Chapter 10

"What were you planning on doing tonight?" That was the firs thing that Ash asked her the moment that she stepped back into the room.

Mary-Lynnette looked over at the bag that already had a pile of clothes stuffed into it. "Do I actually have a choice in the matter?"

Ash was already heading back in the walk in closet they shared rummaging through everything. "Of course you do. You can choose the place that we go tonight. What do you think about heading over to California for the week?"

"California? A week? Ash have you gone crazy? You can't leave for that long- WE can't leave for long! Why the heck do you need to leave?"

His ashy head poked out from the doorway, his eyes the color of storm clouds, "Cause I wanted to spend some alone time with you?"

Mare narrowed her eyes, "How sure were you about that line you just tried to pull?"

He groaned, "about 75% sure that you'd go for it." He came out of the closet and fell down onto the bed as if he were losing all the muscles in his body. "Why? Why did he have to come back over here of all times? Why now?"

Ash suddenly went from a confident vampire into a wounded animal. She couldn't help but smile at the drastic change when the realization hit her. Ash whipped his head around as Mare tried to stifle her laugh.

"What the hell is so funny?"

"Out of everybody in the world, why are you stressing about only seeing your cousin?"

"Why does it have to be him? He can literally be gone for months at a time and I barely see him around this place, but the moment that you show up—the moment that you arrive here is when he has to come back and stick his nose in."

She sat on the sofa, letting it trap her in its softness, "I still don't see the problem here. Why does this have anything to do with me?"

Ash struggled for the words, what exactly could he tell her without her being disappointed in him… again? Whoever said that the truth would set a person free really didn't understand anything about reality. Sometimes with the truth it felt like he was digging himself a bigger hole. Many times over the passed year it only got him into harder situations that he had a harder time getting himself out of. This especially applied to Mary-Lynnette.

"It had happened before we met. Things were different…. My views….were different then."

She looked away sourly remembering the bits and pieces of the old Ash that she truly would have rather never known. And that surprised her. That bit of hatred, the only thing that had her look at Ash warily, the questions that still popped into her head late at night. How would he be now if they had never met? She still remembered what he called humans, what he called her. "Vermin" She said.

Ash cringed a bit, "Yeah… that. I did something stupid. Nothing serious—compared to what I'd done in the passed. But I still messed up. My cousin and I had never been that close and after what I did…."

He could see the worry in her eyes; out of everything he did in his past he would always regret it. If he could have gone back in time to do everything over he would do it in a heartbeat, not for the people who's lives he had changed or the way things would have turned out, but for the look she had when she heard about his past. Out of everything he would give anything and everything for her to never have a reason to give him that face. Mary-Lynnette was proud, a very proud person that would never admit it, maybe that's what made this whole thing worse. But the look she gave him, he had seen it so many times in other people and nightworlders. There was fear in her blue eyes, fear that he had placed inside her. For a brief flash when his past would surface up she would be afraid of him, his own soulmate afraid of him.

Ash wanted to take it all away. Cause the only thing that truth did for him was make the person he loved the most more and more afraid of him. That hurt worse than any pain he could have possibly imagined.

"What did you do?"

There it was, that small ring of fear. A terror of the unknown side he was trying so hard to destroy. Because of that, only because of the unknown fear did he tell her everything about that day. It was Ash's turn to be afraid of then, what would happen to them?

"It started when I was supposed to stay at my cousins house and walked in to find someone else walking in through the door."

Poppy

She couldn't help but be mesmerized by it. It was amazing what the rain could produce if someone just looked at it a bit more closely. It really wasn't anything unless you really looked at it. Whoever had sat in that bus seat had merely taken their hand against the fogged window and erased whatever doodle had been on there before. They didn't realize the creature that they had given birth to.

It reminded her of a lizard, and evil lizard with a single blood shot eye that stared down at her, as if it knew all of her secrets. Its jagged teeth could be seen from the evil mischievous grin that shown only for her.

Poppy North had the strong urge to take her hand and slay the beast, but that would mean getting up from the bus seat and walking across the isle to disturb a man who looked as if he had been traveling all day. So she was reduced to starring at it.

"What are you looking at?"

