Red. Slashes of it. Sprays of it. Across my face, drenching my coat.
White. A flash in my peripheral vision. Angel? Tunnel? My brain calming down to accept its fate?
What would a ten-year-old know of such things? Of blackness, darkness, night and finality?
Jesse closed her eyes against the sensations of frigid air on her face and the rise of bile in her throat, and let her body go loose. What use was a struggle?
Then she felt something close over her wrist.
Abruptly, and with a bone-wrenching pain in her right shoulder, she stopped falling.
She opened her eyes.
A hand had caught hold of hers, at least temporarily. A gloved hand was wrapped around her right wrist. She hadn’t fallen far, but was dangling by one arm over nothingness, legs heavy, her overcoat weighing her down.
Afraid to look up farther than the hand clamped to hers, Jesse knew it was the same creature that had let her go in the first place who now, oddly enough, had tossed her a lifeline. Unable to help herself, she tilted her head back, absorbing the pain in her shoulder, clenching her teeth against a scream.
It was the vampire, all right. Jesse could see that his knees were bent, and that his legs were folded beneath him. He was perched upon the narrow iron balcony railing as though he were some sort of bird comfortably resting on an alarmingly thin ribbon of metal. He looked to be in perfect balance. He wasn’t straining. How he’d reached down to catch her, she didn’t even want to think about. The hold on her wrist was tight, but it was, after all, just one arm, one hand. Five fingers, belonging to a vampire, stood between herself and certain death.
Staring up, refusing to cower, ignoring the straining ligaments, she said, “What are you waiting for?”
The vampire’s face was pale and solemn. “I’m waiting for you to come to your senses.”
“Do it,” she said.
“Drop you, you mean?”
Jesse’s gaze almost met his. She watched his mouth open as he spoke again.
“I told you I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“That’s funny,” she countered, “since I seem to be dangling off the side of a building.”
The vampire grinned. At least it appeared that he did. Jesse’s world had begun to fuzz around the edges. The searing heat in her arm and shoulder were barely tolerable.
“This was the easiest way to get you to listen,” he confessed.
“Listen?” Jesse echoed breathlessly. “Listen to what?”
“Elizabeth Jorgensen is no longer in the city.”
Maybe, Jesse thought, she was dreaming this. Maybe she had fallen, and this was a last few brain cells working overtime.
“Trust me, Jesse. I know this,” the creature above her said. “I have ways of finding things out.”
Swallowing a groan, Jesse glanced down, below her feet. Hadn’t she always figured she would go like this? Some final dramatic moment sufficient enough to beat out the time she had cheated the dark?
“I will not let you fall.”
The vampire’s voice was deep, toneless, nothing like the dance of light she’d seen in his eyes in the frosty meadow. His voice willed her to believe what he was saying.
“I have no intention of letting you go,” he clarified.
Jesse blinked back the pain. Her shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch. Her muscles couldn’t stay attached much longer. She wasn’t sure about retaining consciousness.
“This is your idea of fun, then?” she asked, clearly enough, she thought.
“You must admit that I have your complete attention,” the vampire replied drily.
“And you want my attention because …?”
“Let’s just say I have a desire to help, whether you want my help or not.”
Damn shoulder. God, it hurts.
Damn frigging vampire, bloodsucking …
Another shallow breath accompanied still more pain. Her thoughts had turned staccato. Her head was beginning to whirl.
“You mentioned Elizabeth Jorgensen,” she panted. “How do you know about her?”
“I overheard some things and guessed that’s what might have brought you. An American senator’s daughter disappears while traveling with her famous father, the government here calls for help from the States, and you fly overhead in a helicopter.”
Jesse felt like screaming. The shoulder was red-hot, dangerously near to irreparable damage. Through clenched jaws, she managed to say, “I could be a tourist.”
“Yes, most of the tourists who come here wear guns and carry Tasers.”
