A Midnight Rose Ch. 04

Thank you all for your comments and votes of the previous chapters; in all seriousness, they keep me going even when I find this parts of this story to be a complete slog!

For your viewing pleasure... a little extra shot of Rowan and Luke to get you through the week. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this chapter and I do hope that you all find something to like in it too.

Enjoy... mochadesire

Chapter 4

Luke knew the minute that Tanji entered the kitchen something was wrong. He and Philippe had congregated in the huge, modern room as soon as they had left the medical centre, both anxious for a shot of caffeine. The kitchen was well-equipped: the weres that lived in the mansion needed food after all. But for the vampires of the house, the epicentre of the kitchen was the enormous, industrial coffee machine that was permanently kept full with aromatic Arabica beans. Even though they needed no food, both Philippe and Luke could not make it through each day without using the machine.

Both the men had looked up when Tanji slipped into the otherwise empty room. Luke sensed the woman's heartbeat: it was going fast. He growled quietly; something was not right.

"What's happened?" he rumbled. Tanji tried to look nonchalant and innocent, much to Luke's annoyance. "Tanji, I have known you for ten years. I do know when you aren't telling me something."

The doctor muttered, "Ten years too long if you ask me." Luke smirked and Philippe chuckled at the woman's discomfort. The two of them stayed quiet, sipping on their coffees whilst they waited for Tanji to come clean.

She squirmed as the quiet began to stretch on. She had expected Luke to try and get the truth out of her more aggressively; after all, they both knew that she wasn't telling him something. She mentally steeled herself.

"Rowan left," she whispered. Tanji flinched as the china espresso cup in Luke's hand shattered into a million pieces in his fist with a resounding crack. The tiny, razor shards tinkled onto the granite work surface where the two men were sat; the only sound in the dead silence of the room.

Luke was dumbstruck. He ignored the remnants of the cup that were digging into the skin of his palm as his mind whirled with Tanji's revelation. Suddenly he hurled the saucer in front of him at the wall, where it too, smashed into oblivion.

"Why can't that damned woman just stay put?!" he roared, not noticing that Tanji was trembling in fear. His incisors were fully extended and he could feel his beast rising from the depths of his mind. He could feel Philippe sending soothing messages along their metal link but all he was focused on was his green-eyed mate; the one who was getting away.

Hey asshole, Tanji looks ready to pass out in fright so quit the Nosferatu act will you? Philippe's accented voice boomed in his mind, startling him out of his murderous reverie.

"I'm sorry Tanji," Luke said wearily as the red haze faded from before his eyes. He sat down heavily at the breakfast bar, thinking that he had been apologising an awful lot to his friend since Rowan had jumped head first into his life. "Why did she leave?" he muttered, his heart aching in his chest as the knowledge sank in.

Tanji came forward timidly to place a comforting hand on his arm as he stared hopelessly into the gleaming surface below him.

"She felt trapped Luke," she said softly, "She felt like she was entering a life she had had no choice in and that scared her."

Luke made an impatient noise. "But how the hell am I meant to protect her from Remy's piece-of-shit minions if I have no idea where she is?" he cried. Philippe looked at him sharply, concern etched into his features.

"Get a grip Luke," he said firmly, "You know as well as I that Rowan is no wilting wallflower. She can hold her own. All that remains is to see what you are going to do about getting her back." The Frenchman swirled his drink around in the vessel it was in, as if musing.

Luke almost felt foolish as a tidal wave of relief flooded through him. "You think this is all redeemable?" he asked, hating the way his deep voice sounded needy. Tanji smiled sadly.

"She may act like she hates you, but that woman is just as affected by you as you are by her," she said. "That is what scares her! She is afraid of the intensity of her feelings and how fast her life has become with you in it. She is so used to independency that she has become afraid of intimacy." The woman beamed triumphantly. "So you will just have to show her that you intend to stick around."

Luke looked thoroughly bewildered. For all his one thousand, five hundred years of ages he had never been in the situation where he had had to chase the woman. It was usually the other way around! Philippe, sensing his thoughts, smirked. This is going to be a very steep learning curve for you Luke.

