by J. K. Coi
“I can’t believe that I did that…I mean that you let me…” She struggled to get the words out as she pulled her hand back and made a self-conscious fist at her side. “Why did you let me?”
Baron shrugged. He didn’t want to examine the reasons why any more than he wanted to think about the consequences of his actions. “I couldn’t let you die, Max.”
Dammit. He hadn’t meant to say that.
She was watching him now, looking for something in his expression, but Baron turned away, moving off the bed to put some distance between them before he faced her again. “Are you sure you feel okay?”
He watched her. She seemed to be cataloguing all of her various body parts and functions. He felt a surge of fierce pride in her. Pragmatic as always, Max looked tense but quickly masked all fear. When she returned his look, she seemed relieved, more relaxed. “Yeah. I guess. I feel…good. Different, though.”
“That’s okay.” He nodded and took her hand, squeezing her fingers in an attempt at reassurance. “Good. I’m glad.”
Max looked around the room, probably noticing her surroundings for the first time. She had always been very observant. He wondered what she would make of all this—the compound, the security, his friends. How much did he tell her?
“Where is this place?” she asked. “I don’t understand how I got here. How did you get here? I mean, how did you know that I was in Chandler looking for you?”
“So you were already in Chandler?” He sighed. Did he even want to know why? There was only one thing that would have brought Max to Chandler looking for him, and it wasn’t anything good. “How did you know where to find me?”
She snorted. “I’m a PI, Baron. Finding people is what I do for a living, especially when they don’t want to be found.”
Max was a private investigator? Since when? Not that it was any of his business. She eyed him, a dangerous look in her sparkling eyes. “Aren’t you even going to ask about your brother?”
His own expression hardened. “I hadn’t planned to, no.” He could tell from the tightening of her jaw that she was not impressed with his answer.
She pulled her hand out of his grasp. “Well, there you are. And just as I was wondering where the old Baron had gotten to. At least now I know the world hasn’t flipped axes on me. You’re still an asshole after all.” With that she stood and headed into the connecting bathroom, slamming the door closed behind her.
Chapter Seven
Max emerged from a long, hot shower feeling clean if not exactly back to normal.
Wrapping a huge towel around her body, she reached for a second one to dry her hair with. When that was done, she hesitated, not sure whether she could face herself in the mirror. But of all the epithets that had been used to describe Maxine Deveraux, coward was never one of them.
Turning to the mirror and wiping away the misty layer of condensation, Max let out a little sigh, relieved to see that she didn’t look like a monster. There were no lingering bruises or scrapes to give evidence to her ordeal. She felt whole. She even felt human, though she had a deathly suspicion that she actually wasn’t.
Small telltale signs were there. Signs that would no doubt be overlooked by most, but to Max they were glaringly obvious.
There were the teeth, for one. She smiled. Lifted her lips back, poked and prodded at her incisors. They were definitely sharper and pointier than she remembered them being, but otherwise they looked normal, not like she expected a blood-crazed vampire’s teeth should look. Remembering how impossibly long they had felt in her mouth when the hunger had been at its strongest, Max decided they must extend out and retract back into her gums, although she couldn’t figure out how.
Her attention shifted to examine the rest of her body, and she confirmed her earlier impression that vampirism had given her a great deal more strength than she’d had as a human. She could feel it coursing through her like she’d been shot with a few thousand volts. Power.
It was in her eyes, too, the knowledge of what she was, of the strength it gave her. And behind all that, the fear of what that power would do to her, of the monster she sensed still lingering within…waiting. The eyes of a stranger looked out at her—someone she wasn’t sure that she could trust.
She dropped her head, breaking the connection between her and the demon that gazed back through the mirror.
She took several deep breaths. She would have to deal with this eventually, and now seemed as good a time as any. With stubborn determination, she glared at her reflection, unwilling to allow the demon to intimidate her. She may not be able to vanquish it entirely, but she would control it.
She blinked, feeling some of the tension falling away as the shadows in her eyes dissipated. At least the color hadn’t changed. Her eyes were still blue—they weren’t glowing red like Devon’s had been. Hopefully no one would know. Hopefully only Max herself would be able to see the insanity and evil that threatened her soul.
She sighed. On the whole, her body felt healthy and her mind felt her own—at least for now. She didn’t know what was going to happen next, didn’t want to think about the next time she would have to…drink.
Running her hands through her towel-dried hair, she pulled it back from her face, noting the rosy glow in her cheeks that didn’t fit with her Hollywood-made image of vampires as pale, white-skinned creatures that hissed with pain when touched by the light. Oh God, was the flush that stained her skin a result of Baron’s blood flowing in her veins? Don’t think about it. There were just some things it was better not to contemplate.
This whole situation was intolerable. There must be something that she could do to go back, to reverse whatever it was that had been done to her. Or maybe she should just go home and crawl under her covers for the next hundred years or so. That thought raised the question of whether or not the vampire stories were true when it came to the living forever thing. And what about the sunshine and garlic thing? Myth or reality?
