I felt numb all over. “Rosie—your granddaughter Belinda, was she a member of the Clear Water pack?”
“Oh yes, that’s where she lives.” She nodded. “Anyway, when I found out Mr. Jude had taken me at my word and actually done it, I felt real sorry.”
“You did?” I asked. “For the pack master?”
Rosie frowned. “Of course not! That nasty man got what he deserved. And let me tell you, Belinda is still recovering from what he did to her. They say he may never shift again but I say too damn bad. My little lamb may never be the same again either.” She dabbed at her eyes with a folded napkin. “No, I felt bad for Mr. Jude. See, I don’t know if you know this, but he’s a different kind of vampire. He doesn’t just know things about people—he can kind of taste the way they’re feeling. So when he does something like that, it affects him a lot more than it would you or me. Not that either one of us is up to taking on a pack master but you get what I mean.”
“I get you,” I said numbly. “So…you think Jude doesn’t like the, uh, taste of someone else’s pain when he hurts them?”
Rosie shook her head vehemently. “Oh no, child—that’s like bitter medicine to him. Makes him sick and tired for a long time afterward, too. If I’d known he was really going to do what I said, I would have asked him to do something quick to that pack master instead.”
I didn’t like to think what forms of “quick” torture Rosie had in mind for the evil pack master but my mind wasn’t really on that, anyway. I was remembering how Jude had admitted to skinning the leader of the Clear Water wolves and the way he’d assured me that he had a reason for everything he did. Well, I had just learned his reason and it didn’t have anything to do with feeding on the pack master’s pain at all. It seemed almost too good to be true but I needed to know for sure.
I looked at Rosie. “So you’re sure Jude doesn’t like the, uh, the taste of negative emotions?”
“He told me when he hired me it was because he liked my happiness,” she said, smiling. “Of course, I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about back then—back before I knew him. I thought he just meant I had a good attitude. But later on I found out, he really did like the way my feelings tasted.”
“So…he feeds on you?” I asked uncertainly. It would certainly explain Jude’s need to have a full-time maid when he was the only occupant of his house.
“Not in a nasty way,” Rosie hastened to assure me. “And he doesn’t take my blood—my goodness, certainly not. He doesn’t need much of that anyway, even if he is a vampire. But he likes to sit and talk with me and when I’m feeling happy or contented or good, that sort of fills his tank. Do you see what I mean?”
“I do,” I said. “I see what you mean.” I saw a lot of other things too. Like the fact that I had been completely wrong about Jude for one thing. I’d assumed that he wanted to be near me because of my horrible past and my angst. Now I realized that I must be a pretty bitter pill for him to swallow whenever he was near me.
“What is it, child?” Rosie put her hand on mine. “You look like you’re thinking hard and not liking whatever conclusion you’re coming to.”
I cleared my throat. “Well, I…to be honest I was wondering what Jude sees in me at all. I’m not a very happy person a lot of the time so it can’t be very comfortable for him to be around me. What does he want with me anyway?”
“Child, he loves you.” Rosie stroked my hand. “Don’t you know that by now? I’ve never seen him look so low as since you left him. He’s been moping around here looking like death warmed over and missing you ‘til it most makes him sick. He needs you, Luz, and I’m guessing maybe you need him too.”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “He lied to me. I just wonder…what else is there about him that I don’t know?”
“Ask me anything and I swear I’ll answer truthfully.”
Chapter Fifteen
Jude’s deep voice startled me. I turned to see him standing behind me with an unreadable expression on his face. I wasn’t sure how long he’d been there—he might have heard the entire conversation as far as I could tell. Apparently while Rosie and I had been talking, the sun had set, releasing him from wherever he spent his daylight hours. Sure enough, when I looked out the kitchen window I saw the backyard was painted in the dusky purple tones of twilight.
Rosie got up from the table, taking my mostly empty soup bowl with her to the sink. “I think I need to be getting on home now.”
