Kindred (Kindred, Book 1) (40 page)

Once he had me settled in bed, I said, “You need to go back out there, I'll be fine, I just need some sleep.”

He smiled at me indulgently. “I will not be leaving your side,
ma douce
, today, or even tomorrow, the Bond requires us to be together. It is a desire that cannot be denied even if we wanted to. The establishment of a Bond is an important part of our joining. There is nowhere else I wish to be. I will however, conduct my business from in here.” He waved his hand over to a comfortable armchair and low table in the corner which had not been there earlier, a laptop already sitting out waiting for him. “No one will enter, I can communicate with my line, silently and from a distance.”

I yawned and just nodded, having no desire for him to leave me at all. “There is however one thing you could do for me,
ma belle
.”

I looked up at him questioningly.

“I am hungry, would you mind?”

Suddenly I was awake.

He smiled and chuckled. “Oh dear, you will get used to it, Lucinda, it will become as much a part of you as it is me, please believe me.”

My eyes felt wide, my heart suddenly in my throat, my pulse beating at an altogether most alarming rate. Michel reached up and brushed his fingers against my throat, just over my pulse point.

“You do not make it easy, do you?” he murmured.

I swallowed the lump which had suddenly formed in my throat. Michel lowered his head and sighed. “I can feed elsewhere, but it would require me leaving you, as I cannot believe
you would wish to watch.” He looked up at me. “Is that what you would prefer,
ma douce
?”

I didn't hesitate, just shook my head, not breaking eye contact at all.

“As I thought, so I shall make this quick. Forgive me for the speed in which this happens, my dear, normally I would prefer to take my time and savour the moment,
especially with you
, but it might be best if we just - how do they say? - get this over with.”

I bit my lip, I couldn't help it, I just couldn't stop my response to this; pure terror but also a need so strong it ached. My mind was telling me to calm down, this is quite normal, a quite acceptable part of being joined to a vampire, but my inner monologue was shouting
get the fuck out of here!
I struggled to tell it to shut up.

Michel took my hand in his, turned it over and rubbed the wrist lightly, so softly with his thumb, right above the veins and arteries there. His voice was low and even. “I do not normally bother with the wrist, it is somewhat impersonal, but perhaps tonight it would be better.”

He slowly lifted my arm up to his mouth, his fangs sliding out and down in a swift, smooth and quick movement. He didn't pull his lips back exposing teeth, as so many vampires do when about to go in for a bite, his mouth remaining so full and lush, his eyes met mine. And then before I could help myself, I reached up and grabbed his shirt with one hand, surprising him enough to loosen his grip on my wrist and then used the now free hand to pull his head down towards my neck.

He groaned and I felt his fangs take hold above my pulse, his lips mould against my skin. His hands were gripping my shoulders, I could feel the warmth of his chest against my body, the firmness of his hip against my side. Then the slide of fang into flesh, creating a sense of sharp pain, which was instantly replaced with a sensation of acute ecstasy and an intimacy so pure it rocked my soul. My eyes closed, even as tears slipped out past my lids and down my cheeks and all I could hear was Michel's voice in my mind saying
mine, mine, mine, mine
.

He fed for no more than 30 seconds, but it felt like the world no longer existed. I was weightless, drifting on a cloud of euphoria, swaying gently in a breeze of exhilaration, floating softly on a wave of pure joy. He did not let it become more, I felt no heat rise within me, no tightening of muscles that could send me over the edge, but only the reassuring sense of beauty and safety and... home.

He pulled his fangs out slowly, licking the blood that had pooled at his mark, kissing my neck, stroking my hand, brushing his fingers through my hair.

“
Um.” I don't think I had ever heard Michel say
um
before.

I looked into his face searching for something there. He was looking down not making eye contact, his face flushed, his pulse racing, his breathing rapid. He swallowed and I watched his Adam's apple at the base of his throat, rise and fall.

Then deep amethyst and violet eyes met mine and he said a little huskily, “Extraordinary. I have never felt anything like that before in all my years.” And then his eyes lit up with the smile that had suddenly appeared on his beautiful face. “How is it that you continue to surprise me? I have lived a long time, Lucinda, it takes an awful lot to surprise me now, yet you,” he paused to lick his lips, “you amaze me, you bewilder me, you enthral me, on a daily basis.
Tu es la raison de mon existence, ma petite lumière.
”

Wow. What could I say? Thanks just seemed inadequate somehow, so I opted for a kiss instead. Soft and wet and with everything I couldn't put into words but hoped he would understand anyway.

By the time he pulled away from my embrace he was well and truly dishevelled. His eyes glinting with sparks of amethyst light. He just looked down at me, in what I can only call, awe. What was with this man? He seemed so much more human than he had ever appeared to me in the past.

We stared at each other for a moment and then I said, “I know I should be tired, but...”

He chuckled, that delightful deep rumble in his chest. “You need to sleep, Lucinda, would you allow me to help you,
ma douce
?”

I nodded and lowered my shields, letting his tingling touch wash over me, pulling me into a loving embrace and helping me drift off to the happy realm of sleep, with the knowledge I was safe and secure and home.

Just before I fell completely into that beautiful and familiar abyss, a thought appeared to me, I'd missed an appointment today.

Where had Nero been?

When I awoke, Michel was sleeping next to me, his arm and a leg over my body, his face nestled against my neck. He was warm and soft and for a moment I just didn't want to move, but stay there wrapped up in his embrace forever. I turned carefully, so as not to disturb him and just took my time watching him sleep, soaking him in.

