Masquerade and Other Tales

by Amanda Ashley

His response to her touch was instant, bringing a satisfied smile to her lips and a warm glow of pleasure to her eyes. He groaned softly as he drew her up against him, the lush curves of her body filling the emptiness in his.

  His mouth covered hers again in a long hungry kiss, and he knew if he held her and kissed her until the end of time, it would not be long enough.

  Trembling with the need to merge his flesh with hers, he rose over her, wondering what miracle had brought her into his life. Surely he had done nothing to deserve her love or her trust. He was a creature of the night, a man who had been cursed, but now felt blessed beyond belief.

  Her arms wrapped around him as she lifted her hips in invitation, taking him deep within herself, cherishing him, loving him, until he wanted to weep with the wonder of it. She whispered that she adored him, and her words fell on his heart like sunshine, chasing the darkness from his soul, filling him with warmth and light, making him forget, for that moment, that he was more monster than man.

  He held her tight as her body writhed beneath his, felt his self-control begin to slip as he watched the pulse that throbbed in her throat. A red mist veiled his eyes, reminding him that he wasn’t a man, but a monster masquerading in human form, a fiend who had no right to love this woman or any other.

  He gazed into the depths of her eyes, eyes so like Jolene’s, and into his memory came an image of his wife, her beauty fading, her health deteriorating as time and disease ravaged her face and body while he stayed forever young. He could not endure the agony of watching Leanne grow old, he could not bear the thought that, after a few brief years, she would die and he would be alone again.

  Neither could he bear the thought of being parted from her, and yet he knew that, if he stayed, it would be only a matter of time before he succumbed to the awful craving for her

  blood, a need that even now was raging through him, as hot and fierce as his desire for her flesh.

  As surely as he knew that he must shun the sunlight or perish, he knew the day would come when he would force the Dark Gift on Leanne rather than watch her die. And he knew, just as surely, that she would forever hate him for it.

  Painful as it would be, it would be better to leave her now, before he did something they would both regret, before her love turned to loathing.

  He held her close, listening to the soft sound of her breathing as she fell asleep in his arms.

  He had always feared dying, feared the prospect of an eternity writhing in the flames of hell, but he feared it no longer.

  Hell was not a place awaiting his soul, he thought in despair.

  Hell would be waiting for him when he kissed her goodbye.

  He held her close until the last moment, until he felt the sunrise trembling on the brink of the horizon, felt the promised heat of it.

  Leanne murmured sleepily as he drew the covers over her, then bent and kissed her one last time.

  And still he lingered, imprinting her image on his mind so that he might carry it with him through all the endless days and nights of eternity.

  Tomorrow night he would leave Los Angeles. It was the only way to keep from seeing her, the only way to keep her safe from the monster that dwelled within him.

  Chapter 10

  He had left her again. There was no note this time, no written words of farewell.

  With grim certainty, Leanne knew he would never return.

  With equal certainty, she knew she would not let him go.

  It was Monday, and there were no performances scheduled. She straightened her apartment, wrote Jennifer a short letter which would account for her absence but explained nothing. Next, she penned a letter to her parents, telling them she loved them, saying she had met a man and they were on their way to Europe for an extended holiday.

  She took a long hot bubble bath, shaved her legs, washed her hair, and then she stood in front of the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door, studying her face and figure, knowing that, if her plans went as intended, she would never see her face in a mirror again. Wondering, in a distant part of her mind, how a woman applied eye liner and mascara without the benefit of a looking glass.

  In the kitchen, she filled a bowl with chocolate ice cream, added a banana, smothered both with hot fudge and whipped crème, and topped it off with a cherry. She ate it slowly, savoring every bite. Next, she drank a glass of cold milk, then dug out her hidden stash of See’s candy and ate every last piece. Dark chocolate truffles, peppermint patties, Scotchmallows. Not everyone’s idea of a last meal, she thought, but if she was never to have chocolate again, there was no point in being stingy about it now.

  She brushed her teeth, carefully applied her lipstick and then, before her courage deserted her, she ran down the stairs to the garage, got into her car, and drove to Jason’s house.

  She lingered on the porch, watching the sun go down in a riotous blaze of pink and lavender, crimson and amber, imprinting the image on her mind.

  And then, resolutely, she turned her back on the myriad colors splashed across the sky. Taking a deep breath, she took the big brass key from her pocket and opened the heavy front door.

  The inside of the house was as still as death.

  Her footsteps made no sound as she made her way to the laundry room, but she was sure that the thudding of her heart could be heard as far away as Catalina.

  As she had done once before, she sat down in front of the cellar door and waited for him to rise, wondering, as she did so, if there was some kind of vampire law that would prohibit them from sleeping together in a bed.

  Her heart seemed to jump into her throat when the door swung open, and then she forgot everything else but her love for Jason, and her reason for being there.

  So, he thought, he had not imagined her presence, after all.

  “Leanne,” he said after a lengthy silence. “Why are you here?”

  “You know why.” She tilted her head back, baring her throat to his gaze. “Do it, Jason, do it now.”