James Rasmussen stared down at her, an amused smile playing on his lips. It always amused him at the wild stuff that always seemed to pop up into that head of hers.

She sighed, pushing back against the backrest of the seat to stretch her small lithe body out. They'd been on the bus for the passed 4 hours and her mind was going crazy with energy. What she wouldn't give to jump out the window and start walking, running, jumping, or something! Anything to just get off this bus for at least a little while. Instead of saying all those things that were bursting inside of her she only said, "I need out!"

James laughed and even now after it had been over a year she couldn't help but let it send shivers down her spine. It was loud and soft all at the same time, infectious and could make even the most stone of face person smile easily. He was all hers.

She smiled herself loving the fact that she could say that, James was all hers. She couldn't help but sneak a peek at the girls who stared over at them enviously even picking up on thoughts about how lucky she was. They truly had no idea just now right they were.

He peered up over to the front of the bus, wrapping his ear buds together, "Well it's a good thing that our stop is coming up. I'll go get the bags you make sure that we have the tickets."

A few moments later, after their bags had been checked off and their tickets handed off they were out on the road hopping off for a taxi…. another mode of transportation. At this point Poppy would have been happy to walk the rest of the way back to Lord Thierry's mansion. But then they wouldn't get there until dark and even she didn't want to meet some of the people that roamed Las Vegas at night even if she was a vampire.

If it hadn't been for James she would have gone stir crazy sitting there for another half an hour before finally being able to get back and lay in her own bed. With him around keeping in mind focused on other things it was a lot easier to let the time fly by instead of sitting around with her checking the clock every three minutes. Her brain seemed to work faster then clocks did.

"You happy about going back?" she asked.

"Yeah, it will be nice to do everything from base instead of flying around everywhere for clues. Now we can be the ones to get up late in the day and eat eggs Benedict again."

Poppy shuddered, "Good because if I have to try shoving crocodile down my throat again to please some other family I am going to start losing my mind." Poppy was probably one of the few vampires that still insisted on having three square meals a day, even if it no longer held any nutritional value in it anymore.

I may be a vampire but that doesn't mean I have to get rid of all the humanly quirks about myself. I certainly am NOT giving up thanksgiving turkey and stuffing. Heck no!

"I wonder who's back at the base, last time we were there it didn't seem like there were many people around. It was like a haunted house or something like that! But the time before that there were so many people around it didn't seem like I would be able to think about much…. Hehe I kind of liked it like that though. It was fun and there was always someone to talk to."

James grumbled something then, something that no other person would be able to hear. Even Poppy, with her heightened senses of hearing wasn't able to. But she didn't need to know what his words were to know what he was thinking about.

She touched his arm lightly hoping to bring him back to now. "Hey, I thought you were fine now. It's been over a year. You and I both know how much has changed since then, how much he's changed. He's not the same person he was."

James couldn't meet her eyes even with his half-hearted smile. "I know, it's just that… every time I see him I just can't help but think about that time. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if he had gone through with that plan of his."

"He was never going to turn me in." Poppy pointed out, "That wasn't his style anyway. You of all people should know that."

"No, but it was his sick and twisted game that he loved to play. It was like a cat playing with a mouse right before the kill." He grimaced, "Neither one of us actually knows what he was planning on doing with you that night. And even though I know it would only make me want to do the cliché of stalking him with a piece of wood there's something in me that wants to find out what he was thinking then."

Poppy sighed as they pulled into the driveway of the mansion and unfortunately couldn't enjoy the driver's reaction to such an estate, she looked up at the windows knowing full well what window that led into Ash Redferns room as well as the fact that would avoid while the other one stalked and searched for him. This was all another version of the cat and mouse game.

But….

"I don't even think Ash Redfern even knows anymore though." Sadly though she didn't think that Jamie had heard her.

The mansion really hadn't changed that much, in fact it seemed to have frozen in time to the way everything was. Poppy was looking forward to being here for while, without the worry of traveling or being caught by other nightworlders. It had been a while since she had been able to stop and rest for more then a day, here she felt completely safe. That she could let herself go and just sink into this seemingly calm world.

