First Drop of Crimson - Jeaniene Frost

by First Drop of Crimson (lit)

  “Denise.” Spade’s voice, rich and deep. “Open the door.”

  No way. He’d seen her as an animal. Her new lover had carted her around in a pet carrier, for crying out loud! What the hell was she supposed to say to him after that?

  Even now, the memory of being trapped in that tiny container made her break out into a sweat. She’d always hated small, tight spaces. Being shoved into one while knowing she wasn’t even human at the time had almost snapped her sanity completely.

  She just had to look at Cat and get a bright idea to change into her namesake. Why couldn’t she have thought about something else small and harmless? Something human?

  Denise’s stomach clenched and she burped, the taste of tuna following. That’s right, she’d eaten out of a bowl on the floor because just half an hour ago, she’d been an animal. Bile rose in her throat with merciless swiftness. She scrambled to the toilet, making it just in time and retching until her throat burned.

  A hard, cracking noise jerked her head up. Spade came into the bathroom, the door handle hanging off its perch. Denise yanked a towel over herself, her shame deepening. First Spade saw her eating from a bowl as an animal, now he saw her crouched naked over a toilet hurling her guts out.

  “Please get out,” she moaned.

  He knelt next to her. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

  An almost hysterical laugh escaped her. “What’s wrong? Are you serious?”

  Cool hands slid across her arms. Denise flinched back, but the wall behind her prevented her from avoiding his touch.

  “Don’t,” she said sharply.

  One glance had shown that Spade was his usual handsome, impeccable self, wearing pressed pants and crisp shirt, his scent a heady, natural cologne. In contrast, here she was, wearing only a towel, sweat-covered, and stinking like tuna vomit.

  Denise began to struggle when Spade pulled her into his arms, but it was just as futile as her attempts to get away when she was covered in fur. How could he bear to touch her like this, let alone be in the same room with her? If she could avoid herself, she would.

  “You don’t need to try to make this better, okay? Just please, Spade, leave me alone.”

  “This isn’t about you,” he responded, tightening his arms around her when she would have squirmed away. “I need this. Right now, I need it more than I’ve ever needed anything, including blood.”

  She didn’t say anything, torn between wanting to believe that and thinking he was lying just to make her feel better. And she did feel better in his arms. Oh, so much better! Like there was hope and reason in her world, instead of just the quicksand deterioration of both her body and her soul.

  “You scruffed me.”

  It came out without thought. Considering everything that had happened, that should have been the last thing on her mind.

  Something brushed across her head that felt like his lips. “My apologies, darling.”

  “How can you call me that?” Denise asked in a whisper. “If there was ever a good cause for breaking up with someone, turning into a four-legged creature is it.”

  “I’m a vampire. My closest friends are vampires and ghouls, and there’s a ghost floating right outside this room. I’ve dealt with demons, black magic, wraiths, and zombies in the past two years alone, so I’m afraid your shape-shifting isn’t going to send me fleeing away in fear.”

  Denise was silent for a moment. Then, “When you put it like that…you sound like a sicko.”

  Laughter shook his chest. “I can accept that.”

  Some of the crushing weight of her self-disgust lifted, but shame still swirled inside her. “Yeah, well, I’m a coward.”

  Spade eased away until he could look at her, a frown creasing his face. “Why would you say that?”

  She wanted to avoid his gaze, but that would be even more proof of her statement, so Denise looked right into his eyes as she spoke.

  “Because even though part of me thinks it’s murder, I’m going to give Nathanial to Raum. Not just to save my family, but to save my own ass.”

  “Of course we’re giving Nathanial to Raum,” Spade replied, waving a hand in dismissal. “You’re not offering up an innocent to settle your own debt. That would make you a coward, rather like Nathanial’s been, letting his descendants pay for him skipping out on Raum. Don’t tell me the sod didn’t know others would pay for it, either. You don’t renege on a deal with a demon and expect no consequences.”