“Thanks, Rosie,” I said. “For everything.”
She waved a hand at me. “Anytime, Miss Luz. You two just need to sit down and work this out now.” She pointed sternly to the kitchen table, indicating Jude should sit beside me. Then she took a cracked leather pocketbook out of one of the bottom cupboards and left. As she walked down the hall I could hear her muttering to herself. “These young folks, I swear—think everything is the end of the world when all they need to do is just talk to each other.”
“Well,” I said, looking up at Jude. “Maybe we ‘young folks’ do need to talk.”
He smiled as he took the seat beside me. “Actually, I am considerably older than Rosie is but I think she likes playing the mother hen.”
“I sort of got that,” I said dryly. “But it’s nice—she’s nice. A happy person to be around. Unlike some other people I could name.” I pointed to myself and frowned. “Why didn’t you tell me you only fed on positive emotions?”
“Because I don’t,” he said mildly. “Any kind of emotion will nourish me—the incubus part of me, I mean. But Rosie is right, I much prefer positive to negative emotions. And it does drain me to commit acts that directly cause negative emotions like pain or fear or horror.”
“Yes, but you do it anyway,” I said, remembering the gore-fest from the night before.
“Only when necessary and never because I enjoy it.” His eyes flashed. “Although I must say I took great pleasure in eviscerating the men who were about to hurt you last night. I only wish I could have killed Engle myself.”
“I wouldn’t mind bringing him back so I could kill him again, myself,” I said with a grim smile. “And normally I would say that the other males didn’t deserve to die because they were only following his lead. But in this case, they were all…I mean, Engle had told them that after he was done with me…” I couldn’t go on.
Jude reached out to cup my cheek and brushed away a tear with his thumb. “Let it out, Luz. I imagine it will be a long while before you’re able to get over the events of last night.”
“See?” I said sniffling. “You say you want to be with me but what about this?”
“What about what, beloved?” he said gently.
“This.” I pointed at myself again, at my tears. “I’m a mess, Jude. I’m full of angst and anger and unhappiness—it must be like tasting castor oil every minute you’re around me.”
“It’s not like that at all,” he assured me. “I promise you it is not, Luz.”
I wiped my eyes. “But I’ll never be a happy all the time, glass-is-half-full kind of person. Don’t you want to be with someone like that? Someone like Rosie?”
“I have someone like Rosie in my life—Rosie.” He smiled. “All I want now—all I lack—is you.”
“But I still don’t see why you would even want me near you.”
“Luz,” he said quietly. “Do you think that sorrow and joy are the only kinds of emotions I subsist on? Think back to your mythology—what are incubi said to feed on the most?”
“Nightmares and fear,” I said. “Or…humans believe they, uh, you, I mean, feed on…on sex?” I looked at him uncertainly and he nodded.
“The moment I touched you, that very first time I shook your hand at your old work, I knew,” he said. “I felt all your anger and sorrow and fear but I also felt a tremendous buildup of sexual frustration. You had been given so little pleasure in your life, so little tenderness. I knew right then that I wanted to be your first, that I wanted to taste your desire and longing an
d release and know I was the only man who ever had.”
I blushed at what he was revealing. “So all that stuff you said about the flavor of my blood being different, more powerful…”
“It wasn’t your blood I was talking about.” Jude lifted my hand and brushed my knuckles gently with his lips. He was looking into my eyes as he spoke and I felt a chill of pleasurable tension go down my spine. “Admit it, Luz,” he murmured. “No one had ever made you come before I did—you had never had pleasure except by your own hand.”
“That’s true,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so breathy.
“Do you have any idea how exquisite you taste when you come?” Jude leaned forward, his eyes never leaving mine. “You flood me with your pleasure, your overwhelming release. I could spend hours between your thighs, licking you, sucking you, fucking you…”
My breath caught in my throat. “Jude!”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling under the plain dark green T-shirt he was wearing. “I promised to tell you the whole and unblemished truth and there it is. I love your taste—the taste of your blood, the taste of your sex, the taste of your pleasure. Your flavor is unequaled anywhere.”