Why couldn't see delude herself for a little bit? Poppy bounced through the doorway, her bags bumping against her hip in a rhythm to a tune she was making up in her head. A spin off of her "I'm sexy pixie" single that never made it farther then her kitchen back in her hometown.

"We need to report to Thierry yet?" She asked

James shook his head, "Can't anyway, I got a text from my cell phone from Lady Hannah. She's apparently kidnapped Thierry for the afternoon and refuses to let him do anything other than have fun."

She tried to hard to hold back the laughing, "Thierry, Lord Thierry having fun? I can't imagine it."

James shrugged failing at holding back a smile himself.

They both rounded a corner, the hallways becoming more and more familiar as they made their way back to their room…. Room…. She giggled to herself; she now shared a room with Jamie, her best friend, her soulmate. The idea of it would have sent her mother and brother reeling. For brief moments like this she could pretend that she was considered still breaking the rules the golden boy rule to be more exact.

Things had gotten so—

A door flew open; one end slamming against the wall with a loud bang and someone with dark hair flew out of the room. "You are the most infuriating person!"

The scariest part was who ever this girl wasn't even yelling when she said it. It reminded Poppy of her mother…. way too much. Very few had the gift of inflicting as much fear into a person without raising their voice. The girl in front of them was one of the chosen to wield this scary power.

The mask of anger didn't let her focus on anything else; she wasn't aware of her surroundings or of the people that now stood in the hallway watching as the scene unfolded. What should have been a storming exit only ending up in a collision between her and James.

The girl flew into him only James didn't move, a stock built vampire against a small human wouldn't move. It didn't seem like he even registered what had happened until the girl and already collided with him and fell back giving a yelp of surprise.

"Ah jeez! I'm sorry, you alright?" Jamie bent, offering a hand out to her.

The shook her head, a blush of red crossing across her face, "No, it's my fault. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. Sorry about that." She climbed back up without taking James' hand and brushed herself off.

"Don't worry about it, just think of it as another way of introducing ourselves to each other. Should I start first?" Poppy asked.

"Wait! Come on, just listen to me for a moment would you?" The voice was too familiar, to loud, and definitely something that no one wanted to hear at the moment. "Please listen to me before you start making decisions on your—"

Ashe Redfern stopped dead in his tracks the moment his eyes fell onto the two people that he would have rather never seen again.

Well isn't this a wonderful welcome, Poppy thought. The next one though was directed at Jamie, and you better not start anything. You understand me? It looks like we kind of jumped into something here.

Mary-Lynnette

She saw Ash's face drain then, if it was even any more possible for a vampire to grow paler he had certainly found a way.

"Why now? Why right now did you two have to show up?"

The young man snorted, his mousy brown hair falling over into his eyes, "This isn't exactly the welcome that we were planning on having either."

It was strange to see Ash this way, looking so uncomfortable, she'd only seen him look this way once or twice before, that had been when they had first met. The way that the soulmate principal had actually started to change him, how the thought and acted.

He once looked at me like that…

"Shouldn't you treat family better?" Ash mumbled.

Then it was like the whole world changed. Something heavier, angrier; Ash had stepped on something and had gone too far.

"Look at the Pot calling the kettle black." The phrase itself wasn't anything threatening. But that tone, it was bordering and warning not to press to far into things that shouldn't be touched.

Even though she was mad at him and even though she knew by now who they were and the connection they had with Ash, she was afraid for him. Yes what Ash had done had been anything from right—wrong beyond simply stealing or petty. It was a threat against many things—But Ash wasn't that anymore. He was changing, whether he would admit it to himself or even her, he was still changing.

And she was afraid for him.

"Alright, enough with the drama. I swear you could make this into a vampire soap opera and it would be a killer! Now enough!" A pixie with fire copper hair smacked the stranger hard in the chest with her hand with a smile that played dangerously on her lips.

"Since no one else will start I guess I will," she offered her hand toward Mary-Lynnette, "I'm Poppy North and the brooding boy over there is James Rasmussen."

Mare took the girl's hand surprised at how strong she was for such a small person, "Nice to meet you. I'm—"

"Mary-Lynnette. I know, you're the one everybody around here has been most curious to meet! I mean your soulmates with Ash! NOT that it's a bad thing or anything, its just that if you knew him before, like Jamie and I did well then you, like everyone else would be really shocked at the change! Seriously—"

"Poppy please!" Ash pleaded, actually pleaded with her, "I'm begging you with as much kindness I can muster. Please shut up!"

