The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set

by R. A. Steffan

  He set the glass down and picked up a damp towel, wiping his hand clean before passing it to Rans. The vampire swiped it over his chest to reveal the wound already disappearing, only pale skin left behind.

  “Thank you, Edward,” Rans said, before glancing at me with a raised eyebrow. “Ready for your turn, love?”

  I took a breath, let it out, and pasted on a patently fake grin. “Are you kidding? You know me—I live for this kind of shit.”

  This time, Rans did snort in amusement. “You wild party animal, you.”

  Edward waited patiently while I tugged my shirt up and my waistband down enough to bare the area where I felt my magic was centered, above my womb. He looked apologetic as he turned me toward the light and handed me a clean towel.

  “I’m afraid this will sting rather badly, Miss. I do apologize ahead of time for that.”

  I hid a grimace. “I expect I’ve dealt with worse in recent weeks,” I assured him. “Just don’t ask me to watch while you’re doing it.”

  “No need for that.” He tilted his chin toward the towel. “You might want to tuck that in your waistband to protect your clothing from bloodstains, though. Are you ready now?”

  I did as he suggested with the towel, and tried to steel myself. “Yeah, sure thing. I was born ready.”

  Cool fingers brushed the hand that I wasn’t using to hold my shirt out of the way, and I looked at Rans in surprise. Standing beside me, he twined our fingers together and squeezed. His other hand cupped my cheek, and warmth flowed through me almost despite myself.

  “Eyes on me, love,” he said, hypnotic resonance bleeding through his voice. “You’ll barely notice what he’s doing, promise.”

  Vampiric mesmerism wasn’t totally effective on me because of my demon bloodlines, but I could still feel his will pressing against mine. Whether it was because of his words, or simply the addictive nature of gazing into his eyes like this, I wasn’t sure... but the pressure of the knife breaking my skin and the resulting sting of pain seemed suddenly unimportant.

  I lost myself in those glowing depths, and before I knew it, Edward was straightening away from me. I turned to look at the butler properly, and Rans’ fingers slid away from my cheek. Sure enough—once I started paying attention to it, the burning discomfort low on my stomach immediately took center stage in my awareness.

  “Ow,” I said faintly, glancing down at the smeared mess of red with trepidation.

  “I truly am sorry, Miss,” Edward said sincerely.

  Rans gave my hand a final squeeze before releasing me. “I can’t add my blood to the mix covering your wound without risking the ward’s effectiveness,” he said. “But drinking a few drops will heal you from the inside out within a minute or so.”

  My nod of agreement was without hesitation. He bared a fang and used it to score his thumb. Blood welled, and I wondered idly if he was somehow able to control his blood flow consciously, since both his bullet wounds and Edward’s marks on his chest had barely bled at all.

  I took his hand when he stretched it toward me, wrapping my lips over his thumb to lick the blood off. The suggestive nature of the act didn’t occur to me until Rans’ eyes flared with blue flame, fixing on my mouth wrapped around his flesh with single-minded intent.

  I... might’ve blushed a bit, at that point. But only because Edward was still in the room, puttering around as he cleaned everything up. Someday, I suspected my human nature would catch up completely to my succubus nature, leaving me one hundred percent embarrassment-proof. Today was not that day, at least when it came to people I actually knew.

  After letting Rans’ thumb slip free, I cleared my throat in an attempt to drag my mind out of the gutter before turning my attention back to Edward. “Will you be leaving for Hell right away, now that the wards are taken care of?”

  Edward smiled and nodded, once more an unassuming elderly servant, rather than someone who could carve pentacles into people’s flesh and make houses invisible using demon magic. “Yes, Miss. I believe Nigellus also intends to deal with some business while he’s there, so you’ll be on your own for a few days. Keys to the house are on the table by the front door, and the refrigerator is well stocked.”

  “Thank you, Edward,” Rans said. “I’m certain we’ll be fine.”

  I wondered if Nigellus’ business in Hell involved the delivery and magical preparation of the blood he’d just stolen from Rans, but I kept those thoughts to myself.

