Midnight Rose

by Shelby Reed

  “The son was cured forever,” Gideon went on in a low voice, “and presumably had been restored to his old, hale self. But in truth, what the nomads had done to him was something only spoken of in paperbacks, ghost stories and movies. Fiction. Fantasy. No one would believe the truth.”

  Kate sighed. “What, then? What did they do to him?”

  “These ’healers,’ as they were reputed, stripped him, tied him down, and brought him the most exquisite woman he’d ever seen.” Rueful humor touched his lips. “Any man in his sexual prime wouldn’t have needed the bindings, nor much convincing; and even in his weakened state, the dying son found himself stirred by this creature. She seduced him, did things to him he hadn’t even dreamed about in his wildest fantasies.” His gaze caught hers, held it. “And when she was done with his seduction, she pierced his neck with her teeth and drained him of his humanity.”

  Kate stared back without blinking. “Are you saying she drank his blood?”

  He glanced down at his hands, dark hair falling in a wave across his brow. “That’s right.”

  “We’re talking about vampires?” A fresh swell of indignation lifted her chin. She’d been cheated on before, and boyfriends had always offered their excuses. But this…this was spectacular. “Son of a bitch,” she said softly. “I can’t believe this.”

  His crushed expression instantly told her how much her response disappointed him. Oddly enough, she regretted saying it. But for heaven’s sake…did he honestly think she was that gullible?

  Jaws clenched, he closed his eyes. “How about telekinesis? Do you believe in that?”

  “No! This is ridiculous—”

  He extended his hand toward a vase sitting atop a column beyond Kate’s chair. At the beckoning of his fingers, the vase trembled, wobbled, and flew in their direction.

  Kate screamed and dove into the cushion as it whizzed past her head. When she looked up, the vase was in Gideon’s hand. Or rather, hovering over his palm. Moving in a lazy circle, like a trick at a circus sideshow, while he watched her with an impassive expression. “How about telepathy, Kate? Do you believe in that?”

  She closed her eyes. Jesus H.Christ. I’ve got to get out of here.

  “You can call on all the gods,” he said with a tired sigh, “but I have a feeling they wouldn’t step near this place. And you’re going nowhere until I’m done with my story.” The vase settled onto his palm and he gently placed it on a nearby table.

  If Kate’s ability to run hadn’t been crippled by fear and disbelief, she would’ve chosen that moment to bolt out of the library, out of the house, and as far away from Gideon Renaud as she could possibly get. But she felt powerless to move.

  “Are you ready to let me finish?” He resumed his seat on the footstool near her.

  Wide-eyed, she nodded.

  “I only know how to explain it this one way,” he said, bracing his head in his hands. “Vampires, ghouls, all those fairy tales…they’re variations on the truth. But for the man dying of anemia in 1884, he only had one choice, and that was to believe in the impossible if he wanted to live. The beautiful creature in the hut stole his soul and gave him in return a life with no end. I can’t tell you how this phenomenon occurs, or whether God is behind it, or a purely evil force. All I can tell you is from that moment, the man was eternally thirty-four years old. From then on he lived as a nightwalker, dwelling in a subculture that has secretly existed for hundreds of years all over the world.”

  “You’re saying there are others?” Kate whispered. “That this is a typical thing?”

  Gideon’s mouth twitched. “Typical, no. But not impossible. Eventually he found others like him. And like the others, he killed for sustenance, and spent much of his time perfecting the appearance of normalcy. As for human frailty, well…the nomads had taken his soul. It gave him a reason to reject his humanity, and for a long time, he didn’t feel, didn’t emote, didn’t grieve or rejoice or love or…”

  He searched her face, desperation carving deep furrows between his brows. “One day, though, he began to realize that life meant nothing without those things. He altered his lifestyle. He stopped feeding on humans, battled the innate urge to hunt and kill, fought every primitive rule, and fed from like creatures willing to share their blood in exchange for pleasure. Eventually he evolved to the point where he could go a day or two without ingesting blood. He could hold down small amounts of food, enough to fool others into believing he was dining along with them. He developed immunity to the daylight with the help of supplements. He melded into society and lived like any other man running from a horrific past.”