“That’s nice to know,” I said, pulling my hand out of his and sitting back to avoid the temptation to grab him. “But…is that all I am to you? Just a snack bar?”
“Oh, Luz…” He sighed and shook his head. “Beloved, how can I convey this to you? You are so much more—the other half I’ve been searching for these many years. I knew when I had found you because we had so much in common.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “What? Like you being a vamp and me being a were?”
“Both of us are outcasts from our people,” Jude said quietly. “Both estranged from our families.”
I frowned. “I thought you said your parents had passed away.”
“They did, but I neglected to give you the details.” He sighed. “When I was a child my parents suspected that something was wrong with me but they didn’t know what. Then I reached my between years—what humans and weres call adolescence— and my eyes began to glow red when I was angry or feeling other intense emotions. Of course they knew what I was then.”
“An incubus,” I said softly.
Jude nodded. “I cannot tell you the level of hatred and fear that is among my people for one such as me. We are stronger and faster than a normal vampire and they think us able to manipulate their minds as easily as a regular vampire manipulates a human’s mind.”
“Can you?” I asked, truly interested.
Jude shrugged. “Yes, if I wish, though most often I do not. But the others know I can and despise me for it. It isn’t easy to be so hated by your own people.”
“Tell me about it,” I said with a heartfelt sigh. “Or to be betrayed by them.”
“I know something about that,” Jude said quietly. “Once they found out what I was, my parents attempted to have me jailed in a facility that would have kept me drugged and chained with silver for as long as I lived.”
“That’s terrible.” I put a hand to my mouth. “But…there are drugs that work on vampires?”
“Certain poisons and toxins—horribly lethal to humans but they act as sedatives on us.” He ran a hand through his hair. “At any rate, I decided that I did not want to be drugged and chained for the rest of my life. I broke out of the facility, killing the director of it on my way out. I was full of rage and he was in the way.” Jude shrugged. “I regret it now but I was young and very angry. It was a great shame to my parents when the news got out—they had been trying to hide my condition from their friends and acquaintances. And of course, they had to pay a great deal in reparations to the victim’s family.”
“My folks never wanted anyone to know they had a non-shifter in the family either,” I said, sympathizing with him.
“Yes, but my parents were so shamed that they decided there was no help for us—our family name had been irrevocably stained. And so they…they…” For a moment Jude’s throat worked and I realized that whatever he was about to reveal had hurt him deeply.
“Yes?” I said softly.
“They went to greet the sun,” he said at last in a choked voice.
“But…doesn’t the sun…?”
“Kill vampires? Yes. They were burnt to ashes, both of them.” He sighed. “After that I was very angry for a long time. I took over the reins of my father’s business and I drove it with a cruel hand.” He laughed bitterly. “Ironically, those years of ruthlessness are what established my reputation. I suppose I decided that if my own people wanted to fear me, I would give them a good reason to do just that. And so I did.”
“What happened?” I asked softly. “How…how did you get over it?”
“One never completely gets over something like that,” Jude said. “But you can learn to live with it. That is how I knew you needed to talk about your past—only by sharing with another can the burden of your pain be made lighter.”
“So you weren’t just getting me to talk about it so you could, uh, taste the pain it caused when I told you what had happened to me?” I said.
“I think we have already established that I prefer the flavor of your other emotions much more,” Jude said softly and took my hands again. He frowned. “Luz, you are wounded.”
“What do you mean?” I looked down and saw that he was looking at my wrists. Rosie’s potato soup had restored me a great deal and my natural healing powers were coming back but the marks of the silver manacles were still clearly visible and always would be—Engle hadn’t just been looking to restrain me, he’d been trying to brand me when he used silver to chain me down. The wrist I’d bitten to feed Jude was still raw too but I was hoping it would be better in a day or two. If I kept getting enough rest and food, it would be.
