But what he wanted had nothing to do with anything. Self-preservation came first. It was what had brought him to this island in the first place. The need to stay solitary. The need to be completely self-contained and not dependent upon anything temporal. And everything was temporal, when you came down to it. Everything. Humans, totally mortal. Lived, died, gone. Houses, homes, rotted with time. Cars fell apart. Money. Jobs. Hobbies. Friends. Relationships, even with other immortals. Nothing lasted.
Nothing but him.
He was meant to be alone. He’d lost sight of that for a time with Cassandra. But he’d learned from that experience, from the pain of it. And he’d brought himself around to being at peace with solitude again. Until Anna had shown up here and brought all those old longings back to screaming life.
If she stayed any longer, he was going to fall in love with her. He was going to let himself believe she really was everything she seemed. Already he felt himself sliding down that slippery path. How many times, just in the past hour, had he caught himself believing in her?
Why was it so hard to let her—make her—go?
She was one of the Chosen. All right. He got that. That meant that there was an automatic bond between them. He couldn’t hurt her, not even if he wanted to. And he was compelled to help, to protect, to watch over her. He got that, too. Those things were the case with any member of her caste.
But this…this feeling of her being…being a part of him, of his life, of his soul, a part that had been missing all this time—it made no sense. It was far beyond what he’d come to understand were the limits of the blood link between his kind and hers.
The sharing of blood increased the power of the bond. He knew that, too. But he’d had little choice about drinking from her. He would have died otherwise. But that had only made things worse. Made her feel even more a part of him. A necessity to him.
Probably he was suffering some ordinary reaction brought on by spending years with almost zero contact with other living beings. Probably it was natural to imagine some supernatural bond with the first female to come stumbling into his life in nearly half a century.
But it wasn’t good for him to feel this way. He wasn’t going to humor this thing, or even tolerate it. She had to go before he fell any harder for her.
As he thought that, he realized he was actually afraid of her. Afraid of the heartbreak she could cause, of his own vulnerability, of the pain he’d suffered the last time. He, Diego del Torres, who’d sailed aboard the original Santa Maria, an immortal, a vampire, was afraid of a small mortal female who’d lived only a few decades.
And no, he told himself, he wasn’t going to just let her die. He was going to monitor her condition. He would know how she was doing. This link between them was that powerful—even more so now that he’d tasted her blood. When she got near the end, he would go to her. He would tell her there was an option, let her make the choice.
But he wasn’t going to put his heart on the line for her. Or for anyone.
They say no man is an island. But they’re wrong—this man is.
He returned to his task of packing a bag for the trip to the mainland. A change of clothes, first-aid kit, toothbrush. He needed a pint of frozen blood, and he’d moved his supply to the cooler in the workshop, to keep her from finding it. Not that it mattered now. As soon as he returned and she was gone, he would move his stores back where they belonged.
When she was gone.
The notion made his heart contract into a hard, painful knot in his chest. Already, he thought, she was causing him pain. If he needed any more proof that he was doing the right thing in sending her away, that was it. Things would only get worse if he let her stay.
I’m going to miss her.
Yes, but only at first. He would get over it, and soon he would be comfortable again. Happy again.
Happy? Again? When have I ever been truly happy?
“Silence,” he said to the voice that seemed to be coming more from his heart than his head. He slung his bag over his shoulder and headed for the front door, intent on reaching the workshop and the blood stored there. But as soon as he opened the door he smelled and tasted the acrid burn of smoke on the air, felt the blast of her anger. If he hadn’t been so self-absorbed, he would have sensed both far sooner.
He dropped his satchel and ran full speed to the cove, following that sense of her all the way there, stopping when he caught sight of her. She was standing in the shallows, her back to him, watching the Santa Maria XIII go up in flames. The fire licked at the night sky with a hunger that rivaled any he’d ever felt.
He stopped in his tracks, too stunned to move, anger surging in him that rivaled hers. “Anna!” he shouted. “What the hell have you done?”
She didn’t turn, just stood where she was, feet in the surf, watching the fire leap and dance. The heat of it seared his face, and dangerous sparks rained down around him. “Fire is so beautiful, isn’t it?” she at last said softly.
“Why did you do this?” Her refusal to answer his questions made him even angrier, so he strode up behind her, gripped her shoulder and spun her around to face him. “Why, Anna?”
“You didn’t leave me any choice, Diego.”
There were tears streaming down both her cheeks. And his heart seemed to crack a bit, the inside softening, as if the heart of the fire were actually penetrating it. But it wasn’t the fire prying its way into his heart, and he knew it.
“The choice was to go,” he said. “This is my island, Anna. It’s my life you’re intruding on. You have no right.” His hands on her shoulders were tight, might even have seemed menacing, had his tone not had the distinct ring of a condemned man pleading for mercy, he thought. He didn’t sound menacing. Nor did he feel that way.
“What are you going to do, Diego? You going to hurt me? Or drain me dry and finish this once and for all?”
He bared his teeth in a flash of temper, wishing he could oblige her, but knowing better. He gave her a slight shove as he let go, then paced in a circle, furious.
