FUNDAMENTALES
II. UNA TEORÍA DE LOS DERECHOS FUNDAMENTALES Y LAS TEORÍAS DE LOS DERECHOS FUNDAMENTALES
Allie lay nestled in Sebastian’s arms long after she woke. Loving the feel of him, she curled into him, reluctant to leave him and face the day.
Not after the incredible night she’d spent with him.
Opening her eyes, she lifted her head and smiled at the peaceful look on his face as he slept. She wondered if he dreamt, if he had nightmares of the day he died.
To think they’d all slowly burned to death while crowds of people cheered on cut through her heart and made her wish to God she could take the memory away. She wished she had the ability to let them relive their lives and prevent their deaths and damnation.
Since her arm was thrown around his chest, hugging him close to her, she felt his lack of heartbeat. Trailing her hand up his chest, she touched the scar over his heart. She wished she could give him back his soul and put life back into the heart Michael severed.
What he told her about Selena last night was awful. Not that the poor woman lost her mind, but that he felt responsible for it. What a burden he forced himself to bear all these years.
He of all people should know Fate was going to do her thing no matter what anyone did to stand in her way.
Unable to linger next to him any longer, Allie sat up, dizzy and weak from the loss of blood. Seeing the fire burning low in the hearth, she appreciated the small warmth it provided given how cold she still was from the inside out. Though it barely illuminated the room, it cast enough light for Allie to make her way around without slamming into every piece of furniture on her way to the bathroom.
She stood on shaky legs, making sure Sebastian was covered with
the heavy blankets. Gathering her clothes from the floor, she practically ran into the bathroom. The last thing she wanted was for Sebastian to wake and see her naked ass as she tiptoed around, scurrying for her clothes.
Oh yeah, that was a dignified sight.
She dared a glance in the mirror, amazed the only visual evidence of Sebastian’s bite was two bruises on her throat and her pasty complexion.
She also couldn’t believe how awful she looked. Pale as death and dark shadows under her eyes was not a good look for her. Not to mention her hair being in knots was going to take forever to brush out.
She wondered what sort of women he would have been attracted to in his own time. Did she measure up to the medieval beauties, or all the other women he’d come across over the centuries? She looked at her freckles, her pale skin, and her red hair. She was okay-looking. Nothing spectacular. Nothing impressive enough…
“Stop thinking so bloody loud. You’re fucking gorgeous and you know it, and even if you were a mutt, Seb would still adore you.”
Allie gasped, throwing a hand over her moth to keep in her squeal of embarrassment when she heard Constantine’s grouchy voice in her head.
“What are you doing listening to my thoughts?”
“As if I want to hear them. You sound like a goddamn girl.”
“I am a girl.”
“Bugger that, you don’t have to sound like one. Now stop screaming in my head so I can sleep.”
“Fine, I’ll stop thinking.”
Allie looked away from the mirror, her stomach twisting with dread as a mortifying thought crossed her mind. “Constantine?”
“What is it now?”
“Did you hear my thoughts last night?”
He hesitated. “No.”
Something told her not to believe him. “Are you sure?”
“No, I’m not sure whether or not I heard you in my head.”
“Constantine?”
He signed. “For the love of God, Red, what?”
“Does he love me?”
This time there was no hesitation. “That’s for him to say, not me. Now leave me alone so I can sleep.”
Allie turned back around and smiled. “Sleep good, C.”
“Stay out of trouble, Red.”
When Constantine was gone from her head, Allie glanced down at the sink and noticed a new toothbrush, towels, and soap laid out. Neatly folded on top of the pile was a small piece of paper.
Picking it up, Allie carefully unfolded it. There, in bold-as-you-please writing, were the words “For you. Hope you slept peacefully. S”. Re-folding it, she put the paper aside so it wouldn’t get wet when she washed.
Sebastian may look like a hit man for the vampire mafia, but he possessed a tender streak Allie knew not many people got the chance to see.
As much as she would love nothing better than to linger for the rest of the day and night with Sebastian, she had to get home to Lex. Quickly getting dressed, Allie made sure to tuck her note into her back pocket.
She called her house on her cell phone.
Lex picked up on the first ring.
“Where the hell are you?”
Allie cringed, having never heard Lex yell like that. “I’m at Randall Manor,” she whispered, so as not to disturb Sebastian.
“Randall Manor? Are you kidding me? I’ve been calling your damn cell every half hour and you’re at Randall Manor.”
Allie forgot she turned off the ringer last night. “I’m so sorry, Lex. The time got away from me last night and then I fell asleep. I just woke up now.”
“I can’t believe this.” She still sounded pissed but the edge was off her anger. “Sebastian better have been one heck of a lay to have worried me like you did. That’s all I’m saying.”
Allie grinned wickedly as a delicious pressure settled at the junction of her thighs thinking about Sebastian’s touch on her. “Oh, don’t worry about that, sis. He was. My toes are still curled.”
Allie actually heard the smile in Lex’s voice. “Then I guess I have to forgive you, don’t I? Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“You’re forgiven then. When are you coming home?”
