From the Dark

by Michele Hauf

  “No.” She tilted a look up into his eyes. Dark emeralds flashed faery tales. A smile softened his dread.

  “So it’s magic that makes me want to be near you, to stand so close I might become you?” He could understand that.

  “It could be. I know vampires can take away magic by having sex with a witch, and that they are compelled by that same magic to the scent of their blood.”

  “A wicked spell upon our kind.”

  “Do you think it’s any easier for a woman who isn’t a witch, but wants a man who must be wary of her?”

  “Oh, Jane.”

  Their kiss was tender at first, but as she pulled him to her they both deepened the urgency. This felt right.

  To hell with you, Michael mentally screamed to the monster. This woman gave him light. And what better person to stand at his side while he struggled to obtain that light than one who understood him because she had lived with his kind?

  “So you’ve nothing against vampires?” he whispered. Her lashes fluttered upon his lips. He dashed out his tongue, but tasted only air.

  “There are good and bad vampires, just as there are good and bad mortals. I get along with most anyone if they’re respectful to me. What about you? How does sharing a house with a not-quite-witch feel to you? Kinda crawly?”

  “Truth? A little. One thin cut to your finger, and if I’m anywhere in the vicinity, well—”

  He wanted her desperately. Holding her fed a hunger for that which he’d been unable to control, the wild, the outrageous, and the darkly sensuous. He wanted to take her into his body and lose himself. He wanted to do wild, desperate things that consenting adults did behind closed doors.

  How to kiss Jane and make love to her without inviting the monster? Why worry? She knew about him now; she shouldn’t flinch at his fangs or his insistent needs.

  Death cocktail, remember?

  Right. That little detail twisted everything into a complex knot.

  A kiss to her chin. The taste of her—cherry wine and lilacs—wilded his heart. Like no other. Death might be worth having sex with this woman.

  Sliding a hand beneath her breast, he explored the soft undercurve, daring a stroke across her nipple. The thin shirt was still open and made it easy to feel the pebbled texture. How women, in all their softness, could be so hard, never ceased to astound him. He squeezed.

  The sound of Jane’s pleasure sang to Michael’s soul. Her song cooed him to the edge of control, coaxing with a wanting chorus and the soft harmony of the forbidden. His teeth tingled. The wild in him stalked to the surface. Crazy red wild need.

  Blood scent called to the monster.

  He pushed away from her and stomped to the center of the room. The seductive silence screamed at his insecurities. Standing there, he felt at his teeth, so sharp when he wasn’t aware.

  “This is not going to work, Jane. Every time I touch you the need to kiss you—to merely connect with you—becomes so dark. I want you so fiercely, but I won’t hurt you.” Gesturing incomprehensively, he declared, “I can’t hurt you. It might destroy me.”

  Michael sighed but then said, “I didn’t mean that. Not hurt, but…” Bite. “You know I’ve only heard the tales. What really happens when a vampire drinks witch blood?”

  Slipping her tongue out to taste the remnants of his kiss, Jane then tucked her hair behind her ear. Wicked green eyes shone a defiant call to the fallen angel.

  “I’ve only witnessed it once, mind you,” she said, “and it wasn’t caused by me. Once the witch’s blood enters the vampire’s system, well…it…”

  “Dead vampire?”

  “Desiccated vampire, to be exact. The vampire sort of…melts away from the inside and then…explodes.”

  “Ah. Well, then.” Michael clasped his arms tight across his chest. “Such joys to look forward to should I taste your blood.” He kicked the bedpost. “Why is it the only woman in the world I want to hold close is the one who could be my death? What kind of karma is this? Not that I don’t deserve it.”

  But did he? Did he really?

  “You want to simply hold me?”

  “Yes.” He breathed lowly. He held out his arms, but didn’t move to embrace her. Because he didn’t want to break her, or to be broken in return.

