“Who?”
Clenching my teeth, I leaned my forward against Danaus’s calf and closed my eyes for a second. Some of the throbbing in my temples had returned, but it was more to do with the strain than any new invasion. “The person who was trying to get inside my head while we were Florence. I heard the voice when I was waking up. The voice said that Stefan wanted me dead. That I needed to kill him before he killed me.”
“Who attacked you?” Mira immediately demanded.
“I don’t know. Never saw the person.”
“But you said ‘she.’”
“What?” My head popped up. “No, I didn’t. I—” But I stopped as I replayed those words a second time. Mira was right. Had I heard something feminine in the voice that was rattling around in my head? Unfortunately, as I reached for the memory of the voice, it slipped farther from my grasp. “I don’t know who. It’s all too vague and insubstantial in my head.”
Sighing, I released my hold on Danaus’s foot and sat in the middle of the floor with my legs folded before me. The worst of the fear had dissipated and my head felt like I was finally coming out of the fog. Reluctantly, I lifted my gaze to look at the wounded expression filling Stefan’s gaze despite his attempts to keep his expression completely blank.
“I would never harm you,” Stefan said stiffly.
“I know. Things were confused when I first awoke. I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”
Stefan started toward me again, and I jerked back, holding up one hand to ward him off. “Don’t!”
“I don’t understand,” he said with a growl of frustration.
“Someone got into my head!” I nearly shouted. Panic was returning and I had to stop for a second to regain control. “No one is supposed to be able to get into my head. I know that you won’t hurt me, but this person put in the thought that I need to hurt you. Who knows what else this person put up there? I don’t want to hurt you.”
For a moment Stefan had this horrible expression on his face as if to question how an ant could hurt a lion, leaving me with the urge to throw something at the man’s head — which had nothing to do with the command. And in many ways it was true, but I was a threat because I was one of the few people Stefan trusted. I could get close to him.
Stefan took another step toward me, but this time Mira laid a restraining hand on his shoulder. When he looked back at her, Mira’s expression was gentle but her voice was firm. “Would you expect her to drive a stake through your heart?”
He jerked away from her, his face filled with horror at just the thought and I was touched. “God, no!” he gasped, looking as if Mira had lost her mind.
“We don’t know who is attempting to kill you or what command this person has placed into her mind,” Danaus said calmly while I continued to sit on the floor behind him. Finally, someone was using some common sense. Whether Stefan wanted to admit it, he was vulnerable where I was concerned.
“She won’t.”
Stefan’s firm, hard voice drew my gaze back up to his face. He was watching me with such a fierce expression that my heart melted a little. I wanted to be worthy of the trust I saw lighting his lovely eyes. He extended his hand toward me and I rose to my feet. My knees trembled as I took my first step toward him, but the fear eased as I closed the distance between us and fell into his arms. Stefan nearly crushed me in his strong embrace, as if he were trying to pull me inside of him to keep me protected from the world. And for a moment, I wished he could.
But I was done running and hiding from this lunatic. I wanted my life back and if I had my way, that life was going to include Stefan.
Blinking back tears, I eased back so that I could look up at him. His face was hard and fierce, but his anger wasn’t directed at me. He was pissed at the people who threatened me — who had killed me and sent me down this dark road.
Laying a hand against his cheek, I smiled. “I’m fine.”
“Any urges to kill me?” he asked with a small smirk.
“Not a one. When I woke up, it was like I was trying to climb through a nightmare to reach you.”
“It doesn’t mean that the commands aren’t still in her head,” Danaus grimly interjected, causing Stefan to tighten his hold on me.
“And she will fight them if they’re there. I trust her,” Stefan growled. If I had not been standing between the nightwalker and the hunter, I had a feeling that Stefan would have been only too happy to take a chunk out of Danaus. And by the dark smile curling on Danaus’s lips, I think he welcomed Stefan to try.