“It’s not in you to hurt me, Diego. We both know that. There’s something…something between us.”
“I drank from you. That gives you the sense that we have a bond, but it’s just an illusion,” he argued. “It’s chemistry. Nothing more.”
“I saved your life last night. And I gave you something more precious to me than that blood you so desperately needed.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“You didn’t turn it down, either. And whether you admit it or not, you felt something, Diego. More than chemistry, more than physical lust and release, more than any kind of blood bond. You felt something. I know you did. I was there. Why are you trying so hard to deny it?”
“Because it’s not what I want.”
She clenched her jaw, and her eyes flashed with impatience, with temper, and with what he thought was the first hint of certainty. She thought he was weakening.
And God help him, he was.
“I want to spend the last weeks of my life here, in this place. This is where I want to die.”
“And what about what I want?” he demanded, already knowing she had defeated him. Because what could he possibly do now? His only means of transportation was gone. Destroyed, by her hand.
She shrugged. “You’re immortal, right?” Turning, she stared at the boat again. “You’ve got plenty of time to have what you want.”
“This is unforgivable,” he said. “It’s unfathomable that you would go to such lengths to get your way.”
“Refusing to let me stay is what’s unforgivable, Diego. Especially after…” She stopped there, then waved a hand at the burning sailboat. “This…this is barely even bad. It wasn’t that great a boat. You’ve got a gorgeous one taking shape in your workshop, so it’s not as if I’m marooning you out here. You said it would be finished in a few more weeks. By then I’ll be dead. And you’ll be rid of me.” She turned to look him in the eyes. “Until then, you’re just going to have t
o tolerate my presence.”
She was hurting. He could feel it in her, practically screaming way down inside. It wasn’t anger, as he’d initially thought. It was pain. That flaming boat in front of him right now was no more than the visual evidence of her pain, scorching its way into the sky.
He lowered his head, wondering if he were the cause of all that pain. “Why are you hurting so much?”
“Why? Because I’m dying, you idiot. I’m dying. I thought I’d made peace with that, but that was when I thought I had this wonderful, beautiful, wise and ageless guardian angel waiting for me on the other side. But then I come here, and I find—” She bit her lip. “Never mind. Just go finish your stupid boat. And if you finish it before I breathe my last, I’ll go. All right?”
He nodded slowly, but he was trying to read more into her words, trying to see the feeling behind them. There was something trying to make its way from the sublevels of his mind, some knowing that he hadn’t let himself hear or see before. He felt it. It was knocking on his awareness. “I’ll…go work on it now,” was all he could think of to say.
“Yeah, you do that. Try not to cut off your arm this time.” And with that she stomped away from him, heading along the shoreline, her pace rapid, her posture angry.
His fists clenched and unclenched at his sides as he watched her go; he felt utterly helpless in his anger and confusion. He turned to stare at the fire, and then tipped his head back and released an anguished shout at the heavens. Why had the gods seen fit to disrupt his peaceful, perfect, solitary existence with her?
She walked along the beach, gathering up more of her possessions as she did. A hairbrush, twined full of seaweed. A useless wiry tangle of algae and headphones that had gone with her MP3 player. A book.
She bent and picked it up. Soggy pages, but intact, waterproof ink still legible. It was her journal, the one she’d been keeping since the day she’d found out her diagnosis, the day she’d set sail. She felt compelled to keep it, so she carried it back to the house with her and patted it dry with a thick towel. Then she lit the oven, setting it on the lowest temperature, and set the journal inside, open facedown.
Every five minutes or so she turned the pages, and the process seemed to be working. In between, she hand-washed all the clothing she’d scavenged from the beach, then hung each item outside, making use of every tree branch and bush she could find.
As she worked, the birds of the night sang to her, and she paused to just close her eyes and listen to them. Their voices, their songs, seemed full of hope, and the ocean sound beyond them, that gentle whisper of waves washing over sand, an almost inaudible message. They were speaking to her. She was sure of it. Saying her name. Telling her it was all going to be okay. And the stars, glittering above, spelled out the same message in some kind sparkly code. It’s all fine. Everything’s okay. Just relax and be easy about all of this. It’s fine.
She stood there listening, trying to hear with her heart the words being spoken to her by nature. And yet her heart ached. She closed her eyes and let the night wind caress her face, but her cheeks burned from the rivers of tears flowing over them. “How can it be okay when I’ve found the man of my dreams, only to make him hate me? How can it be okay when I’ve landed in a paradise that can never be mine? How can everything ever be okay when I’ve found my heart’s desire just in time to die and leave it all behind?”
Suddenly her body felt very light. As if she were no longer even inside it. That empty body fell to the sand like a suit without a wearer, and this time it was different from the tiredness she’d felt before, the weakness, the need to sleep. This felt like being taken to a whole new level.
This was, she thought, the end.
Weakly, she lifted her hand and started to drag her forefinger through the warm sand.
