Scent of a White Rose (3 page)

“That would probably be best,” he mumbled. And
then he was gone, sauntering his sexy ass across the parking lot
and back through the club's front door.

Evangeline held the door open for him, but
didn’t say anything as he passed. Instead, she watched me as I
fumbled for the keys in my purse. I heard the door shut and felt a
moment’s relief until I looked up and saw that she was walking
straight towards me.

Evangeline was beautiful. She seemed to be in
her early thirties. She had silky brown hair, slate grey eyes, and
a petite little frame reaching to only about 5’5”. At one time I
wondered if I should be jealous of her, but Christian had told me
that she and Dax were involved and had been together forever. That
had made me feel better. But right now, I was
not
feeling
better...I was feeling nervous.

“Hi, Evangeline.” I tried to sound light and
upbeat. “Sorry for just showing up tonight. I truly thought the
club was open or else I wouldn’t have just walked on in.”

Evangeline smiled. “Oh, that’s okay. I’m sure
Christian was happy to see you, and you’re always welcome here
Rose. We just aren't allowed to have any visitors before normal
business hours. However, since we’re going to be open in about
thirty minutes, and even though you aren’t twenty-one, I would be
pleased to have you as my guest tonight if you'd like to join
me.”

I thought about her offer. It would be cool to
finally enter the club and actually hang out, and to be the owner’s
guest would be great, but…“Thank you for the offer, but
unfortunately I have to be getting back home.” Yeah, I just wasn’t
feeling the love. Evangeline seemed nice and pretty sincere with
her offer, but I could tell she didn’t
really
want me there.
And I truly did have to beat Dad home. This wasn’t like one of his
overnight trips; he was actually coming home tonight, and I didn't
even want to think about what would happen if I wasn’t there when
he arrived.

* * * * *

CHAPTER FOUR

Christian

(Christian)

With the smell of blood in the air, and Rose's
sexy body under my hands, I just couldn’t help but nuzzle her neck
a little more. She moaned a little as I started to lift her skirt,
and that's when I heard, “Christian. I’m sorry to interrupt but we
need to finish opening.”

Really Evie…right now?
Her voice carried
the command that my brain needed to hear in order to stop where
this was headed. I lifted my head and looked at Rose. She was
flushed, and even though she tried to hide it, I caught the look of
uncertainty that had flashed across her face. I'm sure she was
questioning my darkening appearance, so I quickly tried to shake it
off. I kissed her and headed for the club before she could notice
too much…I hoped.

That was one of the things that sucked about
being a vampire…no pun intended. When you started to “drift” from
light to dark, your physical appearance actually showed traces of
it. It’s in our nature for us to drift from light to dark when we
feed, when we’re sexually aroused, or angry. Most of the time when
the deeds are done and the emotions pass, we drift back to our
natural state pretty quickly. These appearance traits made it easy
to tell who was in control and who wasn't, but when they drifted in
correspondence to our cravings, it could be a real pain in the
ass.

As I rushed through the door, I almost ran
straight into Terrance, who was being held in place by Dax and
Bobby. He was on his knees, arms held out to his side, unable to
move. I assumed Evie had commanded him to stay put before she made
her way outside to get me.

“What the fuck did you think you were doing
leaving this club to go feed in the woods?” I demanded. I had known
exactly what he’d been doing the second I saw him. Terrance had
come out of the woods with black hair and dark eyes. His usual
coloring was a medium to dark brown. Because he was naturally
darker we did tend to keep an eye on him, but apparently he had
risen before the rest of us tonight so he could sneak out and have
a bite. This is why Rose was able to get into the club. He could
have grabbed Rose tonight instead of whomever it was he'd just left
bleeding in the woods.

Now I was pissed. “Answer me, you asshole. You
left this club wide open, and by doing so, you put us and our maker
at risk. What if guests had shown up early tonight? They could have
just waltzed right in and saw where all of us sleep.”

“Like Rose did?” Evie asked as she came through
the front door, her tone smooth as ice.