“I think we should focus on who was trying to get into my head in the first place,” I said loudly, hoping to redirect their thoughts to the more pressing issue before us. “I mean, my brain is still broken, right?”
“You’re not broken,” Stefan snapped, gathering me close with glaring at our companions as if daring them to argue.
“You know what I mean,” I murmured against his chest while pinching his arm.
“I can’t read her thoughts,” Mira said as she flopped down in a nearby chair.
All eyes turned to Valerio who was staring at me with a narrowed gaze as if he were concentrating extremely hard. “Curious,” he murmured, as if talking mostly to himself. “In truth, I’ve been trying to read your mind since you first arrived. I just assumed it was a trick employed by Stefan to shield your mind from me. But to answer your question, you are a blank slate to me, my dear.”
“Then who?”
“You said Vanko could read your mind?” Stefan inquired, dragging my gaze back up to his face.
“Yes. I think he might have also been able to control me. That first evening is a bit of a blur in my mind still.”
“The hunger,” Valerio muttered with a thoughtful nod.
“There’s only one other person then who could — Vanko’s maker,” Stefan said with a frown.
“Who’s that?”
Stefan shook his head, looking more frustrated than when we’d started comparing notes at the beginning of the night.
“I don’t understand. Can’t you look it up or something? Don’t you have like ... a directory or something that lists who made whom and all that?”
“Sorry but no,” Valerio broke in. “There are too many of us who would prefer to keep that private if possible.”
“Damn it,” I growled, dropping my head against Stefan’s chest. Every time I thought we might be able to take a step forward, we were faced with another roadblock or a dead end.
“We’ve had enough for tonight. The sun will rise in a couple hours,” Stefan announced, drawing me close. I didn’t know if he could sense my fatigue and general frustration, but I was grateful that we were calling it for now. I just couldn’t think about this any longer.
“We’ll meet here tomorrow night and formulate a new plan,” Valerio said. Everyone seemed to agree, but no one was looking particularly enthusiastic about the idea. It might have been because we really didn’t know enough to make a good plan. Unfortunately, the only plans I could come up with featured me as bait and I really didn’t like that idea. If Vanko’s maker was behind this mess, that meant we were looking for an older nightwalker and I just didn’t stand much of a chance with a significantly older nightwalker — even if Stefan and the others had my back.
Stefan lowered his lips to brush against my temple. “Let us find a place to rest.” While Stefan held me tight in his arms, a strange tingling sensation grew in the air around me. But before I could truly marvel at it, the world went black and everything disappeared.
Chapter 18
When the world reappeared, Stefan and I were no longer standing in the middle of Valerio’s parlor, but we were no outside of a somewhat dilapidated looking home in the middle of nowhere. The air was cooler and held a different quality to it. I didn’t know where we were, but I was confident that we were far from Valerio’s home in Italy.
“What happened? Where are we?” I demanded as I gazed around at my new location.
Stefan smiled at me in the da
rkness and stepped back, dropping his arms down to his side. “South of France, between Marseille and Avignon.” He turned away from me and stared into the darkness, but I don’t think he was really seeing his surroundings. “I grew up not too far from here.”
Reaching out, I put my hand on his chest, a part of me hating to disturb his thoughts, particularly when he seemed a little willing to tell me about his past. Stefan never spoke of his years as a human and rarely spoke of his younger years as a nightwalker. But all the same…
“Yes, but how did we get here? Did I pass out again?”
“No, ma petite.” Stefan captured my hand and raised it to press a kiss to my fingers. “I think Mira calls is teleporting. It’s magic.”
A burst of energy filled me and I nearly lifted up on the tips of my toes. “Can I learn to do that?” Teleporting would be a great way to get around so long as you’re careful and don’t appear in a place where the sun is up.
Stefan chuckled and pulled me so that I started walking with him toward the house. “Eventually.”
“When?”
“In about a thousand years. It’s something that comes with age.”
