CPOV
Having landed gently on the fire escape outside of her bedroom window, my body had changed from bird to man. I had watched Ana move from room to room, staying out of sight in the shadows, listening out for all that was around. She was sleeping now, dreaming of what I did not know.
This is not the first time I had been outside of this window. I had watched her each night since my return from my fathers, watching over her as she walked to and from the hotel too. Despite walking home in the dark, I do not detect fear from her to be alone at night. She seemed to enjoy it, taking in the fresh air after being inside for so long. I had wondered as I moved from building to building if she knew I was there as her breathing and heart rate were calm, well except for this evening.
I had upset her again and that was never my intention. She was distressed because of Susannah and I felt a need to be close to her. When I first realised that I could not hear Ana's thoughts, I had convinced myself that was what propelled me towards her, the need to find out just who she was. Watching her movements closely, out of her sight, her thoughts became less and less important, replaced by the need to know her.
From watching her bite her lip when she concentrated on something hard, to seeing how unafraid she was around the guests. She had picked up on the fact that something was off, something was different with those that surrounded her but none scared her. She treated everyone the same, gave everyone the same beautiful smile, one I would love to see given to me.
I had counted every freckle on her perfect face while I had been watching, each one adding to the beauty that was just Ana.
Feeling the pull to her again now, the pull I had felt from no other, I slowly opened her bedroom window before stepping quietly inside. I looked over her sleeping form, her body shaking for a moment at the stronger breeze before she settled back to sleep as I closed the window to what it had been before.
I had been careful at the hotel, shutting down all my senses when I was so close to her, knowing how dangerous that had been for us both. Here in her room though, her scent could have easily overpowered me, and it would have if her heartbeat hadn't stopped me.
Hearing her heart beating loudly in my ears, it was like a melody that had imprinted on my mind, repeating over and over again. It indicated life, a life that was so fragile especially so close to someone like me. A life that needed to continue also and keeping that thought in mind, I opened my senses letting her scent wash over me.
I took steadying breaths, breaths I did not need but at that moment, I felt it ground me. The strongest thing I could smell was her but I could also smell the roses Ana had asked me about which I knew from watching her moving around were in a vase on the kitchen counter. Who had sent them to her and why white roses, why them of all the flowers in the world. I would look closely at them again but at the moment, my focus was her. When I finally felt in control, I moved from my spot, stepping closer.
Ana was lying on her back, her long mahogany hair, covering her pillow. Gently as if touching the most delicate of creatures, I moved a stray hair from her cheek seeing the earlier tear stains now gone. If she was to awaken now despite how fast I could move, I was sure she would see me as I was rooted to the spot.
She was beautiful, so so beautiful and as she mumbled in her sleep a word that sounded like my name, once again I felt drawn to her, felt a need to be by her side.
"Christian" she whispered more clearly now before turning onto her side, facing me.
I watched as her fingers moved over the scratch on her wrist, rubbing, soothing, maybe pain away. Did it cause her pain and why was it still there, that is what I wanted to know.
For the few times a donor has been used by me, all, besides Ana had not had a mark on them the next day as it had faded quickly. That is what had angered me so much about Susannah's words because she made out what had happened in the private club to be so much more than what it was.
I had been to visit my father that day, a day of sorrow, one of remembrance as we celebrated my mother's life. Upon arriving back at the hotel just before dawn, I had left it too long since my last feed and as she was there, she was used. There was no enjoyment gained, not like when I ended a life and if I'm honest, her blood tasted dirty to me. Seconds was all it was before I sealed her wound and pushed her away, leaving her to others who were eager to use the donor themselves. I had gone on to kill that night, kill a woman who was beating her screaming children. That I did take pleasure and enjoyment from because she deserved it, like so many others.
"Why" I whispered into the dark, looking back at her wrist that Ana was unknowingly rubbing in her sleep. Why, also, out of all those that I had drunk from over the years had her words stopped me from taking my fill. Ana said she was nothing, she will never be that.
There is another theory that sprang to my mind, one I pushed away as impossible as she was not an immortal like me. Neither was your mother a vampire the thought rang loudly through my mind. She was still my father's mate.
"She still had an immortals powers," I said absent-mindedly, not realising I had spoken aloud until I heard Ana's murmured words before she was once again lay on her back.
Whichever way she lay, the scratch on her wrist was still shining like a beacon in the moonlight showing me where I had been. Was I the only one to see it like that, see it as more than the scratch that it was. To my kind for it to still be there means I had marked her, marked her as mine and at the moment, I'm unsure if that is a bad thing or good.
