Chapter 2: A Nerd

Once, she'd seen him change. It had happened so fast, afterward she'd doubted what she saw. But for one moment, she'd thought she saw his teeth grow, like those of a vampire. At his back two shadows, like wings, had moved.

He let go of her. One moment he stood next to her and the next he stood at the front door. "How - " She moistened her lips and tried again, had to try a few more times to manage it. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" he asked. He locked the front door and turned back to her.

"How did you - never mind." She was vaguely aware of Simon driving up to them in the sleek black car Mark liked to use when they went out. Either she was schizophrenic or her husband had just moved faster than her eye could follow. He hadn't been a blur, he'd literally disappeared and reappeared at the door. Needles pricked her spine. Who did she marry, what did she marry?

"Mark?"

He pocketed the keys and helped her down the steps. "Yes."

Even now that she'd seen him appear and disappear in that eerie way, her arm tingled where he touched it. "Why do we suddenly have to go to these endless functions? What are you looking for?"

His hand on her waist became heavy. "Why do you think I'm searching for something?"

She looked up into a gaze burning with suspicion. What was he hiding from her? "I don't know, it's just an impression I got a few times." She didn't want to admit that she'd been hurt by the way he zoomed in on any woman under thirty. This almost daily rounds of parties and formal functions had started a month after their marriage.

She didn't understand his interest in the women. Always young, very beautiful women and, though they flirted with him, he'd look at them the way a scientist examining an interesting bug would. The clinical detached way he regarded them upset her. Sabrina had a feeling something much worse than a husband flirting with other women was going on. She never thought there could be anything worse until she'd begun to suspect he wasn't human. Still, it hurt to see her husband of only a few months flirting openly with other women. The pitying glances she received she hated most of all on these endless evenings. She wanted to shout at them that something more terrible than flirtation was happening right under their noses.

"The only thing I'm searching for is to get this function over with so I can make love with my wife."

He leaned down and kissed her. His hand cupped her shoulder and then moved until he cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing her nipple through the thin material of her evening dress and gossamer bra. She shivered and clung to him, pleasure stealing her mind. Even as she trembled in his arms, she knew he hid something from her. This bitter chocolate and red wine kiss that owned her body was a way to distract her, and it hurt. It hurt that he didn't trust her enough to tell her the truth. Though if he hid the fact that he was a vampire, ignorance might be bliss. Sometimes late at night, it kept her awake, the thought that she might be living with evil. If vampires existed, what else was out there?

A shrill whistle from across the street broke them apart, right at the moment she broke away from Mark. Her cheeks burned. "We'd better get going." She stepped back with a nervous look up and down the street. "Not here." She'd forgotten where they were while she kissed her husband. Her vampire husband.

They'd been as intimate as a man and woman could be, their chemistry super nova hot from day one. They'd been married two weeks when she realized she never saw him in daytime.

Mark swung around and stepped between her and the street. His body held ready as if the whistle signaled danger to her. For a moment, so fleeting she knew it had to be her imagination, the texture of his skin changed, appeared like black marble.

Sabrina waved at Yousef, turned, and then swore in a mixture of Afrikaans and Klingon, when her knee tripped her up. Mark grabbed her arm and held her until she was steady on her feet. She hated this clumsiness she'd had to live with since the accident. It reminded her she had no family.

"DenIb Qatlh?" he said, very polite.

Sabrina could feel her cheeks heat even more. "Denebian slime devil in Klingon," she mumbled and ignored his laughter. Being a vampire was much more freaky than speaking Klingon.

"I have to be the only man with a wife who swears in Klingon."

"I have a friend who speaks it. She's married too." Could she sound any more nerdish and awkward?

"Maybe we should invite them over sometime," he said politely.

Sometimes she worried that it bothered him that she was such a nerd. Her friend Mikaela always said she could be hot if only she would stop being so geeky.

He took her arm and helped her to the car, the wolf at her back and Mark's chauffeur in front of her. Samuel, a tall muscled, black man who never smiled, stood at attention next to the car. She'd met Samuel after she'd married Mark. His unblinking stare had unnerved her and she'd chatted to him in an overly friendly way that came across as false. She'd mentally cringed at her behavior the whole time. Now Mark's unholy dog and lethal-looking chauffeur both hated her.

"Good evening, Samuel," she said and widened her smile. It might be childish of her, but she enjoyed irritating him with friendliness. She had a bet with Mikaela, her best friend since childhood, that she'd get him to smile at her before the end of the year. He had no idea how stubborn she could be. She'd get him to smile at her if it's the last thing she ever did.

