Luther removed his hand quickly, apparently afraid of the look Kat had given him.
“Well, I have missed all the fun,” Dracula’s soft sexy voice called from the doorway.
I looked up and my heart stopped. He was wearing black slacks which appeared to be made of thin comfortable looking cotton. The tunic style shirt he wore matched the deep green of his eyes, making them appear to glow. The waves of his dark hair fell over the tops of his shoulders where it contrasted well with the tunic. The shirt hung open in a deep vee to reveal part of his chest. Had I really said I didn’t plan to molest him? Surely I was mistaken.
He flowed into the room with a casual elegance I had begun to admire.
“I got my fill of reggae at The Dread Moon,” he said as he looked through the CD’s we’d brought down from my room. My heart beat faster as he paused for a moment on the music we’d listened to only the night before. Flashes of his naked body appeared before my eyes and I had to sit down.
Butterflies assaulted my already battered heart when he started to play the exact song we had referenced earlier when discussing his “whip appeal.” It was one of my all-time favorite R&B songs.
“I do not believe we finished our discussion.” He smiled as he held his hand out to me.
Dracula had slipped off his shoes by the door, he had nice feet. It suited him to be standing there in my sunroom, with the storm billowing past the glass windows, barefoot and sexy. Luther snorted loudly in protest and Dracula said softly, “Indulge me for a moment.”
I took his hand and we danced while Kat excused herself to the bathroom, Luther went into the kitchen, and Alek helped himself to another glass of wine. Even without the shoes, Dracula was tall, and I only reached his chest. He held me close and I noticed he once again smelled of expensive cologne. Muscles which had previously been still began to clench simply from his nearness.
“It is all right,” he said soothingly. “You can get back to me.”
I wasn’t sure how he meant that, but it was comforting.
By the end of the night, I’d taught Kat and Luther the thriller while Dracula and Alek, who already knew the dance, had a good laugh. Kat passed out in the sunroom while Luther fell asleep on the sofa in the sitting room, and Alek seemed to be asleep in a chair by the fireplace.
“Alone at last,” the vampire whispered softly.
In the few moments it took us to walk upstairs, I thought my heart would leap through my chest. At the very least it had made its way into my throat. I watched as he checked to be sure all the doors and windows were locked while I changed into my pjs. Three large leather bags sat in front of the balcony, and I found I rather liked the idea of his things being in my room.
He drew the curtains closed as he said, “The sun will be out tomorrow.”
He looked better than I could put into words as he stretched back against my pillows and said, “How about a bedtime story?”
That was probably the best suggestion I had heard all day. No one had read to me since I was little. I selected a large book of fairy tales from the shelf and curled up next to him, placing my head more on his stomach than his chest. I wrapped myself around him and sighed as he flipped through the pages. We were just getting into The Sleeping Beauty when someone knocked at the door.
“What is it?” I asked.
The door opened slowly. Luther stood there looking depressed as he whined, “The wizard snores.”
“Come on,” I said, yawning. “I hope you like fairy tales.”
I curled back up against Dracula and Luther snuggled against my back. I could tell by his breathing that Luther was asleep almost instantly. Dracula explained to me quietly, “I think he feels safer to be near you.”
“That’s sweet, but why?”
“Are you not the alpha female of his pack?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you are the next in line?” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yes,” I sighed as I snuggled closer against his side.
In a way what he said made a lot of sense. It did seem strangely normal for Luther to be sleeping with me. Once again, I was afraid of becoming more like a werewolf, but I seemed to have little choice in the matter. Besides, I’d never really liked sleeping alone. Dracula continued his story, and I think I fell asleep before Beauty woke up.
My dream began with me standing in the woods. The dark stranger from my dreams stood before me, and his face was clear. He began telling me about a beautiful rose. There was a large oak tree farther in the woods. This rose was growing behind it. He said he’d never seen anything like it.
“It is beautiful,” he said. “You will not believe it. The rose is growing all over everything.”
When I asked exactly where it was, he told me. As he described it, I realized I had planted the rose, and then forgotten about it. While he spoke I got a picture of the rose in my mind. I even remembered telling my father about how well it was growing. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten it. I saw the rose only inches from the vine reaching the road. It was beautiful. It seemed to have grown very rapidly. All the leaves I saw appeared to be new growth.
This picture in my mind became clearer as he described the scene. I never actually saw the rose in person. I remembered it being the most beautiful color, a color I cannot describe. Though it was rich and deep, I cannot say for certain if it was red or pink. It was love. If I had to give it a name, the rose was the color of love, and it surrounded and covered all. I could see it clearly, filled with blooms. He took me to see the rose, but I don’t remember walking there. My train of thought seemed to shift before I physically saw it, but I felt the rose before awakening.
*****
The bedroom door banged open and my first thought was I’d forgotten to lock it behind Luther.
“I don’t believe you!” Kat screeched. Luther and I both jumped, but it was still a bit early for Dracula. “You’ve got a wizard downstairs, who is hot by the way, and you didn’t call me, and you’re up here sleeping between a werewolf and a vampire, and Marco’s at the door.”
“What?”
