by Lisa Olsen
“You were the one who did the jumping at the door…” he pointed out, miffed, and I had to admit, I could see how he might interpret that response as something else.
“That was different. I needed comfort from someone I know and care about. I needed a friend.”
“Then you do care.” There was hope behind his blue eyes, and I felt the stirrings of something inside me. The ties that bound us together were still there, but I couldn’t even think about pursuing him when the pain of losing Bishop was still so raw.
“Jakob… I never said I didn’t care. But you have to give me some time to adjust to everything. You don’t honestly want me on the rebound, do you?”
“As long as it puts you in my arms, who am I to quibble?” Jakob grinned wolfishly at first, but his gaze softened as he reached for my cheek. When had he gotten so close again? The heat of his thigh pressed against mine, palpable through the thick fabric of my jeans. “There’s a sadness in your eyes I haven’t seen before, even with my transgressions against you.”
“It’s been a rough week,” I shrugged, trying for a smile and failing miserably. Tears hovered, but I choked them back, determined not to break down again.
“I would not see you in such pain. Say the word and I’ll take it all away. A single glance and I can make you forget the man altogether.”
It was a tempting thought. I hated feeling so miserably mixed up inside, but would it really be better to forget about Bishop completely? Or what if I only had Jakob remove the bad parts? If all I remembered was the good stuff, would I still be pining for him? It was enough to make my head spin, and I shook my head.
“No, it’s my pain. I deserve the right to work through it, not just slap a Band-aid on it and pretend like it doesn’t exist. Like it or not, this is the way things turned out, and I have to put on my big girl panties and ride it out like a normal person.”
“I’m very interested to see these panties you speak of.” The wolfish smile was back, and it was suddenly easier to roll my eyes and return to familiar footing with him.
“Fat chance of that,” I muttered, but a faint smile returned at his exaggerated pout. “Are you going to be in town for very long?”
“That depends entirely on you. You are the sole reason for my return.” Jakob picked up my hand, pressing a kiss to the back of it. “There’s nothing to stand between us now, petal. Let me take you away from this sorrow and show you what it truly means to be mine.” His eyes held me prisoner and I felt the heat spring up between us – a purely physical reaction, but exhilarating all the same. Finding myself leaning towards him, I pressed a hand to his chest, half to keep him at arm’s length and half to feel the heart thumping there, warm and alive. It would be very easy to surrender to the delights he promised, compulsion or no compulsion, but I wasn’t ready to lose myself in another man yet. Besides, I had responsibilities.
“I can’t up and leave, even if I wanted to.” It was easier to speak once I tore my gaze from his. “There are people here counting on me. Maggie, Ellie… and I accepted a pretty major job as Jarl of the Northwest.” I steeled myself for the derision I expected at the mention of the position, but all I saw reflected back at me was light amusement.
“Jarl of the Northwest, that’s quite an undertaking. But properly suitable for someone of your position,” he nodded in approval.
So it was only Bishop who thought the idea was a train wreck waiting to happen. “Then you think I can handle it?”
“I think it a fine way to distract yourself if you will not allow me that pleasure.” He stroked the back of my hand, his fingers spreading warmth through my cool flesh. “Anything but sulking over that weak minded fool.”
“Hey, he’s not a…”
Jakob let go of me to spread his hands. “Let’s not speak of Ulrik any longer, petal, unless you speak of his demise. I would gladly dispatch him for you.” There was a gleam to his eye that made me worry.
“No, you stay far away from Bishop. In fact, I’ll make you a deal. I won’t bring him up any more if you don’t.”
“Already I like the sound of this deal,” he grinned, scooting closer, but I held him at bay with the lightest touch.
“But if you want there to be something real between us, you have to give me a little space. We need to spend more time together, get to know each other better.”
“I already know you, älskling. Intimately.” His eyes glowed, making me wonder if there was more to those shared dreams than I remembered.
“There’s more to knowing someone than like that.”
