Wilder: The Guardian Series (11 page)

Celeste was perplexed at her mother’s strange reaction to the
dream. She had never seen her look so upset, not for a very long time anyway.
Celeste looked longingly at the picture of her and her parents on the
nightstand. She wished that her father were here right now. She needed to talk
to him about all of the crazy things that had been going on in her life for the
past few weeks.
 
He would know
exactly what to say to comfort her. Instead, she felt more alone than
ever.
 

Celeste’s buzzing phone interrupted her thoughts, and she saw
Nico was calling again. This was the fourth time this morning, but she wasn’t
ready to talk to him yet.
 
She still
hadn’t been able to accept the notion that he and Roman were vampires, and she
couldn’t help but wonder how the dream about her father might tie into all of
this.
 
What she did know was that it
was all too much of a coincidence for it not to. Roman’s story did mention his
mother being a witch and some terrible sorcerer cursing their family, but did
that mean that everything she had dreamt was true? She didn’t want to believe
that all of those horrible monsters she saw in her nightmare could actually be
real.

As Celeste sat on her bed questioning
reality
as she knew it, she heard a knock at the door followed by a menacing bark from
Rocky.
 
She hurried down the stairs
and could just make out a tall shadow at the door. She peeked through the
window and was surprised to see Roman pacing on her front porch. A chill went
through her at the sight of him.

“Come on Celeste, please open the door. I know you’re there,
I can hear you breathing,” he said from outside.

Celeste unlocked the door and opened it a crack. “What do you
want Roman?”

 
“We need to talk.
Please let me in. Or if you don’t trust me, you can come out here and we can
talk out on the porch where you will be perfectly safe,” he said with a scowl.

Celeste thought about it for a moment and reasoned that she
had been alone with both Roman and Nico on a couple of occasions, and they had
never hurt her before. Also she wanted to make sure that Brian didn’t see the
two of them talking and decide to come over.
 
It was important to protect Brian, and
she didn’t want him to have anything to do with this.
 
She opened the door all the way and
signaled for Roman to enter, but he just stood there unmoving.

“You have to invite me in,” he said.

“Seriously? I thought that was just in the movies,” she said,
suppressing a chuckle.

“No, it’s a real thing, and a very important thing at that.
You must always be careful about who you invite into your house, Celeste.”

“Once you let a vampire in, can you take back the
invitation?” she asked intrigued.

“No, unfortunately not.”

“Well then, I’m going to have to think about this.”

Roman tapped his foot on the floor impatiently while Celeste
considered. He looked so good, she wondered if it was a vampire thing. His
black hair was a bit disheveled, but in a sexy way and his strong jaw had a
trace of stubble on it. She could almost imagine what it would feel like
against her skin.
 
Stop that!

“Okay, I invite you in, I guess,” she said finally.

As if an invisible barrier had been removed, Roman gracefully
crossed the threshold. Celeste led him into the sunlit living room and sat
across from him, cautiously keeping her distance.

“I thought vampires couldn’t come out in the day time,” she
said.

“I imagine you must have a lot of questions for me,” Roman
responded, “but first I want to apologize about how my brother and I handled
everything last night. I never should have told you about us. It really would
have been better if I hadn’t.”

“And what, you two would have just kept lying to me?” Celeste
asked.

“Yes, because it would have been safer for you that way.”

“Safer? That’s doubtful since Patrick came after me even when
I didn’t know anything about you,” she retorted. Then she paused for a second
realization setting in, “Is that why he came after me? Because of you?”

With a pained expression on his face, he admitted, “We don’t
know, but we are trying to find out. We have a friend, Stellan, who is a
sorcerer, a good one, and he’s helping us.”

“Okay, should I be worried or something?” asked Celeste.

“No, don’t be. Nico and I will take care of everything. We
will watch over you and protect you. If Patrick did come after you because of
us, I promise I won’t stop until I find the person behind this,” he said.