Answers were in short supply, and Max refused to torture herself with what-if scenarios. Putting the thoughts from her mind, she straightened in front of the sink and pulled open a drawer, looking for toothpaste. It galled her to have to use anything of Baron’s—even the soap in the shower—but some things couldn’t be helped. She seriously needed to scrub her teeth clean.
Some paste on her finger did the job well enough, then Max cautiously opened the bathroom door, still wrapped in the towel. Since she had awoken wearing what she assumed were Baron’s boxers and one of his t-shirts—a condition that brought an embarrassed heat to her cheeks to think of it now that her mind and body weren’t so distracted—Max surmised that her overnight bag hadn’t been retrieved from her poor, destroyed car. Which meant she would probably have to borrow more of Baron’s clothes until she could get out of here and hit a mall.
Leaving the steamy bathroom behind her, she re-entered the bedroom, thankful that Baron was gone. She noticed there was a fresh set of joggers and a shirt on the bed, which had presumably been left for her to wear.
Pulling on the clothes, Max was made very much aware of the fact that she was without any underwear whatsoever and that, again, Baron’s clothes were covering her nakedness. And that reminded her quite brutally that only a very short time ago she had been writhing shamelessly on his lap, wanting to be naked with him, needing to be naked with him.
She tried to push the images from her mind and fight her body’s automatic response, but it was a losing battle. Each of her senses was heightened to such a degree that even though the garments she laid over her skin had obviously been freshly laundered, Max breathed in a musky male scent from deep within the fibers of the well-worn cotton shirt, a scent she could only associate with Baron. As the soft fabric swept across her nipples, they tightened to painful little buds, sending bursts of electricity to her already swollen center, where she could feel the moisture seeping from her core to dampen the thin nylon of the borrowed joggers.
The combination of Baron’s scent mingling
with her own intensified the rush of need in her belly, stirring the brutal hunger again. A gasp of dismay escaped her lips and the flush of desire was abruptly washed away like she’d been hit with a blast of cold water.
Was her need to feed connected so closely to sexual attraction then? Would she want to suck on someone’s artery every time she sucked face?
God, she hoped not. She really, really hoped not. Baron may have offered his vein to her this one time, and in her desperation and weakness she’d taken it, but she’d be damned if she let herself get that close to him again…especially if her body was going to turn traitor on her.
She could control it—the monster would not control her.
Forcing her mind to focus, Max wondered what time it was, what dayit was. And she wondered again just where she was. Baron hadn’t answered her when she’d asked him earlier.
Was it safe to leave the room, she wondered, or was she going to run into someone? A girlfriend maybe? Jesus, she hoped not.
No, even Baron had enough decency that he wouldn’t do that to her…right?
Opening the door, Max stepped out into a long, brightly lit hallway. She looked up and down the corridor, eeny-meeny-miney-mo ringing in her head, then decided to go left.
Turned out she made a good choice. At the end of the hall, she was met with a set of double doors. She shrugged her shoulders. If Baron didn’t want her to snoop, he should have locked her in his room, not that it would have stopped her. She’d worked a security gig once for a client and learned a lot about computerized systems like the one this place looked to be rigged with. She’d already seen the sensors mounted on the walls of the corridors.
She walked into a large living area filled with several cozy-looking chairs and small side tables. A large flat-screen TV hung on one wall, and at the other end of the room, was a sweet-looking pool table with a bar-style, antique-glass lampshade positioned directly above it.
What was this place?
After the death of his mother two years ago, Baron had cut all contact with Jackson and effectively disappeared. This was where he’d gone?
Max would have been content to never see him again, but at Jackson’s behest, she’d spent the time trying to track Baron down. To her surprise she’d discovered that he had been discharged from service. Of course, he hadn’t bothered to let anyone know. Max had to hear it from his former CO, who’d finally agreed to give her only that one minor detail when she’d confessed that his brother was dying. And only after handing her the hour-long, official runaround about privacy issues and national security.
But if Baron wasn’t in service anymore, why was he living in this place? It looked like some kind of barracks or military base. The communal living area was a dead giveaway to the fact that it wasn’t your average apartment building.
Maybe this was a new concept for an open-style singles building. That would suit the carefree playboy Baron whom Max remembered.
She crossed the room to another set of doors, and pushing through them, she was greeted with the bright lights and clean surfaces of a huge kitchen, but like no kitchen that Max had ever had the pleasure of cooking out of. Not that she cooked.
There were several large stainless steel appliances, and a double range. A walk-in freezer was built into one wall. Everything was of restaurant quality, top of the line, and from the looks of it, fairly new.
Her private investigator’s brain churned with speculation. Someone here definitely had money.
Max thought about the large denominations that had started appearing in Jackson’s bank account every first Monday of the month since his mother died.
They had known right away the money was coming from Baron…somehow. Jackson had wanted to give it back, but neither of them had any clue where to send it. At first, they’d actually feared it might be some kind of death benefit being paid by the government to Baron’s next of kin, and that was when Max had discovered that Baron had left the military.
