by Lynsay Sands
The Lady Is a Vamp
An Argeneau Novel
Lynsay Sands
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
An Excerpt from "The Gift"
About the Author
By Lynsay Sands
Copyright
About the Publisher
One
“Last day, Fred,” Jeanne Louise commented, offering a smile to the guard as she approached the security station. The mortal man had worked the exit of the science division of Argeneau Enterprises for nearly five years now and was being rotated out to another area to prevent him from noticing that many members of the staff didn’t age. She would miss Fred. He’d been a smiling face wishing her a good night and asking about her family for a long time.
“Yes, Miss Jeanie. Last day here. Off to one of the blood banks next week.”
Jeanne Louise nodded, her smile fading slightly and expression sincere as she said, “They’ll be lucky to have you there. You’ll be missed.”
“I’ll miss all of you too,” he assured her solemnly, walking around the counter to the door to unlock it for her. He pushed it open then and held it, turning sideways to let her slip past as he said, “Night, Miss Jeanie. You enjoy the long weekend now.”
“I will. You too,” she said, smiling faintly at his calling her Miss Jeanie. He always made her feel like a child . . . which was impressive since he was only in his late fifties and she was more than forty years older than he was. Not that he would believe that. She didn’t look over twenty-five. It was one of the benefits to being a vampire, or immortal, as the old timers preferred to be called. There were many such benefits and she was grateful for every one. But it didn’t stop her from feeling bad for mortals, who didn’t enjoy those benefits.
Great, a guilt-ridden vampire, she thought wryly and gave a chuckle at the cliché. Next she’d be angst ridden, mopey and whining about her long life.
“Yeah, not gonna happen,” Jeanne Louise muttered with amusement and then glanced around at the sound of a stone skittering on pavement. Spotting one of the guys from the blood division entering the parking garage behind her, she offered a nod and then turned forward again to make her way to her car. Slipping into her convertible, she started the engine and quickly backed out to head out of the garage, her mind distracted with considering whether she should stay up and take care of some chores today, or just go home to bed.
That was one problem with being a vampire, Jeanne Louise acknowledged as she turned out of the garage and started up the street. The hours were off-kilter with the rest of the world. Her shift generally ended at 7 A.M., but she’d stayed behind to finish up when the others had left. It was now 7:30, which meant that to perform some of those chores she was thinking of, she’d have to stay awake for another two hours and then head out to those places that weren’t yet open. Under a hot, beating sun.
Frankly, at that moment, staying up another two hours was an exhausting thought.
Home to bed, Jeanne Louise decided, taking one hand off the steering wheel to stifle a yawn as she slowed to a stop at a red light.
She’d just come to a halt when movement in her rearview mirror caught her attention. Glancing toward it sharply, Jeanne Louise caught a glimpse of a dark shape popping up in the backseat and then a hissing sound was accompanied by a sudden sharp pain in her neck.
“What the—?” She grabbed her neck and started to turn at the sound of the back door opening and closing. But then her own door was opening and the dark figure was reaching past her to shift the car into park.
“What?” Jeanne Louise muttered, frowning at the garbled word and how slow her thought processes suddenly seemed. And then the man was scooping her up to shift her into the passenger seat and sliding into the driver’s seat himself. Vision beginning to blur, Jeanne Louise watched him shift the car back into drive, and then she lost consciousness.
Jeanne Louise stirred sleepily and tried to turn onto her side, but frowned as she found she couldn’t. Opening her eyes, she stared at the ceiling overhead, noting that it was a plain white, not the pale rose of her bedroom at home and then she tried to sit up and recalled what had woken her. She couldn’t move. Because she was restrained, Jeanne Louise saw, gaping down at the chains crisscrossing her body from her shoulders to her feet. Good Lord.
“It’s steel. You won’t be able to break it.”
Jeanne Louise glanced sharply in the direction the voice had come from, her gaze sliding over what was a very small room, all white with nothing but the bed she lay on. The only interesting thing in there with her was the man addressing her from the doorway. He wasn’t overly tall, perhaps four or five inches taller than her own five feet six, but the man was built with wide shoulders and a narrow waist. He was also rather attractive in a boy-next-door sort of way, with brown hair, a square jaw, and eyes a brighter green than she’d ever seen . . . and she’d seen a lot of mortal eyes in her one hundred and two, almost one hundred and three, years of life. These easily beat out every other set she’d ever seen.
“How do you feel?” he asked with what appeared to be real concern.
“I’ve been better,” Jeanne Louise said dryly, glancing down to the chains again. Steel, he’d said. Cripes, he had her bound up like a crazed elephant or something.
“The tranquilizer I used on you can cause headaches and a fuzzy feeling as it wears off,” he announced apologetically. “Are you experiencing anything of that nature? Do you need an ibuprofren or something?”
“No,” Jeanne Louise said grimly, knowing it would go away quickly on its own thanks to the nanos. She then narrowed her eyes on the man’s face as she instinctively tried to penetrate his thoughts and take control of him. She intended to make him get her out of these ridiculous chains, explain himself, and then she would call her Uncle Lucian and have him send someone to deal with the man. That was the plan anyway. It didn’t go that way, however—because she couldn’t penetrate his thoughts, or take control of the man.