“A thousand years! Who wants to wait that long for something so cool?”
Stefan’s laugh rang out across the open field, warming my heart. I’d missed that sound. Since meeting him in Venice, that wonderful sound had filled my nights as we talked and joked in my little rental apartment. Less than a month had passed since those wonderful nights, but it seemed more than a lifetime ago. And maybe technically a lifetime had passed — mine.
Crossing the overgrown yard, Stefan led the way under unkempt trees, past thorny rose bushes that were attempting to climb over the front of the house, and down a broken stone path to the back door. He paused to kick over an extremely large rock and picked up an old key that unlocked the door.
The interior couldn’t have been more different. While the kitchen was completely empty, the surfaces gleamed in what little moonlight that filtered through openings in the white lace curtains. There was no dust, no dirt, and no grime to be seen. I would have guessed that a maid had just walked out the front door as we walked in the back. Stefan continued to lead the way through the house that contained beautiful furniture and exquisite decoration. One entire room looked as if it were dedicated to just books. I wanted to walk slowly, taking in everything, but Stefan kept me moving, pulling me to a hidden set of stairs that led below the house.
When we reached the basement, Stefan unlocked a large, heavy metal door and flicked on some soft golden lights against the thick darkness that crowded the windowless rooms. While Stefan locked the door, I looked around. The furniture down here was a little more modern, though it looked extremely expensive. There was a massive TV and entertainment system, but it was the piles and piles of books scattered around the room that made me smile. We’d never discussed it, but apparently Stefan loved to read. From what I could see, there were just as many fiction as nonfiction books. I thought I even spied a couple vampire books.
“Is this where you spend your nights?” I asked when Stefan was standing beside me.
“When life is quiet in Venice and I am not needed in my domain,” he said softly, taking my hand in his.
“Where is your domain?”
“Marseille.”
Stefan began to weave his way to the back of the large room, guiding me between towers of books to a partially open door. He paused, motioning for me to enter first. As I stepped inside, he turned on another light and I gasped, my hands jumping to cover my mouth. Tears blurred my vision, but I could still see each of the drawings I had done in Venice framed on the wall of the bedroom. Stefan had taken them from the sketchbooks I had with me in Venice.
“I didn’t know what had happened to you,” Stefan whispered, his voice dancing around me in the sweetest caress. “I thought if I hung your art where I slept I could keep you close to me.”
On a fractured sob, I whirled around and launched myself at the man, wrapping my arms around his neck as I kissed him. It was like coming home, or at least how I always imagined it would feel. After so many years of traveling, wandering from place to place and job to job, I felt disjointed and aimless, but not with Stefan. I belonged in this man’s arms and he belonged in mine.
We kissed slowly, relearning each other after our weeks of separation. Each touch, smell and taste felt new and familiar at the same time. I was experiencing everything for the first time as a nightwalker. It was all fuller now, as if all my senses had been muffled until this moment. I wanted to touch and kiss and lick every inch of him.
Stefan’s large hands slid to grasp the edge of my T-shirt and hoodie, forcing them up just enough so he could reach under them. His hands were warm against my skin, sending little tingles of excitement skimming along everywhere he touched. I moaned in his mouth as I pulled at his own clothes, fighting to get down to the skin. With each passing second, we grew more urgent, more careless. Over our moans and sighs, I could hear threads snapping as buttons popped loose, seams tearing, and material ripping.
When we were finally naked, Stefan took a step back, his expression harsh and grim. Lines of strain dug into his face as his eyes inspected every inch of my body. His fingertips skimmed along, following directly behind his gaze. My heart broke a little to see it. He walked around me, inspecting my backside with the same attention to detail, and I didn’t speak.
It was only when he was standing directly in front of me again that I cupped his face with both of my hands, forcing him to meet my gaze. “I was never physically harmed while I was human and out of your care.” Stefan frowned, disbelief filling his gaze. I sighed and gave a little smile. “Other than being murdered,” I corrected. “But even that could have been a lot worse. My little scuffle with Vanko after being turned was not a big thing and I healed quickly.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know and I appreciate it. I really do.”
