The Cherished One Read online

  Fawna frowned and reached back to rub her abused butt. “Haven’t I already paid a considerable price?”

  “That was at your own behest, my dear. This is a tariff I require in order to let you up.”

  She sighed exasperatedly. “What is it?”

  “I want you to kiss me. Kiss me like we’re lovers.”

  “We’re not lovers.”

  “Indulge me, or you’re not going to get off my lap.” He wasn’t angry or yelling, he was simply stating a fact that he could easily back up.

  She wished he had asked her to do just about anything else but this. Kissing was special to her, nearly as intimate as the act itself. She put a lot of herself into her kisses, especially with a lover. It was something she enjoyed enormously, and she and Dag, even after they had been together for years, often took time together to go to make out spots and neck, just because they enjoyed it.

  She thought the trick probably was forgetting who it was that she was kissing, and tried to think of kissing Dag, instead, only that really didn’t work, because memories associated with Dag were hurtful now, too. So she found she had to take him as he was.

  Max waited patiently for her to work through things in her mind, thinking he might have to jump in there for a moment when she had settled on the idea of trying to substitute Dag for himself, but then grateful when she realized that there really was no help there, either.

  In the end, she took him as he was. He certainly wasn’t hard to look at, in fact, he was much more her type than Dag had been. In the way of what she would have preferred physically, she’d had to forgive Dag for having been born a natural bright blonde. If she had her druthers, she had always been more attracted to men who were the typical tall, dark and handsome, and Max did fit that bill to a T.

  She adjusted herself so that she was facing him, her bottom hanging just off the edge of his legs, definitely not touching anything, and draped her arms around him, letting her hands tangle in his hair. Both he and Dag had longer hair than was the style currently. She wondered if that had more to do with being a vampire, or coming from another era, or if it was simply a personal preference. He had a ton of silky black hair, and she loved the way it felt as it slid through her fingers.

  And not a gray hair in the bunch.

  He chuckled slightly. “I was only twenty five when I was turned. That’s why there are no gray hairs, nosey.”

  Her position allowed her to be somewhat taller than he was, which was an unusual situation for her with any man, and she liked it. She looked down at him, and he lifted his face to her. His eyes were clear and black, not as stormy as she had remembered. Did they change with his mood?

  Chapter Seven

  His nose was a bit big for his face. If there was anything off about his face, that was it.

  “What nationality are you?”

  “I’m... Roman, I guess. Italian, now.”

  “You hesitated.”

  He shrugged. “Because I’m not really Roman or Italian.”

  “You’re not?” As he was speaking, she continued to run her fingers through his hair, and over his formidably arched brows, as well as his eyelids and cheekbones.

  Max was of a mind just to relax and enjoy what she was doing to him, but she seemed to expect answers. “No, I’m Etruscan.”

  She stopped, mid brow. “Really? You’re that old?!”

  Although he was gratified to discover that she knew of his civilization, which pre-dated the Romans, he still frowned. “Thanks.”

  “Well, you are! That’s pre-Roman!”

  “I know.” He didn’t sound at all enthusiastic that she realized just how ancient he was.

  “Are you older than Dag?”

  Max frowned. “I don’t know. We’ve never really sat down to compare notes on it.” He cleared his throat as a hint, and she went back to her task, that she apparently wasn’t finding nearly as onerous as she wished she would.

  His skin was soft, not as leathery as she thought it might be, and he had no pock marks at all. “Did you have smallpox?”

  “I had it, but a light case, which gave me immunity. My little sister died of it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago. Lots of people I knew died of it, or whatever the equivalent was in my time.”

  He was tense, and she sensed it. “Do you not like to talk about when you were human?”

  “No, frankly, I don’t. I don’t have much connection with it. It was, as you so kindly point out, so long ago.”

  Fawna didn’t think that that was the reason why he declined to discuss it. She wondered what the real reason was, but didn’t want to press. Instead, she took his face in her hands and kissed him, very slowly, and very deliberately, not open mouthed at first, because she thought that was a very gross and gauche thing to do immediately, pretty much regardless of the extent of one’s relationship. Instead, she almost teased him with her lips and her kiss, nibbling on his lower lip, butterfly kissing him, and then gradually deepening the kiss until her tongue had gently invaded his mouth.

  Max, however, had had enough of her tiptoeing, apparently, because he wrested control away from her at that point and leaned over with her, as if he was dipping her in a tango, so that she was hanging in mid air, and kissed the breath out of her, only allowing her up when they were both shaking and she was struggling for air.

  Fawna stood immediately, shakily, leaning on the desk for support and hoping desperately that he hadn’t noticed just how weak kneed she’d become. It wouldn’t do at all if he knew just how much he was getting to her.

  “I’m hungry. I’ve got to go downstairs to get something from the big freezer. Is there anything I can get you?”

  He looked a bit stunned himself, more bamboozled than she’d seen him. He was sitting in the chair – which must’ve been getting his butt wet, considering the rivers she’d cried onto that cushion a few minutes ago – looking somewhat defeated and distracted, which she already knew on short association was unusual for him.

