Maybe he was somehow forcing her to trust him. She had to at least consider the possibility. “How do I know you’re not going to make me your own personal meal wagon and voodoo me into doing whatever you say, like I’m some sort of Renfield?”
No reaction. “What’s a Renfield?”
She sat up, staring at him incredulously. “Oh, come on. A vampire who doesn’t know who Renfield is. What, you don’t watch Dracula movies?”
He snorted. “Why would I? They’re always wrong.”
“Renfield is a fly-eating guy who calls vampires like you master, does whatever the master orders, and has this really freaky laugh as he betrays his own kind.”
“Got it. You don’t see vassals very often in this day and age, and I’ve never met one who ate insects. Or laughed very much either, come to that. A deep glamour capable of turning a human into that much of a slave would cause a lot of brain damage.”
Chloe’s eyes widened, and she instinctively backed away.
He rolled his eyes, such a human gesture that she blinked at him in surprise. “You don’t have what it takes to be a Renfield,” he assured her. “Only someone weak can be glamoured so deeply, and even then it takes a very strong vampire to exert such long-term control.” He paused, his expression going still as if he’d thought of something he didn’t like. “You aren’t that weak-minded,” he finally finished. “And I promise I won’t feed from you, ever, without your permission.”
Interesting. She couldn’t help but notice that Luca didn’t deny that he was powerful enough to do … whatever, but he did promise not to feed on her without permission—as if she’d ever go there. An even larger question was, could she believe him? Should she? Hell, what choice did she have? “One more question, and then I’m going to try to sleep.”
He nodded.
“Why hasn’t this Warrior been talking anymore since Sorin’s attack?”
Luca shrugged. “Maybe he knows I’m here to guard you. Don’t worry; you’ll hear from him again.”
“Him. So, this Warrior is a man.”
“Most Warriors are men,” he said with simple logic. “But you’ve heard him; can’t you tell?”
If only it were so simple. “I’ve seen a long blond braid and heard a genderless, husky whisper. That’s pretty much it.”
“Hmm. The vast majority of Warriors are men, of course, but not all. The blond braid is interesting. Do you have Nordic ancestry, or Celtic?”
“I can’t even tell you where my great-grandmother lived. My folks were never much into genealogy.”
“Into it or not, the connection exists.”
“Tell me about it,” Chloe muttered. She yawned, feeling exhaustion sweep over her even though just a little while ago she’d been thinking that she couldn’t possibly sleep. Pulling her feet up on the couch, she curled into herself. “I’m so tired,” she muttered.
“Then sleep. You’re safe here, in your house.” Luca reached out and touched her hair; his touch was very gentle, so light she could barely feel it, and yet it seared through her body. Her emotions and senses were on edge, at the surface, so it wasn’t surprising that she felt that touch everywhere: in her toes, in her fingers, in the pit of her stomach.
“Humans,” he said as he stroked her hair. “I’ll never understand you. Tonight you were willing to die in order to help your friend, even though I told you plainly that Sorin would kill you both.”
“I couldn’t just stand there—”
“You enjoy life so much, but you’d throw it all away in an instant. It’s never made any sense.”
“I swear, you sound as if you’re talking about aliens, like you don’t have any clue what I felt when I saw Valerie standing there with Sorin all but tearing her throat out. You should remember; you were human once, too, weren’t you?”
“No,” Luca said, his expression remote. “I was never human.”
She dozed off with that disturbing little item in her brain, but started awake just a few minutes later, both oddly alert and disoriented at the same time. Luca was still sitting close beside her, stroking her hair, and when she’d dozed off she’d slumped against him. His arm was around her, and he had her settled comfortably against his chest.
Chloe said the first thing that popped into her head. “I don’t sleep with dead guys.” Then she blushed hotly, because that had to be pretty close to the most awkward remark she’d made since she was three years old and announced to her Sunday school class that Daddy and Mommy wrestled naked. The other children hadn’t understood, of course, but her Sunday school teacher had burst out laughing and, of course, told her parents.
