My clothes were on top of a tall chest on the other side of the bed. Gavin lifted them one-handed and shook them at me. I went over and snatched them away while thinking about stomping on his foot. He had shoes on and I was barefoot, so I'd more than likely come out the loser in that little battle. He might retaliate, too, and I didn't really want to know what he'd do. I was turning on the taps in a huge walk-in shower when he came up behind me, his arms dropping around my shoulders. "Don't you want to know what it's like?" He nuzzled my neck and nipped it. I'd never seen Gavin this amorous before and it scared me a little.
"Maybe I will sometime, Gavin. But I need to stop being afraid of you first."
He backed away at my words, turning and leaving the bathroom after only a few seconds. We didn't talk much on the way home and I worried that I'd done something irreparable. Gavin walked me to the door, where Merrill stood waiting. If he'd been human, Merrill might have been tapping his foot impatiently. As it was, the mask was in place so I had no idea if I was in trouble with him, too. Gavin took my face in his hands before he left me, kissing me carefully before his deep brown eyes stared earnestly into mine. "I cannot take your fear away. If I could kill Sergio Velenci again, I would do it without hesitation." He kissed me once more, leaving me with Merrill.
"Did he harm you?" Merrill asked as we watched Gavin drive away.
"No," I replied. "He only kissed me."
"I could see that for myself," Merrill remarked dryly and led me into the house.
My lesson that evening was Vampire Law number six, when you were allowed to kill a human. "You may kill if the human is threatening your life or the life of another vampire or those of the vampire race as a whole," Merrill instructed. "Obviously, if a human has a flamethrower, as Niles Abernathy did and it is a life threatening situation for you or another vampire as in Gavin's case, you are justified in taking the life. However, if there are human witnesses, they must have compulsion placed to forget the incident. If there is a body, then you must make it appear to be an accident somehow. You should hide it as well as you can anyway, so that it will never be found."
"Please tell me you're not going to take me out and have me kill someone," I muttered, refusing to look at Merrill.
"No. However, if there is a human taken down by an Enforcer or an Assassin and there is time, you will be conveyed to the scene and asked to cover it up. Occasionally humans learn of us and they hunt us. Many times over the centuries they have even banded together to seek us out and kill us. This seems to go in cycles, actually. We worry over the next wave because of the technology available now."
"Yeah. I can see that," I said, lifting my head.
"On another note," Merrill said, "Wlodek expects you to attend the annual meeting." I nodded; Wlodek mentioned it when he'd given me the last assignment. He hadn't explained what the annual meeting was and I was afraid to ask.
"It is a gathering of our most influential members," Merrill explained it for me. "There can be as many as five or six hundred there, so a huge ballroom must be provided. Several of us own appropriate facilities and it is usually held in one of those. There is a grand ball scheduled first, to which many of the attending vampires will bring human dates and companions. Some may even be married to those companions. I will explain the laws concerning that at a later time. You are expected to attend the grand ball so that the ones who have been asking after you may see you, all at once as it were."
"Gavin said something about that," I grumbled. "Merrill, what if I don't want to go? What if I don't have any desire to see any of these people? It scares me."
"Lissa, Wlodek recently informed me that you willingly went into a sealed vault, knowing you might not get out again. You risked your life, child, and yet meeting vampires frightens you?"
"Merrill, the next time you have compulsion laid so you can't even blink and are forced to follow along behind somebody that you trusted and thought was your friend, and that friend plans to kill you if so ordered, then we'll talk," I said.
"They can't get past my compulsion," he insisted, attempting to reassure me.
"Your compulsion. There's that word again. Compulsion." I said it with as much distaste as I felt I could get away with. "Free will among vampires is mostly a joke, isn't it?" I got up and walked out of Merrill's study.
He came to find me a few minutes later. I was sitting on my bed, pillows propping me up against the headboard, my knees drawn up to my chest.
"My compulsion is only to protect you and the ones who live inside this house," he said gently, sitting down on the side of my bed.
"I know that." My forehead was now pressed against my knees. "But that doesn't keep me from wanting to go out and do something because I want to," I mumbled. "I want to buy my own computer. Maybe go find a pair of shoes or just wander around London because I still haven't seen much of it. And I haven't been to the bookstore in ages. You and Franklin have some good choices in the library, but those things aren't all I like to read."
"You feel confined." It was a statement.
"Yes."
"Lissa, one of the reasons I am reluctant to allow you out on your own is because of what you are and why all those male vampires wish to meet you now. You are a rarity, something very desirable in our world. You shouldn't ever go out unattended, I don't think. London has a rather large vampire population. I would have failed in my duty if anything were to happen to you."
"Charles is so busy all the time or I'd ask him," I said. "We had a good time the night he took me shopping."
"I know. Perhaps I should look for a suitable companion so you may go out from time to time. And as far as a computer goes, borrow mine. Find what you want and order it online. I have a business address in London where it may be delivered; Lena can pick it up and bring it to you. She brings my deliveries from there when she comes to work most days."
"See, even Lena gets to come and go without supervision," I grumbled.
"Lena isn't sought after by a rather large number of males," Merrill observed.
"What makes me so special? They haven't even seen me."
"Thirteen of the sixteen female vampires are in a permanent relationship," Merrill sighed. "Most of those relationships are a result of the female having been a companion to the male vampire while they were still human. Theirs were successful turns. The two female Council members are unattached and then there you are, Lissa. Male vampires sometimes seek a relationship that could last centuries. With a human companion this is obviously not possible; they will age and die unless the turn is successful and the attempts far outweigh the successes."