by Lee, Rachel
Creed ignored that. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m on my way north. Julianne suggested I join her where the nights are very long. I heard you were here so I thought I’d say hello.”
All these centuries, and Luc still had a hint of French in his English. And Creed didn’t believe this visit was en passant. “Nice of you.”
Luc laughed. “You don’t trust me, my friend.”
“Do I have reason not to?”
“No. Of course not. I also heard that something ugly is trying to happen here.”
Creed tensed slightly, but forced his face to remain smooth. Alliances among vampires tended to be born of necessity, not desire, and friendship was even rarer. “So it seems. Who did you hear from?”
“The whispers are everywhere. Your friend, Jude Messenger, is getting quite a reputation. I hear he had a difficult case a few months ago.”
“Yes.”
“And I hear something is going on now. People talk, you know. Even humans get wind of things, and we listen. Then, of course, I planned my trip so we might share a glass or two, and when I got close I smelled something.” Luc’s usually cheerful face darkened. “Asmodai.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He tried in Marseilles five years ago, my friend. He tried. He killed my Natasha.”
Creed felt an immediate pang. Natasha had been lovely, and she and Luc had seemed to be such a perfect fit. The kind of claiming that would never cause trouble. “I’m sorry, Luc. I didn’t hear about it.”
“You’re so buried in your books I doubt you hear much, Creed. I have a score to settle. You know what I mean.”
Indeed Creed did. Luc had claimed Natasha, which meant he would stop at nothing to avenge Natasha’s death. Nothing. Vengeance or death would be all that would end Luc’s claiming.
And Creed could well see the problems that might be caused by an unhinged vampire hunting Asmodai. But first some questions. “You’re saying he got through? How? And how did you send him back?”
Luc shrugged. “I don’t have answers, my friend. But I want them now.”
“Let me call Jude,” Creed said, pulling out his cell. “You can’t do this alone. What’s more, you can’t just waltz into this and create havoc. There are other lives at stake, Luc.”
“I know that. You think I care?”
In an instant, Creed turned predatory. Gone was the veneer he wore. He snarled and half crouched. His voice deepened, no longer sounding human. “Listen to me, Luc. If you do anything that causes harm to Jude and his people, or to that woman I’m protecting, I’ll take you out myself.”
Luc’s eyes turned black, but he didn’t snarl back, or threaten. “I don’t want to hurt you or Jude. But I’ll do what I must.”
Before Creed could say another word, Luc disappeared over the edge of the terrace wall. By the time Creed gathered himself, he was certain that Luc had vanished into the shadows.
At once he called Jude, tension tightening his nerves until they felt like steel cables.
This was bad news indeed, and the main focus of his concern was Yvonne, sleeping so innocently in his bed. Now he had to protect her not only against a demon, but against a maddened vampire.
And he was damned if he knew which might be worse.
From somewhere just outside of time, Asmodai watched, pleased. The pieces in this little game had just come together. Luc could act against the other two undead, and create the opening it needed. Satisfied that it had created a volatile mix, it turned its attention to other amusements. For now.
Chapter 6
Yvonne awoke at nearly ten the next morning. The digital clock on the bedside table cast a red glow through the room. At least she thought it was morning. It had to be because she couldn’t have slept through until the following night. Sitting up, she reached around for the lamp she remembered being beside her. When she flicked it on, it provided minimal illumination.
The room was utterly silent except for her own movements. So silent she thought she must be alone. But when she rolled over to look, she saw Creed stretched out on the floor, fully clothed, flat on his back. He appeared to be sleeping.
She held her breath, listening, and realized he truly wasn’t breathing.
So it was all true. It hadn’t been a crazy dream.
Quietly, although she didn’t know why she felt the need for stealth, she climbed out of bed and crept over to him. When she knelt beside him, she put her ear to his lips.
Definitely not breathing. Then she rested her hand over his heart and waited. No heartbeat. None.
She jerked back, partly because she felt she was trespassing, and partly because the reality of her situation came home to her again.
It was real. All of it.
A shuddering sigh escaped her, and she continued to kneel beside him, absorbing the realities she hadn’t fully connected with the night before.
Last night she had accepted everything, but now the truth of it hit, and it hit hard. What had she been thinking last night?
Nothing, evidently. Everything had seemed so casual and so muffled that at some level nothing had penetrated. Yes, she’d experienced that thing in her apartment. Yes, she’d seen Creed move so fast he seemed to vanish and reappear, she’d watched him drink blood, she’d seen his eyes turn to chips of black coal.
But something had kept the reality of it all from coming home.