“Marco, he’s waiting for you on the porch.”
The moment I had dreaded since I’d first brought Dracula home had finally arrived. I thought I might be sick before I could put on my bedroom shoes and make it down the stairs. Even though it was nearly ten o’clock, Alek was still snoring loudly from the chair by the fire. The situation was not without humor, but I was too afraid to laugh.
When I opened the door and looked at Marco I was not intimidated by the look on his face, I was terrified. As I stepped onto the porch I turned to Kat who was right on my heels.
“Can you give us a minute?” I asked.
“What am I supposed to do, listen to Alek snore?” she grumbled.
“I don’t know, go touch the vampire or something.” I waved my hand at Kat to speed her along.
“Really?” she beamed.
“Sure, just gives us a minute.”
I turned back to Marco and found I couldn’t breathe.
Chapter Seventeen
Marco backed me into the door and pressed his face against my stomach. He sniffed his way up to my throat with a growl as he said, “Who’s been sleeping in your bed besides Luther?”
“Dracula,” I answered.
I decided if he could be man enough to ask the question, I could be woman enough to give a straight answer.
“When you turned me down, I couldn’t control the beast. He was on his way into my room to check on me when I came back in through the balcony.” Marco’s expression looked pained, but I continued before he could stop me. “It was only one night, Marco, but I won’t lie and say I didn’t want it, because I did.”
He growled threateningly and I held up a hand. “Let me finish. I wanted to spend the night with him, and I did. But you know what has been on my mind ever since? I’ve been hoping I haven’t missed my chance with the man who makes my heart beat faster every time he’s near me.
The one who makes me want to do stupid things like trust, and share my feelings, and love.” I wiped at a tear and kept going. “The one who makes me feel like I’m the only woman in the world when he looks at me. All I can think is, ‘Fuck me. I hope I haven’t missed my chance with Marco.’”
I watched as his eyes which had blazed amber before faded back to a warm chocolate brown.
“Damn it, Red,” he swore and turned his back on me. “If I had known, I would have—”
“Probably done the same thing,” I interrupted. “You wouldn’t have risked the lives of your wolves for your personal pleasure, and you know it.”
“Not theirs,” he said fiercely as he turned to me, backing me into the door again. “But my own. I would risk all that I am,” he said as he grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked my head to the side, “to erase these marks.” He kissed the bite the vampire had left on my neck as he growled. “You are mine, Red. You have always been,” he said as he looked at me, and his eyes filled with tears, “and you always will be mine.”
He kissed me with a ferocity born of need and depravation and I clung to him. When Marco finally released me I staggered.
“What happens now?” I asked breathlessly.
He took a shuddering breath before he said, “I’d like to date you.” That was a response I hadn’t expected, but I remained silent while he continued. Marco had obviously put some thought into what he was saying. “You’ve given everyone else the chance that should have been mine.”
“How long have you wanted to ask?”
“Since you went with Julius Blight back when you were in training. But it wasn’t appropriate for a twenty-six year old Hunter to ask out the commander’s seventeen year old daughter, so I kept it to myself.” He closed the space between us again and propped a hand on either side of the door, pinning me once more. “Well, I’m not keeping it to myself anymore, Red.” He pointed upstairs suddenly. “As long as he sleeps here, Luther stays.”
“All right.”
“Red,” he said more softly as he nuzzled against my cheek. “Let’s take it slow. After so many years of every woman having your face when I closed my eyes, I want to wait a while before we’re intimate.” He pressed himself against me and I felt with some shock that Marco was very aroused. “When I make love to you, I want you to know it’s me, and not someone else when you close your eyes.”
I didn’t know what to do besides hug him. I had never meant to hurt Marco. After a few moments silence, I asked about the pack and we sat in the swing while he explained. Bade and his followers, who were still split from Marco’s pack, had been unsuccessful in catching Dr. Bill Williams, a madman who had been conducting experiments with werewolf DNA. Dr. Williams had managed to extract the part of the lycanthropy virus that is wolf and replace it with the genetic material of other animals. Apparently, since he had escaped capture last summer he had been attacking people and spreading all sorts of variations of the virus.
In a bizarre turn of events, a werelizard had attacked some members of the pack a few nights ago. They were torn up pretty badly, but they would all recover, seemingly with no ill effects. One member of the band from The Oasis, Creature Comforts, had his leg torn off at the hip. Being a werewolf, he would regenerate, but it would take at least a month, if not longer to regrow such a large appendage.
“What happened to the lizard?” I asked, still a little shocked about what had happened to the band member.
“I killed him,” he answered simply.
“You showed up just in time to save their lives, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said softly.
Once again, Marco had bigger problems than Bade Garren to worry about. Bade had once been Marco’s second in command. However, sometime in the last year, he had split from the pack and formed his own small group of followers. He disagreed with some of Marco’s policies, like not keeping a harem for himself, and not allowing higher ranking wolves to have slaves. In short, Bade didn’t feel that Marco was tough enough. If Bade ever openly challenged Marco for the position of wolf king, I believed Marco would kill him. But he didn’t want to.
