Free Scorned by Tyffani Clark Kemp

to the vampire. I looked up as Adelina
dangled the little gold cross around my neck, and found that
Roman’s eyes were averted, turned to the side and slightly
down.
    “You can’t even look at me when I wear it?”
I asked.
    Roman shook his head. “Tuck it into your
shirt.”
    I did and Roman’s eyes came up, just like
that.
    Another woman entered the room, this one,
though pale was not as fair as Adelina. Her hair fell in golden
waves around her shoulders and the straps of a dress identical to
the other woman’s.
    “Calliope, my dear.” Roman pulled this woman
into a loose hug and kissed her on the forehead.
    “Why do I suddenly feel severely
underdressed?” I muttered to myself, tugging at the pajamas I’d
worn all day.
    Roman turned to me with that beautiful,
ancient smile of his and said, “Adelina and Calliope are here to
fix that.”
    “What?” It slipped out before I could catch
it and I knew I sounded disbelieving and slightly horrified. I
hadn’t showered in longer than I wanted to think about and I knew I
smelled funky.
    “They will take you upstairs to one of the
bedrooms and you may clean up however you see fit.”
    Ugh, the mind reading again!
    I followed the women from the room in my
pajamas and my new necklace.
    “I promise they will take the utmost care
with you. Won’t you, ladies?”
    The women nodded, and it seemed more like
they’d been forced into this arrangement. It didn’t make me feel
very good about the situation, but what made it worse was I knew
the moment Roman shut off his emotions. I felt it like a door in my
head had clicked shut, and I knew something was changing between
us. Something was getting stronger and I didn’t know why or how I
felt about it.
    They led me up the stairs and down a
creaking hall to a bedroom door. Calliope rapped lightly on the
door twice, listened for a few seconds with her ear pressed to it,
then pushed her way in. The two women floated across the floor
without making a single sound. I sounded like a herd of elephants
all on my own. It was embarrassing. They gathered towels, bath
soaps and shampoos in case I wanted them and none of it looked like
it came from Wal-Mart. While they did this, I had a look around and
somehow wasn’t surprised.
    There were three queen-size, four-poster
beds all made up the same way. Red and gold tulle draped each one
from post to post, blowing whenever there was any kind of breeze.
They were made with silken red comforters embroidered with gold
trimmings and beads and anything else they could find that
glittered in the faintest light. And the top half of each bed was
buried in pillows. Pillows, pillows, and more pillows.
    A crystal chandelier hung from the middle of
the ceiling. Tiny crystal cups with gold embossed edges held
candles, all lit and burning, casting their tiny lights across the
room. When I looked down, I noticed that my bare feet sank into the
thick, blood-red carpet.
    A dark closet stood open on one side of the
room and I made a guess that it was filled with more lovely red
gowns. There was a fireplace between the closet and another door.
This one was closed.
    “He wishes for you to shower and change into
something more suitable.”
    The dainty voice pulled me from my
inspection of the room and I looked up at the sound of the
flawless, beautifully accented English. It was Adelina addressing
me. I was so caught off guard that, once again, I let my stupid
mouth speak before I had a chance to reign in my tongue.
    “You speak English,” I told her, as if she
didn’t already know. The smile she offered was small, but it held
none of the disdain that I had felt with her earlier.
    “Yes, I do.”
    I frowned. “Then why doesn’t he speak
English to you?”
    “He wishes to keep my native tongue
alive.”
    I nodded. “Oh. What is your native
tongue.”
    A light came on in her eyes. “Romanian,” she
told me.
    I nodded. “And you?”
    “I am Greek,” Calliope smiled.
    “Yeah, you look like you would