Chapter Nineteen
The guard at Simone’s door was doubled. Marcus tried to get her to allow two guards to stand inside the apartment in the foyer but she was not having it.
“I will not have the sanctity of my privacy taken away from me because of that creature!”
“Very well, but remember, this is the second attempt on your life.”
“This is the first time they tried to kill me,” she argued. “I think the first time they were trying to abduct me.”
“Either way, you need protecting,” he argued.
“You and the guard at the door are all the protection I need,” she said firmly.
“Very well. If you insist.”
“I do.”
“Let’s get you to bed. I’m going to feed you and then you’re going to rest.”
“You’ve already fed me once tonight. You ought not do it again. Surely there’s someone else.”
Surely there was, but he’d be damned before he’d let another vampire near her offering sustenance. Whether it was for her protection or out of jealousy he didn’t exactly know...probably a combination of the two. Regardless of his motivation…it just wasn't going to happen.
“I don’t trust someone else. I’ll be fine. I’ll have to hunt later and feed you again, but we’ll manage for now.”
“Very well,” she said with a sigh of resignation.
She looked too weary to argue any further and he was grateful for it. He didn’t want to waste precious energy fighting her for what she needed to take care of herself. They went to her bedroom and he immediately led her into her bathroom. Here he stripped her of her bloodstained clothing until she was naked and beautiful before him. But it was easy to control himself after all they had been through these past two attempts on her life. He knew what was needed was care and concern. He needed to coddle and baby her, not make sexual demands on her.
He pushed her into the cubicle of the enormous shower and waited patiently for her to obey his command to turn on the taps. She didn’t at first. She simply stood there with her arms wrapped around her body. Then she finally sighed and did as she was bid. She looked so tired, as if the weight of the world rested on her slender shoulders. He would never have thought of describing her as fragile, but in that moment she seemed so delicate…so on the verge of breaking. The understanding made him frown.
When he got his hands on whoever was responsible for this, he was going to make them pay for every moment of trouble they were causing her now. He would make them suffer and feel just as betrayed and helpless as she was feeling right then. She was a strong woman, used to taking care of herself, used to being the one who battled for right and wrong. As a former authoritarian she had fought hard to uphold the laws of their nation, had handled herself and the toughest criminals. She had done her stint as a committee member, had protected the head of their nation just as he was doing now. She was capable and strong and smart.
However it had been some time since she had played the role of hunter and justice keeper. After so many years as a protected person her instincts must have been dulled. She would criticize herself for that, he knew. She was worst on herself than anyone else. She would blame herself for not seeing the danger until it was too late.
Slowly she washed away the blood on her body, taking care not to hurt her arm in the process. She would already be healing, but she had needed deep stitches almost the entire length of her arm from the inside of her elbow to her wrist. The knife involved had barely missed the artery in her arm. It had been a matter of sheer luck.
Once she was clean he held a towel for her and dried her bare body from head to toe, ending with wrapping her hair up in a towel. He tried to get her to put on a nightgown, but she reminded him the night was not over yet. They could expect visits from human police investigating what had happened. Ronald too could expect a visit…from their private clinic.
They would downplay the severity of Ronald’s injuries, make them seem less than what they were. Whatever it took to hide the reasons why he had been taken to a private clinic rather than a trauma center. Of course, Simone was ridiculously wealthy and privileged and Ronald was one of her people. It wasn't so far-fetched that she should take care of her own in a private manner.
Simone dressed in sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt. She looked incredible casual…so average and so stunning at the same time. She had dressed this way on purpose…to make herself seem more relatable, more reachable. To make herself seem as if she had nothing to hide. To portray innocence.
She was innocent. Innocent of everything…save keeping a tremendous secret. Everything she did from that moment on was designed to keep that secret from the humans who would be encroaching on their sacred territory. They could do nothing of course. They would try to find out what had happened to the assailant. The story would be simple. She had escaped their men. She had broken free of them and run off into the night.
But the truth was that she was in their custody. In a cell waiting for the committee to pass ultimate judgment on her and for her execution to be carried out. The humans would search for her relentlessly no doubt, but she would never be found.
Whenever humans were allowed into vampire central it was a highly risky business. Therefore every effort was made to see that each individual was strictly escorted to wherever they felt the need to go. In order to avoid having humans wandering here and there, all of the witnesses that had left the scene of the crime were gathered into a single room and were awaiting interviewing. The only one separate from them was Ronald…and of course Simone. She would have them come to her apartment and allow herself to be examined there. They must give every appearance of being as helpful as possible while keeping all of the truth to themselves.
