The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  I waited, tense and impatient. A few minutes later, I was rewarded when a sizzling sound cut through the air. A line of fire appeared in the shape of an oval large enough for a man to step through. Despite appearances, the figure that appeared through the portal was no man, however. He was Fae—proud and haughty, crackling with magic that danced against my skin like prickling needles, setting my teeth on edge.

  “What is this information you wish to trade?” Albigard asked without preamble.

  “Hello to you, too, Tinkerbell,” I said pointedly.

  He waved the words away. “You should learn not to waste time on meaningless prattle, demonkin. Now tell me.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Promise me that you won’t use the information to hurt Rans. Or give it to anyone else who might use it to hurt him.”

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible to convey an eye-roll so clearly without actually moving one’s eyes.

  “I so vow. Now stop dawdling.”

  My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed. I was counting on Rans’ assessment of Albigard’s character, before Albigard had pissed him off by taking me to Dhuinne. They’d been allies—of a sort, at least—and Rans had admitted openly to sharing sensitive information with him in the past. I sincerely hoped that meant what I was about to do was not, in fact, a horrible idea.

  “Drinking small amounts of vampire blood on a regular basis extends the human lifespan,” I said. “If not indefinitely, then at least by decades or centuries.”

  Albigard stared at me very intently, a small furrow marring his perfect brow.

  “And I only learned about it because I saw it in action, firsthand... and on a large scale,” I finished, staring back just as intently while I waited to see if he would connect the dots.

  His frown smoothed in the next instant, replaced by a blank facade of indifference. Bingo.

  “I see,” he said, his earlier impatience replaced with blandness. “Come. I will take you to the millhouse. As I will not be able to stay, please pass on a message for me.”

  I nodded, even as I wondered why he didn’t just deliver it himself. “What’s the message?”

  Albigard seemed to steel himself. “A highly placed member of the Unseelie Court is colluding with someone from the upper echelons of Hell. I do not know to what end, but someone needs to find out, and soon.”

  The familiar feeling of being at capacity when it came to bad shit happening around me returned with a vengeance. I closed my eyes for the space of a breath before opening them again. “Okay. I’ll pass it on. Thank you.”

  Albigard only grunted. With a wave of his hand, a new portal formed. He turned to step through it, and I followed, my heart pounding like a frantic beast trying to escape the cage of my chest. Terror and excitement at what I would find on the other side flooded me in equal measure.

  The sense of falling through a vertigo-inducing tunnel assaulted my senses, and I stumbled forward a step when my feet touched solid ground again—barely avoiding slamming right into Albigard’s back.

  “He is here,” the Fae said. “Move a step or two to the side, demonkin.”

  I frowned, but complied, since I’d already dodged sideways a step to avoid him.

  “What—” I started to ask, only to be interrupted when the door of the tumbledown stone cottage sitting perhaps twenty-five yards away flew open.

  My heart skipped a beat as a familiar, dark-haired figure stormed out, blue eyes blazing fire. He held a scabbard in one hand, grasping the sword hilt in the other and sliding the blade free with a hissing scrape of metal.

  Albigard snorted softly and melted back through the portal with effortless Fae grace. It snapped closed behind him, an instant before the iron blade flew through the place it had been and arced to the ground, burying itself in the loam with a sharp twang. I blinked. Apparently that was why Albigard wouldn’t be delivering his information in person.

  My gaze turned back to the scowling vampire. I was vaguely aware that I was gaping at him like a fish, while inside my body, my organs tried to rearrange themselves, swooping and flipping crazily. His eyes settled on mine, the unearthly blue glow bleeding out of them as he stood, tense and unmoving.

  “I need to talk to you,” I choked out, past the lump in my throat. “I’ve learned something about Nigellus, and the tithelings—it’s important.”

  A look of caution flickered across his features, quickly covered by a cool mask. I remained rooted in place as he stalked past me and retrieved the sword from its resting place in the damp earth, wiping each side of the blade on his trousers before sliding it smoothly back into its sheath.

