Holiday with a Vampire III

by Linda Winstead Jones, Lisa Childs

  “It’s the only way I can protect you.”

  She should have been relieved he hadn’t professed love, because it was too soon and would have proved him a liar, yet disappointment squeezed her heart. She sucked in a shaky breath and asked, “Who are you protecting me from?”

  His arms tightened around her, holding her closer as if he was using his body to shield her. “People who will hurt you.”

  “They’ll do more than hurt me,” she realized. “They intend to kill me. Why?”

  “Because of what you know.”

  “About you?” She’d said it once, but she could not manage to utter the word again around the lump of emotion choking her. “About what you are?”

  He nodded. “I’m not the only one.”

  “You told me that all Vossimers are,” she recalled. “So you have family?”

  A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Yes. Relatively speaking.”

  “You’re not close then?”

  “Not at all,” he admitted. “But there are more than Vossimers. There’s a whole Underground Society.”

  “I had no idea…” she murmured, stunned. “I would have never imagined…” Not only his existence, but his passion.

  “You’re not supposed to know. No mortal is.”

  She shivered as understanding dawned. “And that’s why I’m in danger.”

  He sighed. “Any time a human has learned about our existence, bad things happen. The undead are destroyed.”

  The thought of him dead knocked the air from her lungs, filling her with a sense of loss even greater than she’d already known. “But…how…?”

  “There are ways.”

  He might have wanted to spare her the image, but she closed her eyes and it was there—in her mind: Julian lying on the ground, a stake through his heart. She shuddered. “No…”

  “When humans learn of our existence, they react with fear. They think we pose a danger. So they try to eliminate that threat.”

  “You keep telling me that I’m in danger,” she said, “that’s why you brought me here.” Why he’d proposed.

  “Because you know. Because of what happened when other people found out, the Underground Society made a rule—for our protection.”

  “How many people have found out?” she asked, having to know how many mortals were killed—and how many Julian had personally killed.

  Had she made love, not just with a vampire, but a cold-blooded killer? Goose bumps lifted her skin as dread chilled her to the bone.

  “It was believed that your grandmother knew our secret,” he said.

  “But she died from a horrible disease,” she said, flashing back to Nana’s suffering. “No one killed her.”

  “No. There was actually no proof she knew…until the end.”

  “Until she told me.”

  He nodded then grimaced and admitted, “There was someone else who knew, who planned to write an exposé on the Secret Vampire Society. He was going to reveal our whereabouts and order our deaths.”

  Sienna’s breath caught. “And this man? He was killed?”

  Julian nodded. “Him and his wife.”

  “Was I alive when the murders took place?” she asked, wondering if she’d read about them. If the man had been a famous reporter or writer, his death could have been sensationalized, like her father’s had been.

  “You were seven,” Julian answered, his deep voice raspy with emotion, “and in the backseat.”

  Her breath hissed out. “My father? How had he found out?”

  “I don’t believe your grandmother ever told him, but he inherited her gift. He knew things…he would have been better off never knowing. Then he investigated until he discovered other things—things you would have been better off that he never learned.”

  Grief pressed heavy on her heart. “I guess it’s good that I didn’t inherit that family gift—that I took after my grandfather instead.”

  “He was a simple man,” Julian said.

  “A good man,” Sienna defended him as she twisted on her finger the engagement ring that her grandfather had put on her grandmother’s.

  “You’re wearing that ring,” Julian observed.

  She nodded. “Nana gave it to me, wanted the man I marry to put it on my left hand.”

  “Marry me,” he urged her again.

  She shook her head, tears burning her eyes. “I can’t…”

  “Because you can’t forgive my part in the accident?”

  “What was your part?” she had to know, her stomach churning with revulsion. Had she made love with—not once but twice—the man responsible for her parents’ deaths?

  “I didn’t stop it.” He dragged in a ragged breath. “I tried…but I was too late. Too late to save them. And too much of a coward to save you.”

