Текст книги "Alasdair"

Автор книги: Ella Frank

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

LEO STOOD IN the center of Elias’s office and waited. The fact that he’d been waiting for over twenty minutes was a fairly good indication he was in deep shit.

He remembered a time when he’d been a student in one of Elias’s classes. He’d been caught mouthing off to a friend about how their “teacher” always showed up late on Wednesdays, so he didn’t see the need to show up on time.

Yeah, Elias had him wait in his office after that particular class for forty-five minutes. He’d missed a date he’d had later that night, and Leo would never forget the smug look on his teacher’s face when he’d walked in the office, told him not to have such a big mouth, then let him go.

Forty-five minutes for ten damn seconds.Asshole.

But that’s what made Elias Elias. He was a total hard-ass when need be, but Leo was also extremely lucky to have him in his life. He’d been a guiding hand to both him and Paris when they’d taken an extra interest in his courses. What had started as an academic relationship had eventually turned into a friendship that now spanned years.

Whoever said history was for geeks and old men hadn’t meant Elias Fontana. He was quite possibly the most intelligent person Leo knew, and he didn’t take shit from anyone.

Leo unbuttoned his navy-blue cardigan and took his bag off, placing it on one of the elaborate, wooden chairs in the room. Elias sure did like his collectables. The two chairs in his office were likely worth more than Leo could imagine, with the stunning silver engrained in the arms and legs. He always meant to ask him what year they were from but inevitably forgot.

It felt like years instead of weeks since he’d stepped foot inside the museum. Even then, he usually took the elevator down to where his office was located in the basement—or, as they called it, “his dungeon.” He rarely came up to the main offices.

He scratched the back of his head and thought about what he was going to say when his friend, and boss, finally did show up.

Maybe it would be best to go with the lie Alasdair had already told. At least then Elias will just be pissed, not reaching for the phone to have me admitted to the psych ward.

He sat down in the chair opposite the desk and tipped his head back, closing his eyes. As much as he wasn’t looking forward to this meeting, he was dreading the evening more. He still wasn’t sure whether or not he’d imagined Alasdair’s voice as he’d drifted off to sleep last night. If he had heard it, though, when and where the vampire would show up, he had no idea.

His eyes moved to the window on the left side of Elias’s office, and the sunrise got him thinking.

Can Alasdair move about in the daylight? Or is the myth about burning in the sun just a myth? 

It would explain why he wouldn’t be around until tonight. So Leo pulled out the notebook he’d stuffed in his pocket earlier and removed the pen attached to the side binding. He always worked better when he had his questions written down. As if, when they were out of his brain, he had more room for other important things.

Last night, he’d started a list of questions he wanted answered if Alasdair happened to reappear in his life. Questions like: Can they eat normal food? It was a valid one, especially considering his blood was likely the desired meal of choice. He jotted down his question about sunlight, and when he was putting the notebook away, the door behind him finally opened.

Leo stood as Elias walked through the door. He dumped his briefcase on the ground, unbuttoned his black, woolen coat, and then came across the room and around the end of his desk. His dark hair was windblown, and the stubble on his face looked a day or so old. He pulled his desk chair out, but before he sat down, he raised his head to pin Leo with eerie, silver eyes.

Suddenly, Leo’s palms began to sweat as if he were seventeen all over again. He remembered the first time he’d really looked at Elias back then, and like now, his eyes almost shined at him. They were unreal. Everyone always said so.

“Are you early? Or am I late?” he asked as he shrugged out of his coat.

“You’re late.”

Elias threw the heavy material across the corner of his desk and sat in his chair. “Good.”

Leo grimaced as he took his seat and crossed his leg so his ankle rested on his knee. He bounced his leg as he waited for Elias to say more, and when he didn’t, Leo thought it might be best to get a head start.

“Elias, look. I’m so sorry—”

“Sorry? You’re sorry?”

Leo winced at the disgruntled question. So much for a head start.

“Do you know how fucking worried we’ve been these past two weeks? Sorry isn’t going to cut it here. So I sure as shit hope you have a better explanation than that.”

He opened his mouth, about to feed him the lie Alasdair had started, when Elias leaned across the desk and shook his head.