Now, suddenly shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, she wanted to deny it all, to cram reality back into its familiar box and lock out all the things that belonged in fantasy, not reality. She wanted to go back to the relative safety of the world she had lived in before Creed, before that god-awful feeling in her apartment. A world where things like this only happened in the pages of a book.
But lying before her on the floor was a man who, for all intents and purposes, was dead. She felt body-slammed as last night rushed home at last to her brain and her emotions. Gasping for breath, she pushed herself back on her hands and knees away from him.
It was true. All of it was true. And she could no more escape from that knowledge than she could return to her apartment and resume a normal life.
Shock lifted its hazy veil and left her with a world forever changed. For once, with the evidence lying right in front of her, denial wasn’t going to work.
She could run away right now. Every cell in her body wanted to do exactly that. But she vividly remembered his warning not to open the door. He had trusted her, and not even fear could make her betray that trust.
But, God, with her brain running in crazy, pointless circles like a hamster in a wheel, unable to find a place to stop and rest in this new world, she didn’t know how she was going to handle this.
A vampire. For real.
She slid away even farther until her back was to the wall. An internal earthquake rattled her, worse even than when she had learned Tommy was cheating. Cheating, at least, fit into things that happened in the real world. But not vampires. Most definitely not.
Nor did demons, actually, and certainly not the prince of them. Yet according to someone her friend Detective Pat Matthews trusted, she was facing exactly that.
So what, she asked herself, was worse? Being hunted by a demon or protected by a vampire?
Neither question seemed to make sense. They sounded ridiculous, ludicrous, even within the private confines of her own mind.
Finally she put her head in her hands and waited, just waited. So much adrenaline would not help her think. Not at all.
Not that she felt afraid of him. Maybe she should. Maybe it would be wise. But he’d been honest with her, and she trusted him to be a man of his word.
She ought to know better than that, given Tommy, but Creed struck her as a far better man. He’d given her the truth, after all, even when it could have caused him serious problems.
Curious, she crept close again and reached out to touch his cheek. Smooth. Cool. Room temperature, as he’d said, but not chilly. And not even the
tiniest bit of evidence of beard growth. She snatched her hand back in surprise, then slowly reached out again. Definitely no beard stubble. Yet his skin still felt smooth and supple. Alive even though he evidently was not. How weird was that?
Inevitably, she took the opportunity to drink him in with her eyes. He was a very handsome man, with patrician features and a firm jaw. The kind of face that would always draw a woman’s eye. When he was awake, the golden color of his eyes was beautiful. The black not so much. She needed to ask him why his eyes changed like that, and when.
But first she needed to absorb all the shocks. To just let it all roll through her until it found a place to settle.
Finally she drew back to the table where he’d set her computer, another lamp and beside it her suitcase. To her surprise, she discovered he’d left the coffeemaker for her, plugged in and ready to brew a pot. She switched it on, then turned so she could watch him again.
Reason and instinct warred for a while, but finally, being a realist, she had to admit that the things she had seen and experienced could have no other explanation than the one he’d given her: that he was a vampire. She could still question whether a demon was stalking her, but she couldn’t question what she’d seen with her own eyes.
So okay, she needed to knit together a new version of reality, and as she sat there sipping coffee, she realized it really wasn’t that difficult. There was so much about the world that was still unknown. Why not vampires?
And if vampires were mostly like Creed and Jude, why should she panic? Really. In fact, even if most vampires weren’t like Creed and Jude, what did it matter? They were the only vampires she knew.
She continued to stare at Creed, vaguely aware that she was growing hungry, but unable to stop looking. God, she felt as if her interest in him was evolving into a craving. How could that be? For heaven’s sake, he was undead. But even just looking at him was enough to make her pulse pound a little, and a hard ache to occur between her legs.
Oh, she’d been so intelligent and bright last night, saying he must be natural or he wouldn’t exist. And it was true. But at some level she didn’t quite believe that. Or did she?
Sighing, giving up the internal arguments at last, she resigned herself to the fact that no amount of reasoning or emotion would change the basic facts: Creed appeared to be exactly what he said he was, and regardless of what he was, she wanted him with a kind of longing she’d never really felt before. Not even for Tommy.
“Don’t be stupid,” she said aloud. Creed never stirred. So okay, he was dead. Undead. Whatever. And she was being stupid because what did she know about vampires except silly stories from myth and novels? Evidently a lot of what she thought she knew was wrong.
What was more, he had showed her the ultimate trust. There he lay, completely helpless, and he’d shared his room with her. He’d trusted her not to take advantage of his vulnerability in his death sleep, or whatever it was. Because even though he said he could wake up if necessary, she suspected there were a whole lot of terrible things she could do to him that he couldn’t protect himself from quickly enough…like opening the bedroom door and letting in the sunlight.