  “What? No, no thank you. There’s nothing I need.”

  Fawna hummed the words to “The Rose” as she descended the very narrow, winding wrought iron staircase down to the root cellar where two enormous freezers had been set up. There was enough food stored in those freezers to feed an army – some things her Mom had cooked and frozen individual portions of for Dain to feast on when he was here with his friends – lasagna, chicken, stuffing and mozzarella casserole, pies, coffeecake, homemade waffles, pancakes, slabs of cornbread and brownies and even homemade ice cream.

  The room that the freezers – a chest and an upright – were in was small, barely big enough for one person at a time to get into, but the other thing it contained was something she hadn’t remembered until about five seconds before she’d darted down there: there was an escape hatch that her father’s father had dug. And as soon as she’d remembered it she’d spent the rest of her time trying to keep that memory out of her mind. She wasn’t quite sure where the escape hatch by the freezers was, she’d have to find it, but she figured that he’d be delayed a long enough getting to her, because the only entrance to the stairway that led down there was very small, and she highly doubted that he could even make it through the small hole at the back of the pantry floor that lead to the stairs. You really had to know it was there to find it, and then you had to squeeze down into it like a girdle. Her father and Dain were big men, and it took them a bit of an effort to get down here. They had to be contortionists, but then the idea was that they wouldn’t be trying to get down here – they’d be fighting off whoever the invaders were, anyway, while the women squeezed down there and got out through the tunnel.

  She knew exactly when he realized she was trying to escape, and had just found the well camouflaged handle to the heavy steel door. She could hear the bellow in her head as well as her ears. “Fawna! Fawna get back here!”

  She could hear him at the top of the stairs, cursing up a blue streak, trying to squeeze
himself into that small opening. Before he got the chance to, she opened the door and slipped behind it, pulling it closed as quietly as she could. She had no idea if he had managed to get down the stairs yet or not. She hadn’t heard any heavy footsteps clunking down them, but her heart was beating so loudly in her ears that she didn’t think she could hear anything else.

  It had been so long since her father had conducted monthly emergency drills that she could barely remember where the tunnel came out, and when she climbed the rickety old ladder out of the tunnel, she had to pause for a minute to get her bearings before setting off towards the sun. She knew this forest like the back of her hand, or rather, she used to know it that well. It still felt very welcoming to her, still felt like she was slipping on an old, comfortable slipper or a well-worn pair of jeans. She was heading towards what she knew would be civilization, if she could get there before he caught up with her. The way she was going did not cross the route that went to the front door of the house, which was the way they had come to the house.

  As she walked, she did her best to clear her mind, and sang softly, which helped her to do so. Her head was down and she was doing her best to concentrate on thinking absolutely nothing but what the next word was to the song she happened to be singing. She chose a nonsense song with a lot of verses from her childhood – “Found a Peanut” – because she knew the challenge of remembering all of those verses would keep her mind occupied for a while.

  She was just trying to remember what came after the “died anyway” verse when she ran headlong into a brick wall that knocked her right back onto her still burning butt. Fawna got up immediately and looked up, certain that she had managed to encounter Max, but she was only partially right.

  “Fawna.”

  It wasn’t Max’s voice, it was Dain’s.

  She drew a shocked breath, her hands flying to her mouth. Dain had his huge broadsword at Max’s throat. Fawna knew how well honed that sword was. She’d touched the edge of it once, when it had belonged to her father, and had cut herself very badly. It was the only spanking she’d ever received from her father, delivered once her bone deep cut had healed.

  If Dain so much as hiccoughed, Max’s head would be lopped off in an instant, and for some reason, even though she was in the midst of trying to escape him, she couldn’t bear that idea.

  “Are you all right?” her brother asked, in a manner that let her know that he was asking about much more than her physical well being.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure?” Dain was obviously itching for any reason to kill Max. As far as he was concerned, he already had a valid one, since the vamp had already tried to kill his sister once.

  “Yes.” Then she said something that she didn’t think any of the three of them were prepared for, including herself. “Let him go.”

  Dain’s sword didn’t move one iota from its dangerous position in front of Max’s Adam’s apple. He snorted derisively. “Let him go? I don’t think so, honey. He’s been keeping you captive, hasn’t he? I don’t know what he did to them, but some of my men are still incapacitated all over the forest. I’ve been thinking you were safe and cozy in the haven, surrounded by my men and the truth was that he’s had you for the past I don’t know how long…”

  Fawna could see that Dain was working himself into a frenzy, and that wouldn’t be a good thing at all for Max’s health.

  “I’m fine. Really, Dain. Let him go, please.” She raised her eyebrow at her brother, as if to say she couldn’t imagine that he would think to do otherwise. “Please. I just want to be left alone. Really. Let’s not make this into a bigger thing that it is. Stand down, the both of you, for crying out loud. Lord, deliver me from testosterone poisoned men, please!”

