Night Born

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Alex nodded. “I’ve offered to take you.”

  “Would you have taken yourself up on that offer, if the tables were reversed?”

  Darkness rimmed her green eyes. Her breathing was shallow, and as rapid as her heart rate. Alex felt every beat of her heart as if it were his own, with his body against hers. It was a glorious sensation that took him back to the days when he could easily steer his own pulse upward by the approach of fear or anticipation or desire. When he didn’t have to worry about being different. Now, his heart only beat because he wanted it to. He kept it going because of its value as a reminder never to hunt or prey upon those whose heart truly worked, the way hers did.

  The pace of her pulse was loud in his ears, almost deafening. She also was touched by the supernatural genes of her bloodline, and was feeling a whole host of things at once—fear, anticipation, desire. Did she need him to push her away so she could regain her balance? Was her desire for him as concentrated as his own? Would this mutual attraction they both recognized, whatever its source, indeed be lost by midnight?

  He’d lost so much already, and continually, in all the years gone by. This blow would be harsh—in spite of the fact that a Slayer and her target meeting on neutral ground was unheard of. They both knew this was taboo.

  It was nothing but a strange, magical moment, somehow removed from time and rules, that they were sharing. Minutes, seconds, a mere breath or two left…and it would be over.

  Alex could have sworn that the ache coming from the region of his chest was real. It’s so damned painful.

  “You can’t leave here without me,” he said. “It’s too late for that. You’ll have to agree to let me take you wherever you need to go. Can you comprehend this and why?”

  She nodded. Her eyes strayed. “Why do they wait? Why not attack now?”

  “Twenty paintings,” he said. “I’m in twenty in my own gallery. Do you know how much of a time span that covers?”

  “You’ve lived a long time.”

  “Yes, and these others, new to the game, can sense my strength.”

  “You’re telling the truth?”

  Alex nodded, his weight all but cutting off her words.

  “You didn’t attack my mother.”

  “I swore to that.”

  “Then take me there. Take me to her now.”

  More need was piling up, and unavoidable. Alex wanted to remain with her for as long as possible, and she needed him to get her off this street. Whose was the greater need?

  “Can you run?” he asked, watching several silky tendrils of her fair hair sway in the aftermath of his own breathlessness.

  The woman whose name he didn’t even know closed her eyes, withdrawing from the heady contact, and nodded.

  “Can you trust me?” he asked, loath to back off, but taking hold of her hand. “Put your faith in a stranger, just this once, in spite of what he is?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No. I suppose you don’t.”

  As he closed his fingers tightly over hers, Alex’s thirst beat at his insides as if his ribs were big bass drums. Thirst was part of the deal. A never-ending part. Yet he was used to withholding that particular desire. The other vampires in the vicinity had no such control.

  “Okay,” he said, wanting to make love to this woman who had roused his memories as a mortal, as well as his libido. He wanted to know her name, hear her laugh, feel her hands on him in a touch freely given.

  His lungs were filled with her sweet scent. Her fingers, in his, were lean and smooth. The perfect matchup of their hips, and the way hers moved slightly beneath his weightier pressure, continued to wreak havoc on what was left of his reasoning, making thoughts of sex, as both a beginning and a culmination for an ultimate closeness with her, outweigh the thirst. Yet she’d never believe that. She’d never allow this to be true.

  “My name is Alexander,” he said. “In Greek it means ‘defender of men,’ and I have tried to live up to that description, despite the incident that made me what I am.”

  Her mouth, reddened by his kiss and slightly swollen, opened, then closed without comment. Time was slipping away, and he wanted to tell her more before she changed. He wanted her to understand that he had killed humans when necessary, but only the mortals worse than their bloodsucking counterparts.

  He wanted her to know that he had never killed a vampire hunter, though many had come after him with the express intent of ending his existence. That somehow he had made them understand his thoughts and values, and their desire to put an end to him had simply melted away. He wanted to tell this woman how sad he’d be when she came after him.

  Instead of giving her any explanations at all, and sensing the encroachment of the dark periphery, Alex said, “You’ve been absorbing some power already. I can feel it course through you. Time is scarce.”

  This woman’s mother was passing her legacy on, one ragged breath, one sluggish heartbeat at a time. Minutes were left, if she was lucky.

  He went on. “You’ll be faster now. Do try to keep up.”

  Her eyes, when they again found his, flashed with a green brilliance that pierced his soul. Alex made himself turn his back to her, knowing it was probably the last time he would get close enough to touch her, or speak to her. That thought struck him more painfully than the arrow issued from the bow of her distant ancestor that had nearly ended him for good, way back when.

  With a tug on her hand that could have dislocated a normal woman’s shoulder, and a silent command for the shadows to disperse that he sincerely hoped would be heeded, Alex ran toward the street, toward the moonlight, with his soon-to-be-Slayer in tow.

  The night quickly cooled, some of its frosty chill created by the thought of the creatures following them, and some of it caused by the noirish scenario of herself and the vampire sprinting through the fierce white moonlight, holding hands.

  Danika had to keep up or lose her arm. She had already kicked off her shoes and ran barefoot in her tights, feeling each pebble and chunk of broken glass cutting deeply into her feet.