  “Sometimes—most of the time—I want to hold you. I want to kiss you. I want to—hell, I want to have sex with you, Jane. I want to strip off that silk shirt and taste your breasts that feel like heaven in my hands and bury my face in your hair and just be in you until the both of us can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.”

  “Sounds marvelous.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?” He smacked a fist into his palm. “Bitch that I can’t control the blood hunger over my demanding lust. That’s what this inner fight is all about. The reason I’ve secluded myself. I need to get it under control before the press catches wind of my indiscretions.”

  He paced the floor before Jane. “It used to be I’d kiss a woman, or have sex with her, and then the hunger would demand I drink her blood. Now? I don’t get that far. I kiss. I don’t have time to think about sex because the monster wants its fill. Immediately. It’s like the whole sex blood feed thing has gotten twisted into one of those Gordian knots. I should be able to separate the necessity of blood from the luxury of sex. I should, but I can’t.”

  “So every woman you’ve been sexually attracted to, you…?”

  “Bite her. Makes it difficult to have a relationship, let alone make a simple connection.”

  And that is what he craved, the comfort of a relationship, of connecting with another, and knowing there was one other person in this world who accepted and understood him. Because while the world perceived his as an idol adored by masses of zealous fans, Michael knew, when on stage, he stood alone. So alone.

  “So,” Jane said, “if you could learn to control the hunger, we could make love.”

  He flinched. “I’ll never hurt you, Jane. I promise you. But the dark in me isn’t privy to the promises made by the light.”

  “I would never ask you to do something you didn’t want to do.”

  “Making love is not on that Don’t Want list. I want, Jane, I want so much—Please, don’t touch me. Please, Jane. It’s so…My teeth.”

  He turned from her. His fangs had descended. He wasn’t comfortable with closing his mouth completely over the sharp weapons.

  “I need to get away from you. Just for now. It’s not because I don’t want you.”

  “I understand.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  “I look forward to it.”

  And so did he.

  Chapter 10

  O n the one hand, she should be thrilled. A source! And living in the same house as she. The promise of a secure future stood so close, why, it literally embraced her. No need to rely on Ravin Crosse; this matter had taken care of itself.

  On the other hand…Did there have to be another hand?

  Jane pushed her fingers through her hair as she paced the hallway toward the living room. “I’m sharing a house with a vampire!”

  Certainly she wasn’t your average woman. Vampires were myth; your average citizen played into the act, but could never quite step over the edge to belief. Though she’d been raised in a household with a witch and a vampire, Jane tended to walk a wide path around it; she’d become as anesthetized by the media as everyone else. Vampires were so popular nowadays they were absolutely commonplace. Everyone wanted to be one. No one really believed in them. And yet, that was the vampire’s greatest coup: that they could flaunt themselves publicly, and the world thought it merely a costume or publicity stunt.

  But Jane knew better. And so did Michael.

  And what was so different about this situation than having lived with a vampire as her father?

  Plenty. Namely, that she was still attracted to Michael, even knowing their coming together could prove volatile, if not deadly, to him. He had tried not to show it, but he was con
cerned. He had to be.

  So when he’d asked for space, she’d agreed. Time she needed as well, because suddenly the choices life offered had become so twisted.

  Striding into the living room, she plopped onto the covered sofa and caught her head in her hands.

  “It wasn’t stupid,” she said. Not recognizing the truth standing right before her. Twisting the shimmer into sexual desire instead of taking it for what it had been. “Just…oh!”

  She had succumbed to surface seduction. And now, she knew what lay beneath the surface was not for her.

  “No vampires,” she said sternly. “They’re not—not what I want. I just want to be normal.”

  Did she? Because she’d done normal for so long now, and always that reminder that she could never be normal stabbed at her. The inner magic her mother warned her not to fear teased at her. She wanted to control it. Over the years she had attempted to master her latent magic, and not once had she succeeded.

  Jane’s sigh lifted her shoulders. She rolled onto her side and propped her head on the arm of the couch, curling up her legs to her stomach.

