Christmas With a Vampire

by Merline Lovelace

  Her phone chirped, reminding her that she was due at work—almost past due. With one last glance at the house, she shoved the leash into her bag and hurried to her car.

  Tomorrow she would find Garbo, think of a way to find out what Drystan was, and how she could permanently avoid him.

  DRYSTAN LEANED AGAINST the metal-and-rock sculpture that deco rated the entrance to the hospital. Aimee had stood him up—or at least not called. Normally this would have shocked him, but with her response to him, or lack of one, last night, he realized he would have been disappointed if she had fallen so easily.

  Beguilement was easy, less messy than hunting, but it was also less fulfilling. Until Drystan had met Aimee, he hadn’t realized how much. Since awakening he’d prowled around his condo, waiting for her call, hoping she wouldn’t, wanting an excuse to search her out himself—to be the aggressor.

  And she’d given it to him; she’d ignored him.

  He had never been happier.

  With his thoughts on Aimee, his concentration slipped, the web of deceit he’d wrapped around himself slipping with it. A mother who was headed his direction with two school-age children in tow ground to a halt. Her eyes lit on him and rounded with recognition of what he was—a threat to her, her family, everything she loved.

  He smiled, letting his fangs show for just a fraction of a second, then snapped the beguilement back in place. Ignoring her children’s cries of com plaint, the young mother jerked them closer, and abruptly changed her path, hazarding traffic rather than walk past him.

  An older woman, seeing the mother drag her children off the sidewalk and onto the street, made a judgmental grumbling noise. His disguise again snapped in place, Drystan shrugged and shook his head in apparent agreement.

  He was watching a group of interns grumbling among them selves over steaming paper coffee cups, thinking of signaling one, luring her to a spot behind the massive sculpture and relieving her of a pint or two of blood, when he felt the mood around him shift—lighten.

  Aimee, an over size leather bag slung over her shoulder, stepped out of the parking garage and into the cross walk. Her head was down, her feet moving quickly. But even in her obviously harried state, the world seemed to lighten around her.

  He watched her, willed her to look up and see him.

  As if pulled by a string, Aimee’s head lifted and her wide gaze met his. He felt the tiny exhaled “Oh” in the center of his chest, an anticipatory tightening, a flicker of something light and filled with promise he hadn’t felt since he’d heard someone—the Myhres—wanted to adopt him.

  The feeling, he reminded himself, couldn’t be trusted. Still, he couldn’t completely cut off the disturbing trickle of joy that wound through him as Aimee continued on her course toward him.

  “You didn’t call,” he said.

  Her hair was as wild as it had been the night before. Curls that would give under his hand, spring back when he removed his touch—the kind of hair that always look tousled, like she’d just left her bed, but innocent, too.

  “I had to work early.” She gestured to the building behind him, then twisted her mouth to the side. “Why are you here?”

  “I figured something like that happened. The all-night angel wouldn’t just stand me up.”

  “Don’t call me that.” Her words were firm, almost terse. Drystan raised his brows.

  “Please,” she amended. “I don’t care for the name.” Sadness touched her eyes.

  Silence fell over them—Drystan unsure what to say. He should jump on this opportunity, take advantage of her melancholy, break her. He opened his mouth, determined to tell her the Myhres didn’t care about her, how they would use her for political gain, then discard her if she faltered even one step. Instead, to his surprise, “Are you okay?” came out.

  She seemed as surprised as he was. A smile curved her lips, so sweet and full of hope, Drystan wanted to step closer, to soak the warmth he could almost feel radiating from her into his soul, store it for the cold days…years to come.

  “People don’t usually ask about me,” she re plied. Her gaze was on him now, fully, as if despite the beguilement he care fully held in place, she could see him, really, truly see him, and she wasn’t repulsed.

  “I’d like to know about you,” he said, and he wasn’t lying. What had started as a game, a way to cause the Myhres embarrassment and suffering, was quickly morphing into something else.

  The thought scared him.

