“Drago . . . ”
“Oui?”
“Thank you.”
Drago nodded. “Je vous en prie. My pleasure. However, after tonight, I fear you’ll regret such sentiment.” He slammed the door of his Riviera and drove off before Dallas could reply.
Nineteen
IT WAS WELL AFTER midnight. Jaz was gone. Angie was alive, but in critical condition under private care. The inn was closed down for an indefinite period. The police had been unavoidable, but through the influence of his and Drago’s compelling eyes, questions had been kept to a minimum. For the time being.
This time Gillie had provided the blood required to heal Dallas’ silver wound. Dallas had hated to do it, but there was no other choice. The old man was now resting, and Dallas expected and hoped he would recover completely from the ordeal. Tia, too, was resting. She hadn’t wanted to witness Dallas’ healing process.
Dallas was exhausted.
It had been a debilitating week, no doubt about it. He couldn’t remember ever having sustained two silver wounds in such a short period of time. The only good thing that had happened had been the death of an ugly vampire. A small smile touched Dallas’ mouth. No, he corrected, two good things had happened. He had asked for Veilina’s forgiveness, and she had given it. Or so it pleased him to think. St. James had been sent to the True Death through the combined efforts of himself, a tortured spirit, and an enforcer with issues. Somehow, it had seemed appropriate at the time.
Veilina and Drago had saved Dallas’ life in the process. He didn’t mind owing his life to Veilina. He owed her for much more than that. He did, however, very much mind owing Drago. Already Dallas was regretting his “thank you” to l’ enforcier. What would Drago demand in return? It was a sobering question.
And Tia . . . Juliana had said that this was his “second chance.” Drago had said that nothing makes eternity bearable except for affairs of the heart. Could everyone else be right, after all? He still had no answer. Giving advice was easy, but he was the one who would have to live with the consequences. What if he allowed Tia to stay and he ended up destroying her in a rage of bloodlust?
Drago arrived soon after. Dallas, for a change, was not annoyed at l’ enforcier’s arrival. Like it or not, he would need more of Drago’s help with the St. James incident. They discussed what had happened earlier that evening at the inn and debated contingencies for whatever consequences may arise. There were bound to be more questions asked about Jaz’s disappearance. Angie would be a problem too, but vampiric control of her memories of this day should take care of her.
Finally, at two o’clock, Drago lifted his eyes to the ceiling.
“The mademoiselle grows restless. She will not come downstairs while I am here. Very well. I think we have done all there is to do for tonight. I will leave you to your affaire de coeur. Au revoir, mon ami.”
Drago let himself out, pulling the door closed behind him with a soft snick. Five minutes later Tia came downstairs.
“Is he gone?” she asked.
She looked breathtaking in a form-fitting black flock mini-dress with a tiny purple floral design. “I think you know he is, else you wouldn’t have come down. You look very nice.” A sad smile accompanied his appraisal of her.
“Thanks. Juliana went shopping for me. She bought me this outfit.” She cocked a brow. “All of you seem to have a rather highly developed sense of style. Yourself included.”
He opened his eyes wide in a declaration of innocence. “Me? I just like to dress tastefully, that’s all.”
She smiled. “Hmm. In silk and linen that costs a pretty penny.”
He lifted his arms to his waist in mock surrender to her argument. “Guilty as charged. I like to live well.”
Her smile faded. “We have to talk, Dallas.”
He sat on the sofa in the parlor, and she joined him, but he noticed she was careful to leave a good two feet between them. He let loose the first salvo, hoping to bring the conversation to a quick close. “I know you can’t want to stay now. Not with what happened at the inn tonight.”
She took a deep breath. “I’ve been involved in lots of horrible incidents before. None, I’ll admit, that I’ve been so personally involved in, but I survived. Thanks to you.”
“You didn’t answer the question.”
“I did a lot of thinking while you were talking to Drago. I still want to be with you.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “How can you? You were a cop. ‘Protect and Serve.’ How can you reconcile that with all the violence you just witnessed?”
She gave a snort of disdain. “‘Protect and Serve.’ I think some public relations genius probably thought that one up to make what we do more palatable to the public. I never thought of myself in that light. Oh sure, once in a while I did good for some innocent victim, but mostly my job was a very selfish one. Staying alive. Looking out for my partner and my own comfort. Keeping warm, dry, and fed. I’ve had nightmares almost every night for eight years now. Not nightmares about some innocent person being hurt, but about me. About my being hurt. You’re the first person I’ve ever met who has made me feel safe—who has been able to counteract all the power of those nightmares.”
He shook his head. “The man who comforted you wasn’t real, Tia. How can I make you understand?” He paused, searching for the words. In the end, he simply told her the truth. “Tia, listen. I am nothing more than a mirror for humans to gaze upon. What reflects back to each individual is what they long to see. It is the vampire’s cunning to show each human his or her fantasy, his heaven, and it is the vampire’s sustenance to turn that heaven into hell.”
She sat quietly, but the intensity of her gaze grew. He could see she was trying to understand. “You tried to do that with me?”
