The evidence that she wasn't kept mounting. If she had truly been his, he never would have thought, Now you know how it feels. Not when his life's purpose had always been to find her so he could protect her and keep her from harm. He was sick - his mind was playing tricks on him. It had to be...
He kept them in the water until she cooled, then plucked the sodden silk from her body to dry her tender skin. Before he returned her to the bed, he dressed the vampire in another gown - this one an even deeper red. As if he needed to be reminded of what she was.
He drew on his own battered clothes, then prowled the suite, wondering what in the hell he was going to do with her. It wasn't long before her breathing returned to normal, her cheeks pinkening again. Typical vampire resilience. He'd always cursed it, and hated her anew for demonstrating it.
With disgust, he turned from her, his gaze landing on the television set. He studied it, trying to determine how to turn it on. He shook his head at the simplicity of modern devices and cleverly deduced how by selecting a button labeled "on."
Over the past week, it had seemed to him that every inhabitant of every residence on the outskirts of Paris had convened in front of one of these boxes at the close of each day. With his keen sight and hearing, Lachlain had been able to watch from outside. He would drag stolen food up a tree, then lean back to be stunned by the different information inherent in each one. And now he had his own to listen to. After a few moments of button pressing, he managed to discover a static place that only reported news, and it was in English - her language, and one of his, though he was more than a century out of date with it.
As he rummaged through her things, he listened to the unfamiliar speech patterns and the new vocabulary, learning them quickly. Lykae had that talent - the ability to blend, to pick up new languages, dialects, and current words. It was a survival mechanism. The Instinct commanded, Blend. Learn everything. No detail to be missed. Or die.
He studied her belongings. Back to the silk drawer, of course. The underclothing of this time was smaller and therefore preferable to yore. He imagined her in each elaborate scrap of silk, imagined biting them off her, though a couple of pieces baffled him. When he realized where the string was supposed to go and pictured her thus, he groaned, nearly coming in his trews.
Then to the closet to examine her strange clothes, so many of them red in color, so many of them lacking in coverage. The vampire would not be leaving this room in some of them.
He emptied the satchel she'd had with her last night onto the floor, noticing the leather was ruined. In the wet pile was a silver contraption with numbers like the numbers on the - he frowned - telephone. He shook it, and when water sloshed out, he tossed it over his shoulder.
A smaller leather case contained a hardened card that was a "Louisiana Driver's License."
Vampires in Louisiana? Unheard of.
The card had her name as Emmaline Troy. He paused for a moment, thinking back to all the years he'd prayed for just a name, a mere hint of how to find his mate. He frowned, trying to recall if he'd told the vampire his own name the crazed night before...
Her height was listed as five foot four, her weight as one hundred and five pounds - not even sopping wet could she achieve that - and her eyes as blue. Blue was too tame a word for their color.
There was a small likeness of her smiling shyly with her hair braided to cover her ears. The likeness itself was amazing, but puzzling. It was like a daguerreotype, but this one had color. He had so bloody much to learn.
Her birth date was listed as 1982, which he knew was false. Physiologically she wasn't older than her early twenties, frozen forever when she was strongest and most able to survive the future, but chronologically, she would be older. Most vampires had come into existence centuries ago.
And why in the hell would the leeches be in Louisiana? Had they taken over more than just Europe? And if so, what had happened to his clan?
The thought of his clan made him glance up at the vampire, sleeping still as a corpse. If she was supposed to be his mate, she would be his queen and would rule over Lachlain's kind. Impossible. The clan would rip her to shreds at the first opportunity. The Lykae and vampires were natural-born enemies - had been since the first nebulous chaos of the Lore.
Blood adversaries. That's why he was impatiently returning his attention to her things - to study an enemy. Not because he was itching with curiosity about the female.
He opened a thin blue passport book and found another likeness with another smile that looked coaxed, then a "medic alert" card listing her medical condition as "sun allergy and extreme photosensitivity."
As he pondered whether the card was a jest, he pulled out a "credit card." He'd seen advertisements for those on the television - he'd probably learned as much from the advertisements as he did from the grim person who sat and divulged news - and he knew they purchased everything.
Lachlain needed everything. He was starting his life over, but his most pressing needs were clothing and transportation away from here. As weak as he was, he didn't want to remain in a place where the vampires knew she stayed. And until he could sort through everything, he would be forced to take the creature with him. He supposed he needed to figure out a way to keep it alive during their travels.
All those years spent devising ways to kill them, and now he had to figure out how to protect one?
Knowing she would most likely sleep until sunset - and couldn't escape during the day in any case - he left her to make his way downstairs.
The questioning glances he was sure to receive would be met with an arrogant glare. If he showed his ignorance of the times, he would cover it with a gaze so direct that most people would think they'd misunderstood him. Humans always cowered under that look.