  “Yes, thanks,” I said. “And not just for this. I really do appreciate you going to watch over Dad. I’m worried about him.”

  Edward’s eyes crinkled. “It’s no problem, Miss. Sometimes it’s nice to spend time in a place that’s never heard of dry cleaning or ironing boards.”

  Fondness flooded my chest. Damn it, anyway.

  Why did Edward have to be caught up in this whole mess with Nigellus? I liked him. Trusted him... and I didn’t want to. I wasn’t sure I could afford to trust anyone besides Rans at the moment.

  “Yeah, I can understand that. Going to Hell is certainly one way to get away from it all, right?” I quipped in a determinedly light tone. “Anyway, my father’s name is Darryl. You can ask Li Wei for more details—he’s one of the elders in the titheling village, and he’s been helping Dad as much as he’s able. I’d go with you myself and perform introductions, but...”

  Edward nodded. “Getting back through the gate can be a challenge,” he finished for me.

  Rans gave me a pointed look. “Not to mention the fact that while the warding might prevent Myrial from homing in on us from a distance, it won’t do much good if you’re parading past every demon in Hell with a flashing sign over your head saying, ‘Here I am, come and get me.’”

  “That, too,” I said.

  “Quite so,” Edward agreed. “Well, I should be off now. Good evening to both of you. I’ll pass on your regards to your father, Zorah.”

  I nodded. “Good journey, Edward. Stay safe.”

  Rans gave him a nod as well, and Edward left us to get whatever items he needed before he and Nigellus left. I pulled the red-stained towel out of my waistband and dabbed tentatively at the mess on my stomach. The blood had dried and turned tacky while I was flapping my lips with Edward, but the sharp ache of the cuts underneath had already faded, thanks to Rans’ donation of a few drops of magic vampire cure-all.

  It was odd to think that I might have just extended my own life by swallowing those few drops of blood. By how long, I wondered?

  I shook my head at myself. It hardly mattered. Assuming I didn’t get killed by a vengeful demon—or by a vengeful Fae—additional life for me equaled additional life for Rans. That was all I cared about in the end.

  “I should go soak this towel in cold water, since the resident laundry expert won’t be around,” I said, eyeing the stained terrycloth.

  Rans raised his eyebrows. “Are you joking, love? What, you think a centuries-old vampire never learned to get bloodstains out of fabric?” he asked, though the humor sounded forced. “I must say, I’m hurt by your lack of faith.”

  “Okay. Good point,” I allowed, and headed for the nearest bathroom. “I suppose that’s a necessary skill for the undead.”

  He settled a hip against the edge of the vanity while I scrubbed first at my stomach, and then at the ruined towel. As expected, the arcane symbol on my abdomen had already disappeared without a visible trace, the skin completely healed. I thought I could still feel a hint of warmth in the area, though, and I wondered if that was the magic that had been left behind.

  After a few moments, Rans straightened. “It feels like they’ve just left. We’re alone now.”

  Immediately, I stopped worrying about the towel. “Okay, thank fuck for that. You don’t think he’s got any listening devices planted in this place, do you?”

  “Unlikely,” Rans said. “It’s not really how demons think. If he wanted to know something, he could just pull it from our minds by force.”

  I suppressed a shiv
er at the image. An instant later, another rather horrible thought occurred to me. “Do we have any way of knowing he didn’t do exactly that to us earlier, when he had us alone?”

  “No,” Rans said grimly. “We don’t. But he’s still helping us, and that’s all I need from him at the moment. Now that he’s gone, though, you and I need to talk about what comes next.”

  FIVE

  “I FEEL LIKE WE’RE standing in the middle of a war zone with both sides shooting at us,” I said. “And I hate the idea of relying on Nigellus for protection like this, but I can’t think of anywhere we could go that wouldn’t end up putting someone else I care about in danger.”

  We’d moved the conversation to the spotless kitchen on the main floor. I sat on a stool at the counter and poked at the meal in front of me, knowing I needed to eat, but not feeling much like doing so. Rans paced, moving aimlessly around the room. It struck me, then, exactly how shut down he’d been since our arrival. Not that I could blame him, when the alternative would probably have been punching Nigellus in the face.

