Protector (29 page)

“Oh no Alessandro
!  Someone got hurt,” she says and puts her hand over her mouth.  She knows they were out there fighting for her because they thought the Rouges had killed her.  If any of them got hurt in the process she would feel utterly guilty.

“That’s not from the fight
,” Alessandro says following her line of vision.

Confused,
Anna-Marie quickly looks up at Alessandro. “Oh.  What happened to him then?”

Alessandro doesn’t say anything else.  He stands there silently waiting for his father to be free from all the chaos.

“Listen up, everyone,” Marquis shouts.  “We did good tonight.  A few slipped by us, but our reward is so much greater.”  Marquis turns towards Alessandro and Anna-Marie. “It is a blessing to have found you, Anna-Marie.  Welcome to our home.”

Anna
-Marie smiles back shyly at the beaming Marquis.

Marquis turns back to his men, “Just because a few got away doesn’t mean we won’t find them eventually.  Justice will be had for what they have done.”

The whole room erupts in cheers by everyone except Alessandro, Anna-Marie and Michael.

Once the cheers die down and everyone goes back to retelling their tales of the fight, Alessandro grabs
Anna-Marie’s hand and pulls her toward Marquis.

“Father, we need to speak with you.”

“Oh, okay.” he says but stops smiling when he sees the serious expression on Alessandro’s face.  “Come, we can go down below where it is quieter.” 

Anna
-Marie is in awe of the house and all of its wondrous layers.  Looking at the staircase you would never know there was a hidden door that is actually an elevator on the other side and leads to three lower floors as well as the three upper levels. 

Once off the elevator she is even more impressed. 
Down below is even more impressive than above.  The layout appears to be the same, but the décor is far grander, with lots of wood work and antique furnishings and decorations. 

“I guess it’s not that much of a surprise
,” she says, not realizing she said it out loud.

“What’s that?”
  Alessandro asks.

“All of this
,” she says as she throws her arms out wide.

They stop at a room that looks oddly out of place.  It looks much the same as the inside of a church with pews, candles and an alt
ar, but in a house instead of a church.  The only difference is there isn’t a statue of Jesus or a cross, but instead a clay statue of a beautiful woman with soulful eyes and a knowing smile.  Her bent head and open arms make you want to run up the aisle and touch her.

“What is this place?”
Anna-Marie asks in wonder

“This is
our chapel,” Alessandro replies.

“Oh.”

Marquis leads them to his favorite pew, the second from the front and stands aside to allow them to sit first.

“Wow, she is even more beautiful close up
,” Anna-Marie says referring to the statue. 

“Ahh
. . . yes, that is a statue of our goddess, Ameretat, the goddess of immortality,” Marquis says with pure affection towards his goddess.

Anna
-Marie smiles as his words set in.  “Very fitting indeed.”

Marquis turns his attention back to Alessandro
.  “So, what is it you want to speak to me about?”

Alessandro looks at
Anna-Marie.  “Anna-Marie, can you tell him what happened?”

Anna
-Marie looks from Alessandro back to Marquis, the color gone from her face.

“Umm
. . . well, to be honest, I’m not sure what was real and what was a dream when I was being held captive.” 

She swallows the hard lump in her throat and stares at the beautiful goddess
in front of her, looking for strength and support.

“While I was being held, no one tried to hurt me
or anything, although I was tied down the whole time, which was torture enough in itself.  Someone would bring me small amounts of food every now and then.  One night or day, I’m really not sure what the time was, I awoke to one of the Rogues biting my arm.  He jumped back instantly as if he was just as zapped with a stun gun.”

“Damn foul creatures!”  Marquis shouts, and then looks down at her through narrow eyes
. “How far did he go, Anna-Marie?”

“Not very far
, I don’t think.  Like I said, I was asleep when it started, but he seemed to have stopped abruptly right before two other Rogues came barging in.”

She takes a deep slow breath before continuing.

“He started saying all these crazy things about my blood being tainted already.  I was delirious from the lack of food and torture, so I couldn’t get a grasp on reality to process what he was talking about.

“One of the Rogues
that burst in after the assault came over to me and started asking me ludicrous questions about me being a vampire.  I was baffled.  Then he licked my wound and jumped back just as quickly as the first one did.”

She finally takes her eyes from the statue and looks back at Marquis
.  “He said I was a mix.”

Alessandro looks at his father, waiting for some kind of a reaction to show just how grave this situation really is, but Marquis just stares at her in silence as he takes in the news.

After a few long minutes, he silently looks away from her and leans back in the pew.

“Father, what does this mean?”

“Well, there have been a few females born, but it is very rare.  I can’t honestly say that I have seen one in a very long time.”

“So
, do you think he was telling the truth then?” Anna-Marie asks.

“Understand, the Rogue
are not to be trusted by any means, but the fact that you are still alive speaks volumes.  Is there anything about you and your life that makes you stand apart from normal people?”

“Well, Alessandro and I had talked about the
Mixed Breeds before, but even when he was describing them, I never saw any similarities with myself and them, if that’s what you mean.”

Marquis seems to be happy with that answer.

“But, I was adopted as an infant,” she continues.  “I never knew my birth parents.  I always thought that was the reason I felt like an outsider.  My parents love me very much, this I will never doubt, so I never felt like I was missing out on anything.  In high school and college I was a track star, so it kept me in all of the in-crowds even though I never felt like I belonged to them. Because I was a runner, I was always in top shape, so I always thought that was why I never got sick.  But like I said, I was adopted so it could just be good genes as well.”