  She was leaving a trail of blood from these small wounds, and knew that all the vampires here, including the one she had blindingly decided to trust, were aware of it.

  A crimson trail. The next best thing to breadcrumbs.

  She couldn’t worry about that now. Of more importance was the fact that the vampire leading her had gotten too close, and she’d been helpless to avoid him. He knew what she was, and what she soon would become, and he was helping her anyway.

  Was it insane to trust her instincts on this one, when not one of those instincts had fired up to take him down? When the hard pressure of his body against hers had stirred up enough sparks to light up a small city?

  She had to go with her gut on this one, and see where it would take her. No other choice remained.

  He was keeping to the moonlight, as if the rest of the monsters behind them might shun illumination. It was possible that he had once upon a time also kept to the darker spaces—Alexander, whose incredibly breathtaking countenance was in itself part of the history of art.

  People on the sidewalk moved aside for them, paying little attention, immune to the antics of their fellow city dwellers. Not noticing the shadows. Danika swallowed as much of the frigid night air as she could, needing oxygen to fuel her burst of speed. Her vampire hadn’t looked around to check on her condition. He wasn’t near to oxygen deficit, or breathing hard, because vampires had no need to breathe, really, and did so out of habits too ingrained to break.

  She supposed he didn’t need to use his eyes for anything outside of mesmerizing Slayers, either, and that Alexander’s unearthly senses alone got him where he wanted to go. In this case, taking them somewhere he shouldn’t go. Despite all inner objections to the contrary, she was accompanying a vampire to where a Slayer lay dying and unable to defend herself. If her instincts proved wrong about him…We’re all screwed.

  They had reached the long stretch of sidewalk leading
to the lobby of the hospital and slowed when a crackling whip of electric current found Danika again, making her falter midstride.

  The vampire stopped abruptly and turned to face her. “Nearly time,” he said.

  “No. It can’t be time yet. I…”

  Alexander pulled her to him before she could blink. “What do you see?” he asked. “Look out there, across the street. What do you see?”

  Danika turned her head. “Night. People. Buildings.”

  “Look again.”

  “The dark is moving.”

  “Yes. You’re starting to see this now. Your abilities are coming to you, being poured into you, and they will fill you to the brim. No extra space inside now, little huntress. No room for doubts or suppositions. The truth is that you’ll soon lose some of what has defined you so far. You will become one with the dark, and won’t be the same after tonight unless you know the rules.”

  “Are you always the bearer of bad news, or just attempting to scare me into doing something I shouldn’t?” Danika said. “You have my thanks for getting me here, but I can’t take you into this hospital. I won’t. If you didn’t try to kill my mother earlier, seeing you would kill her now.”

  The vampire grimaced without showing fang and said, “Actually, I didn’t expect to go in. My promise was to get you here, and I’ve done that.”

  Yes, he had done that. Why?

  Danika gazed out, her skin twitching with uncertainty. “I can’t quite see what hides in the dark, but I can feel them there. It’s vampires, right? Will I see them after…?”

  “Yes. You’ll see them as clearly as if they were anyone else. That ability is your safety net and your curse, all rolled into one.”

  She had to leave Alexander, and couldn’t make herself do so. Time was so freakishly deceptive.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked. “Helping me?”

  “It’s what I do. My task.” He gestured to the sliding glass doors. “You might want to hurry.”

  “Will they hurt you?”

  The vampire shook his head, and Danika believed him, finding it impossible to imagine anything as imposing and as intimidating as the creature—so like a man, yet not—beside her. She almost pitied the poor suckers who might be stupid enough to attempt to take him on.

  In tearing herself away from the enigmatic Alexander, Danika felt as if part of her had been left behind. Her skin again chilled. Electricity slithered through her body with a cold, hard fury, sending her tolerance levels for physical and mental discomfort into the red zone.

  She sprinted to the door, afraid to look behind her. This time, though, it wasn’t fear or fright that kept her moving forward, as much as an attempt to ignore the impulse to run back to Alexander—her unnatural enemy, who all of a sudden felt like the only bit of safety in a world that had become the embodiment her nightmares.

  One hell of a turn of events.

  He’d advised her to hurry, so she did…sensing him standing on the sidewalk like a dark sentinel positioned to ward off the monsters. An unlikely protector.

  Once she reached the lobby, the force of her concentrated willpower made her hit the elevator button. When the doors slid soundlessly open, Danika stepped inside. She waited for the heavy gray doors to close before her legs finally gave out.

  Then she slid to the floor.

  Chapter Four

  Nothing could get past him.

  Nothing tried.

  Alex waited stoically on the sidewalk, drenched in moonlight, his muscles tense and ready, knowing that unlike himself, the others were both fearful and discomforted by the light.

  The full moon overhead was in this new Slayer’s favor.

  On the other hand, his attention was split. Go after the monsters, remove them from the kill they were after, or go inside, following his what? His new love interest? The woman with a biological grudge against all blood drinkers?

  He felt her mother easily enough, through concrete walls several feel thick. He smelled that Slayer, so near to death now that more of her essence was shifting to the daughter rushing to see her. Amid the whoosh of machinery keeping the mother alive, Alex sensed his blonde beauty stumbling on, trying to make it in time.

