“It is day,” he said. “You cannot go outside—”
“I’ll find a way! Go!”
“You cannot,” Cavedweller growled, blocking our way with his bearmen. “She must come with us, or we must go also. We are not to let her out of our sight. Those were my orders.”
I didn’t have time for this. I shoved him aside, and he shoved me back. His push was incredibly powerful—I went through the interior wall and lodged halfway in.
Everything happened at once. Uther called loudly for his men, and grabbed hold of Anna, morphing into his batform. The bears tried to hold him, but he broke free, screeching, and his men flooded the room, attacking the bears.
I tried to get myself out of the wall, shouting I was going to kill Cavedweller, all his men, Joshua, and that fucking Indian Chief vampire, too, if I didn’t get Anna to Rene in time. I worked myself out of the wall a second later, and ran outside, putting on my coat. The pain of the sun’s rays on my skin was instantaneous. I shrieked, and kept running, seeing my wrists that were uncovered smoking, feeling my face peeling. I ran on, because I couldn’t do anything else.
I entered the shade of the forest, and the pain lessened, though I was still burning. Finally, I made it to Rene and Ravel’s house, just in time to fall in the door when the latter opened it.
Ravel shut the door behind me. Then he helped me stagger into Anna, who was lying on the floor, Uther and Rene beside her. There was another man there who looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him.
“This is Titus,” Rene said softly. “I am not well versed in healing, but he is.”
Rip’s brother, who had worked for Louis. Had she summoned him from Hell?
“Everyone out,” Titus rumbled, looking up at me with red eyes, “Save you, Vampire.”
Soon, we were alone.
“She is dying,” he rumbled softly. “There is nothing I can do.”
“No, I can turn her—”
“You do, and she will be miscarrying forever,” Titus rumbled. “Or at best, she will be pregnant forever, and never come to term, never bring forth life. How long do you think she could bear that, vampire? How long could you?”
The world stopped, and there was only that moment, that instant where I could feel my heart dying within my chest, knowing I was helpless to save Anna.
I felt his hand on my shoulder. “If you really love her, let her go.”
I let out a sob, put my face in my hands and tried to get a hold of myself.
“Speak to her,” he rumbled gently. “She can hear you, Devlin. She would want you to speak to her, to hear you tell her you love her one last time.”
I swallowed and tried to speak, but no words came out. Tears were already falling from my eyes, and I couldn’t see. I wiped them away angrily.
A door closed gently as Titus left.
I took Anna, and clasped her in my arms gently. “Anna?”
Like magic, her eyes opened and she looked up at me. “I’m sorry,” she said brokenly. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better wife to you.”
I put my lower fang through my upper lip to hold on, trying not to fall to pieces. “Love, you have nothing to be sorry for. I’m sorry that I was not human, that I couldn’t have given you the family you deserved, that I didn’t…that I couldn’t...”
I fought myself and finally got the words out.
“That I wasn’t enough of a man to let you try with someone else,” I whispered brokenly. “It would have been easy for you, with another human. But I just couldn’t bear the idea of you having someone else’s child. I was selfish, and stupid—”
She looked up at me, and faintly smiled. “You dolt,” she whispered. “I wanted your child. That was the point.”
I dissolved into tears. “Please don’t leave me,” I cried, embracing her desperately. “Please Anna, please, don’t leave me!”
“I love you, Dev,” she said weakly, her eyes misting over. “I’ll always love you.”
Then she twisted in my arms, letting out a soft cry, and relaxed completely, her body going limp as her life left her. I screamed with everything I had, all my rage and pain and my shattered broken heart. Around me, all the house windows splintered and broke into shards.
I cried for a long time, holding her body, feeling it grow cold in my arms. Then I lay her gently down, and went to walk out into the sun.
Uther and Ravel stopped me. I fought them, but they held me, even as Rene locked the door in front of me.
“Take him back to France, Ravel,” Rene said quietly. “It is night there. Take him back, and turn him loose. Follow him, but do not interfere.”