Luca gave her an amused look. “Good. I’m not dead. Never have been.”
“But—” Vampires were dead, weren’t they? Dead people who got infected with the vampire mojo and sort of came back to life?
“I’m immortal. Think about it. If I were dead, would I need food? I’m warm, I have a heartbeat, my hair grows. But I won’t look any older than I do now. I don’t get diseases, and the food I need is human blood.”
He was definitely warm, so warm she almost felt scorched sitting next to him. He breathed—in and out, in and out—and there was certainly life in those pale eyes of his. And in that body. And in his mouth …
She forced her unruly thoughts back under control. It would be much too easy to seek comfort in sex, in the illusion of intimacy. She might fantasize about him naked, but the fantasy was far safer than reality.
Best to change the subject. “What happens when a Warrior comes through?” The look he gave her told her that he knew exactly what she’d been thinking, but he accepted the change of subject. “They fight whatever war they’ve been called to fight,” he said simply. “Some of them live, and some of them die.”
That couldn’t be right. Even as tired as she was, she knew that didn’t make sense. “He can be killed?”
“Yes, of course.”
There wasn’t any of course about it. “Then he’s not exactly an immortal warrior, is he?”
Luca smiled, his gaze going distant as he looked at something she couldn’t see, something far in the past. Just how old was he? There was a lot of knowledge in those eyes, the kind that was gained by experience. “Immortal Warriors can die again in battle, but at death their spirits return to the other side, where they wait to be called again.”
Chloe knew beyond a doubt that she wouldn’t care for fighting war after war after war, for all eternity. “Are they being punished?”
“No,” Luca said softly. “They are being rewarded.”
“Doesn’t seem like much of a reward to me.”
“But you’ve never had to give your heart and soul, your very life, for what’s right.”
Chloe closed her eyes, because she was tired and because she couldn’t bear to look at Luca a moment longer. He stirred her up inside, in ways she neither liked nor trusted. “So, they don’t like vampires?”
“I suspect not, but the fact that we’re vampires isn’t central to their coming; it’s the threat posed. If they come, they come into the world to preserve the human race as we know it.”
A shudder walked down Chloe’s spine. Logically, the vampires couldn’t be thinking about exterminating all humans, because if they did they’d lose their food source. But to enslave all humans … she could see them wanting that, and it couldn’t be allowed to happen. Was that why the Warriors were evidently so concerned?
The voice whispered through the air, power and magic shimmering all around her. “Yes,” it said. “Yes.”
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
She’d punched him.
Chloe Fallon, an insignificant human woman the top of whose head barely reached above his collarbone, had punched him. Even strong, feral vampires were nervous in his presence, he had powers that could devastate her both mentally and physically, but she hadn’t hesitated, she’d simply wound up and let him have it. Not only that, she’d done it knowing what he was, that he was a vampire, and a
s such could have killed her with a flick of his hand. Luca didn’t know whether to be insulted, enraged, or amused. In the end, he was none of those things, because simple lust crowded out everything else.
He wanted her. She was funny—inadvertently, most of the time—and the scent of her was like a magnet, constantly pulling at him, dragging him closer. The taste he’d had of her was as potent to him as a good scotch was to humans. Above all that, though, what he liked most about her was simply that she was valiant, in that headlong, insane way of humans who would ignore their own best interests to go to the aid of a friend. Didn’t she know how fragile she was, comparatively speaking, to a vampire? Hell, even compared to a human male. But there she’d been, clawing to get past him even though she’d known Sorin would kill her the instant she stepped over her threshold. She’d suffered her fair share of fear tonight, but she hadn’t panicked, hadn’t lost control … except perhaps when she’d punched him. He admired that kind of rebelliousness, though he suspected it was going to cause him some grief in the days to come.