Luke shot the other vampire, who was perched on the window sill on the other side of the breakfast bar, a withering look. He knew that in this situation, Philippe too, would be hopeless. The Frenchman had been with more woman than any man he had known; a true womanizer. The vampire also had no idea how to chase a woman; for all that he was gifted in the bedroom, the man had never once had to work for his pleasures. Like Luke, he attracted woman like moths to a flame, each one of them chomping at the bit for a piece of his European, chiselled good looks.

Both the vampires turned on Tanji expectantly. As if guessing what they were thinking she rolled her dark eyes in mock annoyance. "You two are hopeless, you know that right?"

Philippe beamed whole-heartedly. "Yes we do, although I would say that Luke is far more hopeless than I." His grin broke into a deep-throated chuckle as Luke once again scowled at him.

Tanji too, began to laugh. Luke's head whipped back and forth comically, watching the two of them laughing at him. "Are you two just going to sit there giggling like school girls," he retorted, "Or are you going to help me get my mate back?" His eyebrows were raised as his two friends collapsed even further into hysterics. He threw his hands up in mock desperation and stalked out of the room, the echoes of laughter rebounding down the panelled halls after him.

***

Rowan wasn't going to lie; she had been incredibly terse since leaving the mansion. Small things seemed to annoy her more than usual and she seemed permanently stuck in a foul mood. The aching in her chest had not let up and she had a feeling that it wouldn't until she talked to Luke again.

Mina had noticed her friend's funk but, uncharacteristically, she hadn't commented. Of course, there were raised eyebrows and titters left, right and centre but the were chose not to antagonise her friend further. She wanted to keep her head in contact with her neck and shoulders.

The people at work had also begun to avoid Rowan. The message had been made pretty clear when she had almost made Sara burst into tears over something as small as a slight mix up in stock orders. Rowan seemed completely oblivious to the fact that her colleagues were giving her wide-berth; she was too focused on her own issues.

Fact of the matter was: she missed Luke. She missed him so much it scared her. She struggled to understand how she could come to care for the vampire so much in such a short space of time and that annoyed her.

Finally John had come over to her whilst she was taking stock and had firm words.

"Look," he said firmly, "No one here want to intrude on your personal issues but none of us can help it if you bring those issues to work with you." His words were not unkind; he was just trying to get his message across seriously, in spite of his neon pink tipped spiky hair and too-tight jeans. "When it got to the point where you are making the others upset for no reason, I knew I had to intervene." Rowan looked placidly back at the vampire who was gripping her shoulders firmly. "We know you went through something awful that night last week, hell the cuts are still visible, but you have to keep all your personal hang-ups at home; it's not fair on the rest of us."

Rowan sat heavily, shrugging John's hands from her shoulders. She rested her head in her palms, fully aware that the vampire was right. "I suppose I better apologise to Sara, hadn't I?" she sighed, lifting her head to look at John. He nodded kindly and held up a hand to help her up from the crate she was slumped on.

Rowan took his hand and pulled the startled young vampire into a crushing embrace. "Thanks John," she whispered, "I don't know what I would do without you sometimes." She beamed as John nodded wisely.

"I agree with that," he said in mock-seriousness, "I think you would struggle if I wasn't around." She laughed loudly, the sound reverberating around the small cellar they were in. She linked her arm in his and the two headed up towards the bar.

Coming up the narrow stairs and through the heavy swing door that lead to the centre of the club, both John and Rowan were surprised to see most of the staff clustered at one end of the long bar. As they approached and people noticed them, Rowan felt incredibly guilty as most of them avoided eye-contact and started shuffling nervously. She hung her head slightly as she realised how right her bar manager was. Clearing her throat, she called for everyone's attention.

"Everyone! Could I just say something to you all?" she spoke loudly as conversations began to quieten down. "I know that I have been- for want of a better word- a complete bitch to you over the last few days and I just would like to say that I am sorry." She sighed and ran a hand absent-mindedly through her unbound, midnight tresses. "It's just been a rough- what the fuck is that?" she exclaimed mid-sentence as the crowd around the bar had thinned and she could see a huge object resting on top of it.