I had known I was going to have this
conversation with her soon, but I had hoped it could wait until
after we had dealt with Terrance.

“Rose didn’t say anything about the stage." As a
matter of fact, when we had first started dating, I bit one of her
friends and used my sedative to convince him to describe it to her
as a dance floor that moved on hydraulics, nothing more. "Evie,
don’t worry, she doesn’t know a thing. She’s innocent and if she
had
questioned it, she would have asked me and she
didn’t.”

“I believe you Christian. I had a little talk
with Rose this evening and I did a quick scan of her and you’re
right, she doesn’t suspect a thing. But that doesn’t change the
fact that we could have had a serious problem if anyone
other
than Rose had showed up early tonight.” Evie's gaze
narrowed on Terrance.

Terrance tensed as he sensed the change in her
voice. She was preparing to issue a command that he knew none of us
would be able to resist.

“Dax, Bobby…escort Terrance back into the rising
pit and chain him up in the cell. I will decide what to do with him
after closing tonight. Oh, and Dax…make him sing.”

Terrance visibly slumped when he heard her
command. "Make him sing" were not words you ever wanted to hear her
say.

Evangeline is our clan’s Sire; Dax is her
consort. They are the only two vampires in our clan that possess
the ability to “scan” or invade someone’s mind. They could choose
to gently read your mind, barely probing your current thoughts,
like she had done with Rose. Or, they could “make you sing.” When
they forcibly pulled thoughts from your head, it was not only
excruciating, but you were forced to “sing” every detail of
whatever it was that you were thinking without a choice. There was
no way to hide your intentions or lie about what you had done.
Terrance was screwed.

Dax and Bobby escorted Terrance back down to our
actual "rising" pit. This was the area where we all slept during
the day. It was located far underground, beneath the club, and only
had two entrances. One was under the circular dance floor, and the
other was hidden behind a bookcase in Evangeline's office. I
started to follow Dax and Bobby towards the pit, but just then
Evangeline nodded her head in my direction. I guess we weren’t done
talking about Rose’s appearance tonight after all. I followed her
into her office and shut the door behind us.

“I like Rose very much,” Evie started, “but I’m
concerned that she is witnessing too much for her own good.”

“You just said that you scanned her. If she had
any questions or suspicions about me or The Rising Pit, you would
have heard them then.”

I wasn’t about to let Evie ruin the best thing
that had ever happened to me. Rose was the sweetest, most caring,
and sexiest person I had ever met. The first night that I saw her
leaning out of that limo and smelled her scent drifting on the
breeze, I thought I’d died again. I recall writing her some cheesy
poem in hopes of capturing her attention, but what I truly remember
about that night was her scent. She smelled of innocence and
sweetness: like fresh cotton and sweet tarts, and sunshine and
rain, all mixed together. I was immediately in love with her.

“While doing my quick scan, I could sense
something just below the surface: a wariness or apprehension of
some kind. I’m just concerned that we may be the source of that,”
Evangeline stated.

“Or maybe it’s because her mother was killed six
months ago. And it probably didn't help that she was worried she'd
gotten me in trouble, and then here comes the owner of the club
making a trip across the parking lot to talk to her about it.
Honestly, with everything she has gone through, I’d be surprised if
she doesn't spend the rest of her life wary and apprehensive.” I
was feeling a little pissed and crossed my arms in defiance.

Evie cocked her head and took in my frustrated
tone and stance. A smile slowly spread across her face. “You’re in
love with her.”

“Damn straight.” I was not embarrassed to
express my feelings for Rose in front of Evie. She and Dax had a
wonderful relationship that made the rest of us long to have
someone in our lives that we too could share eternity with. With
Rose, eternity wasn’t going to happen, but I didn’t care. A
lifetime with her was something that would sustain me until my true
death. Yeah…I loved her that much.

“I haven’t received any signs of the new Sire
emerging, but when they do, you could always petition them to
change Rose for you,” Evie said.