  “For the magazine, that is,” he added.

  The light in her eyes lessened. “The magazine. I don’t know. The Myhres…that is…”

  “I’d show you a copy before it ran, of course. We’re a bridal magazine, not a supermarket tabloid.”

  “Well—”

  A kid on a skate board slid down the concrete lip that separated the road from the statue they were standing next to. Without thinking, Drystan wrapped his arms around Aimee and jerked her out of the teen’s path.

  Anger swarmed over him. His beguilement gone, he jerked his head to the side and hissed at the delinquent over Aimee’s head. In his arms Aimee flinched. He pulled himself back together, snapped his beguilement in place and stared down at her.

  Her eyes were huge, her lips parted. “What are you?” she asked.

  But Drystan barely heard her question. Warmth had radiated from her body into his. Her heart beat against his chest, so quick, so alive, while he was so slow, so close to dead. It was like walking into spring after years of barren winter.

  He pulled her closer, wished they weren’t separated by layers of heavy coats and clothing. His hair fell forward across his cheeks. People passed them, brushing along with hurried steps to get out of the cold, but neither Drystan nor the woman in his arms moved.

  “What are you?” she whispered again.

  He stared at her parted lips, full but un stained by lipstick, just a slight sheen that glimmered at him, invited him.

  “What do you want me to be?” he asked, then before she could reply, he lowered his head and caught her lips with his. His fangs scraped over her lips, pulling but not piercing her flesh. He cupped her face in his hands, holding her head so the temptation to bite down, to suck in the sweet taste of her blood, didn’t over whelm him. What he was doing was bad enough. He already knew she was resistant to his powers. He might not be able to make her forget this…. She might run….

  But she didn’t, at least not at that moment. Her bag slipped from her shoulder onto the ground and her hands crept up his chest until her fingers curled around the lapels of his coat and she held him almost as tightly as he held her.

  Drystan stroked the soft inside of her mouth with his tongue. Sweet, almost as sweet as he knew her blood would be. His groin hardened. She rubbed against him. He started to pull back, afraid the feel of him would startle her out of their embrace, but she clung to him, pressed her pelvis against his, shyly, but still there.

  A groan escaped from his lips and was devoured by their kiss.

  People were staring; he could feel their gazes on them. With a swish of his arm, he raised a veil around them, caused snow to spin, blinding anyone who glanced in their direction.

  He was running his fingers over her cheek, dipping them down the curve of her neck, when a chime sounded, breaking the fog that surrounded them, bringing him back to reality.

  Aimee pulled away. Her eyes looked heavy and unfocused, her lips bruised. Drystan could feel the quick beat of her heart, see her chest rise as she took in a breath. His own heart felt leaden in his chest. The muscle still worked like it had before he’d turned, beat like any other, but what he was feeling now…he’d thought this was in his past. Fear, pain, loss, he was used to, expected, but hope…love…those he hadn’t felt for years. He didn’t want to feel it now.

  She blinked at him and he waited for her to ask again what he was, to jerk away, for her face to crease with horror at what she’d done, and with whom. But she just stared at him, pressed two fingers to her lips, then
slowly pressed them to his.

  “I need to go to work,” she said, softly, almost apologetically. She bent to retrieve her bag and a cell phone. As she pulled the phone free, a leather dog leash fell to the ground. Drystan scooped it up.

  “You have a dog?” he asked to divert his mind from the emotions swirling through him.

  She shook her head. “A patient. I was trying to help him out.”

  “Trying?”

  Her finger tips skimmed his palm as she took the leash.

  She smiled, but her eyes were sad. “It’s important. I’ll try again.”

  Her answer was in complete, but Drystan didn’t ask her to explain, didn’t need to. She hadn’t found the old man’s dog. Drystan’s gaze drifted toward the hospital, to the window of the old man’s room.

  “About…this…” she started.