  To have considered Michael Lynsay as a romantic prospect had been a bad choice. Yet strangely, a comfortable one.

  It was high noon, and Michael didn’t feel like sleeping. The recording studio didn’t call to him, though he had promised Jesse he’d go over the tracks to a few songs The Fallen was working on. The lyrics needed reshaping. But for that he needed his iPod, in which he’d stored the files on the hard drive.

  Where had he lost that? Was some kid going through the files right now? He’d be the neighborhood star the moment he shared the unreleased video with his friends.

  The record company would have his head if that video got into the wrong hands. It wasn’t Michael’s job to have to worry about things like that.

  Hand him a microphone and let him rock. That was Michael’s role in the greater scheme of things. If he couldn’t sing—ah, hell, he didn’t want to consider life without music. It provided a necessary counterbalance to the dark.

  Much as music was his everything, he didn’t feel it today. The only beat he wanted to play with was the one beneath Jane’s flesh. Skin so soft and creamy he could lick her all night and never grow full of her taste.

  This distraction thing seemed to be key to not thinking about the reason he was here. Which was good. He hadn’t fed for over twenty-four hours, which was remarkable. Though, it wasn’t the need for blood that troubled him. He’d gone for almost a week if The Fallen’s concerts were back to back. Performing on stage gave him the same adrenaline rush the fear did.

  So where was Jane?

  Not a witch, but witch’s blood in her veins? Damn.

  “This is stupid.” He shrugged a T-shirt over his head and arms, and paced out of the bathroom to find Jane. “Enough brooding. And I’m not afraid of her. No slip of a woman is going to keep me away. Witch or not.”

  She wasn’t in the workroom. The first window was complete, and stood propped against one of the original windows. Vibrant colors beamed across the floor, stretching up to the door where Michael glanced in. The sun was bright today.

  Jane wasn’t in the kitchen, and the rest of the house was bare of furniture so he didn’t bother to check the other rooms. Glancing out the window over the sink he spied Jane’s fluttering blue skirts—or rather she slashed wildly at something.

  “What the hell?”

  A storm of insects buzzed about Jane’s head. She batted and punched at them.

  Michael took off in a run out the back door. As he got closer he could make out the yellow and black bodies. They were bees. Probably a dozen of the big fat bumblebee kind.

  “Jane, don’t slash at them! They won’t sting!”

  “Oh, yes they will!” she shouted, and continued to bat at the angry insects. “They won’t leave me alone. Oh, Michael make them go away!”

  Not sure how to scare off something so small, and seeing Jane’s frantic arm movements were doing little to ward off the things, Michael tore his T-shirt over his head and flapped it at the bees. The wave of fabric beat half a dozen back, but they zoomed right back at Jane. One crawled in her hair. Another on her shoulder.

  He winced, feeling as if he’d been stung. But the fat ones like this didn’t sting, did they?

  Just above his eye it burned—and then he realized what he’d done. The sun was high. He shouldn’t be outside.

  He had to get out of the sun. But not without Jane.

  “Damn it!” He grasped a bee and squeezed, dropping it dead to the grass. A few more snatches served the same result.

  The corner of his eyes watered and burned. His right shoulder burned.

  “Jane, let me cover your head.” He fit the T-shirt over her hair and then whisked her under his arm. “Run with me!”

  Batting away the insistent bees, he made it to the house and shoved Jane inside. Smacking a bee against the wall, it stuck there.

  “Are they gone?” she cried, still under the shirt. “Michael?”

  A woozy rush swirled through his brain. Michael staggered. Sunburned so quickly? He felt his brow. The flesh was open and burnt.

  “Oh, mon Dieu.” Jane pulled away the shirt and gaped at Michael’s face. “You’re burned. Michael, the sun, why did you do that?”