She was asleep now, slumped against his shoulder. Luca sighed. She’d drift off to sleep, then wake with a start as if her subconscious kept prodding her awake. Maybe her damned Warrior was trying to talk to her. Couldn’t the fool tell she was exhausted, that he should let her sleep? The Warriors pushed their conduits to the point of both collapse and insanity, in their ruthless drive to make contact. What would it hurt to let her rest for a few hours, replenish her strength.
Dawn had arrived. He watched the light gather beyond the drawn curtains. He was relatively comfortable, but he could use some sleep himself; the battle with Sorin had been hard and fast, and he was tired. He wondered if Chloe would let him sleep in her tub, or if she’d freak at the idea. He could always go to his rented room, but Sorin put a new wrinkle in the situation. Sorin was one of the vampires strong enough to endure sunlight; if he was hunting her, then Chloe wasn’t necessarily safe during the day.
Sorin was powerful in many areas; if he’d joined the rebels, then the situation was far worse than Luca had thought. Having Sorin on their side was the human equivalent of getting a nuclear weapon. He was a born fighter, but he wasn’t just a sword; he was a thinker, too. The traitorous Council member would have had to advance a good argument to sway Sorin to the side of the insurgents.
Chloe made a little sound in her throat, shifted, settled more comfortably against him. Luca looked down at her, leaned closer to take in her scent, which he shouldn’t have done because it was damn distracting. He had to decide what to do about the rebels; he frankly didn’t give a damn about their cause, but at the same time he understood it. He didn’t have to deal with the frustrations of the average vampire. No matter what happened in the coming war, he could carry on pretty much as normal.
It wasn’t in his nature to sit on the sidelines during a war, though. He knew himself well enough to know that wasn’t going to happen. So the question was, did he fight for the rebels, or did he come down on the side of the status quo? He could find who had ordered Hector’s death even better from the rebels’ side, if he went that route.
The deciding factor was Chloe. If he chose the rebels, then she was dead. It was that simple.
He’d never been human, but he was definitely a man, and any man would appreciate that sweet scent, the curve of her breasts and hips, the shape of her lips. Other men might not care so much about her pale, slender throat, but he couldn’t deny the beauty of it, or the beat of her pulse beneath that smooth skin. He could see it, smell it, hear it.
He would have sex with her before this was done. He very much wanted to know not only how she tasted, but how her body felt clasping his, the internal heat and cling of her, how she responded, the sounds she made when she came. Luca had never been content to simply imagine his pleasures; he’d do everything he could to seduce her, but the word was “seduce,” not “glamour.” Glamouring a woman into having sex was no challenge at all.
In the past five hundred years or so, he hadn’t had many human women. They were too naive, too vulnerable, as if they weren’t finished in some way. A real relationship was impossible, as they never remembered him. And it wasn’t as if there weren’t enough willing female vampires for him to enjoy, with the added bonus that he didn’t have to worry about hiding his strength, or his feeding needs.
Chloe was different. He couldn’t put his finger on the exact difference, but she seemed more finished, spiritually older. She knew what he was; he wouldn’t have to hide anything from her. And she remembered.
She shifted yet again. He knew she was waking even before her breathing changed and her eyes fluttered open. He watched her blink up at him, saw the unguarded moment when heat entered her eyes. Her heart rate increased, and she took a deep breath that made her breasts rise against him. Unconsciously she licked her lips.
Luca took his own deep breath. He’d have her, when she was ready to come to him of her own free will, and he didn’t think he’d have to wait very long.
Then she realized where she was and pushed herself upright. Color surged into her cheeks. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I can’t seem to stay awake.”
“Then go to bed,” he said. “I’ll keep watch.”
She glanced at the curtained windows, then her head snapped back around to him. Her brows drew together. “It’s daylight. Shouldn’t you have burned to a crisp, or something? Don’t you have to crawl into a coffin? Where do you keep it stashed, anyway?”
