He had to have her. He had to make her his.
As he crossed the room, he could not take his eyes from her face. A face so beautiful had he been able to weep, he would have shed tears of joy just for the pleasure of looking at her.
He lowered her to the bed, his eyes still on her face. The Need roared through him. His gums burned, his fangs descended. He bent over her just as her eyes closed. Her breathing suddenly changed, became steady, She had slipped back into the deep, narcoleptic sleep.
He wrestled against the horrific need that clawed his insides and the promise he had made to keep her safe. His fangs were at her neck before he managed to somehow control The Need. Before he took her body. Before he drained her blood.
But he needed something to nourish him, something to strengthen him for his journey into the night.
It was just a tiny prick. Just enough to sustain him until he found what he needed in the darkness outside. As he stood and backed away, he looked down at the sleeping woman he had not been able to harm. He gazed down at Thea. From now on she would always be Thea to him.
MINUTES AFTER HE left Thea’s bedroom, Jerome was in his quarters picturing himself behind the wheel of the sports car in his garage. Ordinarily he would use his power of transportation to reach his destination. However, since the spells of vertigo had begun, he could no longer rely on that once trusted ability.
The week before he’d been summoned to a site where Solotov, leader of the deep-earth vampires, was expected. He had missed his projected arrival point by almost a mile. Another lost opportunity to send more of the deep-earth vampires to the fiery graves they so richly deserved.
He had never given magnetism and its relationship to him much thought, until the recent disruption of the earth’s magnetic field threatened to take away all of his extraordinary powers. To add insult to injury, not only was his projection ability impaired, but in at least one instance it had been momentarily frozen by a sudden, violent trembling of the earth. Fortunately, his ability to operate a vehicle had not been impaired. He silently thanked all the Gods and Goddesses again for small favors.
The irony was that while the disturbance in the magnetic field had curtailed his superhuman abilities, it had also enhanced his need for blood. And from what he could tell, the upset in the field had also increased his enemies’ need for blood, a blood-thirsty lot to begin with.
It seemed, however, that the disruption in the field had not affected the power of the deep-earth vampires to do harm. At least not to any degree he could measure. Nor had the vampires in his cadre suffered any diminishing of power. He groaned inwardly. Why had he been affected like this? And why now?
Jerome’s thoughts jumped quickly to the problem at hand. Just minutes ago, Ambrose, his second in command, had contacted him telepathically. Jerome was needed at the Berkeley Pier. Because of its natural fog cover, the Pier was a favorite spot for vampires out to harm humans or other vampires. According to Ambrose, as members of Jerome’s cadre patrolled the area, they interrupted an attack on several women by a group of Solotov’s blood-draining vampires.
Jerome pulled in a deep breath as he opened the door to leave. He had been expecting Ambrose’s call for days. Only The Need could have wiped it from his mind as totally as it had.
He felt the low growl of displeasure with himself push up from the pit of his stomach as he remembered the woman he had left sleeping peacefully upstairs. What had happened was not what he would have wished for the beginning of his night, but as he stepped outside the door and hurried to his car, he knew it had been the only thing for him to do. He had taken the blood to avoid the madness that threatened him because The Need was too great to ignore.
But to his credit, he had not taken one drop more than was necessary. He had left the woman upstairs unharmed and unaware of what had happened to her.
DOTTIE WOKE slowly, her eyes still closed to the dark, the sound of her breathing a curious music to her ears. Instinctively, her hand reached up to the side of her neck. She rubbed the flesh gently, searching with her fingertips for . . . for what? She suddenly became more alert, her last memory surfacing quickly to the forefront of her thoughts.
She was deep in a dream, held firm in the jaws of the narcolepsy that had claimed her quickly. Above her Jerome hovered, his breath rippling over her skin like heat from a flame. His eyes blazed with a fiery glow, his gray eye brilliantly red and his blue one a dark, vivid crimson.
His hand slid under her neck and lifted it to his lips. His breath fanned moist against her flesh, his tongue trailing like hot velvet along her skin. He threw back his head. His lips thinned, baring sharp, fang-like teeth. She tried to scream, but couldn’t. Instead, she blissfully tumbled into a void that consumed her, a place where nothing mattered but the moment.
When she finally opened her eyes, it was to a softer, kinder darkness.
“Jerome?”
Sound rustled from across the room and then grew closer. The light on the bedside table clicked on. In the soft glow she saw Ella standing at the side of the bed. The woman’s hand came down and brushed lightly across her forehead.
“Are you awake, my dear?”
“Is Jerome, here?”
Ella leaned closer. “No, my dear, Mr. Jerome had to leave. He asked me to stay with you.”
Dottie turned her head toward the bedside table and the clock Ella had put there at Dottie’s request. It was nearing three o’clock. She was fully awake, her senses back to normal. When had Jerome left? Had he really been here? Or had it all been a dream?
She put her fingers to her neck again, tentatively searching . . . for what? There was no pain. No sign to the touch of an injury and yet . . .
