Vampire in Atlantis

and this time the world didn’t shatter and the walls didn’t fall in and the floor didn’t disappear from under him. It was just a kiss, only a kiss.
    The kiss that began the rest of his life.

Chapter 27
     

     

Midday, in a cave only two miles away from Serai and Daniel
     
    Ivy sat on her pallet of blankets in the cave where she’d recently seen a man die horribly, and wondered if she’d brought this all on herself. She hugged her knees and watched her son sleep, knowing that it was futile to waste time on the how and the why of the past. All that mattered was how they’d get out of this situation. A fierce wave of pride and fury swept through her, leaving nothing but icy cold resolve in its wake. Nobody was going to hurt her son.
    Nobody.
    Dusk was a few hours away, and she needed to figure out her escape plans before the vampire rose from his day sleep.
    “I have no intention of hurting him,” Nicholas said from behind her, making her jump a little. She hadn’t even heard him approach. Damn sneaky vampires. He could have ripped her guts out, too, and she wouldn’t have heard it coming.
    Although, was that something you’d want to hear coming?
    “Can you read my mind? If so, I can’t imagine you’re very flattered right now.” She didn’t bother to turn around and look at him. He was the last person in the world she wanted to see, now or ever. “Also, shouldn’t you be asleep? Evil vampire, and all that?”
    “It doesn’t take a mind reader to see a mother’s protectiveness for her child,” he said, surprising her. “Also, I’m old enough to be awake whenever I like. Just because I can’t walk in the sun doesn’t mean I’m a slave to its passage through the sky.”
    She smoothed an errant strand of hair from Ian’s face, and he stirred but didn’t wake up. She filed away the information about the vampire’s lack of need for day sleep. Just one more obstacle. She was good at overcoming obstacles.
    “If you see my protectiveness, you understand why I would never let you turn him into a vampire.”
    “I have no intention of turning him into a vampire,” he said. “But I thought it was easier to say yes and deal with the topic again when he actually turns twenty-one, in the unlikely event he even remembers asking or still wants it then.”
    “Kids remember everything. Or at least my kid does. I can’t speak to any others. Ian, though, he’s special. Always has been. So much like his father.”
    “Where is the boy’s father?” Nicholas’s voice had the slightest touch of frost in it, as if he planned to go attack Ian’s dad next. He was too late on that one.
    “He’s dead. He died when Ian was very young. Murdered by vampires. Some of your kind who didn’t like the coming out parties, and wanted vampires to be the feared creatures who went bump in the night instead of the neighbor next door who could vote and pay taxes. They killed him and laughed about it. Some of your buddies?” She told the story without any anger. It had been far too long ago for anger. All she had left was cold hatred and the need for revenge.
    The need to protect her son, no matter what the cost.
    “I am sorry for your loss,” Nicholas said, and he was so good—so smooth—that he put actual regret in his voice.
    “Don’t bother,” she said. “You don’t need to warm me up or pretend you care about the death of some random human ten years ago. You have me, you have my son. I have to do what you ask, so don’t waste both of our time by pretending otherwise.”
    He stepped forward, into her line of sight, and leaned against the wall, and she was struck again by how incredibly handsome he was, at least when his eyes weren’t glowing red or somebody’s intestines weren’t draped over his arm. So many of them were attractive. Vampires. Beauty disguising evil, or designed to seduce its prey.
    A flash of some indefinable emotion crossed his eyes but was gone so fast she’d probably imagined it. Or else he was trying compulsion on her, in which case he was out of luck.
    “I was a random human once,” he said softly. “As were my wife and son. The memory of my family was not burned out of me by the bloodlust, even in the beginning. I know full well what you would do to protect your son from vampires, because my wife protected my son from me.”
    She looked up at him, caught in spite of herself by the pain in his voice. Or the illusion of it, she reminded herself. Vampires were masters of