BloodlustBundle
Page 16
Linnet shook her head. “I’m having trouble visualizing any of it. So what’s all this leading up to? There was something different about you and Anthony?”
“Yes. When he was not quite a year old, I received word from one of my mother’s servants, the old steward who had managed her estate.” Max’s eyes turned cold, staring past Linnet. “Belief in vampires as monstrous undead wasn’t quite extinct in that time and place. A mob had slaughtered her and burned the house.”
“Oh, God!” When she tried to pull her hands free, Max tightened his grasp. From the distant look in his eyes, she thought he wasn’t aware of the act.
“The steward and his wife escaped with Anthony. They didn’t know the truth about us, of course. They thought the baby’s pair of needle-shaped teeth were merely a natural anomaly. Still, they knew they couldn’t take proper care of him. I journeyed there to claim my brother.”
Linnet tried to imagine Max taking care of a toddler. “Normally, you wouldn’t have had that responsibility.”
“Exactly. In the nearest large city I found a young, unmarried woman whose infant had recently died. Without a position such as I offered, she would probably have turned to streetwalking. I hired her as Anthony’s wet nurse and took them back to England.”
“I can see why you wouldn’t think much of the human race. But we aren’t all like the superstitious people who murdered your mother.”
“I’m well aware of that. I don’t dismiss all your kind as rabid beasts.”
“Only the majority, is that it?”
“Would you blame me if I did think that way?” Now his eyes met hers straight on. “Look at the way you treat each other.”
“But we’re improving. At least, we’re trying…” Her voice trailed off under his level gaze. One look at the headlines would effectively undermine her argument. “Did the nurse know what you and Anthony were?”
“No. I kept her mesmerized so that she didn’t notice he sampled her blood along with her milk. When he lost his baby fangs and began to look and behave more like a human child, I gradually loosened my mental control over her. She saw him as a delicate invalid who had to avoid the sun and live on a restricted diet. She became genuinely fond of him.”
“Well, I should think so. He was the only baby she had.”
“Of course, as a human female, you understand better than I could.” He released her hands. “Anthony cared for her, too. He knew she wasn’t his birth mother, but he couldn’t help becoming attached to her.”
“That’s why he didn’t have any trouble falling in love with a human girl.”
Max nodded. “The woman stayed in our household until Anthony reached his teens, when animal blood stopped satisfying him. Once he started needing human donors, keeping the truth from her would have become unnecessarily difficult. I settled her in a house of her own with a lavish pension.”
Linnet let out a pent-up breath. She didn’t quite believe Max would have killed his brother’s nurse, but that fear had nagged at the back of her mind anyway. “I’ll bet Anthony kept in touch with her.”
“Until she died, at a comfortable old age. So you see why he found ephemerals attractive and wanted to protect them from predators like Nola.”
“And why you prefer to avoid us.”
“Not all of you.” He ran his hand over her hair. “Certainly not you.”
“Well, I’m glad you want to protect me instead of putting me in the dangerous-beast category. But I still want my chance at Nola.”
“Stubborn.” He drew her close, his breath ruffling her hair. “I want to do more with you than protect you.”
She wondered whether he could hear the tripping of her heart as well as her ragged breathing. “If you want me for a pet, that’s out.”
“Not that, damn it!” His breath sounded as labored as hers felt. “Anthony didn’t treat Deanna as a pet. I’m beginning to think he was right.”
“Are you saying you see me as a friend?” She didn’t dare suggest more than friendship. With his cool fingers wandering through her hair and teasing the nape of her neck, she could hardly gather her thoughts at all.
“I suppose I do.” He sounded mildly surprised. “Blast it, I always warned Anthony that caring about an ephemeral meant leaving oneself vulnerable. Now I’m doing the same thing.”
“Then treat me like an equal. Don’t shut me out of the quest.” She tried to pull away from him. When his arms tightened, though, her will to resist evaporated.
“As your friend, I should keep you from risking your life for no purpose.”
