Adina Falling (Threads of Fate) Page 3

  “Hello.” I smiled into my phone, hoping to sound good-natured, like I was really excited to be on the receiving end of a sales call.

  “Hello, I’m calling for Adina.” A deep masculine voice with a hint of an English accent spoke.

  “This is. And you are?” My manners weren’t always top-notch. I was oftentimes faulted for being abrupt and unfiltered but to know me was to love me.

  “Xander Stark here. I was given your phone number by your mother. A very lovely woman, by the way.”

  I couldn’t help making a finger-in-mouth gagging gesture. Everyone loved my mother; she was the life of the party, even if there wasn’t even a party happening, “Yes, she is lovely when she isn’t your mother.” I agreed.

  Xander laughed, “Mothers, they are all the same. Everybody else seems to find the beauty in them except for their own children.”

  “Yes, you couldn’t be more correct. Especially when, the particular Mother we are discussing is constantly meddling.” I really didn’t feel like chatting about mothers at the moment, I had a deadline to meet, “So, how can I help you, Mr. Stark?”

  “Small talk isn’t your thing, is it? I think we’ll get along just fine then. You’re mother, and I’m terribly sorry to bring her up again, was insistent that I should call you. And based on her description of you, I agreed. Her stories of you were very charming.” His voice was so smooth and I loved accents although that was a slight detail that always seemed to get me into a large amount of trouble.

  “I can only imagine what sort of stories she regaled you with.” I responded dryly. My mother still bragged about me as though I were a baby hitting milestones ahead of the curve. I wasn’t positive she realized that I was officially a grown woman. Which is funny considering she was all gung-ho for me to get remarried. Then again, it seemed that many cultures that practiced arranged marriages all did so with the bride being a mere child.

  He laughed, probably to humor me, “I’m wondering if you would be available to meet me for dinner and, perhaps drinks. This Friday? Do you like sushi?”

  “I love sushi.” Sushi was my favorite food, following closely behind Type O. There is something so decadent about the universal blood type.

  “Wonderful. How about Ronin’s in Royal Oak? Shall I pick you up or meet you there?”

  I wasn’t the kind of girl that liked getting picked up on the first date, I always needed an escape plan. Just in case. “I’ll meet you there.”

  “Very good. Let’s say 7:30 then. I’ll look forward to meeting you then, Adina. Have a nice day.”

  He hung up without waiting for a response from me. It was strange having a taste of my own medicine. Now I knew how others felt, holding a phone, mouth ready to say goodbye and then...nothing. Note to self, say goodbye at the end of every phone call. Unless, of course, it happened to be my mother.

  My mother had raised me on her own after my dad left us when I was in 4th grade. We had plenty of money so at least there wasn’t the added stress of trying to make ends meet. My father had amassed a fortune throughout the century or so of his life. I was never told where he went or if he were even still alive. He left her with a hefty settlement and me; he left with a trust fund that I am due to receive, in full, once I decided to procreate. The pressure! In the meantime, I received a monthly allowance check along with a very nice royalty check from my books. Not to mention, the money I received from my divorce. I was doing just fine financially, another bullet-point on the pro side of my ‘why get married’ check list. Based on the direction my life had taken me, the only reason to take a mate was for sex. I didn’t need financial security that would come from a marriage; I was perfectly suited to take care of myself. I really wasn’t completely certain that I wanted to be with the same person for all eternity because that’s a very long time in vampire years.

  Barbara York was a good mom; she was always happily waiting for me when I came home from school. She helped with my homework and was readily available with a shoulder to lean or cry on.

  When night time came, however, my mother would switch gears and she became a party girl. Our home opened up to a rowdy bunch of characters. She wasn’t discriminating either. Vampires, shifters, werewolves, it was a regular Halloween parade on any given night.

