Mistress of the Underground

by Lisa Childs

  Paige lifted her fingers to the mostly healed wound. It must have been Marissa that night in the dark. “It’s over…”

  “What—how?” Kate asked. “You found out who your stalker is?”

  Paige nodded.

  “Ben?”

  “God, no!”

  Kate released a sigh of relief; maybe the detective wasn’t so cynical, after all. Or maybe the friend had just known how much Paige loved him. “Then who?”

  “A woman who was involved with Sebastian.” A lifetime ago. “She was really after him.”

  “I need to talk to him, then,” Kate said. “Is he here?”

  Sun streamed through the tall windows, shining off the polished hardwood floor. “No. But it’s over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s not going to be a problem anymore.” Ben hadn’t said, but Paige knew that the woman was dead, because if Marissa was still a threat, Ben wouldn’t have pushed Paige away again. “She’s gone.”

  “For now. But what if she comes back?”

  Paige shook her head. “She won’t. They finally worked things out.”

  “But she’s dangerous. Look at what she did to you.”

  Paige closed her eyes, remembering what Marissa had done to Sebastian. The vampiress had been far more dangerous than Kate realized.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted.

  “Why do I think you’re lying to me?”

  Because Kate was a brilliant detective and an even better friend.

  Paige forced a smile. “I’ve just had a long night. I’m tired.”

  “You weren’t at the club.”

  The club. Who had Sebastian left in charge when he’d come to her rescue at the hospital? “You were there?”

  “It was packed, but I couldn’t find you,” Kate said. “I tried getting into that room again to see if you were in there.”

  Paige held her breath. If Kate had gotten inside…

  “First damn lock that I haven’t been able to pick,” Kate admitted.

  “That’s a good thing.”

  Kate lifted a brow.

  Paige shuddered with relief. “I don’t want you releasing sewer rats into the club.”

  “I think they’d be more frightened to mingle with some of your patrons,” Kate said. “That’s a tough crowd.”

  The detective had no idea exactly how tough. Or did she?

  “Zantrax is a tough city,” Paige pointed out. “You have to be tough to survive.”

  “I guess then that you do belong at the club because you’ve proved again and again that you’re tough,” Kate praised her, “with the things you’ve survived.”

  The loss of her baby and her ability to have any more children. And the loss of her husband. While she wasn’t one of them—she did belong at Club Underground. She sighed.

  “Well, you look exhausted,” Kate said in her usual straightforward manner. “I’ll let you get some rest.”

  But as Paige closed the door behind her friend, she caught a sound coming from Sebastian’s windowless room. And she knew rest was the last thing she’d be getting.

  Sebastian was at Ben’s with his daughter—his other daughter. And from the look on Ben’s face, Paige had assumed that the vampiress was dead. But maybe Marissa was like Sebastian—maybe she didn’t stay dead.

  Paige glanced around her living room, looking for something she could use as a weapon. But she had no wooden stakes on hand—nothing that could protect her from someone invincible.

  “Who’s there?” she called out.

  Her pulse quickened with fear, but she forced herself to leave the sunshine of the living room for the dimly lit hall. No light at all emanated from Sebastian’s windowless room; she’d intended to use it as a den before he’d moved in with her. She’d thought then that he’d had no place else to go, but now she realized he should have been anywhere else.

  The thought of Sebastian leaving again—along with Addi and especially Ben—filled her with dread. She was a survivor, but a person could only be expected to survive so much.

  “Who’s there?” she called out again as she pushed open the door and stepped into the dark room.

  “You don’t need to know my name,” a husky female voice replied from the thickest shadows. “You already know too much.”

  Paige shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sebastian Culver’s daughter. Dr. Davison’s ex-wife. There’s no way that you haven’t figured out the secret by now.” The woman laughed as she moved closer to the light spilling in from the hall. Her dark hair and haunting eyes struck a chord in Paige’s memory.

  “I know you,” she said. “You’ve been to the club.”

  “I’ve been Underground longer than you’ve been alive.”

  She needed to react, to pretend shock, since the woman appeared so young. But she’d always been better at hiding her feelings than feigning ones she didn’t have.

  “You’re not going to bother lying to me?” the woman asked with a lilt of amusement and a flash of respect. “Your life depends on it, you know.”

  Panic clutched Paige’s heart. “I know. But you would know, too, if I lied.”

  “I know more than most think,” the vampiress cryptically claimed. “I know things that haven’t even happened yet.” Obviously she was psychic. “So I should have known…”

  “That I would find out?”

  “I knew that,” she said. “That’s why I tried to turn you once.”

  “It was you—in the office?” The person who had attacked Paige in the dark. She’d been so strong.

  The woman nodded. “I respect the doctor. I didn’t want him to lose you.”

  “You turned him,” Paige realized with a flash of jealousy. Did the woman have more than respect for Ben? Did she love him?

  “We need him,” the vampiress explained.

  “I need him.” But she couldn’t keep him.

  “Then let me turn you.”

  “I asked him,” Paige admitted. “But he doesn’t want me to be part of this life of his.” Anymore than he’d wanted her to be part of his other life.

