Dominion (2 page)

“Romance doesn’t get you far in this world. You should know that.”

He shook
his head. “This isn’t like you, Serenity. You love me, I know you do. I thought you’d want us to get married.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just the first person I think about when you talk about being married is Jackson.”

He flinched
,
but said, “I understand.”

“And frankly, it is a little ridiculous
,”
she said, trying to lighten the tense mood that had appeared between them. “Are you even allowed to do such things?”

“I can do whatever I want, Serenity,” he said, his voice hard. He stared at her across the table, his normally full lips a hard line. “I’m a vampire, remember?”

“I know what you are and I’ve accepted it. But I don’t need to get married, Sebastian. I don’t
want
to get married.”

She reached back across the table to take his hand. Their fingers touched only briefly before he withdrew his hand and tucked it under the table.

“Sebastian. Please don’t
...”

“
It’s
fine,” he said, his tone
curt
.

She stared at him, feeling like he was slipping away, but almost unable to believe what had just happened. Sebastian proposing was the last thing
she’d
expected
,
she’d never even considered t
he idea. She thought they were
out to have a meal to celebrate their time together, like a normal, happy couple. She’d never thought
his
idea of normality stretched as far as this.

She sighed and lifted her napkin from her lap and dropped it beside her barely
-
touched meal. “Let’s get out here. I’ve kind of lost my appetite.”

Sebastian got to his feet without another word.

Serenity
’s stomach churned with anxiety
.
P
erhaps she should have said yes to make him happy?
She shook the notion from her head. No
, she’d been in a relationship once before
where she’d been
forced to agree to things she didn’t want because she needed to keep a man happy. While she couldn’t draw any kind of comparison between Jackson and Sebastian—and wouldn’t dream of doing so—she had no intention of falling into that sort of trap again.

She trusted Sebastian with her life. She had to.
Her
need
for his blood to keep her sane meant
she had little choice in the matter. But that wasn’t the whole story. She
did
trust him and
knew he’d lay down his life for both her and Elizabeth. Yet
,
the memory of the time he’d left
her still haunted her. The
pain and
loneliness, the possibility of the same thing
happening again
,
made her keep just a tiny portion of her guard up.

Her resi
dual
fear of pain wasn’t the only reason for her refusal of Sebastian’s proposal. Though she’d never admit it to Sebastian,
her need for his blood
troubled
her
. She didn’t like be
ing
so reliant on him.

Marriage in the past
had meant only one thing to Serenity: control. Perhaps she was scared the same thing would happen between her and Sebastian
.
To be his wife gave him another hold over her, an ownership of sorts. She loved him with all he
r heart and the last thing she
ever want
ed
was to end up resenting him because she felt trapped once again.

Just like she had with Jackson.

Sebastian threw a c
ouple of fifty-dollar bills on
the table
,
more than enough to pay for the meal. He didn’t attempt to touch Serenity as they left the restaurant. No hand against the base of her spine to guide her between the tables or touch of her fingers.

They caught a cab back to their big house in the Hollywood Hills. A house that used to be Sebastian’s alone, but Sereni
ty had come to think of
theirs
. They rode in silence, the tension between them palpable.

Maybe he’s right,
she thought. They did live
as though they were a married couple. What difference would it make if they made their setup official
? But the
uncomfortable, slightly sickening sensation in the pit of her stomach
—which had appeared at the same time as the ring—
refused to go away.

They sat in silence in the back of the cab.
The air in the confined space was permeated with the strong scent of the vanilla air freshener swi
ng
ing
from the
rearview mirror, together with an
underlying t
aint of cigarette smoke.
Serenity reached out and took S
ebastian’s large hand in her own, resting t
heir linked fingers on
his
thigh. He glanced o
ver and gave her a smile, but the expression
was tight and restrained. No pleasure lit his eyes.

Sensing the tension, the driver made no attempt to strike up conversation. His
eyes kept flicking to the rear
view mirror, catching sight of Sebastian’s expressionless, pale face, as though he knew something was not quite right
,
but couldn’t put
his finger on it.

The cab pulled up in front of the gates to their home. Sebastian paid and both he and Serenity climbed from the vehicle. They passed through the
towering
wrought iron gates, feet crunching across the gravel.

They walked into the house and Sebastian gave the door a shove behind him, the crash echoing around the vast property.

Serenity cringed. “Sebastian.
Talk to me.
I thought you understood?”

She spoke
to the broad expanse of his back. He shrugged off his jacket and threw it on the banister at the bottom of the big, curved staircase.

He spun to face her. “What do you want me to talk about, Serenity? You said no. You gave me your reasons. Would anything I say change your mind? I doubt it. So what is there left to say?”

“I love you. Not wanting to marry you doesn’t change that.”

