Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Ursula fidgeted as she nervously watched the escalator that descended from the arrival level to the baggage claim area at San Francisco International Airport where she and Oliver were waiting. She turned to him.
“You know what to tell them, right?” she asked.
Oliver clasped her hand then led it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss on her knuckles. “Don’t look so anxious! Your parents will wonder whether something is wrong.”
She sighed. “Well, that’s because something is wrong. I’ve been living in sin with you, and if they ever find out?—”
“What are they gonna do? Force me to marry you?” He chuckled. “Guess what? That’s what we’re gonna do anyway.”
“Still, there’s no need to upset them.”
“Upset them? I thought they liked me.”
“They do,” she hastened to assure him. “Though I’m sure they would have preferred if I married a nice Chinese boy instead.”
Oliver grimaced. “Hey, two out of three ain’t bad.”
“Two out of what three?” she asked.
He lifted his fingers and started counting. “Good looking and great in bed.” He shrugged.
Ursula shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, about the latter. I’m sure my parents wouldn’t appreciate the fact that I shacked up with you for all these months while they thought I was living at the dorms at UC Berkeley.”
“Shacking up with me? I’d hardly call it that.” He gave her a soft smile, his eyes dropping to her lips and his head inching closer. “Actually, I preferred it when you called it ‘living in sin.’ It’s got a much nicer ring to it.”
Ursula nudged him in the ribs. “You’re terrible. I wish you’d take this seriously.”
“You mean the ‘living in sin’ part? I take it very seriously. And I thought you liked it. I did. Immensely.”
She felt her entire body flush with heat. He could do that to her with the way he gazed into her eyes, his mouth parting, and his fangs starting to elongate as a sign of his desire for her.
“Oliver, your fangs,” she whispered under her breath.
He closed his mouth instantly and swallowed. “See what you do to me. You start talking about sin, and I turn all primal.”
She couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe then it’s a good thing we’re getting married. At least then it won’t be considered a sin anymore.”
Oliver bent to her, placing a soft kiss near her ear. “I don’t care what it’s called. It won’t change the way I feel about you. Nor the fact that the next week will be pure torture for me.”
She lifted her eyes to meet his look. “It’s the only way we can hide from my parents what’s been going on the last few months.”
He let out a resigned sigh.
“Let’s go over the story again, just so we don’t trip ourselves up,” she suggested and cast another look up the escalator as more people started to descend.
“Okay,” Oliver agreed. “You’ve been living at the dorms, but in order to prepare for the wedding, you moved into the guestroom in my parents’ house today, and your parents will be staying in my room, while I move in with Samson until the wedding.” He shoved a hand through his unruly dark hair. “I hope I can remember to call Quinn Dad. At least Rose I can still call Rose.”
“Why?”
“Well, she’s not my mother. I’m only related to Quinn as my sire. So, we should tell your parents that Rose is my stepmother. That way, I won’t trip myself up when I address her as Rose.”
Panic gripped Ursula. Last-minute changes to an established plan always spelled disaster. “Did you talk to Quinn and Rose about that already?”
Oliver squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I discussed it with them and also with Blake.”
Relieved, Ursula let out a breath. “Okay. And Blake knows what to say and do?”
Blake, who was human and Rose and Quinn’s fourth great-grandson, could be a goofball, but she hoped that he would stick to the plan they’d put together and help them fool her parents that the Ralston-Haverford-Bond family—Quinn Ralston, Rose Haverford, Blake Bond, and Oliver, who had taken Quinn’s last name after his turning—was a typical American family and didn’t consist of three vampires and a human.
“Blake will be on his best behavior. I promise you that.”
Ursula rolled her eyes. “Right.”
“I’ll keep him in line. He’s still scared shitless that I’ll bite him again. So, don’t worry about him.”
She smiled at him softly. “But that’s a bluff. I know you won’t bite him. You don’t even like his blood.”
Oliver pulled her closer, turning her into his body. “That’s because you spoiled me with yours. Everything else tastes like battery acid to me.” He inhaled deeply. “Oh God, I can smell your blood now.”
Ursula shivered as he placed his lips on her neck and kissed her gently. “You’ve gotta stop. People are looking at us.”
“You’re killing me, baby. I hope you know what you’re asking of me to stay out of your bed for an entire week.” He lifted his head, and their gazes locked. The rim of his irises shimmered golden, a sign that his vampire side was emerging.
She caressed his cheek. “I know, my love. I’ll make it up to you later.”
“How?” he asked, his voice a husky murmur.
She chuckled quietly. “Since when don’t you have any imagination?” She let her hand slide to his neck and scratched her fingernails against it, feeling how his skin turned to gooseflesh underneath her touch.
Oliver groaned. “I can’t wait. After this evening, I’ve gotten the taste for a lot more.” His eyes seemed to penetrate her. “To suckle from your breast was?—”
“Oh, no!” she interrupted him in panic. She’d just remembered something. “My bra!”
He looked at her, startled. “What’s with your bra?”
She grabbed his arm. “It’s still in your bedroom! I didn’t pick it up. Where did it go? Did you pick it up when we moved the boxes with my stuff to the guestroom?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I didn’t notice it anywhere.”
Ursula’s pulse raced. “Oh God, my mother is gonna find it and then she’ll know.”
“Is it really gonna be such a problem?” he asked softly.
“Yes!”
Oliver sighed and pulled his cell from his pocket. “Fine. I’ll take care of it.”
“How?”
He unlocked his cell and started typing. “I’ll text Blake to look for it.”
