Page 7 of My Master
* * *
He was standing over her,a blade of bone in his hand. Esmeralda wanted to wake up, to wake up and scream, but she was too exhausted, too tired to do anything but lay there and await her doom. She waited for the silhouetted figure to attack, but all she saw him do was reach out a hand and caress her hair through his fingers. And then, he was gone.
It had only been a dream.
She awoke seconds later and realized that she was alone, lying on the couch with all the lights off. She sat straight up, a strange feeling tugging at her heart and in her mind. She felt as though something was out of place but she wasn’t quite sure what it was.
Ignoring the feeling, Ezzy stood up and walked upstairs to the bedroom. The air around her was chilly, cold, and she could feel it even through her turtleneck and pants. She opened the door slowly and walked in, only to see that Antonio wasn’t there. The bed was made perfectly, just the way she had left it before she left to go to the movies. Everything was in perfect order, she noted. But where was Antonio?
A thought hit her and she gasped then ran into the bathroom. Nothing seemed disturbed in there but she had to make sure. She bent down and opened the cabinet, only to find that her pregnancy test was exactly where she had last left it, undisturbed.
Where could he be?She wondered to herself as she straightened up and walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind her. He hadn’t been downstairs with her, as far as she could tell.
She stared at the room at the end of the hall. The room that used to be hers as a child, now bare of decorations. She swallowed and walked over to it. Reaching for the knob, she took a deep breath, and opened the door, expecting to find Antonio lying on the floor. She could only imagine him thinking about his future kids, the family that they would one day have.
But the room was empty.
Esmeralda called his name. There was no answer. After searching around the rest of the house, she mechanically walked back up to their room and threw herself on the mattress, hugging a pillow to her face. Antonio had left her. He had never left her before, not like this, not after they fought. He was always the one to come after her and talk. It was his way. And for him to do this, well, it made Ezzy wonder exactly what happened to him to cause all of this pain.
* * *
Antonio prowledthe streets with his hands in his pockets, letting the breeze ruffle his already untidy hair. It was a nice night, not too warm and not too cold but just right. Not that the weather mattered to him too much, he could barely feel it. He was too focused on other things at the moment. Things like Esmeralda and the look on her face before he walked away from her, leaving her to cry on the couch alone. If it had been during any other time, he would have never walked away. He would have stayed to comfort her, let her cry on his shoulder.
But this time, he couldn’t.
He could offer no condolences, no sort of comfort when he was a monster and that’s not what monsters did. Monsters couldn’t love, couldn’t care for someone. He had killed his twin brother; a brother that he had once felt so close to but in the end even that couldn’t save Damien. He sure as Hell didn’t deserve Esmeralda’s comfort. He sure as Hell didn’t deserveher.
And she had thanked him time and time again for saving her life and she had told him that it didn’t bother her. She hadn’t looked at him any different but that didn’t mean she didn’t think about it often. The few times he had dropped into her mind he heard her thinking about that night, the night when he had taken Damien’s life, about how scared she had been, about how scary he had looked.
It was enough to kill Antonio slowly.
And now she was talking about starting a family with him! That was the last thing on his mind at the moment. He didn’t want a child to come out like him. If anything, he’d want a girl just so she could be like Esmeralda. Small, red hair and blue eyes; cute and soft, fun and stubborn. Everything he loved about Esmeralda packed into a little baby…
Antonio groaned and tugged at his hair. He could tell the sun was about to come up, he felt that same sensation prickling at the back of his eyelids, drifting him off into a deep sleep. He had to get home soon, had to get back to Esmeralda before he passed out in the middle of the street only to burn with the rising sun.
With a heavy sigh weighing at his shoulders, he walked back up the street to his house; that’s when he noticed the scent. It was all over the front door, the scent of a stranger, of a predator, of anothervampire. Antonio’s nostrils flared as he opened the door and barged through his home. A male vampire, his scent was strong, overpowering almost every other odor in the house, which meant it had been recent.
Antonio sniffed through the scent; it led to the couch, the foul smell mixing in with Esmeralda’s. His mind filled with images, terrible images of things that could have happened to her. He had last left her on the couch and she wasn’t there! He cursed himself for leaving her alone while thoughts of Damien filled his mind again. If his own brother had been capable of such atrocities towards Ezzy then what about a stranger? A sudden rage shook him to the core as his instincts kicked in. He would do whatever it took to protect the woman he loved.Whatever it took.
He followed the smell upstairs, where it was just as strong, and where it led into his bedroom. He braced himself for some sort of an attack then kicked the door open. The wood splintered and the door cracked in half inwards, falling out of its hinges and revealing the inside of the bedroom.
Esmeralda was sitting on the bed but jumped up when he came in, fangs flashing. Her blue eyes widened in shock at the sight of him and the broken door. She opened her mouth to speak but before she could say anything he let loose a low, predatory growl and she clamped her mouth shut. The smell was all over her. He reached the bed and moved and moved towards her, she leaned back, wide eyed and scared. He sniffed her hair, where the smell of foreign fingertips was most potent.
When he had seen no sign of struggle in the house or on her, his thoughts took a different toll. Someone had been in his house. Someone had touched Esmeralda. Someone had stroked her hair the way he had thousands of times. An animal rage took hold of him.
“Antonio?” Esmeralda placed her hand on his shoulder. “What’s going on? What happened? Where were you?”
He silenced her with a kiss.
He had held back his urge to do it for so long, but he could no longer. Not when he knew that someone had been there with her, touchinghisSoul Mate. He wound his hand around her hair, as if he could somehow dispel the stench of a stranger.
“Antonio…” she pushed him lightly away, a questioning, worried look in her eyes.
He pushed her back against the pillows of the bed and laid over her. “You’re mine, Esmeralda; I won’t let anyone else have you.”
“What are you talking about?” She tried to sit up but his weight on her prevented this from happening.
She was so soft underneath him, just like she always was. Like a puzzle piece, they fit perfectly together, and he couldn’t stand the thought of Ezzy in someone else’s embrace, of her not being his. It’d be his fault if she left him. No, he decided. He wouldn’t let her go, he’d change whatever she wanted if that only meant she’d stay by him.