Must be the drug he gave me, Jeanne Louise thought with a frown and gave her head a shake to try to clear it a little more before trying again.
“Nothing,” she muttered with bewilderment. The drug definitely had to still be affecting her, she thought, and then scowled at him. “What did you give me?”
“The latest tranquilizer we’ve been working on in R and D,” he said mildly, and then disappeared out the door and briefly out of sight.
Jeanne Louise frowned at the empty space, his words running through her head. “R and D” was research and development. But R and D for where? It couldn’t be a normal tranquilizer for mortals; that would have hardly slowed her down let alone knocked her out. But—
Her thoughts scattered as he returned and approached the bed.
“Do you work for Argeneau Enterprises?” Jeanne Louise asked, eyeing what he held in one hand with interest. He was holding a tall glass of what appeared to be ice water and she was suddenly terribly aware that her mouth and throat were parched.
“I do. I’m in R and D like you, only I help develop new drugs while you have been working on genetic anomalies, I believe,” he said easily as he paused beside the bed.
Jeanne Louise frowned. Bastien Argeneau, her cousin and the head of Argeneau Enterprises, had hired her di
rectly after she’d graduated from university seventy-five years ago. She’d worked for Argeneau Enterprises ever since. At first she’d actually been in the department this man claimed to be in, but twenty-five years ago, Bastien had asked Jeanne Louise to choose who she wanted from R and D and form a team. She would be heading up a new branch of the department, one dedicated solely to the task of finding a way to allow her cousin Vincent and her uncle Victor to feed without the need to bite mortals. They desperately wanted to be able to feed off bagged blood like everyone else did. It made life much simpler. However, both men suffered from a genetic anomaly that made bagged blood as useful to them as water. They would starve on a diet of bagged blood. She was supposed to figure out why and if they could be given some sort of supplement to prevent that. She’d been heading up the team working on the problem ever since and they still hadn’t figured out what the exact anomaly was that caused it, let alone how to fix it.
Sighing at what she considered her failure, Jeanne Louise glanced to her captor again, noting that he was standing beside the bed glancing from her to the water and back, his expression troubled. Catching her questioning glanced, he asked, “Can you drink water? I mean, I know you people can eat and drink, but will it help or do you need blood only? I have some laid in for you.”
Jeanne Louise stared at him silently. I know you people can eat and drink? You people? Like she was another species altogether. An alien or something. The man knew she wasn’t mortal. But what exactly did he know? She eyed him solemnly, once again trying to penetrate his thoughts, and once again failing. Then her gaze slid back to the water. It looked so damned good. The glass was sweating, rivulets of water running down the outside and Jeanne Louise would have paid a lot just to lick up those drops. But she had no idea what was in the glass besides ice and water. He could have drugged it. She couldn’t take the chance. If he worked in R and D at Argeneau Enterprises, he had access to drugs that could affect her.
“It’s not drugged,” the man said as if reading her thoughts, which she thought was rather ironic. He was mortal, one glance at his eyes proved that, and mortals couldn’t read minds. Immortals could, yet she couldn’t read his while he seemed to be able to read hers. Or her expression, she supposed.
“There’s no need to keep you drugged,” he added as if to convince her. “You’ll never escape those chains. Besides I need you clearheaded to consider the proposition I’m going to put to you.”
“The proposition,” Jeanne Louise muttered with irritation, giving a tentative tug on her chains. With a little time and effort she might have broken the chain . . . if he hadn’t gone crazy with it, wrapping it around her and the bed like it was linen around a mummy.
“Water or blood?”
The question drew her gaze to the glass again. There was no guarantee the blood wouldn’t be drugged too. She debated the issue briefly and then gave in with a grim nod.
He immediately bent, sliding one hand beneath her head and lifting it, then placed the glass to her lips and tipped it. Jeanne Louise tried to just sip at the water, but the moment the liquid touched her tongue, so cold and soothing, she found herself gulping at the icy drink. Half of it was gone before she stopped and closed her lips. He immediately eased the glass away, laid her head gently back on the bed and straightened.
“Are you hungry?” he asked then.
Jeanne Louise considered the question. Her last meal of food for the day was usually breakfast in the Argeneau cafeteria about an hour and a half before heading home. She wasn’t hungry . . . but he’d have to unchain her to feed her and that thought was appealing enough to bring a smile to her lips.
“Yes,” Jeanne Louise said, quickly hiding her smile when she noted the way his eyes narrowed.
He hesitated, and then nodded and turned away to leave the room once more, presumably in search of food for her.
Jeanne Louise watched him go, but the moment the door closed behind him, she turned her attention to the chains, trying to sort out if they were one long chain wrapped around her and the bed over and over again, or several of them. She supposed it wouldn’t make much difference. Bound up as she was, she couldn’t move enough to get the leverage to try breaking one let alone several lengths of chain.