“And kill them?”

“If that’s what needs to be done to keep you safe, then yes,
unquestionably.”

There was something about the intensity in Roman’s voice that
sent another chill down her spine.
The fact that he would go
through such lengths to protect her filled her with nervous excitement.

“You think there is someone else behind this? Like someone
sent Patrick for me? I just don’t understand why anyone would come after me,”
she said.

Hesitantly, Roman reached across the table and covered her
hand with his giving it a gentle squeeze. He whispered, “Everything is going to
be fine, Celeste. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Celeste’s phone buzzed again. She glanced at it and said,
“It’s Nico. He’s been calling me all morning.”

“My little brother is certainly persistent, I’ll give him
that,” he said teasingly.

Celeste finally answered the phone and assured Nico that she
was fine. She was surprised that he had no idea that Roman was with her. After
a quick chat, she turned back to Roman who was sitting pensively on the couch.

“So a vampire, huh?” she asked.

“For over a hundred years now,” he replied. “And the reason
that sunlight does not affect me is that I did not become a vampire in the
normal way.”

“Oh, right the normal way…” Celeste mused.

“What I mean is … weren’t you listening to the story?” He
looked flustered. “Fabian turned us through a spell, so a lot of the rules that
constrain other vampires don’t apply to us. Walking in the sun just happens to
be one of them.”

“But you still drink people’s blood?” she asked awkwardly.

“I do, but not from humans directly,” he explained. “My
brother and I are able to maintain a healthy diet of blood, mostly from donor
banks and hospitals.”

Celeste took a deep breath and said, “Tell me more about your
life, about when you first became a vampire.”

“It was very difficult at first. All of the impulses, the
surge of power, it was very overwhelming. I’ve tried very hard to forget that
time in my life,” he said grimacing.

“I’m sorry. It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“It wasn’t all bad. As we grew to accept our new lives, I
remember a time when we were actually happy. Nico and I were eternal
twenty-year-olds, and we spent decades attending universities around the globe.
Because of the spell, we weren’t condemned to living in the shadows like other
vampires are. We were able to walk freely in the sun, so we could assimilate
fairly well into the human world, for short periods of time anyway. This was
especially true for Nico, as he always seemed right at home wherever he went.
He was charmingly relentless with the ladies, popular with the guys and seemed
to fit into the human world much more easily than I ever did.”

He paused with a sigh and ran his hand through his wavy hair.

“But inevitably every four or five years we were forced to
move on, and leave whatever life we had created to conjure up a whole new one,
in a new town, with new people. That was what brought us to Oak Bluffs for the
first time in the early 1950’s. And it was here that our parents were killed.”

This time it was Celeste who leaned across the table and gave
Roman a comforting touch. “Why would you come back here then?”

Roman chuckled. “I keep asking myself the same question.”

Roman and Celeste spent the rest of the morning playing a
series of twenty questions. She found herself fascinated by all of his
intriguing adventures filled with magic, world travel and encounters with
werewolves and monsters, and she began to feel less afraid.
 
She found it incredibly odd how
comfortable she now felt around him, thinking
I am sitting with a vampire on my couch in the living room and I am not
freaked out.

“Celeste,” Roman interjected seriously, “I don’t want to
mislead you about my life as a vampire. There have been some very dark times as
well. I’ve been able to move past it, but I am constantly battling my basic
instinct. Nico and I, we manage pretty well, but the others, they are not like
us. Now that you know about our existence, you have to be careful.”

“I will be. I promise, no more picking up cute guys at Ralph’s,”
she said with a smirk.

“Oh, so you thought Patrick was cute?”

“No, not really. I prefer my guys a little older,” she said
flirtatiously.

“It’s after one o’clock—you must be hungry,” Roman said
by way of changing the subject. “Would you like to go out for lunch?”

“Do you even need to eat?” she asked.