You'd think a vampire would go into that stillness, that absolute preternatural calm, when they sleep. There's no reason for them to breathe, they don't need to, or to have a beating heart for that matter either. It's superfluous to their needs. I'm guessing the younger vampires don't keep up that pretence, instead letting their bodies go to that place, wherever it is, that allows them to rest during the day. But for the older vampires, it's so easy. They've spent centuries pretending, so they could fit in, move amongst the humans without detection. For a vampire like Michel, even making your heart beat and your lungs work when asleep, would be second nature.

His face was relaxed, in a look I hadn't seen on him before. He's always so controlled when in public, even with me. I get the feeling sometimes, that every emotion or reaction that crosses his face, is actually premeditated. Nothing Michel does is not planned, controlled, yet here he was with a softness to his features that made him seem just like a little boy. A beautiful little boy.

He would have been gorgeous as a child. I wondered then, what his life was like before he was changed. I realised I knew so little about him really, only his recent history here in New Zealand. I only knew he was originally from France, but where in France and what was his life like then? The enormity of what his age meant hit me like a blow to the stomach. Five hundred years old was a long time to live.

“Are you going to watch me all day,
ma douce
?”

He hadn't opened his eyes, but he had a little smile on his face, lifting up the corners of his mouth. Figures he'd been faking the sleeping too.

“How did you know?”

He opened his eyes then, so deeply blue and reached up to stroke a wayward few strands of my hair off my face.

“I felt your emotions. I think I may be getting used to them a little, I am starting to look forward to them. It is fascinating how many different emotions you seem to feel all at once. You flick from one to the next like a little bird in a tree, hopping from branch to branch. Fascinating.”

“
You looked so peaceful sleeping there, so relaxed.”

“
I am. I have you with me.” He kissed my forehead, then my cheek. “Are you not at peace too?”

And here's the thing, I so was. Being with Michel fed my soul. I have always felt that returning to my parents' farm was where I charged my batteries best, being back with the lambs, feeling the wind come over the hills, the smell of the grass in the paddocks, the sound of the sheep in the fields. It had always been where I went to centre myself, to block out the craziness that had become my life when I moved to Auckland. But now, this sense of peace, of belonging, when I was with Michel, was so great and so, so very good. I could not imagine that returning to the farm would ever hold for me what it once did.

“Yes. Yes I am.”

He pulled me close at that and just held me for some time. It became apparent, after several minutes of Michel not letting me go and me not wanting to be let go, that going to work today was not on the agenda. The Bond had other plans for us; wonderful, delicious plans, but not my normal routine, that was for sure. Part of me was very happy to oblige the Bond, but another part, that loud-mouthed insistent internal monologue part, kept telling me I still needed to be me, to not let this thing between Michel and me take over the person I once was.

I needed to be able to go to work, to have that very normal, very human part of my life to myself. No vampires, no vampire politics and definitely no vampire Bond. I also needed my apartment, my sanctuary. Staying here with Michel was bliss, my body craved it like a drug addict craves his next fix, but my mind told me otherwise. If I gave in to Michel and became his trophy kindred Nosferatin, trailing him and doing his every bidding, then I would never have any chance of equality in this relationship. Not that vampires are good at the whole equality thing, far from it, they tend to climb and crawl and claw their way to the top and once there, fight tooth and nail to keep it.

Michel may have strong feelings for me and I think, possibly, maybe, something a bit more. But he was still a vampire, and vampires liked to be master of their domain. His head might tell him I am an equal partner here, but the vampire within would want me to obey. I had never been good with authority figures, I wasn't about to change that character trait now.

Besides, I'd had quite a bit of time off work lately. That whole week after Dream Walking twice in one night, then several days due to fight injuries and now the Bond. My boss may have been glazed into believing I had been there all that time, but my conscience had not. This could not go on.

But, for now, the Bond called.

As great as it was spending all day with Michel in bed, touching, kissing, exploring, breathing each other in, I also wanted to get to know more than just his body, as beautifully seductive as it was. I wanted to get to know him. That's only reasonable after all, isn't it?

“
What was your life like before you were changed?” It was mid-afternoon and I had just finished a tray of snacks and fruit juice brought to Michel's chamber by his staff, I was plucking the skin off an apple, nibbling little bits, bit by bit. Michel was in his usual position, reclining on the bed watching me, feasting with his eyes. He smiled when I asked the question, a lovely little curve of his lips, a small sparkle in his eyes.

“
It was a long time ago,
ma douce
, I am no longer that person. You would not have recognised me.”

I raised my eyebrows at him, I wasn't going to let him just brush this off. I wanted to know and some part of me felt that the secret to Michel may lie in his past and I couldn't uncover that secret unless he told me.

He let a soft laugh out at my expression. “You really want to know?”

“
Yes.”

“
You may not like what you hear.”

“
I'll take my chances.”

He put a hand through his hair, a gesture I was becoming more familiar with, one he only seemed to use in my presence.

“I have not talked of my life pre-vampyrism for some time.”

He had started looking off into the distance, as though he was seeing another world. He sighed.

“I grew up in a small village near Lyon. A simple life, I was not of noble blood. My father worked hard to put food on the table, my mother even harder to make something of what little he could provide. We often went hungry to bed as children. I learnt at an early age, to have anything in life, one must fight for it.”

A bitter smile. A small shake of his head.

“Prospects were poor in my village. My father died at a somewhat early age and I was left to provide for not only my mother and younger sisters, but also my... family too. What skills did I have? I could fight. I had been fighting since I could walk. My life had consisted of one brawl and then another. I was not exactly feared in my village..., well maybe, by some, but I was well known for my skills in a battle. The new militia were seeking soldiers, so I joined. Sending every
livre
I could home.”