“I wish—”
I placed my fingers against his lips, stopping his words. I didn’t want to look back any more. Stefan was in my arms at last and that was the only thing I wanted to think about. “Let it go.”
“I will try, but it’s going to take a while.”
A smirk lifted one corner of my mouth. “You know, I’ve heard I’ve got a lot of time on my hands now.”
Excitement flared in his expression again and his eyes glowed, sending a little thrill through me. Scooping me up in his arms, Stefan carried me over to the king-sized bed and gently placed me in the center before following me down. We resumed exactly where we left off as if the little moment of worry and anger had never happened. There was only the joy of being together again.
His body was exactly as I remembered it. I kissed the ancient scar that cut across his wide chest just below his heart. He’d explained that it had been from a battle he’d been in prior to becoming a nightwalker. There was another on his neck. He didn’t speak of that one, but it looked like he’d once been bitten there, but the nightwalker had never bothered to heal it.
I wanted to relearn all of him that night, but time was wasting away and my body had already become taut with tension. He’d expertly worked me back up to the very edge like he’d done on all the other nights we had been together. And when he finally plunged within me, I shattered, a scream of pure pleasure flying from my lips.
Stefan gritted his teeth, moving steadily within me as conscious thought finally seeped back into my brain, only so he could pull me apart yet again. As he neared the peak, Stefan dug his fangs into my neck, the intense pain and pleasure snapping the tension within me like a breaking rubber band. He drank my blood, taking me into his body again, before his control shattered as well. He followed me deep into oblivion, his shout twining with my cries of release.
A weary smile laced my mouth as I lie there under Stefan. There was no heaving breathes or pounding hearts that filled such moments with humans. But there was a different kind of pulse, a low burn of ener
gy that I’d never experienced while I was living. Closing my eyes, I reached out with my new senses, following it back to Stefan. The pulse was his lifeforce, his personal energy mixing with mine. For a moment in time, we were as close to being one that we could ever be and it was beautiful.
When Stefan had recovered enough to push up onto his elbows, he looked down at me, his brown hair hanging down around his eyes. A crooked grin on his face and laughter in his eyes. “You have broken me woman,” he said with a happy, weary sigh.
“Yeah, but you’re a nightwalker. You’ll heal and be ready to soon enough.”
With a chuckle, he nodded. “That is true.”
Rolling off me, he lay back and tucked me against his side while wrapping the blankets around us. “This is where you belong,” he said in a low voice, and I wasn’t entirely sure he was talking to me as much as he was talking to himself, as if reassuring himself that all was finally right his world.
With my head on his chest and his arm around my shoulders while his fingers lazily brushed against my back in a caress, I relaxed. My mind wandered as I soaked in the feeling of his body, the silky smoothness of his cotton sheets against my skin, and the soft scent of lilac that mixed with his natural woodsy, autumn scent.
After a couple minutes, my thoughts tumbled back to the hunt that Stefan had accompanied me on and the strange tug I had felt. It was something that I had never experienced while hunting with Daphne in Poland and it worried me.
“Stefan, can I ask you something?” I asked. My index finger danced along his chest as I drew infinity signs.
He stretched his legs beneath the covers and I could feel his body relaxing. Dawn was pulling at us. “Of course, ma petite,” he murmured.
“Do you remember that woman I fed from this evening?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why I was drawn to her? Out of all the people she was with, her blood smelled the best to me. I was pulled to it from three blocks away. Why her over everyone else?”
Stefan remained silent for a moment, his fingers slowly running through my hair in a relaxing caress that I hoped would never end. “You told me that you fed for the first time from that shifter who kidnapped you, correct?”
Stefan (Lost Nights Series Book 1) Page 23