“You married someone like Jackson, but you won’t marry me.”

She threw up her hands in exasperation.
“Oh, for God’s sake.
Don’t say this is about some kind of male pride?”

“I’m sorry, Serenity. I just need some space. Maybe I got my feelings hurt and I
should
get over it, but right now I need to be by myself.”

Serenity watched as he snatched his jacket back up and headed back to the front door.

“Sebastian
...”
She
called after him, but no sooner had his name left her lips, the door seemed to fly open of its own accord and he’d vanished.

Chapter Two

Sebastian had the unsettling notion
he was acting like an overgrown, sulky
teenager
, rather than a two
-
hundred
-
year
-
old vampire, but he couldn’t seem to shake his bad mood.

And a vampire in a bad mood was never a good thing to be around.

He ran down his
driveway, leapt over the gates
and headed into the city. The desire to kill caught him in its grip, tightening his muscles with a burning strength
and
heighten
ing his senses s
o his nostrils flared and his ear
s
strained. It was a natural response to extreme emotion—
wanting
to lose
himself
in the rush of blood rather than deal with the issue
—but
he tried to limit his kills to the bare minimum he needed to survive
.
Killing
someone simply because Serenity had upset him was
out of character
.

It wasn’t like him.

He
flew across the
city, crossing Santa Monica Freeway,
toward the ocean. As he approached Venice Beach, he slowed to human pace.
Though late evening,
the place thronged with the area’s eclectic mix of locals and tourists.

He needed to feed at least once a month. To do any less would cause him to lose control over his desire for blood. He couldn’t even imagine ever wanting to feed from his family—
he found
the thought abhorrent—
and
he’d never risk getting to the point where wanting to do such a thing might become a possibility.

Sebastian sat on the low wall running between the beach and the promenade, finding a spot not already occupied by someone tout
ing paintings or handmade jewel
ry to the tourists. He knew he looked out of place wearing his customary tailored suit, but what did he care? Serenity often teased him about his total lack of concern for fashion. She’d even gone as far as buying him a pair of jeans, but
upon presenting
him with the pants,
he’d only needed to raise
his eyebrows. She’d laughed and bundled the offending item away, never to be seen again.

His boredom for the changing fashion over the centuries wasn’t his only reason for his choice of style. Over the years, he’d learned people were more inclined to trust someone who was smartly dressed. While he did
n’t doubt that he caught people
s
’
eye
s
with his striking dark hair and pale skin, wearing a suit made him
more respectable. He
often wondered
,
if
he
had
been wearing ripped jeans and a leather jacket
the day he’d met Serenity
, would she have even taken his hand?

The thought of Serenity roiled something dark and
uncomfortable
deep inside of him. To have a proposal of marriage turned down was humiliating for any man—mortal or immortal.

He couldn’t get past the thought that when Jackson
asked her, she’d accepted
. There had probably been kisses, laughter and tears of happiness. All the things Sebastian imagined would
have
happen
ed
when he asked her. Not the awkward si
lence he’d experienced. She’d been
confident enough to think of forever with Jackson but not with him.

P
erhaps he was arrogant, but he
never
even
consid
ered the possibility of her saying
no.

Restless—
a grinding desire for blood
still
working at his nerve endings—
Sebastian got to his feet and began to walk down the promenade. Two young guys with long hair and low slung, baggy shorts raced toward him on skateboards. He stepped deftly out of their way. Another man with dreadlocks walked down, a bull terrier on a chain lead. The dog darted out at people only to be
reined
back in by its owner with a sharp tug which left the
animal
rearing up on its hind legs.

As Sebastian approached, the dog fel
l back against its owner’s ankles, trembling as he
walked by. Animals often sensed his unnatural state long before humans
even caught
a glimmer that something paranormal had passed near.

He would need to go home and talk to her. This shouldn’t change anything between them, not after everything they’d been through. He knew she loved him. Marriage was a silly, inconsequential human idea anyway.

Except he
’d been married once before and,
unlike Serenity’s n
egative view on the institution,
he’d liked being married.
He liked the idea of them being joined in the eyes of the law. In particular, he liked that Elizabeth would be contained within their union.
At the moment, Serenity
still
shared Jackson’s surname and the fact left a bitter taste in his mouth. When he’d tried to broach the subject with Serenity, she’d shrugged off his concerns, saying it was only a name and the one she’d had the whole of her adult life.
Perhaps he was old
-
fashioned, but—

Sebastian’s line of thought cut off and
his mind lurched. Where one minute
he’d been walking down the promenade toward Santa Monica Pier, he
now stood
on
a narrow street, the small apartments of the area either side of him,
their shutters pulled down, their front
doors practically open
ing
onto the street. Overhead, the moon had travelled higher into the sky. Like its daytime counterpart, Sebastian could easily estimate the
passage
of time via the position of the moon
. H
ours
had vanished compared to the position
only moments before.