* * * *
I do not remember much of that night. I remember arriving in France, somewhere in Paris, in the bad section. I remember Ravel taking his hand off me, and stepping back. I remember the first woman I killed, a young girl who was eighteen, if that. She was walking her little poodle. She screamed at the sight of me, and I ripped out her throat, and drank until she was dry. It was good that the dog ran, or I’d have killed it just as I killed its master.
I killed many that night. I was not discriminate, I killed everything I came across, vampire, human, wereman, faerie, and witch. I ran across all but the last more than once.
Ravel followed, and watched me. Although he threw up a few times that I remember, he did nothing but follow. At dawn, he teleported me back to my home. Rene was waiting there, with Uther.
“Did you conceal what happened?” she asked Ravel.
He gave her a look. “You didn’t tell me to do that.”
“Idiot,” she said, sounding very angry. “Why did you think I sent you with him?”
“Protection? I don’t know! You never tell me your plans, Sister!”
“Go home,” she said, turning away. “You’re useless!”
Ravel swore, and abruptly disappeared.
“Was that wise?” Uther rasped.
“Probably not,” Rene said. “But I was angry.”
“We are finished with the cairn,” Uther whispered, as if I couldn’t hear. “Should we lay her in it?”
“Yes,” Rene said sadly. “Let him remember her as she was, not as she looks now. He may wish to build a bigger monument one day.”
Uther nodded and then turned to me. “I am sorry,” he said more gently than I’d ever heard him say anything. “She was everything a woman should be, friend. I am grateful I got to know her.”
I nodded absently. He left, shutting the door behind him.
Rene did not speak. She came to me, and helped me disrobe. She cleaned my body off as Anna had done a little over a year before, but she gave no sign it affected her as a woman. When she was done, she took the towels, and rinsed them out, leaving them to dry near the rack on the sink.
“Get some rest,” she said in her soft voice. Then she left, too.
I lay there for a long time, crying a little, and trying hard not to think. How could I ever rest? How could I go on?
I sat up, and ran my hands through my hair, noticing that it was long as it had been when I’d been turned, and that my beard was back. How long had it been since I’d left it like this, and not shaved? Ever since Anna had first shaved me, and given me that compliment.
I felt another wave of loss so severe it was crippling. How could I go on without her? Why the hell would I want to bother?
My eyes found L’Amour at the foot of the bed, sleeping. Her kittens had long since left for new homes. I had placed them with families of their own, at Anna’s request, and they lived in nearby villages to the south. Isolated as we were now, it was unlikely L’Amour would ever be pregnant again.
How long would the cat live? Ten years, fifteen more at the most? What would I do for those years? How would I fill them, so I didn’t go crazy?
I got up, and put on some pants and a shirt. If there was ever a time I needed to know what the future held, it was now.
* * * *
I got to Rene and Ravel’s house just as dawn broke over the hor
izon. As she had always been before, Rene was waiting for me in her cloak, the hood obscuring her face.
She let me in, and then bolted the door behind me. Again, she put another log on the fire, but this time she crouched before it.
“Ravel is in Ireland, nursing his wounded pride,” she said absently. “I should not have been so hard on him. It was not his fault.”
“No, it was your fault,” I said harshly. “How could you have seen so much in France, and nothing here? How could you have not foreseen Anna’s death?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I loved her as a friend. I didn’t want her to die.”
“You should have warned me—”
“I did warn you,” she said, throwing the poker violently to the floor. “You didn’t listen, Dalcon! I warned you there was risk, and I warned her, too! I told you both that this might happen, that it had always happened before! I tried to get you to change your minds!”
“You should’ve tried harder!” I shouted at her. “What good is a witch who knows when you are coming, but can’t see the love of your life dying?”
“I’m sorry,” she said in a muffled voice.
