“Darling, I don’t find it an insult!”
“If you wouldn’t have started writing when you did, I probably would’ve never thought to find the software to read your books.” Meghan continued nervously. “As Chesca says, we both love your characters. They’re so rich, so alive, and seem to leap from the pages.”
She heard the unmistakable sound of tinkling laughter before Chesca jabbed another elbow into her waist. She was aware she was probably talking too much, and wasting the author’s precious time.
“I’m not offended, my dear.” The writer replied with a fresh honesty Meghan found disarming. “It’s always been a wish of mine to write novels as thrilling as the late Miss Carter’s romances. I adored her heroes and hated her villains, and the world lost a wonderful writer with her death.”
“I agree,” a sad smile pulled at her mouth and she tapped her white cane against the leg of the table. She was aware the woman behind her was shifting about, and the two of them were taking too much of their allotted time. Even so, enjoyed the encounter and wished they could have more time to speak.
“Would you please sign my latest copy of Rogue’s Deception?” Chesca inquired animatedly, extracting the hardback romance novel from her handbag. Meghan listened to pages flip, and imagined the author was looking for the cover sheet where she’d pen her dedication.
“Who do I dedicate this to?” The writer looked at the pair with eyes blazing fiery gold in the overhead lights. Chesca laughed nervously before supplying her name, carefully spelling it for Vivi Delaneaux’s benefit. There was a brief silence while the author scribbled, and Meghan stood silently nearby, patiently waiting.
Even though plentiful voices around her, Meghan was acutely aware of her surroundings. As Chesca exhaled, the overwhelming aroma of fresh brewed coffee filled her highly coveted, personal space. Behind her, there were the sounds of laughter, disgruntled statements regarding the line’s length, and soft hints of conversation.
As she listened, someone approached the author from beyond her desk. The steps were almost nonexistent on the carpet, the gentle tread an indiscernible whisper Meghan strained to hear. Abruptly, the scent of a man’s cologne invaded her senses, and she became aware of a titters of excitement among the assembly.
“I can’t thank you enough for your praise of my wife’s work.”
Meghan shivered slightly, detecting the smoky tones of the bayou, and wondered if the newcomer looked as stunning as he sounded. She didn’t have to wait as Chesca leaned in close, an appreciative whistle ruffling the wispy blond hair at Meghan’s ear.
Faint glitches of phrases filled the air around her, sounds of delight followed by gasps and a slight shriek. Disoriented by the clamor, she tried to decipher each phrase, indistinct bits of words catching here, wavering there, and confusing her more every passing second.
He’s the cover model…
Isn’t he delicious?
Did he say he was her husband?
God, how does she find time to write…?
“I’m afraid I didn’t catch your friend’s name.”
Chesca’s hands shook as she carefully dropped the autographed novel into her bag. Meghan felt the heat rise from her bare arm and realized the stranger’s appearance thrilled her friend.
“This,” she hugged Meghan, every word she uttered sounding strangled as she spoke to the man standing behind the author. “This is my friend, Meghan Stanley.”
Again, disturbingly cold fingertips brush her hand and she frowned. Little by little, she pulled back, pressing the long tube of her aluminum cane to her thigh. Clearly taking the hint, the contact lightened, and then disappeared.
“Chesca and Meghan,” the author’s voice held a smile that went far beyond the normal pleasantries. “This is my husband, Dom.”
The redhead cleared her throat, and Meghan wanted to laugh aloud. She hadn’t ever known Chesca to be at a loss for words, or incapable of forming any remark. She wished, for one moment, she could see the expression on the talented shop owner’s face. Pressing her fingers to Chesca’s arm, she felt her friend’s heart rate quicken and wondered if she were on the verge of a stroke.
“Chesca, are you okay?”
“Oh, Meg, I’m more than okay.” She managed excitedly before extending her hand to the author’s spouse. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to meet you, Mr. Delaneaux.”
“It’s a pleasure to learn I’ve as many fans as my wife.” He chuckled, his embarrassment obvious. “Please, feel free to call me Dom.”