  Kate blinked, speechless.

  “Fifteen years ago, he committed the gravest infraction. He fell in love with a mortal woman, and without telling her the truth, married her, and they conceived a child.” His words went husky with despair. “By the time she found out what he really was, she was already five months into the pregnancy and the baby was drawing the strength from her body, and doctors couldn’t figure out what was killing her.”

  He hung his head and his voice broke. “She hated me for it, Kate. She hated me for not telling her the truth about what I was, but I didn’t know there was life in me to conceive a child—I didn’t think—”

  “Gideon.” Throat dry with disbelief, Kate scooted forward, too fearful to touch him. He was her lover; she knew his body inside and out, knew his laughter, his anger; his tenderness. How could the creature he spoke of be one and the same man? How could such a creature exist outside of fanciful imagination?

  Stampeding emotions blocked her ability to assimilate the surreal story he’d just presented. If this was a lie, it was the most finely crafted she’d ever been offered.

  “Jude was born, and Caroline wouldn’t even look at him,” Gideon went on, wiping at the tears as quickly as they streaked his face. “She wouldn’t hold him. She rejected him until the end, when she lapsed into a coma a few days after his birth. Jude was seven weeks premature, but the largest, healthiest premature infant the obstetricians in Boston had ever seen. There was a stir; I took him and ran immediately after Caroline died. Shortly after, Jude was diagnosed with a blood disorder for which there’s no cure. And half a soul, inevitably, since his father has none.” His mouth twisted, a mixture of irony and self-abhorrence.

  Kate shook her head, weak with astonishment. “Does Jude…I mean, have you run all this by him?”

  “A few weeks ago I finally told him the truth, and just like Caroline, he hated me for it. Then he suffered those awful burns, and for a while after that I thought he’d accepted the truth, that everything would be all right.” He looked at her bleakly. “He more than accepted it. He embraced it, coveted it. When he ran to Delilah, she did to him what the creature in the hut did to me…offered him immortality, and he took it. He was tired of suffering from his illness. I knew his health was precarious, but I never thought I’d lose him to this darkness. He’s all I have in the world, and I’ve lost him.”

  Shaken from the release of truth and horror, Gideon swallowed and waited for her condemnation, her disbelief, some typical reaction.

  For a long, long time, Kate only gazed at him in silence. Then she said, “It’s all falling into place now. Everything. I’ve been living in a horror film.”

  So steady, her voice. So rational. She drew a breath, looked away, then back at him. “The sight of blood makes me queasy. And I don’t like vampire movies.”

  Gideon laughed, though he was shaking inside, sick with anguish. “Me, neither. They’re full of lies, but the truth’s not much better.” He glanced at the doors leading to the conservatory and willed them to unlock. With a gentle click, they creaked open. Kate’s cue to leave, if she wished.

  She stared over her shoulder at them, then returned her gaze to his face. “If what you say is true, you could have killed me so many times. I trusted you blindly.”

  “I would never hurt you, Kate. There are other means of getting what I need. Others who are willing.�
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  Understanding dawned on her features. “That’s what you were doing with Delilah in the pool house.”

  “Yes.” He shuddered under a rush of shame. “I hadn’t had nourishment in days. I was too hungry to turn it away.”

  “It looked sexual to me.”

  “It wasn’t. Not for me. But sex and bloodlust go hand in hand for creatures like us. I’ve never been able to have sex with a mortal woman without bloodlust coming to the surface. With Caroline, I handled it the best I could…I was so mindless. But after she died, I swore I’d never love another mortal. That’s why I pushed you away at first. I fought making love with you because I didn’t want to hurt you. I fought it with every ounce of my being.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said ruefully. “But nothing happened after we made love, Gideon. I never saw what you’re speaking of. Nothing happened.”

  “No. Miraculously, nothing happened. For a while, I lived as a man again.” He looked at her in bittersweet despair. “Sometimes, Kate, when I’m inside you and your arms are around me, I’m human again. There’s a beginning and an end to my life again. And all because of your love. It’s been a gift to me, one I’ve never deserved. But I cherished it.”