  “But you did,” she reminded him. “You saved my life.” She wished he could have saved her parents, too, but she believed he’d tried.

  “I got lucky—that you weren’t more seriously hurt,” he said, “because I couldn’t get to you right away.”

  “I know—the crash was horrible. The car was so far down in the ravine that it was a wonder you found me at all.”

  “I saw the car go over,” he admitted. “But the sun was coming up. I couldn’t get to you…not without risking my own life.”

  Sienna tensed, shocked.

  “So much for being your hero, huh?” he said, and he lifted his arm and let her slide away from him. “I’m sorry. But I can’t be out in the sun…and live…”

  “So much for being undead,” she murmured.

  “Is that why you won’t marry me?” he asked. “Because of what I am?”

  She wasn’t certain if he was referring to his being a vampire or his not being the hero she’d believed him to be for the past twenty years. “No. I made my grandmother a promise on her deathbed.”

  “To wear this ring?” He ran a fingertip over the diamond then over the scar on his chin.

  “She did that? My grandmother?”

  His lips curved into that wickedly sexy grin. “She didn’t like what I said about your grandfather.”

  “She was feisty.” Sienna wished she possessed her grandmother’s spirit, as well as her face.

  “She was stubborn,” Julian said. “You can’t be stubborn. The rest of the Underground will find us. I won’t be able to save you this time.”

  “Unless I become your bride…” She glanced down at the diamond. Could she let this man—this one whose interest in her grandmother had caused her family so much pain—switch the ring to her left hand? She shook her head. “I can’t…”

  “You’re exhausted,” Julian said, brushing his fingertip under her eyes, over the dark circles she hadn’t been able to hide with makeup. “Sleep on it.”

  She nodded and lowered her lids. But no matter how much rest she got, she wouldn’t change her mind. She had made her grandmother a promise. Like Carolina Briggs, Sienna would only marry for love. She couldn’t marry a man who offered just protection or even immortality. She could only marry the man who offered her his heart.

  She couldn’t marry Julian Vossimer…even if that decision killed her.

  She was gone. Julian didn’t need to open his eyes to confirm Sienna’s absence. After what he’d revealed, he wasn’t surprised that she would have slipped away while he slept. He should have locked the door behind himself, but he’d been juggling the tray of food that sat beside the bed, mostly untouched. The champagne still filled the glasses, but no bubbles rushed to the rim. It had gone flat.

  “Sienna?” he called out. Maybe she could hear him the way that Orson could. Maybe she had her grandmother’s gift, but had been unaware until now, as she’d been unaware of the kind of man he really was.

  She must hate him—so much that even if she had the gift, she’d block him from her mind. And from her heart.

  “Sienna!” His voice cracked with urgency. He had to find her. Yet even though the bedroom was dark, all the candles burned out, he
knew it was day. Because he had to fight for the energy to leave the bed.

  Even if she wouldn’t accept his proposal, he had to find a way to save her. He couldn’t let the others kill her…because that would kill him as surely as his leaving the darkness.

  Moments later, he climbed the stairs to street level. Light penetrated low-hanging gray clouds and the shower of falling snow. He lifted the collar of his trench coat and slid dark glasses onto his nose. But those precautions were ineffectual as the daylight seeped through his clothes, through his skin and weakened his spirit—draining his soul.

  “Sienna…”

  His eyes already squinted against the light. He closed them fully and blanked his mind…until she appeared. First as she’d been in his bed—naked and passionate. And then he found her—in the present. In her house, sobbing softly….

  She didn’t cry for him; he was sure of it, convinced that she hated him now that she knew everything about him. As Orson had said, he was too much trouble. He’d brought Sienna nothing but pain.

  And now pain filled him, burning him alive—zapping his strength. But he couldn’t turn back. Because he could see more than Sienna; he could see what she had yet to realize—that she was not alone.

