The Lie (The Skyy Huntington Series) (22 page)

Fiona and Christian looked up as Aiden and I moved into the room a little more. “I am sorry to be a party pooper but I am going to hit the sack. Fiona, it was really great to finally meet you,” I said as I moved over to hug her. She returned it with sincerity. “Christian, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Ok Skyy, night,” he said, and continued his story about Europe like I wasn’t even there. Aiden chimed in that he was also off to get some work done upstairs and then retire as well.

Cupcake followed close on my heels up the staircase to my side of the house, and Aiden behind her. We walked into my room and Cupcake jumped right up on the bed making herself comfortable for the night. Aiden stood close to the doorway with his hands in his pockets, looking unsure of what to do.

I wanted him to stay with me again tonight, but didn’t know how to spit the words out, so instead, like an idiot I said, “I’m going to wash my face and change into my PJ’s”. He nodded, and started to head back out the door.

“Alright then milady. I hope you sleep well. If you need anything just let me know.” And with that he shut my bedroom door and I was alone.

I immediately felt miserable without him in my presence, so I dashed toward the door and opened it. He was already gone, of course. I knew all I had to do was whisper his name and he’d be back in a flash. “Aiden?” I said softly. Sure enough, there he was, right in front of me again. He smiled shyly.

“Yes?” he asked.

“So, just wondering, if you’re not too busy or anything tonight if you’d like to maybe do that neat head rubby thing you did last night?” I mentally slapped my own forehead. I sounded like a fool.

“I think I can pencil you into my schedule,” he replied. “Go ahead and wash your face and get changed, I need to check on one quick thing then I will be right back.”

I scrubbed my face and hopped into my PJ’s faster than I ever had before, then got into my bed after turning the bedside lamp on again. Aiden took longer than I expected, I was lying there almost falling asleep before he finally walked in and gently closed the door behind him.

I opened my eyes sleepily. “Heya vampire, I thought you forgot about me.” He was sitting at the edge of the bed in an instant with his superhuman speed, rubbing my head softly like he had the night before.

“I could never forget about you, Skyy,” he said so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.

“Do you have to sleep every night? Or can you go without sleeping?” I asked him while yawning.

“I can go for long periods of time without sleeping if I need to. Weeks if I really need to, but I’d have to have blood on a daily basis to be able to do that. But normally I sleep for a couple hours every other day or so,” he replied.

I really wanted him to stay with me while I slept, but I figured it was incredibly selfish of me to ask that if he’d just be sitting there in the dark awake and bored. But as soon as that thought crossed my mind, he shifted a little at the edge of the bed and asked, “Do you mind?” gesturing if it was ok to lie down. I scooted over for him.

“No, I’d love it,” I said. He stretched out again on top of the covers like he had the night before. “You can get under the covers you know, I don’t have cooties,” I said.

Aiden looked at me with a confused expression on his face. “Cooties?” he asked. I laughed out loud to his reaction.

“Yeah cooties…you never heard of that before?” He shook his head no while smiling at me. “Well, cooties are a thing kids made up, when they don’t want to be around someone it’s like ‘ewww you have cooties’, and then you have to get a cootie shot.” I moved my fingers on his upper arm, mimicking a shot. “Circle circle, dot dot, now you have a cootie shot.”

“So it is like a virus, these cooties?” he asked, as if it were serious and he could catch it.

“No, more like bugs, or lice or something. Just ewwies you don’t want to be around. It’s not something that’s real though Aiden, I was only kidding.”

“Well, thank you for the cootie shot Skyy. Now I’m safe,” he said while getting off the bed to get under the covers with me. As he settled back down he reached his arm around the back of my head to pull me into him. “I could get used to this every night. I might sleep a lot more often at least,” Aiden said while sighing contently.

I snuggled up against him, placing my hand on his chest lightly. The closer I got I could smell mouthwash really strong on his breath. I wondered if he was really that hygienic or if he was gone so long because he was sucking out of a blood bag. Was I brave enough to ask?

