by Becky Allen
He quickly scooped up the bread, bananas, cheese, and candy bars and dropped them into the sack which had, miraculously, remained intact, and handed it to her.
“Thank you.”
“Eddie,” he said, smiling again. “Eddie Harrington.”
“Kaitlyn,” she replied, and took a step around him.
“Hey, hold on a minute. The least I can do is buy you a cup of coffee.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“Please,” he said. “It would make me feel better.”
She hesitated. Eddie Harrington was of medium height, young and slender, with a shock of bleached blond hair and dark brown eyes. Had she been an ordinary girl, she would have refused to go with him, but she was her father’s daughter. Blessed with preternatural speed and the strength of ten men, she was confident of her ability to take care of herself.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “It’s just a cup of coffee.”
“All right.”
“Great.” He took one of the bags from her arm and followed her to her car.
He whistled appreciatively when she unlocked the door of the Porsche. “Nice ride!” He put the bag he was carrying on the backseat, then placed hers beside it.
“Thanks.” Kaitlyn locked the car. Wishing she had never agreed to this, she listened to Eddie make small talk as they strolled toward the coffee shop, which was a few doors down from the market.
A waitress showed them to a booth. Kaitlyn sat down and Eddie slid in beside her. It annoyed her that he didn’t take the seat across from her.
Eddie ordered two cups of coffee, then sat back, one arm stretched out on the seat behind her. “So, do you live around here?”
“Yes, do you?”
“No, I’m just laying over for a few days on my way to L.A.”
“Oh? Is this a business trip?”
“You could say that.”
The waitress arrived with their coffee. “Will there be anything else?”
Eddie glanced at Kaitlyn, one brow raised in question.
She shook her head, wishing again that she had refused his invitation. There was something about Eddie she didn’t like, didn’t trust, although she had no idea what it was. He seemed nice enough. And it was, after all, just a cup of coffee. It wasn’t as if she was agreeing to a lifetime commitment.
“Have you lived here long?” he asked.
“No.” She added cream and sugar to her cup. “What kind of business are you in?” Not that she cared, she thought as she stirred her coffee.
“At the moment, I’m just scouting around.”
“Oh.” She sipped her coffee. It burned her tongue, but she kept drinking. The sooner she finished it, the sooner she could get out of here. She should have bought a half-gallon of ice cream at the store. It would have given her a good excuse to hurry home.
“So, I was thinking, maybe we could go out later, take in dinner and a movie.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. I have a date.”
“How about tomorrow night?”
“I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. I’m seeing someone.”
“Are you engaged?”
“No, but we’re exclusive.” She drained her cup and set it aside. “I really need to go.”
He stared at her, his eyes narrowed, as if he didn’t believe her, but she didn’t care.
She lifted one brow. “Do you mind letting me out?”
“Sure.” He wasn’t smiling now.
Kaitlyn slid out of the booth. “Thank you for the coffee,” she murmured over her shoulder.
It was all she could do to keep from running out the door. She didn’t know who Eddie Harrington was, but he gave her the creeps.
Chapter 11
Zack stood in the shadows alongside Kaitlyn’s house, debating whether to see her again. She was a nice girl, obviously a little naïve when it came to men. He had the feeling she had been sheltered most of her life until she came here to live. He sensed the strength in her, but it was more physical than emotional, and the last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. In all his existence, he had had only one long-standing relationship with a woman, and that had been over a century and a half ago. It just wasn’t smart to care too deeply for mortals. At best, they lived a mere seventy or eighty years; at worst, they died in your arms at the age of twenty, like his beautiful dancer, her mind gone, her body ravaged by disease.
He rarely thought of Colette. She had been a pretty young woman, with bright red hair, a winsome smile, and a dancer’s slender figure. They had spent three incredible years together and then, without warning, she took sick. Within the space of a few hours, she was out of her head with fever. He had taken her to the hospital, but the doctor shook his head and said there was nothing he could do. In a few days, she looked more dead than alive. He had begged her to let him bring her across in hopes that the change would heal her in mind and body, but she had been too far gone to decide, and when he had tried to bring her across, it was too late. She had died in his arms. The memory of her death had haunted him for years. Even now, thinking of her filled him with guilt and regret. He wasn’t sure he was ready to face that kind of failure, of loss, again.
He shoved his hands into his pockets. Best to go back home where he belonged. He was about to head back to the casino when Kaitlyn appeared at the front window. One look and he knew he couldn’t let her go, not yet. He had been alone too long, waited too long to feel the warm rush of desire that spiraled through him whenever she was near, a hunger not just for her blood, but for the sound of her laughter, the beauty of her smile, the chance to hold her close in his arms and feel alive again. And if she broke his heart . . . well, he would just have to live with it, because he didn’t want to live without her.
Zack was leaving the cover of the shadows alongside Kaitlyn’s house when he caught the scent of a stranger. It could mean nothing, he thought. It could be a tourist out for a walk, the mailman, a repairman, except there was no reason for any of them to be in this particular place at this particular hour.