“And don’t you dare try to tell me you fell in love and disappeared for thirteen days, Leonidas. I’ve known you for nearly eleven years, and you’ve never been so stupid or thoughtless.”

Leo stared tongue-tied at the man he’d grown to admire and respect over the years. As Elias waited for him to tell the truth, Leo wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“Start talking, Leo. Give me something so I believe you still give a shit about this job you have worked your ass off for. Are you really going to throw your life away for someone you just met?”

“No,” Leo murmured.

“No? Then help me understand. Where the fuck have you been? Are you caught up in something you can’t get out of?”

Leo brought his head up and frowned. “Such as?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. Drugs? Does that guy have you doing things you don’t want to do? He looked the type.”

He didn’t mean to, but Leo couldn’t stop himself from laughing at the absurd thought of Alasdair as a drug dealer. He supposed, from an outside perspective, he did come off as arrogant and somewhat scary in the way nothing seemed to intimidate him.

But a drug dealer? No.

“I’m glad you find this amusing,” Elias grit out, his patience running thin. “Because if that’s what’s going on here, drugs, we can go down and report him.”

“No. No,” Leo denied adamantly, pulling himself together. He uncrossed his legs and sat forward, putting his elbows on his knees so he could rest his face in his palms. “He’s not a drug dealer. For God’s sake, Elias, give me some credit.”

“I’m giving you no fucking credit right now,” he thundered. “You don’t deserve it. You just took off. No note for your friends, no call to your boss—”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Leo finally said, getting to his feet. He ran his hand through his hair and then gripped the back of his neck as he stared at Elias. “I couldn’t call you.”

Elias tilted his head to the side, carefully contemplating his next words. “Why not?”

Leo dropped his hand and shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

Elias sighed. “Try again, Leo.”

“I. Can’t. Tell. You,” he said, enunciating each word. “Look at me. Do I look like I’m enjoying myself here?”

The silence was strained as Elias looked him over, and all Leo could hear was the anxious beat of his heart. It was funny—Elias, in his own way, commanded a room as effectively as Alasdair did. The only difference was there was no immediate threat of death with this man.

Until today, maybe.

“Do you still want to work here, Leo?”

“Of course,” he answered immediately. “It was never about that—Jesus. I feel like my whole fucking life has turned on its head.”

Elias nodded and got to his feet. Leo watched him make his way over to him, reminded why he’d once had a crush on his university teacher. Elias was tall, his suit outlined his broad shoulders, and when he stopped so they were face-to-face, Leo noted, not for the first time, how handsome his friend was. It really was a shame he was straight.

“Paris found this yesterday,” he told him as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.

Leo took it from him.

“Tell me where you’ve been, Leo,” Elias said in a low voice.

When the paper was released, Leo raised his eyes to meet Elias’s silver ones and thought he saw… No, it can’t be. However, Leo could’ve sworn he had seen a flash of knowledge in them. What is he waiting for me to say? 

“I can’t.”

“Why not? We’ve told each other everything for years.”

Leo dropped his eyes and busied himself unfolding the paper. When he saw the notes he’d made of his recurrent dreams, he touched his finger to the words.

How the hell… “Where did you get this?”

“I told you. Paris found it in your office last night.”

Leo looked at the date of the final entry and then took a cautious step away from Elias.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, but Leo didn’t answer, his mind instead whirling as he tried to remember bringing that piece of paper to his office. But…

I didn’t. I left it at home, in the drawer of my desk. 

“Leo?”

 Leo grabbed his bag and stuffed the paper inside. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Hang on one damn minute,” Elias demanded, grabbing his arm. “I hope you mean you have to go downstairs, because we only have a couple of days and then the exhibit opens.”

Leo glanced at the hand Elias had on his arm. What was going on? How did he get that piece of paper?

“So, I still have a job?”

Elias frowned and released his hold. “Yes. Unless you keep this bizarre behavior up. Then, friend or no friend, I’ll have to reassess your job duties.”

“Okay,” Leo agreed, hastily backing out of the office. “I’ll…I’ll be downstairs if you need me.”

Then he left, not giving Elias another chance to speak.