I had never thought about Rose actually becoming
a vampire. Mainly because
I
couldn’t change her, and at this
point neither could Evie.

When the Sire of a clan reached a certain age,
their ability to share the life blood required for
the
change
disappeared. A new Sire within the line was eventually
triggered to take their place, but sometimes that could take
hundreds of years to happen. It had been eighty-five years since
Evie last created a new vampire, and we hadn't had any signs of who
the new Sire could be. Honestly, I thought we all had forgotten
about it as our little family was pretty content.

“I hadn’t even thought about it, but I guess
when the time does come, I
could
petition the new Sire to
change Rose.” Hope was blooming in my chest.

Evie smiled, “Well it’s certainly something to
think about. I, for one, would welcome Rose with open arms. I’ve
never seen anyone make you so happy and she does seem to be as
sweet as you say. I think she would make a wonderful light vampire,
and it would please me for you to be able to spend eternity with
the person you love, just like me and Dax. ”

“That would be amazing.” I dreamily started to
fantasize about an eternity with Rose.

Evie snapped my attention back to the present.
“Now what should we do about Terrance?”

The air left my lungs. “Honestly, I don’t know.
He has always been a little darker than the rest of us, and even
though we’ve monitored him successfully in the past, I really don’t
see him changing back this time. When he stepped out of the woods,
his hair was black and his eyes were almost as dark, and I could
smell and hear the woman he had left behind in the woods. She was
bleeding, frightened, and whimpering. I could tell that Terrance
had not made their interaction a pleasant one.”

"Is that why you were drifting, because of the
effect the woman in the woods was having on you?"

“Yes. With the scent of blood in the air, and
Rose in my arms, I started to drift. Thank you for stopping me when
you did.”

I hadn’t drifted in front of Rose before, mainly
because I had always made sure to feed before she arrived. Plus,
even if I did get really worked up, she usually had her eyes closed
because she was just as into it as I was. But tonight she had shown
up before I had fed and with the bleeding woman in the woods not
far from us and her amazing body pressed next to mine, I hadn’t
been able to control myself. I just hope she hadn’t noticed too
much.

“I think I’ll wait to hear what Dax gathers from
Terrance and make my decision tonight after closing, as planned.”
Evangeline said, bring my attention back to the problem at
hand.

As a rule, Evie didn’t kill vampires just
because they drifted from light to dark; it was in our nature and
couldn't be helped. But she did have one strict rule: if any of us
started to revel in hurting people and became permanently dark, we
would
face the true death. No exceptions.

It was very rare for a vampire to drift
permanently dark, but it happened every now and then. When it
did
happen, it meant that they were giving into the darkness
within them, which resulted in their emotions shutting down. That
quickly led a vampire to start reveling in the kill and becoming
truly evil. If it happened within a Sire's clan, it was their
responsibility to deliver the true death. It looked like Terrance
was out of time.

* * * * *

CHAPTER FIVE

Daddy's Little Girl

(Rose)

As I drove home, I couldn’t stop thinking about
Christian and how great it felt to finally have him let loose a
little. His kisses were more intense and the way his hands moved
over my body was pure heaven. But there were other things that had
happened tonight that were occupying my thoughts as well. Like my
lying and scheming, my seeing Christian and his co-workers coming
out from under the stage, Terrance's sudden appearance from the
woods, and especially Christian’s dark appearance and odd mood
swing. It's not that these things had exactly stressed me out, but
tonight had been so different from any of my other visits with
Christian; it all just felt a little odd.

But, odd or not, I really didn’t have time to
process it right now because I had bigger problems.

I was already running short on time, and had
obviously gotten lost in my thoughts, because when I looked up, I
realized that I had driven straight to my house in Jill’s car.
Oh shit! What was I going to do now?

I was supposed to have gotten a ride home from
Ms. Culver after school, so how was I going to explain to my dad
about Jill’s car? I raced around the block, pulled the car up to
the curb, eased it into park, then frantically dialed Jillian’s
number.