Meghan felt herself wanting to melt at the sound of his voice. She tilted her head to the side, listening intently. She wondered why Chesca was giggling like a blasted schoolgirl, her breath escaping her in strangled little gasps as she shook the man’s gloved hand.
“Mr. Delaneaux…Dom, the pleasure is ….”
“What’s going on, Chesca?” Meghan touched her friend’s forearm, wondering what caused the commotion. Leaning close, she spoke from the corner of her mouth. “What’s the big deal? You’re carrying on like an Adonis walked into the bookstore.”
Again, Chesca laughed with glee, and the author echoed the sound. She heard a long and drawn out grunt escape the author’s spouse and sensed the man’s mortification.
“Do tell her, Chesca.” Vivi Delaneaux coaxed, standing and leaning close to the pair. There was a pronounced wickedness echoing in her tone, which accentuated Meghan’s curiosity.
“Tell me what?” Meghan inquired expectantly.
“I’m extremely fortunate to be married to one hell of a delicious man, if I may say so myself.” The author managed in an undertone, making the pair think they were privileged recipients of an important secret.
“Chesca, what's going on?”
“Meg, Miss Delaneaux’s husband is the cover model for her last few novels.” Her friend muttered from the side of her mouth.
“So?” She answered blankly. “Are you going to let me on what I obviously can’t see for myself?”
“God, honey, just this once, I wish you could!”
Meghan wanted to stomp her foot in annoyance, wondering why Chesca was consciously torturing her. Left in the proverbial dark, her face showed her great displeasure and she wanted to know why the writer’s husband was causing a stir.
“Dom Delaneaux is about average height, perhaps a little less than six feet,” her friend began in a hushed and appreciative tone. “His skin’s the shade of warm coffee mixed with cream. You know the type, Meg…he’s got that year-round color that makes us pale people envious.”
An image was slowly forming in Meghan’s active mind, and a slight smile shaped on her lips.
“Do go on,” she pleaded.
“His eyes are burnished gold, and slanted a little at the corners. His lashes curl at the tips, and are so thick a woman would kill to have a set.”
A low whistle escaped Meghan as a mental imaged expanded. “Continue…”
“His cheekbones raise high in his face, and his chin says he’s stubborn, but worth the fight.” Chesca complied, her remarks enhanced by a pleasant laugh from the author. “His shoulders are broad, and…”
“Rodrigo…” Meghan breathed dreamily.
“Ladies, I must insist you stop! Your descriptions are more than enough for any soul to handle!” Dom Delaneaux interrupted in embarrassment. “I don’t know if I enjoy being verbally undressed any more than I’m fond of having my half-naked torso gracing my wife’s scandalous novels!”
Meghan chuckled throatily, the sound as mysteriously breathless as that of her friend. From Chesca’s description, she understood the excited murmurs. Suddenly, the animated giggles made perfect sense! If her assumptions were correct, the man was the very image of the hot-blooded heroes filling the author’s highly erotic novels, and he was an eyeful for the writer’s adoring fans.
“Mr. Delaneaux, I’m so sorry we’ve embarrassed you.” Meghan managed with absolute sincerity, desperately attempting to control her sly smile as a heavy blush st
ained her cheeks. “I’m at an obvious disadvantage and my friend was drawing a picture for me, so I could better imagine how you look.”
“Miss Stanley, I suppose I can overlook the humiliation this once.” Despite his soothing tone, Meghan sensed his tenseness. In the midst of his statement, she realized someone else approached, and hovered behind the author’s table. Faintly, she detected the person clearing his throat, while the fragrance of sandalwood wafted intoxicatingly around her.
“Who is narcissistic now, Dom?” A strangely familiar voice interjected in a laughing undertone.
“Shut the hell up, Gianni!” The biting remark lacked any of the previous humor.
“Come, come, Dom.” The man continued cajolingly. “I’ve never found it a disgrace to allow beautiful women to admire you.”
