Fated to My Forbidden Vampire novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: House Rules

In his Legare Street house Emeric lays out what the oath does and does not do, Clem refuses to own anyone, and at dawn she finds her foster sister Pippa waiting on her bed with a Court summons.

His house was on Legare Street, behind an iron gate and a wall of old jasmine.

He carried me up the front steps, and I let him, because my knees had stopped working in the car.

Inside it smelled of cedar and dust and cold stone.

He sat me in a kitchen chair under a hanging lamp and went to the far wall.

He stayed there with his back to me while he opened a first aid box.

"Your hand," he said. "Wash it at the sink. I'll hold the bandages from here."

"You'll hold them from over there?"

"I'm trying to be useful and not a danger at the same time."

I washed the cut under the tap.

The water ran pink and then clear, and he made a small hard sound at the sight of it.

He slid the box along the counter.

I bandaged my own palm with my teeth, like I'd done in county.

When I looked up, he had turned around.

His eyes were back to brown, and he looked younger and more tired than I'd thought in the ballroom.

"Start talking," I said. "You said I'm not yours. You said you're mine. Explain it like I'm stupid."

"You aren't stupid."

"Explain it anyway."

He pulled out the chair across from me and sat, and he kept the whole table between us.

"Six years ago, I was dying," he said. "Someone gave me blood and a sentence, and the sentence held."

"That is an oath, Miss Ravenel. It's older than the Court."

"How do you know my name?"

"Everyone in that room knows your name by now."

That was not an answer, and we both heard it.

"What does the oath do?" I said.

"Three things." He held up his fingers one at a time. "If you give me a direct order, I obey it. I can't refuse."

"Like in the ballroom."

"Yes. You said 'Do something.' Look at the guards."

I thought about the guard folded over the table.

"Two," he said. "If you ask me a direct question, I answer it truthfully. Three, I can't harm you. I'd break my own hand first."

"That's it?"

"That's all of it. It doesn't touch what I think, or what I remember, or what I feel. It doesn't make me want anything."

He said the last part so carefully that I understood it was the part that mattered most to him.

"So if I said jump off the roof..."

"I'd climb the stairs." His mouth twisted. "And hate every step."

I stood up so fast the chair tipped over.

"No," I said. "No, I'm not doing this. Nobody gets to be someone's dog because I screamed in a ballroom."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I don't care whose fault it is. I'm not giving you orders. Not now, not ever."

He didn't look relieved.

"It doesn't work that way," he said. "The next time you're frightened and shout, I'll obey anyway."

He leaned forward.

"Please, don't make it an order."

"Then what?"

"Promise it as a promise. That's yours to keep, and it costs me nothing."

I looked at him for a long second.

"I promise," I said. "I'll never use it unless it's to keep somebody alive."

"Thank you."

His voice cracked on the second word.

I righted my chair and sat back down.

There was one thing I needed to know, and I was afraid to ask.

I knew the second I asked it, he'd have to tell me the truth.

So I asked it.

"Do you want me here?"

He took a long time.

"I want you safe," he said.

I waited.

"That's not the same thing," I said.

"It is the only part I can say without lying to myself."

He wasn't lying.

I could tell, because he looked like it hurt.

And I could tell something else, which scared me more than the guards.

I'd just asked a man a question he couldn't dodge, and he'd picked the answer that cost him the most.

Nobody had ever done that for me.

"Why were you looking at me like that?" I said. "In the ballroom."

His hands tightened on the table.

"I'll answer it if you ask me again," he said. "I'd rather you didn't."

"Why?"

"Because I want one thing in my life that you didn't take out of me by asking."

Out the window the sky over the wall had gone from black to the grey of old dishwater.

"The sun," he said, and stood. "I have to go below. There's a car for you, and a room if you want it."

"I want my own bed."

"Then take the car. Please, take the car."

I took the car.

It left me at my building, a walk-up on Spring Street, and I climbed three flights with my bandaged hand on the rail.

My door was unlocked.

I never leave it unlocked.

I pushed it open and stood very still.

My sister sat on my bed with her shoes off and her red mouth shining.

She had a cream envelope in her hand, stamped with a wax seal, and she held it up.

"Hi, Clem," Pippa said. "You and I need to talk about your boyfriend."

"Get out."

"He isn't your man, honey."

She patted the quilt beside her.

"He's your leash. And on Thursday, the Court is going to cut it for you."

← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend