by Kate Serine
“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded, dragging me into his embrace. “Are you all right? I heard you screaming.”
I nodded against his chest, which was damp with what I realized must’ve been vampire blood from his altercations on the roof. “He was here, Nicky,” I told him. “Dracula was here.”
Chapter Twelve
Nicky was pacing furiously, a dark scowl on his face. “You should’ve told me.”
“Why?” I asked from my seat on the sofa. When he came to an abrupt halt and pegged me with a withering glare, I didn’t even flinch. Meeting his gaze, I clasped my hands between my knees to hide the fact that they were still trembling.
“Why?” he repeated. “Because Dracula’s been in your head, Trish! You know I’ve been tracking him for two years—you didn’t think to mention he’s been chatting with you?”
“We haven’t been chatting,” I corrected, trying to keep my voice level but rapidly losing my patience. “He’s been intruding. It’s not like I invited him in. Besides, I wasn’t even sure who it was. I’ve never met Dracula—I have no idea what his voice sounds like!”
“You still should’ve mentioned it!” he raged, jabbing a finger at me. “Did you ever think that maybe we could’ve used this connection to draw him out? That we could’ve lured him into a trap?”
“No, Nicky,” I spat. “I was a little more concerned about my sanity. So forgive the hell out of me for not thinking about how this development could’ve benefited you.”
He ran a hand through his hair, his anger almost a palpable force in the room. “This is seriously fucked up.”
“Tell me about it,” I snapped.
He shook his head. “I have to catch him, Trish.”
“I know.”
Nicky cursed roundly, then strode over to the fireplace and slammed his hand against one of the bricks. A large section of wall slid away in response, revealing a room that looked like the freaking Bat Cave. I hurried in after him before the wall slid closed behind him. As I stood there in the center of the room, slowly surveying the massive cache of weapons that took up pretty much every square inch of the wall, he began to strip off all his weapons in short, angry motions.
“Are we not going back out?” I asked as Nicky packed away the last of his weapons. “I’m fine. We can try to track down the vampires you had to give up on the roof when you heard me scream.”
He shook his head. “No, I won’t find them again tonight. I have a feeling they were only that obvious to draw me away from you.”
“I’m sorry, Nicky,” I said, shoving my hands into my pockets. “I don’t know how many times I have to say it.”
He shrugged and slammed one of the display case doors. “Forget about it.”
I wanted to forget about it, to feel like I hadn’t just been a liability to his efforts that night, but his perma-scowl made it tough. The minute we left his weapons room, I made for the stairs, figuring it was probably best if I made myself scarce and let him brood in private. I had just changed into a T-shirt and pajama pants and was pulling back the covers to slip into bed when there was a tentative knock on the door.
I opened it, expecting to see Nicky in all his gear, prepared to tell me he’d changed his mind and was going out on the hunt again. But, to my surprise, he was leaning against the door frame wearing nothing but his jeans, as if he’d been in the process of undressing when he’d suddenly decided to drop by.
“Hey,” I said as nonchalantly as I could manage while trying to keep from staring at his bare chest. I crossed my arms to keep my fingertips from going exploring.
He looked up at me from under lowered lashes. “Hey.”
I waited to see if he’d say more, but he started to fidget with a little bubble of paint on the door frame, his brows coming together in a frown as if he was concentrating intently.
“So . . .” I prompted. “What do you want?”
He shrugged. “You know. I just wanted to see if you were doing okay. If you needed anything.”
I waited a beat. “And?”
He huffed and gave me an irritated look. “And I wanted to say . . . You know . . .”
“Nope, sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know. So if you have something you want to say, go ahead. Otherwise, I’m going to bed.”
“I wanted to apologize,” he said in a rush. When I didn’t immediately respond, he finally met my gaze. “Did you hear what I said? I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I heard you.”
“Do you have anything to say?”
“Not really.”
He ran his hand through his hair, giving me a great look at those biceps in action. “I’m trying to apologize here, Trish,” he snapped. “You’re not making it easy.”
“Nope,” I agreed. “I’m not.”
At this, his dark expression suddenly cleared and the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile. He cursed under his breath, shaking his head. “Fine. All right. I get it. I was an ass. I shouldn’t have made it seem like I didn’t care about what you’ve been going through.”
“Thanks.”
He nodded toward my room. “So, you gonna be okay in here tonight?”
I started to assure him that I was fine, but hesitated. A fact he picked up on immediately. He was already wearing a doubtful expression when I gave him a shaky, “Oh, yeah. Of course!”
Without a word, he grabbed my hand and led me to the bed. “Climb in.”
“You really don’t have to tuck me in,” I demurred, even though having him there had instantly calmed my nerves.
He pulled the covers up over me, then flipped off the overhead light. For a moment, I wondered if he was planning to leave without so much as a “good night,” but then he came back to the bed and stretched out beside me, propping himself up on his elbow so he could peer down at me. “Go ahead and go to sleep, doll,” he said. “I’ll stay right here with you.”
My heart began to pound. “Nicky,” I said, a little breathless, “really—you don’t have to—”
He put a finger to my lips, silencing my protestations. “I know I don’t have to,” he replied. “Maybe I need this, too.”
I held his gaze for a long, supercharged moment. But when the air began to crackle with tension, I swallowed hard, and turned onto my side, putting my back to him. I could still feel his gaze on me for a few minutes longer, but then he put his head down on the pillow next to mine and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me into the curve of his body. I tried in vain to ignore the nearness of him, to not think about the thin barrier of cotton material that separated my back from his chest. And I wondered what would happen if I rolled over to face him.
But before I could give it a try, his hand found mine in the darkness, his fingers twining with mine, and he pressed a kiss to the crown of my head. “Good night, doll.”
If there’d been a window of opportunity to see where things would go, he’d just closed it. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Good night, Nicky.”
I woke slowly, gradually becoming aware but not sure what had awakened me. I opened my eyes and scanned the room, searching the heavy shadows. Birds chirped outside the window, alerting me it was morning, but thanks to the blackout shades, the room was still plunged in darkness. I also heard soft snoring. Frowning, I turned my head and saw Nicky lying on the pillow beside me. He was still dressed and on top of the covers, but his arm was lightly draped across me.
My stomach did its little fluttery thing at the realization that instead of leaving once I’d fallen asleep, Nicky had stayed at my side while I slept, watching over me and keeping me safe. If someone had told me a week ago that I’d be in Nicky Blue’s house, sleeping in bed with him, I would’ve called her a liar—plus another couple of names that were even less complimentary. Then again, if someone had told me a week ago that I would be jumped by vampires, attacked in my apartment by a seriously pissed off ghost, and psychically invaded by Dracula himself, all in the same week, I wouldn’t have belie
ved that either. Guess life was just full of surprises. . . .
Feeling a sudden shift in the air, I shook off the last remnants of sleep and squinted into the darkness. There was a heaviness in the room that I couldn’t quite place. All the hairs on the back of my neck jumped to attention, and my blood went cold. No, wait—it wasn’t my blood. It was the temperature in the room itself that had plummeted several degrees. Next to me, Nicky shivered in his sleep.
I swallowed hard, then whispered, “Nicky!” My breath came out as a frosty mist that curled before my eyes.
Shit. Not good.
In a panic, I tried to get up, but I was completely paralyzed. I tried to call out to Nicky again, but all that came out was a strangled rasp. As I lay there, completely helpless, the shadows swirled and shifted, slowly taking form as they moved toward the bed. A moment later, the silhouette of a woman took shape at the end of the bed. I felt the mattress dip down by my feet as the shadow-woman put one knee on the mattress and then another and began to creep toward me.