Linnet shook her head, trying to ignore his lips brushing her forehead and trailing down the side of her face. “You told me it’s forbidden for you—vampires—to kill your own kind. The only way you can get around that is to force Nola to attack you, right?”
“Yes,” he whispered.
“You’re going to provoke a fight with a murderer while you’re weak from a bullet wound. I should stop you from risking your life.”
“By tomorrow night I’ll be sufficiently recovered.”
“I think you’re bluffing. No matter how much older and stronger you are, you still shouldn’t face her alone in this condition.”
“The subject is closed.” His tongue flicked the corner of her mouth. “This isn’t what I want to spend the night talking about. I told you I want to do more than protect you—” His lips alighted on hers, then instantly withdrew. She reacted with an involuntary whimper. “Or be your friend—” Another mothlike kiss. “Linnet, I’m thirsty for you.”
With her eyes closed, she clung to him, her head spinning. “You said you didn’t want my blood.”
“I said I wouldn’t take it then. It would have been dangerous for you, when I was wounded and ravenous. But I’ve wanted it all along, from the first night.”
“The first night…I dreamed…” She opened her eyes to gaze into his silver-gray, crimson-flecked ones and felt herself blushing. “Did you drink from me then?”
“Twice,” he said, still tantalizing her with spiral caresses on her neck and shoulders. “In your living room, and later while you slept.”
“How dare you…?”
He wrapped his arms around her to keep her from squirming free. “You enjoyed the experience. You can’t deny that.”
No, she couldn’t deny that. Treacherous heat pooled between her thighs. “But I didn’t know. You ignored my free will.” She clutched her necklace, struck by a sudden realization. “Hey, you said you couldn’t hypnotize me.”
“I didn’t. The first time, you responded to my touch, and it was easy to keep you from noticing a painless nip. The second time, you were already asleep.”
“That’s no excuse.”
His hand swirled over her back, making her melt like ice cream in the sun. “I admit it was a mistake. I haven’t done it since. Now that I know you as an individual, I want your consent. Even though it’s against my better judgment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We shouldn’t risk becoming dependent on each other.”
The sensations rippling through her congealed into a cold lump in her chest. “Like Jodie. I could turn into a puppet the way she did with Nola.”
Chapter 12
“No, not like Nola and her disciples!” His arms caged her.
“I saw the way Jodie acted. And Fred—”
“Listen to me. Whenever a vampire drinks too frequently from the same donor, and especially when they’re bonded by mutual sharing of blood, a dependency develops. Call it addiction, if you like, but it doesn’t have to be a negative experience.”
She pushed against his unyielding chest. “Then why are you so anxious to avoid it?”
“Because if I cared too much about an ephemeral, I would give a hostage to fortune, as Bacon says—someone who could be used to hurt me. Nevertheless, I don’t deny that such a relationship can produce intimacy of the most ecstatic kind.”
“Yeah?” The memory of her “dream�
�� burned through her veins. If anything more ecstatic existed, she didn’t think she would survive it. “Have you ever personally seen that kind of relationship that didn’t turn out badly?”
“Yes, a few, including the couple in Maryland I mentioned earlier. And so have you. Anthony and Deanna. Given the length of time they cohabited, they were certainly addicted to each other in a physiological and emotional sense. But he also cared for her. His letters to me made that clear.”
“Cared, huh? You’re afraid to say ‘love’?”
“That’s a human word,” he murmured into her hair. “And your people give it so many incompatible meanings.”
“I’ve heard it defined as making somebody else’s happiness as important to you as your own. Hostage to fortune is close enough. Some people—human people—feel the same way about animals. They won’t have a pet because it might die.”
“An attitude I can well understand. But I’ve already said that I don’t regard you as a pet.”
“You’re not saying you love me, either.” His caressing hands stilled on her back. She said, “Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to. I’m not looking for anything permanent, either. I’m here to deal with Nola, not start an affair with a man I’ve just met and who isn’t even human.” She spoke the words almost firmly enough to convince herself.
“So we understand each other.” He resumed the languid, swirling strokes up and down her back.