Ella brushed the hair back from Dottie’s forehead. “I’m so glad you’re awake. I was wondering if I’d have to cancel your tests today.”
Dottie hiked herself up on an elbow. “I’ll be fine now, Ella. You should leave and get some sleep.”
“But Mr. Jerome said I should stay with you.”
“If Jerome was here when I awoke, he wouldn’t stay. He knows that once I wake from the narcolepsy, I’m fine. If I go back to sleep now it will be a natural sleep.” She laid her head back down on the pillow. “Is the clock set for six?”
Ella checked the alarm setting. “Yes. But I still think—”
“Please, Ella, go get some sleep.”
It took a couple more pleas before Ella finally left her alone. As soon as the door closed behind the housekeeper, Dottie folded her arms behind her head and stared up at the ceiling.
She tried to go back to the point where she was when she had first awakened. To the point where she believed she had been dreaming.
She touched her neck again. Still no rise to the flesh. No pain. Yet . . .
A slow warmth started in her groin and spread to her chest. Her cheeks grew warm. Could everything she remembered of last night really be a dream?
And if it was, what did that say about her and her reactions to a vampire?
Chapter Five
A FEW HOURS OF darkness remained when Jerome returned home. There was still plenty of time to go up to his office and look over the paperwork Gordon had left for him. He already knew one of the items waiting for his approval was the invoice for the shipment of blood substitute received last week from New Orleans. The other invoices had to do with expenses for the software company Gordon managed. Nothing that couldn’t wait one more day.
There was certainly enough darkness left to stop by Thea’s bedroom, but that was the last place he needed to go. He had left her in Ella’s care and there was no reason to enter her bedroom again tonight. If he hadn’t been forced to go there in the first place maybe things would have turned out differently.
He headed for his chamber, the only place where he could come to terms with the ugly images he’d just left behin
d. He needed to forget, if only for a little while, the lifeless bodies, some with their necks slit from ear to ear, others with deep, ragged wounds that looked like vicious bites from frenzied animals.
Yet as bad as those pictures were, what Ambrose told him while they cleaned up the mess Solotov’s men had left behind, was worse. Much worse. He had missed Solotov by mere seconds. Just enough time for the evil leader to take one of the women with him, a pattern he followed whenever there was no one around strong enough to stop him. Someone like Jerome, himself.
It was a bitter pill for him to swallow. If he had been there for the battle, tonight’s outcome might have been different. He might have been able to save the woman from a fate that would ultimately end in death, but not before Solotov had used her in the most vile and vicious ways. In the same ways Zurik had no doubt used Thea in New Orleans. As things stood, he had not arrived in time to save one victim or slay one vile creature.
Fury gripped him like a man-eating snake. To his knowledge, no Whitcombe had ever brutally ravaged a woman while taking from her the sustenance needed to stay alive. He swung wildly with his fist at one of the lead-lined walls of his chamber. The door remained undamaged, but the knuckles of his right hand throbbed like a diseased tooth. Instinctively, he massaged his aching hand. With whom was he angry? With Solotov? Or with himself?
He already knew the answer. Even though he was guilty of nothing near as evil as what Solotov had done, he was still not the complete master of his soul. Not after what he had allowed to happen last night. Not after he had fed from Thea without her knowledge.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. There is only so much you can do when you’re in the grip of The Need. You promised Julian not to harm her and you kept that promise against all odds. The small amount of nourishment you took from Thea was necessary to stave off the madness that threatened to overpower you. Those few drops of blood bought you enough time to find a willing partner from whom you could drink fully and satisfy your lust.
His should listen to his conscience and stop mentally flogging himself. His long distance telepathic powers had obviously been weakened along with his other powers. No matter where he had been or what he had been doing he likely would not have heard the call from Ambrose as quickly as he had in the past. He had acted as fast as he could.
With an angry curse he unbuckled his belt and removed the dagger from its sheath. It was as pristine as it was when he left his house that night.
He tore the clothes from his body, spread his feet and stood, hands on his hips in a warrior’s stance, the proof of his manhood responding to the memory of the lust he’d felt when he held Thea in his arms. He may be a creature of the night, one of the undead for half of every day, but to the women he visited in the city he was more man than most. Given the chance, the woman he’d left an hour ago at the outskirts of town would have attested to that.
He licked his lips involuntarily, the taste of blood that had been so sweet not long ago, now foul on his tongue. The woman he’d taken was not the one he wanted. She had fed his need for sex and blood but his soul still hungered. Only Thea could sate him completely and she was off limits to him.
He glanced at the bed centered on one wall, then to the open coffin against the opposite wall. It was an easy decision. Until this damned illness ended, he had no choice but to forego the soft satin bed for the hard copper-lined casket. Even though the healing he’d received from it so far had not been adequate for all of his needs, without it he would certainly be doomed.
His strength was already fading when he closed the casket’s lid and tumbled into the cold, lifeless arms of the undead world, the last remnants of life slipping quickly away.
Before his heartbeat stopped completely and his breath froze in his lungs, he saw faces, heard voices. The Goddess Lilith? Thea?
