Blood Apprentice: An Elemental Legacy Novel

by Elizabeth Hunter

  “And now?”

  He wrapped his arm around her waist. “It would make me a sad kind of thing to prey on the wounded, don’t you think? That’s what I realized. Humans only have a few years at the end of the day. It’s not for me to make their lives more difficult when their own kind do that enough.”

  The sharp twist in her chest was familiar now, though no less painful.

  “Only a few years.”

  He was right. Compared to Gavin, Chloe only had a few years. She would be a handful of fleeting moments in his very long life.

  “Anyway …” Gavin poured warm water over shoulders that had gone cold. “Ben has that look. I always assumed he’d had a hard childhood. He used to be much easier to read, you know. He’s a bit foggy now.”

  “Foggy?”

  “Give him a few years and he’ll be as hard to read as his uncle. Of course, he’ll likely be a vampire by then. Are you ready for that?”

  Chloe’s eyes went wide and she spun around. “Ready for what?”

  Gavin frowned. “For Ben to be a vampire.”

  Her heart slowed down. “Oh. That.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Did you think—?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Because that’s… that’s a conversation.”

  “I didn’t. I mean, I don’t… That’s not something we need to talk about.”

  “Ever?” Gavin stared at her, that deep, penetrating stare that asked Chloe for everything and offered more than she was ready to receive.

  “Don’t ask me yet,” she whispered.

  Gavin touched the tip of his finger to her chin, drew it up and around her lips, tracing the sensitive outline before he leaned in and took her mouth. His kiss spun her around and unraveled her. Every time. She could feel the iron control in his shoulders when she placed her hands there. Feel the desire he leashed for her.

  The quick inhale at her neck. The tightening fist in her hair. He pulled her to straddle his waist, gripping her thigh just above the knee. His hand, like the rest of him, was just as controlled. Firm grip on heated flesh.

  Chloe was the soft to his hard, melting into his chest and letting her muscles rest against his. Her breasts to his chest. Her mouth soft and yielding to his.

  He pulled away. “You undo me.”

  She leaned forward and pressed her face into his neck, putting her lips against the place where his heart should beat. It only gave the occasional flutter, usually when he was aroused.

  Why do you still wait? Haven’t you gotten tired of me yet?

  She didn’t say those things—didn’t even want to think them—but they were the voice in her head. The constant, nagging whisper that tried to convince her that she shouldn’t get too attached, shouldn’t let her guard down too much.

  He ran his fingers up and down her spine, massaging the bare edge of her glute with such perfect pressure she wanted him to go farther down. Under the bathing suit. Bare skin to bare skin.

  And then what?

  Chloe took a deep breath and lay against his chest, allowing herself the pleasure of his touch for as long as he was willing to offer it.

  Gavin was a dazzling predator, a powerful and rich immortal with connections she knew nothing about and influence she didn’t stop to ponder. He didn’t flaunt any of it. He wore power like one of his perfectly tailored suits.

  He’ll get bored with you eventually. Probably right after you agree to have sex with him.

  He didn’t push, and she hesitated. They were in stalemate, a pair of would-be lovers too cautious to make the first move after months and months of foreplay. She didn’t know what kind of status she had in Gavin’s world, other than she was under Ben’s uncle’s aegis, and vampires at the bar no longer flirted with her.

  At all.

  She knew they considered her Gavin’s… something. She had no idea what that something was. No doubt they assumed she was his lover. That they slept together. That he fed from her.

  A frisson over her skin.

  Gavin’s hands stopped and pressed in. “What are you thinking about right now?”

  Oh God. He knows when you’re turned on.

  Sometimes living around vampires made Chloe seriously want to die. They smelled everything. They heard everything. The silent burp you manage to hide on your date? Not hidden if that date was a vampire. No bodily function was a mystery to them.

  “What were you thinking about?” he whispered.

  The mental image leaped to the front of her mind. Gavin’s fangs, long in his mouth, breaking her skin.

  Her body responded. His hands gripped tighter. “Chloe?”

  “What do you think I was thinking about?”

  “Sex.”

  She laughed. “I wasn’t actually. But that’s a good guess.”

  “So not sex. Now I’m even more curious.” His fingers went to work again, stroking up and down her back, teasing the top of her ass, the small of her back, the curve of her neck—

  “Hmmm.” He trailed a hand down her arm. “Goose bumps again.”

  The hand went back to her neck. His lips followed. Gavin gripped the hair at her nape and tugged, pulling her head back and exposing her skin to the cold night air and his mouth.

  Goose bumps. She felt them everywhere.

  Gavin kissed across her collarbone. “Were you thinking about me biting you?”

  Her heart took off at a gallop just as his lips reached her pulse point.

  “I think you were,” he murmured. “And I think you like the idea.”

  Yes, I love the idea, and I must be going crazy.

  Chloe shut her eyes and said nothing.

  “Just so you know,” Gavin said. “When I bite you, I will enjoy a taste from your pretty neck.” He nipped her skin lightly. “But when I’m really hungry”—his hand slipped from the top of her thigh to the inside, dragging up, up, up until Chloe gasped—“there’s nothing like a nice bite right here.” He pinched the soft flesh just below the juncture of her thighs. “When I’m really hungry.”