“Blake?” Embarrassment swept through her. “You can’t have Blake look for my bra!”
Oliver tilted his head to the side. “Rose went out shopping, so she can’t do it. So if you don’t want your mother to find it in my room, then it’s going to have to be Blake.”
Ursula ground her teeth. “Oh, crap!” Her gaze drifted to a crowd of people coming down the escalator.
He chuckled. “I’m assuming that’s a ‘yes’?”
She nodded reluctantly and glanced at him as he pressed “send” on his cell phone before slipping it back into his pocket. She’d had no choice, because she’d just spotted her parents at the top of the escalator. There was no time to come up with another solution.
“They’re here!”
From the top of the escalator, her parents descended, their eyes scanning the waiting area below. Her mother, a petite woman with impeccable taste and style, wore a costume that looked like it was designed by Chanel, though Ursula knew that her mother would never spend that kind of money on clothes. She was a veritable bargain hunter, and Ursula was sure that she hadn’t spent more than a hundred dollars for her entire outfit including her shoes and her fancy handbag.
Involuntarily, Ursula had to smile. Her mother would be shocked if she found out how much money Oliver’s family was spending on this wedding. Her parents were well off, with her father earning an exceptionally large salary as a high-level diplomat for the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C., so there was no need for her mother to be frugal, but it was so ingrained in her that she just couldn’t help herself. It seemed almost like a sport to her.
Ursula waved as she caught her father’s eye. He beamed at her, then touched his wife’s arm to point to where Ursula and Oliver stood waiting. Excitedly, her mother waved back, but Ursula’s gaze wandered back to her father. It seemed as if he’d lost weight. His face looked paler than usual too. She shook her head. The neon lights weren’t flattering for anybody’s skin tone. It had to be an optical illusion or the fact that he was tired from the flight.
When her parents reached the bottom steps of the escalator and stepped off it, Ursula flung herself into their arms, reaching around them both and hugging them tightly.
“I missed you!” she said, pushing back the tears.
“We missed you too, Wei Ling,” her father said, calling her by her Chinese name as he did so often.
“You’re going to squash your mother if you hold on any tighter,” Oliver said from behind her and put a hand on her shoulder.
Ursula stepped out of their embrace, wiping away a tear that had escaped her eye.
Oliver moved to her side and stretched out his hand toward her mother first. “It’s very nice to see you again, Mrs. Tseng.”
Her mother took his hand and shook it, then put her other hand over it to clasp it. “Young man, maybe it’s time to stop calling me Mrs. Tseng. My name is Hui Lian,” she said with the Chinese accent that even after two decades in the US had not diminished.
Oliver grinned. “I’d like that very much, Hui Lian.” Then he turned to her father and shook his outstretched hand. “It’s good to see you, sir.”
“Call me Yao Bang. And considering you’re stealing my only daughter from me, I’m rather happy to see you too. It’s good to know she’ll be in good hands.”
Her parents exchanged a look.
All of a sudden, a strange sense of unease slithered down Ursula’s back like a snake. A cold shiver followed.
“Well, let’s get your luggage so we can get you home,” Oliver announced and motioned toward the carousels.
He shouldn’t even be on the arrival level at San Francisco International Airport, but he’d followed a particularly tasty smelling woman who’d made her way down there from the departure level where he’d been about to check in for the red-eye to New York. When he’d smelled her enticing blood, he’d decided to get one last snack before his flight and had followed her.
He was done with San Francisco. After he’d been captured by people from Scanguards, the self-appointed police force and self-righteous group of vampires who thought themselves above everybody else, they’d incarcerated him and others like him for several months and forced them to undergo a detox program. Rehab they’d called it!
He and the other vampires had been addicted to special blood from Chinese blood whores that a blood brothel in Hunter’s Point had provided. But one day the blood brothel had disappeared and shortly afterwards, Scanguards had killed its owner and the guards, taken the girls away, and rounded up the clients. To make them undergo treatment!
What a crock of shit that was! He knew that now. And the reason he knew it was because there at one of the luggage carousels, one of Scanguards so-called bodyguards stood, his arm around one of the blood whores he recognized. And from the fragments of conversation he picked up, he realized that this vampire, who he’d met before and whose name was Oliver, if he wasn’t mistaken, was getting married to this blood whore.
Hadn’t the people from Scanguards said that all the blood whores had been sent home? Clearly, they’d dished up a bunch of lies, trying to pacify him and the other addicts, while behind their backs they were keeping the blood whores for themselves.
His mouth salivated as the girl’s smell drifted to him. He pulled the scent deep into his lungs. Instantly, his sense memory projected vivid images into his mind. He’d never experienced anything as exhilarating as the blood of these women. It was special, and it acted like a drug to a vampire. He’d experienced that drug and had never felt a high as powerful as when he’d been suckling on the neck of one of the blood whores.
His gut clenched as the same hunger resurfaced now. He’d thought he was clean, but it appeared rehab hadn’t worked. He wanted the drugged blood of this woman. And it wasn’t fair that the people from Scanguards kept this treat for themselves. What hypocrites! They’d made him and the others suffer through the symptoms of withdrawal while they gorged themselves on the delicious blood.
The woman he’d followed earlier was forgotten, as was his flight to New York. He wasn’t leaving. No, he would stay and get his fair share. The Chinese girl on Oliver’s arm would become his meal. He would show those arrogant men from Scanguards that he had just as much a right to this blood as they.
He would show Oliver that he had no right to monopolize her.