Her best bet was for him to unchain her so that she could sit up and eat. She could overpower him easily then. Of course, it would be easier all the way around if her mind wasn’t still affected by the drug he’d given her and she could just take control of him. She’d just make him unchain her then and save herself a lot of bother. Jeanne Louise had no idea what this proposition of his was, but mortals who knew about them were few and far between. They were either trusted retainers, higher-ups in Argeneau Enterprises, or exceptionally brilliant scientists who had to know what they were dealing with to do their jobs. He was obviously one of the latter—a brilliant scientist working on drugs in R and D. But no matter what group they belonged to, mortals in the know had tabs kept on them. They were given sporadic mind checks to see that they were okay mentally and not planning anything stupid like going to the press about them. Or kidnapping an immortal, chaining them to a bed and propositioning them.
Somebody had obviously fallen down on the job here, Jeanne Louise thought grimly. The knowledge didn’t worry her much. She wasn’t scared, she was just annoyed that her routine was being disrupted this way and that she’d probably be up most of the day as this mess was cleaned up. They’d have to find out what the man’s plans had been, who else, if anyone, he’d told about them, then the man’s mind and memories would have to be wiped, and the situation set to rights. Jeanne Louise wouldn’t have to take care of all that. The Enforcers were in charge of things like that, but she’d probably be kept up for hours answering questions and explaining things. It was a huge inconvenience. Jeanne Louise disliked having her routine disrupted.
Her thoughts scattered and she glanced expectantly toward the door as it opened, satisfaction curving her lips when she saw the plate of food her captor held. He would definitely have to unchain her to eat. However, she soon figured out that the guy wasn’t just smart at his job, when he shifted the plate to one hand and bent to do something beside the bed that made the top end rise with a quiet hum.
“Hospital bed,” he said straightening, a grin claiming his lips at her vexed expression. “They’re handy.”
“Yes,” she said dryly, as he paused and glanced around with a frown.
“Be right back,” he announced and set the plate on the floor beside the bed before heading out of the room again. He wasn’t gone long. Not even a minute passed before he reappeared with a wooden chair in hand. He set it down beside the bed, then scooped up the plate again and settled into it. The fellow then immediately scooped up some food on a fork, but when he held it toward her, she turned her head away with irritation.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You said you were,” he pointed out with surprise.
“I lied,” she said succinctly.
“Come now, I warmed it up and everything. At least try it,” he coaxed as if speaking to a difficult child. When she merely cast a scowl his way, he smiled charmingly and held the fork of food up. “It’s your favorite.”
That drew her attention to the plate and her eyebrows rose slightly when she saw that it was indeed her favorite, a cheese omelet and sausages. It was what she had for breakfast in the cafeteria at work each morning. When her gaze shifted to his face in question, he shrugged.
“I thought you should be comfortable while you’re here. I have no desire to make you uncomfortable or unhappy.”
Jeanne Louise’s eyes widened incredulously and then dropped meaningfully to the chains. All she said, however, was a sarcastic, “Helloooo?”
“I’ll remove those after you’ve heard my proposition,” he assured her solemnly. “I just needed them to keep you in place until I do.”
“You can stick your proposition,” she growled and then narrowed her eyes on his face again and tried to slip into h
is thoughts, but again came up against a blank wall. The drugs were still affecting her. She fell back on the bed with annoyance, and then scowled at him.
“Fine. Tell me about this proposition of yours,” she said finally. Anything to get out of there.
He hesitated, but then shook his head. “I don’t think you’re in a state of mind to listen. You seem rather annoyed.”
“I wonder why,” she said dryly.
“Probably because you’re hungry,” he said mildly and held out the forkful of food again.
“I told you I’m not hun—” Jeanne Louise paused, scowling as her stomach gave a loud rumble. Apparently she was hungry after all. It was probably the smell of food causing it, and the fact that she’d been so wrapped up in work she’d only eaten half her breakfast that morning. At least that’s what she’d told herself when she’d pushed away her half-eaten meal. Forget the fact that she’d been skipping meals a lot, and only eating half meals when she did bother with food recently. It just didn’t seem to be quite as flavorful or tempting as it used to be. Even chocolate didn’t seem as yummy as it had once seemed.
In truth, Jeanne Louise suspected she was reaching that stage where food lost its appeal and became more a bother than anything else. Mind you, while her breakfast had seemed bland and boring that morning, the same thing smelled damned good now and she actually was feeling a bit hungry, she acknowledged, eyeing the forkful of food. When he began to move the fork from side to side as if trying to tempt or amuse a child, she turned narrowed eyes his way. “If you start making airplane sounds I’m not eating for sure.”
A startled chuckle slipped from his lips and he grinned. But the fork steadied. “Sorry.”
“Hmm,” she muttered and accepted the food. It was as good as it smelled, and after chewing and swallowing she asked reluctantly, “How did you know it was my favorite?”
“I’ve had breakfast the same time as you in the mornings for years. Well, I did until a month ago,” he added and then shrugged. “It’s what you always get.”
