A Taste Of A Vampire

She turned where she stood and felt her heart skip a few beats. A breeze had shifted a lock of his hair and it had fallen over his forehead, curving down to his dark brows. Her dark eyes fell from his rapturous gaze to his mouth, and she forced herself to look away for a moment before glancing back up at him.

“Thank you, that’s very kind.”

She felt spellbound once more, and from the deep recesses of her mind, she remembered that they were leaving the gardens. She focused on that thought and pulled the rest of her mind and all her heart to it as she attempted to maintain some semblance of casual control.

“Are you ready to go?” she asked, hoping that her nerves would settle the longer she was with him, but suspecting that they would not.

“Yes, I am. Shall we?” he asked as one side of his mouth turned up in a grin.

He held his arm out to her and she took it, feeling for the first time as if she was the noble lady that she had somehow been told that she had become.

 He walked with her through the manor, not looking at it hardly at all, as if there was no part of it that he was not already familiar with. They reached the front door and he held it open for her, escorting her out of it to the driveway.

Sitting on the smooth stone before the manor was a shiny black car such as she had never seen. It was definitely foreign, and if she guessed, she would assume it was Italian made. It was a blend of a luxury sedan and a high-speed sports car, and when Nicholas opened the door for her, she saw that the interior was just as exotic and pristine as the exterior. Her eyes were wide with amazement when he slid in and sat in the driver’s seat.

“This looks like something out of a James Bond movie,” she said quietly as she tried to discern all of the buttons and technology that she was looking at, wondering how much more there was that she couldn’t see.

He laughed and it brought to her mind images of moonlight on dark nights over silvery lakes and blackened forests. Deep. Velvet. Shadowed. Timeless. “It’s something like that. I had it made especially for me.”

She raised a brow at him as she gave him a sidelong glance. “I can believe that. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s incredible.”

Nicholas chuckled again and closed his hand over the gear shift, moving it subtly and directing the car out of her property. The vehicle drove silently; as silently as he moved, and she thought to herself as she gazed out of the window that if it were night time and the car was driving along a road without headlights, there would be no way to detect it until it was right upon a person.

They drove a short distance, and she was surprised at just how close his home really was to hers. He pulled off the main lane and as she looked around them at the scenery that passed by the windows, she realized that it had all changed subtly when they passed into his grounds.

The trees were taller and wider, blocking the view completely from the road or from any place where one might try to see the house from beyond the tree line surrounding it. They were very old trees, all of them reaching upward like spearheaded guardians, protecting all that was within their confines.

The bushes looked wild and untamed, and the difference in the style of them from all the bushes and greenery at Grayson Manor could not have been more distinct. It was as if she had entered another world entirely. She stared out of the window and the thought came to her that she had never before seen any of the plants or trees around her; not in any other place in the world.

“Your landscaping is so unusual. I’ve never seen anything like it… Where are all of these trees and flowers and bushes from?” she asked in a curious tone as she tried to see them each and every one more clearly as he pulled the car through them up to the house.

“They are from different places around the world, and they are all quite old. Many of them no longer exist except for this property. I like to keep precious things of great value near me and alive, if I’m able to,” he said as he turned the vehicle off, though there was no change in the sound of the car at all.

She frowned and looked back at him in confusion. “So… you’ve gathered all of these and brought them here? They look like they’ve been here for centuries,” she thought aloud.

He regarded her with an intrigued smile. “You have a good eye and a clever mind. My ancestors began the task of bringing these older growths in, and I’ve continued their work.”

Claire couldn’t hide her smile. It had been a long while since anyone had complimented her mind. He saw her reaction and smiled in return. When he helped her from the car, she looked up at the house and did her best not to be as outwardly stunned as she was inside.