  Drystan grabbed her hand, pressed his fingers into her palm, let his thumb sweep over the fine bones of the other side. “For got ten.” He paused and with his other hand, tilted her chin so she stared into his eyes. “It’s for got ten. Nothing happened between us. You didn’t even see me, just realize you need to see me, want to talk to me—that you trust me, will believe everything I say.” He pulled a breath into lungs that needed no air, felt his powers thicken, wrap around her.

  Her eyes widened, dilated. He nodded; her head followed the up and down movement of his and he knew that it was done, that the kiss that had warmed him, made him forget how cold the world could be, had in her mind never happened.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AIMEE DIDN’T KNOW what Drystan had done or tried to do. She’d felt magic wrapping around her, felt it weave through her, confusing her.

  She pressed a hand to her forehead. What had happened? She had seen Drystan; she knew that…or thought she did. The entire encounter was like a vivid dream, the kind that wakes you in the night and takes minutes to clear from your head, to convince yourself it was just a dream.

  But her visit with Drystan was the opposite. Something was working inside her, trying to make her think it hadn’t happened, but she knew deep in her soul that it had.

  “Aimee…” Andrea, the nurse on duty, called from behind the counter. “Can you stop by Mr. Belding’s room? His daughter left a couple of hours ago. They…talked.” Her lips thinned. “He isn’t doing well.”

  Aimee shoved her cart back into the closet and hurried to the older man’s room.

  DRYSTAN WATCHED AIMEE from the shadows for any sign his suggestion had taken hold. Once she’d arrived on her floor, she had gone to a closet to retrieve the cart filled with books, then slowly began to push it down the hall. Every few steps she stopped, a confused look on her face.

  His suggestion taking hold or some totally un related problem she grappled with?

  He’d almost decided his lurking would tell him nothing when a nurse said something to her and she raced off.

  He, of course, followed.

  When she paused outside the same room where he had spied on her last night, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second before placing a smile on her lips and stepping inside.

  The old man was propped up on his pillows, a distant look in his eyes.

  “She sent Garbo to the pound,” he said. “Sending me there, too.”

  Aimee squeezed his hand, but didn’t say anything. At first Drystan was surprised that she would just sit there and let the old man suffer alone, but then he realized that was what the man needed, a listening ear, one that wouldn’t judge, but just be there for him. Must have been the role his dog played before.

  Besides, anything she said would be nothing but platitudes. The old man was being sent away from the life he had known, the things he had loved. He was in the last stages of his human life. There was no way around it. No way to make the journey easier…except maybe not having to feel like he was taking the trip completely alone.

  And that was why Aimee sat there, just holding his hand.

  DRYSTAN LEFT THE hospital and prowled the city. He was restless; some feeling he couldn’t pin down gnawed at him. He roamed, trying to shake the unsettling notion that there was something he should be doing, something he’d left undone, or maybe something he needed to undo. Finally, unable to relax, he found an upscale restaurant, one that would never have admitted him as a human, and stalked inside.

  He sat in the back alone, sipping wine and pre tending to eat. Across the room a woman sat with a date, both dressed to seduce—he with success and she with sex. Drystan watched them for almost an hour, stewed over the iniquities of life—the haves dining on filet and dressed in silk, the have-nots scrambling for change to buy a fast-food burger and pulling someone else’s cast-off coat around their shoulders.

  Life was horribly unfair, always had been. Luckily Drystan was no longer victim to the iniquities that ruled human existence. He could make his own rules now.

  The woman dabbed at her care fully made-up lips with a white linen napkin, uttered a few polite noises, then slid from behind the table—headed to the bathroom.

  Drystan waited a few seconds, watched her sway her hips as if to some in audible blues tune, then dropped his own napkin onto his full plate, and stood to follow.

  She was waiting for him when he turned the corner—or might as well have been. She stood in a dark alcove, her cell phone flipped open, her fingers already pushing numbers. Without saying a word, he slipped the phone from her fingers and snapped it shut.

  She was ready for him; he barely had to extend his powers for her to fall against him, her hands kneading his chest, like a cat preparing its bed.

