Savor (21 page)

“You have to leave the palace.”

“What?  I don’t want to leave!” I halted our progression. “Because of Ana?”

“There is no way to tell where she went, Claire! It’s not safe for you here.”

I panicked and wrapped my arms around myself. “She’s not dead? But she fell, I saw her!”

“We don’t have time to debate this. We have to go. Now.”

“Dmitry is getting help. He will tell Nicolae. There is no way she will be able to get near me again. Nicolae will have her killed after what she did.”

“Maybe so, but you can’t stay. You don’t belong here.” He put his arm around me to guide me down a stairwell and I exhaled as each movement to a lower step sent shocks of pain spiraling through my body. 

“I don’t understand. Why don’t I belong here?”

“I can’t explain that right now. You have to trust me.” His sense of duty coursed through him and I could feel it through our connection. I knew I could trust him, without a doubt, so I nodded and we quickened our escape.

Arrick and I burst through a small six-paneled door and found ourselves in the garage. The room was filled with smoke, but unharmed by the explosions with the exception of one car that had been too close to a skylight and some rubble had fallen on top of it.

“Stay here,” Arrick commanded as he leaned me against a wall to locate a set of keys nearby. As soon as he found the one he was looking for, he scooped me up and ran to a four-door sedan. The alarm beeped as he unlocked it with the remote and slid me onto the smooth leather seats.

I looked over as he entered and saw that he had chosen a Mercedes. He latched my seat belt and forced my seat back before buckling himself up and turning the key in the ignition. The engine purred steadily, and with a push of another button on the overhead, he started the movement of the garage door.  With a screech, the motor pulled the doors open.

Arrick put the car in gear and pulled ahead, waiting just inches from the door for it to open far enough for him to speed through. The Mercedes rocketed out of the garage at full speed. Being the only exit, he headed for the front gate. The shouting grew louder as we drove closer. The car doors clicked as Arrick locked them and he made his way through the remaining crowd. “Looks like they let these humans live,” Arrick said more to himself than to me.

“What?”

“The humans who breached the palace had to be…” he looked over at me to gauge my reaction, “removed.” I nodded in understanding. There was no way to keep the vampires from attacking, once they were provoked a second time. The crowd banged on the car as we slowly rolled through them. They shouted and chanted at us.

I pulled the lever on the side of my seat, causing it to fling back into a sitting position. There were more people than I had originally thought. The pandemonium was extreme and my nerves frazzled with the clash of emotions.  “There are so many of them.”

Arrick nodded as he gripped the steering wheel. Our escape was slow going as we nudged our way past the unrelenting crowd. “We are almost through.”

“Where are all the guards?” I didn’t see or sense anyone around, other than the rioting mob of humans, which both comforted and scared me.

“They headed for the palace after the second explosion. Damnit!” Arrick cursed when a large man slammed his thick fist onto the hood, denting it. The sound made me jump in my seat and I twirled around to look back at the palace. The building was as dark as the night sky and illuminated in a fiery outline. A few windows were alight and I tried to guess whose they were. Robin would worry for me, I knew, and my heart wrenched with pain at the thought of leaving her behind, not to mention Louie, but Arrick’s sense of duty was becoming my own, and I couldn’t fight it.

I took a deep breath and focused my thoughts on my emotions, letting them build into a thick, strong ribbon. I willed it to find Robin and let her know I was okay. I tried not to think about what she would see when she entered my room - the destruction and blood that now tarnished its beauty. I blinked away a half-formed tear and gripped the seat tightly as I pushed the emotion outward. 

“Stop!” Arrick commanded. He yanked my arm and pulled me violently back into my seat just as we broke through the crowd.

He didn’t waste any time putting the car into gear and making a hard left. He slammed his food on the gas, sending me back against my seat as we flew forward. “You can’t do that, Claire. Someone else could discover that or sense it. For now, we don’t need anyone knowing you made it out of that palace alive.”

“But Robin is going to be worried. I can’t do that to her,” I protested and kicked my foot at the glove box in frustration. “Tell me what’s going on. I need to know. I deserve to know.”