“If they don’t, they should.” Her head felt light. She could no longer feel her fingers.
“Just as all of them should meet with the aides of our top officials,” the vampire continued. “In hotel lobbies.”
What was he? Some kind of monster detective?
How long before she passed out from the pain and became vampire dessert?
“You live in a castle!” Jesse charged, as if that fact should either make some sense or negate what he knew of her assignment.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I live in a castle. However, I do get out now and then.”
“Just my luck.” God! This hurts! “What do you actually want?”
One more minute was all she needed. One more minute of consciousness to get this straight.
“I want to be near to you,” the vampire said. “For a while.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Such language, Jesse. Have we been around bad elements too long?”
“And the wild horse you rode in on,” Jesse added.
“Perhaps Stan is a bad influence,” the vampire suggested.
This shut her up. Would he hurt Stan next?
“You have the exterior of a woman,” the golden predator went on, staring down at her intently. “And the verbiage of a cop. I’m assuming you are one? Cop, I mean?”
“This is the deduction of a guy who wears puffy shirts and breeches? Excuse me. Not guy. Monster.”
The vampire laughed aloud with a sound that wasn’t wholly evil, and more like an acknowledgment of a comment well aimed.
“Will you listen?” he asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Are you in pain?”
“I’ve been better.”
“I’ll pull you up if you promise to behave.”
“It’s not my gun hand that’s injured. And I won’t promise anything. I’d rather you drop me than to owe my continued existence to something like you.”
Now the sucker did smile. Fully. Inappropriately.
Damn him. What had he done with her gun?
“I wonder if that’s true,” he said softly. “Death being preferable to life, in any case?”
“Shouldn’t you be qualified to answer that question?”
“Perhaps.”
The vamp gave a tug of his arm. Jesse swore she heard her shoulder tear. She bit back every obscenity she knew until she found herself on both feet, if barely, on the balcony railing. In his arms.
The terrible truth of a mind in turmoil was that this monster felt like a man. He felt solid and strong.
“See?” he told her. “You’re safe.”
Jesse didn’t want to close her eyes, but she did. The relief she felt was overwhelming. If it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t move her arm and couldn’t feel anything outside of the raw pain engulfing her shoulder, she might have been glad to be where she was. The question now, if she could focus on answering it, was why the vampire hadn’t let her die.
“I guess you don’t like roadkill,” she whispered. Which is what she would have been, had she fallen. “You prefer juicier fare? Live bodies to taunt and victimize?”
A bullet to the chest would have been preferable to a ten-story drop, she acknowledged. Both bullet and drop would have been preferable to the damage a vampire could inflict. She’d seen the carnage.
But, her mind nagged, if she were to die here, who would find Elizabeth Jorgensen? How would a
nother life be saved, and the Jorgensen girl reunited with her family? No one deserved the darkness, the sadness, the loss of being separated from their loved ones, or of being cut off prematurely from life.
Forcing her eyes open, Jesse scanned the dark chest in front of her, thinking, Yeah, right. A truthful monster. What next? A vampire with a conscience? A soul?
Should she cast stones, a more distant part of her brain queried, when she’d lost her own soul long ago?
The fact was, the broad chest she had her head against didn’t rise and fall quite as a human’s should.
“I’m afraid I don’t care much for human fare these days,” the vampire said, sounding completely truthful.
Senses beginning to fragment, Jesse inhaled the scents clinging to the monster. Leather. Wool. Alongside those smells lay something more elusive that she couldn’t put a name to, and maybe shouldn’t try to classify. Vampires were evil. There was no such thing as a good one. How could there be? Everything she had ever learned taught her about predators pursuing their own bloody agenda.
This one hadn’t killed her for a reason known only to himself. Maybe he just wanted to toy with her a bit longer. Darkness loomed in the pit of Jesse’s stomach with that thought. She ached for vengeance, figured she must have five lives left after he’d tried to take this one from her, if in fact there were nine to begin with.