“I know all I need to know,” he declared confidently. “But if this wooing you seek allows me to spend more time with you, I am for it.”
“Um, sure. We can spend more time together.” Was that what I’d agreed to? Jakob had me all off balance, as usual. I wasn’t sure if it was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire by agreeing to date him so soon after my breakup with Bishop, but there were worse things in life to distract myself with than a gorgeous vampire who only wanted to worship me.
“Agreed then, starting now.” His arms encircled me, pulling me close. I opened my mouth to protest, only to find my breath swallowed by his lips on mine. I’d forgotten what it was like to kiss him; Ellri were not undead like regular vampires, they were bursting with life. Heat poured off of him wherever our bodies touched, and I felt the throb of his pulse calling to me with a siren’s song – all in the space of a few heartbeats.
My body hummed along, eager to reconnect, but I wasn’t ready for it. I tore my mouth from his, and Jakob took the opportunity to nibble along the underside of my jaw, his tongue rasping against the delicate skin, making me lose my train of thought for a moment. “We should um… let my friends back in. They’re probably wondering who you are.” I managed to come up with. Lame.
“Let them wait,” he rumbled, his breath hot against my neck.
“Okay, but we should at least let my bodyguards know I’m alright, don’t you think?” I squeaked when his teeth caught at my earlobe. This was taking things slow?
“Bodyguards?” he scowled, pulling back, a deep furrow appearing on his brow. “Where is Rob?”
“He left.”
“He left you to the care of those children? When is he to return?”
“They’re hardly children,” I mumbled, though I could see how he might think so. “I don’t know, he sounded like he might not ever come back.” I swallowed, not liking the prospect one bit.
“Rob left.”
“Yep, that’s what I said.” I’d thought Jakob would be in the know about this; how else would Rob get the blood he needed to survive? Jakob sat stunned, and I worried that I’d gotten Rob into trouble. “Why, is that bad?”
“I specifically ordered him to see to your safety.” His fingers were already moving over the touchpad of his phone, probably seeking Rob’s number.
“And he did. He hired me the two bodyguards you ordered outside.”
“That was not my intent. I intended for him to see to your safety himself.”
“He had something personal he had to do. He’s entitled to a personal life after all.”
“Rob has no personal life,” Jakob snorted, lifting the phone to his ear.
“I think he’d disagree with you there. He had to go take care of something important, something that might leave him out of touch for a while.”
“Rob serves at my pleasure, he does not disagree with me. He won’t ignore my call.” The utter confidence in his voice was betrayed by the fact that his call went straight to voicemail, and I heard Rob’s gravelly voice on the outgoing message. The furrow on Jakob’s brow deepened, and he sent a text, his fingers moving too fast for me to track the words. “I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Jakob…” I pulled the phone out of his hands when he was through. He seemed entirely too agitated over the prospect of Rob going walkabout. Was there something he wasn’t telling me? “Jakob, what difference does it make? It’s not like I’m i
n any real danger here, everybody knows me. I’m the Jarl, remember?”
“With such a position comes added risk.”
“And I can take it. I’ve got the guys to be my visual deterrent, and I’m not on the weak side myself. Besides, you’re sticking around for a while, right?”
“True.”
“So don’t go getting all grumpycakes with Rob. If it was urgent enough for him to leave like that, it must be important, right?”
“We shall see.” Jakob rose to his feet abruptly, pocketing his phone. “Tomorrow night, I will come for you at dusk.”
I did a swift mental calculation and figured I’d have to take care of some things first. Namely taking Ellie out to eat, and I should probably feed myself. The hotter my blood got, the less I’d be able to resist his charms. “Let’s make it eight o’clock. Unless you want to have my friends tag along.”
“Isn’t it enough that I share you with them when I’m not here?” He gave me a pained look. “Let me at least have you to myself, the better to discuss things away from prying ears.”