  “I have to turn you,” the vampiress said, “or I have to kill you.”

  Chapter 19

  In the exact spot in his garden where Ben had said goodbye to Paige several nights ago, he stood beside the pond, watching the water spew from the fountain and cascade over the rocks. He reached out and ran his fingertip, like Paige had, over their daughter’s name engraved on the brass plate. His heart ached for his loss…Paige more than his baby.

  He’d never really known Penny but for her kicks he’d felt through Paige’s stomach. The vibration of her hiccups moving the stretched skin. He missed what she could have been. He missed what Paige was: smart, beautiful, challenging…exciting. Stubborn.

  “Hey?” Sebastian called out as he joined Ben in the backyard. “Are you out here?”

  Ben considered remaining silent; he needed some time alone. But then Sebastian might need him more. “Back here.”

  The other man’s shoes scuffed against the brick path leading to the pond. As he stepped to Ben’s side, he uttered a reverent, “Oh…”

  Ben cleared his throat. “Everything okay with Addi?”

  A smile lifted Sebastian’s lips. “She’s doing better—great, actually.”

  “She’s going to be fine,” Ben assured him again.

  “What about you?” his friend asked. “Are you going to be fine?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I guess I’ll get used to this life—eventually.”

  Sebastian snorted. “You’ve been living this life for years. You’ve been living Underground.”

  “Since I learned the secret.”

  “Long before that,” his friend argued. “You’ve been living in the dark since you lost your mother. You’re afraid to let anyone get too close to you. Afraid to let yourself be totally happy.”

  Ben snorted now. “Happiness never la
sts. Why the hell would I set myself up for disappointment?”

  “Damn you!” Sebastian bellowed. “When are you going to stop being a coward?”

  Shock burst out of Ben in a short laugh. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Too many years of minding my own damned business.”

  Ben laughed again. The last thing anyone would ever accuse Sebastian of doing was minding his own damned business. In addition to being a playboy, the bar manager was also the proverbial psychiatrist behind the bar—listening to and advising everyone on their problems. “Really?”

  “Sure, I might offer my opinion…if someone asks for advice, but I haven’t gotten into your business,” Sebastian explained, “because I respected you too much.”

  From the way he’d twisted the word, that was obviously not a problem for him anymore. “And now you don’t?”

  “I don’t respect anyone who keeps hurting the person who loves him most.” He sighed. “Myself included.”

  “I never meant to hurt her,” Ben insisted, his heart aching with all the pain he knew he’d caused her. “Hell, I shouldn’t have fallen for her in the first place. I should have known that I would never be able to give her what she deserves.”

  “All she wants is your love,” Sebastian said, “and you love her. I know you do. Hell, she knows you do.”

  “It’s not enough,” Ben insisted. “I can’t offer her anything.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “Hell, you can offer her more now than you could before. You can give her eternity.”

  “No, I can’t risk her life. If I try to turn her and fail…” He closed his eyes, but then images sprang to his mind, memories of all the mortals he’d been unable to save. He couldn’t have Paige become one of those horrible memories.

  “That’s her decision to make.”

  Ben shook his head. “She doesn’t know—what we do. She doesn’t know what can go wrong. I can’t let her take that risk for me.”

  “You’re the one who needs to take the risk,” Sebastian said. “You’re the one who needs to finally figure out what the hell he wants. Paige already knows—she wants you.”

  “And I want Paige,” he admitted. Even if he couldn’t have her forever…he would take however long they could have together.

  Sebastian gestured behind him, toward the pond and the fountain. “She’s not here.”

  Ben closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “No, she’s not.” Only memories were here. “She’s at the bar?”

  “It’s your turn to pick first round tonight,” Lizzy told Paige.

  “Paige?” Campbell called her name, bringing her out of her reverie. “Are you all right?”

  “You’re looking tired,” Kate, blunt as ever, told her.

  She hadn’t been sleeping well the past several days, probably because she’d gotten used to not sleeping alone. Damn Ben. Damn his warm body wrapped around hers. Damn his strong arms holding her close. Damn him for denying her his love.

  Renae, sitting in the corner, smiled a grim, humorless smile. “I think it has something to do with Dr. Davison.”

  “Why would you think that?” Paige beat the detective to the question.

  “When he bothers to show up at the hospital, he’s even more pissed off than you,” Renae shared. “He’s scaring off all the staff and most of the patients. If they didn’t have a bad heart before they came to see him, they do now.”

  “What happened between you two?” Lizzy asked.

  “Nothing,” Paige said. “We’re divorced, remember? You drew up the papers.”

  “Just because you’re divorced doesn’t mean you don’t still have feelings for each other,” Lizzy said.

  “Speaking from experience?” Paige asked.

  Lizzy laughed. “Not mine.”

  “I haven’t seen Ben myself,” she said, bitterness slipping into her voice, turning it harsh to her own ears, “in quite a while.”

  “Then turn around,” Kate suggested. “He’s sitting at the bar.”

  If he wanted nothing to do with her, why had he come back here? Was Sebastian keeping him apprised of what was going on in her life?

  As Paige walked down the hall toward her office, the skin between her shoulder blades tingled. Someone was watching her. Footsteps echoed hers. Someone was following her.