  And—something else dragged at this attention, turning him cold. Vampires were in that hospital, hiding. A few of them, in anticipation, had gotten in from the back.

  “Bloody hell!” he shouted, sprinting for the lobby.

  He found the stairwell and took the steps at a blurring pace, utilizing powers he rarely needed these days. He forgot to breathe until he reached the right floor.

  She was pushing through a door. He heard her ask the nurse on duty to leave the room. That nurse passed him, disappearing down the corridor as he planted himself in the doorway.

  His blonde beauty turned her head toward him. Something in his chest thudded when he saw the dampness glistening in her eyes.

  “You have no right,” she said.

  “They’re here. They’re coming.”

  “It’s too damn late!”

  Alex hadn’t stopped to sense this, but did now. There was only one Slayer in this room, and her pale cheeks were wet with translucent tracks of tears.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I need to stay.”

  “There’s nothing more they can do to her now. It won’t be your mother they will be after.”

  She glanced up as if surprised by his statement, but the shock and grief she was experiencing would get them nowhere.

  Taking hold of her arm, feeling the tenseness of her muscles that indicated the transition taking place, Alex hauled her from the room. Leading her down the hall and into the stairwell, he said, “This isn’t the place for a fight. Do you agree?”

  Beneath her tears, her face had hardened slightly, as if her new status had refined her features. She shook like an engine left running, but remained on her feet as he preceded her up the stairs.

  Halfway up, Alex paused and lifted his head. “They’re in the elevator, lazy bastards. And on the roof. We have to go down.”

  “No. I’m not going to run.”

  “You’re in no shape to face them yet.”

  She was already removing her coat. She tossed it to the floor. “Not going to run.”

  “They will go if you do.”

  Her eyes, when she looked up at him, were exceptionally bright and focused. She wasn’t going to give in, though she was still transitioning. Her body had absorbed its new strength, as well as the power driving it, but it hadn’t finished settling. She’d need twenty-four hours to fully process the extent of her internal changes, in order to be a viable Slayer. Maybe that would happen sooner, but how would they know? At the moment, she wasn’t ready to take a stand.

  Alex had the coat she’d tossed shredded and wrapped around her arms before she had time to draw a startled breath. Point made, he thought. She hadn’t countered him, which she could easily have done if she’d been ready.

  He’d tied her to the iron railing and moved his body in close to hers to prevent any shout of protest.

  “This one’s for me,” he said.

  “It’s my fight,” she argued, struggling to free herself, nearly managing before he spoke again.

  “They’ll leave when they sense us going outside. When they do, the people in this hospital will be out of harm’s way. The monsters will wait. Neither of you has to be disappointed, just patient.”

  Her shaking was subsiding, Alex noted. She had gotten free of her bonds while he pressed against her.

  Sooner then, he thought. She was adapting to her new strength and dexterity amazingly fast.

  It was becoming increasingly evident that she wanted a fight with anyone handy. Part frustration, partly as an outlet for her sorrow and her sadness, this vampire hunter had to have a go at someone. She hadn’t had time to grieve.

  He wrenched off a piece of the iron railing beside them without backing off and handed it to her. Making sure she clo
sed her hands around one end of what was essentially a lethal weapon, he leaned against the other end.

  The black iron stake pointed straight at his heart, spanning the narrow space between them like a metallic bridge between emotion and duty. Between a hunter and her target.

  “Use it if you have to,” he said. “It won’t end me, but it will hurt like hell. There’s a chance you might even get your wish if you stake me and be free.”

  She stared into his eyes without moving. Hardly blinking.

  “You know all this now, don’t you?” he said. “Already, you know it.”

  “Yes. I know how to hurt you and the others. It’s as if someone suddenly stuffed my brain with a training manual.”

  Alex sensed a world of uncertainty in her reply. Although she might have information jamming her brain, she wasn’t sure how to use that information. He could see her thinking and groping for explanations, but was finding other needs more immediate; physical needs that matched his own.

  She was the Slayer now. But right here, in this stairwell, she was a female lusting for the male across from her. And because of the parallel track of their mutual needs, no one would be the victim here if they explored them.

  As quickly as that, his hands were on her thighs, tugging her skirt over her hips. His mouth found hers, hungrily.

  He heard the iron piece hit the floor. After that, the sound of this Slayer’s breath and heartbeat filled his ears as her fingers found his waist, his hips, then splayed on his back side, the way he had earlier seen them splayed on his painting in the museum.

  The moment was suspended in time, extremely hot and erotic. No bed for them, no comfort at all—just a dim space in the building where her mother had died minutes before.

  It was the second time he’d had her up against a wall, and Alex regretted that. So, he took her to the floor—a small square piece of rough gray concrete that seemed perfectly acceptable for a first blending of their overheated bodies.

  He tore her shredded tights from her with a simple arc of his hands, as well as the tiny scrap of lace she wore beneath. Her thighs, under his roving hunger, were blissfully fiery and flushed. As he covered them with his own, her heat soared through him with the force of a backdraft.