He took a deep breath as he gripped the shifter and put the Mercedes into the next gear, pushing it to its limits. I watched him flexing his jaw muscles, sensing his emotions knotting into each other, but I remained silent. He would tell me and I was willing to give him the time he needed to prepare. It had to be something big, something very important.

As I waited, I could feel the adrenaline fading quickly and my body began to throb in pain from my injuries. I rested my head as I exhaled a wincing sigh and saw Arrick’s gaze flash toward me. Concern softened his face and his eyes grew more vibrant as the emotion overtook him. All I could think of was how handsome he was, how grateful I was that he saved me. Since the first moment I saw him, standing in the darkness of the palace grounds, there had been a connection. Our joining in the Blood Mate ceremony only seemed to reinforce a bond that was already there. I thought about how unsure I was before the ceremony, and then Dmitry’s face flashed in my mind. 

I knew he would be heartbroken. He had gone for help and when he returned, I would be gone. It brought tears to my eyes to know the abandonment he would feel. Would he blame himself? I still cared deeply for him, despite my feelings for Arrick. I swore that someday I would return to the palace, if only to get Louie! I would find Robin and let her know I was okay; and I would find Dmitry and tell him how much I cared. Then I realized that I made a lot of promises. There were already two people waiting for me to come back, which I never did. I knew there was a good chance that was going to happen again.

Hot, angry tears ran across my face and I smeared them away with my fingers. “You okay?” Arrick asked. The commanding tone was gone from his voice, and now it was filled with tenderness and genuine concern. I guessed the immediate threat was behind us, so he was able to relax.

“Honestly? I don’t know.” I was more frustrated than sad. Nothing was what I thought it would be. Since becoming a vampire, the world didn’t seem to make sense any more. Somehow, I knew it never would. “Tell me, Arrick,” my voice was neither pleading nor laced with desperation. 

I could feel him searching my emotions and he seemed to have found what he was looking for as he nodded silently. “You don’t belong here.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that. Why don’t I belong here?”  I wasn’t certain as to what “here” was. Did he mean the palace, specifically?

“I told you once that I have known for a very long time that I would be your Blood Mate.” I nodded remembering the conversation. “I have known for eighteen years.”

My mouth fell open and my mind exploded with confusion. How could he have known for eighteen years when I just got tested? It didn’t make sense. I opened my mouth to rapid-fire a million questions, but Arrick raised his hand to halt me. “You are not from this region. You are a Zakarian. You are from my region.”

Zakarians. The name sounded familiar as I vaguely remembered from history class. They were located in a region far to the east. A coastal vampire clan whose way of life was very different from our own, but I couldn’t quite remember the details as to how they differed. “How can I be from that… How can I be a Zakarian? My mom is from here.” I twisted in my seat to look at him.

Arrick sighed, “She was not your mom.” The news rattled me to my core. A lifetime of depression crept back into me, taking hold in a strong way. I had always felt alienated, always out of place in my own life, but I never would have thought she wasn’t my mom. Not even in my worst imaginings did that thought ever arise.

Feeling my panic, Arrick quickly continued. “She is not a bad person. I would not have let you stay with her if she had been. She wanted a child and was unable to have one, so you were chosen for her. The woman may not have birthed you, but she did love you.”

My feelings altered into anger as my emotions took over my every thought. “You let me live with someone for my entire life, knowing that she wasn’t my mom?” Disdain dripped from my voice.

“It wasn’t my choice. I would have taken you long ago, but I was forbidden.”

“I can’t believe it. This is just great. My entire life is a lie. No one ever tells me the damn truth!” A deep growl escaped me as my animalistic nature crept out of its cage inside me.

“I’m telling you the truth now,” Arrick explained, resting his hand on my shoulder. His touch softened me, yet I still huffed angrily.

“Not long after you were born… you were stolen from your parents. I was assigned the duty of finding and protecting you.” I gave him no response and locked my gaze on an unfixed location in the distance. The darkness of the night sky was starting to fade and I could feel myself growing weary. “Damn it, Claire,” Arrick hissed in frustration as he hit his palm against the steering wheel. “Don’t you get it?”