“In the beginning, yes. You wanted a protector. I gave you a protector. I don’t want it to be that way with you now. I don’t. But I am what I am, and I can’t change that. I have a need, but it’s not a need to nurture. It’s a need to destroy.”
“I can’t believe you want to destroy me, not after all you’ve done to save me. You’re not this mirror you talk about. A mirror is an inanimate object. You’re not. You have a mind, an intelligence.”
He tilted his head back and gazed up at the ceiling. “But no soul. And that’s what makes me more akin to an inanimate object than a human.”
“The very fact that we’re having this conversation proves otherwise to me.”
He turned to her, and his voice had no reply. He reached one arm to the back of her head, and she leaned into his embrace, wrapping her arms around him. He buried his face alongside her neck and wove his hands into her hair. “I wish your words could change me. I really wish they could. I do want you, Tia. But it’s not a human want.”
He breathed against her skin. “You’re afraid of me, even now, this close to you, when you can feel my hunger.”
“No. I’m not afraid. What you feel is nothing but my own hunger.”
He pulled away from her so that she could see his eyes. “If you knew the horror I’ve wrought in only a decade of my life, you wouldn’t want to touch me. And if you knew everything I’ve done in two centuries, you most surely wouldn’t want me to touch you.”
Her eyes stayed intently on his, as if she were trying not only to ferret out his feelings, but relay hers to him. “Everything that’s happened to you . . . everything you’ve ever done . . . all these things are a part of you, yes. But I won’t believe that that’s all you are.” She looked down. “In fact, one of the things that keeps me from wanting to leave is your knowledge and understanding of all the horrible things that happen in the world.” She lifted her eyes to his again. “I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. I’ve experienced a lot of terrible things in my life, too. Oh, not what you have, by any means. But I’ve witnessed violence, brutality, pain,
and death, too, and no one I’ve ever met has been able to help me understand the feelings of fear the way you have.”
He laughed, a melancholy sound. “I should inspire fear, yet you’re telling me I allay yours?”
She nodded. “I don’t really know how to explain it. Maybe it’s because you’ve been around so long—because you have experienced so much. You put things in perspective for me. There’s a stillness in you. A kind of peace. It’s the same feeling I got when I drove on the Trace. I know that sounds silly, but it, like you, has endured over time and survives still, in spite of everything that’s happened. It makes me believe I’ll survive, too.”
He shook his head. “From the first moment I tried to bespell you I could tell you were seeing things that no other woman ever had. Others saw their fantasies, but never beyond. You did. I couldn’t understand it. It vexed me, but it also made me want you all the more.”
“Then let me stay with you. You asked me what I wanted. I want you. I want to stay with you.”
“Tia, the fact that you feel no fear of me makes me no less dangerous. In fact, it makes you all the more vulnerable. Fear is what keeps us alive. Without it, you will be hurt, believe me.”
“I can’t believe you’ll hurt me. Not after everything you’ve done for me.”
“My world is a reversal of everything normal. Everything I am is a gross distortion of human nature. What do I have to do to make you understand that?”
She reached her hand up and smoothed the long hair from his face. “I think I do understand. There are two sides. But what’s wrong with that? It’s not as though one side is all good and the other all evil. Isn’t the ‘Trail of Tears’ a reminder of that? Man can be just as cruel to his fellow man as any so-called beast or monster can be.”
He made no move to pull her hand away. “You’re not going to listen to any argument I put forth, are you?”
She smiled. “No.”
He closed his eyes and let out a long, soft sigh. Of pleasure at her touch? Encouraged, she touched the side of his face, running her palm down his cheek to his neck. His lips parted, and he opened his eyes to stare into hers.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
“Do I mind what?”
“My touching you.”
He shuttered his eyes again. “Your touch is like rays of sunlight. Not the way it is now—burning and debilitating—but the way it used to be. Warm and light.” He reached a hand up and laced his large fingers with hers, then brought the back of her hand to his lips. He pressed his mouth against her hand in a lingering kiss.
“If you stayed, Tia, I would take all that warmth and light and pay you back with nothing but pain.” He mouthed the words against the back of her hand.
She pulled away from him. “Then why did you save me? First with Drago, and then tonight?”
“I saved you for the same reason I want you to leave. I don’t want to see you destroyed.”
She let out a sigh of frustration. “Yes, but why? I must mean something to you for you to risk your life.”
“You ask me to examine feelings that are foreign to me, Tia.”
“I don’t believe that. You understand loyalty and friendship. I see it in your interaction with Gillie and the people who work for you.”
It was Dallas’ turn to let out a deep breath. “A game I play to survive in the human world.”
THERE WERE ONLY a few hours left until dawn. They were at a stalemate. Tia hadn’t pressed him for his final decision, and he hadn’t given it to her. It seemed that both of them desired nothing more than to delay the inevitable. Tia insisted on sleeping with him. It was vastly more pleasurable than arguing with him, she said, and he couldn’t disagree. If indeed it was to be their final night together, he couldn’t deny her, or himself. Her touch, not just willingly bestowed but gladly so, was bittersweet, but perhaps more pleasurable for being so. The bite of pain behind the ecstasy reminded him that she was his for a brief time only and not something to be taken for granted. He couldn’t say no.