  Grudgingly at best, Dain removed the sword from Max’s throat, but then he pointed it at his back and began to march him out of what he considered to be his forest. Fawna only caught the beginning of what she thought would probably be a considerable lecture that started with, “If you ever give me half a reason again to kill you, if you so much as come within a thousand miles of my sister or any one in my family ever again, I’m going to...”

  Fawna found her way back to the house with no further issues or commotion, closing and locking the door behind her then leaning against it. It was quiet, almost too quiet.

  For a short moment, just an instant, really, she allowed herself to admit it.

  She was going to miss the bastard.

  And then she dissolved into a pool of abject tears.

  ***

  Max had immediately gotten heartily sick of the little prince’s sword in his back, and as soon as they were out of eyesight of his sister had relieved him of it in a fight that lasted about three seconds, much to the younger man’s astonishment. He had to give it to Dain, though, the boy had been willing to meet his fate bravely, and had not once flinched or begged for his life when the sword was in the other hand, the cold steel of the blade against his own strong, young jaw.

  But instead of ending the eager young monarch’s life, as he might have not very long ago, just for the sheer amusement of it, Max instead turned the tables and presented him with the sword. “In your sister’s honor,” laying the hilt on the back of his wrist in a gesture of friendship and good will, and bowing low in front of the King.

  Dain took the sword, slowly at first, as if he thought that this might be some kind of a trick.

  Smart man, Max thought, although there was no underlying deception.

  Then he started off through the forest in what he hoped was the right direction, looking back at the stunned young man and motioning to him. “Well? Aren’t you going to show me the way out? It’s the quickest method of getting rid of me, you know. I can see in the dark and call the animals myself, but unless I have something to scent I have a terrible sense of direction.”

  When the vampire stopped short at one point on their way back through the dense trees, Dain went on alert, even though there was a huge, shit eating grin on his face.

  “What are you smiling like that for?”

  “She likes me.”

  “Who likes you?” Dain asked, although he knew he probably didn’t want to know the answer.

  “Your sister.”

  God help them, she’d fallen for another blood sucker. Would the girl never learn? And this time, he wasn’t like Dag, who was at least trying to be a good person. No, she’d fallen for the bad ass’s bad ass of vampires, who’d already tried to off her once, and had succeeded in holding her hostage. “Stockholm Syndrome.”

  “What?”

  Dain explained the psychological theory on their way out of the forest, but Max thought it was a load of crap, like most psychology.

  “She likes me.” He could have flown home on the wings of what he’d learned about her, but instead, he accepted a grudgingly offered ride from Fawna’s brother, who was just as happy to know for a fact the vampire was well out of his sister’s realm.

  He didn’t mention to Dain the more troubling thing she’d done right after she’d realized that she’d missed him that had made him want to run back to the house and hold her in his arms. It had taken everything he had to keep himself marching forward, away from her when he felt her collapse into sorrow.

  Max knew that some of what she was crying about was not about him, but a lot of it was, and he was heartily sorry for the pain and fear he’d caused her. If it took him the rest of whatever remained of his existence, he would spend it trying to make that up to her as much as she would let him, and he would do his best to help her overcome her sorrow at the loss of someone she loved as much as she’d loved Dag.

  ***

  Fawna treated herself for the next few days, going completely off any diet known to man. She ate exactly what she wanted, when she wanted it, slept when she wanted to, stayed up when she wanted to, watched entirely too much TV and played too many video games. She missed the Internet, though, and her cell phone, but the readily available amounts o
f junk food – and a certain amount of tequila - made up for a lot of that.

  Dain favored various micro brews of beer, and there was a lot of Budweiser left over from her father’s days, but she simply could not stomach beer. Flavored vodkas and or tequila, on the other hand, were right up her ally. Since Hornitos was the only thing they had, then tequila was what she drank.

  But she only allowed herself one night to get completely hammered, because she didn’t like feeling this out of control, especially when she was alone. Max was gone, and she felt relatively safe, and she needed it, dammit.

  With a little investigation, she found the makings for margaritas, salt rimmed glasses and all, and with impromptu barbecued chicken nachos and some double stuffed Oreos to go along with them, she was going to sit down and see what all the hullabaloo was about Avatar, and then she was going to watch some South Park, figuring that by that time, she wasn’t going to be able to follow much in the way of plot, and she already knew all the plots to all the episodes of South Park, thanks to Dag’s corrupting influence.

  Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of him, before she’d even begun drinking, but she blinked them back. Fawna set herself up on the comfy couch, where she and Max had sat together and he had spanked her and then brought her off. She almost started to cry again, and she nearly smacked herself for thinking of it. Men. Meh. She could do without the lot of them.

  With that, she toasted her lack of male companionship, and continued to do so throughout what she thought was a highly overrated movie, despite the whiz bang special effects. The plot was no better than any western from the fifties. She could see what was coming from the beginning and found herself bored almost immediately, despite the beauty of the planet they had created. She switched to South Park – and tequila shots, which were a lot less of a fuss than margaritas - before the movie was even finished. Luckily, Dain was also an addict, and he had all of the seasons on DVD, so she simply popped one in and toasted away.