by Tina Folsom
“Another question. Have there ever been cases where a vampire thirsted for the blood of his sire?”
Drake’s eyes went wide. “Once the turning was complete?”
Maya nodded.
“Dr. Johnson, if that’s what your body needs, you have to tell him.”
And be even more indebted to Gabriel, who clearly only saw her as an obligation? No—it wasn’t an option. She shook her head. “Good night, Dr. Drake.”
Nine
“What do you mean by ‘nothing’?” Gabriel asked and stood.
“Exactly what I said. I don’t remember a single thing about the attack.” Maya looked past him at the other three vampires—Thomas, Zane and Yvette—who sat and stood around the living room listening to their boss.
After Drake had left the house, Gabriel had changed into clean clothes and had assembled everybody. One hundred percent professional, he’d informed everybody that it was time to find the rogue. Maya’s sharp sense of hearing had picked up the short conversation he’d had with Drake. True to his professional oath, the doctor hadn’t revealed Maya’s confession, other than telling Gabriel that he was looking into the problem of her not drinking any human blood and would come back with a solution soon.
If Gabriel was still concerned about Maya, he didn’t show it. His face was a stony mask, showing no emotions. His scar seemed menacing again. Maya wondered whether she had imagined the handsomeness she’d seen in him only hours earlier. Maybe even the kiss she’d stolen from him had been imagined, because the hard man who looked at her now couldn’t possibly have been so gentle and whispered all those sweet encouragements to her.
“What’s the last thing you remember about that night?” Gabriel probed.
Maya sat back and let the sofa cushions support her. “I was on my way home from the hospital. It was late, well after midnight. I’d gotten called around eleven, and by the time my patient was stable, it was after twelve.”
“Were you walking home?”
Maya shook her head. “No, I had my car, but I couldn’t find parking that late at night, so I circled around the block a few times. In the end I had to walk two blocks.”
“Did somebody follow you from where you parked the car?” Gabriel’s questions came at her like bullets. If she didn’t know any better, she would have thought he was a police officer, not a vampire.
“No. I didn’t hear any footsteps. Just, uh …”
Gabriel gave her questioning look. “Just what?”
Maya made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Nothing, really. Only, I had a strange feeling.” She forced her mind back to that moment, and a cold whiff of air seemed to blow past her neck, raising the tiny hairs on her nape. But no memory of the fateful night was forthcoming.
“What happened then?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember anything after that.”
“You don’t remember being attacked and being bitten?”
Instinctively Maya’s hand went to her neck and rubbed the spot where the skin was still tender. “No.”
Gabriel’s gaze traveled to her neck. “That’s where he bit you. He drained you until your blood pressure dropped so low it made your heart stop. Then he fed you his own blood.”
Maya swallowed back the bile that rose from her stomach. She was glad she didn’t remember anything about the attack. “I’d rather not know what happened.” It made forgetting easier.
“I know.” Gabriel gave her a sad smile, and at that moment she could have hugged him for his show of compassion. Then he looked at his colleagues. “Maybe the shock made Maya forget? A way of her mind to protect itself?” he asked them.
Thomas shrugged. “Not so sure. Many of us were turned in the most horrible fashion, and most of us remember our turning. More like somebody messed with her memories.”
Gabriel nodded. “One way to find out.”
“Don’t mind me—I’m going out to have a snack while you demonstrate your gift,” Zane announced and walked toward the foyer.
“There’s blood in the pantry,” Gabriel offered.
Zane gave a half-smile, if it could be called that. The man didn’t seem to be capable of a true smile; instead, his lips merely twisted slightly. “Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer my food fresh.” He gave Maya a salacious look and seemed to revel in her shock. “Back in an hour.”
As Maya’s mouth gaped open, Zane sauntered out of the house. Was he really going out to bite somebody? Hadn’t Yvette told her that they were all civilized vampires who drank blood out of a bottle?
“Don’t mind him. He’s got his own rules,” Yvette explained. “Not all of us can be as civilized as Gabriel. Isn’t that right?”
Maya followed the look Gabriel and Yvette exchanged. Suddenly there was a tension in the room she couldn’t explain. Was something going on between the two?
Thomas brought the conversation back on topic. “Well, Gabriel. Pry into her memories then and get us something we can work with. It’s kind of hard to find a rogue when we’ve got nothing to go by. Even a bloodhound needs a little bit of a scent to spur him on.”
There was something about the words Thomas used that made Maya listen up. A scent. That was it. She could clearly distinguish the different vampires by their scents now, and Gabriel even more so because she’d had his blood. She leaned forward on the couch.
“All you need is a scent?”
“It would help,” Thomas admitted.
Maya looked up at Gabriel. “You just said that the rogue already fed me some of his blood before he was interrupted.”
“That’s right,” Gabriel answered.
“Then can’t you take that scent that’s in me and find the rogue with that?”
Thomas inhaled deeply, then shook his head. “All I can smell is your own scent and the faint underlying scent of Gabriel. Whatever was there from the rogue is long gone.”
“Damn.” Maya let herself fall back into the couch.