For some reason, that enraged me. “You’re a shell of a woman! Always skulking around in that cloak, wearing gloves, and hiding your face! What the hell do you have, leprosy? Are you so ugly that you’re afraid you’ll scare people? Why can you not be more like Anna? She was never afraid to show her face to me! She never hid herself from me!”
“I would be her for you if I could,” Rene gasped out.
Belatedly, I realized she was sobbing, that she had crumpled under my words and was now huddled before the fire.
I closed my eyes and sighed. Then I went to the fire, easing down beside her.
“I’m sorry,” I said, hating how weak I sounded. “It isn’t your fault, Rene.”
She didn’t answer.
I deduced she needed me to hold her, and I brought her close, hugging her slight body to mine. She turned in my arms, burrowing close to me, even as she cried harder, her sounds muffled by her cloak’s hood.
“Please don’t cry,” I whispered softly.
To my surprise it worked. Rene sniffed, and choked a little, and then she was quiet. I noticed she was shaking slightly. Then I realized she was trembling.
“Why are you trembling?” I asked gently. “Are you afraid of me?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
I felt despicable. “Don’t be afraid of me,” I said gently. “I’m not going to hurt you, like I hurt those people last night.”
Again, she didn’t answer.
I reached down inside her hood and gently cupped her face in my hands, tilting it up to face me. My eyes met blue-green eyes the color of the sea.
She seemed unable to hold my gaze, looking at me for a moment, and then looking away, only for her eyes to return to mine again. She was shaking harder now.
I slid my hands up from her face. She immediately looked down, and I pushed back her hood. Her hair was a gold blond color as mine was, though hers was much darker. There were streaks in it of both a light gold, and of light silver. I ran my hands through it, and it fell shimmering in the firelight in waves down her back, the ends resting on the floor.
“You are beautiful,” I said in a kind of wonder, again cupping her face in my hands. “Why did you hide yourself under this?”
Again, she didn’t answer.
I made her look at me. “Rene, why?”
She reached out with tentative hands and touched my lips. She had taken off her gloves. Her hands were delicate and feminine.
I reached up with my hand, and caught hers in it. Then I kissed it delicately. She let out a sigh.
Something broke in me, and I crushed her to me, my mouth devouring hers. Rene was shaking hard, but she kissed me back with enough fire to make my blood sizzle. Then she pulled back from me, tearing her cloak over her head. Under it, she wore only a thin shift. She took that off as well, baring her body to my lustful eyes.
I was trembling myself, struggling with my own clothes. Finally I gave up and ripped them, pushing the shreds aside and pulling her astride me. I kissed up her neck frantically, my hands roaming her body. She was crying out, moving against me in desperate need to be filled.
I rolled over on her, and moved to enter her. To my shock, I felt her grab hold of my stiff organ, and guide it into her. I let out a scream, and began thrusting immediately, pistoning in and out of her as fast as I could. Rene cried out loudly, gripping me as though she was drowning, her warm body wet and slippery from her need of me.
A moment later, she came screaming my name “Devlin!”
A half second later I came, emptying myself into her completely, my muscles contracting over and over as I gasped out my release. I lay there shaking, feeling her shake under me, wondering what to say or what not to.
“I’m sorry,” Rene said gently. “I didn’t mean to call out your name.”
I knew it was because of Anna. “It’s not like you didn’t have the right,” I said, drawing back from her a little. “But call me Dev, please. And no more ‘Dalcon.’ Agreed?”
“Agreed,” she said shyly.
I moved off her, but I was unwilling to let her go. She seemed just as unwilling to let me go.
“Did you hide yourself all this time because you wanted this to happen between us?”
She cleared her throat and looked up at me. “The truth is, I dreamed of you. I dreamed of you from the first, us hand in hand.”
“When? After we’d met?”
“When I was young,” she said almost ruefully. “When I had no silver streaks in my hair, and thought love was an easy thing to feel.”
“Why?”
“I asked for a vision,” she said almost wistfully. “I asked to see the face of the man I was supposed to be with, that I might know him when I found him.”
I didn’t know what to say or feel. Luckily for me, she kept talking.
