I dared to meet his eyes. They glowed blue, like the center of the flame that threated to engulf us again if we took one step closer.
“How?” He blinked rapidly, probably trying to stave off the burn that was rising again inside of him.
“There’s a fine line between love and hate.”
Chapter Ten
We had two choices. We could stay in the glorified bird bath in the middle of the park and give in to what our bodies were begging us to do, or we could listen to the whisper of reason in the back of our brains and leave. As much as my body pleaded with my brain to shut the hell up, I pulled Blade back to the sidewalk. The bench burned itself out, just a black hotspot shrouded in mist.
If he was disappointed, he didn’t complain. We catapulted ourselves out of the friend zone into a place neither of us had brought another person—the center of the flame. There was no way either of us were ready to take the next step.
I let Blade lead the way back to his car. His night vision was much sharper than mine. I didn’t summon any fire. Too much emotion flowed between us to trust it not to totally engulf me in flames, and I needed the night to cover me. It didn’t stop me from sneaking glances at Blade’s silhouette as we walked. Lean, strong, and begging for my touch.
No.
I had to be stronger than this, or we’d both get burned. For real.
Bursting into flames was an occupational hazard for both of us. I had a sweatshirt and leggings in my work bag, and Blade’s trunk was stuffed with clothes and other belongings.
“Are you in the middle of moving?” I asked.
“Something like that.” He jumped back, closing the trunk quickly before more of his secrets could escape. He grunted as he shimmied into his jeans. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. “I lived with my brother before I turned. Can’t exactly explain to him I’m dead, even though I’m talking to him, or that I suck blood now. So I’m in...transition.”
We didn’t get in the car right away. I leaned against the trunk as Blade finished dressing. He settled next to me, close but not touching me.
“Yeah, I guess that would be a little awkward. Where are you staying?”
“At the Strat.” His voice was flat.
“It won’t be forever,” I assured him. “You’ll find the place that you belong.”
Blade turned toward me, his hand slung low across his belly. He chuckled, but it was sad. “Have you?”
“Not yet, but I’m getting there. When I travel back in time, it helps me see who I want to be. I’m learning so much from Bette. The show is the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m tired of being used. This is where I belong, on stage, but it’s cost me everything.” I slid closer to him, and he put his arm around my shoulders. Any time a vampire had touched me before, it had been cold, but Blade was warm this time. I put my head on his shoulder. The skyline was illuminated by the Strip, so close but so far away. Blade sighed, and moved his hand up and down my arm.
“Not everything,” he said. “Maybe you’re in transition, too.”
Blade swore he answered to no other vampire. I wondered what kind of leader he would be. He was never going to find the place he belonged if he didn’t get over the anger that pressed against his throat, strangling him. “Tell me about her.”
Blade’s hand stilled as he stiffened. “Tell you about who?”
“The girl who broke your heart.”
He bowed his head. “I never said she broke my heart.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Blade sighed. “You know how you can tell when someone’s been in Vegas too long? People around here start to look used up after a while.” I nodded. The sun and smoke dried people out and shriveled their souls. Too much time in this city made people hard. Brittle. “So I’m at this party at my buddies’ house, and this beautiful bohemian looking girl is sitting on a filthy cushion with a dog in her lap, looking like she thought she wound up on the wrong planet. I couldn’t leave her there, she was minutes away from getting her drink roofied.” He ran his hand over his beard, trying to conceal his smile. She still had a hold on him. Even in the dark, I saw it. I wasn’t jealous at all. I wanted her to be worthy of his rage. “And I thought going over and talking to her was the best decision I ever made. She was pretty much perfect. One of those people who could have fun doing anything, and she wasn’t into all the bullshit that impresses the girls around here. She never went home from her vacation.”
“Wow. That got serious fast.” I knew the but was coming. “What happened?”
He finally looked at me. “How the hell was I supposed to know that even on some remote island on the East Coast, that Tristan Trevosier would wind up having been her first boyfriend?” He shook his head. “She didn’t stay for me. The whole time she was here to find him again. But she strung me along while she got her hooks in him.”
Tristan Trevosier was the face of the vampire rock scene. Girls from all over the world swarmed around the Alta Vista hotel before every show, just hoping to catch his eye. He made many of their fantasies come true, taking their blood in a sexual exchange the girls referred to as Bloodlust. Noah tried to convince me that vampire sex was otherworldly, and he succeeded. For me, it had been a hellish nightmare.
“I’m so sorry. But she had to have some feelings for you?”
“I’d like to think it wasn’t all a lie.” The smile was back, sad this time. “But she ran to him the minute she had the chance.”
Okay, someone had ridiculous standards. “Maybe you shouldn’t have given her that chance.”
The heat rose in Blade so fast I jumped away from him. “Do you think I had a choice, when Talis captured me? That little bitch was in Tristan’s bed before I had the blood sucked out of me.”
“It’s only a matter of time before that relationship crashes and burns.” Not that I wanted Blade to go running back to this girl who cast him aside, but there was no way her new relationship was going to turn out any better than her last. Tristan would suck her dry, literally, and move on to his next victim without a second thought. I listened to enough of the girls at the show whine about it happening to them.
