A Time Apart: Book One of The Macauley Series Page 19

  “Sit down, Olivia.”

  She kept pacing, thoughts whirling through her head, as she tried to come to grips with the fact that she had reached the end of available options.

  “I SAID, ‘SIT DOWN OLIVIA.’”

  She stopped mid-stride and looked at Seamus standing behind his desk. She hadn’t even heard what he had been telling her.

  “I’m sorry.” Olivia walked back over to the sofa and plopped down. She took three deep breaths before raising her eyes to meet Seamus’s. “No really, I’m sorry. You were saying?”

  Seamus sat back down in his own chair and reached for the tumbler of whiskey to his right. He took a deep drink – more than his usual sip – and waited for the whiskey’s warmth to settle in his stomach before continuing. Since Olivia had shown up at the castle weeks before, he’d been doing a lot more drinking than was his norm. He supposed he ought to get used to it because he didn’t think she was ready to leave.

  In fact, it was clear to him that she wanted nothing more than to stay, to be with William, and that she was looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack as a reason for why she could. Seamus was convinced that had she really not been able to come to terms with the particulars of William’s lifestyle, she would have left days ago. No, he thought, she wanted to stay. That told him all that he needed to know about Olivia Donnelly. He had promised William that he wouldn’t get involved, but he could see that he would have to.

  “I was saying that it’s easy for me to come to grips with the killing because to the best of my knowledge, William has never killed anyone.”

  She started to interrupt him, but he stopped her.

  “Listen to what I am telling you Olivia.”

  “You said that William hasn’t killed anyone, but he told me himself that isn’t true.”

  She looked at Seamus and was saddened to discover that she knew more about William’s life than he did. She truly was out of options.

  “No, that is not what I said. You didn’t listen to my words. You of all people should know how important they are, and the power they hold. I said that to be the best of my knowledge, Olivia, that William hasn’t killed anyone. I don’t know what William does or doesn’t do. If he has killed, he hasn’t told me. I don’t have to worry about it, because I don’t know about it.”

  “How can you go through life like that Seamus?! Don’t you wonder every time he comes home whether he’s killed someone?”

  Seamus took another drink of the blessed amber liquid.

  “No, Olivia. I don’t.”

  Olivia jumped up from the sofa again and resumed her furious pacing.

  “Well, I couldn’t live like that Seamus. I would have to know. I would need to know.”

  “Why?”

  The one word stopped her in her tracks, and she spun around to face him.

  “Why?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Because.”

  “That’s not a reason, Olivia, and you know it. Why would you need to know?”

  “Because I couldn’t live with him knowing that he had killed people.”

  “But you already know that he has killed people. Why would knowing any future particulars change anything?”

  “It just would!”

  “Again, that’s not an answer. Why would you need to know?”

  “Because I couldn’t condone his actions! I couldn’t sit idly by while people died just for their blood! I couldn’t sit next to him, wondering about all of his victims. Every time he came home, I’d need to know where he had been, who he had been with, what he had done!”

  “And would knowing that information change anything?”

  “Yes, goddamn it! It would!”

  “How?”

  “I … I … I don’t know. It just would.”

  “Listen, Olivia, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that William isn’t out prowling the streets every night intent on murder. He’s never done anything in front of me that makes me lose any sleep at night. He’s a good man, Olivia. No, he’s not a man. He’s a good … person.”

  “How do you know?” She sat down on the couch and dropped her head into her hands. “How do you know Seamus?”

  “How do you not?”

  Minutes passed while Olivia pondered his question. When she raised her head, Seamus was gone.

  She made her way back to her bedroom, more confused than ever. She wasn’t sure if seeking out Seamus had been the right thing to do. In fact, now she felt like she had more questions than she had before. The one thing she took away from her conversation with him was that he had no personal knowledge of William having killed anyone. She had wanted to ask Seamus what he knew about feeding, but she hadn’t anticipated him turning her questions back on herself. Could she accept William, stand by his side for the rest of her life, if he promised never to tell her about his hunting? No, she didn’t think she could stand knowing that he was keeping secrets from her, even if it was at her own behest. If she was going to be with him, she wanted all of him - not just the sanitized parts.

  That night Olivia fell into a fitful sleep and she dreamed of dark alleys and women running away from danger that they couldn’t see. She dreamed of faceless men and death and destruction. She woke with a start, her heartbeat ringing in her ears. Her body was still on high alert, the taste of adrenaline coating her mouth, her body tingling with awareness. She knew wasn’t alone, but in the dark cover of night she couldn’t see anything beyond her nose.

  “William.”

  Nothing stirred in the blackness around her.

  “William, is that you?”

  Again, nothing.

  Olivia reached over to turn on the lamp on her bedside table. The room was empty.

  She was, once again, alone. She fell asleep with a heavy ache in her heart.

  Olivia spent the next day writing and stayed in her room at night. She knew that she hadn’t imagined that someone was in her room the night before, but she had no way to prove it. There was no way that it could have been Seamus; she would have heard him leave. She knew that William had been there, and she hoped that he would return.