The one thing they could not control was what the female assailant had said within hearing of so many of the humans in attendance that evening. The cops would find it intriguing. Curious. When humans became curious it could mean dangerous things to the vampire race. It could risk the very exposure the female vampire had been hoping for in the chaos she had created,
Marcus wondered at that, however. There were hundreds of ways to expose the existence of vampires. Attacking and killing their queen was one of them, but even that could be controlled and maintained by the vampires. They had contingencies for everything. Layers and layers of protection of their secrets. Especially at so high a level of government. It would be easier to expose them on a lower level. A level with less protection. Then again, lower levels made less of a splash, drew less attention and were easily able to be contained. Still, there was nothing keeping a turncoat vampire from walking into a newsroom somewhere and exposing everything. Exposing all of them in one fell swoop.
Also, there was someone behind all of this. A great mind was plotting against Simone and the vampire race. A name immediately jumped to Marcus’s mind.
Draz.
The sycophant leader was the only one he could think of who would have the power, the gall and the reasoning behind these attacks. Even if it was a reasoning known only to his sick mind, Draz loved to cause chaos. He also aspired to leading the vampire and sycophant races. He had delusions of grandeur. One of the ways he might feel would open up the leadership of the vampire people would be to kill their queen and throw them into the chaos of having no immediate leadership.
If a king or queen was killed, a prince of the king or queen’s choosing would be named regent until a full election could be arranged and carried out. In Simone’s case it was Leo who would inherit the position of regent. An election was no small process. It took the better part of a year to hold one, what with the campaigning and giving all contenders a chance to prove their value and capability. In history it was often the regent who ended up being elected to the seat. It was almost always a prince. Marcus couldn’t think of there ever being a king or queen chosen who had not been prince at the time of the elections. In fact, a dual election was held. One for the monarch and one for the replacement of the prince who would be elevated to prince in order to fill the gap left by that prince’s elevation to monarch.
The whole drawn out process left them vulnerable for that year. The prince regent would not be the truly elected king or queen. This led to every choice he or she made being called into question or harshly judged by the masses. Decisions that affected the vampire race as a whole were put on hold. The government froze.
Still, Marcus found it curious that these attempts had both failed. If they had wanted Simone dead that night there had been plenty of opportunity to get close to her. True, he had been by her side every minute, but he had also been drawn away in that one crucial moment. There could have been other teams of traitors. It made him wonder at how poorly planned it had all been. Or perhaps it hadn’t been poorly planned at all. Perhaps this was exactly the result they had wanted all along.
Simone sat on her couch, curled up by tucking her feet beneath her bottom and drawing a knitted blanket around her shoulders. She shivered but he knew it wasn't so much from the cold as it was coming down from the adrenaline rush of being forced to guard her life.
“They were vampires,” she said to him with another shiver. “My people. Again. Not sycophants.”
“Sycophants couldn’t ever get close to you. They would be recognized immediately. It has to be vampires. Or humans.”
“I wish it had been humans. I might feel better. The idea of so many of my people turning against the law…against me…it sickens and distresses me.”
“Draz is a very compelling creature. He talks a very convincing game. He can easily reach a weak mind.”
“You think this is orchestrated by Draz?”
“Who else could it be?” he asked. “Who else could convince sycophants and vampires to work together?”
“Perhaps someone we have not heard about as yet.”
“Perhaps. But not likely. Our network of vampires on the streets would have alerted us to any new factions. The authoritarians have spies everywhere.”
“Except in the sycophant ‘court’,” she said. “We’re unable to get the close to Draz. He won’t let anyone but a sycophant close to him. He has to be using a go-between to communicate and organize these traitorous vampires.”
“Since Draz is presently out of my immediate reach, I would like to get ahold of this go-between…whoever they are. There has to be a way to find them. A way to tear them down and hurt the communication between Draz and his legion of turncoat vampires.”
“But the question is how do we find that person? Who are they? How do we find out? And why haven’t our spies caught on to them before now?”
“I don’t know,” Marcus said honestly. “I am still situating myself into my position. I don’t have a hold of the connections to your network of spies just yet. I had connections in England I knew and used with comfort. I don’t have that here yet. No offense to Danton, but I don’t know whom to trust. Who can I depend on? Who is most effective? These are things I haven’t had a chance to find out. And perhaps that is why Draz has chosen to move against you in this moment. He knows Danton's abandonment has left you open to weakness. He doesn’t know my capabilities the way he knew Danton's, so he must be counting on me being a point of weakness. He perhaps wasn't expecting me to be so good at my job so easily and so quickly. He certainly wasn't expecting us to…” He trailed off.
“To become lovers? How could he? We weren't expecting it ourselves,” she said.