  Spade turned her around until she fully faced him, his eyes flashing with green highlights. “And even if you begged me not to, I would still see Nathanial delivered to Raum. You’re not a coward, Denise. You actually don’t have a choice.”

  She was too emotionally wired to talk about Nathanial anymore. “I need to shower—and brush my teeth. Ugh, I’m never eating tuna or drinking milk again.”

  “Fine by me, but you need to eat something else, and soon.”

  Memory of Nathanial’s voice rang in her mind. Stress, pain, fear, hunger, horniness…all those things, if left to build, will trigger the change. Denise thought back to the times her hands had morphed. Nathanial was right; she’d been a combination of hungry, angry, horny, and stressed. Guess being stressed, hungry, then getting stabbed and seeing Spade’s reaction to it had blown through whatever defenses the tattoos had given her against Raum’s essence.

  Well, she certainly never intended to repeat that set of circumstances. A shiver went through Denise, her hand sliding beneath the towel to again feel the reassuring smoothness of her stomach. No fur, no gushing wound. She intended to keep it that way.

  Spade drew her to her feet, but didn’t leave. Denise cleared her throat, feeling her cheeks warm.

  “Ah, could you give me some privacy? I need to use the litter box.”

  His lips twitched at her bad pun, then he kissed her hand. “I’ll go find something for you to wear.”

  “What happened to the clothes in my suitcase?”

  “They’re at the bottom of the Mediterranean with the boat.”

  Oh. She hadn’t remembered much of what happened right after leaving the boat, more preoccupied with terror over suddenly being an animal.

  Denise gave Spade a wry smile. “Just put the sunken boat on my tab.” She might be girlfriend number ten-thousand-and-one to Spade, but so far, she’d probably proved to be the most expensive.

  “Stop fretting about things like that. I’m not.” Spade kissed her other hand. “I’ll see you soon.”

  He left, closing the door. Denise glanced at the dangling, useless handle and then her reflection. Any situation is better faced with an empty bladder and a clean body, she reminded herself. Oh, and a lack of tuna-vomit breath.

  After Spade laid some clothes out on the bed for Denise—and threw away the remnants of milk and tuna—he found Crispin in the drawing room, sipping a whiskey and swirling the liquid around in silent contemplation.

  “Where’s Nathanial?” Spade asked.

  “In one of the new vampire holding cells in the basement. Best place for him. He’d have to shift into vapor to escape that, not that he has any intention of trying to run away.” Crispin set down his glass with a sardonic snort. “He thinks you’re his bloody hero.”

  Spade sat across from him. “He said that? Or you heard it in his thoughts?”

  “His thoughts,” Crispin replied. “Bloke reckons you stole him away from Web to get his help in controlling the demon essence in Denise. He has no idea he’s to be exchanged for the removal of that essence.”

  Spade digested that without a hint of sympathy. He’d do far worse than sacrifice one unworthy sod who’d signed away his own fate to save Denise from the destructiveness of those brands.

  “We need to keep him away from Denise as much as possible. She’s already begun to feel guilty over the matter.”

  “Agreed. When do you intend to summon the demon?”

  Spade’s mouth twisted. “Like to do it straightaway, except there’s the small matter of my not knowin
g how to kill Raum. I don’t fancy trusting the demon at his word that he’ll release Denise instead of simply killing her, once he has Nathanial back.”

  Crispin gave him a shrewd look. “Your lad in the basement might prove useful for that. If he thinks you mean to destroy Raum, I wager he’d be more than forthcoming with any information he has to assist that.”

  Spade would wager that, too, but he had no intention of destroying Raum unless it was a last resort. He wanted the brands off Denise. Not to kill Raum on sight, dooming her to forever carrying the demon’s marks.

  “Cat’s sleeping?” he asked absently.

  Crispin nodded. “Once she knew Denise was safely back, she couldn’t hold out any longer.”

  Ian sauntered in, his turquoise gaze flicking over the two of them before he settled himself into a chair.