“I’ve never owned a coffin,” he admitted, unable to hold back a smile.
Disillusionment crossed her face. “You mean that’s wrong, too?” She sounded disgruntled at being misled, though he didn’t see how humans could fall for that coffin bit. Coffins were big, and noticeable.
“Not only that, I can go out in sunlight. I don’t like it, but it doesn’t kill me. Vampires are as varied as humans; some can tolerate sunlight, some can’t.”
“Garlic?” she asked in a hopeful tone.
“Don’t like the taste of it.”
“Holy water? Crosses?”
“No problem.”
“Well, crap.” She folded her arms, scowling. “Everything we know about vampires is wrong?”
“Pretty much.”
“Is there anything I can do to kill you?” A second later she realized how she’d phrased that and she burst into laughter. “Sorry. I don’t want to kill you, honest. Is there anything I can do to kill Sorin?”
Her laughter made him smile. What wasn’t to enjoy, watching those soft dark eyes sparkle, her face light up? “You can cut off his head or destroy his heart; that’ll take care of just about anything living.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’d stand still for that.” Wry sarcasm colored the words. “I mean that literally, because he’d have to stand still. There’s no way I could catch him.”
“Once vampires reach a certain age, they’ve pretty much grown strong enough that their only danger is from other strong vampires, unless a human is really lucky. Usually a human can manage to kill only a younger, weaker vampire.”
“Huh.” She cut her gaze to him, speculation in her eyes. “So, how old are you?”
“Old.”
“How old?” She poked him with a finger. “Come on, spill. I’ll tell you my age if you’ll tell me yours.”
He snorted. “That isn’t nearly as tempting as I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.” He was oddly reluctant to reveal his age. He thought she probably wouldn’t blink an eye if he said four or five hundred years, but two thousand was in a different category altogether. He’d seen the fall of the Roman Empire. He hadn’t been in the region, but he’d been alive during the time of Jesus. He’d seen London burn in the sixteen hundreds, he’d lived through earthquakes and volcanoes, he’d actually spoken to Shakespeare, the scrawny goat. She might find that intimidating, because in comparison her life experience was miniscule. He didn’t want her intimidated by him, he wanted her … hell, he wanted her to punch him, if sh
e felt the urge.
“Forget it,” she fired back. “I’m not showing you anything of mine.”
He reached up, twirled one finger in her hair so the soft blond strands curled around his finger. “Are you sure about that?” he drawled.
She batted his hand away. “I’m sure,” she replied firmly, and got to her feet. “I’m sleepy, and I’m going to bed. If you aren’t going to burst into flames during daylight or anything, you can bunk down here on the couch, if you need to rest. I probably won’t sleep long.” A shadow crossed her face as she remembered the insistent Warrior who kept disturbing her sleep. “Anyway, good night. Or good morning. Whatever.”
She took herself off. Luca stretched out his long legs and spent some time thinking about the situation. When he heard her breathing even out in the deepness of sleep, he stood up and prowled through the small house, familiarizing himself with it. Her friend Valerie was still sprawled on the bed in the crowded guest room, as he’d known she would be. She didn’t interest him, for feeding or anything else.
He quietly opened the door to Chloe’s bedroom, and was instantly struck by the darkness. With his vampire-sharp vision he had no problem making out the details of the room, but the lack of sunlight was a distinct relief. She had blackout curtains! It made sense; she worked at night, slept during the day, so she needed to block out as much sunlight as possible.
A slow smile crossed his face, and he stepped into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.
* * *
Chloe woke instantly when there was a brief knock on her bedroom door, then the door opened and Valerie walked in rumpled, red-eyed, but blessedly whole. Chloe glanced at the clock on her bedside table. Nearly three in the afternoon! The sun had been up before she’d crawled into the bed, but still …
“Thanks for letting me crash here,” Valerie said. “I’m headed home. Just wanted to let you … well, hello.”
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