He laughs at my question. "Neither. After you eat we'll be on our way to meet the elders." He tells me.
"You aren't eating?"
"My hunger isn't for food yet babygirl. It might take a few more days for it to awaken inside of me."
I step away from him and he grabs my hand and laces our fingers together again as the others finally join us.
To my great displeasure Marcellus and Loretta did come too. We all walk inside together. We got a secluded table big enough to fit the eight of us.
Sense Connor was still a newborn baby he didn't need a seat. We took turns holding him. Especially so Collette and Adan could eat and be a part of our conversations too. Plus I wanted as much time with my baby nephew as I could get.
Harper was going to have her baby in a week or so. I was so excited for them. They were having a boy as well but couldn't agree on a name yet. Hopefully they figured it out by the time he's born.
Ezra and Esme had their babies the same night about 3 hours apart. Ezra had a baby girl. Her name is Esmeralda, she named her after her twin. Esme had a baby boy and named him Avian. Three minutes later she pushed out another boy. Shocked the hell out of everyone. No one knew she was having twins. She named her second baby boy Antoine.
Sariah had her son yesterday. His name is Hayden. She named him after her brother who died a couple years ago. Alina is due anyday now. She's also having a boy. Ezra is the only one who had a daughter.
The more I held Connor the more I wanted a baby of my own. Which I now knew was possible thanks to Ash.
I had so much I wanted to talk to Ash about. I was looking forward to getting to know him better. Both mentally and physically.
I was staring down at Connor lost in my thoughts. I look up to catch Ash staring at me. I give him a shy smile. He was staring at me with an expression I couldn't quite decipher.
"What?" I ask him when he just continues to stare at me without saying anything.
"Nothing." He says softly shaking his head. I lift my eyebrow in question. His face said it was definitely something. I didn't know him well enough yet to push him to talk to me about it.
I stand up and walk over to Collette. "I guess you can have your son back now." She laughs at me as she takes him back.
"Sorry to interrupt. I'm Landon. Your waitress Lisa had to leave so I'll be taking over for her." The waiter says from behind me.
I turn to look at him and got uncomfortable with how close he was.
"Is there anything I can get for you?" He asks me. I didn't miss the double meaning. Neither did anyone else. I feel Ash come up to the side of me. I lean into him as he wraps an arm possessively around my shoulders.
"She's all set bro. If you could get us the bill we'd appreciate it." There was no anger in his eyes. No jealousy or anything aggressive. I smile softly up at him. He glances down at me and returns my smile.
I've never dealt with a guy like him before. Every guy I've dated, even Marcellus got angry and aggressive when another male hit on me. Ash is possessive but not aggressive about it. His confidence about himself was sexy as fuck.
"Ready to go?" I ask Ash. He nods his head yes.
Even though he asked for the bill he doesn't wait for it. Just throws a few hundreds on the table. Grabbing my hand he starts to lead me towards the exit.
"Wait! My takeout food." I tell him. I almost forgot the food I had ordered to take to go. He redirects us to the male waiter who took over for our original waitress. Intercepting him on his way back to the table.
"I believe that's mine." I smile politely while I point to the takeout container he's holding. Returning my smile he hands it over.
"Enjoy the rest of your night." He tells us politely. He continues on his way to the table.
Ash leads us outside to his bike. "We'll head back to Marc's house and pack up some clothes for you. Then we can go to the private airport and get out of here. Sound good?" He hands me my helmet.
"We don't need to go back to Marc's house. I don't have any clothes there to pack up. Where are we flying to anyways?"
"Wait. You don't have any clothes?" He asks me like he doesn't really believe me. I shake my head no.
"I did. They were at the apartment that the company I was working for set up for me. Collette told me since I had gone missing for so long, they assumed I wasn't coming back and got rid of all my stuff."
My heart hurt a little. There were things that meant a lot to me that were now gone forever.
"Why didn't they give your stuff to your family?"
"I hadn't been working there long. They didn't know if I had family or how to even find them I guess." I say with a shrug. If they had tried hard enough they would of found my sister at least. I think they just didn't care to try hard enough.
"When we get there we can go clothes shopping, okay?" My heart warmed at his words.
"Sounds good to me." I give him a huge smile. I could definitely use a shopping spree.
He climbs on his bike but before I can climb on after him my sister and Harper coming running out of the restaurant.
"Were you seriously going to leave without saying goodbye to us?" I immediately feel guilty at their hurt expressions.
"I'm so sorry!" I envelop them both in a tight huge. "I'll miss you both so much. But it's not like you're never going to see me again." I chuckle.
"Promise to call and text me as much as possible." My sister pleads.
"Of course! I love you guys."
"I love you, too." The say at the same time.
I turn to climb onto Ash's bike and wrap my arms tightly around him again. He starts it up and takes off.
It didn't take us long to get to the private airport. I wasn't surprised it was run by werewolves either. They approached us hesitantly. Though they talked to Ash with the utmost respect.
We board the jet. I've never been on one before and was kinda nervous about it. I sit down in one of the seats and Ash sits down next to me. He gives me an amused smile. "Never flown before?"
"Once. But it wasn't in a jet."
"No worries babygirl. We'll be completely safe, I promise."
I just nod my head at him. I lean my head back and close my eyes. Trying to focus on keeping my breathing steady. I jump a little when I feel Ash touch my hand. He chuckles as he puts his seatbelt on. He grabs my hand again and laces our fingers together.
"Please buckle up. We'll be heading off soon." The flight attendant tells us. I open my eyes to see her pass a look at Ash. He ignores her though as if she doesn't even exist. I see disbelief and temper fill her eyes.