Before finally deciding whether or not to accept the job at the B&B, Allie wanted to do a preliminary walkthrough with her hand-held equipment. She wasn’t going to commit to this job without some sort of evidence one way or the other that the Miller’s weren’t wasting her time.
Still, she owed it to herself to make at least one walkthrough. God forbid the place turned out to be haunted and Allie foolishly threw away the opportunity at an investigation. She’d never forgive herself for the wasted opportunity.
“In a little while. I have to get ready to go to the Millers. Are you coming with me?”
“Of course!” Lex squealed so loud Allie had to pull the cell away from her ear.
“Go get some rest. I’ll be home in a bit.”
“Okay. Love you, sis.”
“I love you too, Lex.”
Allie flipped her cell closed, replacing it in her pocket. She washed quickly, opting to take a shower once she got home. When she left the bathroom she saw he was awake, sitting up in bed, looking devastatingly gorgeous as usual.
“Thanks for leaving me…”
“Come here,” he interrupted
Smiling at the arrogant way he said that, Allie crawled back on the bed and snuggled next to him. She laid her head on his shoulder and draped an arm across his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as close as he could.
He may sound boorish, but he was incredibly gentle with her.
“Sorry I woke you.”
He made a gruff sleepy sound. “I don’t like you with clothes on.”
Allie smiled. “What a nice thing to say.” She kissed his pectoral. He squirmed. “I like you naked too.” She slipped her hand under the covers
and ran her hand over his six-pack stomach.
“If you keep doing that I’m not going to let you go home to Lex.”
“You heard?”
“Vampire, remember? Extraordinary hearing comes with the package.”
Was she to have no privacy, not even in the safety of her own mind?
“Did you hear everything?”
He gave her a small squeeze. “What? That you think I’m a good lay?
No, I didn’t hear that.”
Between Constantine and Sebastian’s teasing she wanted to die from embarrassment. If she had more blood in her body she would have blushed bright red. “It’s not polite to eavesdrop, you know.”
He raised a brow at her. “This from the woman who I caught snooping around my bedroom.”
Allie sat up and lifted her chin in feigned indignation. “I wasn’t snooping.”
His smile devastated her senses. “Yes you were.”
“Whatever. Let’s agree to disagree on that matter.”
“If that makes you happy.”
“Being with you makes me happy.”
He made a very Constantine-like grunt of affection and kissed the top of her head.
She ran a hand over his chest. He closed his drowsy eyes and lay still, savoring her touch. It made Allie even more reluctant to leave. “I have to go.”
Sebastian opened his eyes. “I know, sunshine.”
She dipped her head and gave him a quick kiss. “Go back to sleep, baby. I’ll see you later.”
“I’d better.”
His parting words, an unspoken admission that he’d miss her, filled her heart. For the first time in her life she was genuinely happy. She loved him, and though he hadn’t returned the words, he returned the sentiment.
He could keep the words for she knew she had his heart
* * *
Once Allie left, Sebastian folded his arms under his head and closed his eyes. He still felt her blood flowing through him. Such a large part of her stayed with him, yet it also made her absence that much more keen.
He didn’t like being trapped in here while she was out there unprotected. He worried about Allie, the concern cutting him to the core.
He’d never worried about anyone before, not even Selena. With her, he’d felt responsible, believing he was to blame for what she became.
Remembering Selena in her last year, he recalled how she’d lost her will to go on. She gave up on life, growing tired of living in the prison of her own mind. By the time death took her, her madness had eroded her beauty, leaving her a withered shell of a human being.
He knew Allie would never waste away like that. She possessed too much life and she loved it too much to ever have it wear her down.
But as much as life burned within her, one day Allie was going to be taken by her mortality. Sebastian would be forced to watch helplessly as time aged her, suffering through each night knowing it brought him one day closer to losing her. And once she was gone and her midnight sun extinguished, he would again be lost and alone in the dark.
“Dear God,” Sebastian begged, “please don’t ever take her from me.
Don’t let me suffer in the dark alone anymore.”
Sebastian fell back to sleep with Allie’s warmth running through him and her love chasing away his relentless nightmares.
* * *
Before heading home, Allie stopped off at the supermarket to shop for the things she would need to make dinner for Lex.
Feeling horrible for having worried her sister, Allie hoped to make it up to her by cooking her favorite food before going out to the B&B. Too bad Allie was a lousy cook. Before she was done, Allie fully expected a few burns and setting off the smoke alarm at least once before she gave
up and took Lex out for pizza.
As she came out of Peck’s Supermarket juggling bags of groceries while she fished the car keys out of her pocket, she smacked right into Jude.
Her recent ex-boyfriend had the nerve to glare down at her like she was nothing more than shit under his shoe.
“Watch where you’re going.”
“Hello to you too, Jude,” she shot back. “How’s Denise?”
Jude threw her a haughty look. “We’re both fine.”
Sure, after some penicillin, Allie thought, almost laughing out loud.
“Look at you,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You look horrible.
You and those friends of yours. I warned you they were no good. I see I was right.”