  Without another word, Gavin slid her to the side, leaving her breathless on the bench of the hot tub as he stood and climbed out, sporting an erection that made Chloe think very unprofessional thoughts about her employer.

  She wasn’t going to whimper. She refused.

  But she wasn’t going to sleep much either.

  Gavin took a deep breath when he reached the solarium that led to the stairs of his penthouse. Leaving Chloe in the hot tub, wet and ready for him, was one of the hardest things—no pun intended—he’d done in several hundred years.

  “You’re playing the long game,” he muttered. “It’s worth it.”

  Wasn’t it?

  He’d been wooing the woman for months now, seducing her in slow bites and always leaving her hungry for more. Tonight, when she’d inadvertently brought up turning and then—fuck his luck—Gavin feeding from her, he’d nearly lost his mind.

  He gripped the erection that threatened to rip his swimming suit and tried to think about anything but Chloe. Outside. On his roof. Hot and wet and—

  “I’m a fucking idiot. Why did I leave?” He was just about to walk back outside when the house phone rang.

  Walking over to the small desk, he punched in the speakerphone button. “Whoever this is, you better have an excellent reason for calling.”

  4

  Ben landed at the San Juan Luis Muñoz Marín International at six forty-five in the evening. He had just enough time to catch a taxi, find his rental house, and grab a bite to eat before he was supposed to meet Tenzin in Plaza de Armas in Old San Juan.

  He’d chosen the rental house for a reason. It was minutes to the plaza. It was very, very private. It had few windows and an interior patio that opened straight up to the sky. But did Tenzin want to meet him at the house he’d so carefully selected?

  Of course not.

  Ben wandered around the small square and took in the brightly colored lights, pigeons, and vivid buildings painted yello
w, pink, and green. The tourist traffic was light, and he sat on a bench near the fountain, waiting for his partner.

  Ben heard the murmured chatter of familiar accents all around him. He felt the knock of memory at the door in his mind, but he ignored it, focusing on the screen of his smart phone while he waited for Tenzin.

  She sat down next to him a few moments after dark had fully descended, nudging his shoulder when he didn’t look up.

  “What does it feel like?”

  “What does what feel like?”

  “These are your roots. The place where your people came from.” Tenzin crossed her legs and threw an arm across the back of the bench. “Nothing?”

  Ben finally looked up and around. “It looks like a Spanish colonial city. I’ve visited them before.”

  A smile curled up the corner of her mouth. “Fine.”

  “Do you feel any deep, inspirational flood of emotion when you visit China?”

  “I’m not from China.”

  “Central Asia then?”

  “Central Asia is a big place.”

  Ben frowned. “Where are you from? Do you even know?”

  “No.” Tenzin looked up at the deep blue sky. “I could probably guess, but I don’t want to. It was too long ago.”

  “Exactly.” He looked back at his phone. “I got an email from—”

  “Are you actually comparing five thousand years to twenty-five?”

  “Do you think I’m twenty-five?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I was guessing. I don’t really care how old you are. You’re not twenty-five?”

  He rose. “Since you don’t care how old I am, I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  Ben reached for her hand. “Some of us have appetites, Tiny.”

  “We all have appetites. Just not for the same things.”

  He stopped, turned, and looked at her. It was the first time he’d really looked at Tenzin since they’d arrived. She was wearing a pair of loose black pants and a shirt, her usual, but she had colored strings braided through her hair and her cheeks were flushed.

  Ben stepped closer. “What are we talking about here?”

  “Appetites.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  The flushed cheeks meant she’d just fed from someone. Ben didn’t think about who it might be. He didn’t like thinking about it.

  He couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  The call of a vendor selling pinchos down the street distracted him. “Come on. I’ll find some food and then we can walk around.”

  “It’s beautiful here.”

  Ben glanced around. “Yeah, it’s nice.”

  “That’s all? It’s nice? Don’t you like the colors? The food smells good. The city—”

  “Is a city, is a city,” Ben muttered. “Cities are all the same.”

  “Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.” She nudged his arm. “You like it.”

  It’s the most beautiful island in the world.

  He shoved the memory of his grandmother’s voice to the back of his mind. He was here to work. He’d check in on his human relatives when that was finished. If he had time. He’d read the most recent report from his agent on the island, the same agent who’d procured the Jeep for him and Tenzin to drive to Quebradillas in a couple of days.

  The report was thorough.

  The island was recovering, slowly but surely.

  His relatives were well provided for, and his cousin was working again.

  His grandmother was healthy and had no idea where her money was coming from.

  That was all.

  He’d drive west with Tenzin, look for the treasure that probably didn’t exist, try not to piss anyone off, then go home with a much-needed tan.

  They walked up the street and bought three chicken pinchos from the vendor, then Ben tried to herd Tenzin back to the house.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Back to the very nice rental house I found for us. There’s already a light-safe room set up and a patio. I want to get some research done tonight.”

  “Don’t you want to wander around?” She bit into the skewer of meat. “You’ve never been here before.”