ELIAS WAITED UNTIL Leo had disappeared before shutting the door and walking back over to his desk. He sat down and reached for the clock on the corner of it. Gently, he unlatched and opened the small door at the back that hid the mechanisms inside. Then he removed the small key resting on the wooden base.

After closing the clock, he moved it aside so he wouldn’t knock it over and then inserted the key into the center drawer of his desk. Upon rolling it open, he took out the leather-bound journal and untied the binding knotted across the center.

It’d been years since he’d looked at the entries, but right there, written neatly down the first page, were several of them, each of them having occurred nearly ten years ago exactly. He’d marked the date, the time, and the strange blinding light that had been in each of the dreams. But the one journal entry he kept coming back to was the first one, the one that was different than all the others.

Different than the ones Leo had also documented.

9/16/05, 3:13 a.m. – Yesterday was my first day teaching. Nerves finally caught up to me, I think, which might explain why I had such an odd dream tonight. It was about two of my students. Not anything creepy. But they were definitely in it. Leonidas Chapel and Paris Antoniou. Two boys whose names could be straight out of the history books I’m teaching from. But the odd thing about the dream was we weren’t in class. We were standing in some sort of hall. It was massive in size, and there was a marble altar in front of us. Seated behind the altar were three figures (I think they were men.) The light that was shining on the three of us was so bright I could barely see at all. I was in the middle, Leonidas was to my left, and Paris to the right. Then a voice so commanding I felt the weight of the order down to my bones said, “Born of us, you are the three. When the time comes, they shall find you.” Then I woke.

LEO’S MIND WAS a mess as he walked to the two elevators at the far end of the corporate floor. He pressed the down button and fiddled with the strap of his bag while he waited for the elevator to arrive.

Since he’d left Elias’s office, he’d gone over their conversation several times. But no matter how it played out, the piece of paper¸ the one Elias had lied about, might as well have been burning a hole in his bag.

His foot tapped as the light indicated the elevator had stopped on the ground floor. It still had five floors to climb until it reached him, and his agitation rose with each level.

Why did Elias have his journal entry? And why not admit to snooping around my place while I was gone instead of lying? It made no sense at all.

He ran his fingers down the strap of his bag and then flipped the top flap open to pull the paper out. Staring at the words, he ran his fingers over them again, reading them back in his mind.

I was standing in a huge room, at an altar or something, and there was a light. A bright, blinding light—

DING.

When the elevator announced its arrival, Leo looked up from the paper and watched the metallic doors slide open.

There, standing inside, was Alasdair. Wearing all black, from his boots to his coat, and with his beautifully sculptured face, he resembled some sort of fallen angel. One who had frozen Leo.

As the doors began to slide shut, Alasdair causally pushed off the wall and jabbed one of the buttons. Once they’d whooshed back open, Leo heard in his head, Won’t you come inside, Leonidas?

Leo licked his lips, and when Alasdair’s eyes dropped to them, he clutched the paper in his hand.

I told you I would be back.

“You said tonight,” Leo said out loud, and then he thought, What difference does it make what time he showed up?

“I changed my mind,” Alasdair said as he raised an arm to hold the elevator open.

An office door opened and shut behind Leo, and then footsteps made their way towards them.

“Better hurry. I haven’t eaten this morning, and after the night I’ve had, I’m a little testy.”

Shit. He really had no other choice as he entered the small confines of the elevator and again thought, How do I get myself into these situations? 

AS LEO WALKED by, Alasdair closed his eyes and inhaled, taking in his fresh scent. It was all he could do to stop himself from taking Leo’s arm and sinking his teeth into him. The only thing preventing him from acting on the urge was the knowledge of what would happen should he give in to his hunger.

Fuck, I need to find someone to feed on and soon. 

The doors to the elevator closed, locking him inside with Leo, who was now flattening himself against the far wall. Alasdair couldn’t stop himself from moving towards him.

After he’d finished with Stratos and cleaned himself up, he’d gotten to thinking about what the vampire had said before his demise.

She was different… You don’t even know.