In the next moment she was straddling me, her face just inches from mine. I was trembling so violently, I couldn’t believe the shaking hadn’t woken Nicky. As if the phantom had heard my thoughts, she glanced over at where he lay, then ran a ghostly finger from my forehead down along the bridge of my nose until she reached my lips. “Don’t bother trying to call for him,” she said, her voice edged with amusement. “He can’t hear you. It’s just you”—her finger continued down my chin and along the edge of my throat—“and me.”
I wanted to look away, close my eyes, pretend this was just a dream, but I couldn’t. It was as if she was controlling me.
She chuckled, a low, throaty sound. “No, silly girl, it’s not me controlling you.” She bent forward until her lips were near my ear. “It’s the master,” she whispered, her breath an arctic blast on my skin. “You tasted the blood of one of his children. And now you are his.”
My eyes went wide, remembering how, in desperation, I’d bitten the vampiress the other night, how her blood had flooded my mouth when my teeth had broken her skin.
“You weren’t the one he was hoping for,” she giggled, “but after meeting you face to face last night, he thinks you’ll be a lovely addition to the family.” She shifted and pressed her lips to mine in a slow kiss, then grinned down at me. “Oh, we’re going to have so much fun. . . .”
She turned her head to regard Nicky for a moment, her blond hair sweeping across my face. “What do you think,” she taunted, “should we bring Mr. Blue into the family, too? He’d be such a delightful plaything for the other girls. So handsome and strong.” She giggled again and gave me a lascivious wink. “They’d enjoy sucking him dry in more ways than one.”
Fury so powerful engulfed me, it shattered the hold over me. My arm shot up and grasped her throat, and I flipped her onto her back, now sticking my face into hers. “You and whatever vampire whores Dracula has recruited will stay the hell away from Nicky Blue, or you’ll have to deal with me.”
The ghost merely laughed, her eyes twinkling with amusement before she dematerialized and re-formed beside the bed, safely out of my reach, proving just how empty my threat was. She adjusted her fluffy pink sweater and pulled her miniskirt down a notch before giving me a patronizing grin. “I’ll be seeing you soon, sweetie!”
“Don’t count on it,” I hissed. “I’ll take on that son of a bitch Dracula any day, any time. You tell him to bring it on.”
She suddenly swooped forward, her face morphing into a horrifying replica of Sebille Fenwick’s rotting corpse, somehow knowing about the nightmares that had plagued me for the last few months. Then she grabbed my throat and squeezed. I clawed desperately at her ghostly hands, doing nothing more than scoring my own skin with my fingernails.
“Do not underestimate the master,” the phantom warned, her breath rank, making me gag. “You are his, Trish. And you’ll be joining him very soon.”
With a parting cackle, she flung me backward, but instead of hitting the mattress, I kept falling, the darkness growing deeper. Screaming, I threw my arms out to my sides, desperately grasping for anything to stop my descent. My nails dug into something soft and foul. Was it dirt? Just when it felt like I would fall forever, I suddenly hit bottom, and the air was forced from my lungs.
“This isn’t real,” I panted, squeezing my eyes closed with relief. “It’s just a dream. It’s all just a dream. Wake up, Trish.”
But when I opened my eyes again, I was still lying at the bottom of a freshly dug grave hundreds of feet deep. “It’s just a dream,” I ground out, balling my hands into fists. “Wake up!”
I suddenly felt an arm snake under my back and around my shoulders. With a gasp, I rolled toward my unexpected companion in the grave and found myself lying on top of him, his blazing red eyes burning into my soul. “What the—”
“Hello, little one,” came the low, hypnotic voice, the tendrils of sound wrapping around me, drawing me closer.
I was still screaming when his fangs plunged into my throat.
“Trish!”
I jolted awake, my arms flailing wildly, the scream still burning my throat.
“Trish, it’s me! It’s Nicky!”
The sound of Nicky’s voice brought me out of the fog of fear and desperation. I snapped my jaws shut, my scream abruptly cutting off, and blinked at him in confusion. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. His dark hair was wet and droplets of water glistened on his skin.
I shook my head as I sat up, not understanding. “What’s going on? You were just here. On the bed beside me.”