  Her pulse quickened. Not with fear. She wasn’t worried about Ingrid, or any other society member. She was worried, though—that she was about to get hurt again.

  Her hand shaking, she struggled to unlock her office door. After she’d pushed it open, someone pushed her, his hand against her hip, over the threshold. Then he closed the door behind them. He had followed her from the bar.

  “Ben—” She needed to tell him something…just in case Sebastian hadn’t.

  “Shut up,” he told her, without anger, his lips lifted into a grin. “I’m done talking,” he said as he reached for her.

  Paige braced her hands against his chest, holding their bodies apart. “I don’t understand….”

  He had made it painfully clear that he didn’t want her to be part of his new life.

  “I’m done talking,” he repeated. “I’m done thinking. I only want to feel.” He leaned down, sliding his mouth across her cheek.

  But she pulled back before he could kiss her. “Ben…”

  “Shh…” he murmured as he cupped her face in his palms. “You’re the only one who can make me feel, Paige.”

  Excitement rippled through her. She’d missed him. She’d missed him too much to question why he’d come after her even if it were for only this….

  She slid her hands up, under his pale gray sweater, over the hair-dusted muscles of his chest. “You make me feel, too, Ben….”

  Sometimes more than she wanted, more than she dared. Her zipper rasped as he pulled down the tab. Cool air touched the exposed skin on her back, until his hands slid over her, tugging her dress from her shoulders so that the silk gathered at her feet. Then he stepped back, studying her as she stood before him, clad only in thin lace panties.

  “God, Paige, don’t you ever wear a bra?”

  “I can’t in that dress,” she explained as she stepped out of the pool of blue silk. She reached for him, tugging the sweater over his head before pulling at his belt.

  His hands covered hers, shaking with his intensity, as he tore the belt through the loops of his black pants, letting them drop at his ankles, so he wore only black satin boxers. She’d bought him those a few Christmases ago.

  The satin tented as he hardened. He pulled her back into his arms, then tugged her onto the couch with him. He tore her panties, pushed open the front of his boxers and drove into her heat. “Paige…”

  “Yes, Ben,” she said, panting as she took him deep. He leaned back against the couch, so she straddled his lap, riding him.

  “Hmm?” he groaned, rolling his head against the burgundy leather. His hands closed around her hips, dragging her up and down his shaft, as he leaned forward again, his lips closing over one of her nipples, tugging gently with his teeth. A fang scraped across her skin.

  She came, breaking apart in his arms. But he held her, driving her up and down until she came again. And again. Then, finally, he joined her, groaning her name as he spilled into her heat.

  Then he sagged sideways, pulling her down with him onto the couch as he panted for breath.

  Paige stretched as much as she could without falling off Ben and off the couch. “That was…”

  “Too good to give up, Paige.”

  “We’ve been just about sex for the past four years, Ben. We both deserve more.” They deserved forever.

  He sighed his exasperation. “We’ve always been about more than sex, Paige.”

  “Guilt, pain, resentment,” she said, “Yes, I guess we have been about more than sex.”

  “Paige, we’ve moved beyond that, beyond the past,” he insisted. “But not beyond each other. We just proved that.”

  “We proved we’re attracted to e
ach other.” She would probably always be attracted to him.

  “We have more going on between us than attraction,” Ben argued.

  Love. At least on her part. She wasn’t sure what he felt anymore. Hell, she’d never been sure of his feelings for her. “Ben…”

  “We’re friends, too.”

  She slid her naked breasts across his chest. “We’re just friends?”

  “What would Sebastian call it?” he asked. “Friends with benefits?”

  She smiled. “I’m liking these benefits.”

  “Right now I’m trying to concentrate on the friend part, Paige,” he said, his hands clenching her hips, holding her still. “I’m trying to remember what’s best for you instead of acting just on what I want.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You asked me to turn you,” he said, his voice raspy with emotion. “You said you wanted to be able to stay with me…”

  “We’re always going to be in each other’s lives,” she said. “It doesn’t matter whether or not we’re legally bound. We’re emotionally bound.” And nothing could break those bonds—now not even death.

  “I love you, Paige,” he said. “It’s been killing me to stay away from you.”

  “Then you should have come for me.” She gazed up at him, her eyes growing wet with unshed tears. “You shouldn’t have waited.” The days without him had seemed like months.

  He groaned. “I didn’t want to pressure you into making a decision I wanted for you—one that wasn’t good for you.”

  “It’s my decision to make,” she pointed out. “I want to be with you. Always.”

  “You would take that risk,” he asked, his voice deep with awe, “of turning—for me?”

  “I love you, Ben,” she said. “And there’s no risk.”

  His hand trembled as he slid his fingertips across her cheek and down her throat. “It is dangerous. There were so many mortals that took that risk because they fell in love with a member of the society. But they didn’t make it to eternity. They died.”

  “There’s no risk anymore,” Paige explained, “because I’ve already turned.”

  “What?” he asked, his dark eyes wide with shock. “How?” Then jealousy joined the shock. “Who?”

  “Ingrid turned me,” she said with a sigh, “like she turned you.”