Chapter 12
He spent a couple of hours working on what was now his only means of transportation, all the while working through things in his mind. He was trying to make sense of everything bit by bit, and he was still certain she was in the wrong. She was forcing him to do what he didn’t want to do, and she’d had no right. It was his life, his island, his boat.
But she seemed to feel she had every right, just because she only had a few weeks left to live. The thing was, that wasn’t true. She could live forever if she wanted to. She just didn’t know that. Because he hadn’t told her.
Why not? he wondered.
He knew the answer. He feared her reaction would be the same as Cassandra’s had been. She would accept his offer, declaring her utter delight that they could stay together, after all. And then he would transform her. And then she would leave him.
But, finally, the distant knowledge that had been waiting patiently beyond the doorway of his subconscious managed to slip inside.
Why would that bother you? You’ve been trying to get her to leave, after all. Why not change her and let her go?
“Because I don’t want to be used again, taken advantage of again, lied to again.”
Or is it because you don’t want to be proven right about her? That you want to believe in her?
He shook his head. “No. No, it’s not that at all. I want her out of here before I can fall in love with her, then have my heart broken again. That’s all.”
But don’t you see, Diego? It’s already too late for that.
He blinked in stunned surprise at the revelation he’d been denying, closing his eyes to, refusing to see. He already loved her.
He already loved her.
So if she left, either by her own volition or by his order, he was doomed to suffer that heartache again, anyway. There was no way around it.
He had been dreading rejection by yet another beautiful woman to whom he’d offered all he had to offer. He’d been living his entire life in an elaborate design to prevent that very thing from ever happening.
And yet Anna had found him. She’d found his haven, despite all his precautions. And she’d found a way into his heart, despite all his fortifications. Maybe there was something here that deserved a deeper look. Maybe she’d been nothing more than honest with him the entire time.
What about that?
He pondered and nodded, understanding her anger a bit more. From her point of view, he could see how unreasonable he must seem to deny her dying wish. It was only a few weeks, from her perspective. It must seem very selfish to her for him to say no, and so adamantly, too. Especially after last night.
Yes, that must really have added fuel to her fire, he thought, seeing again his burning boat in his mind’s eye. No wonder she’d done what she had. She must feel just as rejected as…as he’d been fearing he would feel if he gave her the Gift, and his heart along with it, and she walked away.
Exactly like that, he realized. She’d given him her blood. Her body. Her heart, perhaps. She’d saved his life. And he’d thrown her precious gift back in her face, rejected her. He’d done to her, he realized in dawning horror, exactly what Cassandra had done to him.
The revelation made him stop sanding and rise to his feet. Damn, that was it. He needed to apologize. Maybe even offer an explanation, if she were still willing to listen. And he needed to tell her the truth about her nature, her condition, what it all meant.
He tuned in to her, though he’d been tuning her out for the past two hours. Her essence was very weak, he realized with a frisson of fear. Almost as if she were unconscious or…
Alarm rippled up his spine, and he headed out of the shop and back toward the house, only to find her lying on the ground a few feet away from the tree where she’d apparently been hanging her clothes to dry.
“Anna!” He knelt beside her, shook her a little, but there was no response. His stomach convulsed as he bent closer to listen to her breath. He was relieved to realize she was still breathing, but only once every few seconds. And her heartbeat was weak and erratic.
She was dying. God, no.
He scooped her up into his arms and straightened, then paused as he noticed the
words she’d written in the sand after she’d fallen.
I’ve loved you all my life. And I’m sorry.
It felt as if something inside Diego broke open then, like a dam giving way to the floodwaters it had been holding back. His emotions rolled over him like a tidal wave, and tears blurred his vision. He carried her into the house, laid her on the sofa and then, reluctantly, left her there to check on the strange smell coming from the kitchen.
There was a book in the oven, baking slowly on the center rack. He grabbed a potholder and rescued it, dropping it face-up on the counter. The pages where it had been lying open felt slightly crisp, but for the most part, he thought the book unharmed. Warped by having been soaked in seawater and then oven-dried, but aside from that, it was in surprisingly good shape.
He leaned over it, peering at the handwriting on the pages, knowing it was Anna’s. It held her essence. Her energy. Her personality was reflected in the shape of the letters just as it was in the shape of her face.
Later, he told himself. He would look at it later. Right now he had to see about the woman herself. He shut off the oven, then poured a glass of cold water from the pitcher in the fridge. He dampened a clean towel with more of the icy water, then hurried back into the living room, where she lay—so helpless, so fragile—on the sofa.
Leaning closer, he laid the folded dish towel on her forehead, cooling her face, then moved it to cool her neck. As he worked, he spoke to her with his mind, willing her to have the strength to wake, just one last time, before sinking into the sleep from which there was no awakening. Not to this life, at least.
Hear my voice and hold fast to it, Anna. Hear my voice and abide by my will. Gather every bit of strength in you and open your eyes. Talk to me, Anna, just one more time. I command it. Open your eyes. One last time, Anna.
Eventually she stirred, moving her head a little, moaning softly.
“There, that’s it. Come on, wake up.”
Vacation With a Vampire & Other Immortals Page 9