  “Wretched unfair, it is,” he remarked. “Of the three of us, I’m the one who’s always collected the rare and unusual, yet you two managed to snag the world’s most unusual women. First you, Crispin, with the only living half-breed, who then turned into an even more unusual vampire. And now you, Charles, have bagged a shape-shifter. Thought you were joking when you said Denise was the kitty. I’m simply green with jealousy.”

  “Denise won’t be a shape-shifter for long,” Spade said sharply. “And once she has those brands off, I don’t intend for her to remain human, either.”

  Even as the words left his mouth, the hairs on Spade’s neck stood on end. Crispin’s expression turning grim only confirmed it. Slowly, Spade turned around to meet Denise’s shocked gaze.

  “Bootleg and Lyceum were right. You really do expect me to turn into a vampire.” Her voice was incredulous. “Why would you think I’d do that?”

  Bones and Ian left the room without a word. Denise barely noticed them, concentrating on Spade’s face, hoping he’d tell her she had misunderstood what he meant.

  But he didn’t. Instead his expression darkened as he rose. “Why would I think you’d do that?” he repeated. “Why wouldn’t I, now that we’re together? You didn’t truly believe I’d be content to allow you to remain human, did you?”

  Denise felt betrayal welling up in her. He’d just decided she’d change her species without even talking to her about it? She’d been willing to fight her PTSD and stay in the vampire world, just to be with him. But no matter how sweet he acted toward her, he’d never gotten past his prejudice against her being a human. She’d thought Spade accepted her for who she was, but all along, it hadn’t been good enough.

  “I have always been clear about the fact that if I got these brands off, I was going back to being a normal human. That hasn’t changed.”

  Spade was in front of her in a blink, his hands gripping almost painfully into her shoulders.

  “You were willing to sacrifice your humanity to protect my life, yet you’re not willing to sacrifice it for our relationship?” He let out a cruel laugh. “And here I believed you when you said you weren’t interested in a casual shag, but clearly that’s all I am to you.”

  Denise shoved at him, but it didn’t even make him flinch. “I shouldn’t need to change into a vampire to be good enough for a relationship with you!”

  “Fancy being a ghoul instead? Fine, choose that,” he flared.

  She gaped at him. Did he really despise humans this much?

  “I’m not going to change my species just to be worthy of a relationship with you,” Denise got out, anger seeping over the hurt of his rejection. “If I’m not good enough for you as I am, then we’re through.”

  Spade’s eyes went green and fangs jutted out from his teeth. “So be it. I wish you joy of your short life.”

  He spun on his heel and strode out, his preternatural grace and speed emphasizing that the differences between them were insurmountable. Denise heard the front door slam seconds later. Only when she was sure that Spade had left the house did she finally allow her tears to fall.

  Chapter Thirty

  “That was impressively inept of you.”

  Spade cursed but kept walking through the dense forest that bordered the house, not deigning to respond to Ian.

  The crunching sounds of leaves continued behind him. “If I were a betting man, I’d wager the lass is in tears right now,” Ian went on.

  Spade’s jaw clenched. “Not bloody likely. She’s the one who just threw me away, not the reverse.”

  “Hmm. I suppose. If you’ve resigned yourself to things being over between you two, then I think I’ll wander back to the house and see if the fetching little shape-shifter is in need of any comfort—”

  Spade had Ian against a tree when a knowing laugh made him drop his hands.

  “Indeed, right finished with her, you are,” Ian taunted him.

  He forced himself to step back from Ian, cursing that he’d so easily fallen into that one.

  “It doesn’t matter that I still feel for her. She’s as good as dead as a human, and I’m not going through that again.”

  The knowledge burned like silver in his heart. Lovely, brave, stubborn Denise. Rotting in a grave within a few fleeting decades—if she was lucky. Sooner, if she wasn’t. He couldn’t tolerate that. It had nearly destroyed him with Giselda.

  “Your problem is you’re too bloody honorable for your own good,” Ian said. “Were I you, I’d change Denise over regardless of her objection.”