  “Oh?” he asked in a conversational tone. “You know you could have just emailed, luv. I’m sure Guthrie would’ve given you the address.” He returned to stand a few paces in front of me, looking me up and down. “Blimey. You look like you’ve been—”

  “To Hell and back?” I offered weakly.

  “I was going to say ‘dragged through a hedge backward.’”

  All of my resolve to be an adult about things and not give into my long-established weakness for this man was disappearing under a wave of panic. He was here, and I was here, and now I had to tell him that one of his most trusted confidantes had been using and abusing him for centuries.

  I scrubbed a shaky hand through my rat’s nest of hair, and gave my surroundings a quick sweep. The structure Albigard had called the millhouse was clearly older than the country I’d been born in by a significant margin. It was set on the side of a verdant green hill, surrounded by rustic fences made of split wood and piled stone.

  I remembered the little cottage in County Meath, with its rolling fields and fluffy white sheep. ‘It reminds me of home a bit, this place,’ he’d said.

  He was watching me take in the surroundings. Meeting his eyes again was difficult, but I managed it. Suddenly, I felt as exhausted as though I’d run a marathon. Was it because I was drained after my escape from Hell, or because of what I now needed to do? Somehow, I needed to deliver the worst kind of bad news to this man I cared about so much, without letting my pathetic infatuation rear its head.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t reflect too much of what I was feeling.

  Rans tilted his head, his dark brows drawing together. “That rather depends on why you’re really here, Zorah,” he said slowly.

  “I already told you,” I said. “I need to pass on something important that I’ve just learned.”

  “About Nigellus, and the tithelings. Yes, I heard you the first time.”

  I stared at him. “Then, what...?”

  “Why are you here?” he asked again, putting emphasis on the last word.

  Without warning, my knees gave out, and I crumpled to the soft earth. “Because everything is still falling apart, even worse than before,” I said. “Dad’s still in danger, I can’t trust any of the people I thought I could trust, and—”

  I clacked my teeth together sharply, cutting off the flow of words before the next ones could tumble out.

  “And?” he pressed.

  A sharp ache radiated out from my heart, wrapping around my lungs and trying to choke me. All of my good intentions shattered beneath a crashing wave of long-denied emotion.

  “And I’ve missed you so much,” I whispered.

  His chest rose and fell convulsively, as though he’d sucked in a sharp breath despite the fact that he hadn’t needed to breathe for centuries. Then he dropped down to kneel in front of me, heedless of the damp grass.

  “Say that again,” he murmured.

  My lower lip started to tremble, and there was a suspicious burning feeling behind my eyes. “I’ve missed you,” I repeated in a wavering voice.

  I was in his arms before the final word faded, clinging to him and breathing in the scent of soap and freshly laundered cotton and Rans.

  “Zorah,” he whispered against my temple, as my fingers clenched convulsively in his shirt.

  “I don’t know
what to do,” I confessed.

  One of his arms stayed wrapped around me, anchoring me in place against him, while his other hand slid up my spine to cradle the nape of my neck.

  “For now,” he murmured against my skin, “I think this will do just fine, don’t you?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  PERHAPS AN HOUR later, I sat at a worn wooden table in Rans’ kitchen, cradling a cup of milky tea with one hand. The fingers of my other hand tangled with his cool ones. He sat across from me at the narrow table, our hands outstretched to meet in the middle of the dark wood. I kept my gaze turned down, examining the swirls in the teacup as though they might hold answers.

  “I’m told that works better if you drink the tea first, and try reading the leaves afterward,” Rans said mildly.

  I swallowed. “I’m so sorry for this.”

  His fingers squeezed mine lightly. “Which part?”

  I still didn’t look up. “All of it.”

  He let silence stretch between us for a few moments. When he finally spoke again, his tone was musing.

  “This would be so much easier if I could simply scoff, and claim that I don’t understand you at all. But I do. Understand you, that is.”