  Which meant, I had been exposed to things at a young age that most parents tried to shield their children from. Orgies were a constant theme. I witnessed a lot of sexual activity in my mother’s large living room. People fucking in every corner of the house. They weren’t allowed upstairs, that was the only rule. It was my mother’s way of protecting me. But, I still saw everything. And by everything, I mean everything.

  I believe that those experiences are what led me to be an erotic writer. I saw enough stuff growing up to give me material for a million books. I even started sneaking in to join the parties by the time I had turned 18. I was a very horny teenager. If my mom ever found out, she never mentioned it to me. But trust me; growing up with constant, in-your-face sex can produce two different types of people...a slut or a nun. I became somewhat of a slut, although I’d like to think of it more as research.

  Despite what it may sound like, I had a fairly happy childhood. My dad had never been around much so when he left; there was no gaping hole that needed to be filled. My mother, stuck forever at the age of 32, the age she was when my father had turned her, did the best she could with the coping and parenting skills she had. I think she did a decent job raising me because I never turned into some sort of juvenile delinquent. I was always on the Honor Roll and I graduated from University of Michigan with a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing.

  I had a couple of step-fathers that tried to fill an unnecessary role. Her first husband, Frank, was a nice guy. He was sort of boring to look at and was even more boring to be around. Those five years of marriage took place when I was in Middle School. I refer to those as the Beige-era. Our whole house was redecorated in boring beige along with dull accent pieces in dull variations of beige. The parties stopped happening, too. Even though Frank and my mom met during one of the orgies and he knew what he was getting into, he put his foot down once the marriage contract was signed.

  Life had become far too ordinary for my mom so around the fourth year of their marriage, she began to rebel. So after a couple of heated arguments, Frank took his stuff and left. Shortly after that, my mom redecorated the house in a Moroccan theme, colors were back and so were the parties.

  When I was a Junior in High School, my mom remarried again. This time, she hooked up with a werewolf named...get this...Harry. No kidding. He was insistent I was to call him Harold and no matter how many times he reprimanded me or complained, I couldn’t bring myself to call him anything other than Harry. All my friends did, too. Anyway, their marriage was a disaster from the get-go. He was an animal. I thought he was hot though, I used to have fantasies about him. Until shortly after they had gotten married, he started with his late night, uninvited visits to my room. I’m a fighter; I will defend myself when necessary or not rendered incapable. Harry bears permanent scars where no hair will ever grow back. A reminder of what can happen when he tries to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with him.

  After I got sick of the continuing late night visits from Harry, I confronted my mom who then kicked him out the next morning. He disappeared, never to be seen again. I always had a suspicion that my mom called some people to take care of it. I never asked her, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the truth. Despite the fact that I hated him, it gave me an uneasy feeling to think that my mom could have had him killed. One thing was for sure, she always made sure I was safe and protected. I think, because she was kicking herself for what could have potentially happened to her only child, it made her feel better to just have him eliminated.

  Rules are very different for my kind. With humans, an investigation would have been made into the disappearance, arrests would have been made and jail sentences would have been issued. We have always lived around man-m
ade laws. While they still pertain to us when we are going around as humans, our kinds have their own ways. Because vampires are superior to other races, we are basically impervious to prosecution within our legal system. Any other race messes with a vampire, they are basically fucked. Thank god I’m a vampire.

  Her third and final husband, Arthur Long, came along (get it?) when I was in college. My mom had already settled down a bit, sex parties had lost their luster for her. She met him through an online dating service for vampires unoriginally called V-date, a glamoured site that when humans landed on the page, all they saw was a GoDaddy parking page. Anyway, I liked Arthur a lot and my mother seemed very content which is good for her. Despite the fact that she is forever stuck in the body of a thirty something, she’s an old woman now and it was time to start behaving appropriately. Arthur was the perfect match for her. He’s beautiful but then again, most vampires are. He’s nearing 200 years old but physically, he’s in his mid-forties. They look like a movie-star couple. It’s nice, I’m really happy for her.