“It’s not a bad idea though,” Gabriel admitted. “Thomas, Eddie was one of the guys who found her. Why don’t you talk to him and ask him if he noticed anything?”
“Sure. But you know Eddie is still young. Even if he smelled that rogue on her, there’s no guarantee he’ll remember the scent and would be able to find out who the guy was.”
“Try it anyway. Talk to James, too. It’s worth a try.”
“No problem, I’ll talk to Eddie when I get home. He should be done with work soon.”
“You guys work?” Maya asked, totally confused. What kind of jobs would vampires have?
“Of course we do,” Thomas answered. “Not for the money, mind you, even though the pay is not bad. But when you’re immortal, you need a hobby or a job, otherwise you’ll just get bored out of your skull.”
Maya could only imagine too well. After a week on the beach she was generally ready to climb up the walls and try to find something useful to do. Not that lying on the beach would be an option these days. “What do you do?”
“We’re bodyguards,” Gabriel cut in. “We run a company called Scanguards. Samson started it, and one by one we all joined.”
“Who does the company protect?”
“Politician, entertainers—anybody really who can afford our services.”
“But you’re vampires. I thought you can’t go out in daytime.” Something didn’t make sense.
“That’s right. But not all our employees are vampires. We have lots of human employees who work the dayshift.”
“And your clients know?”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “About us being vampires? No. We’re careful. Only some of our most trusted human employees know.”
Maya could barely get her head around the news. Vampires who protected people. “You’re a bodyguard too?” Maya let her gaze sweep over Gabriel’s muscular form. She could fully imagine him protecting somebody—he could guard her body any day or night.
Looking at Thomas and then at Yvette, she could definitely picture them as bodyguards too. And Zane? Well
, Zane was just pure evil and anybody who was willing to have Zane protect him had to be completely loony if anybody asked her.
“That’s how I started out, but these days I don’t do any fieldwork anymore. I now run the operations in New York,” Gabriel corrected.
For some reason his statement made her feel disappointed. Why should it matter to her where he lived? Wasn’t it better that he lived in New York and would soon be physically removed from her temptation? At least then she could come to terms with the hunger she was fighting. Even now, she could barely stop herself from attacking him to drink his blood. And the closer she was to him, the worse it got. Maybe if he was back in New York she could find a way to deal with this.
“Maya.” Gabriel’s voice jolted her.
“What?”
“I asked whether I can have permission to delve into your memories.”
All three vampires looked at her expectantly. “How do you do that?” The idea that he wanted to somehow probe around in her head didn’t sit well with her. What if he saw things she didn’t want him to see? Would he see that she lusted after his blood? And if he found out, what would he do about it? Lock her up so she couldn’t attack him?
“It’s a psychic gift I have,” Gabriel explained calmly, “I can reach inside a person’s mind and see their memories. It won’t hurt.”
Maya wrapped her arms around her waist. “Does that mean you can read my thoughts?”
He shook his head. “No. I can’t read minds. I can only see memories of events the way the person saw them with their eyes. I can’t see what a person was feeling or thinking.”
Relief washed through her. At least this sounded less like a violation than she had first suspected. “Fine. Go ahead. But I’m telling you, I don’t remember anything else.”
“We’ll see.”
Gabriel sat down next to her on the couch. It only intensified the scent of his blood. “I can do it remotely without touching you, but it works more effectively if I can put my hands on you.”
His statement made her flush. She felt blood pumping through her veins at warp speed. If he touched her, would she drag him toward her and sink her fangs into him? Maya swallowed hard and willed her voice to sound disinterested when she answered him. “Sure, you can touch me if that helps.”
“Thank you.”
Maya moistened her dry lips. She felt the heat in the room more intensely now, but it was nothing compared to what hit her when Gabriel took hold of her hands. A searing bolt of electricity shot through her body, and she jerked involuntarily.
“Relax, Maya. It won’t hurt. I promise.” His voice was soothing, but it did nothing to ease the uproar in her body.
She clenched her jaw shut, and for the first time she was truly aware of her fangs. They itched to descend and lengthen. She closed her eyes and inhaled to try and make herself relax. But it had the opposite effect. All she could smell was Gabriel’s masculine scent and the richness of his blood, a mixture of expensive wood and the distinctive scent of bergamot.
The glands in her mouth salivated for a taste of him. Even just a little trickle of blood from his lip would ease her thirst. Maybe that combined with the soft press of his lips against hers, or a stroking of tongues against each other. And maybe by accident, her fangs would graze his lip and draw blood that she would lick from him as he lay panting underneath her.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” Maya said, her skin feeling flushed and hot.
“Shh, I’ll only go back to the night when it happened. I won’t probe into anything else.”
She hoped it would be quick. How many more minutes would she have to endure the soft touch of his warm hands that created a delicious tingling sensation on her skin? A woman could go crazy like that, or was it the lack of blood? Was it the insanity Drake had warned her about? Had it already started? If it was getting worse, she’d have to lock herself into a room and throw away the key; otherwise, Gabriel wouldn’t be safe from her.