“I gave up after twenty years,” she whispered. “I thought it had been a false vision, it happens sometimes. But when Uther brought you to me that night, I knew it was you. I couldn’t face you, not like it was nothing, not when it was you. I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to you. So I spoke only to him. I learned that night you had a woman already, and that you were vowed to one another.”
I stared down at her. “How could you say nothing, knowing what you did?”
She sighed. “You were happy. As much as I was angry that you loved someone else, I couldn’t hate Anna. What was there to say? That I’d dreamed of you first, so you had to leave her? You didn’t know me, Dev. And the truth is you didn’t want to.”
She was right. I nodded. “Go on.”
“I did everything I could that night to see what would happen to you and to her. I saw into the future. I saw your brother, he and Anna together, and what you did after. I saw your mansion in flames. Lastly I saw us fleeing to America, and ending up at Hayden—”
“Haven,” I corrected.
“Hayden sounds better,” she said with a smile. “After that night, I couldn’t see further, no matter what I tried. But I did what I could to minimize the effects of what I did see, so you and Anna didn’t end up dead, you or any of your friends.”
“I thank you for that,” I said gently, kissing her again.
She pushed me back. “I’m not finished! When my visions ended, I asked you what you wanted most and tried to give it to you. Then everything fell apart.” She paused, and then she tentatively reached up to caress my face. “But I can see now, Devlin. I can see it all, right to the end.”
“You see my death?” I said, relieved. “Tell me how long that cat’s going to live, please. I can’t stand another twenty years.”
“You are going to live easily ten times that,” Rene said, hugging me tightly. “And there will be friends, good friends. Some will come in surprising forms. But there will be terrible enemies, too.”
I was dismayed, but maybe s
he was just trying to make me feel better. “And is there a woman?” I said, stroking her hair.
“Many,” she said, grinning widely. “But only one besides Anna you’ll love.”
I felt irritated, as she probably was trying to make a reference to herself. “Not likely—”
“You’ll know her, Dev,” she whispered gently. “When the time comes, you will know it’s her, if you remember my words.”
It sounded as if she was talking of some other woman far in my future. That made me nervous. “Enough talk, Rene. Let us not waste any more of this day with words.”
I expected her to protest, to tell me I was being an ass. Instead, she kissed me passionately, and then began to work me in her hand.
No one had touched me like that in years, and I stiffened immediately. Rene straddled me, even as I strained to get deeper inside her, wanting to lose myself in her. A few moments later, we were again spent, and gasping.
“Are you so fast usually?” she said, giving me an amused look.
“Are you?” I retorted.
“I have not been with a man since first meeting you,” she said with a fulfilled sigh. “So yes, I am out of practice.”
I smiled a little at her, and held her warm body to mine.
“Lie still,” she said gently. “Don’t move.”
She began to kiss me. Then she worked her way lower, until I felt her lips touch my manhood. I tensed up from the shock of it, and she laughed seductively.
“Shh,” she said tenderly. “I’ll not hurt you.”
I felt her slip her lips over me, and then her sucking gently, as she stroked me with her tongue.
There are no words to describe it physically, if you aren’t a man. It is like being worshipped, to feel a woman touch you lovingly so intimately, to trust her that much, to let her hold all that makes you man in her hand and choose to make love to you, instead of hurting you. It is the only way a powerful man can feel truly vulnerable, can allow himself to lose control. I have never understood some women’s disgust at the act, or their reluctance to perform it. I can only say thank God that not all women feel that way.
I had not felt a woman touch me like that since I was mortal. I went crazy, moaning and crying out, tearing the rug beneath me as she loved me. She felt my orgasm was near, and she slid down, taking all of me into her mouth. I tried to stop, reaching down to dislodge her. I was larger than the average man, and besides that, I was a powerful vampire. I could hurt her easily if I came in her, and I might not have loved her, but I sure as hell didn’t want to cause her pain.
Immortal Confessions Page 23