The next sound that came out of Poppy's mouth reminded Mary-Lynnette of an elephant that was having a hard time blowing its horn. The pixie had to turn away in order to try and regain her composure. It wasn't working that entirely well for the poor girl though. But somehow managed to regain enough to face them again, a smile still peering out from her lips, "Imagine the great Ash Redfern begging for a favor."

The smile that the boy next to her placed on his face was anything but kind, "Yeah, imagine that." But when he turned toward her, the pixie named Poppy, that smile changed into something that was warm and kind. The brief moment that Mary-Lynnette had truly disliked him went away in that instant.

But still there was no reason that she shouldn't be wary of him. But at the same time could she blame him for the past about what Ash had done. This whole situation was beyond confusing.

I have to make this work somehow. Not only to make this work but to somehow defuse the whole situation that had began to grow and spread. How—

"Got you covered. Did you either of you guys eat anything yet?" Poppy quipped.

The stares of stones melted away into a bustle of confusion. But the girl took them all in stride and tugged at James' sleeve, forcing him too follow. "You guys I ordered pizza on the way back here and the guy is getting nervous standing at the front steps. We should probably get there before he decides to leave with our food!"

Mary-Lynnette looked up at Ash in surprise. Pizza…. "Do vampires eat Pizza?"

Ash shrugged, "Not particularly, but Poppy does. She tends to stick with human traditions more then anyone like her."

"You mean vampires?"

"Kind of, I mean turned vampires. Poppy had been human up until last year. James turned her."

Out of all the large rooms in the house they had picked one of the smaller ones, a small cozy little roomed filled with two couches and a small bookcase in the corner, the look was completed with a small fireplace that Poppy had insisted on starting.

The smoke was just starting to clear when they finally sat down to enjoy the cooled Pizza. James and Poppy each grabbed a slice as well as Mary-Lynnette. Ash was the only one that didn't and resolved to sit by the couch that Mary-Lynnette had claimed as her own, sprawling out, her legs lounging over the chair thankful that her toes didn't have to curl under themselves in the cushions. He leaned against close so that his scent had become slightly overpowering, a wonderful cedary scent filling around her.

The chats were small and quiet, the tension of only moments before rolling off in waves whenever those two would catch each others eyes by accident. But then again, the way that they would meet each others it never truly seemed like an accident more like they were thinking about one another at the exact moment before they feels eyes staring at them.

Mary-Lynnette liked Poppy even more as the night went on, each time a situation started to rise it seemed that she could miraculously defuse the situation before anything got too out of hand. I kind of wish that I had that sort of power, something that could stop all of the problems before they even surfaced.

Whether it was because of Poppy being so persistent or because James could no longer stand to be around Ash for too much longer they left for the night, Poppy saying that she would stop by sooner or later for some "Girl chat" as she liked to call it. But Mare thought that there was something more then just talking about boys and make-up on this list of things that they needed to talk about.

A few things that I wanted to talk to her about as well, she thought.

As soon as they left Ash let out a long breath like he had been holding it in the whole time that they had been here. "Finally I thought that they would never leave."

But even though they were gone there was still this tension about him, a feeling of unease about everything that had just happened. Mary-Lynnette had heard the story and things had just ended up more confusing then things had already started out in. Back when they had first met she had seen inside his mind, his heart and soul and found things that had truly bothered her. Things about his past that Ash was ashamed of now. She had realized that all those thoughts and emotions she never knew exactly what those horrible things were.

I'm afraid of my soulmate. The thoughts jumped out at her and a wave of guilt swept over her. She loved him, there were no doubts about that but could the love she felt overcome the fear that had settled inside of her?

While Mary-Lynnette sat brooding over her own thoughts Ash was having troubles of his own. More so for the fact that he could practically feel the emotions that were rolling off her, he could help wondering what was it that was bothering her so much. Had it been the fact that the people he had wronged in the past had literally shown up at the door only moments after he had told her the truth?

Or worse, was it because of him?