Stratos was, ironically, dead on. He didn’t have a goddamned clue what he’d been talking about, and neither did Isadora. Not that she seemed to care too much. She’d told him quite plainly that she wouldn’t bother trying to decipher the words of a deranged mind when she could be out pursuing other, more enjoyable pastimes. Such as her redhead.

It was a selfish deed to disregard the dead and what they’d died for so blithely, but that’s who they were at the core. Selfish, narcissistic creatures. And as he placed his hands on the wall on either side of Leo’s head, his cousin’s words echoed through his mind.

“Go and feed, Alasdair. Find a warm body to fuck. Forget about that human you’ve been obsessing over, and forget Stratos. Let it go.”

But he couldn’t. Something felt…off. Stratos hadn’t been the type to do what he had done, and that was still bothering him. So was the fact that the one person he wanted to fuck was also harboring a most dangerous weapon.

“So you can walk outside when it’s daylight?”

The question from Leo was so unexpected Alasdair lost his train of thought and dropped his hands, crossing them over his chest. He eyed the human and wondered when this man had decided he was no longer a threat.

Maybe it’s time to remedy that. “That’s the first question you ask when trapped in an elevator with a hungry carnivore?”

“Hey, look,” Leo said, trying to appear casual. “I’m hungry too and could do with some eggs and bacon. But you don’t have to worry about me attacking you. I expect the same courtesy.”

Alasdair resumed his previous position with his hands by either side of Leo’s head, pleased when the man clamped his mouth shut. “And why would you expect that?”

Leo’s throat contracted as he swallowed, and Alasdair lowered his eyes to his pulse.

“Because you want something from me.”

The words could’ve been taken several ways. Alasdair knew Leo was referring to information, yet he couldn’t seem to help himself from lowering his lips to the corner of Leo’s mouth.

“And what is that? The pleasure I denied myself last night? Is that what you think I want, Leonidas?”

Leo’s breath brushed over his lips as he dared to ask, “Why did you deny yourself?”

He was surprised to discover how much he liked this bolder side of Leo, and he nipped his lower lip then said, “I like how it feels to hunt you down. To toy with you. To tease you until you’re begging for it. It’s in my nature.”

Several seconds passed, and the air became thick with the same sexual tension from the previous night. The desire that had been ignited was still hovering between them, unfulfilled and most definitely unsatisfied.

“So you want me to be scared of you. And I was, am, terrified. You’re really fucking scary. But I can’t help but wonder why something as destructive as you is so…”

“So?” Alasdair pressed.

Leo’s breath faltered when Alasdair moved his mouth down to his neck and licked a path along the vein pulsating there. “So…so attractive.”

Alasdair chuckled at the reluctant compliment. “While it’s incredibly flattering that you think my looks were designed this way due to what I am, it’s just not so.” He then grazed his teeth along the line of Leo’s jaw and told him, “We appear as we were when turned. Minus, of course, anything cosmetic, such as a haircut. The vampire gene merely adds an eternal…shine of sorts. An immortality elixir, some might say.”

When Leo arched his head away without even realizing, exposing the column of his throat to him like a final meal to a dying man, Alasdair’s stomach knotted.

I must be fucking insane to torment myself this way. I know what his blood can do to me. And yet…I still want it.

“So you’ve always been this…this…” Leo trailed off on a sigh, not finishing his thought.

Alasdair raised his head, not quite certain his control could be counted on.

“Come on. You must know how hot you are,” Leo said, straightening back up and shaking his head as if to clear it.

“Hot?” he asked, the word breaking through his thought as one he wasn’t familiar with.

The elevator came to a halt, and when the doors opened, Leo slid past, keeping a wary eye on him, and walked out into the corridor.

Alasdair followed down the dimly lit hall. “This place reminds me of home.”

Leo glanced over his shoulder and rolled his eyes at him. “Of course it does. We’re in a basement.”

“Your boss makes you work in a basement? Hardly seems like a job worth getting upset over losing.”

When Leo stopped and spun to face him, Alasdair slid his hands into the pockets of his pants.

“I’m lucky I still have a job, no thanks to you. And I wouldn’t be so judgmental. Like you said, you live in the equivalent of this basement.”