  Spade let out a cold laugh. “Mate, I know that better than anyone.”

  Ian shrugged. “Yes, you and Crispin would, wouldn’t you?”

  He stopped and gave a hard look at the vampire opposite him. Ian stared back, unapologetic, uncompromising. The same stare Ian had given him over two hundred and twenty years ago, when he’d been responsible for Spade being turned into a vampire. Ian might not have sired him, being too weakened after changing Crispin, but Spade was turned because Ian asked for a favor, ignoring that Spade hadn’t wanted it.

  For several long, merciless seconds, Spade considered that. He’d eventually forgiven Ian, after all. So had Crispin. True, Denise might hate him for a hundred years if he changed her despite her objections, but at least she’d be alive to hate him. Not feeding worms beneath the earth.

  But could he truly do that to her? Pretend to accept her humanity, and then snatch it away from her as soon as those brands were off? If he did, how could she ever trust him again? He and Crispin forgave Ian, yes, but the nature of their relationship had been very different as betrayed friends versus a betrayed lover.

  Or what if Denise didn’t realize it was a betrayal? She’d proved susceptible to the power of his gaze before. He could plant the idea in her mind to welcome changing over. She’d never even remember that it hadn’t come from her…

  With a violent curse, Spade shook his head and began walking again. “No. I’ll have something real with Denise, or nothing at all.”

  “Fool,” Ian called after him.

  He clenched his jaw again. That might be true, but it was his decision all the same.

  The knock on the bedroom door made Denise’s heart leap. “Come in,” she called out at once.

  That brief hope was extinguished when Bones entered instead of Spade. “Even if I couldn’t read your thoughts, your scent of disappointment is overpowering,” Bones noted.

  Denise flopped back in the bed. She’d been trying with no success to sleep in the hours since Spade stormed out. Had he left for good? He might have. Bones and Cat could more than handle giving Nathanial over to Raum.

  “Of course Charles didn’t leave for good,” Bones said, taking the chair near the bed. “He’s brassed off quite a bit, but he’ll be back by dawn at the latest.”

  “You know, I never realized how intrusive your mind-reading skills were,” Denise said dryly. “Can’t you switch to another channel or something?”

  “Don’t you realize how much Charles cares for you?”

  Denise scoffed. “You can’t care for what you don’t respect, and Spade has no respect for humans.”

&nbs
p; “That’s not true. Charles does respect humans. He’s just avoided caring for any human again because humans always die,” Bones said softly.

  “Vampires die all the time, too,” Denise countered. “There’s no such thing as immortality, no matter the species.”

  “Vampires can’t die from the passage of time, diseases, or accidents. No one can protect himself against every form of death, but death is so much closer to humans than vampires or ghouls. What happened with Web obviously inflated Charles’s fear of your mortality to the level that had him storming out when you rejected the notion of ever turning into a vampire.”

  “But I don’t want to be a vampire,” Denise said, frustrated. “Why is that such an unreasonable thing for Spade to understand?”

  “Because it means he’ll bury you one day,” Bones replied. “One day soon, to a vampire’s way of thinking. It’s not the same as a normal relationship, where there’s a chance that your life spans will be similar. With a human, an early death is guaranteed. If the situation were reversed, would you be content to let Charles die, if you could prevent it? Don’t you remember what you said when you found Randy’s body? You screamed at me to fix him. It was too late, but if it wasn’t, you would have demanded that I do whatever was necessary to ensure that you and Randy could still be together.”

  Memory sliced ruthlessly across her mind. Vampires everywhere, blood and dirt spattering them. She slipped, landing in something dark and sticky. The stain coated the floor, widening as it led to the kitchen. Green light from a passing vampire’s gaze shone on the large, misshapen lumps in front of her. What were those?

  Her stunned gaze diagnosed the shapes and she gagged. Pieces of a person were all around her. The glow of another vampire’s gaze reflected off something shiny on the small clump next to her leg. It was a hand, with a familiar gold and silver wedding band on it…