His brows came together in a frown. “I got up a couple of
hours ago, doll. You were sleeping so soundly, I didn’t want to wake you up.”
I shook my head again, more vehemently this time. “No, that’s not—” I bit off my words. Realizing it really had all been a dream, I let out a sigh of relief so deep my shoulders sagged, suddenly feeling boneless. “Nightmare,” I muttered around chattering teeth. “I must’ve had a nightmare.”
“Want to talk about it?” he asked, tucking a ringlet behind my ear.
I shook my head. “No. Not yet. I just—” I just need you to hold me, was what I wanted to say, but I bit off my words, not wanting to admit how rattled I was.
But to my surprise, Nicky pulled me into his arms anyway, pressing me close to his bare chest. “You’re safe now,” he murmured against my hair. “I gotcha.”
I closed my eyes and leaned against him, letting him hold me and trying not to think about the fact that my cheek was resting against his fabulously sculpted chest, or about how right it felt with his strong arms wrapped around me. After a moment, I tentatively slipped my arms around his waist and curled into him a little more. His heart began to pound faster in my ear and his arms tightened around me. Then his hand started moving in a slow circle on my back, just a small gesture of comfort, but it sent a lance of white-hot heat through my body, slamming me with the ache I experienced every time I fantasized about just such a scenario. I let my eyelids flutter shut, focusing on the gentle pressure of his hand on my back instead of the increasingly persistent heat between my legs.
Oh, God . . . please don’t let this be another dream. . . .
I felt him swallow hard; then his hand roamed a little lower, tentatively at first, but soon he was skimming across the curve of my ass and down my thigh. My pulse was racing so rapidly as he eased me back onto the mattress that I could hardly breathe. I looked up at him, meeting his gaze. His eyes seemed brighter, filled with a fiery desire that startled me. I caught a glimpse of what was going through his mind—just a flicker. But I didn’t need to see beyond his mental defenses to know what he wanted at that moment—the rock-hard length pressing into my thigh was a damned good indicator. And I was so onboard with where his thoughts were going.
His hand slid back up my thigh over my hip and to my ribs as he shifted, scooting up a little to stretch ou
t on the bed beside me. I kept one arm around his waist, my fingers splayed across his back, and let my other hand drift up along his muscled forearm to his bicep where a beautiful Celtic design marked him up to his shoulder and around to his back. I traced the tattoo with my fingertips, gliding lightly over his skin. When I reached the nape of his neck, his lids snapped shut briefly, his lips parting in a sharp exhale. And when he opened his eyes again, I shuddered at the intensity of his gaze.
My God—was this really happening? Was I actually lying on a bed in Nicky Blue’s arms, his body pressing against mine, straining toward mine? After so long dreaming of such a moment, was it actually happening?
But just as I began to doubt that I was awake, the increasingly agonizing ache at the center of me assured me that this was no dream. He was right there, staring down at me, wanting me, just as much as I wanted him. I grasped the nape of his neck and urged him toward me, desperate to feel his lips upon mine, to slake some of this heat building inside me before I went up in flames and was reduced to a smoldering pile of ash.
His gaze flicked down to my mouth.
God, yes! Yes! Finally . . .
I let my lids flutter shut as he pressed a whisper of a kiss to my lips. Just a tender brush of his mouth against mine. And not nearly enough. On the next pass, his lips lingered a little longer, testing, teasing. And again, even longer this time. He lifted his head for a moment, meeting and holding my gaze. There was something there, something I couldn’t quite see. Was it caution? Fear? But before I could look closer, there was a sudden shift in his gaze as if a switch had tripped, and then his mouth was on mine again. And he was done messing around.
This kiss was possessive, demanding. His mouth claimed mine as no man’s ever had, drawing out of me a fiery passion I’d never experienced before. I clung to his lips with each pass, gasping, breathless, hardly daring to believe that it was really Nicky’s mouth devouring mine. I nipped at his bottom lip, then sucked it into my mouth, making him moan.