That caught my interest. He wanted to talk about private stuff? I still remembered the fascinating insight he’d given me to the origin of our species, and I couldn’t wait to return to the subject. “Okay then, tomorrow at eight, I’m all yours.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” With a final heated look, he swept out of the apartment without a backwards glance to my entourage waiting patiently in the hallway.
“Blimey, who was that?” Ellie stumbled into the room, her mouth hanging half open.
“Um…” I couldn’t come out and call him my Sire, not when Jakob wanted to keep out of vampire society. “An old friend.”
She gave a knowing smile. “An old boyfriend, more like.”
“Something like that.”
“Now we’ve got something to have a chinwag about,” Ellie grinned, flopping down on the couch to stare up at me expectantly. Maggie joined her, remaining silent but no less interested. Isak and Gunnar filed in a minute later after checking to see if Jakob really left the premises or not.
“So, have out with it,” Ellie demanded. “I think I’ve a right to know who my new Da will be. Who is he?”
I let out a long breath. Who indeed.
Chapter Four
I refused to get into any details of my relationship with Jakob, only saying that I’d met Jake before my involvement with Bishop, and he was interested in seeing me again. After that it was back to our get to know you session, and I avoided any questions that had to do with my blonde Sire. Soon enough they stopped pressing for answers, and I even roped the guys into playing a round of Monopoly.
The subject of my past with Jakob returned with a vengeance though as soon as I started to get ready for my date the next night.
“Your ex is mad sexy,” Ellie commented from her perch on the bathroom counter top, legs swinging as she pawed through my make-up case.
“I’ll be sure to tell him you thought so, that ought to make him happy,” I replied, trying and failing to get my hair to cooperate with the sophisticated updo I’d seen in a magazine ad.
“Here, let me help you,” Maggie offered, her nimble fingers combing through my blonde hair. “He is very dishy at that,” she ventured shyly. “Where did you meet him?”
“He um… sort of popped into my life unexpectedly, not long after I got to San Francisco.”
Maggie sighed, fingers twisting and pulling at my head so that I couldn’t see what she was doing. “And was it love at first sight?”
“Not even close. In fact, I think I remember yelling at him the first time we spoke.”
“Ooh, hot blooded.” Ellie waggled her brows at me, snapping her gum around a grin. “Lust at first sight then?”
“Maybe, a little.” It was definitely more of a lust connection with Jakob. Then again, I didn’t know him as well as I thought I’d known Bishop.
“You sure can pick ‘em,” Ellie continued, no boundary to her comments. “I thought Bishop was a right go’er, but I’d take a ride with this one m’self. Oh look, she’s gone scarlet!” she laughed, and I did my best not to let her get to me.
“Leave her be, Ellie,” Maggie chided her lightly. “Anja’s not one to kiss and tell.”
I caught Maggie’s eye in the mirror, giving her a short nod of thanks.
“What is he then?” Ellie asked, unrepentant.
I blinked, not understanding the question. “What do you mean?”
“He’s not a vampire, your beau.”
“No, not exactly.” It occurred to me that we’d talked about the origin of the Ellri back in England, and I hoped she hadn’t put two and two together.
“But he’s not human either.”
“No, definitely not a human,” I allowed, taking control of the conversation. “He’s… something else. Something dangerous, so watch what you say around him. In fact, maybe don’t talk to him a whole lot, okay?”
“Fine. I’ll lower my eyes and stand aside when he gets here then, shall I?” She hopped off the counter, bowing and scraping her way to the door.
“Good plan,” I teased, lobbing a foam curler in her direction, the motion making my head jot the other way.
“Careful!” Maggie exclaimed as her fingers tangled in my hair.
“Oh, sorry,” I grimaced, trying to hold still.
“No need to apologize to me, it’s your hair that got pulled,” she clucked, hands busy again. “He obviously cares for you a great deal if he came all this way as soon as he heard you’d split with Bishop,” she ventured.