***
Gabriel held Maya’s hands in his and realized that he had trouble concentrating. Normally, touching the subject made it easier to get access to the memories. In this case it was a complete distraction. But it was too late. He couldn’t pull back now. It would only show everybody how she affected him. And he didn’t want anybody to know, not his colleagues, and least of all her.
The fact that she’d dismissed him in front of the doctor like a naughty schoolboy had hurt and made him wonder about what had really happened between them. Had her kiss been spawned out of a temporary insanity brought on by the shock she’d experienced? Had she kissed him because she felt the same attraction he felt for her, or had it meant nothing to her?
A woman like her could have her pick of handsome men. He wasn’t much to look at. Any of his colleagues were more attractive than he was. Sure, he was tall, muscular, and strong, but this weren’t the dark ages. Women these days didn’t merely look at a man to provide for them. They wanted a handsome lover too. He wasn’t handsome, nor was he a lover a woman would wish for.
Gabriel pushed away the unpleasant thoughts and concentrated on the woman he faced on the sofa. He pressed his thumbs into her palm and stroked gently, making little circles. Her scent drifted into his nostrils and engulfed him. He closed his eyes and concentrated on her aura, a misty white fog that surrounded her. Only he could see it now, because he’d attuned his own mind to her frequency.
His heart beat at the same speed as hers, and he breathed when she did. Their bodies were in synch. He imagined himself in her mind, and a moment later he felt himself transported. When he opened his eyes, he didn’t see a scene in Samson’s living room in front of him. Instead, he saw a dark street.
He heard Maya’s footsteps like she would have heard them herself, felt the chill of the night fog. She searched for her keys in her bag, pulled them out. There was no light in the doorway as she reached it.
Then a voice, calling her name. The rogue had waited for her.
Then nothing. Darkness, except for a faint veil over the picture, as if the movie had gone grainy. He knew what it was.
Gabriel forced himself deeper into her mind and went back further in time. He saw her going about her work, shopping in town, eating at restaurants with friends, but everywhere he saw the veil. He went back in time for six weeks and found where it started. Before that, all memories were clear—after that they’d been altered.
Gabriel blinked and released Maya’s hands before he opened his eyes again. He’d broken the connection.
Maya looked at him, her expression curious. “Nothing, right? Just like I told you.”
He shook his head. “You knew him.”
She jumped up from the couch. “That can’t be.”
Gabriel rose. “I’m afraid it’s true. He called you by your name. He was waiting for you.”
“Did you recognize his voice?” Thomas interrupted.
Gabriel turned to him. “No. Maya feared him. That fear distorted his voice. I don’t know who he is.”
“But I would remember if I knew him. I would.”
Gabriel looked straight into her worried eyes. “There’s a reason you don’t remember. He wiped your memory. A couple of times in fact.”
“But I remember things before the attack, I remember fragments. I remember being at the hospital that night.”
Gabriel nodded. “That’s because he only needed to wipe out those memories that included him. When I looked into your memories, I went back about six weeks. I think you might have rejected him, so he wiped your memory and tried again. I saw the traces of where he altered your memories so there wouldn’t be any gaps. It’s like a veil. I think he stalked you.”
He noticed the tremor travel through her body and wanted to pull her into his arms to comfort her, but he restrained himself. What if she didn’t want his touch? When he’d taken her hands to delve into her memories, she’d practically recoiled from him. Did he suddenly repulse her? Did she regret their kiss?
“I supp
ose when I rejected him the second time, he decided to kill me,” Maya mused.
“Not kill you,” Yvette interrupted, “make you like him. Like us.”
“But why?”
“Maybe he figured once your old life was gone, you’d accept him.” There was a sad tone in Yvette’s voice that Gabriel had never heard before. Was it the same loneliness he often felt?
“Makes sense,” Thomas added. “Take away your options and you’ll be more likely to accept what’s being offered. Sick bastard.”
Gabriel felt a much harsher curse on his lips, but stopped himself. It didn’t help to curse the things he couldn’t change. What was done was done. Now it was time to act.
They had to catch him. If this crime remained unpunished, lawlessness amongst their kind would be the result. But more importantly, he felt the urgent need to punish the man who had hurt Maya.
Ten
Maya was apprehensive about running into a neighbor as she, Yvette, and Gabriel approached her apartment. It was close to midnight, but with this being a Friday night, chances were high that somebody would come home late and see them. Gabriel didn’t seem to be worried about it.
“We’ll just use mind control on them, and they’ll never know they saw you,” he suggested.
“Excuse me?” Had she heard right? Was mind control what she thought it was?
Yvette smirked and answered before Gabriel could do so. “It’s a very handy trick, and it’s helped us stay under the radar all these centuries. I suggest you learn it quickly.”
“One thing at a time,” Gabriel cautioned and gave Maya a soft smile. Did the man have any idea how devastating his smile was when he unleashed it on her? “I want Maya to ease herself into her new life. And besides, in the beginning some of these skills can be tricky. If used wrongly, you could hurt yourself.”
“Or one of us,” Yvette said dryly. “You’d better not be trying out mind control on another vampire. It’s meant for humans only.”
Yvette’s look told her there was more to the story. “What’ll happen if I accidentally use it on another vampire—that is if I ever figure out how it works?”