The voice sent a quiver of chills spiraling up her spine, and flashes of that fateful night came vividly back. The putrid alleyway, the rough hands groping her flesh, and the coppery aroma of blood caused her to inhale deeply. She shuddered abruptly and her lashes fluttered over her pale lenses.
“You can be a nuisance…”
“The shoe is not so attractive when on another’s foot.”
“You can’t even get the analogy right, can you?” The author’s husband ground out. Surprisingly, the stranger didn’t make a defensive retort and chuckled instead.
“Perhaps I chose not to be correct, to keep your attention.” The man responded and Meghan sensed he had rested his gaze on the two women. “Care to introduce me, mi bella?”
Vivi Delaneaux cleared her throat loudly and turned toward them, an enchanting cloud of exotic perfume emanating from her skin. “Amado, this is Chesca and her delightful friend, Meghan Stanley.”
“I believe we’ve met.” Meghan consciously pointed her face in his direction. She’d never forget his voice, the delicately accented tones haunting her late into the night. “Though, it would’ve been more polite if you introduced yourself in that alleyway, instead of disappearing when Chesca appeared.”
Chapter Six
The book signing ended as the stars began to fill the sky, the enthralling murmur of night creeping down the crowded streets and breathing a tantalizing chill of early autumn into the air. The crowd dissipated as Vivi Delaneaux bid her farewells to giggling fans and bookstore employee alike, before escaping the enclosing walls on the arm of her handsome husband, her bright hair covered with a dark scarf.
Amado stood on the doorstep of the store, after granting his friends a fond farewell, and sniffed at the air. Despite the delightful aromas of fall, and the nip in the night breeze, a different scent clung to the wind. The fragrance was seductive and as unforgettable as a spirit lost in the mortal world. He was familiar with the aroma, for it echoed his own, and was ripe with evil decadence.
Somewhere in the night, nearby, Declan Balthazar waited.
His eyes scanned beyond the streetlights, latching to the shadows presented by the overhanging eaves of the buildings across the street, before resting on the century old trees lining the sidewalk. Declan savored the dark, and the hunt, and he’d find the most advantageous vantage point among so many mortals.
It didn’t take long for Amado’s notice to become riveted to the solitary figure watching him in return, casually leaning into the comfort of an oak, and the beacon of startling blondish-white hair as bright as a ray of moonlight. Outright defiance glittered in the burnished gold of his eyes as he acknowledged the other’s presence, the black flecks radiating with resentment.
He, alone understood what Declan was doing…he was waiting, and watching. In fact, when considering the alternatives, there wasn’t any doubt in Amado’s mind Declan was on the prowl, and seeking an innocent quarry to appease his insatiable hunger.
He stepped aside, allowing the double doors of the store to open wide as a giggling Chesca led her sightless friend outside. Meghan Stanley’s steps were slow, measured, as if she intended to try cautiously each step before she took the next. He took note to her excited gasp as the redhead giggled over the evening’s events, her sentences laced with Dom’s name.
“I swear that I’ll have to keep a better eye on you…” Meghan began, shaking her head as Chesca laughed uproariously.
“You’re gonna keep an eye on me?” She retorted with an amused chuckle. “Damn, I’d love to see that!”
“I don’t need to keep a literal eye on you, girl!” A dimple formed in her cheek as she flipped a thick swathe of golden hair over her shoulder. “I remember you from high school and those horrid things you’d persuade me to do, when you thought no one was looking.”
“Ah, hell, Meg! I pulled those stunts years ago, when I was young enough only to wind up in Juvie!” Chesca winked roguishly at her friend. “I can tell you I’m not as shocking as I used to be!”
Meghan paused, the rubber tip of her cane tapping at the ground at her feet. Ruefully, she tilted her head and Amado marveled how the moon highlighted her features with an ethereal glow. He felt the memory of his heart accelerate and he swallowed the thick lump forming in his throat. His hand shook as he grasped the iron balustrade of the bookstore, feeling slightly unsteady.
“You were never bad, Chesca, only outrageously wicked.” Meghan countered with a playful jab in the general direction of her friend. “All the years have done is made you not worry your mother would catch you.”