He ignored her and looked at Mark. "Good evening, sir."

"Samuel," Mark said, but he'd tensed and looked around, as if looking for something. Every now and then, when he acted like this, tense with his body held ready as if for battle, he reminded her of a warrior of old. He was a business man, but to her eyes also a modern soldier and a warrior from times gone by, when men fought with swords, and going to war meant riding off on a horse in heavy armor.

"Get into the car, Sabrina."

The alert way Mark scanned the street outside the car window reminded her of a predator scenting prey. She stiffened, conscious of the way both Mark and Samuel tried to shield her with their bodies. He murmured something to Samuel that she didn't catch, his body tense.

Samuel opened the car door and, mindful of her knee, Sabrina carefully entered the car. She rubbed her arms. It was getting chilly at night. Soon, she'd have to wear a coat when they went out in the evening. Though this chill felt different, as if premonition manifested as cold. She shivered, in spite of the warm interior of the car. It was as if the air around the car turned to ice. Mark was about to get in, but he stiffened and stepped back, looked around again, his hand inside his jacket.

Did he have a weapon? He stood like that for a long time. Samuel turned and scanned the street as well.

"Better get in, if they're here, we'll be safer in the car," Samuel said.

Samuel closed the door and went to the driver's side, his body as tense as Mark's. Like this, Mark was the scariest man she'd ever encountered. His driver was without a doubt the second scariest. "Who was he talking about?"

Mark settled back into the leather seat, trying to appear relaxed, but she could see the alert way his scary eyes observed their surroundings. "No one you need concern yourself with."

She clenched her hands in the silk shawl her grandmother had given her on her sixteenth birthday. "Please don't brush me off. What's going on?"

"Why would you think anything's going on?" He took her hand, opened her fingers. He sat so close their thighs touched, but suddenly there was miles between them, in spite of the fact that he held her hand in his.

The car melted into the Cape traffic.

"I'm not blind. A lot of strange things are happening."

"It's your imagination."

The shivers down her back felt like ice cold blood. He'd said that a lot lately, and she was starting to fear her marriage to Mark had drawn her into a very dangerous world. One she would've preferred to remain ignorant of. "You can't keep telling me it's my imagination when I notice what's happening."

"What do you think is happening?"

"That's not - " She stiffened when she recognized the street they turned into. "Where is this function?"

He mentioned an address and she relaxed, it was far away from the house she and her parents briefly lived in before they moved into her grandmother's house in the Bo-Kaap.

They stopped in front of a large mansion with rolling grass lawns, lanterns lighting the garden, and young men in white uniforms available to escort guests inside and park their cars.

Her parents had almost broken up because of an endless round of parties at houses just like this.

And ever since this frantic socializing started, Mark had changed.

"This discussion isn't over," she said as they stopped in front of an impressive gate that stood open to admit a long line of expensive cars. Mark helped her out, all the while scanning everything around them. She thought Samuel would park the car, but he handed the key over to one of the young men and accompanied them to the imposing front door. They kept her between them, almost shielding her body with theirs. She shivered again and drew her shawl tight over her shoulders. What could scare two dangerous men like Mark and Samuel?

Sabrina wanted to walk with her hand resting lightly on his arm and her chin proudly held high. With her knee, she had to cling to him and look down to carefully watch where she was going. The way up the long agonizing steps was illuminated with beautiful wrought iron lanterns.

Inside the foyer, a portly man and two beautiful women greeted them. Mark had told her on the way here their host's name was James Greyling, owner of one of the biggest transport companies in South Africa. His wife was tall and thin and, though Sabrina thought she might be well over sixty, she obviously had the money to keep the wrinkles at bay.

In spite of her expressionless botoxed face, she had kind eyes. The daughter had her mother's excellent bone structure and was stunning, with blonde hair that had a golden tint and big brown eyes. Her skin was a beautiful porcelain color. Beside her, Sabrina felt short and uninteresting with her long straight black hair, light brown skin, and washed out blue eyes she inherited from her father.

Mark dipped his head at the beautiful woman. "Jo."

"Mark, I'm so glad you made it." She rushed forward and kissed him on the mouth. She lingered for a few moments, her body rubbing subtly against him.

Sabrina heard someone gasp and realized the sound came from her. It was wrong. A heart breaking didn't sound like a gasp. It should sound like crystal when it shattered. Like her heart just shattered. The woman kissed Mark as if they'd been intimate before.

Like a crystal statue dropped from a great height, Sabrina's heart shattered into a thousand little pieces.