  And maybe he’d destroyed it with the ungodly truth. He didn’t know. He drew a shaky breath, battered by a fresh wave of regret, and his voice trembled. “I thought I had broken your heart a while ago. I didn’t know how to make you hear me, and I knew that by telling you the truth, I’d lose you. But here you sit. You haven’t flipped out, not visibly anyway, nor accused me of being a liar. And you haven’t run in terror, now that you’re truly free to go. I don’t know what to think. Tell me, Kate…have I lost you?”

  Her throat moved when she swallowed, drawing his gaze. Her breasts rose and fell beneath the simple flowered sundress she wore, drawing in life, releasing the past. He wanted to lean across the two feet between them and bury his face in her lap, clutch her warm, soft body, breathe her in, sunshine and sweetness and pure, unadulterated Kate. His lover. His greatest love.

  She seemed to consider the question as she gazed back at him, dry-eyed now, posture straight, tissues twisted and pulverized in her lap. “I—”

  The terse, expectant moment shattered when the doors leading to the back hallway swung open and Jude stood on the threshold, still clad entirely in black. The shadows engulfed him, undulated around him like excited footmen, ready to do his bidding. Truly he was no longer the son his father remembered, and grief twisted Gideon’s heart at the sight of him.

  “Trouble in paradise?” Jude asked with a wayward smile.

  Gideon released a growl of frustration and rubbed his palms over his face.

  “Hi, Jude.” Kate stood, hugged herself as if banishing a chill, and strolled toward him. “Long time no see.”

  “I missed you, Kate.”

  “And I’ll miss you, Jude, as I knew you.” She stood before him, fists clenched, small and mighty and more courageous than any woman Gideon knew. “Whatever you are, you’re still just fourteen.”

  “Yes,” he said, his smile widening. “For eleven more months, at least. But Delilah says that even in my altered state, I’ll reach manhood like any kid would. And then I’ll stay there. Always young. Always healthy.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah? Well, you’re in pretty big trouble right now, I hear.”

  He cocked a brow and glanced over her shoulder at his father. “He’s already taken my video game console away. I wonder what it’ll be this time.”

  “Nothing worse than what you’ve already done to yourself,” Kate said.

  “So he told you, then. Not just about me, but about him.”

  “He told me everything.”

  Jude looked impressed. “And you believe him?”

  Kate glanced back and met Gideon’s eyes, a guarded mask cloaking her features. Nothing remained of the passionate, weeping woman from moments before except a slightly reddened nose. “I think I do, yes.”

  Getting to his feet, Gideon stepped toward her, resisted the urge to touch her. She was so calm. It frightened him. “We can talk later,” he said, his gaze searching hers. “Don’t go anywhere just yet.”

  She gave a faint nod, then slipped by Jude and disappeared around the corner before Gideon could say anything more. In desperation he reached out with mental, probing fingers, placed them on Kate’s pulse as she climbed the steps to her room. Her heartbeat seemed to leap and skid, a dance he recognized all too well. The dance of uncertainty and indecision.

  “So I’m in trouble, huh?” Jude strolled into the room and sat down on a leather occasional chair, stretched his long legs out in front of him.

  Gideon couldn’t stand to look at him. “If you’re asking me do I plan to punish you for running away and creating all sorts of hell, the answer’s no. You’ve brought the worst kind of punishment upon your own head. Nothing can change that now.”

  “I just don’t get it. How could this possibly be bad for me?” Jude folded his arms behind his head, satisfaction radiating from him in shimmering waves. “No more PCT. No more doctors or pain. No death.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Death is all you’ll know, Jude. You’re surrounded by it now. It’s what will keep you alive, if you follow what Delilah has taught you.”

  Jude seemed to consider the words, then gave a restless sigh. “You make Delilah’s way sound so miserable, Dad. Seems to me you’re the one who’s miserable. Even if Kate decides she can live with the truth about you, what’ll come out of it? A few decades with her are like milliseconds to you. She’ll get old and pass away. You’ll be alone again in the blink of an eye. Drinking blood out of bags from the refrigerator in the basement and mourning the loss of your mortality.”