  “It’s very much in Nigellus’ interest to keep both of us in the land of the living,” he said grimly. “He needs me, and that means he needs you as well. Personal betrayal aside, his protection is still of benefit to us.”

  “I don’t know how you can even stand to look at him,” I said in a low voice. “But you’re probably right.” I sighed and speared a piece of steamed asparagus. “We need a contingency plan, though. I’m not willing to bet everything on Nigellus’ good graces. Particularly if there are multiple factions in Hell with competing agendas, which it looks like there probably are.”

  Rans shot me a look of approval and pulled up a stool next to me. “Strategy, eh? You’re learning, love.” He leaned an elbow on the counter and tapped his chin, while I shoveled food into my mouth without tasting it.

  “On the positive side,” he mused, “the wards Edward just put on us mean that we could, in a pinch, simply disappear someplace for a few weeks. Singapore... Kuala Lumpur... Minsk... Jamaica. Anyplace suitably random, really. On the negative side, since it’s Nigellus’ power binding those wards, he’d still be able to find us. The spell might be a cloak to other demons, but it’s a beacon to him.”

  A frown wrinkled my brow.

  “Well, shit.” I swallowed the mouthful of scalloped potatoes I’d been chewing. That made sense, I supposed, as much as anything in this topsy-turvy world of magic and mayhem did. Edward was bound to Nigellus; of course it was Nigellus’ power he’d been using to create magic. “Well... like you say, at least Nigellus wants us alive and safe. The same can’t be said of Myrial. And while the Fae may have given me a stay of execution, I’m sure Caspian and a bunch of others would still love to get me back in a damp, secluded cell somewhere for another round of torture.”

  I tried to ignore the chill that accompanied the thought.

  “No doubt they would,” Rans agreed, his face darkening.

  He seemed to shake himself free of his unpleasant thoughts. A moment later, he snagged an asparagus spear from my plate, sniffed it delicately, and wrinkled his nose before reaching over to pop it into my mouth. I tried to tell myself that the careless gesture only turned me on because I was still drained of animus after letting him feed from me so deeply earlier. Speaking of which...

  “We both need to feed from someone besides each other,” I said once I’d swallowed the morsel. “Nigellus wasn’t fucking around when he drained you. No offense, but you still look like a corpse even after feeding from me earlier, and I kind of feel like one.”

  “You’re not wrong about that.” Rans’ expression grew intent. “And there’s another thing you should probably know about me. In the normal course of things, I only feed when it’s necessary. If I feed more frequently, I become more powerful—though still no match for a demon, I’m sorry to say.”

  I blinked at him. “Okay—that’s interesting. I’d assumed you were... maxed out, I guess you’d say, as long as you weren’t drained or injured.”

  “No,” he said. “Not even close. I’ve made an attempt to stay reasonably well fed since things heated up with the Fae in St. Louis, but I haven’t exactly been juicing like a Russian weight lifter trying to make the Olympic team. It didn’t really seem necessary at the time, though you can bet I was kicking myself in the arse for it after that scene at the fetish club.”

  Huh. Interesting. “Then you should definitely channel your inner Dracula for a bit,” I told him. “The way things have been going lately, you never know when an extra boost might come in handy.”

  He slanted an unimpressed look in my direction. “Hmm. I should have known the Dracula jokes would make an appearance eventually. At the moment, though, I’m almost more interested in exploring your power capacity. I don’t know that we’ve ever come close to stuffing you completely full.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. “Was that some kind of succubus sex joke?”

  He smirked at me, but I still got the impression he had to reach for the humor. “You’re the one who said it, not me. Clearly at least one of us has a filthy mind.”

  “At least one of us, yes,” I agreed, stabbing the last bite of potato with my fork and using it to point at him. “All right. I’m game. I didn’t really get a chance to tell you the details before, but I was eventually able to get out of Hell under my own steam. It took weeks of trying, though, and I was... uh... feeding. A lot.”