“Oh no. She’s a vampire now.” Blade’s words had icicles dripping from them. “And I’m going to destroy her.”
Chapter Eleven
“I can’t believe you actually auditioned for the vampire,” Lucille sneered when I walked in well past midnight, but didn’t take her eyes off her movie. She’d moved from Elvis to Clark Gable.
“What did you want me to do?” I gulped down the last of my lettuce tea. Two explosions in one night threatened to turn me to dust. My heart twinged as I held the empty glass, another reminder Rainey was gone. “There were two hundred people waiting for the open audition. If I have to put it in Cash’s face that I’m the best, that’s what I’ll do. It was just another performance. No big deal.”
“I bet that isn’t the only thing you’re putting in his face,” she mumbled as I turned away from her.
“What was that?” I spun on my heel so fast I almost lost my balance. How dare she?
“You’re covered in filth and soot. He sent you away like an animal.” Lucille didn’t back down. “You’re letting him control you.”
“Like hell I am.” I clutched the glass so hard I was afraid it would shatter in my hand. “It’s more like you’re losing control. This is all me. Get used to it.”
She shook her head, and finally met my gaze. “You’re going to get yourself into a mess you won’t be able to get you out of.”
“That should make you happy.” I was about to stomp into my room, but instead I sat on the couch. If Rainey were here to referee, she’d make sure she sent us back to our corners before the knockout round. Not a chance of that now. Lucille hadn’t expected me to stay and she shifted away, nostrils flaring. After I ignited, the charred flesh and hair smell were enough to overwhelm even a mere immortal. “So what is it that you want out of this? Cash is here, Talis is gone, and you don’t
think I have to fight for the job you insisted I take in the first place. You don’t even care that Rainey moved out. I don’t see you trying to destroy anyone, Lucille, but me.”
She raised an eyebrow and turned back to the movie. “It would make my life a lot easier.”
“What would?”
“If you were gone.”
“I’ve done everything you asked and all I ever wanted was to hear that I did a good job. That you fucking cared. That you loved me. I deserve that.”
Lucille said nothing.
Before I burst into flames for the third time that night, I jumped off the couch. My couch, paid for with the money from Le Cirque Macabre. Not that I wouldn’t like to see her burn, but I knew it would pain her more to see me succeed. I backed away from her, the realization setting in that her plan was working just fine. She never cared about what happened with the vampires. It was me she wanted to see crumble. And vampires were my Kryptonite.
But why? I went along with her plans, even if I questioned them. I did everything I could to make her love me. And I failed.
Even if the pain seared deep, I couldn’t say it was a complete shock. Lucille had always been distant. Most of the time I thought she was embarrassed by Rainey and me, the way she hid us from the world, apologizing as she whisked us away from people. Over the years she warmed up to Rainey, and at one time, I would have done anything for some of that attention. It was about the same time I shut myself down to that pain that Operation Las Vegas went into motion.
I took a long, hot shower, then lay awake in bed, hugging a pillow to my stomach. No wonder Lucille had never come clean with me. I would have never played along with her plan to lure Cash to Vegas. Still, I wanted to understand her motivations for wanting me gone. How I went from being a valuable pawn to expendable. If I left, there weren’t many places I could go; my world was small and the great unknown was flammable. Lucille had made sure of that.
I needed to understand why she burdened herself with me in the first place. I had to go back to the place where the resentment started.
Now more than ever, I needed to find my mother.
I finally calm down from the night as the gray light brightened through the slats of my window. To time travel, I needed to let everything else go, and concentrate on the place that I needed to be. Taking deep breaths and holding them, letting the air rise in my belly and fill my lungs, I was almost there.
This trip terrified me. I never went anywhere without telling Rainey. And this would be my second trip tonight that she had no idea about. My breath stuttered shallow in my throat, and my heart began to race. She might be gone, but she had to still care.
“It’s five in the morning.” Rainey’s voice was mushy with sleep when she answered the phone. “Is something wrong?”
“No, well, maybe.” I hadn’t prepared for this phone call, but I wanted to hear her voice. I sighed, not sure where to begin. “I think I figured out what Lucille wants.”
“Can this wait?” She sounded a little more aware now, and a little more annoyed. “I think it’s best if we don’t talk to each other. For a little while. It will be easier on both of us.”
It wasn’t easy to say anything after that. Shock had stolen my voice. I put all my energy into answering before she hung up on me. “I’m going to Bethlem,” I whispered. “I just wanted you to know.”
“Holly...” She knew there was nothing to say to talk me out of this. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I held the phone to my ear long after she hung up. She didn’t even say goodbye.
THE MOST I COULD HOPE for was a dreamless sleep. My mind wouldn’t cooperate, trying to figure out what it was about me that made every woman I cared about betray me. My mother. Lucille. Rainey. They all had one thing in common now: they wanted me gone.
I wasn’t going to make it that easy on them. I wanted them to stay. My mother and Rainey, at least. Lucille could leave the building along with Elvis. Good riddance.
