Hungers of the Heart

by Jenna Black

  She regarded him carefully. “You’ve changed your mind since last night?”

  “Let’s just say you don’t act like any other Killer I’ve known. If you’re an actress, you’re a very, very good one.”

  Her smile was wan. “An actress is one thing I’m not.”

  He nodded, believing her, though logic told him he should doubt her. “How’s your sister?”

  Faith shrugged. “About as you’d expect. Armand has always been so. . . civilized around her before. It was a rude awakening?’

  Words failed him as he read the misery in her eyes. What did the Seigneur have planned for young Lily? It seemed a natural assumption that he would make her a vampire when she grew up. He didn’t strike Drake as the type to let her walk away to live a nor­mal mortal life.

  A lightbulb seemed to suddenly turn on over Drake’s head, and he finally realized why Faith wanted to spend time with him—and it wasn’t because she was trying to seduce him. He fought against a stab of disappoint­ment, but he could hardly blame her for wanting to protect her sister.

  “You’re hoping I can help you get her away from him, aren’t you?” he asked softly.

  Faith didn’t bother to deny it. “I can’t let her go back to France with him. There would be no escape for her there.” She bit her lip. “I’d take her and run, but as you can see, Armand makes certain we’re never alone and unguarded together. And even if we got away, I don’t know where we could go that I wouldn’t attract unwanted attention, if you know what I mean.”

  He did indeed. And he also knew exactly where they could go—to Philadelphia. Eli would be happy to take Faith in, and he surely had the resources to take care of Lily until she reached adulthood. On top of that, even with his entire entourage, Ar­mand wouldn’t stand a chance against Eli and the Guardians.

  He picked his words carefully. “If we can get Gabriel back so that we’re not so helpless, then I might be able to help you,” he said. “I have to protect the Guardians first, and I can’t afford to cross the Seigneur without someone like Gabriel to back me up. But if you were to find a chance to escape with Lily, you should go to Philadelphia. That’s where the original Guardians are, with Gabriel’s father. They would take you in, and they’d offer you even more protection than Gabriel.”

  A smile brightened her face, and a hint of hop shone in her eyes. “Thank you. One problem solved, only a thousand more to go.”

  She yawned suddenly, and Drake realized it was nearing sunrise. He cast a sidelong glance at the bed. A hint of desire stirred his groin, but even if Faith truly wanted him, the daytime sleep would be on her soon.

  “You should spend the day with me,” not meeting her eyes as he spoke. “If you left now and ran into the Seigneur, he’d know nothing had hap­pened between us.” With a vampire’s keen sense of smell, he’d be able to tell by scent alone that Faith hadn’t had sex. No doubt she could come up with an explanation—such as dawn being too near—but then she might end up in the Seigneur’s bed. It was not a vision that sat easily in Drake’s mind.

  He risked a glance upward and saw that her face had colored again. She had such an easy blush for a woman who had been the Seigneur’s concubine for six years.

  “It’s a king-size bed,” he continued. “We can share it without even touching.” Though the thought of sharing the bed with her set his pulse to drumming.

  “Thank you,” she said, still blushing faintly. She yawned again.

  Drake rose and moved to the chest of drawers across the room. The image of her climbing into his bed burned into his brain, and he fought against the arousal. No doubt this was another symptom of his growing hunger as all his more primal instincts rose to the surface.

  He hadn’t brought a huge supply of clothes with him, but he managed to find a T-shirt he could lend her to sleep in. He sent her into the adjoining bath­room to change as he continued to struggle against the tide of desire. When she stepped out of the bath­room, the T-shirt leaving her legs bare from midthigh down, he knew she couldn’t help but see the effect she had on him.

  Luckily for him, the pull of the daytime sleet quickly overpowered her.

  ***

  IT WAS PERILOUSLY close to morning when Charles made his call to La Vieille. He was old enough that h could fight off the lure of the daytime sleep through-out the daylight hours as long as he remained out of the sunlight, but stress and guilt made the fatigue stronger than usual while at the same time making ii harder to sleep.