“Nope,” she retorted with a snicker. “She’s too busy burying husbands to pay notice to what I do nowadays.”
Meghan’s attention noticeably perked at the caustic remark. “Burying husbands?”
“Yep,” Chesca declared with a careless shrug. “I forget you haven’t been by to visit her in several years.”
“So what’s this about burying husbands?”
“Husband Number Four has taken a walk to the corner of Asbury and Vine, to join the company of Husband Two and Three.”
Meghan breathed in, remembering the slight birdlike figure once the bane of Chesca’s existence. She frowned, recalling the petite woman with the strawberry blonde hair and dark eyes who swore her daughter was going to send her to an early grave. Instead, while her friend prospered, her mother remained troubled by dreadful luck.
“I wish she’d find someone who’d love her as she deserves, and give her everything she wants without dying on her.” She murmured, truthfully hoping the best for the woman.
“She probably has,” Chesca supplied with ease. “If she’d stop thinking each husband was my dad, maybe they’d live long enough to keep her happy.”
Despite herself, Meghan laughed. Deep and husky, her humor caused Amado to step nearer, his attention riveted to the slight movement of the muscles in her throat. The slender column of her neck arched and he watched the play of bluish veins beneath the skin, each pulsing with enchanting life.
Thoughts of relishing her blood vanished. Entranced, he savoring her mirth, wishing he could grasp life with both hands and find humor in the most mundane. He closed his eyes, her voice delicately wafting over his frosty flesh and making him long for the past.
She drew him into a silky web he imagined lost and forgotten, he professed. Abruptly, he realized he craved her touch, and her fresh scent, before his mind sank into a forbidden realm from his human existence. Smiling to himself, he contemplated if her lips were sweet. Even as one of the undead, he wanted to enjoy the simple delights of the living. He’d take only a kiss, and the fleeting delight of sinking into her affectionate embrace
“She’d be utterly and marvelously delicious, wouldn’t she?”
The gently uttered words fluttered across the distance, unheard to normal human ears. Amado instantly straightened and his eyes thinned to slits. His nostrils flared as he looked to his side, realizing the demon responsible for his death stood at his shoulder.
“What do you want, Declan?”
“I’ve been patient with you, Gianni,” he breathed, his features as young as they had been in the autumn of 1926.
Grudgingl
y, Amado envied how easily he blended into the times. His appearance was eternally youthful, and only his clothes changed. Presently, he wore a crisp white shirt, a worn leather jacket, and snug fitting jeans. His hair was slightly longer, but he still was handsome and disarmingly suave.
“You’ve been patient?” Amado echoed the words, sensing there was an underlying tone of lethality in the accusation.
“I’ve waited for more years than I care to count for you to join my forces. Still, you continue to disappoint me.” A benign smile remained plastered to his face. “You were meant to bring in fresh blood to The Sanctum.”
“I’ve tried your world, Declan, when I was new to this existence.” Amado reminded him sullenly. He deciphered what every black fleck in his golden gaze stood for---an innocent life he’d taken needlessly. “Those atrocities you call your colleagues, those forming your vile little organization, don’t interest me.”
“Do you mean the members of The Sanctum? They’ll be so displeased to know you find them repulsive, after all we’ve done for you.” He laughed aloud but the sound was ugly.
“You’ve cursed me, tormented me, and haunted me.” Amado refused to become angered. “Is there any specific reason you consider it necessary to watch my every move? Wouldn’t it have been far simpler to ignore the mistake of my creation?”
“Centuries old bloodsuckers we are, we do believe in preserving our own inner workings and beliefs.” Suaveness, and deliberate unflappability, oozed from Declan’s form. “I’ll draw you into The Sanctum, even if it takes eternity.”
“I don’t have any intent of being a member of your accursed Sanctum!” Amado disagreed hotly, and then paused, struggling to restrain himself. “I don’t care for your evil ways, and prefer to live in my own fashion, away from your vileness.”
Tears of Blood (The Blood Chronicles) Page 8