Perched on the metal counter was the most enormous bunch of rose she had ever seen. An intricate mixture of blood-red and black roses, Rowan knew that they had to have set the sender back by a fair amount. She had never even seen black roses before! Not even aware that she was moving forward, she reached the bar and stood dumbstruck before the bouquet.

"Who sent these?" she whispered, a hand hesitantly come up to stroke a velvet petal of one of the buds. Her were-bear bouncer, Brent, came up behind her. "Some short-ass vamp delivered them, but he said they came from the top. That's all we know," Brent rumbled in his impossibly deep voice. "There's a card perched on top," he pointed it out to her. Rowan pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow at him. "Unfortunately I can't reach that," she said laughingly.

The huge man grinned. "No problem," he said, plucking the ivory card easily out of from among the blooms. As he held it out to her, Rowan felt her hand shaking. Taking it from him nervously, she turned it over to see a flowing gold script.

"What does it say?" John exclaimed excitedly, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. Rowan was staring at the card, a curious look on her face. Per la mia mezzanotte rosa, the card read. She repeated it to the crowd, eliciting a few confused faces from those whose grasp on languages were not as great as others.

"Is it Spanish?" someone called from the back of the crowd. Given its gravelly voice, Rowan assumed it was one of the goblins. "No, it's Italian," she corrected. "I think it means 'for my midnight rose'." She froze suddenly. Luke was European. What had the messenger said? That the roses had come from the top? Her heart fluttered hopelessly, causing her to frown.

John noticed the face that Rowan had pulled. Quickly, he began calling: "Okay everyone, back to work, show's over and we still have a shift to do starting in three hours. Disperse!" He ignored the grumbles as the rest of the employees retreated to various corners of the large building, knowing them to be good-natured. He slung an arm over Rowan's lightly muscled shoulders, noticing that they were trembling slightly. "You know who they are from," he murmured, "Don't you?"

Blowing out the breath she had been holding, she shifted under the weight of his slung forearm. "Mm," Rowan whispered, "I think I do."

"So, why the sad face?" John was confused. Despite being prickly and tough to those who didn't know her, Rowan's closest friends knew her to be a true romantic; someone who would completely fall to pieces for a delivery of stunning roses. The vampire wasn't sure why his manager wasn't all smiles.

"The sad face is because I didn't think this guy cared so much," she admitted, "I was perfectly happy thinking that I was just a casual fuck, a woman he took a fancy to one night. It was easier to be mad at him that way and ignore how I truly felt."

"How do you really feel?" John probed gently. Ro's face clouded and she clenched her empty fist. Relaxing it, she let out a slow breath and shut her eyes. "I've known him for all of five days, of which three of those we haven't been talking. And yet," she continued, "I cannot help but feel wrong when he isn't around." She pulled a face. "Is that too weird?"

John looked mildly bemused. Pulling Rowan into a fierce embrace, he chuckled in her ear. "No my dear, it isn't too weird. But I can understand why you would be afraid of what you're feeling; you have prevented yourself from letting your guard down for too long!" He scolded her, shaking his index finger in her face in mock anger. She smiled and nodded. Rowan had been with men over the years, but they had been few and far between. The more time that stretched between each one, the more she began to throw up the barriers. She blocked off any emotional feeling towards the men she was with, even though she knew that her coldness would push them away.

Rowan had thought she was okay with not having someone in her life. She had been forced to be extremely independent as a child and taught herself to appear confident to others even when she felt like a wreck inside. Then Luke had come along and thrown her fragile state of balance into extreme upheaval. Apparently he wasn't satisfied with just doing that either.

So lost in her own thoughts, she barely caught John's question. He asked her gently if she didn't mind telling him who the mysterious man was. Sighing she said: "His name is Luke. He's a vampire." She stopped there, not knowing how to continue. It brought home to her how little she actually knew about the handsome vampire. They had come together based on pure, animalistic attraction, not because they were interested in each other's hobbies. She looked up and was surprised to see John's jaw hanging open, his eyes bugging in his head.

"What?" she asked completely confused.

John spluttered and gestured wildly, as if he wasn't quite sure what to say next. "Do you mean Luke Phillips?" he said excitedly, "Look's like he invented the term 'tall, dark and handsome'?" Rowan nodded, she was still confused.