  Every muscle in his body went tense when he heard La Vieiile’s voice on the line, but he had no choice but to speak to her. To report everything ti had happened and hope that nothing he said contradicted Armand’s report.

  His nerves became almost overpowering when he recounted Lily’s rebellion. Would Armand have men­tioned that to La Vieille? He suspected not, but h~ couldn’t be sure. He had no choice but to tell the whole truth, for if she caught him in a lie or omis­sion. . . He shuddered all the way down to his soul.

  A sense of doom hovered over him. By spying for La Vieille, he’d already betrayed his friend, even if Armand never found out about it. It was a bitter truth to swallow. But more bitter still was the fear that wouldn’t go away, the fear that this mission would fail. Brigitte and Gabriel had already shown they had the upper hand by killing Marie.

  Charles could hardly bear the idea that he might have to betray Armand to death by torture if the mis­sion failed. But even worse was realizing that any surviving members of their delegation—save him­self, of course—would be doomed to the same terri­ble fate. Including Lily.

  La Vieille would have no mercy because of the girl’s mortality or her tender age.

  As his stomach churned at this realization, an idea came to him. An idea for how he might be able to keep Lily from La Vieille’s clutches even if they failed, without risking himself in the process.

  So he told La Vieille about everything that had happened tonight. Including his lustful thoughts about Lily and Armand’s chilling reaction to the idea of him touching his pretty little ward.

  The seed was planted, and Charles could only hope it would grow in fertile ground. With her mortal frailty, there was only so much physical torture the girl could survive. Especially if La Vieille insisted Armand deliver it himself. Chances were high that the Seigneur would “accidentally” kill the girl.

  But if Charles could subtly convince La Vieille that seeing young Lily as his betrayer’s concubine would be a greater torture for the Seigneur.. . Yes, the idea had definite possibilities.

  9

  LIGHT STILL SHONE around the edges of the dark curtains when Armand awoke for the evening. He rose from his bed, fatigue dragging at his limbs though knew he couldn’t get back to sleep if he tried.

  Before retiring for the day, he’d had another c from La Vieille. It hadn’t been pretty, not when hadn’t been able to report any progress. Tonight he would launch a hunt of the city. Brigitte might able to mask her psychic footprint and thus make herself to all intents and purposes invisible, but He. did not have the same ability. If they could find Henri, they could find Brigitte.

  Then all they’d have to do was find and kill Gabriel.

  That thought, unfortunately, made him think of his ill-conceived plan to discover Gabriel’s whereabouts. Reaching out with his psychic senses, he found Faith’s footprint nearly on top of Drake’s. His jaw tightened and his hands curled into fists.

  When he’d suggested Faith attempt to seduce in­formation from Gabriel’s lieutenant, he hadn’t for a moment guessed that the idea of her in another man’s arms might.. . bother him.

  Shaking his head, hoping to clear the cobwebs and irrational thoughts, he slipped into the bathroom and started the shower. But as he waited for the water to warm up, he remembered standing in the hail outside his door last night, intent on drowning his worries in Faith’s body. And he remembered the tug of pain that had so shocked him when she’d confessed to her assignation with Drake.

  Once up
on a time, more than six centuries ago, when he’d been a mortal man, he’d been in love with a woman. As had been inevitable for a nobleman in that day, his marriage to Isabelle had been an arranged one, but they had fallen in love before their first month as husband and wife had passed.

  Even now, thinking of her made his heart squeeze in his chest. She had just given birth to their fifth child when he’d marched off to his date with destiny on the field of Agincourt. He’d never seen her again, and for six hundred years whenever melancholy crept into his soul, he thought of her and wondered how she’d fared after his “death.”

  Armand looked at himself in the mirror over the sink. Outwardly, he looked like the same man he had been when Isabelle had kissed him goodbye for the last time. But inside, he knew he bore little resem­blance to Armand Durant, the mortal. The mortal man could afford to love. The Seigneur could not.