Allie might let Jude get away with insulting her. Hell, he made an art form out of it, but she’d be damned if he bad-mouthed the Templars.
She stepped in close to him, her voice a low warning. “Say one more nasty thing about my friends and I swear on God I’ll make sure you’ll be saying it to their faces.”
The threat held enough weight to have him paling to a shade even whiter than she was. “Women are dying, Allie, did you know that? How do you know those men you call friends aren’t responsible? For Christ’s sake, the black-haired one with all those tattoos looks like a frigging serial-killer!”
Jude was about to pop a vein. How in God’s name she tolerated this arrogant, judgmental, and very annoying man for ten months, she didn’t know. She chalked it up to one of those stupid things a person did that they spent their life pretending wasn’t their one regret.
“They have nothing to do with those murders. If you spew that bullshit to anyone, I’ll personally make sure you regret it.”
He rolled his eyes, completely ignoring her threat. “Go home and get some sleep. You look like shit,” he spat out nastily.
Allie shook her head, knowing it wasn’t worth the effort to argue with him. He was never going to change. Once an asshole always an asshole.
“It’s been a real pleasure. Let’s not do it again sometime, shall we?”
Having to suffer him was the equivalent of having her eyeballs plucked clean and stepped on.
She pushed past him and climbed into her truck, driving off without a further thought of her ex-boyfriend. And why would she, when she had Sebastian to think about?
* * *
Jude hurried into Peck’s and quickly picked up the refill of his and Denise’s penicillin prescription. Heading home, having turned onto Route Three Seventy-One, he realized a big black truck was following him.
Though he tried to outrun it, he couldn’t shake the guy on the narrow, winding road. Nor could he avoid it when the truck pulled beside him, heedless of any oncoming traffic. The driver, whom he couldn’t see behind the black tinted windows, slammed into the side of Jude’s Mercedes.
Careening to the right, Jude’s car rolled into a deep ditch. By the time the car stopped rolling he was upside down but thankfully unhurt.
He was still strapped into the driver’s seat, though. Fumbling with the seatbelt, he tried everything to free himself short of attempting to bite his way out. His head snapped to the left when the mangled door was pulled open.
“Please…”
Never one too proud to beg, Jude did exactly that when a hulking bruiser of a man stalked to the car brandishing a syringe. Though Jude tried to fight the man, Jude was no match for his strength and easily subdued.
The man said nothing as he jabbed a needle into Jude’s arm.
Gasping, Jude yanked away his arm but not before the man pushed down on the syringe’s stopper and injected him with the drug it held.
Whatever it was hit Jude instantly. His head spun and his stomach lurched until everything went black. He heard some rustling and felt himself being pulled from his wrecked car. If he wasn’t so relaxed, damned near unconscious, he might have tried to fight.
“We gotta hurry. If he wakes up and this guy isn’t there, he’s gonna kill us.”
Jude had no idea who “he” was or why these guys were bringing him to whoever it was they worked for. Nor did he have any more time to wonder about it. The drug he had been shot with was powerful stuff. He went out cold a second later.
When he opened his eyes some time later he was in a large room. The windows had cardboard over them. The only light came from a few candles on a cracked dish set on the floor. The room stank of stale air, sweat, blood, and vomit.
Sick to his stomach and disoriented, he started to move and realized he was bound on a mattress. The thing was filthy, stained, and stank.
Something moved in the corner of the room. His eyes tried to cut through the dim glow to see what it was. Barely focusing, he saw it was a young man.
“Who are you? Why am I here?”
Tall and lean, with long brown hair, the man moved stealthily out of the shadows. His eyes glowed silver. They were not human eyes.
“Shut up, Jude,” Though his tone was soft, it was thick with irritation.
Terror gripped Jude as he tried to break free of the binds. “How do you know who I am?”
The man approached the bed and Jude saw twin fangs peeking out from behind his parted lips. “I make it my business to know anyone who might aid me in my endeavor.”
Fangs. The man had fangs. The chilling realization that Allie was right had icy fingers of fear working their way up his spine. Everything Allie told him came back at him in a rush of words in his spinning mind.
Vampires were real, she affirmed over and over again. Each time she spewed that bullshit, Jude called her crazy, threatened to break things off with her if she didn’t stop with her foolishness.
But it hadn’t been bullshit. Vampires were real and now Jude was caught in some deadly game he wanted no part of.
Goddamn you, Allie…
“I’ll give you whatever you want. Just let me go.”
The man sat on the edge of the mattress. Jude tried to scurry away but the man stilled his frantic movements by placing a hand on his leg.
“You shouldn’t make such an offer, Jude.”
“Is it money? I’ll give you any amount you want.” There was a desperate edge to his voice as he pleaded with the creature.
Shaking his head, the man patted Jude’s leg. Jude wanted to yank his leg away but he was too afraid of making the vampire mad. “Now what would I want with money when I have plenty of my own?”
Shaking his head, the man patted Jude’s leg. Jude wanted to yank his leg away but he was too afraid of making the vampire mad. “Now what would I want with money when I have plenty of my own?”