Ahead, a dog ran down the street, away from him. The animal’s ears were flattened to its head, claws skittering on the tarmac in its effort to
get away. Sebastian frowned. Could it be
the same
one he’d passed on the beach?

He suddenly became aware of the sensation flooding through his body and the overwhelming scent of fresh blood on the night air. He glanced down and stumbled back in surprise.

A body lay crumpled at his feet.
T
hick
ropes of
dreadlock
s hid the man’s
face and nec
k,
but
he
didn’t need to see the puncture wounds to know what had killed him. The man’s blood buzzed through Sebastian’s veins, lighting his senses afire. Like a transplant recipient receiving a donor’s organ, he felt some lingering connection with the man—as though the blood cells themselves had some kind of imprinted memory.

Sebastian realized he was standing in the middle of a built-up, residential area with a dead body on the ground before him.
He looked
left and then right, trying to
see if
anyone else was around, if
he might have been seen. Although he woul
d easily evade immediate capture, the last thing he wanted was a sketch artist’s image of his face being circulated by the police around this area. Now settled with his family, he rarely killed close to home. He couldn’t risk the cops knocking on his door.

All
remained quiet around him
and he calculated that it must
now
be
the early hours of the morning.

Not allowing himself time to think,
he
lifted the body into his arm
s. He needed to get out of the city
.

To keep away from the roads, he leapt onto the small balcony of
a
secon
d floor apartment and then up
to the roof. He jumped from roof to roof, taking huge leaps and soaring through the air,
the
corpse held against his torso. Wind tore hi
s dark hair back from his face. H
is muscles burned with the sort of
energy only a fresh feed
could bring.

Sebastian ran through the city, leaving the tall buildings and freew
ays far behind. He headed out
to the Angeles forest, knowing he could go deep enough to bury the body and limit the chances of it ever being found.

As he ran, his mind turned over the sudden turn of events. What the hell had happened? One moment
,
he was walking
,
and the next
,
he’d killed someone. He had no memory of hunting the man down, though he remembered seeing him. He hoped no one else had witnessed the attack.

Why couldn’t he remember?
He’d never lost a period of time like that before
.

Instantly
,
his thoughts went to Serenity and what had happened after Jackson
fed
from her repeatedly. Sh
e’d forgotten who she was. But Sebastian didn’t doubt his identity a
nd
he’d ne
ver let
another vampire feed from him—not since the time when Madeline
turned him.

He was simply missing a portion of time.
Time in which he’d killed a man.

Damn it! How
did this happen
?

As soon as he
disposed of the body, he’d need
to go back to Serenity. S
uddenly
,
the matter of her rejection seemed unimportant. Something else was going on here, something that fri
ghtened him. He didn’t like the
sensation. Being frightened for his family was a different matter, but
rarely did he ever experience
concern for himself. After all, he was immortal. He healed quickly and was fa
st and strong. Not many things
harm
ed
him.
As far as evolution went, he
s
at
at the top of the food chain.

The memory of Serenity’s shocked face at the restaurant flashed through his head. S
he’d seen something—a
shadow
.
Why had he dismissed her words so readily? Had
he
been distracted by the imminent proposal or had something forced him to laugh her off? No, he’d felt no different. She’d just leapt back in h
er chair and stared at him. He
had no reason to think anything
occurred
other than a trick of the light.

He
ran through the forest, darting past the rough expanse of tree trunks and breaking through foliage, heading deeper. The air smelled of damp earth, the fall leaves creating a mulched carpet on the forest floor. As he ran, small mammals froze in their tracks—rabbits
, mice
and squirrels—eyes wide and ears pricked as he passed. Above his head, an owl took flight, filling the night air with its haunting screech.

The body jerked in his arms. Sebastian stopped and looked down. The man’s back curved in what would have been an uncomfortable angle
had he
still been alive. His arms and head lolled
to
one side, his legs the other. The body jolted again, as though an electric shock powered through him.

Surely the dead man shouldn’t be coming back already?
Bodies
sometimes reanimated after
being drained by a vampire, but the process
didn’t normally happen for hours after
the kill
. While
he
knew
he was missing some time, he felt
sure
not that much time had
passed since he’d fed from the man.

So what was happening here? Could
something else
be
at play?

His curiosity getting the better of him, Sebastian dropped the body to the ground and took a couple of steps away. He
folded his arms across his chest
and waited.

Within seconds, the body
jerked again, the hands
in
spasm
so the fingers stretched ou
t, rigid, before curling back
to the palms.

Sebastian craned his neck forward, his eyes narrowed.