  And so this jealousy of his was nothing but foolish­ness, a side effect of the stressful mission, of his fear for himself and for all those who depended on him.

  ***

  DRAKE WOKE TO a most unusual feeling—a woman’s body snuggled up against his chest. He forced his gritty eyes open and confirmed that yes, Faith had somehow found her way across the bed and into his arms. .And that he’d somehow managed to wrap those arms around her even in the grip of the coma-like daytime sleep.

  Blinking in the darkened room, he realized that it was past sunset already. Usually he woke in the late afternoon, an hour or two before the sun set. Hard to believe he’d actually slept in when so many troubles besieged him!

  Faith stirred in his arms, snuggling a little closer, and he couldn’t help his instant reaction to the feel of her body against his. The T-shirt he’d given her to wear to bed had bunched up around her hips, leaving her legs bare against his. He usually slept in the nude, but he’d donned a T-shirt and boxers this morning. Still, that left plenty of bare skin, and before he was even fully awake, his fangs had descended and his cock hardened.

  He hadn’t woken up with a woman in his bed since his mortal days. For the last century, he had never been able to be so unguarded with a lover. With every mortal woman he’d bedded since then, he’d made sure their tryst took place at her home or at a hotel, leaving him the freedom to slip away in the middle of the night so she couldn’t find out what he was.

  Swallowing hard, he glanced down at Faith’s face, still relaxed with the innocence of sleep, her lips slightly parted. If he kissed her, he wouldn’t have to cloud her mind with glamour, as he’d had to with mortal women to keep them from noticing his fangs. He imagined giving himself up to that kiss, letting go of the reins, letting her kiss him, not some glamour-fogged facsimile.

  He’d bent to within a millimeter of her mouth be­fore he caine to his senses and jerked away. Bad enough she might wake to find herself in an uncom­fortably intimate embrace with a man she’d made clear she didn’t want. What would she think of him if she woke to find him stealing a kiss?

  He must have moved too suddenly, for Faith’s body stiffened and her eyes popped open. His arm lay draped around her waist, and though he knew he should move away, he found himself staying right where he was, drinking in the sight of her tousled hair and startled eyes. When she licked her lips, it was all he could do to stop himself from stealing that kiss after all. His hand slid up her body until he touched the silky hair that lay across his pillow.

  Faith didn’t push him away, instead staring at him with those wide, still-startled eyes. He wondered if she was trying to decide how to extract herself from this uncomfortable position, until he took in a deep breath and caught the unmistakable scent of femi­nine arousal in the air.

  His whole body clenched with need, and he forgot all his chivalrous instincts, as well as his rival for her affections. When his lips tasted hers, she gave a little moan and pressed herself more tightly into his arms. Her leg slid across the length of his, the friction sweet and sensual as her mouth opened for him. He didn’t hesitate to take advantage of the invitation, sliding his tongue into the heat of her mouth as he speared his fingers through her hair and held her head at just the angle he liked.

  His tongue ~brushed against one of her delicate fangs, and a shudder went through his body as he re­membered once again that she was a vampire. That he didn’t have to hide from her, didn’t have to lie, didn’t have to think every moment he made love to her, keeping himself in control so that his glamour wouldn’t slip.

  Her leg slid between his, her thigh coming to rest at the warm, hard center of him. His rational mind turned off completely then, leaving only his primal instincts to guide his actions. With a possessive growl, he rolled her over onto her back, making sure his aching erection came to rest at the juncture of her thighs; She made no protest, her arms sweeping around him, her nails digging into his back as she kissed him with wild abandon.

  His hand was making its way down toward her panties when someone knocked on his door. His first instinct was to ignore the sound—he had more im­portant things on his mind. But Faith tensed up be­neath him, and the knock sounded again, louder.

  “Drake?” Jez asked. “Are you awake in there?”

  With a grunt of pure frustration, he rolled off of Faith and sat up. He’d bet anything Jez knew per­fectly well he was awake—and what he’d been up to. It wasn’t like the walls were soundproofed here, and vampire hearing was supernaturally keen.