  I dragged my eyes up. “What do you mean?”

  He examined my features like someone evaluating a painting, or a statue.

  “Are you aware that until now, you’ve never once in our acquaintance expressed any sort of fondness or affection for me?” he asked, still watching me closely. “You’ve expressed gratitude. Appreciation. Sexual enjoyment. Concern for my physical wellbeing. But never any hint of an emotional connection.”

  I blinked in surprise. Because that... couldn’t be right. My mouth opened, ready to list all the reasons why he was wrong—and I drew a blank.

  His eyebrows went up. “In fact, I’d say you’ve practically bent over backward to avoid it. And I believe I understand now why that is.”

  My mouth was still hanging open, and I strove to find words.

  “You never said anything either!” was all I could come up with. And that was fair, wasn’t it? That was the reason I’d hidden and denied my feelings all this time.

  “Zorah, I’m seven hundred years old—and you’re twenty-six,” he said, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles to take the sting out of the words. “Twenty-six, and caught in a never-ending series of crises that threaten not only your life, but the lives of those you care most about.”

  I caught my lip between my teeth, not sure that my voice would stay steady if I tried to say anything.

  “It’s a rather significant power imbalance,” Rans went on gently. “Whatever this is going to be, it will have to be because you want it. There are creatures in this world who will claim anything they please, simply because they wish to.” He paused, a dark look sliding across his face. “I am not one of those creatures.”

  “But,” I began, hearing the rasp in my voice, “I still don’t understand why you even care. Why would you feel anything for me? I’m no one. The only thing remotely interesting about me is my parentage. Take that away, and I’m a broke waitress with a fucked-up, dysfunctional family life and a history of being dumped by my boyfriends!”

  Rans closed his eyes as though something about my words had pained him. “When I was turned, my vampire sire abandoned me,” he said, confusing me with the seeming non sequitur. “I’ve no idea why. But he left me alone among the corpses of my dead family, with no clue about what had happened to me or what I had become.”

  I squeezed his hand hard and drew breath to speak, but he shook his head.

  “No, let me finish. It was four months before I stumbled across another vampire who could explain everything and help me get myself together. Four months, and I barely survived it. You survived for twenty-six years—twenty of those without even the most basic kind of emotional support, from what I can gather.”

  My head moved slowly from side to side in negation. “But... that’s...” I tried to marshal my scattered thoughts. “That’s hardly the same thing! I thought I was human.”

  Blue eyes bored into mine. “Yes. You weren’t, though. You were a succubus hybrid constantly teetering on the verge of starvation. But did you let that beat you? No. You didn’t. Instead, you dragged yourself to a demanding job every day, then dragged yourself home so you could volunteer at a second one to honor your dead mother’s memory.”

  “Rans,” I said, bewildered, “lots of people do these things. People who have it way worse than I ever did.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “and they’re extraordinary, as well. But you still haven’t let me finish. You sacrificed yourself in an attempt to save a man who’d emotionally abandoned you years before, and railed against me for saving you from your fate merely because to do so, I’d shortened a life for which I barely care anymore in the process. You refuse to resort to the simplest and most straightforward method of feeding from other people out of some sort of... misplaced loyalty—”

  “Stop!” I pulled my hand away and stood up abruptly, the chair legs screeching across the flagstone floor. The tea sloshed dangerously as the cup wobbled in its saucer. I was breathing hard.

  “No,” he said, “I won’t stop. I saw all of these things, but I didn’t understand until it was too late that the very events which had shaped you into the woman you are would also prevent you from ever reaching for what you want.” He gestured between us. “Look at us. I’ve finally managed to pry an admission out of you that you have some sort of positive regard for me. But I still have absolutely no clue about your real feelings.”

  “I’m in love with you, damn it!” I yelled, my fingernails pressing gouges into the table’s ancient varnish. “I wanted you safe because I’m in love with you! I don’t want to have sex with other people because I’m in love with you!”