He gave a slight nod. “You could look at it that way, I suppose. Or that you’re lucky to be alive and able to come back to said job because of me.”

Leo scoffed. “Why? Because when you tried to kill me you got paralyzed? That’s not luck because of your goodwill. That’s luck due to my own body’s kickass defense system.”

Alasdair faded in and out so quickly he had their bodies pressed intimately together before Leo could react. “A defense you claim to know nothing about.”

“Ye…yeah. That’s right,” Leo stuttered.

Alasdair stared him down as he reached for the piece of paper. But Leo’s fist tightened stubbornly, refusing to let it go.

“Give it to me, Leo.”

“No. It’s none of your business.”

“I don’t care. I want to know what’s on it.”

“There’s nothing on it.”

“Why do you insist on lying to me when you know I can find out the truth?”

Leo locked his jaw, refusing to say any more, and glared at him.

“Fine. Let’s do this the hard way.”

As what was about to happen seemed to dawn on Leo, he shook his head, but it was too late. He was already inside his mind.

GIVE ME THE paper, Leonidas.

Yeah, he hated when Alasdair delved inside his head. It felt so intimate and invasive. But when he did that weird body-and-mind-control thing, Leo wanted to scream at him to fuck off and leave him alone. Being at someone’s mercy was not pleasant. At least, when it was physical, he had some recourse. This was so…one sided.

His arm rose, and he handed Alasdair the journal entry. Then he watched in a daze as he unfolded and read what was on it. When Alasdair was done, he looked at him with a fierce scowl. Alasdair had gone from sexy to scary as fucking hell.

Who told you about this?

“Told me about what?”

About the Assembly Hall? How do you know of it?

Leo’s mind scrambled through his memories and thoughts for something about an Assembly Hall but came up with nothing. “I don’t know what the Assembly Hall is.”

Alasdair grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him forward, thrusting the paper in his face. You wrote about it here, several times. It’s dated before we met. If you don’t know what it is, how did you know to write it?

Compelled to answer with only the truth, Leo opened his mouth and replied, “I don’t know.”

I don’t believe you. At each turn there’s more tricks, more deception. You can even fight this somehow. 

Leo couldn’t fight the mind game Alasdair was playing. Every word shoved into his head was heavy and authoritative, and he couldn’t do anything other than stand there. So, when Alasdair faded them out of the hall, he expected to find himself back in the strange room with the leather walls and metal hooks. Once he’d come to, though, he was stunned to be on the worn couch against the brick wall of his office.

ALASDAIR PACED THE length of Leo’s office, staring at the chaotic mess of photographs, posters, and timelines pinned all over the wall. He’d dumped Leo on the couch when he’d faded them inside—and that’s when he’d spotted it. An entire wall filled with hundreds of images from days long past.

The temples, the arenas, the…

No, it can’t be.

He pulled one of the photographs off the wall. As he studied the familiar crumbling columns, and the large, rectangular pool that sank deep into the earth, a jolt of sensation struck his otherwise lifeless heart.

It was his bathhouse.

The one where Vasilios had turned him.

The same one he’d projected Leo to that first night.

This was not a coincidence. Something bigger was at work, and when he rounded back and saw Leo pushing himself up into a seated position, he knew this human was somehow involved.

Reacting purely on instinct, he was across the room and pinning Leo to the couch with no other thought than to extract the truth from him. With his fingers wrapped around Leo’s throat, he watched him with distrustful eyes, concerned for his own safety for the first time ever.

When Leo coughed and reached for his hand, Alasdair glared down at him, wanting nothing more than to end this new emotion of uncertainty by snapping the man’s neck. But he knew that he wouldn’t.

He was angry. He felt oddly…betrayed.

When their eyes locked and Leo’s mouth opened, Alasdair shoved the photo in his face and demanded, “What is this?”

Leo clawed at his grip, trying desperately to break free, but he was relentless in his pursuit for the truth. He wasn’t going to free him until he knew what the fuck was going on.

“I…I… It’s research.”

“Research?” Alasdair hissed, his face close enough to Leo’s that he could taste the other man’s breath when he gasped. “You said you didn’t know who, or what, I was.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he thundered, his fangs piercing through his gums.