“That’s sort of the problem. He’s always been so… intense about his feelings for me.”
“And you don’t feel the same?”
“I don’t know what I feel right now,” I admitted freely. “I’m all jumbled up inside between the way things ended with Bishop and coming home. I can’t help but feel like I’m not ready to start something with Jake yet.”
“Then why are you going out with him?”
“Good question.” I met her gaze in the mirror. On some level I must have wanted to see him again because I could have just as easily sent him on his way. “I don’t know. Does that make me a bad person?”
“I don’t think you’re a bad person at all,” she smiled warmly. “Everybody deserves a spot of happiness, especially you.”
“What if I’m leading him on? What if I can never be happy with him? What if Bishop’s the only man I’ll ever love and he’s gone forever?”
“Forever would be a very long time if you truly believed that.”
I couldn’t live my life for forever, it was too depressing. “There is no forever,” I murmured, remembering something Carter had said to me once. The hunter had the right of it, immortality didn’t automatically mean longevity for any of us. “There’s only today… and today I choose to go out with Jake.” Maybe I hadn’t given him enough of a chance before. I did feel a connection to him. Maybe I owed myself a shot to see if it turned into something deeper?
“There, all finished,” Maggie reported, stepping back so I could get a good look at my hair in the mirror. “Pretty as a picture.” She smiled in approval of her own handiwork. She’d rolled the hair back from my brow and gathered it high on the crown of my head, twisting it into a series of coils that looped around to hang off the back in elegant curls secured with jeweled pins.
“Wow, that is fancy.” I turned my head to get a better look at it. “Where’d you learn to do that?”
“I had all too much leisure time in my stay at Vetis,” she said, wrinkling her nose with distaste.
“Remind me to have you do my hair all the time,” I smiled, pleased with the effect. It made me look far more put together than the hairstyle I’d failed at. “Now I just need to get dressed, and I should have plenty of time to take Ellie out.”
Speak of the devil, Ellie popped her head into the bathroom. “Pull your socks up, he’s here.”
“What? He’s not supposed to be here for more than
an hour!” I hissed, my stomach clenching into a hard knot.
“Tell that to him. He’s sprawled on the couch like he owns the place,” she muttered, less than impressed.
Frak! “He’ll just have to wait, right? He’s the one that’s here so early. I’ll go tell him to come back later or park it for a while.” Despite the fact that I didn’t expect him to so much as peek into the bathroom, I swept the rest of the hairpins into the top drawer, throwing my hairbrush in after it.
Jakob clambered to his feet the second I came into view. “Very lovely indeed. Though I can’t say it goes with the ensemble.” His eyes raked over my fuzzy Hello Kitty pajama bottoms and my slipper socks.
“Well, if you’d gotten here on time, you wouldn’t have had to see the chrysalis stage,” I retorted. “You’re awfully early tonight, aren’t you, Jake? Is something wrong?” I gave him a pointed look; everyone else in the room hung on our every word.
“Not at all, I simply couldn’t wait to see you, petal. Go and put on a frock, I’ll wait.”
“Oh, so you do want us all to go out together tonight? Suit yourself,” I shrugged. “Ellie, go get your shoes on, you’re coming with us.”
“Bangarang!” she crowed, zipping around the corner to her bedroom so quickly, she careened into the wall. “I’ll be ready in two shakes,” she called out.
“I thought…” Jakob’s brows knit together. “You said you would be all mine tonight.”
“And you said you’d be here at eight,” I pointed out. “I told you I have responsibilities, and Ellie is one of them. I need to take her out hunting.”
“Surely one of these will suffice as a chaperone for the child.”
“We will go where Miss Gudrun goes.” Gunnar broke his silence, and Isak nodded beside him.
“That won’t be necessary,” Jakob smiled expansively.
“It’s alright, guys. You know how when Rob’s around, you don’t have to stick to me like glue? Well, he’s all the protection I need. I’ll be perfectly safe with Jake.”