“Hmm
. . . very interesting,” Marquis says.  “We will have to test your blood to make sure.  That is, if that is alright with you.”

Anna
-Marie looks from Alessandro to Marquis, terror radiating off her.

“Oh no
, child, I assure you, it will be far more humane than what that animal did to you.”

“Oh
. . . okay.”

“Alessandro, will you please take her to the medical ward so Jesse can test her blood?”

Alessandro stands up and reaches out his hand to her.

She gladly accepts it and stands up.

Outside of the chapel, Alessandro stops walking and pulls her into a hug.  “We’ll figure this out no matter what the results are, okay?”

Anna
-Marie begins to tremble as reality sets in.  “Okay,” is all she can manage to get out through her quivering lips.

He kisses the top of her head
.  “I love you, Bella.”

He lets her go and grabs her hand once again.

As they enter the medical ward, Anna-Marie is lost in awe once again.  The ward is far more sophisticated than any medical facility she has ever seen.  There are tables lining the walls, with all types of equipment necessary to make a diagnosis of any kind.  Straight down the center of the room is a hallway leading to patient rooms.  There are two desks as soon as you walk in.  Only one is being occupied at the moment by a huge man in a white lab coat.  He doesn’t appear to notice them.

“Well
, hello Alessandro!  Did you forget something?” asks the big man sitting behind the desk without even looking up at him.  Instead he continues to stare down at whatever has caught his attention.  As soon as he is done, he looks up at Anna-Marie, noticing her for the first time and quickly stands up.  “Is everything okay?”

“Yes
, Jesse.  This is Anna-Marie.” 

It’s no surprise Jesse is as big as he is.  All of the men she has seen here so far have been very tall and well
-built.  Another similarity, they are all unbelievably beautiful.  Case in point, Jesse.  He has short chocolate wavy hair and dark squinty eyes framed in copper rimed glasses.  All of his features are perfectly symmetrical.  He would be any girl’s dream come true.

“It is a pleasure to meet you
, Anna-Marie.  I’ve heard so much about you,” Jesse says as he holds out his hand to her.  She snaps out of her own thoughts and smiles as she accepts his warm gesture.

“Jesse, we need a blood test drawn up from
Anna-Marie.”

“Oh!”
he says as he looks from Alessandro back to Anna-Marie.  “And what is it exactly that I’m supposed to be looking for?”

“
Mixed Breed cells,” Alessandro says grimly.

“Oh!”
he says once again.  “Okay umm, Anna-Marie, sit right here for me and I will get my stuff,” he says pointing to his chair behind the desk before he flutters off towards one of the long tables on the far left wall.

Anna
-Marie chews on her lower lip and slowly makes her way around the desk to do as she was told.

“Here we are
, dear.  This won’t hurt at all,” Jesse says as he wipes the area with alcohol and sticks the needle into her vein.  She only flinches for a moment as he finds a plump vein, but he is right, it doesn’t really hurt at all.

Once a vi
al is drawn, he walks back over to the far left table and smears some of the blood on a glass slide and places it under the microscope.  Anna-Marie and Alessandro both watch him in silence as he does his job, neither of them able to breathe.  It doesn’t take long before his bent head comes back up.

“This is spectacular
!” Jesse says and turns his attention back to Alessandro and Anna-Marie.  “Do you guys want to see?”

Anna
-Marie is the first to make a move and Alessandro follows.

He reaches over to the little countertop refrigerator and pulls out a vi
al of blood and smears some on a fresh slide.

“Here
, look at this.  These are the cells of a normal human,” he says once the microscope is in focus.

Anna
-Marie bends her head over the little hole and closes her left eye to see better.  She remembers some biology from high school, but that was so long ago.  She knows she is looking at blood cells, but there’s really nothing about them that stands out. 

She lifts her head back up and looks at Jesse
.  “Okay, what am I supposed to be looking for exactly?”

“I just wanted to show you what a normal human’s blood looks like under a microscope. Now I’ll show you yours so you can see the difference
,” he says with a smile and puts her slide back in its place.

She bends her head back over the equipment and at first she doesn’t see much of a difference, but the more she looks, the more she sees it.  Her white cells are bigger and there seems to be so much more of them compared to the other blood
sample. 

“Wow, it’s no wonder I never get sick
!  My white cell count is insane,” she says as she looks back up at Jesse.

Jesse is still smiling as if he is about to burst from excitement.  You can tell he loves science and all of its mysteries. 

“Yes, you have a very large amount.  Now, this is Alessandro’s blood.”

Alessandro quickly looks at Jesse and then the slide he is holding
in his hand.

“Why so surprised
, Alessandro?  I have a supply of all of the Brotherhood and Protectors’ blood.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You never know when anyone is going to need it,” he says matter-of-factly, then turns his attention back to Anna-Marie.  “Okay, dear, now look at his and tell me what you think.”

Anna
-Marie does what she is told.  It only takes her a few seconds to see what she is supposed to be looking for. 

“They are the same
,” she says as she slowly looks back up at Jesse’s beaming face.

“Yes
, they are.  In all my one hundred years I have never encountered a female Mixed Breed before.  It is an honor to have the opportunity to do so now,” he says as he takes her hand and kisses it gently with respect.

“So, what does this mean for her?” Alessandro asks
.