  “What is it?” he asked, and tried not to sound as snarly as he felt.

  “His Majesty has called a meeting for this eve­ning,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “He respectfully requests your presence.”

  “Fine!” he snapped, accepting Jez’s sour tone be­cause he didn’t think he had an alternative that didn’t involve violence. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “Bring Faith with you,” she finished, and her foot­steps retreated before he had a chance to respond.

  Silence draped the room, and Drake risked a side­long glance at Faith.

  She’d sat up in the bed and pulled the hem of his T-shirt down as far as it would go. It was too dark for him to tell for sure, but he suspected her cheeks were pink with a blush. He cleared his throat, meaning to say something suave and self-assured, but no words came to mind.

  With every passing moment, he was more awake and more aware of how close he’d come to completely losing control of himself. There were a thousand rea­sons why he shouldn’t let himself get entangled with Faith, even if he did find himself reluctantly liking her, even if his body longed for her in ways he didn’t understand.

  The beast stirred within him, the hunger making restless. Drake’s fangs started to descend yet again, and it was embarrassingly hard to stop the descent. He cleared his throat again.

  “I’m, uh, sorry if I took advantage,” he said, no longer daring, to look at her. The scent of her arousal had faded, and he wondered if she regretted return­ing his kiss as she had.

  She laughed softly. “I’d say we both took advan­tage, so we’re even.”

  He echoed -her laugh and turned back to her. Her head was bent forward, her hair veiling her expres­sion, and before he knew what he meant to do, he had reached out and brushed it away from her face.

  “I would have liked to have met you under differ­ent circumstances,” he said, and meant it.

  “Me, too,” she murmured, then leaned toward him and pressed a soft, chaste kiss against his lips.

  Arousal surged through him once more, his fan”° descending at lightning speed before he could even muster the will to stop them. Faith slid out of the bed, and it was all he could do to keep himself from grab­bing her and hauling her back in.

  “Do you mind if I use your shower?” she asked.

  He was struggling too hard against the beast within him to speak, so he merely made a gesture of acquies­cence.

  When the bathroom door closed behind her, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The shower turned on, and he imagined her stripping out of the T-shirt.
>
  Dammit! He opened his eyes and shook his head fiercely. He was only a day or so late in his feeding. lie shouldn’t be so. . . raw yet. And yet his body refused to stop responding to the images his mind con­tinued to conjure of Faith’s naked body standing under the spray of the shower.

  He had to get out of here before he completely took leave of his senses and joined her.

  Sliding out of the bed, he hastily dressed in his trademark black leather pants and a fresh T-shirt. He’d go see what the Seigneur wanted and take a shower later. A cold shower.

  ***

  FAITH DUCKED HER head under the shower and let the steaming water sluice over her face and body.

  She’d come to Drake’s room last night meaning only to escape Armand’s unwanted attentions. But From the moment she’d slipped between the sheets of his bed, she’d started to think that perhaps the cha­rade needn’t stay a charade forever. When her head had touched the pillow and she’d picked up his unique scent, she’d wanted to draw him into bed with her. But the pull of the daytime sleep had been too strong, and she’d fallen asleep in a haze of unfulfilled desire.

  She picked up the bar of soap and noticed instantly the distinctive sandalwood scent that clung to Drake’s skin. It was going to drive her crazy to smell that all night, but if she’d gone up to her room, she’d have had to wait her turn for one of the guest bathrooms. Besides, she might have bumped into Armand, she’d prefer to put off seeing him again for as long as possible. She remembered too well how Armand h looked at her as she’d left him at his doorway last night.

  He might not particularly value her—at least, not as a person—but the idea of her sleeping with someone else hadn’t sat as easily as he’d thought. That could potentially make things very uncomfortable around here.

  Drake was gone when she emerged from the bathroom. She wasn’t entirely surprised. She didn’t think either one of them had expected the heat that had arisen between them when they’d awakened together like that.