He took another breath, committing the scent to memory, before making his way up to the front porch.
Kaitlyn answered his knock almost immediately, leaving him to wonder if she had been standing by the door waiting for him—or for the man whose scent he had detected only moments earlier.
The look in her eyes when she saw him, the warmth in her voice as she invited him inside, was all the answer he needed.
Murmuring her name, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her until she protested that she needed air.
“Damn, woman,” he muttered.
She smiled up at him, thinking that the awe in his voice and the heated expression in his eyes was the nicest compliment she had ever received.
Standing on her tiptoes, she folded her hands over his shoulders and pressed her lips to his.
Without breaking the kiss, Zack lifted Kaitlyn into his arms and carried her to the sofa. Still without breaking the kiss, he settled her on his lap and wrapped his arms around her. She fit into his embrace as if she had been created for no other purpose than to mold her body to his. Her skin was warm and smooth, her hair fragrant with the scent of honeysuckle, her lips soft and pliable. His body reacted as expected when a soft moan rose in her throat.
“Katy,” he said, his voice thick with desire.
She fanned herself with her hand, thinking one more kiss like that and she would go up in flames. “I think I need a drink,” she said. “Can I offer you something?”
His heated gaze moved over her from head to heel, leaving no doubt in her mind that she was what he wanted.
“Besides that,” she said, sliding off his lap.
“Wine, if you’ve got it.”
Nodding, she walked into the kitchen and went straight to the refrigerator where she poured herself a glass of ice water. She stood there a moment, taking deep breaths and trying to calm her racing heart. If she could harness the electricity in Zack’s kisses, she could probably light up the worl
d.
After taking one last calming breath, she found a bottle of wine and filled two glasses, then returned to the living room.
Zack was sitting on the sofa where she had left him. He accepted the drink she offered him with a frown.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, taking the seat beside him.
Zack regarded her a moment. For days, his instincts had been warning him that she was keeping something from him. “Who are you really?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Maybe the better question would be, what are you?”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“And I’m sure you do.” Opening his preternatural senses, he tried to read her mind but, again, with no success. “You’re not mortal, are you?”
She stared at him, her eyes wide.
He canted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing. “So, what are you, Katy? Fairy? Werewolf? What?”
Kaitlyn’s heart skipped a beat. Zack hadn’t mentioned vampires, but it was obvious he suspected there was something otherworldly about her. Striving for calm, she set her glass on the end table. It was strictly forbidden for her people to tell anyone else the truth of what they were. It had been drummed into her from the time she was old enough to understand that no one else was to know. “I think you should leave.”
Zack drained his glass and set it aside before gaining his feet. “Not until I get some answers.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No.” Closing the short distance between them, he took hold of her wrist and pulled her to her feet.
“Let me go.”
He studied her speculatively. There was no fear in her voice, and none in her expression.
“I feel the strength in you,” he mused, and then frowned. No doubt he would have noticed it before if he hadn’t been so smitten with her. “You don’t smell like any vampire I’ve ever met, but I can smell blood in the house.” Still holding her arm, he tugged her along behind him as he went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There, amid the milk, butter, cheese, and eggs, he saw two bags of blood. He sniffed the air, then glanced over his shoulder. “Type AB negative, right?”
Kaitlyn looked at him as if she had never seen him before. “How do you know that?”
He stared at her, one brow arched. “Can’t you guess?”
“You can’t be one of us.” And yet, deep down, hadn’t she suspected that very thing? She shook her head. It was impossible. “My father’s never heard of you.”
“That’s okay,” Zack said flippantly. “I’ve never heard of him, either.” Taking her hand, Zack led the way back into the living room. Resuming his seat on the sofa, he pulled Kaitlyn down beside him. “I guess that explains why I could never read your thoughts.”
“And why I couldn’t read yours.” She grinned, thinking how remarkable it was that Zack was a vampire, too. She could hardly wait to tell her mom and dad. What would her dad think, when he learned that Zack was indeed one of them, and that he had managed to stay under the radar?
“How long have you been a vampire?” Zack asked. With the Undead, appearances were usually deceiving. He was a lot older than he looked.
“That’s a silly question. All my life, of course. And I’m only half. My mother is human.”
Zack stared at her as if she had suddenly started speaking a foreign language. “What?”
Kaitlyn felt her earlier excitement melt away like ice left too long in the sun. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? One of the Others.”
“Others?”
“My father told me there are two kinds of vampires. Our kind, who are born that way. And the Others, who are turned into vampires by an exchange of blood. Our people call themselves the Romanian vampires, although we don’t just inhabit Romania anymore.”
Zack shook his head. “I’ve never heard of anyone being born a vampire.”
“Our people are basically mortal until they turn twenty, and then the craving for human blood comes on us. Once we partake of it, we lose our humanity and our ability to eat human food and walk in the sun.”
“I’ve seen you eat.”
She shrugged. “It’s because I’m only half vampire.”
“Can you abide the daylight, as well?”