Soon I found myself in a dusty place. I knew I was no longer in present time simply from the smell. I would forever be thankful for modern plumbing systems. I walked along a dirt road lined with trees toward an endless brick building. Horse drawn carriages rode along beside me, their passengers pointing and staring, calling out to me. I ignored them. I stayed close to the fence not to get run over. The crowd thickened as I came to the opening of the gate, and I pushed past the unwashed bodies to get through. Their hands were all over my skin. Brushing them away, I didn’t know what I was searching for, but as I broke away from the band of people, I knew where I was.
Bethlem Royal Hospital.
Another swarm of people clustered closer to the building. Most of them were naked, their bones showing through broken and abused skin.
“What are you doing?” I shrieked at a well-dressed portly man who poked one of the patients with a stick. He startled when he looked at me, then dropped the stick and walked away. I looked down at my own body, shocked to find that I wasn’t wearing anything, either. Smoke swirled from my bare skin. I didn’t know if this was a dream or if I traveled, but I knew I fell asleep after my shower without putting anything on.
I was so close, I couldn’t turn back now. Wrapping my hands around my torso, I picked up my pace. The patients stared at me as I passed, knowing I wasn’t one of them, but not knowing what I was. I usually planned better for this. Some people pleaded with me for help in crisp English accents. Others wailed and moaned, grabbing my legs.
Everything inside the building was gray. Sickly. The place was massive and I had no idea what I was looking for. I never knew everything when I traveled, I had to follow my instincts. They hardly ever failed me. Patients lay in their own filth in the hallways, some of them looked like they might not even be alive anymore. Peeking into one of the rooms, I found two women huddled together on a broken bed. A ray of sunshine fell on them, the window open to the elements. That would be unpleasant when it rained. But today at least they got to see the sun. One of them lunged toward me, and I gasped. Not because she scared me, but because she was chained to the wall. Blood and infection ran down her arm from the iron shackle.
Swallowing a scream, I returned to the hallway. Someone pushed a cart in the distance, and I ran to catch up with her, careful not to slip in the pools of human waste on the floor. I would have called to her, but my voice would have been lost in the cacophony of patient cries.
I followed her, tucked in the shadows for several of her stops. She spooned gray, lumpy gruel into wooden bowls. Tendrils of red hair escaped from her bonnet, and I had to cover my mouth not to cry out when I caught sight of her profile. I knew it well, because we shared the same slightly upturned nose and jawline.
“You came back,” a crackling but familiar voice greeted her when she entered the next room. I crawled closer to the doorway to make sure I could hear the rest of the exchange over my pounding heart. “I didn’t think you would.”
“I’d never forget about you.” It wasn’t the first time I heard her speak, but her words were even more soothing for the man in this room.
Another patient came up behind me, yanking my hair. I wailed and hit the man repeatedly but he refused to let go. I felt terrible about it, he was no more than skin and bones, and his scalp was dotted with bare patches. When he finally released me, I skidded into the open doorway, but the nurse and the patient were too wrapped up in each other to notice they were being watched.
The nurse cradled the patient’s face and smoothed his matted hair away from his cheek. He held her, bringing his hands to her waist, then circling her swollen torso. “When’s the baby coming?”
“’Round Christmas, we think.”
My birthday.
The nurse spent much more time with this patient. Dipping a cloth into a jar, she ran it along the man’s blistered skin. He hissed, the contact causing him as much pain as it did relief. “We need to keep you out of the sun,” she said.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore.” His wo
rds were labored. “I think it’s starting to callus.”
“I don’t want your handsome face to be ruined.” She stepped closer to him. “I’ll make some more of this calendula salve for the next time I visit.”
“The herbs you left last time were taken by the orderlies.” The man’s voice wavered. “I didn’t tell them who left them.”
The nurse gasped. “Did they punish you?”
“No more than usual.” He grinned, tilting his chin up to her. “As long as they don’t punish you.”
She pulled him into her bosom, and they stayed like that for longer than was safe. The man who grabbed me came for me again. I kicked him. I couldn’t afford to be attacked here. I needed to complete this mission and get back to my own time.
“They know,” the nurse said, stroking the man’s hair. “They know we’ve been together, Cash.”
Cash?
“I can’t hide it anymore.”
The baby belonged to him.
“Lana, you can’t tell anyone about us.” Cash’s voice was sharp. “They’ll admit you here, or bring you to the stake.”
“I didn’t,” Lana cried. “I don’t know how they found out. Someone must have seen us. But this is the last time I’m going to be able to see you. I... I have to save the baby.”
I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth to try to contain it. Cash turned toward me, and I slid back in the hallway before he had a chance to get a good look at me. Not that it would mean anything to him; he wouldn’t see me again for over two hundred years.
“That baby will be an abomination.” Cash’s voice was still stern. “How can you choose it over me? Over yourself? It will burn in the sunlight. When people see it, they’ll drown in the river. Or do what they’ve done to me. That thing doesn’t have a chance.”
“How can you talk about our baby like that?” Lana cried again, things I could no longer see crashed on the floor.
“Because it’s the truth!” He sounded like he spoke through clenched teeth. “You’re setting yourself up for disaster. If that baby is allowed to live, it will be a monstrosity.”
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