His brain shut down in the death sleep before an answer came.
ALTHOUGH HE NEVER would have admitted it, Jerome was pleased to find Dottie in the living room again that night, the same book in her hands, another cup of tea at her elbow. It surprised him how, in this non-intimate setting, she had instantly become Dottie to him again.
He planned to stay just long enough in the room to be hospitable. He had work to do in his office, and he already had one foot out the door. At any moment he expected another call that Solotov and his men were again wreaking havoc.
He went straight to the bar and fixed himself a Double B with an extra shot of synthetic blood. He was taking no unnecessary chances tonight.
“I was hoping I’d see you,” Dottie told him.
His heart missed a beat. Did she remember what happened last night in her bedroom? No, that wasn’t possible. She’d been in a narcoleptic stupor. He turned toward her. “Is there something you need?”
Dottie put the book face down in her lap as she’d down the night before. She lifted her gaze to his. “I have everything I need. I just wanted to let you know how my tests went today.”
Relieved that her desire to see him had nothing to do with the night before, he smiled. “You have the results already?”
“Dr. Stephens was with me while the tests were administered so he was able to view the findings immediately.”
He took the chair across from her as he’d done the previous night, but said nothing, waiting for whatever else she had to say.
“Dr. Stephens could find no neurological damage. He’s even more certain now it’s some type of infection from . . . from . . .”
It was obvious she was having difficulty talking about what had happened to her. It reminded him again of the woman Solotov had abducted the night before and the reason he had not been there to stop him.
“From that horrible creature’s bite,” she added finally, after swallowing a couple of times.
He didn’t miss the revulsion in her voice when she spoke about the vampire who had attacked her and held her prisoner. To call him a creature was certainly not the worst description of a vampire he’d ever heard. In spite of himself he wondered if she thought of him as a creature. But then why wouldn’t she? In her eyes he was probably no different than any other vampire.
She was white-knuckling the book on her lap, an obvious sign of distress. He leaned forward. “If it’s too difficult for you to talk about now, perhaps you should wait.”
As if she hadn’t heard him, she said, softly, “Since there’s no background on this type of infection, Dr. Stephens was clear that his assumptions were simply that. Although he did mention having a close friend in New Orleans he’d been lucky enough to reach. It seems there are at least a half dozen more cases similar to mine—”
The rest of what Dottie was about to tell him was cut short by the melodic ring tones of her cell phone. She reached for the phone, lying on the table next to her tea, and flipped it open. Her eyes widening in surprise, she stood suddenly, moving the phone close to her mouth. Her words rang clear in the quiet room.
“How did you get this number?”
The caller was obviously someone she had not been in touch with recently. A boyfriend, perhaps?
An expression of alarm crossed her face. “No. No. Absolutely not. I’m not here on vacation. I’m here for medical care.” Turning away from Jerome, Dottie put her free hand up to cup the phone even closer to her mouth. “No, it would not be appropriate for you to visit me here. I’m a guest of Simone’s fiance’s brother.”
In the ensuing silence, while Dottie’s caller no doubt tried to change her mind about coming to see her, Jerome went back to the bar for a refill. He was trying to decide whether to return to his chair or leave the room so Dottie could have privacy when she flipped the phone shut. Almost immediately the phone rang again. She turned it on with an audible moan, before she answered.
“Simone?”
This time, Dottie’s reaction, while again one of surprise, showed no hint of alarm. S
till somewhat uncomfortable, Jerome crossed the room to the foyer at the front of the house, threw open the massive double doors and inhaled deeply the cool night air. When he returned a few minutes later, Dottie was still in the middle of the room, the phone in her hand. He stopped where he was. It was as if he was seeing her for the first time.
Standing there, framed by the light from the lamp behind her, she looked like a work of art. Her blond hair, damp from a recent shower, was brushed back from her temples and curled softly at her ears. She was wearing a robe of some sort, buttoned to the neck and reaching almost to the floor. She was fully clothed, yet, at that moment, he found her the most alluring woman he had ever seen. An alluring woman made for sex. Viciously, he shook the thought away. Dressed or not, Dottie Crawford was off limits to him.
Silence hung heavy in the room for a second before she spoke. “I’m sorry about all this.”
“Trouble?” He regretted asking the question immediately. It was none of his damn business whether or not she was having a problem. She answered him, however, without hesitation.
“The first call was from an old friend from Mobile who got my new cell phone number from Simone. The second was from Simone, apologizing if she’d been out of line for giving it to him.”
“An old boyfriend?” Now that was really none of his business. Before he could apologize for stepping over the line, Dottie answered him quite candidly. “A friend who refuses to accept the limits I put on our relationship.”
He didn’t know how to respond, so he kept quiet while she walked back to the chair she’d occupied before. She picked up the book from the chair’s seat, sat and lifted the cup of tea, but set it down again without drinking. He was still at a loss as to what to say, still uncertain as to what was expected of him at a moment like this. After all, it wasn’t as if romantic entanglements were a natural part of life for him.
The Vampire Jerome Page 5