Leo’s eyes flicked to them, and his heart pounded. “I’m…not,” he said, his voice faltering as he pushed the words through squashed vocal cords.

“Then how do you know of this place? No one knows where I was turned. Yet you have a photo of it taped to your fucking wall.”

The legs trapped between Alasdair’s scissored apart as Leo tried to shift out from under him. But he widened his own and trapped Leo’s between them. Then he pushed him deeper into the tattered couch cushions.

“It’s for the exhibit,” Leo rushed out. “A place we were researching for our exhibit. That’s all. I didn’t, don’t, know anything more.”

The words rang of truth, but the coincidence was too much for him to accept. He didn’t believe that, out of all the destinations, all the ancient ruins, the one place Leonidas was studying happened to be—

“That’s where you were changed…turned into a vampire, isn’t it? That’s what you meant a minute ago?”

Alasdair focused on the man trapped under him, and found that he wanted to tell this stranger everything about himself. But he didn’t dare.

This, what he was doing right now, was dangerous. No matter how many times he told himself that, though, he couldn’t bring himself to leave. He felt drawn to Leo in a way he’d only ever felt once in his life, and that realization solidified what he’d been thinking all along.

Leonidas Chapel wasn’t merely a mortal. A mortal couldn’t, and wouldn’t, capture the sole attention of his kind without some kind of…power. Whatever he was, Alasdair had never seen the likes of him, and for that reason alone, Leo was perhaps the biggest danger of all.

LEO KNEW THE smart thing to do was to shut his mouth. But, as he looked up into the fierce face hovering over his own, he wanted to know more.

Alasdair was unlike anybody, or anything, he’d ever come across, and every part of him demanded he learn as much as he could before he vanished—or, worse, decided to kill him after all.

With a tentative hand, he touched one of Alasdair’s high cheekbones, and when he flinched, Leo yanked his hand back.

“How old are you?” he asked, finally voicing the one question he’d been wanting to ask since he’d realized exactly what he was. “You have to be close to—”

“I’m old,” Alasdair said.

“Well, you look no older than your mid thirties.”

The sound Alasdair made was derisive as he shifted his body over the top of his, and it was all Leo could do not to pant. Yeah, he had a vampire practically strangling him, but the weight of Alasdair’s lower body brushing over his cock counteracted the fear coursing through him.

“You’re the one who has been studying me. Why don’t you tell me how old I am?”

Leo stared up at the serious face and the luminescent eyes looking down at him. Alasdair’s emotions were riding him, and he was reacting based solely on his instincts. Instincts that were telling him that, for some reason, little old him was a danger. Alasdair felt threatened and was flexing his power. Something that both terrified and, oddly enough, turned Leo on.

“I’m not studying you. I… We have been working on an exhibit for the museum. That’s just one of the locations we were recreating as a place people used to socialize. For meetings and…well, you know. You were there—can you please let go of my throat?”

Alasdair released his grip and placed his hands on either side of Leo’s head. Then he cocked his head to the side, much the way an animal does when it’s watching its prey try to squirm away, and Leo began to do just that. He tried to move under the body holding him down, but when Alasdair’s brow rose as if his attempt was ridiculous, he quit moving altogether.

“Then you don’t need me to tell you how old I am. You already know.”

Leo glanced at the photo in Alasdair’s fist, now a scrunched-up remnant of its former self, and thought about the date of the image. Ancient Athens 47 BC, and it’s now 2015. So that makes him—

“You’re over two thousand years old.”

“And you know too much.” Then Alasdair vanished.

Leo angled his head and saw him standing in front of his research wall again, his back to him.

“Do you not find this odd?”

Leo stood and pressed his fingers to his forehead. Ever since he’d met Alasdair, his entire world had become a little odd. As in fucked up beyond all things sane. 

“Yes. But I never knew your kind existed. So, I mean, is this… Do you find this odd?”

Alasdair turned and regarded him carefully—as if seeing him for the first time. Then he answered, “I do.”

Leo waited, figuring there had to be more than that. Then, realizing what Alasdair was about to do, he sprinted across the room and reached out to grip the vampire’s wrist as he faded, with him in tow, right out of his office.