by Ashley Ladd
She licked her lips and struggled to push out the words that tumbled through her mind. “When you died? I-I don’t understand.” As a doctor, she kept up with the medical journals and surely wouldn’t have missed a way to bring the dead back to life. Medical journals or not, she was certain that discovery would make front-page headlines.
“I was tracking down vampires in Fort Lauderdale…”
She delved into her distant memories and brought them to the forefront. Pain still laced them, slashing at her heart. “Right. You thought it was a bunch of deviants pretending to be vampires. Dangerous, obviously…” She choked on her words, recalling the surreal days surrounding Luke’s funeral.
Luke pulled her against him, stroking her hair. “They weren’t pretending.”
Barely able to breathe, she froze. His words reverberated in her head, growing louder until she thought she’d go mad. “You mean they weren’t pretending to be vampires. They were something else,” she finally said on a whisper.
Luke grasped her shoulders firmly and set her from him. “I mean they were the real deal. Bonafide vampires.”
The import of his words slapped her in the face. “You mean…” She couldn’t voice the hideous word.
“I’m a vampire.”
A vampire…
Her heart shattering all over as if he’d just died for the second time, she jerked away from him and jumped to her feet. Needing distance, she stumbled to the far side of the room and hugged herself, the ache unbearable. “So I wasn’t just dreaming about you?”
Scowling, Luke stood. “No, darlin’. You weren’t just dreaming about us. We were truly together.”
“How?”
“I projected myself into your dreams.”
She recalled the scandalous dream that wasn’t really a dream at all, in which men had been lined up to take her. “Oh my God.”
“I’m afraid God has nothing to do with this.” Luke grimaced, massaging his neck, his intense gaze never leaving her face.
“You violated my dreams without permission?” Fury shook her literally as she clenched her trembling hands. “You let me believe you were dead these many years? You let my heart break, not just once, but every time you left me. How could you?”
“What was I supposed to do? Tell you I was a member of the undead? Ask your permission to visit you in your dreams?” Luke started to approach her again until she held out her hand to halt him.
In a word… “Yes. You’re telling me now, aren’t you?”
“I have no choice. Anika’s out of control. She wants you dead.”
“So you’ve been watching me? Pretending to be a cat? Or are you a cat?” Chloe bent her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. She tried to recall her vampire lore, but fell woefully short. She had never been an aficionado of that darkly sumptuous world. One thing she did remember, though, was that vampires were supposed to feed off blood taken from their prey’s neck and that they changed into bats.
He smiled sadly. “I don’t change into a bat. I’m not Dracula. Still, I am a vampire. We can shape shift into cats and other creatures such as wolves, dogs, and butterflies, but those aren’t my usual forms. My family, those who changed me, are Alp vampires. We don’t feed from the neck but from the breasts of humans. Chloe…”
Before he could continue, she shrank away from him, spiritually as well as physically. “Stay away from me.” Had she thought him the most honorable, wonderful man she’d ever met? Perhaps he had been, but death had changed him. Or more likely, he was demented, making up this bizarre story for some nefarious purpose. It seemed Gerald wasn’t the only man whose character she had badly misjudged.
Trying to put her thoughts into some semblance of order, she recalled her dreams and matched them to reality. That meant when he’d been suckling her breasts, he’d really been feeding from her. She could barely comprehend the import of his revelation. “I wasn’t your soul mate. I was your prey.”
A shocked expression flitted across Luke’s face, and he reached out to her but then let his hand fall limply to his side. “Chloe…”
“You not only violated my dreams, you violated me. You used me as your own personal blood bank. My Luke would never have done…”
“But I am your Luke.”
“You tricked me.”
He took a step toward her. “You wanted me,” he whispered. “You want me still.”
She felt herself being drawn toward him, knew his words were true. Dear God, she wanted him. She longed for him to make her feel loved and cherished as he’d done in her dreams. But he was a vampire. Shaking her head, she stopped her forward motion. “You are not the man I knew and loved.”