  “No!” He turned away from her, his hands knotted into fists.

  He recoiled as if in pain when her hand caressed his back.

  “I love you, Jason. If you can’t, or won’t, try to live in my world, then I’ll live in yours.”

  “No. No. No!” He whirled around, his eyes blazing. “How can you even consider it?”

  “Because I want to be with you!” She placed her hands on his chest and gazed up at him, her eyes shining with love. “I love you. I don’t want to live without you.”

  He drew in a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, and then he took her hands in his.

  “Look at me, Leanne,” he said quietly. “Take a good look. Tell me what you see?”

  “I see the man I love, the man I’ve waited for my whole life.”

  “No. I’m not a man, and I can’t pretend to be one any longer, not even for you.”

  He saw the protest rise in her eyes, and he silenced her with a look. “Face it, beloved. I’m a vampire, a monster.”

  “No.”

  He lifted her hands to his mouth and kissed her palms, first one, then the other. “Go home, Leanne.”

  “I won’t leave you, Jason. Nothing you can say will make me change my mind.”

  It was tempting, so tempting. He closed his eyes as he contemplated the ecstasy of bestowing the Dark Gift on her, of knowing that, as a creature of the night, she would be his forever. Never again would he be alone, his existence empty. She would bring him the sunlight he had not seen in three hundred years. He would know love and laughter, the taste of her kisses, the sound of her voice. They could travel the earth together. He could show her the wonders of the ancient world, take her to London, to Paris, to Rome. And perhaps, if he loved her enough, she would never miss the sunlight, never regret forfeiting the opportunity to bear children...

  He held the image close, savoring it, even though he knew it would never happen, knew he could never condemn the woman he loved to such a wretched existence. He had cursed Marguerit
e every night since she had bestowed the Dark Gift upon him, cursed her for his lost mortality, for the life she had stolen from him. He would not selfishly bequeath the same horrible fate to the woman he loved.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes, drinking in the sight of her face, knowing that, after this night, he would never see her again.

  “I love you, Jason.” She spoke the words with the simple faith of a child, as if they could make everything all right.

  “And I love you,” he replied fervently.

  “Then you’ll stay with me forever?”

  Tenderly, he brushed his knuckles over her cheek. “Only death will part us, beloved.”

  At his words, Leanne shivered violently, as if someone had filled her veins with ice water. She knew then what he meant to do, knew it as surely as she knew the sun would rise in the morning. “No!”

  “Yesterday, you asked me for one last night. Now I ask the same of you.”

  “Jason, you can’t mean to do it. I won’t let you!”

  “You cannot stop me.”

  “I will not live without you!” She pummeled his chest with her fists. “Do you hear me, Jason Blackthorne, I will not live without you! If you kill yourself, you’ll be killing me, too.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes awash with pain, though only a single tear trickled down her cheek.

  He watched it for a moment, and then, compelled by an urge he could neither understand nor deny, he bent down and licked the tiny drop of moisture from her cheek.

  For a moment, he gazed into her eyes, and then he reeled back, his whole body on fire.

  “Jason, what is it?”

  He couldn’t answer; he could only stare at her, the warm salty taste of that single tear incinerating his tongue, burning through every fiber of his being like a shaft of liquid sunlight.

  As from a great distance, he heard her voice sobbing his name, but he lacked the power to answer. He dropped to his hands and knees, his head hanging, his breath coming in ragged

  gasps.

  “Go.” He forced the word between clenched teeth.

  “No, I won’t leave you.” She knelt beside him and placed her hand on his shoulder, only to jerk it away when the heat radiating from his flesh burned her palm. “What is it? What’s happening?”

  “Go!” With an effort, he raised his head and met her gaze. “I’m dying.”

  “No.” She shook her head, her eyes filled with denial. “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s true.” He groaned low in his throat as his body convulsed with agony. His blood was on fire, his skin seemed to be shrinking, melting. “Leave me.” He took a deep shuddering breath. “Please, Leanne, if you love me, go from here.”

  She was sobbing now, her tears falling to the floor, splashing like liquid fire over his hands. It grieved her to see him in such pain, to know there was nothing she could do to help him.

  “Please,” he implored her. “I don’t want you to see...”

  He collapsed on the floor, his body writhing in agony, folding in on itself until he lay in a fetal position, his whole body trembling uncontrollably.

  Using the chair for support, she stood up. If he wanted her to go, she would go, but only as far as the other room.

  “I love you,” she whispered as she backed toward the doorway. “I’ll always love you, Jason. For as long as I live. Jason…”

  But he was past hearing.

  Chapter 11

  Numb, Leanne stared down at him, unable to believe he was dead. A distant part of her mind, a morbid part she hadn’t even known existed, wondered why his body hadn’t aged and dissolved into dust, the way bodies of the undead always did in movies.

  And then, with the force of a blow, reality struck home.

  Jason was dead. Truly dead.

  Slowly, she dropped to her knees beside him and cradled his head in her lap, the pain in her heart too deep for tears. Gently, she smoothed the long, dark hair from his brow. His skin felt warm and alive. Odd, she thought, when it had always felt cool before.

