“Your role?”
“Ah. In this case, to carry a message.”
“Our role, in any case and at any time, is to protect humankind. We will not abandon that role. Tell your masters that threats just make us more determined. They have to be smarter than that.”
Helidoro nodded. “I will pass your message along.”
“Are you a Grimoré, Helidoro?” Lindál asked.
Helidoro’s eyes focused on him and Lindál felt the creature was looking through him and into him at the same time. Was he rooting through his memories and mind right now?
Helidoro replied; “Like you, I am something other than the creatures I live among but I have found an uneasy acceptance, nevertheless.”
He turned and walked away but before he reached the corner of the alley, he turned again and seemed to step into the building. Teleportation?
The vampeen ran, scurrying between Dumpsters, melting away like snow under rain.
“Was he even here?” Zachariah asked Seaveth.
“Astral projection?” She slid her long knife back into her boot. The elves gathered around her, the tall one at the back dropping his hood. Lindál was astonished to recognize Amrod, the senior senator.
Diego, at the edge of the group, cleaned his knives on a rag. “He kept flickering, like a bad movie.”
“A movie projection wouldn’t need so many to protect it,” Zack said, pushing at a dead vampeen with his foot.
“They were just to get us all here,” Seaveth said. “Out in the open and in one spot together.”
Amrod said quietly, “It appears your theory about the Grimoré is correct after all. He did not seem puzzled by the name when Lindál spoke it.”
“You doubted her? After all this time, you still doubt Seaveth?” Lindál could feel his ire flaming deep in his chest, gripping his throat.
A hand curled around his arm and squeezed warningly and another one caught the back of his neck under his hair. The second had to be Zack’s. The first had to be Seaveth. He could feel her next to him.
Shut up, she told him silently. The mental command was rich with compulsion, forcing him to clamp his jaw shut against the need to tell Amrod what an asshole he was, along with all the strong human vocabulary he knew.
Amrod had the grace to look uncomfortable. “Relying on children’s bedtime stories and generations-old prophecies to build a defense against an invasion for which there has been no evidence has caused some political difficulties. The vampeen incursions so far have been seen as no more than a petty annoyance at the same level as a bugs in a vegetable garden.” He waved toward the back of the alley. “But this is different.”
The sound of a perfectly normal cell phone ringing made them all jump. Diego dug into his pocket, pulled out his phone and answered it, then frowned and glanced at Zack. “Alex, slow down, I’m sure podemos fijarlo.”
Seaveth turned to Lindál and slipped her arm around his waist. She looked at Zack. “You must go with Diego. Alexander will need you.” She shivered. “Lindál will get me home.”
Zack touched her shoulder. “What is it?”
“It’s begun,” she said, her eyes staring inward.
* * * * *
“It’s bad but it’s not the end of the world,” Zack decided. “Even if she’s living in New York now, the chances of running into her are slim to nothing. We can find out if she is living here. If she is, we can take steps to make sure you don’t meet her again.”
“How?” Alexander said, shredding the coaster steadily into flakes with his fingers.
“You move somewhere else,” Zack said. “One of the other clans will take you in if we sponsor you.”
Alexander felt his stomach drop. “Thrilling,” he said. His cell phone buzzed and he fished it out of his pocket, feeling even less keen than usual to parade like a human. “Alexander la Croix.”
“Alexander, you asshole. You never said anything about being married!”
“Christine?” He sat up.
“Your wife just came into the office, demanding to know where you live now that you’ve set yourself up in a cushy job with an income and all that. She wants support for the kids. You bastard. You deserted her, and she still carries your picture in her wallet. I don’t know that you even deserve her. She’s so sweet and you’re a pig.”
He clutched at his temple. “You told her where I live, didn’t you?”
“I gave her your number. This number. You can sort it out between you. Oh, and I quit. You can find yourself another receptionist. I’m not working for an asshole like you.”
Alexander put the cell phone on the coffee table and stared at it. “She’s got my number,” he said.
The phone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” Zack said, standing up. “We’ll make arrangements right away. If she has the number, she might be able to trace the address from there. We don’t know how resourceful she is.”
“She’s smart,” Alexander said, his heart pounding. He couldn’t take his eyes off the phone. All he had to do was pick it up and answer it and he could be talking to her again. So simple. “Tested IQ of one hundred forty.” Juan had been so proud of that one.
The phone fell silent and something shifted and loosened inside him. He knew he couldn’t bear to lose Mia again. It was as simple as that. As overwhelming as that.
Zack was talking into his own phone. Only Diego was watching him. “Don’t do it, my friend,” he said in Spanish.
“You don’t know her,” Alexander said.
The phone started to ring again and Alexander snatched it up. “Mia.”
“I’m not going to stop calling until you talk to me,” Mia said. “So you might as well talk to me now.”’
“I’m talking.” He took a deep breath.
“Fuck,” Zack said, behind him.
“I’m going to keep phoning until you agree to meet with me. I know it’s you, Alexander. You called me Mia. You can’t deny it. I don’t know how you dodged that bullet and I don’t care. Keep your secret. I just want to see you and talk. So I’m going to keep phoning until you agree. I can do reverse look-ups and hunt you down. So make it easy for me. Agree to meet me for coffee, assure me you’re okay and I’ll go away. You owe me that much.”