One vamp less would make for a better world. She had to see to this, personally.
And he had asked her to trust him?
Where is the goddamn gun?
Lance smoothed the wind-whipped hair back from Jesse’s face. The thrill of touching her rippled through him, resonating deep inside his body.
Defiant, she was. Willful. Special.
How many of those traits were due to her tiny in fusion of vampire blood so long ago, and how many were determined by genetics alone? As he recalled, her father had been courageous. Her father and mother had fought bravely for their lives. They’d fought for hers.
He shouldn’t have been holding her. Shouldn’t have gotten this close. The need to possess her for reasons other than thirst was called the blood lure, and driven, he supposed, by centuries of leftover emotion. He was titillated by the recognition of what she was and could be if she survived her task. It was a case of like calling to like, in its extreme, no matter how minuscule the amount of an immortal’s cells remained in her veins.
Desire was already curling through him, along with feelings best left in the past. It had been so long since he’d held a woman, immortal or otherwise.
His mind brought up the picture of a lifetime he had tried to forget. Memories filled with both sweetness and sorrow. Beautiful Gwen, as fair as Jesse was dark, had been filled with sunlight and surrounded by flowers. He could still smell Gwen, feel her, hear her, if he tried. The agony of their union haunted him; a kind of sweet torment he could never forget.
But that was another lifetime. A memory. Dust.
Nothing of springtime clung to this woman in his arms. No wildflowers and sunlight made it past her stern resolve. Jesse was composed of energy in flux; edgy, lean and raw in spots. The air around her swirled with action and concentrated agitation. The slight space between them crackled with electricity.
Still, somewhere within the package was a woman. The dark curls she refused to tame were an indication of a softer side. The soap and citrus scents drifting from her with a maddening allure bespoke the fact that somewhere inside Jesse a piece of the gentle girl remained, hidden, lost. He wanted very much to find that girl, see again the innocence in her brown-eyed stare.
“Why me?” she asked, her voice muffled by her position.
“In time I’ll tell you,” he replied.
“Why?” she pressed.
Blood. It’s the blood, he wanted to say, but repeated, “In time.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
Taken aback, Lance studied the top of Jesse’s head. She had asked this same question all those years ago, waiting for death to strike. The woman had guts to have survived. He had to give her that.
“No,” he replied quietly. “Haven’t I convinced you?”
“It’s what your kind does!”
“Some of us, yes.”
“Some? There are kinds?”
“It would seem so.”
“Maybe I lucked out and you’ve already had your dinner? Maybe you killed someone else tonight?”
“I’ve killed no one, Jesse. As I said, I have no taste for humans.”
Jesse twisted in his grasp over the use of her name. “Like that’s comforting?” she shouted. “Okay. I’ll play. So where has Elizabeth Jorgensen gone?”
“She was taken,” he told her.
“Abducted?
“Yes.”
Lance felt the minute Jesse began to weaken. Having straddled death’s threshold, and in spite of her dribble of ancient blood, her strength was waning. Her body would fight her will, and lose. But in the hours ahead, she would need every ounce of strength she possessed, and more. If she went after the Jorgensen girl, she would again confront the nightmares.
Was she ready for that?
“You are brave,” he whispered to her. “Yet you are also vulnerable. I’ve come to warn you about this.”
“Is someone else going to dangle me over a balcony? If so, I think I’ll move to the ground floor.”
Lance slid a hand beneath Jesse’s chin to tilt her head upward. She closed her eyes, refusing to make eye contact.
“You are out of your depth if you imagine you might rescue Elizabeth Jorgensen on your own,” he cautioned. “I wouldn’t count on the government or your senator’s aides in this instance.”
Tough and resistant as she was, Jesse felt good in his arms. Her closeness screamed at him, provoked him. Leaning forward, Lance brushed her mouth with his—just a wayward slip of his lips across hers, the slightest of actions—and he was sure he had found her hidden softness, her weakness. In his illicit action, he had perhaps stumbled upon the key to Jesse.