Luke’s face froze and paled. Pain flashed in his strange silvery eyes. “I can see you need space to think about this and I have pressing matters of which to attend.” He hesitated, and then added, “Remember, I’m as close as your dreams, only a whisper away. Just call me if you need me.”
If I need you? Her heart cried yes! Her head berated her for being so weak. How could she forget he was so close? Every fiber of her being ached with the knowledge. Her treacherous heart yearned to held against his chest, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t be trusted with her heart.
Gazing upon her with unabashed adoration, Luke spread himself thin on the air, a chilling reminder of what he had become. She hugged herself wondering if she’d ever be warm again.
* * * * *
Murderous rage stormed through Luke. He returned to the manor with a sacred, single-minded mission. Kill Anika and save his love. “Show yourself, Anika, you vicious bitch!! Without your minions this time, if you dare.”
A sleek black cat glaring at him with glowing silvery eyes from the shadows transformed into the depraved Anika. Wrath gleaming in her eyes, she circled him, keeping her distance. “And let you do what? Kill me? I don’t get to defend myself? Now how fair is that?”
“Fight me vampire to vampire. No tricks.”
“And what do I get if I win? You?”
“Your life.”
“Now what kind of incentive is that for a woman? I need more.”
Her hissing subordinates whom she had created from weaker vampires who had dared to challenge her, to protect and hide her from humanity, emerged from the shadows, barely a trace of civilization left in their countenance. When Anika flicked her wrist, they attacked Luke.
Luke propelled himself upward just as a stake was thrust at his heart. “I repeat, where’s the honor in letting your slaves battle for you?”
“I play to win. You obsess too much with honor.” Anika sneered at the word “honor”. “My beloved Lukas, when you’ve been a vampire for a few more centuries, you’ll understand…”
A few more centuries? Eternal prison! “You give us all a bad name.” An extremely sour taste in his mouth, Luke watched her closely with narrowed eyes.
Anika laughed heartily. “You think humans prefer a principled vampire any more than an unprincipled one? Would you have minded less when I changed you, if I regarded honor in my esteem?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw shadows flickering ominously, boding no good. He whirled, catching her minions creeping stealthily up on him again while she had attempted to distract him. Hissing, his fangs burst through his gums. “Tsk tsk. You do her dirty work? Are you willing to die for her?”
“Come to me, my darlings,” she said to the slaves. “Take care of Lukas for me.”
To Luke, she said with an evil grin, “They live and die for me. Perhaps you should get some of your own…if you live long enough. If you want to survive, give up your obsession with the mortal woman and ally yourself with me.”
“Never!” He’d far sooner die than give up his love for Chloe or affiance himself with the witch. Hell couldn’t be worse.
Anika flew at him with preternatural speed, her fangs and talons bared portentously. She delivered a vicious blow, throwing him backwards with a violent force that made him dizzy. More drooli
ng minions clambered for him, their claws clicking on the stone floor.
“You should feed these guys better. Have you had them tested for rabies lately?” He spun, slashing their throats with one blow, leaving them bleeding on the floor at her feet.
“They were only mindless drones.” She shrugged carelessly but a moment later, she attacked him with vicious force.
Lithely, Luke cartwheeled out of harm’s way. Being nimble was one of the few things he enjoyed about being a vampire.
He hid on another realm until he could formulate a damn good plan. She wouldn’t immediately know where he was, giving him time to check on Chloe.
Her furious screams mingled with his laughter as he dissolved before her eyes. “Lukas!”
Chapter Five
Chloe had difficulty keeping her mind on her patients, even though she tried valiantly to ban Luke and his clan from her thoughts. But her treacherous mind kept hitting rewind on the afternoon’s events until she was going stark, raving mad.
“Enough all ready! Leave me alone!” she yelled, as if Luke could hear her from inside her locked office.