Alexander closed his eyes. Her voice caressed him, like it had when she whispered in his ear.
“I’ll meet,” he said.
* * * * *
“This is lunacy,” Diego raved. “Usted está fuera de su mente de mierda, mi amigo!”
“English, Diego!” Zack snapped. “If you’re going to insult him, at least do it in English, so I can appreciate it too.”
“He says I’m out of my mind. But I’m not,” Alexander said calmly, strapping the steel knife into the spring-loaded wrist harness.
“Then why are your hands shaking?” Zack asked.
“It’s because of her,” Alexander replied evenly. “Because I’m going to see her again.”
Diego whistled softly. “Over a dame?” He dropped onto the sofa. “Okay, then. Fuck her. Get it out of your system. Tell her you faked your death ten years ago, any bullshit story to cover the facts.”
“You can’t tell her what you are,” Zack added. “You do realize you’re exposing her unnecessarily just by being with her, right? While she’s with you, she’s fodder for the vampeen.”
Alexander nodded. “I know.”
Zack pulled out his Glock special, with the built-in silencer. “Then take this, too.”
Alexander took it. “Thanks.” He dropped it into his coat pocket, where it felt heavy and reassuring.
* * * * *
Mia found the Starbucks he’d directed her to without trouble. By the time she reached it, the snow was falling heavily, making everything muffled except the traffic, which was a constant even in the snow. Even though it was barely six the night was dense, still and silent.
He was sitting in a big wingback chair and she was unable to believe he’d actually kept his word. After
she’d hung up she’d realized that he could have agreed to meet just to get her off the phone and she’d fallen for it because she was so green at this sort of thing.
But he was here and she didn’t know whether to kiss him or crawl into his lap. So she sat in the other chair and put her hands on the table to still their trembling. “You don’t have to tell me what happened,” she said. “But I do want to say I’m so glad that what I thought happened ten years ago clearly didn’t.”
There were too many people too close to them for her to speak of it more plainly.
Alexander tilted his head to one side. “So am I.” He gave an awkward smile.
She stared at him, at his wonderful blue eyes. “God, you look so good,” she said wonderingly. She reached out to touch his face and his hand covered hers as she cupped it. He was trembling too. She pushed her hand so that her palm brushed over his lips, inviting a kiss. His lips seared her palm and his hand stilled her wrist, keeping her hand steady so that his tongue could swirl over her palm. His eyes speared into her as he did it.
She gasped, her nerve endings sizzling to life, her clit pounding with energy. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “No one but you has ever been able to do that to me.”
Alexander lowered her hand and began to stroke the inner wrist. Little delicate strokes that made her toes tingle and curl and her pussy grow moist. “No one?” he said, with a smile.
“No one,” she said flatly. “Alex, can we go somewhere? Your place? Even just for a while?”
He reached over and drew her bangs out of her eyes. “In ten years, you’ve had a string of miserable lovers who’ve all failed to take care of you?”
“Alexander,” she chided him, for not letting her change subjects and for not answering her question.
He sat back and she could see that he had given up trying to avoid her question. He looked at her directly. “I can’t take you back to my apartment,” he said simply.
“A hotel then,” she said. “Mine.”
He looked out the window at the falling snow.
“What is it I’m missing?”
“What is it you’re not telling me?” He looked at her.
She could feel her cheeks heating. “Specifics then. I’ve had two lovers since you, both of them total disasters. No man so much as raises my pulse, except you.”
She could see his chest beneath the open fronts of the overcoat. His breath shortened as he stared at her. “Christ,” he whispered, looking stricken.
“Is it too much to ask for a night?” she added gently.
“There are things you don’t know about me,” he said.
She almost laughed. “Worse than before?” What she had not known in San Diego had got him a bullet in the head…or almost had. What could possibly be worse?
“These things could kill you,” he said softly. “I’d rather you live.”
He was trying to tell he wouldn’t give her the night she so desperately craved. Disappointment flared in her like a thousand fire ant bites. Suddenly she needed to move, to be away from all these people that were lapping up her rejection like the day’s soap opera installment.
“Can we at least walk?” she said, trying to blink away her tears.
“It’s safer here, among people,” he said cryptically.
There was to be no relief, no softening of the rejection. She averted her head and staggered from her chair, out of the store and into the muffling quiet of the snow, letting it enfold her. Across the road was the park. Dark, quiet and lonely. Away from everyone who had witnessed her humiliation.
She ran.
* * * * *
Alexander ran after her, dismayed at her reaction and alarmed at her direction. There were plenty of human predators in Central Park as well as vampeen drawn to his vampire traces.
She was just ahead of him and Central Park had lights along the paths. He caught up with her quickly and grabbed her arm. She was crying silently.
He pulled her to one side, onto the snow-covered grass, their boots kicking up the thin layer of white flakes. He wiped her tears. “Don’t,” he said softly.
“What else should I do? I’m out of options.” Her voice was thick with more tears.
