Forbidden (Fallen 2)

“Silly, silly, girl. Did you think I was going to take advantage of you?” He chuckled tracing the shape of my cheekbones.

I blushed a deeper shade of red. I had never been so embarrassed in my entire life. “No, but I thought you might have thought that things were going to…um… go farther than they have in the past…”

“I know you aren’t ready and… I’m not ready either,” he said laying on his back with his hands behind his head.

I breathed out a sigh of relief. I had never worried about when I’d lose my virginity. I just figured it would happen when it happened. And you’d think with Jonathon that it wouldn’t matter to me when we finally did it. But suddenly I knew that I wanted to do this the right way.

Jonathon whispered in my ear what I had been thinking in my head, “I want to make you my wife before I make love to you,” his words and his breath sent a shiver down my spine.

At least he was content with things the way they were. I was a virgin. He was a virgin. And it was going to stay that way until we were married. We were going to do things the right way. Well, the right way for us.

I hoped, because suddenly I wasn’t so sure it would happen the way we planned.

He continued to kiss me and murmur sweet things in my ear until I finally fell asleep.

Day two in the car all day was even more miserable than the first. At this rate, by tomorrow I’d be begging someone to kill me. It sucked being stuck in a car all day and well into the night. And whenever I did get out there was always more than one someone watching me. I felt like the president with the secret service following me around all the time. But at least the president could probably go to the bathroom by himself.

At least Romania is beautiful. I had assumed that Romania was old and run down. I was wrong. It was lush and green with big cities and castles too. Under different circumstances I would have loved exploring every crevice of the country.

Our goal for the day was to make it to the border of Romania and Ukraine where we would meet the Coven and Luigi and then we would head to Russia. Jonathon seemed to think that if we made it to Russia we would be safe. I don’t think the others were quite as optimistic bu

t he seemed to think that if we made it that far without Selena showing up that we’d be in the clear. I sided with his family. I think Jonathon underestimated Selena. But I didn’t. She was a vampire, a heartbroken vampire, on a mission. Nothing would deter her. Either I had to die or she did. There was no other way. But even though Selena had nearly killed me and was still trying to kill me I couldn’t help but feel compassion for her. I knew how I would feel if Jonathon died and I also knew that my imaginings probably couldn’t compare at all to what it would really feel like. Jonathon had left me once, I knew he was alive, but the pain was unbearable. I can’t imagine a world without him. The world wouldn’t be the same. It would be broken. It would be empty. So, even though I didn’t want to I could understand where Selena was coming from. She had lost her love, her soul mate, her one and only, her life, her everything. I can’t imagine that I would take her approach for revenge if I lost Jonathon but I did know that life wouldn’t be worth living. He was my life now. I thought all of this as I watched lush green lawns and cities flash by outside the car window.

I couldn’t help but feel envious of the people sitting in their homes, safe and comfortable, while I was stuck in this hunk of metal running for my life. Maybe ignorance is bliss. Those people had no idea of what was out there. They didn’t know about vampires or vampire hunters or whatever else was out there. They were absolutely oblivious to the real world. They thought they knew the real world. They thought they knew love. They thought they knew loss. They thought they knew pain, and happiness. But they don’t know anything. They don’t know anything at all. How good it must feel to know nothing?

Jonathon, sensing my dark mood, reached out and took my hand in his. His cold hand, hard as rock, melded perfectly to mine. I noticed it wasn’t as cold as it had been yesterday and deduced that he must have fed sometime. It felt reassuring to be able to hold on to him. To hold on to something. I looked away from the window and up at him. I tried to give him a weak smile to try and reassure him but I failed. His other hand reached out to trace my face from forehead to chin. I leaned my face into his hand and sighed. He always knew how to make me feel better.

“Almost to the border, principessa,” he said, thinking that my dark mood was from being cooped up in the car all day. I nodded. I didn’t want to have him worrying about me.

He was right. It wasn’t long till we made it to the border.

We made a random turn in a city that took us down a narrow one-way street. I was surprised that the huge SUVs didn’t get banged up. There was a millimeter gap from the wall to the mirrors. The small alley finally opened up. I breathed again. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. Damn, claustrophobia.

We were surrounded on all sides by buildings, no wait, it was all one building, and lots and lots of garages. The only exit was where we had come from.

We parked in the large open space in the middle of the building, it must be u shaped.

The engines had barely been turned off when all the garages opened. Wait, it wasn’t a bunch of garages but one. One very large one with many exits.

They started out of the car and I followed.

The Coven came forward. Aleksei in the front in his blood red cloak. Their hoods were down. I could see Isaac and his friends. They weren’t the carefree boys I remembered from Tyson’s basement that just wanted to make music.

“Huh,” the air rushed into my lungs making a strange startled sound. Isobel.

Isobel, Isaac’s twin sister, was in the Coven. Well, I shouldn’t be shocked. She definitely had the temper for it. I could see her killing vampires way more than I could picture Isaac doing it. She had that whole, wild and untamed, thing going for her.

I could see Luigi standing in a far corner of the massive garage.

He was so far away that I could barely see him.

But I could see he had his strong arms wrapped around a struggling figure.

I looked up at Jonathon with questioning eyes and then looked back at Luigi and the struggling vampire. The vampire was making a bunch of feral noises and it looked like she was about to grind her teeth off. Her eyes were a bright, menacing, silver. Not the warm silver of Jonathon’s eyes. No, this woman’s silver eyes were cold and distant.

Why would Luigi have brought a newborn vampire that couldn’t control itself? Especially when we were on the run? Did we really have the time to babysit a vampire?

Her silver eyes met mine. Some of the menace seeped out of them. A different emotion replaced it. Sadness? Regret?