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  Chapter 6

  T ears streaked down Sienna’s face while sobs burned her throat. She’d already broken her promise to her grandmother. She wasn’t supposed to cry. But these tears weren’t just over missing Nana; she missed him.

  “That’s another promise I broke,” she admitted miserably as she twisted the ring on the finger of her right hand. “I love a man who doesn’t love me.”

  While she hadn’t been able to keep all the promises she’d made Nana, she would keep at least one of them. She glanced toward the tree, which stood before the bay window in the front parlor. Its finely needled branches were bare of lights and ornaments. Sienna had barely found the time to buy the tree; she hadn’t been able to decorate it before Nana had passed.

  But she’d promised that she would, that she’d deck the halls and celebrate the holiday. She wouldn’t let another loss, however devastating, destroy her. She was stronger than that—stronger even than the threat of which Julian had warned. Dashing her tears away with the backs of her hands, Sienna dragged her weary body from the chair. The last thing she felt like doing, after taking the train from Zantrax, was decorating. But this, at least, was one promise she could keep.

  Clad in the red velvet dress she’d found in the bathroom of Julian’s apartment, Sienna hesitated at the door to the cellar stairs. Jeans and a sweatshirt would be more appropriate attire for digging through cobwebs and dusty boxes. But Nana had loved the velvet dress. And from the desire in his eyes as he’d stripped it from her, so had Julian.

  Every thought returned to Julian, like Sienna ached to return to him. Maybe she could get back before dark, before he awakened and noticed that she’d gone. But could she, who feared the dark, turn into a creature who dwelt only in darkness? Even now, panic pressed on her chest as she opened the door to basement. Shadows fell across the steep steps that led to the rough concrete floor.

  She’d always hated the cellar, but something more than panic assailed her. A sense of foreboding joined her usual fear, and her legs shook as she descended the rickety stairwell. “Hello?” she called out, as goose bumps lifted on the skin on her arms and the nape of her neck. Instinctively, she knew she was not alone. “Hello?”

  Had Julian braved the daylight to come to her? No, she would have known the minute he was near; her body would have reacted, with heat and anticipation, to the closeness of his. But she was not alone. “Who’s there?”

  “Maybe you do have your grandmother’s gift,” someone mused from the shadows. The voice was feminine and familiar.

  “Ingrid?” The hospice nurse had helped out with Nana at night, so that Sienna had been able to get some rest. She had helped only at night, coming by just after the sun had gone down. Was she one of them? Of the Secret Vampire Society? “What are you doing here?”

  “I think you know,” the beautiful woman said, her dark eyes glowing eerily in the shadows.

  Fear pounded in Sienna’s veins. Julian had told her the truth; she was in danger. Maybe she could convince the vampiress that she had no knowledge of their society. “No. I expected to see you at the funeral home—not here.”

  “I was there,” Ingrid said. “At the funeral home and when your grandmother told you about us.”

  Sienna shook her head and infused confusion in her voice as she asked, “About us? I don’t understand.”

  Ingrid’s lips, either naturally or painted a deep red, curved into a slight smile. “About Julian Vossimer. She told you about Julian.”

  “She never said his name,” Sienna maintained. “Not that I paid much attention to anything she was saying at the end. She wasn’t making any sense.” A twinge of pain struck her heart as she remembered, “She was out of her mind with pain.”

  “She was completely lucid, right until the end,” Ingrid said, with a trace of respect for Carolina Briggs. “She got you to make some big promises.”

  “To celebrate Christmas.”

  “That’s how I knew you’d come down here,” the nurse explained.

  “To get the decorations.” She suspected Ingrid had actually come down to the cellar in order to get away from the sunshine streaming in through the upstairs windows. “The tree looks so naked…”

  The image flitting through her mind wasn’t of tree branches, though. She imagined Julian instead, how he’d looked—sculpted muscles rippling beneath taut skin, as he had moved over her—then inside her. Despite the dampness of the basement, heat suffused Sienna, spreading throughout her body. She had never been satisfied—pleasured—as thoroughly by any other man, and she wanted him again.