He probably could. He’d been stalking her dreams all these years, and more recently her waking hours as a cat. So what was so farfetched about thinking he could hear her now? He could be an insect on the wall, hiding in a shadowy corner.
The creepy realization sent shivers down her spine.
She had to outlaw him from her life so she could start fresh, and move on with the rest of it. But how? She was almost clueless about vampires.
However, the Internet was a wealth of information and was as close as the computer in her office. As soon as she had locked up for the night, Chloe signed online and typed “Alp vampires” into a search engine.
Surprisingly, several websites popped up. She’d never heard of Alp vampires before, but aimed to amass as much information as she could now. So she started a file on the breed for future reference. Knowledge was power.
“Let’s see, they originated in Germany.” She leaned close to the monitor and drank in the wealth of information.
“Now this is different.” As Luke had reported, Alp vampires drank their blood from their victim’s nipples. Although they usually preyed on women, they could take it from men as well. They also feed from the breast milk that they can conjure even from non-pregnant and non-lactating women. She didn’t want to think about that, not that she really wanted to think about him drinking from the breast of a full-chested woman, either.
“Okay, I know this.” They could shape shift into wolves, cats, butterflies, horses, and possibly werewolves. Well, the werewolf part surprised her. According to many movies, vampires and werewolves were mortal enemies. But then again, there were vampire myths and variations from many countries, far more than she’d expected to find.
She read on and her heart raced erratically. “Hold on a minute! Hallelujah!” Alp vampires visited their prey on the astral plane, but they could be blocked. All she had to do was press her thumb into the palm of the opposite hand and hold it down, and they couldn’t enter her dreams.
Then she let out a snort of laughter as she read aloud. “It wears a hat in all its manifestations.” Visions of Luke the cat wearing that ridiculous stocking cap popped into her mind.
She pressed her thumb in her palm for practice. It didn’t seem that such a simple act could be so effective. But how would she remember to do it when she was dreaming? That was the tricky part.
She had to drill it into her head.
Her head still spinning, she powered off the computer, tossed her cold coffee down the drain, and dimmed the lights. The room felt too eerie so she turned them up high even though she knew illumination wouldn’t keep away the demons.
The couch was hard as boulders on her back, and she tossed and turned for what felt like hours. She’d never been a lover of nighttime. Now she detested each and every night and all the manner of evil lurking in its shadows.
* * * * *
Luke howled his frustration at the moon. A raging torrent of anger still consuming him, he raced through the Everglades on paws swifter than the wind. Alligators snapped at him and the swamp sucked at his feet but he dared anyone or anything to mess with him in his hostile mood. He’d tear them to shreds with his teeth, and then drain them of their blood.
He was the monster, the contemptible, degenerate creature Chloe loathed. He should’ve known he was on the path to disaster, that she couldn’t be his lifemate in the dream world alone, that he’d either have to reveal himself or say goodbye, or both.
Now she feared him and found him loathsome, and he couldn’t blame her. Still, he had to protect her at all costs, even if it meant she would hate him forever. In the end however, what mattered most was Chloe’s safety. His own feelings held no bearing on the situation.
He was so lost in reverie that he found himself at Chloe’s back door without a memory of the journey, with only a partially formed plan.
Transforming back into his human form, Luke rolled his shoulders to work the kinks out of his muscles. Though exhilarating, roaming the nights as a wolf was also exhausting and he could use some sustenance. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to hunt prey and he couldn’t depend on Chloe any longer, so he pushed away his hunger, and did his best not to think about the delicious blood pumping through Chloe’s veins just beyond the wall.
The shadow covering him dissipated and he looked up to see blood rimming the moon. Shivers raced down his spine. Evil was coming and he could guess her name. He had to move Chloe to a safe location immediately so he could protect her during her waking hours as well as in her dreams. As he suspected, the door was locked and it was a sure bet she wouldn’t answer a knock in the middle of the night.