Two months ago, Jackson’s health had gone south again. After a long remission, the leukemia was back, and he went into the hospital. He’d asked Max to look into it again, to find Baron and bring him home.
She’d argued against it. Vehemently. Despite her own reasons for not wanting to have Baron anywhere near her, she didn’t believe it was good for Jackson’s health to get him wound up with expectations and hopes that were just going to collapse on top of him like a deflating hot air balloon when Baron refused to show.
Max hadn’t doubted her ability to find Baron—she was a hell of a good private investigator after all. On the other hand, the chances that she would be able to convince him he needed to come back with her and see his younger brother before it was too late…a different story entirely. If the bastard hadn’t bothered to visit or call or write in two years, then he wasn’t just going to raise his hand when she came into town and go, “Here I am, lead the way back home.”
And after his earlier comment, Max was more convinced than ever that trying to bring Baron back home was going to be a mistake—didn’t mean she wasn’t going to do it, though.
A promise was a promise.
With a sigh, Max continued forward. Baron was standing behind the kitchen counter making what looked like enough sandwiches for an army. He had changed into a clean pair of jeans and a fresh white tee, and the sight of his still-damp hair told her that he’d also found someplace to shower. Even to her prejudiced eye, he looked way too good. The shirt hugged his chest and torso, sleeves stretching tight over bulging biceps, jeans hanging low on narrow hips.
The look was classic Baron—simple but effective.
He’d always been a hunk, one she could never completely resist. But had he really looked this good before? This ripped with muscle? She didn’t think so.
His eyes hadn’t had the same irresistibly sexy glint, nor had his bearing held the same aura of danger or the unwavering control that she sensed in him now. Was it a result of his years spent in the special forces, or something else?
Well, whatever he was doing these days did a body good, she had to admit. Maybe he was just drinking gallons of milk.
Whatever rotten luck had brought her to Baron’s doorstep—just one of many questions she still had no answers for—the fact was she’d indeed found him, and now she had a chance to plead with him to come home…for Jackson. That was the only reason she would ever bother. In the process of convincing him, she planned to put her sleuthing skills to work to find out exactly what his deal was.
“How much food do you think I’m going to eat?” she joked as he looked up and saw her standing there. “Oh wait, that’s probably all for you. You always were a pig.”
He laughed, his eyes bright with appreciation for her sarcastic sense of humor, and she unexpectedly felt like crying, memories of times just like this assailing her with their childhood poignancy.
Ever since Max and Jackson had become friends, she and Baron had butted heads, trading insults and random, acerbic barbs whenever they’d come within ten feet of each other—mostly because Max had been a defensive, angry, cynical girl, and Baron had been an egotistical, self-centered jock with a hard-on for anything in a skirt…just like any boy his age.
Ah, but it didn’t take a genius to see behind the faux animosity. Even Max had known they were really only dancing around something heavier, more potent.
Those encounters had been energizing.
Max would never have admitted it, but she looked forward to pitting her wits against Baron and feeling the rush of adrenaline that only he had been able to make her feel. And back then, underneath all the good-natured bickering, Max had honestly believed the two of them were united when it came to the one thing that really mattered…Jackson. She’d been absolutely certain it would always be Jackson and Max and Baron, together against the world.
And then one day…
One stupid incident…
All that had changed forever.
Ah, hell. Why did she let herself think about shit like
that?
The lingering traces of humor faded from her lips, and she frowned. She turned her attention back to the food and looked at it with wary consideration. “Can I even eat, do you think?”
Baron smiled reassuringly, then put the finishing touches on a ham and cheese with lettuce, tomato, and lots of bright yellow mustard.
For her.
He remembered her favorite sandwich. Damn. That was playing dirty.
“From what I’ve read,” he said, licking a drop of mustard from the pad of his thumb, “you can definitely eat. You actually need to eat. Unfortunately, the blood is necessary, but your body still requires the nutrients in food to stay strong and healthy.”
“From what you’ve read?”
“Uh, yeah. After I saw what Devon did to you, I—”
Max shook her head. “Devon? How did you know the vampire’s name was Devon? I don’t remember telling you that.” Then again, she had been pretty out of it for a long while, she could easily have…but she didn’t think so.
Something about this whole situation was weird…weirder, anyway. And it set alarm bells tripping off in her brain. Max thought again about how neatly he’d managed to not answer any of her questions, including the one about how she had ended up here, how she ended up with him.
“Wait just a minute,” she demanded. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on? You admitted you didn’t know I had come to Chandler. So how is it you still managed to find me on the road in the middle of nowhere and whisk me off to this strange apartment? That’s where I was when the vampire found me. Stuck on the side of the road after my car broke down. And can you try explaining why none of this seems to bother you or surprise you, why you’ve taken it all in stride as if the term ‘vampire’ is something from your everyday vocabulary?”
Baron’s trap stayed firmly shut and Max let out a frustrated snarl, but even that didn’t get a response out of him. He simply picked up a long, wooden-handled bread knife and cut her sandwich in half, his gaze on his task.