He remembered when her voice was husky with lust rather than tears and his body tightened, strumming with that remembered moment. Why was he refusing her now? He could go back to her hotel room and fuck her until she was spent. That was all she had asked for. There would be no complications. What was stopping him?
Because he knew he wouldn’t have the strength to let her go in the morning. Diego could do something like that, but he had been doing it for centuries and had a powerful motive to keep him moving from one woman to another, over and over again.
Alexander knew he could not.
He realized he was staring into Mia’s eyes and she was holding her breath, waiting for him. He was holding her to him and she had felt his tension, felt his ramrod stiff cock against her. She knew as well as he did that everything he’d said in the coffee shop was a pretext and that this moment was the real one.
He kissed her and it was like kissing honey and peaches. He swept his tongue into her mouth, tasting her sweetness, while his hands slid inside her coat, under her clothes and found her flesh. She was guiding him, as frantic as he and he groaned as his hand found the swell of her breasts, bereft of a confining bra.
She cried softly, arching hard against him, her pelvis grinding into him. His cock was throbbing now, his balls aching with growing tension.
“More,” Mia whispered. Her hand was on his wrist, guiding it under her skirt. He found the tops of her stockings—stockings! His heart fluttered. Then, smooth thighs and moist lace panties. It gave him an erotic charge to realize she was aroused enough to soak through her panties. He slid his fingers under the edges of them and found the heated lips of her pussy and pushed inside. She clenched around him as she gasped, her hands clawing at his shoulders.
“Harder,” she whispered.
“You know, I can smell your woman’s scent from here,” came a drawled comment from behind him.
Alexander’s animal instincts surged into overdrive. He disengaged from Mia and whirled, reaching for the Glock. He pushed Mia behind him as his incisors tried to descend. He fought to tamp down his instincts and ride them out until he had the full measure of the situation.
A man in jeans and a denim jacket stood ten paces away from them. His hair was sandy and his skin, wrinkled. It was impossible to tell his age. He might have been in his mid-forties and showing the signs of a hard life. Or he could be in his early sixties. He was rail thin and his clothes hung off his frame in shapeless layers.
Alexander had been so caught up in Mia’s body and responses that he’d failed to register the man’s approach. “Move on,” he told him. “The gun is loaded and I’m not afraid to use it.”
The man laughed. “That so?” He moved closer, reached into his jacket and withdrew a long, strangely curved knife. “I don’t need to load this and I’m not afraid to use it, neither.”
Alexander caught sight of the man’s eyes in the lamplight and became afraid. The eyes were all black. No irises, no whites. Nothing but black. Evil eyes.
The man sprang with a sideways leap that looked animalistic. Alexander shot him three times, directly in the chest. It dropped him to the ground and if he had been human it should have killed him instantly, but the creature simply stood up and shook it off.
“Oh my god, Alex…” Mia whispered.
Alexander handed her the Glock. “Just keep shooting at it,” he said. “There are twelve more bullets in the gun and they slow it down, at least.”
“What about you?” she said.
He triggered the armguard and gripped the knife as it jumped into his hand.
Mia’s eyes got very large. He was going to have to explain things later. Or invent things.
The creature came at him and he shoved Mia behind him again and swiped. He nearly decapitated the creature and i
t barely slowed it down.
Running footsteps from his right. Alexander didn’t bother looking. Friend or foe, he couldn’t afford to look. But the creature did and howled in frustration.
“Yeah, you fucking prick. Your time is up.”
The creature turned to face the newcomer and threw his hands up across his face. Alexander looked just in time to see the other man bring a shotgun to his shoulder and fire.
The shot was muffled, not explosive, but the creature fell to the ground, writhing and kicking. The man fell on top of it and buried a black knife in its chest. With a black cloud of smoke, the creature disappeared, leaving oily plumes of fumes tracing an outline of where it had rested.
The man stood up, dropped the black knife back into his coat and brushed off his hands. He was about five foot eleven, which put him only an inch shorter than Alexander but he seemed shorter because of the width of his shoulders. He was very thick across the chest and shoulders and the heavy winter-lined denim coat just exaggerated them. His black hair was once short and tidy but hadn’t been trimmed for a while. In the dim glow from the park lights it glinted blue-black.
He looked at Alexander with angry black eyes that reminded him of Diego. “You’re a fucking vampire,” he said in disgust.
Mia, Alexander thought and winced.
“Only reason I don’t cut your heart out on the spot is because we’re not supposed to these days. Can’t believe you’re the good guys now. Fuck.” He picked up the shotgun. “Can’t you tell a demon when it’s coming at you, for Chrissake?”
“That was a demon?” Alexander was stunned. “What did it want with Mia?”
“How the fuck would I know? It’s been in the Jersey area for three days, then suddenly veered toward New York yesterday like it had a noose around its neck. What is she? Something special?”
“You’re a hunter,” Alexander concluded.
“No shit,” the man said.
“Oh, I think I’m going to be sick,” Mia muttered.
Alexander whirled.
Mia was bent over, her hands on her knees.
Mia's Return Page 5