  I stuffed the food in my mouth and looked away from his gaze, feeling suddenly off-balance even though I was the one who’d brought it up. When I set the fork down, a hand covered mine.

  “Zorah. I sent you away,” he said, very softly. “And I knew perfectly well at the time that you didn’t understand why... yet I didn’t try to correct your misapprehensions. Not to put too fine a point on it—you could have fucked every titheling in Hell twice over, and it still would have been no more than I deserved.”

  My eyes flew back to him. “No! Rans, I didn’t fuck anyone. But... well... I did kiss a girl.”

  A tiny, indulgent smile tugged at his lips. “Oh? And did you like it? Someone should write a song, if so—it’d sell millions.”

  A weak breath of laughter escaped me. “No, I didn’t particularly. Mind you, she wasn’t really inclined that way either. But she was a good friend to me while I was there. She helped me put on a show for the younger men in the village. And... well... they certainly seemed to like it. That’s how I was getting power while I was there—soft porn displays and public voyeurism. I even did a scantily clad yoga routine in the central square once.”

  Rans chuckled—a low, barely audible sound. He lifted my limp hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the knuckles that tingled all the way up my arm.

  “You really are extraordinary, you know. I’m only sorry more people didn’t tell you so over the course of your life.” His tone was matter-of-fact. “Well... perhaps I’ll have a chance someday to meet your friend who’s not bisexually inclined, so I can thank her.”

  The tension in my shoulders relaxed. “I hope so. Someday.”

  He laid my hand back on the table, but his blue eyes still held mine intently. “Since it appears we’re both getting a second chance at this thing, let me be crystal clear. The idea of you being intimate with someone else gives me a nearly overwhelming urge to do terrible things to them involving fangs and copious amounts of gore. But I’d rather stand by and watch you fuck a thousand men than see you go hungry because I couldn’t provide you with the strength you need to protect yourself. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  I swallowed against the thickness in my throat. “I think so. It’s like... if I picture you standing behind some gorgeous woman with your arms around her and your teeth fastened to her throat, I see red. But I don’t begrudge you the blood you need to live. I mean—it’s not like I’m jealous of Len because you fed from him. That was totally different than when you feed from me.”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled. “I should hope
it was. And your charming ex-coworker did explicitly threaten to punch me in the jaw if I pulled a Bella Lugosi seduction routine on his neck, after all.”

  I gave him a look. “You know exactly what I mean, you sicko.”

  The lines around his eyes deepened. “I do, yes.”

  “If it helps,” I continued, “I noticed a while back that drawing animus from random onlookers feels completely different from drawing yours. You know perfectly well what effect you have on me when I feed from you. But with other people, it’s more like the meal I just ate. It’s pleasant. It feels nice not to be hungry... but that’s about it.”

  “Hmm,” he nearly purred. “Then it sounds like I just need to keep reminding you on a regular basis of what I can give you that they can’t. And I’m certain you’re already aware of how your blood affects me. If not, I’ll direct your attention to the erection I’m still sporting after feeding from you more than an hour ago.”

  I snorted. “Please. You’d get that from the blood of any succubus. ‘For an undead erection lasting more than four hours...’” I quoted in my best TV spokesperson voice.

  “A moot point, since I have no intention of drinking from any other succubi but you, love,” he said. “Now, though—if memory serves, Vallecito is only a couple of hours’ drive from San Francisco. Since the warding will hide us from the wrong kind of attention, perhaps we can take advantage of those famously liberal California sexual attitudes to get you topped up. Preferably, without getting shot at this time.”

  “Damn,” I said lightly. “And to think, I left all my latex fetish-wear in St. Louis. I guess that means you’re taking me shopping again.”

  “And just like that, you have brightened my decidedly unpleasant day,” he replied in the same tone. “With luck, Nigellus will have left a car for us—in which case I propose that we find some people I can feed from locally tonight. After which, I’ll take great pleasure from feeding you, in turn. Preferably all night long.”

  Warmth blossomed. I realized—with a slight jolt of surprise—that there was nothing to stop me leaning over and kissing him just because I felt like it, so I did.