  Now that she had found herself and had matured, she began busily trying to get me to lead a straight and boring life too. I’m not all that interested in doing that though. When I want boring, I go hang out with Morgan. She’s married to, of all creatures, a Fae. I haven’t a clue how she keeps herself from sucking him dry. Fae blood is like a drug for us vamps. It’s like crack. Once you start, you can’t stop. I try to steer clear of them because I just don’t know if I can trust myself around them. Except for Morgan’s husband Gal, short for a name that none of us can pronounce. Morgan is my best friend and that trumps the overwhelming lust I have for Fae blood.

  She just gave birth to their first kids, a set of twin girls named Ellie and Sari. They are gorgeous and when I hold them I have to hit snooze on my biological clock’s alarm. I love everything about Morgan’s babies, particularly the fact that I can hand them back to her and leave.

  Morgan is my glimpse into what a normal, adult life looks like. Sure, it looks nice and comfortable but I just don’t think I’m ready for it yet. I mean, what’s the hurry, I have eons ahead of me. Morgan and my mom both try to explain to me that I’m not getting any younger but the way I look at it, I’m not getting any older either.

  Needing to stop thinking and start working, I grabbed my coffee mug and raised it to my mouth. It was almost empty, similar to the screen glowing in front of me that displayed my work in progress. Which was not progressing at all.

  I decided to make myself another cup of coffee, have a little glass of a nice Type O and finally call Morgan. I needed dialog help and hopefully her brain hadn’t already digressed to Mommy brain which slightly resembled the content of those diapers she is constantly changing.

  Morgan couldn’t talk, she was understandably busy with her babies, I could hear their cooing and crying noises in the background. Because my blockage was overwhelming, I decided that I needed a pleasant little diversion; and not the same kind as I had the night before. Retail therapy was calling my name. After all, a new outfit was in order for my date on Friday. I might not be looking all that forward to the event but I adored having a seamless excuse to buy clothes.

  Since Morgan wasn’t available, I decided to phone my friend Lucy. We had met in college, had a brief affair and decided we were better suited as friends. Neither one of us had ever fooled around with women before but there had been such intense chemistry between us that sex became unavoidable. I’m not going to lie, I enjoyed being with a woman. I just happen to prefer men. I have been known, on very rare instances, to find myself wrapped around a woman though.

  Lucy and I had been an exceptionally experimental couple. We brought other people into bed with us, a place we would end up spending days at a time in. Sex with Lucy was amazing. I think it was because we both knew how to please ourselves and so we were able to use that knowledge to take care of each other. Explosive orgasms became a daily event. We would take each other down anywhere in the apartment, it didn’t matter.

  Emptying the dishwasher, folding laundry, brushing our teeth; everyday apartment life was foreplay in that little secret sexual world we had created. As far as the outside world knew, we were roommates. Only those that had the privilege to share our bed knew that it went a ways beyond the façade. Since she was also a vampire, we used glamour to erase our playmates memories, making them think we had studied or had gone out to dinner. They never remembered the fucking. Only we did and we preferred it that way. It was our protection.

  Sometimes, when we are both feeling lonely, we will hook up. For old time sake. Although, I honestly couldn’t remember the last time we had, our demanding lives had intervened. Yet, all these years later, sex with Lucy was still stupefying when we did get together. More importantly, our friendship had endured and it’s nice to know we can count on each other. Plus, we both love to shop.

  From memory, I dialed her cell and she picked up after the first ring.

  “Hey girl!” She sounded happy to hear from me, we hadn’t spoken in a couple months.

  “Hey babe! How’s everything?” The last time I had talked to her, she had just started a new job designing shoes. She was wickedly talented and always came up with the most fantastic ideas for footwear. I had one of her creations in my closet, I was afraid to wear them though; they were more like art work than dancing shoes.

  “Good, good. I’m in the middle of drawings for a big name who wants his runway girls feet decked out in my designs. This is huge for me. You? What are you working on?” She sounded a tiny bit distracted; I could hear her pencil moving furiously on paper. Another thing about vampires, our senses are more developed.