…
I don't know how long I had stood there watching over her as she slept, counting each breath she took as the moon slowly crossed the sky. In a few hours, she would be awake, a new day of watching her would begin, as unbeknownst to Ana, I would be by her side.
I had to will myself to move my body, my eyes off her sleeping form even if that was only to take in the room around me.
A bathroom door lay open behind me, the smell of damp towels on the floor, the remnants of her shower last night. There was also a blouse by the hamper, one I had heard fall and then her grumble before she had stepped into the shower.
I picked that up, leaving the towels as I brought it to my nose, inhaling her scent, my body shuddering with the delicious smell.
Wanting to take something of hers with me when I left, I put the blouse inside my jacket, a memento of this night. I had pushed the boundaries this evening, pushed the beast inside me to its limits just so I could spend these precious hours with her. Now it needed to feed but I would not feed here.
Silently I walked towards the window, opening it so I could slip outside. Taking a final look back towards Ana, my eyes caught something that was seated on the dresser beside her bed. I had paid no attention to it before but looking at the photograph in the frame now, my steps faltered, all movement grinding to a halt except my head, my eyes.
The photograph held two people, one a woman, the other a small child, both I had seen before. Seen on a rainy hillside long ago, where the woman's last breath was spent asking for me to save her little girl.
Gliding towards the dresser as if I was floating on air, I picked the photo up, before looking at the woman who lay in the bed.
Her scent had overpowered me the first time I had seen her in the hotel but it was not her scent that had pulled me in back then on that rainy day. No that was weak at the time, nothing like it is now.
It was her then, her cry and this overpowering need to protect her, that had stopped me walking away from that car. Now, on this day, that feeling was growing by the second but did I need to protect her from me.
I had drunk from her for my own stupid reasons when in reality she had control from the start. Two words from her to make me stop, two words whereas nothing would've gotten me to stop before especially with blood as sweet as hers.
Her blood, the smell of it rang through my head then, as was the need to leave this room. In a flash of movement, I was out of the window, closing it behind me as I heard the photograph that I had been holding clatter to the floor.
I heard her startled awakening, Ana calling out for who was there. She would think she had knocked it with her hand, I hope, but I have no way of knowing because I could not hear her.
I flew back to Grey House, landing on the balcony outside of my office. As claws became feet, my footsteps echoed off the marble floor as I made my way inside. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I called Ros as I started to pace.
"Chris..."
"My office, Grey House now" I snarled before ending the call.
I tried to calm myself but nothing was working, not even the roses that sat on my desk. The enormity of the situation was washing over me and just like the night I had taken Ana to my room, I felt out of control.
Just thinking of that night and what I had done to the one person I have vowed to protect filled me with revulsion, more than I had ever felt before. As the door opened and I spun around to see Ros enter, my words, my anger broke free.
"GET RID OF HER," I shouted, punching my desk and leaving a large hold in the middle of it. "Fire Anastasia now" I spat, not wanting her anywhere near the hotel or any other place where our kind was, even here.
She was working there, in the lion's den and she was in danger with every step she took.
"Anastasia," Ros said, confusion filling her face for a moment. "Ana, you mean Ana."
"Her name is Anastasia," I said, falling back in my seat as if all the energy had been drained from me.
"What has she done," Ros asked, worry filling her voice.
"Nothing" I admitted, except breathe, except be her.
"I am confused" Ros stated. "She hasn't done anything wrong but you want me to fire her or when you said get rid, did you mean in another way."
I was on my feet then, my desk hitting the wall, soon resembling splinters before I flew at Ros, pushing her against the balcony window which cracked under the pressure. I think for the first time, Ros was afraid of me. When Riley entered seconds later, his look of worry filling my mind also, I stepped back before apologising to my friend.
"It's alright," Ros said.
"No, it is not…. it's her" I admitted quietly to my friends as I made my way to the couch, taking a seat.
"Who, …. oh," Riley said, taking a seat too.
"Ana is the baby I saved all those years ago. I always wondered what had happened to her, where she would be now. I never expected for her to be here, in that place, in the path of danger."
"Christian wherever she is in the world, she's in danger," Ros told me, pulling my chair closer so she could sit in front of us.
"Ros," I replied angrily, her words not helping me to calm.
"No, hear me out. Ana could have died that day but she didn't because you were there. She could have been hit by a bus, she could have died of an illness at any point in her life but she didn't, she's alive and she's here. I have spoken to Ana a lot since she has worked at the hotel, heard about the bond she has with her father, how she misses her mother too. She told me she died in an accident, she didn't go into detail only that night she was saved by an angel. Susannah scoffed at her words until I shut her up but then Susannah is jealous of everyone. Do you know how Ana came to work at the hotel."