  That night Olivia tried to stay awake - she paced the room, read, listened to music – but in the end, she succumbed to her exhaustion. This time when she dreamt, her mind was filled solely with William: his deep, melodic voice the soundtrack to her dreams; the beautiful face that she knew so well staring back at her in longing; his expressive hands imploring her to follow him. She was helpless to fight it. Her dreams showed her the man that she loved, the man that she craved. She saw her life with him and knew that it could be, if only she would let it. She saw their future, and knew that it was hers for the taking, if she would just believe. She saw that she loved him, had always loved him, and would love him forever more.

  Olivia woke up the following morning, her decision made.

  CHAPTER 21

  William hadn’t seen Olivia for three weeks; however, he knew that she was still in residence. He would have felt her presence even without Seamus keeping him updated on her activities and whereabouts. While she continued to stay at the castle – leaving every so often to go shopping or sightseeing – William was avoiding her until he was sure that he could maintain his composure while in her company. Since the night he’d left her standing down by the river, his instincts had been screaming at him to lock her up and never let her out but he knew to do so would cause irreparable damage to any future they might someday have together.

  The fact that Olivia hadn’t gone back to Dublin – or left him for places unknown – gave William hope that she wasn’t entirely repulsed by him. But because she hadn’t sought him out either, he knew that she hadn’t fully come to terms with the reality of his life, what it truly meant to be with a vampire. In order for the two of them to move forward, for William to look beyond the wedge that she had created, he could not be the one to make the first move. It might be an overabundance of pride, but he needed desperately for her to b
e the one to extend the proverbial olive branch.

  On the twenty-third night of their estrangement, William felt Olivia standing hesitantly outside his bedroom door. He could smell the combination of her perfume and shampoo, laced with undertones of fear and adrenaline. She hovered outside his door for several minutes, and as she did so, he reached out with his preternatural sense to hear what she was thinking, hoping to better understand what was keeping her from knocking.

  Olivia was tired of the isolation, both physically and emotionally, and annoyed with Seamus for not providing her with any information about William’s activities or whereabouts when he was among the living. She was also frustrated and embarrassed for giving in to her desires the first night she had met him, but above all else, she was lonely and heartbroken that William had abandoned her at the first sign of tension.

  Of course she would see it that way, but what else could I have done?!

  It had been clear to him that she wasn’t ready to accept him for what he was, and that she might never be. She had forced his hand. Did she expect him to starve; to give up that which kept him alive for the chance to be with her before he wasted away from malnourishment? Olivia had him between a rock and a hard place. Physically, he would perish without blood, just as assuredly as he felt he would wither and die without her.

  They were at an impasse.

  If Olivia couldn’t move forward and step into his world – commit fully to William’s way of life – they would never be able to have the type of relationship that he had imagined on that first night together.

  Looking back, William could see that it had been too easy for them to jump ahead in their relationship, bypassing the crucial points where normal men and women learned about one another and established common ground. Finding out that the love of his existence was close by – a broken shell of a woman who wanted nothing more than to be loved – was too much temptation for him. He knew that she would accept his love because it was what she craved most in the world. Truthfully, it was what he had craved as well. And so William had offered Olivia his heart, his adoration, and his soul, but he knew full well that she hadn’t understood the ramifications of accepting it, of accepting him.

  And then the harshness of reality had come sweeping in and Olivia had realized that she hadn’t stepped into a nice and tidy fairy tale; her new life came with its fair share of nightmares too. Only now did she see how utterly wrong, if not deadly, her situation truly was.

  Of course William could understand how Olivia would think that she couldn’t be with a monster who murdered people for sustenance. When viewed from that standpoint he could wholly concede that it was a miracle that she was still here at all, and yet he wished that she had been just a little bit more like the other women he had spent his time with over the years – those who looked at him and didn’t see danger, but rather excitement, those who took his proclivities in stride, those who found his animal instincts sensual instead of repulsive. But then, she would not have been his lovely Olivia if she had been like those women, and he would have quickly tired of her.

  Knowing what an effort it must have been for her to seek him out, especially after his complete and utter silence and ambivalence to her presence, William conceded that he needed to make show of good faith. Even if she couldn’t yet bring herself to knock on his door, he had to meet her halfway. Pride be damned, he owed it to her.

  Crossing the room, William told himself that if she had come to him to say goodbye he would do his best to honor her wishes. He opened the door and she jumped.

  “You’re still here,” he said, sounding irritated but certainly not meaning to.

  “Is that a problem?” she asked, her left eyebrow arched haughtily, a show of defiance that he had always – in both ancient times and in the present – loved about her. In all of his years wandering the earth, William had never met another woman who could put a man in his place with just one look the way Olivia did. He smiled at both the memory of it all, and at the ravishing woman standing before him.

  “No, of course not. I told you my home is your home and I meant it.”