  “Same old over here. I’m stuck right now and I need to walk away. Interested in some shopping? I could use your help picking out something spectacular for a blind date I’m being forced into on Friday.” I picked at a hang nail and decide that a manicure should also be added onto my expanding to-do list.

  “Oh doll, I’d love to see you but today isn’t good. I’m in New York to finish up these sketches and get them in. Deadlines suck. Rain check? I’ll be back in town next week sometime.”

  “Of course. I miss you; let’s get together in a couple weeks?” I was disappointed but I knew all about deadlines. They did, indeed, suck.

  “Absolutely. We’ll celebrate!”

  We hung up after chatting a couple more minutes where we shared abbreviated versions of recent events. Hers were way more exciting than mine. She’d been to Europe and LA. Me, I’d been stuck in Michigan. When you’re a slave to the written word, and I mean that with the upmost respect, life has a tendency to pass by uneventfully.

  I decide to solo it to the mall. I just kept telling myself that I was perfectly capable of picking out an appropriate ensemble to meet this Xander Stark in. I knew I was making a quick judgment based on the sound of his voice but I was thinking I needed to ooze class and sophistication with undertones of sex. Hopefully Neiman’s would be able to supply me with my demand.

  I threw on a pair of Seven jeans, I liked how my butt looked in them. I paired it with a top that barely covered my navel. I brushed on a bit of make-up and tossed my hair into a high ponytail, I grabbed my purse and keys and headed out.

  After locking the deadbolt, I turned around and came face to face with someone I hadn’t seen in years. A face that I hadn’t missed in the least. It was Michael, my ex-husband. I had no idea why this man, with whom I had no contact with except for some threatening emails every now and again, was standing in front of me. Still looking quite threatening, in a very dangerously sexy way.

  “Hello Adina.” A forced smile exposed his white teeth. His fangs were bared, too, probably in hopes of intimidating me. It was working. Showing fangs usually only happened during lust or anger and I was hoping that I was not the cause of either one. He certainly didn’t look happy though. In fact, I’d venture a guess that it was the complete opposite.

  “Michael.” I hoped he couldn’t sense my nervousness. Al
though, I was sure he could. We were able to sense everything which was a blessing and a curse. The thing about Michael, though, was that despite how much I despised him, I was still wildly attracted to him. Not that I would ever do anything about it but facts were facts and physically, he was my type. Tall, dark, handsome and well endowed. I did mention earlier that I was a bit shallow, didn’t I?

  “I have come to discuss something with you. Something by the name of Xander Stark.” With a wave, my front door opened and he guided me back inside.

  Michael Diamante was one of the oldest, most powerful vampires in the world. He wasn’t at par with the Elders. If he had his way, he would kill them and take their place as our ruler. Thankfully, they were far more potent than he was.

  My mother had always warned me about picking men up at bars. She always said that you never really know what you’re getting and if they are picking you up at a bar, they are picking other women up on a different evening. Well, my mother was right. I should never have picked up this particular man at the bar. But, when we are young, we do stupid things. And sometimes, we have to pay the price.

  My price came in the form of an evil, sadistic man who had demonstrated such control over me that after a while, I didn’t even muster the strength to brush my own teeth. Yes, vampires brush their teeth or our breath would be just as nasty as humans.

  It had been my birthday; we’ll say it was my forever 21st, which was approximately the year I stopped aging so it made complete sense. A group of us had travelled to New York to celebrate. We went to an exclusive, vampire owned restaurant. It was a cool place; you could pick out a willing human, called a Vamp Tramp, to drink from in one of their private rooms. Then, when you were finished with the human, you could indulge in fabulous wine from their posh, private label list. They also boasted an incredible food menu, a live band and a fabulous dance floor. The weekends at the place were a regular who’s-who of affluent and influential Vamps.