  He stroked her hair away from her neck, whispered against her skin—even grazed his fangs over her throat. She smelled expensive, unattainable, exactly what he hungered for, or thought he did.

  Her body felt good against his; her curves were soft, her skin supple. Everything was right or should have been. He murmured against her throat, pre paring himself as much as her for what he was about to do, but as his lips were about to touch her flesh, his fangs to puncture her skin, he paused.

  He wasn’t hungry for her blood. Didn’t need it to survive, at least not right now.

  He only had to feed once a week, could even stretch that. So why was he here, doing this? Violating this woman? Yes, she would walk away happy with no memory of what he had done, but still he was using her, like he’d been used—and with no higher mission to justify his act. The flash of con science hit him unawares, angered him.

  He pulled back his lips, a hiss escaping between his teeth.

  He tried to shove the unwelcome tussle with morals aside, but the thoughts continued to roll through his mind.

  He didn’t need this woman’s blood to survive—he wanted it to forget. Blood, taking it, tasting it, made him forget…made the pain he’d carried all his life subside, at least for a while. And tonight, after being so close to Aimee, seeing her comfort the old man, knowing all that was left for the old human was pain, loss…Drystan’s own pain had surged back tenfold, like the sea reclaiming a beach. He stared at the length of white skin the woman laid bare before him.

  Morals be damned. No one had worried about morals when he’d been left beaten in an alley close to death. They’d chosen to hide his body rather than risk exposing the Myhre family to unsavory press. Left him where a vampire found him, fed on him, turned him into this. Drystan curled his upper lip, snapped his teeth together.

  He did need this woman’s blood, like an addict needed a fix. He bared his fangs, prepared to bite.

  An image of Aimee with her hand wrapped around the old man’s filled his mind.

  With a curse, he shoved the woman away. She teetered on her heels, blinked up at him with her eyes vacant, no sign of hurt, or dismay, just a blank void—like the hole that was Drystan’s life. With a snap of his fingers next to her ear, he jerked her from the spell, murmured something about her date and her need to hurry back to him, then turned on the ball of his foot and stormed from the restaurant.

/>   IT WAS AFTER midnight. The squat brick building in front of Drystan appeared empty, but it wasn’t. Drystan could hear the heart beats of dozens of lost souls inside, des per ate to escape, des per ate to be loved. He approached the door, still not believing he was here, doing what he was about to do. He could lie to himself and say it was part of his game, that it would get him closer to Aimee, but gaining her trust wasn’t what brought him here tonight.

  He knocked on the door, not expecting an answer, but choosing to try a mundane form of entry first. To his surprise, a male voice yelled out to him. “Closed. You got an emergency, call the Vet Line. It’s posted on the door.”

  A white sign with red block print hung from the door, just as the voice claimed, but Drystan didn’t bother reading it. Instead he pressed a palm against the wood and whispered to the voice inside, urged the man to open the door.

  He could feel a moment of resistance, the man starting to step away, then halting before shuffling close again. Drystan redoubled his efforts, making up for the wooden door separating them, cutting off at least some of his powers.

  The sound of a lock twisting followed and the door swung open. A man dressed in unitarian gray and holding a bucket stared out at Drystan.

  With a smile Drystan stepped inside.

  AIMEE SAT IN the small break room, a tuna sandwich un touched in front of her. Mr. Belding’s despair clung to her, like smoke after a night in the bars. She’d tried to lighten his mood, to pull the sadness from him, but the facts of his life were too set, too real. His life was ending. There was no way to change that, nothing that could make that fact go away.

  Yesterday, he’d seemed better, stronger, but today he’d had time to face the changes, completely grip that his life as he had known it was over, that his dog was lost to him.

  His dog. If only Aimee had been able to find her. If only she could have told him she was okay, safe. But the shelter had been closed, and she hadn’t wanted to make promises she might not be able to keep. What if she told him she would save his pet, then went to the shelter tomorrow and found her gone…dead?