  The hours passed unnoticed as she relived every moment she had spent with Jason, remembering how she had found herself looking for him outside the theater long before he had introduced himself, remembering the instant attraction between them, the way she had known, that very first night, that she could trust him.

  A faint smile touched her lips as she caressed his cheek. She would have liked to walk along a sandy beach in Maui with Jason at her side, watched the sun rise over the ocean, borne his children, grown old beside him.

  She would have liked to make love to him one more time.

  With a sigh, she kissed him, and then, very gently, she lowered his head to the floor and stood up.

  Feeling empty and alone, she walked out of the house.

  She paused on the verandah, surprised to see that it was morning. She lingered there a moment, her gaze caught by the fiery splendor of the sun as it climbed over the tops of the hills, painting the vast sky canvas with broad slashes of orchid and crimson.

  “I love you, Jason Blackthorne,” she murmured, her fingertips absently stroking the heart-shaped locket he had given her. “I love you and I’ll never forget you.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes. “Never.”

  “Never is a very long time.”

  Leanne whirled around, her hand flying to her throat. “Jason! You’re alive!”

  He held out his arms, turned his hands this way and that, studying them as if he had never seen them before. “So it would seem.”

  “But...but how is it possible?”

  “I have no idea.” A wry grin tugged at his lips. “The love of a good woman, perhaps?” With his finger, he captured a tear hovering in the corner of her eye and as he did so, Marguerite’s words, spoken centuries ago, echoed in the back of his mind. Not in the blood, she had said.

  Jason stared at Leanne’s tear. Not in the blood. “Perhaps it was the magic of a single tear shed for a monster who yearned to be a man.”

  They gazed at each other for stretched seconds, and then Leanne threw herself into his arms and hugged him tight.

  “You’re alive.” She rained kisses over his cheeks, his brow, then pressed one hand over his chest, above his heart. “Alive,” she whispered. “Thank God.”

  Jason looked deep into her eyes, and then he smiled, a beautiful smile that went straight to her heart.

  Lowering his head, he teased her lips with the tip of his tongue, and then he kissed her as gently as ever a man had kissed a woman, and it seemed he could taste the sunrise on her lips.

  “Leanne,” he murmured. “Do you think you could love this mortal man as much as you once loved the monster?”

  “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed softly, and the glow in her eyes was warmer and brighter than the sun he had thought never to see again.

  His smile grew wider. “If I carried you to bed, do you think you could make love to me in the light of day?”

  Happiness bubbled up inside of her. “I think so,” she replied, her voice trembling with love and joy and excitement.

  “And will you spend the rest of your life with me? Bear my children if a merciful God permits?” He took her hands in his. “Grow old at my side?”

  “Yes,” she promised fervently. “Oh yes.”

  Jason sighed as he wrapped his arm around Leanne’s shoulders and drew her close to his side. Together, they watched the sun rise above the distant mountains, heralding the birth of a new day, a new beginning.

  It was a day of miracles, he thought, and Leanne’s love was the greatest miracle of all.

  She had been the sun in his sky since the first night he had seen her emerge from the theater.

  Standing beside her now, with the sun shining on his face and the warmth of her love glowing in the depths of her eyes, he knew he would never dwell in darkness again.

  Epilogue

  Five years later

  Jason leaned forward as his daughter made her entrance on stage. Facing the audience, Kristi Lynn began to sing,
her voice pure and clear.

  His daughter. Another miracle that Leanne had wrought in his life. And soon they would have a second child. And after that, a dozen more, if God - and his wife - were willing.

  “She’s wonderful, isn’t she?” Leanne whispered.

  “Indeed,” he said. “She has her mother’s talent.”

  Leanne grinned at him. “And her father’s charm.”

  Jason took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. The last five years had been the happiest he had ever known. He had stood beside Leanne and watched the sun rise over the Grand Canyon, sat beside her on a sandy white beach in Hawaii and watched the waves lap at the shore. He grinned at the memory. He had sat there so long he’d gotten one hell of a sunburn. But even that had felt good.

  He had watched Leanne’s body swell with new life, stood at her bedside the morning Kristi Lynn had been born, felt his heart swell with awe when the doctor had placed his daughter in his arms. He had been there when Kristi took her first wobbly steps, uttered her first word, run alongside her the day she had learned to ride a bike.

  He had turned to writing again, surprised and pleased when he sold his first book in years, a novel about a vampire who yearned to be a man again. He had written three other books since then, each of which had received rave reviews. His favorite quote hung on the wall behind his desk. “Jason Blackthorne’s vampires are so realistic, so vividly drawn, one would think he wrote from personal experience.”

  Jason stood, applauding loudly when Kristi Lynn finished her solo. When the recital was over, they went out for hot fudge sundaes to celebrate.

  Later that night, standing beside Kristi’s bed while Leanne tucked her in, he thanked a generous and forgiving God for granting him a second chance at life.

  The End

  The Music of the Night

  Amanda Ashley

  Dedication

  “To Davis Gaines, my favorite Phantom

  and to Frank Langella, my favorite Dracula...”