“No, I don’t, but after all of these years of trying to live
a human life, I’ve become quite accustomed to adhering to social norms.”

“Then sure, I am pretty hungry. Now that I think about it, I
didn’t even get to eat at my senior prom last night with all the distractions.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I am truly sorry that I
ruined your prom.”

“It’s okay, I really wasn’t that excited about it in the
first place. And I guess since you did save my life, we can call it even.”

Roman opened the car door for Celeste, and as she buckled
herself into the sporty bucket seat she noticed blood on the headrest. A wave
of fear came over her, but she steadied herself and asked as calmly as she
could, “Is this blood?”

“Yes, it is. It’s your blood actually,” he said very
matter-of-factly.

Celeste instinctively reached for the back of her head
searching for the spot where she hit it when she fell on the road.

“What happened when I fell? Why don’t I have a cut or even a
bump?” she asked. “My dress has blood all over it.”

“It’s another one of our vampire perks I guess you could
say,” he began. “Our blood can heal humans. When you passed out, we were
worried you might have a concussion, so I fed you some of my blood and it
healed you.”

“I drank your blood?” she asked with a nauseated expression.

“You loved it.”

She elbowed him teasingly, and he pretended to wince in pain.

“So I know this is probably a stupid question, but am I going
to turn into a vampire now?”

Roman laughed and said, “No, it’s not that easy.”

“Then how?”

“Well for starters you have to be bitten and drained of your
blood, and then when you are almost at the point of death you have to drink a
large amount of vampire blood. Then you would die, and when you awoke you would
no longer be human.”

Celeste was so engrossed in the conversation that she hadn’t
realized they had just pulled up to Ralph’s Diner. As they walked in, she saw
Natalie waving happily from a booth in the corner. She signaled for them to
come over, and as they approached she saw a familiar sandy-brown head turn
around.

“Hi you two!” said Natalie cheerily.

Then Brian chimed in, “Why don’t you guys come sit with us?”

“I don’t believe we’ve officially met,” said Roman politely.
“I’m Roman, Nico’s brother. You must be Brian.”

“Yeah, hey,” he said.

Celeste slid into the booth next to Brian and Roman sat
across from her next to Natalie. Celeste wondered if they were intruding on a
date and tried to communicate with Natalie via facial expressions, but Natalie
just looked utterly confused.

“So what are you two doing here together?” Natalie asked.

Celeste’s expression blanked as she searched for an
explanation.

“Celeste forgot her feathered boa at our apartment last
night, and Nico was hung-over so I offered to bring it to her,” said Roman
smoothly.

“And I was hungry so I convinced him to take me to lunch,”
Celeste finished.

“So what were you doing at our prom last night, Roman?” asked
Brian rather abruptly.

Celeste looked at Roman anxiously, but he easily replied, “I
was asked to be a chaperone actually. I am a member of the St. Alice High
School Board, and when I found out my little brother was going to the dance, I
decided to go so that I could keep an eye on him.”

“And dance with his date?” questioned Brian, a hint of
jealousy in his tone.

Celeste nudged Brian with her elbow under the table and gave
him a sharp look. She didn’t think that Brian had seen them dancing; at the
time he and Natalie were being crowned Prom King and Queen.

“I asked him to dance with me,” interjected Celeste. “He was
standing by himself, looking bored, so I dragged him out on the dance floor.”

Natalie broke in and started chattering about how much fun
the night had been and how honored she was to be chosen Prom Queen.
Anything to change the subject.

After lunch, the four of them walked out together. Natalie
grabbed Celeste by the arm so they were a couple steps behind the boys, and
whispered conspiratorially, “So which brother are you dating?”

“I’m not dating anyone!” Celeste hissed, knowing that Roman’s
sensitive vampire hearing could undoubtedly hear every word they said.

Turning back towards the whispering girls, Brian asked, “Hey
Cel, why don’t I take you home so Roman doesn’t have to go out of his way to drop
you off?”