogues three times now, three times
, father.  How often do we help one single person that many times?”

“Hmmm
. . . I see your point.  What do you want to do?”

“I’m not quite sure yet.  I don’t know how she would feel about coming here to stay until things cool down.”

“Well, there’s no way around it, you are coming with me tonight.  I trust you far more than anyone else.  But you can talk to her tomorrow.”

Alessandro looks at his father
, shocked.

“It’s not that these men aren’t trustworthy
, but when it comes down to skill and defending each other’s lives, there’s no other I’d rather have to watch my back.”

“Thank you
, father.  I am honored.”

Alessandro sets out with the warriors at sunset, each going in pairs in separate directions.  Alessandro and Marquis decide to go to the riverfront to check out the abandoned buildings that Michael discovered earlier.  They drive down the country seaside road in the opposite direction that Alessandro had gone earlier with Anna-Marie. 

They park the car a few miles away and run the rest of the distance so they don’t attract any unwanted attention.  This is only a recon mission for them tonight.  They will no
t go inside the buildings, because that would be suicide if there is Rogue inside.  Instead, they sit in the tall grass about a half a mile away watching and waiting for any signs of Rogue. 

The air reeks of the foul creatures.  The usually comforting smells of the ocean are overcome by the stench of decaying filth that the Rogue are.  It’s hard to tell from this distance how recently they were here though.  Silently
, they continue to sit and wait.