She arched her spine, rising on her knees to meet the kisses he sprinkled on her lips, neck and shoulders. An involuntary “mmm” escaped her.
“Regardless of how little time we have, I still want you. Admit you feel the same desire.”
“Well…” Her head fell back, exposing her throat to the flicker of his tongue. One of his hands circled around to the front of her body and cupped a breast through the robe and nightgown. The satin slid over the nipple, teasing it to a peak. “You’re cheating.”
“I can’t mesmerize you. Whatever you feel springs from within you. But I can read your emotions and sensations, touch and taste wherever it gives you greatest delight.”
“Taste?” A warm fog muffled her thoughts. “My blood.”
“Only a taste, to bring us both to fulfillment. My satisfaction depends on yours. I do not…experience love as human males do. My focus, so to speak, is elsewhere.” He gently eased her onto the pillow. She didn’t resist.
His hands rested on her shoulders, swept down over her breasts and the curve of her hips. While his tongue parted her lips, he opened the robe, then pulled up the nightgown, inch by inch, his fingers brushing her skin. Beyond thought, she arched her back to let him undress her. She let him lift the necklace over her head. It was a bit late now to worry about succumbing to his influence. She eased his shirt off, running her hands over his chest, carefully avoiding the wound. The silken hair made her palms tingle.
Catching his breath, he nibbled from her mouth down to her throat. His tongue flickered like a painless flame. He stroked between her legs, probing for the bud that throbbed with need. She melted.
She felt a sting at her throat just as his fingertips found the center of her desire. He lapped at the hollow of her neck, while his fingers traced circles faster and faster around the aching tip, until she convulsed with an arc of electricity between that spot and the place where he was kissing her.
Before she spiraled down from the height, he began again. “What about you?” she murmured. “You didn’t—” She reached for his zipper.
He stopped her. “That isn’t necessary now. My pleasure will come from sharing yours. Your fulfillment flows into me with your blood.”
“I’ve never felt anything like that.”
“Nor I. It’s been a very long time since I drank from a conscious, willing donor. I’d forgotten—no, I don’t think it has ever been quite like that.” He silenced her with a kiss, then returned to her throat and increased the tempo.
Her fingers curled. She dug her nails into his flesh, involuntarily raked them down his chest. She felt a spasmodic tightening of his muscles. Slitting her eyelids, she realized she had opened the gunshot wound.
With an “oh!” of dismay, she twisted in his arms to press her lips to the trickle of blood. He let out a hiss when she licked the spot clean.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “Hurts?”
“No. Not pain.” She could hardly understand the hoarse words. “Don’t stop.”
With one of her hands rubbing the back of his neck, he turned his head to capture the skin of her wrist between his teeth. He nibbled at the fresh incision, while her tongue mimicked the movements of his. His blood effervesced like champagne on her tongue.
The world shattered into a explosion of prismatic colors. Abruptly, she found herself looking down on her own bowed head and tasting the tart sweetness of her own blood. The next moment, back in her own brain, she “heard” Max’s voice reverberating in her skull and resonating through her internal organs.
No, we can’t do this, we must stop!
Despite that, he continued to hold her tightly with one arm while his fingertips goaded her to new heights of rapture, and his lips feasted from her wrist. Her release triggered his, which she felt echoed in every cell of her body.
Linnet, please stop. This is a mistake. Yet he skimmed over her breasts and hips with his open hand. Purring, she savored the sensations that swirled through her, while at the same time she felt the tiny hairs in his palm tingle with electricity.
At last he pushed her away, holding her at arm’s length.
Max, what’s happening? She formed the words without speaking aloud.
You drank my blood. I told you what would happen.
I didn’t mean to.
I know. And I could have stopped you. Should have. His pain pierced her the way his ecstasy had a moment earlier.
She swallowed hard and forced out an audible question. “Why do you think this is so wrong?”
“You felt the same thrill I did. You sensed the power of the bond.” His voice rasped. “Now I understand, a little, why Anthony risked everything for his bond-mate. Even why Nola was so determined to cling to her thralls. The experience is…incredible.” He cupped her chin, gazing into her eyes, and a fresh wave of delight swamped the pain. “But you and I don’t want to be trapped in this bond.”