Yep, I was. “Aiden, how often do you have to drink blood? I pretty much guessed that Lucius was drinking it right in front of us tonight in that bloody mary. But I’ve never seen you drink in front of me that I can recall.” His body seemed to tense up ever so slightly when I asked that.

“Well I usually drink blood two to three times a day, on a normal day. That’s what took me so long to get back in here, if that’s what you’re asking. Vampires get hungry too, but it’s more like an energy drain, the blood is our life source, so if I was hungry and I was around you it would be the equivalent of putting a starving person in front of a steak dinner. I don’t want to upset you and drink in front of you, so I do it in private. But if I don’t feed, and I get excited, I’ll be miserable. And I’ve never been in a situation like this with a human before, that I wasn’t using just for blood, and then ‘mind whammying’ them. Also, we have a very serious situation on our hands with the vampires outside, so I need to be at my best.”

I rubbed his chest in tiny circles with my hand while he explained it to me. “So you don’t ever miss it? Drinking from humans? Or get cravings?” I was about as vulnerable as I could ever be laying here in bed with a vampire.

“Blood right from the source is stronger, and of course tastes better, but to me it isn’t worth the hassle now that we can buy donated blood. Less risk to be seen. But many vampires have partners, or even wives or husbands that are mortal that they drink from exclusively. And then there are the ones like your grandpa referred to, the blood slaves, who are so hooked on the euphoria they get when a vampire bites them that they are junkies. They don’t care what happens to them as long as they get the ‘high’.”

“What gives the euphoria when a vampire bites?” I asked him.

“Well, it’s not something that happens when every vampire bites a mortal. It’s not quite a mind whammy, as you would put it, but we can project a feeling into your mind when we bite you that tells your brain not to feel the pain of the bite, and instead to feel happy, or aroused etcetera. If a vampire chooses not to do this, it feels just like it is of course, a terrible pain shooting through your body, our fangs sink deep to pierce your vein while we drink.”

I shivered, which Aiden felt. “Skyy, I’d rather not talk about this with you. I don’t drink from humans any longer, I haven’t in centuries, and when I did I made it as quick and painless for the human as I could.”

“But wouldn’t they have marks, or bruises on them? How do you explain that in the morning?” I asked.

“Vampire blood speeds up the healing process, I’m sure you saw how fast my bullet wound closed that night when Pitkins broke into your house? As long as there isn’t a foreign object involved, then our blood can heal any wound rapidly, so we dab a drop of it on the bite wounds of our victims and within seconds it’s closed and gone,” Aiden replied, I could tell he was unsure and uncomfortable talking about this subject with me.

I shifted away from him slightly. Not because I was scared, but I wanted to ask him directly and see his face when he answered. “Aiden, am I safe with you, and around Lucius and Fiona? Do I ever have to worry about you attacking me if you get too excited or angry?”

He propped himself up and looked at me, “Skyy, I promise you, I wouldn’t ever attack you. I’ve never had any kind of close relationship with a woman before, either alive or after I was turned, so I might do some stupid things, or say some stupid things, but I would never physically harm you. As far as my mother and Lucius, well Mother may as well have invented self-control, and Lucius is the one who taught me about control. So, I think you’re safe in our hands.”

I rolled over onto my side and pulled him into me for a good spooning session. Yawning, I replied, “I trust you Aiden, you haven’t let me down yet.”

Chapter 12

I woke the next morning feeling very refreshed even though I’d gone to bed so late. Aiden was still there with me as well and I wasn’t sure if he’d slept or not, because he was awake when I opened my eyes. After a fast shower I went downstairs to see if anyone else was awake yet.

Not a surprise, Christian was still asleep. He’d drank quite a bit last night and Aiden informed me that he and Fiona had stayed up until sunrise talking. Fiona and Lucius were both awake though.

As I let Cupcake outside Fiona walked into the kitchen to greet me. “Good morning sweetie,” she said. “Did you sleep well last night?” It dawned on me that she probably knew Aiden spent the night with me, but she didn’t let on like she did. Living in a house with other vampires could probably get pretty embarrassing since they’d know your business 24/7.