  She had a smear of adobo sauce on her chin.

  Ben wiped if off. “No, it’s fine.”

  “It’s not like you to be so incurious.”

  Ben sighed. “Can we just… not?”

  “Not what?”

  “You’re picking at me, Tiny.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “This is a job.” He finished the first pincho and bit into the second. “This is just a job. Can we treat it that way please?”

  “No.” She stopped in the middle of the cobblestone street. “Look around you. This is a beautiful city. If this was a normal job, you’d be eager to explore. You’d have arrived a week early. You would have jogged every street and probably found a dozen restaurants we just had to visit before we left.”

  She was right, which meant he said nothing.

  “So no. We can’t treat this like a normal job for you.” She started walking again. “Because it’s not. I’m going to explore. I hear music this direction. You can come or not.”

  Why was she being so stubborn? Usually it was Ben forcing Tenzin to not be a hermit. This newly extroverted vampire was completely unexpected.

  “Tenzin!”

  She turned around halfway down the block. “What?”

  Come with me. Don’t leave me alone in this place. I don’t like it when I don’t know what to feel.

  “Keep out of trouble.” Ben turned and kept walking to the house.

  She didn’t follow him.

  It was only after Ben returned to the house that he realized he’d never given Tenzin the directions. He debated wandering back through Old Town to try to find her. Then he remembered it was Tenzin.

  She’d find him. She always did.

  Ben pushed two chairs together in the courtyard and dozed in the moonlight, listening to the rustle of palm trees overhead.

  The TV only showed static. Ben fussed with the bunny-ear antenna, trying to watch his cartoons. Saturday morning was the only morning he got to watch cartoons. His mom was sleeping off the alcohol from the night before, and Ben had the television to himself.

  If he could only get a picture.

  A fist banged on the door, and Ben went on alert. It didn’t sound like any of their neighbors. It didn’t sound like the men who sometimes came to his mother’s apartment. That heavy fist could only belong to—

  “What the fuck, Joey?” His mother barreled out of the bedroom, down the narrow hallway, and threw open the door. “What the fuck? What fucking time is it, huh?”

  “I need the kid today,” Joe mumbled, glancing at Ben, who was still in his pj’s. They were SpongeBob pj’s. Ben didn’t really like SpongeBob, but Mrs. Novak had given him the pj’s after her grandson couldn’t fit in them anymore and they were newer than his old ones, so he said thank you and wore them.

  “The fuck you need the kid for?” His mom wiped a hand across her mouth. “We’re going to midtown today.”

  “For what? So he can steal stuff for you?”

  “You know he kills in those games. We pick up a little extra money. What’s the big deal? He’s good at it, and he has fun.”

  Ben didn’t have fun, but he didn’t correct his mother.

  “My mom is in town,” Joe said. “She wants to spend the day with the kid. Take him school shopping or something.”

  Ben saw his mother’s eyes narrow. “She wants to buy him clothes?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ben’s mother looked at Ben, then back at Joe. “How long?”

  “She’ll keep him for the day so he’s out of your hair. Cook him dinner tonight. I’ll bring him back before bed. My shift is done at nine.”

  Ben glanced at the old clock hanging crooked on the wall over the TV. Twelve hours
with Joe’s mom? Sweet. Ben thought about how many cookies he’d eaten the last time he’d seen his abuela. He’d nearly gotten sick from them.

  “Fine.” She walked over to Ben and bent down. “Go get changed.” She leaned closer. “Pick the good stuff, and do not take the tags off.”

  Ben nodded. He ran to change into his nicest clothes. His abuela would be sad if he didn’t look happy, so Ben would be happy.

  He could do that. He was good at pretending.

  “I know.” The familiar voice came from above him. The only reason he didn’t sit bolt upright was because it was a familiar voice.

  “You know what?” He cleared his throat and opened his eyes. The moon was still high, and Tenzin was hovering in the air, her body threading through the palm trees in the courtyard.

  “You said you were good at pretending.”

  He felt a sick curl in his stomach. “What else did I say?”

  “Nothing else. Just that.” She flew down and hovered directly over him. “I know you’re good at pretending.”

  “Uh-huh.” He lay completely still.

  “You were dreaming.”

  “It’s a thing humans do.”

  “I know.” Her storm-grey eyes went distant. “I think I remember dreaming.”

  He reached up and fingered a braid of hair with red string woven through it. “What do vampires dream about?”

  “Our human lives mostly.”

  “Do you remember yours?”

  “Sometimes.” She flipped over and sank into him, laying her body along his, using him as her own personal lounger. “My human life was miserable though. Why would I want to remember that?”

  “I don’t know.” He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her, which was as familiar as his own breath. Then he picked up a strand of her hair and started braiding it. “Why does anyone dream about anything? I don’t want to remember my childhood, but that doesn’t seem to matter.”

  “Are you dreaming about that?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “You brought it up.”

  Ben dropped Tenzin’s hair and wrapped his arms around her waist. He set his chin on the top of her head. She was exactly the correct height to use as a chin rest, so who was he to argue with nature?