“No, we don’t.” The heat in her veins screamed Liar. “We can fight it.”
“After tonight, we can part, if that is our choice.” She felt his mood veer back from pleasure to distress. “After I tend to Nola’s execution.”
Shadows blotted out the rainbow shimmer. Linnet sensed that this new anguish didn’t relate to the “trap” they had fallen into. The prospect of killing Nola caused him pain. Or possibly fear? She sent inquiring tendrils into his mind.
A kaleidoscope of memories whirled in her head. A little boy, who she somehow recognized as Anthony, with his arms wrapped around Max’s neck. Anthony bending over a bed where an old woman’s body lay, his face contorted with sorrow. Max in the hushed anteroom of a funeral parlor. Agony like a shard of ice in the heart. I never should have tried to be his guardian. My incompetence killed him. A wave of grief washed over her. The face of a glowing-eyed, dark-haired woman brought on a surge of rage, followed by a second plunge into the abyss. Fear? Self-doubt? Another fragment of a thought brushed her mind: If I claim my vengeance, am I a kin slayer, too? Linnet realized she was witnessing Max’s memories, sharing his emotions about his brother’s death.
Nonhuman predator or not, he feels as devastated about Anthony as I do about Deanna.
Max repulsed her with a mental snap. An invisible door slammed shut. “Enough! We have to resist this temptation. The more we communicate mentally, the deeper the bond will grow, the harder to break.”
“Yes, of course you’re right.” But from the brief glimpse of his thoughts, she knew that argument was only an excuse. He didn’t want her to read his doubts, his nauseated revulsion at the thought of killing Nola.
/> “Sleep.” He guided her down onto the bed. “Rest. You have nothing to worry about. The problem is mine now.” As he soothed her with slow strokes from shoulders to hips, over and over, she spun down toward oblivion.
He lay on his side and drew her into a firm embrace. “That’s right, rest now.”
Woozily trying to focus on how she felt about the past hour, she dozed off.
When Linnet woke, her first thought was to wonder whether Max had used some psychic power to make her sleep. Probably not, she decided, since she’d been tired enough from…everything. A blush rose to her cheeks.
Rising on one elbow, she looked at Max, who lay asleep beside her on his back. Gray half light seeped through the curtains. At least he hadn’t sneaked out to face Nola alone.
But he planned to do that very thing at sunset. Linnet couldn’t allow him to carry out that plan. Not without her.
She lightly touched his wrist. He felt cold, with no discernible pulse. He would probably remain dormant all day. He’d claimed he needed that rest to finish healing. She would have plenty of time to visit Nola by herself.
The intention had sprung into her mind full grown between sleep and waking. If Max killed a member of his own species, he might become an outcast. His plan to set up the “execution” as self-defense sounded awfully tenuous. In the few seconds when his mind had lain fully open to her, Linnet had sensed his horror at the deed he planned. She couldn’t let him do that to himself.
Not only that, no matter what he said, she was convinced that the wound would undermine his chance of vanquishing Nola. As would waiting until dusk, when they couldn’t hope to catch her off guard. By surprising her in her diurnal coma, Linnet hoped to dispatch her without involving Max and letting him become a murderer in the eyes of his own people.
She’d decided Nola couldn’t be allowed to live.
I guess that makes me a murderer, doesn’t it? Linnet thought. Well, if Nola could handle the police in Maryland, surely Max could do the same thing here. She grabbed fresh clothes and shuffled into the bathroom, where she tried to wake herself with cold water on her face. She drank several glasses, realizing the thirst must be a side effect of Max’s feeding. In the mirror, she examined the tiny incision on her throat. It looked no more conspicuous than the mark left by donating at a blood bank. The bite on her wrist wasn’t much bigger. The bruises from tumbling on the ground at the park looked worse and ached more. No wonder she hadn’t noticed any traces the morning after Max’s first “taste.” Her skin tingled at the thought of what they’d shared.