  Gideon started to reply, but the newly articulate teenager held up a hand, anxious to try his tongue. “If you’re going to tell me again about that vial of saint’s blood some crazy old priest gave you, don’t bother. I asked Delilah about it, and she laughed. One of two things is going to happen if you drink it, Dad. Either you die, like the edict says, or nothing. No change. Nada. That last scenario’s got my vote, by the way.”

  “Thanks for the feedback.” Gideon folded his hands behind his back and moved toward his son. Jude’s skin was so pale, it was nearly translucent. He was ghostly and exquisite and horrible. “You certainly seem to know a lot for a novice nightwalker, Jude,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “I wish I’d had your confidence during my first days.”

  The boy shrugged. “You and I, we’re the same now. I tell you what I know, and you can tell me what you used to know, before you turned your back on your true nature and started spouting goodness and—”

  In a flash, Gideon had him by the throat, his face an inch from Jude’s. “Listen to me, my son. Things may have changed for you, but around here, they’re status quo. As long as you live in this house, as long as you move in my world, you will live by my guidelines. Since your vampire ego seems to have taken over your common sense, shall we go over the rules we discussed this morning, or can you remember without my help?”

  Choking, Jude grabbed Gideon’s wrist with both hands, but only wrenched free when his father finally loosened his grip.

  “Geez,” he rasped, rubbing his throat. “You almost killed me.”

  “One day you’ll wish I could have.” Gideon turned back toward the fireplace, where the flames now flickered and died. “One day you’ll wish you hadn’t made a decision at fourteen that will cost you an eternity.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “I’m coming home,” Kate told Mike over the phone that night, her voice choked with tears. “Amtrak station. The afternoon train from Putnam. I can get a taxi if you can’t be there at two to pick me up. And I’ll say it ahead of time; don’t ask me what happened, don’t ply me for information. I’ll never talk about it. Not ever.”

  His surprised pause followed her passionate declaration. “Fine. I won’t ask you any questions. Oh, wait…I do have o
ne.”

  With a heavy sigh, Kate closed her eyes. Of course he was going to bug her until she told him something. She’d have to play around with excuses on the taxi ride to the train station tomorrow, concoct some reasonable explanation for why her heart floated around her chest in a million shattered pieces. “All right. One question. And it can’t be all-encompassing, like ‘what happened’.”

  “I’m not being nosy, Miss Priss. I just want to know if you’d like to stay at my place for a while.”

  The gentle patience in his tone triggered a rush of grief. “Oh, God, Mike. I’m just sick. Sick that I have to leave him. But I can’t live with the truth. I can’t! My heart is broken. I love him, and I may never see him again.”

  “Kate, honey. It’s okay. You just get yourself on that train, and once you pull into Richmond, I’ll take care of everything. All you have to do is grieve and sleep.”

  “You’re such a good friend,” she sobbed. “I love you, Mike. Why can’t you be straight?”

  “Straight men make terrible friends at times like these. Be glad I swing both ways. I can sympathize with the loss of a dark, gorgeous man.”

  That made her cry all the harder, and quickly he soothed her with a few nonsense words and a funny anecdote or two. She only half-listened until he finally said, “I’ll meet you tomorrow at the station, sweetheart. And Kate?”

  “What?” She pressed a tissue against her streaming eyes.

  “You’re going to survive this. It might not feel like it now, but you’re going to be okay.”

  Kate hung up. Without giving herself time to second-guess her decision, she hauled her luggage out of the closet, then began emptying the bureau drawers.

  Martha knocked on her door, presumably to call her for dinner, but Kate feigned a headache. She couldn’t bring herself to sit across the table from two vampires pretending to eat dinner, acting as though everything was perfectly run-of-the-mill. She spent the rest of the evening in her room, and Gideon stayed away, as though he sensed her need for separation. She wondered if he knew it was a permanent one, that she couldn’t live with his darkness, no matter how she loved him.