She nodded.
He grunted softly. Half human and half vampire. If that didn’t beat all. “Can all your people walk in the sun?”
“No, although my father can be awake and active in his cat form during the day.”
“Cat form?”
Kaitlyn nodded, smiling. “When he wants to be active during the day, he assumes the form of a big gray cat.” One of her earliest memories of her father was watching him transform himself from man to cat and back again. She had thought it was magic until her father explained that it was a gift bestowed on those born to Liliana. Her father used to tease her, saying it was because her grandmother was really a witch. Kaitlyn had believed him until Liliana set her straight.
“I am not a witch,” Liliana had told her. “But there is magic in my blood that gives my descendents the ability to change shape. There is only one real witch in the family, and that is Nadiya.”
Kaitlyn had never known if that was true or not, although it wouldn’t have surprised her. Nadiya Korzha was one of the most unpleasant women she had ever met.
Zack shook his head, thinking Kaitlyn’s people were the weirdest vampires he had ever heard of. He could be awake during the day if his life depended on it, but he was weak, sluggish. He could also change shape, although he preferred something larger and more intimidating than a cat. Most of his kind shifted into wolves; that was his preference, as well.
“Can your father turn into anything else?” he asked. “Something a little more menacing?”
“Not that I know of, but believe me, my father can be plenty scary when he wants to be.”
“What about you?” Zack asked with a wry grin. “Can you be scary?”
“No. And I can’t turn into a cat, either.”
“Too bad,” Zack said. “That’s something I’d really like to see.”
“How long have you been a vampire?”
“A little over six hundred years.”
“Wow! You’re even older than my father! How old were you when you became a vampire?”
“A few months on the shy side of twenty-nine.”
She canted her head to the side, admiring his strong jaw, straight nose, and unlined skin. His brows were inky black, like his hair. “Our people don’t age once the change occurs. Apparently yours don’t, either.”
“Right. We just get stronger as we get older. I’m guessing your people do, too.”
She looked at his hand, lightly holding hers. “We have a lot in common,” she remarked wistfully.
“And that makes you unhappy?”
She looked up at him, mute.
“What is it, Katy?” Releasing her hand, he stroked her cheek. “What’s bothering you?”
“Our people are enemies.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I don’t have any enemies.” None living, at any rate.
Kaitlyn looked at him in disbelief. “Don’t you know anything? Centuries ago, my great-grandfather, Calin Sherrad, declared war on the Others in order to preserve our identity and our way of life.” She had read the story of the war with the Others in the Journal of Alexandru Chisca, written long before her father had been born. In it, Chisca had chronicled the war and how it had started because the Others were feeding indiscriminately on human men, women, and even children. Even worse, they had left their kills in the streets and byways to be found by mortals, which had brought out the vampire hunters. Not only that, but the Others had turned mortals into vampires like themselves, causing panic in the streets. The Romanian vampires couldn’t turn mortals into vampires, although an infusion of their blood prolonged mortal life. Kaitlyn’s mother was proof of that. Although Elena was over forty, she still appeared to be in her twenties.
Zack grunted softly. “I don’t know anything about a war.”
“I thought everybody knew.” She had learned it at an early age. “It was fought over a thousand years ago.”
“I guess that’s why I never heard of it. But what the hell, that’s old history. It doesn’t have anything to do with you and me.”
“I wish it didn’t.”
Zack frowned. He might not be able to read her mind, but in this instance, it wasn’t necessary. He knew what she was going to say before she spoke the words.
“I’m sorry, Zack, but I can’t see you anymore.”
Eyes narrowed, he stared at her and then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, hard and long. And just as abruptly, he let her go. “So, that’s it,” he said, his voice harsh. “It’s over between us before it’s even started, and all because of some war that took place over a thousand years ago.”
Kaitlyn blinked back her tears. “It’s not what I want. But my father would never accept you. Or forgive me.”
He regarded her for stretched seconds, the taste of her still warm on his lips, her scent permeating his senses. And then he swore a vile oath. Why the hell was he so upset? It wasn’t like she was ending a long-standing relationship. Hell, he had only known the woman for a few days.
“Have it your way, Katy.” Rising, he dissolved into mist and vanished from the room.
Kaitlyn stared at the place where Zack had been standing, wishing she could relive the last few minutes, that she could recall the words she had spoken. And yet, it was better to end it now, before she fell any deeper, before letting him go became impossible.
She brushed the tears from her cheeks. She wouldn’t cry, wouldn’t think of Zack Ravenscroft, or of what might have been. She shook her head. Just her luck. She had finally met a man she liked and he was the wrong kind of vampire.
Kaitlyn closed her eyes and took several slow deep breaths. She refused to just sit home and feel sorry for herself. She was Drake Sherrad’s daughter, heir to the Carpathian dynasty. She had a destiny to fulfill, and Zack Ravenscroft had no place in it. How could she have forgotten that? In a year or two, three at the most, she would be required to return to the Fortress and seek a life mate.