His trust cracked through the last of her fear. How could she fear someone who had put his life in her hands?
Eventually, after her shower and change, she faced the refrigerator. On top of it sat some boxes of crackers, a few plates and flatware. She hesitated, however, when it came to opening the small fridge. She knew most of what she would find in there: bags of blood. Why that should make her hesitate after watching Creed drink it, she didn’t know. For the first time she saw the biohazard container tucked in beside it. That seemed curious.
Finally she opened the refrigerator door and felt surprised that it wasn’t full of bags of blood. In fact, there were only three in there. The rest of the space was filled with leftovers from last night’s meal and the unopened cheese that had been in his kitchen the day before.
After a moment of hesitation, she decided on cheese and crackers; she could eat the leftovers later.
It was odd to spend the day in a dark room, with only a little lamplight, but far from as difficult or unnerving as she had initially expected. In fact, all that happened was that with a choice between sitting in boredom or working, she got a lot of work done.
Time passed almost unnoticed, between being busy and having no visual cues other than the clock. She wound up being startled when she heard a gasp. She had become so absorbed in her writing that she had forgotten she was not alone.
Turning, she saw Creed, his eyes open. His face appeared twisted, but quickly smoothed out. An instant later he was on his feet. Evidently it surprised him a bit to awaken and discover he wasn’t alone, because at first he crouched, as if ready for a fight.
Then he straightened and gave her a smile. “Good evening.”
“That looked like it hurt.”
“Resurrection always hurts. Are you tired of this room?”
“I could be.”
“Has it been an awful day?”
“Actually not. It’s amazing how much writing I can do when there aren’t any distractions.”
A low laugh escaped him. “My feeling about most nights, usually.”
He took a few minutes in the bath to clean up. She heard the shower run, heard the sink tap. The sounds of things being moved.
Amazingly intimate sounds, given that there was a closed door between them. She closed her computer after saving her work and waited. Not long: he moved fast.
He emerged dressed in fresh clothes, another version of black, this time a bulky sweater and slacks.
“Do you always wear black?”
He paused as he slipped his feet into shoes. “Usually. It makes it easier to blend with the shadows.” He finished donning his shoes and went to open the bedroom door. “Jude and Terri should be here soon. I asked Terri to bring a decent meal for you.”
“Have they found out something?”
“No, I don’t think so. But we’ve developed a complication.”
Her heart jammed. “We don’t already have enough complications?”
“Apparently not. But I’ll tell you about it over dinner. Then we can discuss everything we know, and everything we don’t know.”
“The everything we don’t know is the part that worries me most.”
He opened the bedroom door, and for the first time she realized it had an unusual lock. As he pressed the bar handle, she could hear three dead bolts snap open, one after another.
He threw the door wide, revealing the twilit city through the windows beyond.
Then he surprised her. Instead of leaving the room, he came to kneel in front of her. Reaching out, he touched her cheek. His voice grew husky. “You drive me mad. This room is full of your scent now. Such a desirable scent.”
Her heart skipped to a faster rhythm. Was he going to kiss her? She actually found herself tensing with hope that he would.
“You can leave,” he said. “You can walk out of this room. Do you believe me?”
She did. Surprisingly, she definitely believed she could. But she didn’t move except to nod. Instead she waited, fascinated, yearning, ignoring every sensible thought that tried to pop into her head.
Moving so slowly that she could not mistake what was coming, so slowly that she had plenty of time to avert it, he leaned toward her and kissed her.
The touch of his cool lips electrified her. Shocks zinged throughout her entire body. It was a light kiss, a gentle touching of lips, but she couldn’t leave it there. No. Needing so much more, she twined her arms around his neck, opening her entire body to any touch he might choose to give her. For an instant she felt him deepen the kiss. His hand brushed over her breast, unleashing a new aching wave of longing. A surge of triumph slammed her. In that moment, she wanted him beyond thought and reason, beyond any desire she had ever felt in her life.
And for a little while, he seemed about ready to give it to her. His hand kneaded her breast
to aching fullness, through the layers of cloth his thumb brushed her nipple until she gasped and her hips, of their own accord, tilted toward him. She parted her legs, making room for him, needing him to touch her there, needing it with such depth and strength that she couldn’t think of anything else. Had he leaned toward her, she would have welcomed him and made herself his.
Then he was gone.
Her eyes, now heavy-lidded with passion, had to search to discover he stood in the doorway.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?”