They descended once more to his cellar lair. He, in his sweatpants, and she, in her satin nightdress, curled in the middle of the giant sleigh bed, safe, at least for the moment, in each other’s arms.
“Dallas, talk to me.” Her voice was as soft as the rest of her.
“About what?”
“I don’t care. Anything. I just like to hear the sound of your voice. It does things to me.”
He smiled. He had long been aware of the effect of his low voice on others, especially on members of the opposite sex. It was one of his human-born traits, not one of his vampiric acquisitions. Sabra had often commented on it, teasing him that his voice was the reason he had been so good with the horses. Perhaps she had been right.
He thought about which story to tell her. He decided on Sacramento. He had changed his name from Devon Alexander to Dalton Allgate when he left Mississippi for California, the promise of gold much more alluring than the threat of Civil War. It had been an exciting era, and profitable, too, but he was barely past the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill when he felt her breathing settle into the rhythm of sleep. He continued to hold her close, her warmth and the scent of her blood too arousing to his senses to allow him to more than doze.
She stirred before dawn, and he felt her sigh when she turned in his embrace to look at the bedside clock. “Dallas?” His name was a hushed whisper.
“Yes, love.”
She was silent for a moment, and he almost thought she had fallen asleep again, when her voice floated to him.
“You call me that, but I know it doesn’t mean anything. You’ve most likely made your decision about me, and I think I can guess what it is. I just want you to know something before I leave. You may scorn ‘love’ as just another useless human emotion, something you don’t think is part of the Undead existence, and maybe it isn’t. But I love you.” She paused, and he felt her chest expand with a deeply drawn breath. He didn’t know how to answer, but she didn’t seem to expect one.
She continued before the silence grew heavy. “You’ve lived a dozen different lifetimes under as many different names, and I don’t know any of those men. I don’t even know your real name, and I’m not sure I understand even a tiny part of the man called ‘Dallas Allgate,’ but I do know that under all those personas is a being whose strength and passion for life makes me feel like no one else ever has. Maybe all these roles the vampire plays are supposed to display the intentions of others, but it seems to me that all they’ve done is to display yourself.”
He had even less of an answer. Women had declared their love for him over the years, but no mortal woman had ever dared to claim to conceive the vampire’s reality. Such arrogance should have angered him, but it didn’t. It shook him.
She slept again, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t used to sleeping at night, and her admission had done nothing to lull him. Quite the opposite. He carefully eased his body away from hers, covering her with the velvet spread to replace the lost warmth of his presence. He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through his hair. The picture lights were still on, and he gazed at one piece of artwork after another, as if one of them could give him an answer to his dilemma. He thought he had made up his mind, just as she had guessed, but now . . .
He balanced his elbows on his knees and dropped his head to his hands, staring at the floor in frustration. A small white rectangle caught his eye. He stared at the thing, and his brow lowered. What was this?
He picked up the card, and had no trouble reading the name on it, even in the low light. “Alek Dragovich.” He tossed the card onto the bedside table in disgust. Where had that damn thing come from? He had no recollection of Drago giving him a business card.
But a recollection, unbidden, did come to mind, and Dallas’ vampiric memory remembered the moment word for word. Most of our kind, in
the cynicism of their years, would tell you that an affaire de coeur between a human and one of us can only result in a chagrin d’amour. Perhaps so, but don’t avoid affairs of the heart. Such afflictions make eternity bearable.
Drago’s strange words. An idea came to Dallas, but he quickly dismissed it. He would not beg l’ enforcier for advice. Especially on something like this. Another idea surfaced. Juliana. She had hinted that Tia was his “second chance.” He had once loved Sabra more than anything on earth. If anyone understood his predicament, Juliana would.
He picked up the business card again and stared at it. Juliana would still be in Drago’s company, and she would still be up. He took the card and ascended to the first floor, leaving Tia nestled in the center of the sleigh bed.
In his first-floor bedroom, he picked up the cordless phone and punched in the number on the business card.
“Dragovich.”
Dallas drew a deep breath. “Drago, it’s Allgate.”
“Ah, mon ami. Don’t tell me you’ve made a decision already to join us.”
“Hardly. Let me speak to Juliana.”
“She’s not here. I gave her the night off, and she went out to amuse herself. Is it some question I can help you with?”
“No. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“Allgate, wait. It must be something important for you to have called. I can contact her and have her call you back, or I can relay a message.”
“It’s personal.”
“But of course, mon ami. What else would it be?” Drago paused, but went on before Dallas could reply. “Ah, but no. It’s not Juliana, is it? It’s mademoiselle Martell.”
Damn the creature. Drago’s insight was uncanny, even without the benefit of eye contact. “Forget it, Drago.”
“Dallas.”
The use of his given name gave him pause. “I’m still here.”
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