  Would she even get to see him one last time—now that she’d been found?

  “You look like her, you know,” Ingrid remarked from where she lurked yet in the shadows.

  “My grandmother?”

  “This angel.” The vampiress held up an ethereal blond doll. “I can understand why he fell for you.”

  Sienna’s heart kicked against her ribs. “Who?”

  The slight smile flashed again, but still those dark eyes glowed eerily—with madness and an anguish that struck a chord within Sienna. “You’re beautiful,” Ingrid said, “not stupid. You know Julian has fallen for you.”

  “If I believed that, I wouldn’t be here,” Sienna pointed out. “I’d still be with him.” In his bed, in his arms—her head against his chest, his heart beating steadily beneath her cheek. Why had she left him? Then she remembered. “He doesn’t love me.”

  “I can understand your doubts,” Ingrid admitted and continued as if they were friends commiserating about men. “Julian wouldn’t have professed his love. He probably doesn’t even realize he loves you yet. Men can be so dense.” Now the anguish thickened her voice. “They sometimes deny their feelings until it’s too late….”

  “Was it too late for you?” Sienna asked.

  Ingrid released a shuddery breath. “I heard the words. Despite the stake buried in his heart, he managed to tell me he loved me. It was the last thing he ever said.”

  “I’m sorry….”

  “You should be,” Ingrid said, rage chasing the sadness from her voice and eyes. “Your father is the one who drove in the stake.”

  Sienna gasped as another one of her idols fell. “My dad? You’re talking about his exposé? I thought he died before it was published.”

  “Julian told you about the exposé?”

  She nodded.

  “But he didn’t tell you what your father did,” Ingrid said. “He wanted to spare you the truth.”

  “What is the truth?” Sienna had to know.

  “My…Michael…was your father’s source for the article. Michael was so trusting. He didn’t understand that he was putting us all in danger—until it was too late, until
your father murdered him. He didn’t just write the article. He killed Michael. My lover’s blood was on your father’s hands.”

  “You got your revenge,” Sienna said, suspecting her father’s blood was on Ingrid’s hands. That the vampiress was the one who was responsible for Sienna’s parents’ deaths. “You don’t need to hurt me.”

  “You’re human. You can’t be trusted,” Ingrid insisted.

  “You were around me for months,” Sienna reminded her. “You know me…you know I would never hurt anyone.”

  “You’ve already hurt Julian,” Ingrid said.

  Sienna shook her head. “No…” He was the last person she wanted to hurt.

  “You rejected him.”

  “H-how do you know?”

  “Because you’re here, and he isn’t,” Ingrid pointed out.

  “That’s because he doesn’t love me…” That was why she’d turned him down, she realized. Not because she wasn’t certain she could become what he was…but because she couldn’t even consider changing without his love.

  Ingrid shook her head, as if disgusted. “The guy gave up his life for you. What more does he have to give up to prove his love?”

  Shock and pain staggered Sienna so that she had to grip the stair railing or tumble down the last few steps to the concrete floor. “No! He’s not dead.”

  “Not yet. But Orson Vossimer warned him. If he didn’t kill you, he would be killed.”

  “Orson Vossimer? He’s related to Julian. How could he kill him?”

  “Orson Vossimer is Julian’s grandfather. And he gave Julian another option besides death. He could turn you.”

  And Sienna had refused. “I didn’t know…”

  “It’s too late now,” Ingrid said. “You’re both going to die.”

  And Sienna would never have the chance to tell Julian that she loved him.

  Light blind, Julian staggered through the house. Every muscle ached in protest of his movements, but he forced himself to continue, feeling his way along the walls. “Sienna!”

  “Julian?”

  Her voice, quavering with fear and shock, drew him toward an open door. He stumbled, nearly falling down the stairs.