Jude appeared to have other things in mind, though. “Let me heal you,” he murmured, nodding at my wounded wrists.
“With…with your blood?” I asked uncertainly.
He shook his head. “I know you aren’t ready for that and you may never be. I cannot tell you how much I regret keeping the truth about our growing bond from you—I fear you’ll never trust me again.”
“Trust has to be earned,” I said, looking into his eyes. “But I think…at the very least I can give you a chance to earn it.”
“That’s very good.” He lifted my right hand to his mouth and lapped gently at the sensitive underside of my wrist, making me shiver. His tongue was warm and wet and the slow, careful way he licked me reminded me inevitably of the way he had licked other parts of my anatomy. Sensitive parts that were currently throbbing with need.
“You’re always so gentle,” I whispered as he continued to circle my wrist with his tongue, being sure to get everywhere the silver manacle had burned me.
“You have had enough brutality in your life already. How else would I be?” he murmured, turning his attention to my other wrist—the one I had shredded to feed him. He shook his head at how mangled it was. “Your teeth are sharp enough but you need to learn how to bite through flesh effectively.”
I started to laugh but the sound caught in my throat and turned into a sigh when he began that slow, steady licking again. “It’s not a skill I expect to have to use often. You’re pretty much the only person I’ve bitten since I was a kid fighting with my sister.”
“Good. I could not bear to think of you biting anyone else but me.” He licked me again, being especially tender around the ragged area. I could feel my skin tingling and knew that he was healing me.
“Do-do you like being bitten as much as you like biting?” I asked breathlessly, remembering that I had wondered about that earlier.
“That depends on who is doing the biting.” His sensual lips curved up in that lazy smile that made everything below my waist feel tight and achy. “I very much enjoy it when you bite me, especially on the neck.”
“Why the neck?” I asked as he resumed licking.
“It is a mark of p
ossession and ownership, biting in a place where anyone may see it.”
“But vamps heal so fast,” I pointed out. “Even faster than weres. It’s not like it leaves a mark.”
“It would if we were bonded,” he said quietly. “My body chemistry would alter itself to yours, somewhat in the way yours did to mine when you gave me your virginity. Just as other shifters were able to smell my scent on you, other vampires would be able to see the marks of your teeth on me.”
“So they would know that you were what—off the market?” I asked, smiling.
“In a manner of speaking. Of course, I would display your marks with pride.” He gave my wounded wrist, which was now almost completely healed, a last, lingering kiss. “There, all better.”
“Thank you.” I looked down at my hands. I hadn’t liked the idea of always wearing Engle’s marks of attempted ownership on my body and I was grateful that Jude had so effectively erased them.
“You have one more wound,” he murmured.
“Where?” I looked up at him.
“Here.” He cupped my cheek and brushed my split lower lip with his thumb.
“Oh. I almost forgot about that. It’s where Engle hit me last night.” I shook my head. Already the entire nightmarish incident was beginning to seem like it had happened in another lifetime or to someone else. I was glad for the emotional distance but I wondered if I would pay for it later in flashbacks or panic attacks.
Jude’s eyes glowed red. “Again, I wish I had been the one to kill him. I would have liked to take my time with him.”
I pictured him skinning Engle alive as he had the Clear Water pack master and shivered. Some things didn’t bear thinking about. Though he was extremely gentle with me, there was a definite dark side to Jude. If that was the only part of him he ever showed to the other vamps, it was no wonder they feared him.
“I’m all right, now,” I said.
“You could be better. If you’d let me heal you.” His eyes were glowing for a different reason now. Somehow I knew that if I took this step, that if I let him “heal” my lower lip, there would be no going back. I could talk to myself all I wanted about Jude’s dark side but the fact was that it felt too good when he touched me, when he tasted me. Too good to stop.
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