“No. We weren't,” he said, giving her a small smile. “It gave us an advantage,” he said. “It…made me far more devoted to you than say any other authoritarian might be. It brought me far closer to you. It has allowed me to see danger and motivated me to protect you all the more.” He hesitated only a moment. “Draz wasn’t anticipating my love for you to be so strong.”
He saw her eyes widen a moment and then a smile began to spread across her lips and brighten her previously troubled eyes. It gave him enormous satisfaction to see her take such pleasure in the expression of his feelings. It encouraged him. He quickly knelt before her and took her hand in his.
“It pleases you to hear that?” he asked her. “Does it please you to hear it as much as it pleases me to say it and feel it?”
“It depends,” she said softly. “How do you love me? As a subject loves his monarch? As a protector loves and cares for his protected? Or…”
“As a man loves a woman,” he finished for her. He felt the feeling flowering inside of him. He had barely had a moment to acknowledge it to himself, but there it was. Perhaps it had started out as those previously spoken forms of love…but they had not remained that way for long. He suspected he had loved her from the moment he had first set eyes on her cool and elegant beauty…and had first tasted her unbridled passion. He had considered it might just be an infatuation…but he was not prone to such shallow feelings. When he felt something like this, he felt it with conviction, even if he hadn’t felt it very much previously in his life. He had not loved many women. He had cared for them deeply, taken very good care of them, but none of them had made him want to treasure them as she did, and in the same breath, none of them had made him so hard and full of rampant need that he threw all sense and caution to the four winds just to be with her.
She was not a needy woman, but he could see she needed from him. She needed to believe in him and the emotions he was expressing…only he wasn't very good at expressing them. It was a rusty, disused skill. He wasn't used to talking about his feelings, never mind feelings of this nature.
“I wish I was a poet,” he said intensely. “I would have all the words to make you believe me, to express what I am feeling as intensely as I am feeling it. I also wish I did not need so badly to hear you feel the same. I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on you. But I cannot help both feelings. I hope you can forgive me.”
“Forgive you? I love you, Marcus,” she said softly, reaching for his hand and drawing him down to his knees before her near to the couch she sat on. The carpet padded his knees but he wouldn’t have cared either way. He was soaring with pleasure, his heart thudding hard in his chest, his emotions swelling. He struggled to keep reign over them. He didn’t want to frighten her with the intensity of his feelings. This was still so young and so new. He was still learning her. Not that he thought she was fragile…far from it. It was just that he was fully aware of the risks she took when she invested her emotions into someone. He was deeply honored she should trust him with her heart and her well-being and her safety. Oh, she had trusted him with the care of her person already, but she was still young into that trust…and now to add emotional well-being into it…he recognized exactly how large a gift she was giving him. It was his job to treasure this gift. He must guard her emotions just as valiantly and feverishly as he had thus far guarded her body. More so. He would always have to give her more than she gave him, and he had to be all right with that.
He was, he realized. He loved her just that much and more. That wasn't to say he wouldn’t demand what he needed for his heart from her. He was no doormat. But he must always strive to give her more than even he thought he was capable of. Only then, he felt, could he assure her comfort and happiness. Only then would he deserve and secure her good will.
“You do not have to say that,” he said, though it killed him to utter every word. Still…he would demand the truth from her, on all things, but especially where this was concerned.
She frowned.
“I am not used to having my word questioned,” she said sternly.
“No,” he said hastily. “It’s not that I question you…just that I want you to be sure…and to not feel obligated to return my feelings.”
“I am obliged to no one,” she said, her tone growing even sterner. “Only my people as a whole have the power to influence me. You, Sir, do not. If I give you my heart I do so clearly and at my own pleasure.” Amusement threaded into her voice as her tone became less threatening and offended. “Marcus,” she said, her breath coming quicker and quicker as she drew his head down to her surging bosom until one coarse, whiskered cheek rested on her left breast. “You’ve become such a part of me so quickly…but you will never overtake me completely. I am my own woman.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said huskily.
He raised his head from her breast and reached to kiss her. But a moment before they could touch lips the doorbell rang. They both frowned.
“Can we ignore it?” he asked with amusement in his voice and eyes.
“It will merely wake Darcy. It may have already done so. Besides, it is probably the human officials.”
“True.” Marcus rose to his full height and reached to touch her cheek lovingly a moment before he walked away to answer the door.
He ran into Darcy on the way and when she saw him ready to answer the door she stopped in her tracks.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, looking at her watch. She must know it was late to be receiving visitors.
“Everything is fine now,” he said, making it clear that something had happened, but there was no longer anything to be worried about.
She hesitated, standing there in her nightgown.
“Does Simone need anything?” she asked.
“I think some coffee or tea. We’re about to have guests. Human guests. You might want to change.”
She nodded and hurried away.
Marcus answered the door.