  This would always be her home; after all, he had rebuilt it for her without even knowing that’s what he had been doing.

  “Right. About that. We need to talk.”

  She sounded so angry and matter-of-fact that William was positive that she was going to tell him that she was leaving. His body tingled with the fear of it and he felt the effects of that dread to his bones. He closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath, trying to hide his reaction, hoping that she hadn’t noticed the change come over him. A second later, once he was in control of himself, William stepped aside to allow her to enter the room, all while trying to squash his sense of foreboding.

  Once inside, she turned to him and asked a question he hadn’t been expecting.

  “Why do your eyes change? And don’t tell me I’m imagining things. It’s in the portraits, and I’ve seen it happen twice – once just now. What does it mean?”

  “Please, sit and we’ll talk.” William motioned toward the leather club chair in the corner of the room, taking time to compose himself so that when he faced her he would look like a normal man and not a ravaging demon come to prey on her in the night.

  “I’ll sit. You talk,” she commanded.

  As Olivia stomped over to the chair – there was certainly nothing graceful about her movements – William wondered how much of her behavior was false bravado given the thoughts he had heard running through her head just minutes before.

  “I don’t know the mechanics of it, but as I age my eyes are taking on a more luminescent hue. They’re brighter, the colors more saturated.”

  “And what about the glowing?” she asked.

  William crossed the room himself so that he could be nearer to her. He walked over and sat down on the arm of the chair, needing her proximity but knowing that he couldn’t yet touch her. She didn’t flinch or attempt to move away, but her body language also didn’t look all that welcoming. He couldn’t afford to be offended by her lack of care in the questioning of him, and yet he needed the physical warmth that emanated from her body to warm his own, for her intoxicating scent to envelope him. He wanted to bury his face in her fiery red tresses and never come up for air. He took a deep breath and let the cedar scent of her settle all around him. He could taste vanilla on his tongue.

  “I don’t know why it happens. After all, there aren’t a lot of doctors specializing in vampire physiology that I know of who I can ask.”

  William reached over and caressed an errant lock of her hair, putting it gently behind her right ear. Olivia’s breathing hitched and her face flushed, a sure sign of how much he affected her on a physical level.

  “I only know that it’s a physical reaction triggered by deep emotions. Anger, fear, love, lust, passion, hate. We vampires feel every emotion rather intensely and as such everything I feel is magnified.”

  “Does it happen to other vampires?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but then again, I don’t spend much time with my own kind.”

  “Why is that? Why aren’t you part of a coven or whatever they’re called?”

  That they were back to discussing the specifics of his being a vampire reminded him that he needed to tread lightly in how he answered her questions. William couldn’t scare her off again – he needed to be truthful with her but the delicacy of the situation was not lost on him. One wrong word and she might bolt, like a frightened doe sensing a deadly predator.

  “I’ve never been interested in leading what could be called a ‘normal’ vampire existence,” he began. “At the beginning of our vampire lives most of us cling to our makers, sometimes for instruction, other times for companionship, and usually always out of the blood bond that is created between maker and child.”

  Could she understand a bond that intense, he wondered?

  William moved from the chair to sit on the edge of the bed, giving Olivia room to get comfortable with th
e direction the conversation was going, while also giving himself enough space to think clearly about what he wanted to say before he said it.

  “Have you ever had a child, Olivia?”

  She gasped aloud at the question, clearly taken aback.

  “What does that have to do with anything? This is your story, not mine.”

  Was that fear he saw in her eyes? William couldn’t be sure since she had immediately turned her head to look out the window, clearly avoiding his direct gaze.

  “This is my story. Forgive me for the rather blunt nature of my question, but I was trying to explain to you how truly connected a master and newborn vampire are. I’ve been told it can be stronger than even the bond a human mother has with her newborn baby. I was hoping to give you a frame of reference for the rest of my tale. I meant no offense.”

  Olivia looked back at him as she answered.

  “I’m not offended. I’m sorry. I was just startled by the question.” She paused before continuing. “And no, I’ve never had a child. Children are not in the cards for me.”

  William had guessed as much, but hearing her say it aloud gave him an odd thrill that he didn’t want to spend too much time investigating lest he find out more about his intensions and desires toward her than he wanted to.

  “Ah, well. Then it seems we are both unaccustomed to that sort of attachment to another, for I had no such bond to my maker.”

  William felt the tremors begin in his hands and the tiny pinpricks running down his back that let him know that it was time to calm down. Hundreds of years later and he still wanted to rip that bastard apart for what he had done to him, for what he had made him do to Ceara, for the life he had forced him into.

  The silence hung heavy in the room as Olivia waited for William to collect himself and continue with his story.

  He opened his eyes and saw that she was standing right in front of him. He’d been so focused on controlling his anger that he had completely blocked out everything around him, including her presence. That lack of awareness had only occurred a handful of times during his long existence; being perpetually alert and always attuned to one’s surroundings was the difference between life and death for vampires.