He said they had also found a wereleopard named Judas. Since Judas appeared to be the only one of his kind, Marco had let him join the pack even though he wasn’t a werewolf.
“How does everyone else feel about this?” I asked.
“Some of them don’t like it, but they’ll get over it. All animals seek others of their kind, and Judas has none.”
“And you couldn’t leave him there, could you?”
“No, I couldn’t. He was injured trying to help my wolves. I owed him.”
About that time we were both startled by the sound of a masculine scream followed by Luther’s laughter and an incoherent female voice.
“Would you like to come in?” I snickered.
“Unfortunately, I’ve got some business to attend to.” I walked with him to the top step where he kissed my forehead as he said softly, “I’ll call you.”
My head was still spinning with all that had just happened. When I saw Dracula dash past me and into the hall closet, I realized Marco and I had been talking for at least two hours. It was noon, and Kat had apparently taken my suggestion of touching him to heart.
“What is going on?” I asked.
Luther and Alek had an arm around each other and were laughing to the point of tears. Kat was clawing at the door that Dracula seemed to be holding closed from the inside.
“I woke up just in time to stop your friend from putting her hand down my pants,” Dracula said through the door.
I looked to Kat who blushed and shrugged.
“Could you do something about her please?” He sounded desperate. “I am flattered, really. I would just like to wake up without being molested. You know, this is why I used to sleep in a coffin.”
Luther and Alek gave a collective howl and sat down on the floor. I looked at Kat pleadingly and she said, “Oh, all right. I’ll stop trying to touch him.”
Dracula cracked the door and looked outside. “Promise?” he asked.
“I promise,” Kat sighed.
“Good, because your hands are cold,” he teased.
Kat took off her shoe and threw it at him. He ducked well in advance of the offending accessory and laughed.
“Could you help me find my cloak, please?” He directed this question to me. “I am sure it is in your closet, but there is a nasty shaft of sunlight in my way.”
While we were alone, I used the opportunity to tell Dracula what just happened with Marco. He listened quietly as he threw the cloak over his shoulders with a dramatic flair I would have had to practice.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said as he reclined on my bed once again, “but you do not owe me an explanation.”
“Would you rather I kept it to myself and let you wonder?” I snapped.
“You misunderstand, my angel. I knew the moment we met that there was unfinished business between the two of you. I did not expect you to fall into my arms and forget whatever you had before. However, do not be mistaken, I would love nothing more than to hear the werewolf was so insanely jealous he gave up entirely.” A wicked smile curled his lips and his laugh floated over my skin like a caress. “Have no fear that I will try to steal you away. If the time is right,” he said with a wink, “when the time is right, you will come to me.”
I crossed my arms underneath my breasts and just stared at him for a moment. His smile was contagious, mostly because I knew he was being an ass on purpose. He obviously enjoyed stirring things up. But, I suppose one has to find new ways to amuse oneself over several thousand years.
“It sounds like you’ve got it all worked out. Why not just make an ass of yourself now and take me away to a dark castle somewhere?” I purred sarcastically.
He smiled again as he opened his arms slowly. “What can I say, my angel? You make me want to be a better monster.”
“You’re a sick bastard,” I said, but I moved to hug him a
nyway.
“Yes,” he agreed. “And to everyone else, I always will be. Running off the werewolf would hurt you, so therefore, I refrain.”
While we lay there for a moment, he told me his meeting with the council was scheduled for next week. However, he would only be gone for a day since his case was well known to the council. I think my uncle Aldan had just hurried things up for him.
“How do you know? When did you have time to talk to anyone?” I asked.
“When I went to my ‘dark castle,’ I also retrieved my old communicator.”
“Do you really have a castle?”
“Worry not, my angel, I shall show you someday,” he said. His words were both a promise and a threat.
When we went back downstairs, I found Alek and Luther arguing over what to fix for lunch while Kat searched frantically for some aspirin. Alek was about an inch shorter than Luther, making him around six-foot-one. Luther used his inch or so height advantage to hold the tea out of Alek’s reach. Dracula pulled up the hood of his long cloak and stood in the corner to avoid the light streaming through the window. He watched the scene for a full minute before saying, “You are a wizard, remember?”
Alek pressed his finger to Luther’s side and he dropped the tea as if he had been hit with a stun gun. I gave Kat the aspirin and told them to shut up and cook something. Alek finished my sentence with, “or you can bloody well starve.”
Luther made BLT’s while I told everyone what Marco had shared with me about the pack.
“Which band member exactly?” Kat asked anxiously.
“The drummer. Why?”
“He hurt Beau?” she asked in a panicked voice.
“He’ll be all right Kat. They got him medical attention in time, he didn’t bleed to death. Now all he’s got to do is regenerate. I never thought I’d say this about anyone, but lucky he’s a werewolf.” I eyed her suspiciously and added, “Beau, huh? On a first name basis are we?”
“What?” She gave me a sly smile. “It’s short for Beauregard. They did some work for me last Halloween, remember?”
“I’ll bet,” Luther teased.
Lilith Mercury, Werewolf Hunter Series (Boxed Set, Books 1-3) Page 65