  My voice rose until the last few words were delivered in a shrill screech. I was shaking all over, convinced that I’d just delivered the most appallingly terrible declaration of love in the history of ever. But Rans rose from his chair and came around to my side, wrapping me in his arms from behind.

  “Good,” he said. “Because I feel that way as well—bloody woman.”

  My trembling muscles sagged as I replayed the statement in my head a couple of times to make sure I’d heard right.

  “You might have said something sooner,” I said weakly, once I was convinced I hadn’t hallucinated the words.

  He huffed. “I’ve been telling you that for weeks now.” His lips drifted lower until they were brushing the shell of my ear. “You just haven’t been listening... love.”

  I shivered all over, gooseflesh rising on my arms, neck, and chest as every casual endearment he’d ever graced me with shifted, taking on a deeper meaning.

  “Rans,” I whispered. “Bite me.”

  I felt another puff of amusement tickle the side of my neck.

  “Please tell me that was a request, and not an insult,” he said.

  “Neither,” I replied breathlessly. “It was a demand. Bite me.”

  “Good answer.” His lips touched the sensitive juncture of my neck and shoulder, pressing a kiss there. I rolled my head, baring the side of my throat, but he made a regretful noise and backed off. “First, though—much as it pains me to have to ask—is anyone coming to try and kill us in the next few hours?”

  A groan slipped past my lips, but I did my best to drag my mind back to the practical. It wouldn’t take a genius to realize that I would run straight back to Rans after escaping Hell, and if Albigard knew about this place of his, others probably would, too. That being said, I suspected the demons would assume I’d had to take the slow route of cars and planes to get from California to the UK. No one who knew what had happened to me in Dhuinne would expect me to voluntarily hitch a ride with a Fae.

  “Erm... probably not?” I offered. That exhaustion from earlier returned with a vengeance, this time with a hefty side order of don’t-give-a-fuck. “And this is going to sound like a serious m
ental health red flag, but right now—if someone did show up to kill us while we were in bed together? Well... I can think of worse ways to go.”

  “Fair enough. Just remember—you said it. I didn’t,” Rans murmured against my skin... and bit me.

  The sharp spike of pleasure-pain drew a gasp from me. Moments later, warmth began to spread through me, unknotting tense muscles one at a time until I felt like I was melting from the inside out. Rans drew on the twin wounds, pulling my blood into him with deep swallows.

  A new heat bloomed from within and without, my animus and his swirling against opposite sides of the permeable barrier of my magic, seeking union. I let a trickle of his life-energy pass through—wanting it, but not wanting to drain him the way he was draining me. Not yet, anyway.

  His fangs pulled out, though his lips remained sealed over the holes. I moaned shamelessly when his tongue laved the bite with slow strokes to heal it, the sensation spiraling down the length of my spine to settle in my sex. The barrier I was maintaining to keep from sucking him dry of energy wavered, but held.

  “Good girl,” he said against my neck. “Leave me enough so I can take care of you for the next little bit, eh?”

  I made a wordless noise, suddenly aware of just how heavily I was leaning on him. An instant later, the floor disappeared from beneath me as he scooped me into his arms. Vertigo swept over me for the space of a few heartbeats, and then I burrowed into him, hiding my face against the charcoal Henley he was wearing.

  The cottage was small, but not cramped or tiny. The interior had been meticulously renovated in such a way that it maintained its rustic air while still offering all the modern conveniences. The bathroom was no exception—the exterior wall was the same irregular, unfinished stone as the outside of the building, while the other walls were gleaming white.

  In addition to a deep copper tub, there was a clear glass shower stall taking up one entire corner of the room. It was easily big enough for two, with a tall stool and a short stool sitting inside as though they were permanent fixtures there.

  “Shower’s quicker,” he said, before setting me down on the closed toilet lid and peeling off my clothing a piece at a time. Once I was naked, he stripped as well, baring pale skin and smooth muscle. After turning on the water and testing the temperature, he returned and swept me up again.