  “You were in trouble. What the hell got into those bees?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve always attracted nature, plants and birds and such, but they’ve never attacked me like that. No, they weren’t attacking, it was more like they wanted to be near me—oh, but who cares about that. You need medical attention.”

  “Right. Call the ambulance and admit one vampire.” She touched his face, but he jerked away. His ego had taken a harder beating than his body. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. The flesh is oozing. I didn’t bring along any first aid, save some aspirins, but I can mix up something with the catmint outside the window. Come into the kitchen. Maybe some ice will help while I prepare a cream.”

  Upon discovery of a few red welts on Jane’s neck, Michael insisted she care for herself first.

  After she’d mounded some moist salt to the stings, Jane then began to mix a cream for Michael’s burns.

  He would heal. In a few days. The burns had eaten away the surface of his flesh to reveal oozing red beneath. Above his eyes and on his shoulder. He’d been burned by the sun once before, and he’d vowed never to let it happen again. Then, he’d been a new vampire, and the arm he’d stretched along the open car window as he’d driven through town during high noon had taken three days to completely heal.

  But now he couldn’t be bothered for his own well-being. All that mattered is that Jane was safe.

  Bees? What a weird thing.

  “Hold still.”

  She had mixed up something not entirely bad smelling, and now scooped some out with her finger.

  “How long do I have to wear that stuff? It’s green, Jane. Seriously, I’ll heal.”

  “This might make the healing go faster. If anything, it’ll soothe. Doesn’t it hurt?”

  He shrugged. Yes, it hurt. “No. I’m fine.”

  “Oh, Michael. Please?”

  He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her down to sit on his lap. The green stuff on her finger wavered under his nose, and smelled minty, and tangy.

  “See, it’s not so bad.”

  “Just a little then.” He closed his eyes as she tenderly smoothed over the burns above his right temple. The damage stretched down the side of his face to mid cheek and there was a spot on the side of his nose. It hurt when she touched him. Like the mortal pain he had not experienced for decades. And he didn’t want to ever experience it again.

  He shoved away her hand. “Kiss me.”

  “But I’m not finished. Your shoulder…”

  “Jane, I asked a simple favor. I honestly believe a kiss will do more for my aches than that smelly cream. My lips are not burned.”

  She touched his mou
th with hers. So gentle. Like a bee glancing against him. Friendly bees that had wanted to be near her? Must be the magic.

  Michael knew very well that if a vampire had sex with a witch he could draw on her magic. And what would that magic do for the vampire? It wouldn’t allow him to perform a spell or cast a charm—blood was required for that—but it would make him stronger. Perhaps, make him heal faster?

  “If you want to help me,” he said, sliding a hand up under her shirt and cupping her breast. “We need to have sex.”

  “What? Oh. You mean…”

  “It’s supposed to give the vampire strength, more power, to make love with a witch.”

  “Well, I’m not—” She bowed her head, suddenly blushingly shy. “You think it would work with a not-quite-witch?”

  “I’m willing to give it a try.”

  She shrugged a hand through her tousled hair and blew at a rogue strand. “I don’t know.”

  “I promise to behave this time.”

  “It’s not that. I feel a mess after that bizarre encounter. I want to take a shower. Why don’t you meet me up there?”

  “I’m right behind you.”

  Michael had rescued her from that ridiculous battle with the bees, without thought for his own safety. He could have been burned much more severely, for it only took a few minutes for the sun to work its devastation to a vampire’s flesh.

  She liked to consider that a man had come to her rescue. Like a knight in shining armor—no, she didn’t need the knight. Nor was a white stallion required to gallop such a man into her life. What she needed was someone who would accept her for what she was, in all her bizarreness—armor optional.

  Michael seemed to be that man. But she didn’t want to rush to conclusions. For now, the adventure of taking a lover suited her just fine.

  Jane switched on the shower and stripped off her skirt and top, leaving them in a heap upon the toilet seat. Within seconds the hot water began to steam up the room, streaking the mirror. Stepping inside the stall, she wet her hair.