He twisted the knob hard, forcing entry with his superhuman strength. If he’d wanted, he could have busted the door down, but he didn’t intend to frighten Chloe any more than was absolutely necessary. She was going to be furious enough.
Moonlight flooded the room, bathing his sleeping angel, and he paused in reverence. With her silky hair tumbling over her heart-shaped face, she was so very lovely, so enchantingly ethereal. Her bone structure was more pronounced than it had been seven years ago, and although she had been beautiful then, she was absolutely stunning now, especially when her eyes flashed fire at him. But even closed, the crescents of her lush lashes fanned her cheeks alluringly and before he could restrain himself, he was kneeling beside her, dropping kisses on those adorable lids.
Her eyes fluttered open at his touch, and love blazed in them a split second before awareness flickered, swiftly followed by red-hot anger. Snapping up and away from him, she recoiled, breaking his heart. “What part of leave me alone don’t you get?”
Luke swallowed a sigh clogging his throat. He understood too well, but what she wanted and what she needed were polar opposites. “I heard you, darlin’, but…”
She cringed at his endearment, a stake to his heart. “I’m not your ‘darling’ anymore.”
He did his best to keep calm, not to let her anger suck him in anymore than he’d let the swamp suck him under. “But I have to move you to a safe spot until Anika’s threat can be eliminated for all time.”
* * * * *
Alarm cascaded through Chloe and she gasped. “Move me? Safe spot?” He really meant kidnap, and she couldn’t allow that. “No! For your own sake, Luke, leave now.” He had to leave before she had to kill him in self-defense, something that would break her heart but was proving necessary. She grabbed the wooden stake she’d hidden under the couch cushions, and fingered the ghastly weapon behind her back.
“My safety doesn’t matter. Only yours. You must come with me now. Anika and her lackeys could return at any moment. It’s not safe here.”
“And if I refuse?” She gave him every chance he could to walk away with his life, such as it was. As a physician, she couldn’t indiscriminately take life, so this was no easy chore on a thousand different levels, but then again, h
e wasn’t alive in any earthly sense.
His eyes glowed a furious, flaming red for an instant, before returning to their normal, inhuman silver. In a flash, he hauled her into his arms against his feverish chest. “You’re still coming with me.”
“Never!” He gave her no choice. With a shattering heart, she lifted her arm over her head with a warrior’s shriek, fully intending to impale him with the stake.
Inhaling sharply, Luke grabbed her wrist, holding it easily in an ironclad grasp. “You don’t want to kill me. I know you don’t.”
She almost choked on the sobs racking her body. Unable to kill Luke, she went limp and relaxed her fingers on the stake so that it clattered to the floor at their feet. Somewhere in that shell might lay an inkling of the man she’d loved with all her heart and spirit. “No, I don’t want to kill you.”
Luke pulled her to him, nuzzling his face in her neck, holding her close. “Our love still lives. You might not want it to, but it’s everlasting and undeniable. You may kill me, but you can’t destroy my love for you. Come with me now, and I swear I’ll set you free as soon as the threat to your life has been eliminated.”
And how far could she trust his promises? What good were his empty words? He’d proven that vampires lived by their own convoluted rules, not those of mortal men. “You swear?” Her words dripped with saccharine.
Luke cupped her face in his palms and gazed down into her eyes soulfully, threatening to melt the ice encasing her heart. “Yes, I swear.”
But whom was he sworn to? Certainly not to God. No one she could trust. It was still an empty promise. She wrenched away and turned her back on him. “The answer’s no. I’ll take my chances here. If what you say is true and the reason she wants me dead is because she’s jealous of me, she’ll have no reason to harm me if you forget about me once and for all.”
Luke swore under his breath and punched the wall vehemently. “For the love of… I’d have walked away already if it were that simple. But you’re applying logic to the illogical. Anika is obsessed with me, and by default, with you. As long as you’re alive, she’ll fear my undying love for you. So you see, that is no solution and you’ll still be in grave danger.”