"Oh. My. God," John squealed, flapping his hands, positively skipping with excitement. "You know who that is, don't you?" Rowan shook her head and shrugged. She thought Luke was just another vampire; albeit one with a hell of a lot of money. "He's the vampire lord for the entire of East coast! From the tip of Maine, east to Minnesota and all the way down to Louisiana, if you have problems big enough and you are a vampire, you go to him. He's like the king of the area; the top dog!" John was in a complete state. He was practically bouncing off the walls.

Rowan however, could not find it within herself to be amused by John's unusual behaviour. From the top... Brent's words swum in her mind. "Oh God," she groaned, "They are definitely from him."

John stopped bouncing for just a moment. He looked at her curiously. "Why are you not ecstatic about this? Lord Phillips hasn't gone after a woman like this since..." he pondered, "Well, since forever. The guy could almost be classed as a self-confessed bachelor. He was completely married to his job." He beamed again. "He needs a woman to get him to loosen up a bit." Nudging Rowan suggestively, he waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Know any tricks?" he goaded.

Rowan groaned at his positivity. Seeing that she was unconvinced, John's face softened. "Give him a chance Ro," he murmured, "Let him in; you never know, it could be the best thing you ever do." With that, he spun on his Cuban heels and marched off to help the others with the rest of the stock, leaving Rowan to stare wistfully into the crimson and raven petals.

***

Mina knew the minute Rowan got home by the slamming of the front door. She sighed; one day that door was going to come off its hinges with the force that Rowan slammed it shut. She looked up from the magazine she was reading, ready to berate her friend, when she was met with the comical site of Rowan struggling with the biggest bouquet of flowers she had ever seen.

"Wow," she whistled, "Who is he and where do I find one of my own?" Mina was not easily impressed but the flowers had definitely put a tick in her books. They were exquisite. Where did you even find roses that colour anyway?

Rowan cursed as she struggled to set the roses down on the small side table next to the sofa in the apartment. "Luke," she retorted simply. Mina cocked her head in confusion.

"You mean the Luke you ran away from? The one you have been pining after for the last three days?"

Rowan looked affronted. "I have not been pining! I've just-," she sighed mid-rant, the wind already gone from her sails. "Yes, the Luke I ran away from," she said resignedly as she threw her bag on the couch and moved to make a cup of instant coffee. She felt Mina's eyes on her at all times.

"What?" she snapped, annoyed by her friend's lack of comments. "I thought you would have lots to say on the matter." The were simply raised an eyebrow, as if amused by Rowan's anger. Rowan bit her cheek. "Sorry Mina, I'm a little on edge."

"Love, you have been on edge the minute you got back from that vampire's house," the tiny blonde said matter-of-factly, "You may not have noticed, but that man so clearly is under your skin that it's painful watching you not do anything about it." The girl flicked over the page of her magazine absently.

"So you want me to just forgive him because he sends me an expensive bunch of flowers?" Rowan spat, "I'm sorry but that is just not going to happen!" She slammed down the mug she had fetched from the cupboard and flicked the kettle on. She narrowed her eyes at her room-mate who looked completely nonplussed.

"I didn't say forgive him," Mina said carefully, aware that Rowan was ready to blow her top, "I just think that maybe you should give him the chance to explain himself. You never know, it could be enlightening for the both of you." She pretended to go back to reading the story in front of her as she waited for her words to sink in. The tension in the small kitchen was palpable and Mina was fully aware that Rowan was trying to burn a hole in her forehead with her stare. But she stood her ground and refused to even acknowledge the other woman's presence until she heard the whistle of a held breath escape through clenched teeth.

She glanced up to see Rowan looking at her bemusedly. "Are you calm again now?" Mina asked innocently. Rowan rolled her eyes and nodded, taking a sip of the steaming coffee that had brewed. She relaxed against the work surface and stared thoughtfully out of the window above the sink. She started violently when Mina suddenly snuck up beside her and slipped her arms around her waist. Despite the fact that the were only came up to Rowan's shoulder, she gave the best hugs in the world. Rowan instantly relaxed into the embrace, slipping into a comfortable silence with her friend. They both knew not everything had to be said out loud.