"No" I admitted.
"Neither do I," she told me. "I found Ana outside of the hotel, trying to find the entrance and was in a bit of a panic at the time. I went out to see her as I didn't want her drawing attention to the place. She told me she had an interview there, showed me the flyer she had received about the job, one we had never even advertised for. Something brought her there that day, something brought her to you and I know you think she is in danger there but I think that's the opposite because while she is there in that atmosphere, despite what goes on in the upper rooms, she's safe because she's closer to you."
"Safe, I hardly make her feel safe," I said, angrily with the truth.
"You might not think that because of who and what you are but I want to ask you something, did you see what Ana brought to work with her today."
"No" I admitted.
"A rose, a white one."
"She asked me if I had given her the roses, I know nothing about them."
"I think you do," Ros replied.
"Ros, the only white roses I have.."
"Are sat on your desk" she spoke nodding to the vase. "Yes, they are there but how did they get there though," she asked me.
"Andrea has them delivered, both here and at the apartment, a fresh vase full every couple of days."
"A vase full now, but, do you ever count them."
"Ros, why the questions," I asked her, fed up with answering them now.
"I only ask that because I think the number is significant, also significant is the first time you started to receive them."
"It's a long time ago."
"Yes, over twenty years ago if my memory serves me correctly. Around the same time you saved a little girl on the side of the road, a bouquet of roses was delivered to reception, here at Grey House. I know the significance of the flowers with your mother Christian, that is why when Andrea brought them into your office, you did not toss them away. I know how such a simple thing to some means so much to you. Those simple flowers are now being given to one that means so much also and despite never believing in magic or witchcraft before I met you, I think your mother has something to do with the flowers."
"How, if my mother was going to send me something, I would rather she send herself back."
"We all know that once you have passed over there is no way back, even for us" Riley added. "Maybe she sent someone else, someone who is able to offer you the calm and peace just like she did."
"There is a problem with that. I haven't felt the same peace when I have touched Ana as I did when she was a child."
"You have" Ros stated. "Being that close to someone and not having to hear every single thought that goes through their head, is another kind of peace. It may not have been what you remember from when you brought her from the car, but you cannot deny that she offered you the peace to focus on her and nothing else."
"Yes, I focused on her blood so much that I nearly killed her" I stated, getting up from the couch so I could start my pacing again.
"Christian, no matter what Ros or I say, you will focus on the negative because you think that as vampires, that is the way we are supposed to be. Don't you think I was the same when I met Hannah, she was a human too remember until I claimed her as my own. Let down the walls, you already did it once twenty years ago, she's here now, let them down again and then maybe she will let hers down too. Only then I believe will you find the peace and calm you're searching for."
"You really think that my mother is the one sending her roses," I asked, admitting for the first time that with the roses, ones that were special to me she was now finding a way to give to my girl.
My girl, just that thought alone made me want to go back to Ana's apartment and stand sentry forevermore.
"I think it may have been both of your mothers as from what Ana has told me, white roses were a favourite of her mother's too."
I smiled for the first time today, for the first time in a long time I think as I thought of my mother helping me even though I can not see her here. If I was human, I think I would believe I had an admirer or something more sinister as there would be no other option to me. As a vampire, a half-witch, wizard warlock, an immortal, whatever you want to call me, I learned long ago that anything can happen and as I looked towards the over-flowing vase, just the thought of my mother being close brought a sense of calm over me.
I stood, looking out of the window for the rest of the night, knowing my companions would have to leave soon as it was not safe for them when it was light. Before they left though, there was something I needed to ask Ros.
"What did you mean, when you asked if I counted them."
"Just that, count them now and then I will give you my reason for asking."
I got up, walking over to the vase that filled the counter, identical to the one that filled my desk at home. Counting each of the perfectly open roses, I turned back to Ros with my answer.
"Thirty-three" I stated which earned a smile.
"Yes, and how many were there the first time they appeared on your desk."
"Thirteen" I admitted. I remember asking Andrea where they had come from and thought it strange there were thirteen instead of twelve.
"Ana is twenty-one, she will be twenty-two in a few months time. Twenty-one plus the dozen makes that thirty-three. The first time you received them, I believe she was one. Over the years I have noticed the number increase, despite Andrea only ever ordering a dozen. One rose extra for each year of age of your mate."
Thank you for reading.
Until next time, take care.
Caroline.