“No Arrick, I don’t get it. Obviously!” I hissed back at him. “I got kidnapped as a baby and given to some lady, whom until just now, I had thought was my mom. I’m from an entirely different region that I know nothing about, so please tell me what I don’t get.” I stared at him unblinkingly as exhaustion and pain wracked my body.

“Nicolae had you kidnapped. In our region, we test blood at a very young age. You, especially, because you are so very unique.” I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms, silently demanding he explain why I was so special.  “You are a princess.”

“Duh!” I exhaled and almost smirked through my anger at how much I sounded like my old friend, Liz.

“Claire, you are
our
princess.” He gripped the steering wheel as he swerved through traffic in the fading night, letting the shock of his words sink into me.

“I’m your…” I couldn’t even say the words. How could I be a princess twice over? And then the truth hit me like a truck. It was my blood. “He took me because of my blood,” I said more to myself than to Arrick.

Arrick nodded. “In this region, their hierarchy relies on blood alone; and bases its judgments on the pureness of the blood. There are very few pure-bloods left in your region, and Nicolae didn’t want to allow Ana and her family to ascend to the throne. He had a spy in our region, and when word of your birth was announced, he sent for you.”

I had suspected from the very beginning I was being used for my blood, and against my initial assessment, I wanted to believe everything everyone told me. “I was so stupid.”

“No.”  Arrick rested his hand on my knee gently. “They have been guiding you toward them since the very beginning. That’s why they chose that woman as your mom. They wanted you to be raised by her, because she was such a strong vampire activist. They hoped that she could give you the same values, instill you with the same unwavering trust and devotion to vampires.”

I nodded silently as it all started to make sense. I was a pawn in an elaborate design, just as I had suspected. I had lost everything and everyone I ever cared about. All things that were never meant to be mine to begin with, yet the loss was great and weighed heavily on my heart. “Why didn’t they just take me and let me live at the palace from the very beginning?”

“They didn’t want anyone to suspect who you really were, so they kept you in hiding, letting you live a human life until the time was right to bring you forward.”

“Why weren’t you allowed to take me back?”

“The Zakarians feared war. They knew if they took you back, that would cause another great war, which has not been seen since the dark ages. When I reported that I had found you, they asked if you had a good life, if you were happy. I watched you, and when I confirmed that you were, they ordered me to watch over you, but not to intervene. I have watched you ever since.”

“They would rather their daughter live with someone else…” I left the sentence unfinished. In a very short duration, my life had been turned upside down so many times. I was starting to feel like I would never know who my real parents were or who I really was.

“They would prefer not to have their daughter as the source of another global war. It broke their hearts to make the decision they did, but it was for the greater good. Would you have rather they saddled you with the burden of causing thousands, if not millions, of people to die?”

I agreed with his logic, but the truth still hurt. I felt abandoned and used and no amount of vampire strength could defeat the sadness that crept within me. “No,” I said, turning away from Arrick.

I lowered my seat again and willed sleep to take me. I wanted to block out the world and its cruel realities for as long as I could. As I lay against the cold leather, tears trickled down my blood-stained face, causing it to stick to the seat when a thought popped into my head.

“Arrick?” I said, almost as a whisper.

“Mhm?”

“How come you and I had a connection before the joining? Is it because we are from the same region?”

He was silent for a moment and I worried that he wouldn’t answer. “No. It is because you are my Blood Mate. You have been for eighteen years. There has never been anyone like you before. You are both a vampire and a Blood Mate.”

The truth stunned me, yet deep inside, I felt I had known that truth all along. Our connection was undeniable. I wanted to respond to him, but words wouldn’t come. Only tears ran down my face as I sobbed silently. I didn’t know who or what I was anymore. Nothing in my life was mine.               

Arrick sensed my sadness and squeezed my hand tightly in his. “That’s not true. I’m yours and I’m taking you home.” He smiled at me briefly before shifting the Mercedes and continuing our journey through the dark. Toward what I could only hope was the truth and where I belonged.