I nodded back at her, “Yes I slept great. The bed is so comfortable up there.” She offered to make me breakfast, but I wasn’t really hungry yet so I thanked her but turned her down on the offer. She looked a little more dressed down today than she had the night before in a pair of designer jeans and a plain light pink sweater, though she was one of those people who could still look amazing even if she were wearing overalls. She wore clothes well, that’s for sure.

She started asking me what facial products I used but before I even had a chance to answer Aiden came into the room saving me. “Don’t start bugging her Mother, she doesn’t have time for makeovers today. She’s got defensive training classes today, and then we have some vampires to kill this evening.” Fiona just waved her hand to dismiss Aiden.

“Very well, very well. I suppose we should get you up to speed before Christian wakes up. I brought something with me from my home in France that I think you’ll find useful, and fashionable at the same time.” she said smiling. “I’ll run upstairs and grab it,” and then she disappeared.

“Where is Lucius?” I asked Aiden.

“He’s up in the computer room. He’ll come join us once we start with the training class.” He had said Lucius wasn’t a big talker, and I guess he was right, he didn’t seem like the social butterfly type.

Fiona came back down into the kitchen with a small box in her hand. She handed it to me to open. Inside was a ring that looked like nothing I had ever seen before. It was an armor ring, the kind that fits over your entire finger, although the end was elongated past the tip of the finger in a sharp claw. The metal was glowing a very faint shade of purple, and it was slightly translucent, though it was solid and firm to the touch. There were also finely etched patterns in the metal and those glowed a separate color of light blue.

My mouth must have been hanging open as I turned the ring over and over in my hands looking at it. “What is this? It’s beautiful,” I asked, amazed.

Fiona replied, “It’s a very rare piece of work I had made and enchanted three centuries ago. The metal in English would be called “Illuminated Nocturne” and it comes from another dimension, you can’t find it here on earth. The Fae smith who made it wouldn’t tell me the details but the end result is an enchanted ring that when you wear it, it will ward off vampires from attacking you. If they do get too close, the ring has been infused with silver and one scrape from that claw on the end will pump the poisonous metal into their bloodstream which will put them into a brief comatose state.”

I glanced up at Aiden first, then Fiona. “So, silver is poison to a vampire?” I asked.

They both nodded at the same time and Aiden answered, “In major doses it can kill a vampire, but in small doses it will paralyze us.” I wondered if he was comfortable giving away secrets that I could potentially use on him.

I couldn’t stop looking at the ring. It was mesmerizing to watch the colors glow. “Just make sure you keep it on at all times when we leave the house Skyy, and you’ll be safe,” Fiona added. It was nice to have another option than being a prisoner in Aiden’s house.

“Let’s move into the gym for more room, and we can show you a few moves you might use if a vampire were to attack you,” Aiden offered.

We moved down into his basement, which I had not seen before. There was one giant room set up exclusively as his gym, with mats, equipment, mirrors, punching bags…the works. It looked like there were speakers set up in all the corners as well as a giant TV mounted up on one of the walls. There was a racquetball room just off of the main one, enclosed with glass so you could see into it.

Lucius came down shortly after we entered. His long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he had on workout pants and a plain black t-shirt that was, in my opinion, a little too tight but it showed off his bulging muscles very nicely. He nodded to Aiden and Fiona briefly, then walked over to me. He handed me a small sword that was sheathed in a black leather case.

I looked up at him, unsure of what to say or do, since he hadn’t spoken a word since he walked in the room. He gestured towards the sword with one of his hands and a look on his face like ‘well, what are you waiting for?’

“Open it up,” Lucius said. I unsheathed the sword and held it out, breathless. The ring was amazing enough in itself, but this sword was unreal. The “blade” on it was translucent and inside it glowed with fire. The hilt on it was made from that same odd material that the ring was made from, and it glowed purple as well. On the end there was a circular band of gemstones around the entire hilt that looked like diamonds, and the weapon ended with metal spikes sticking out the end of it about a half inch long each.

“Don’t touch the blade,” he warned me. “If you keep it in its hilt it is fine, but the blade is infused with fire, as you can see, and it will burn the hell out of anything it touches, or anyone you stab,” he said with a little grin.