The hard cop wanted to be loved. She wanted to be saved. Not in any physical way, it was too late for that, but at the level of her soul.
Jesse felt unworthy of her continued existence. She was afraid of being vulnerable. He saw this quite clearly now. Her mouth was made for taking, yet had probably never been taken. Her body, lithe and strong, would have never been shared. No man had been allowed into her inner sanctum. She had never offered herself up to anyone.
The sadness of this insight made Lance tighten his hold on her. The loneliness she must have endured. The pain. All this time, alone.
Just like him. All this time.
He feathered his mouth over hers, found her lips closed to him. She may have been beyond caring what he did, but the effect on himself was immediate and startling. His muscles seized, squeezing the breath from his captive until her big eyes opened. Her brown gaze met his. Without warning, he was thrown back in time to the meadow. He saw himself looking up at the helicopter, and felt her looking down.
Amber-flecked eyes.
Amber. Flecked.
The eyes of a hybrid.
Yet she didn’t know. Hadn’t guessed. She didn’t realize how close she was, in this city, to danger. She’d have no idea how easily she could be found by others she’d count as being of his kind when her blood would be the greatest enticement for them all.
Her gaze streaked through him with the force of a lightning strike, hard and swift. Her face was ashen, completely colorless around those incredible eyes. Her body continued to vibrate. She had called him a monster, but he wanted to protect her. This was a stunningly new sensation. A regenerating goal. Suddenly, he wanted to always protect her, always be her champion.
Yield, Jesse.
He pushed his will into her, then rested his mouth on hers.
Yield.
He urged her lips to open, knowing she had no choice, taking advantage anyway. He met with the heat and slickness of her mouth, ran his tongue over
her teeth. He stroked her arms with his hands, inhaled her groan of pain and called to her from deep within himself.
“They can hurt you, Jesse. This kiss proves that you are susceptible to their will. I cannot have that.”
Hating what he was about to do, knowing she would despise him even more for this, trust him less for this, he bit down on his own lower lip with his razorlike teeth. Feeling the rush of blood rise to the wound, he tipped Jesse’s head back and held her there while he allowed several drops of his blood to flow onto her tongue.
She choked, coughed, struggled, writhed in pain. Her shoulder was sorely wounded, he knew with his lips still on hers. She no longer had the use of that arm. But coughing made her swallow. When she did, her eyelids fluttered. She made a sound like a lost soul searching for light. Still, she was no match for him, and she knew it. She had fought as much as she could have, and had precious little left to fend off the beast.
With a quick sweep, Lance lifted her into his arms. Even then she groped for a way to resist, feeble now, exhausted.
He brought her pale face close to his, whispered to her, “My blood for your own good. Remember this.”
Jesse went limp. Her head lolled back and her legs dangled uselessly over his biceps. He’d taken the fight out of her. He had taken it all. Her body would be assimilating a monster’s blood, needing what remained of her reserves to do this. She would need to drink more in a while.
Back through the open window Lance jumped, then turned for the bedroom. Gliding soundlessly over the carpets, he laid Jesse carefully on the bed and leaned down to run his fingers over her face. She stirred, choked again, but she could not open her eyes. The slightest movement was beyond her.
Rest, he sent to her in a silent command. Sleep now, Jesse. Sleep while you can.
Fitfully, she turned her head from side to side, perhaps seeking the coolness of the pillow, perhaps trying to negate what had happened to her. When she paused, her neck and throat, covered by a faint sheen of sweat, lay exposed. There before him spread the intricate network of white lines that crisscrossed the skin beneath her chin.
“God’s blood!”
Lance’s pulse thudded. A tidal wave rammed his arteries, moved his ribs, causing him to tense. The sheer magnitude of his reaction to her necessitated his getting away.
Golden Vampire Page 5