Just as she's about to say something Marcellus and Loretta board the plane. "What are you guys doing here?"
"We're going to visit an old friend of mine. Sense it's in the same city I figured we'd just catch a flight with you." Marcellus says causally as he sits directly across from me. Loretta buckles herself up in the seat next to him. She gives me a hesitant smile. I ignore her.
"There's like 10 other seats on this plane. Why do you have to sit there?" I couldn't hide the annoyance from my voice. I wasn't really sure if there were 10 seats but still I didn't want to have to stare at them the whole damn flight.
"I figured we could all get to know each other better, si?"
"Not interested."
I lean my head against my seat again and close my eyes. My heart started to pick up speed as we started to take off.
Ash gently squeezes my hand. "Just breath baby. It's going to be okay. I'm right here with you." He whispers in my ear.
I break out in goosebumps. Solely focused on his voice and presence. It really helped to keep me calm. My heart rate slowed back down to an easy, steady pace. As soon as we were in the air the flight attendant came back to us and asked if we needed anything.
"Could I have a water please?" I asked when everyone else order alcohol. I wasn't big on drinking.
"Of course. No problem." She gives Ash a flirty smile before she leaves. I look at him and raise my eyebrow.
"Oh goddess. You fucked her didn't you?" That's what her disbelief and temper had been about.
His face goes a little red. "In my defense I didn't know you were my bride baby. It's not going to happen again. I promise."
"What's not going to happen again? You fucking her or me meeting another one?"
"Me fucking her or any other female baby. I won't lie it's quite possible you'll end up meeting more. I was a bit of a lady's man." He gives me a bashful smile as he says that last part.
I couldn't help it I laugh at him. So long as he belong to me and only me now I didn't really care who or even how many other women he's slept with. My heart does give a little pang of doubt though. Would he turn out to be like Marcellus?
"So tell me about the elders. Who are they? What exactly is it they want from me?"
"There's 6 of them. All males obviously. They're ancient. They claim to be the very first vampires to walk the earth. They want to understand how you were turned when a female vampire hasn't been able to be made in a millennium now."
"So they're going to study me? Like a science experiment?"
"What? No. Even if they tried I would never let it happen." He reassures me. I had my doubts though. Would he be able to protect me from them?
We can protect our self. A voice whispers inside my head. Was that the beast inside of me? I knew werewolves can talk to their wolves because Collette told me but I didn't know vampires could do the same.
"Don't forget to tell her how powerful and ruthless they are. Not to mention relentless. Vampires avoid their attention for a reason." Marcellus says glaring at Ash.
"Even so I wouldn't let anything bad happen to her." Ash glares at him. Time to change the subject. I knew Ash wouldn't allow anything to happen to me so I wasn't all that worried.
"As vampires Marcellus said we have beasts inside us. What exactly does that mean?"
"Do you understand the werewolves? How they have a wolf inside of them that they share a body with but don't share the same soul?"
"Yes."
"It's kind of like that but different. Our beast is like the resemblance of a demon. Some believe it is a demon. Well their souls are now attached to ours. For example when something causes our souls to move on like losing our brides, it leaves behind the demon which is why that vampire is nothing but destruction and mayhem."
"It makes a lot of sense when you put it like that. Demon does sound more fitting then a beast."
"Ahh. But a demon is a form of a beast, is it not?" Marcellus cuts in.
"I guess so." I grudgingly agree.
"So do you live there? What is it you do for them exactly?"
"I'm one of their assassins." When he says it he's not looking at me. Was he worried what I thought about that? That it would make him a killer in my eyes? He didn't have to worry. I didn't see a reckless killer next to me. He was more of a protector than anything else. I know he is.
"Okay. Tell me about it." When he looks at me in disbelief and like I was a little crazy I laughed. "Obviously I don't mean the killings. I mean how did you become one?"
He glances at Marc and Loretta. Clearly contemplating whether to talk about it in front of them. I didn't consider something's would be secret and not meant for everyone else to know.
"I didn't become one right away. I never even heard of the elders until I was roughly 300 years old. They weren't well known back then.
But I'd finally come across them when I took a trip to their city. I started studying and training with them. There was an attack one night and after we defeated the enemy I was offered the position to become another one of their assassins. They already had two." He pauses and finally looks at me. Capturing my full attention once again.
"I hadn't found my bride. It's not unusual for a vampire not to find her. Some are even given multiple ones but never at the same time. I had lost hope sense I didn't find her, I never would. It was a bit depressing thinking of spending an eternity by myself. I have plenty of friends. Even a real family member still alive. It wasn't the same though, you know? So I took the position." He pauses as he stares out the window again.
"I discovered I was really good at it and worked hard to become their top assassin. Usually they don't send me out for 'errands' but this was a special case." He says with a tender smile finally looking at me again. Being an assassin must really put a toll on ones soul.
"They only have three assassins?"
"No. Now they have four total. They're looking to train even more but they're having a hard time finding the right men for it."
"If I was interested could I become an assassin?" I ask as I consider it.
As a human I never would of been able to handle it. I'm not sure I could even now. I've never killed anyone before. But if it was to protect someone, especially someone I cared about I definitely could. Without hesitation.
"Absolutely not." Marcellus growls out but I ignore him. I'm still focused on Ash. He looks like he's actually considering it. It felt nice that he is taking me serious and giving it real thought.
"If it's something you're really interested in then yes, I don't see why not. It takes a lot of training and you have to be absolutely certain." Ash answers me, ignoring Marcellus as well.
"How would you feel if I became one?" The smile he gives me melts me and sets me on fire at the same time.
"I'll answer that when we're alone and it's just you and I, deal?"
"Deal." I seal the deal with a soft kiss against his lips.
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