Embrace the Night

by Caris Roane

  “Jude, something’s wrong. Get off. Please. I’m sorry, but I think I’m in trouble.”

  Jude pulled out of her then moved backwards. She slid sideways from the bunk then headed straight to the bathroom where she quickly started up the shower, though leaving the temp on cold.

  She heard him follow after her, his bare feet padding on the tile floor.

  “Hannah, did I hurt you?”

  “No, of course not. This is … I don’t what this is. I’m just over-heated in a way that is really off.”

  She stepped into the cool spray, and groaned because it felt so good. She dipped her head under the water, savoring the icy feel. But how strange that she actually liked the temperature. She should have been jumping and shouting because it was so cold.

  Instead, heaven.

  Yet her whole body seemed to be on fire. Did having sex with a vampire do this to a human? Or feeding a vampire maybe?

  She’d had plenty of friends who’d crawled into bed with vampires, even donated from a willing vein. But she’d never had one tell her she felt like her body had become a living inferno.

  When she finally felt cool enough, she stepped from the shower and wrapped herself up in a towel.

  Jude had remained by the door. And as naked as he was, with just his long mane of black hair surrounding his muscular shoulders and arms, he’d never looked sexier.

  She almost suggested a second round, but he stared at her with an odd expression, his gray eyes wide and a frown between his brows. “Hannah, what’s going on? You look like you’re sunburned, stem to stern.”

  She turned and looked at herself in the mirror over the sink. He was right. She was very flushed. She glanced down at her legs and toes. Same thing.

  Shifting to face Jude once more, she shook her head. “Do you think I might have some kind of allergy to you, because I can’t explain this heat at all. Or is it something that occasionally happens to your donors?”

  He shook his head, his frown deepening. “Never.” After a long moment, she grew uncomfortable with the way he kept staring at her. He looked worried. “Okay, what’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure. But, I do have a question. Can you tell me how you felt after I fed from your wrist?”

  She spread her hands wide. “Good. I mean a lot better, actually. I’d had this kind of weight on my chest.” Something about that sounded familiar, but her mind wouldn’t bring anything into sharp focus. “Afterward, though, I was just fine.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Jude stood rooted to the floor. He’d finally realized that something very realm was going on with Hannah.

  He took deep breaths because he was afraid of what was coming next and he didn’t want to look at it, not even a little. “I should head back to Kellcasse.” A completely irrational statement given that the sun was up. But, yeah, he wanted to run.

  She chuckled. “You can’t go. You’d be fried to a pile of ashes.”

  He nodded. She was right, but she was still bright red, beautiful as hell with her violet eyes glittering and her damp hair drawn away from high cheekbones. But still her skin was such an odd shade. “I know.”

  “Jude, you look distressed.”

  He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about this or to acknowledge any of its truth. He knew this particular phenomenon was racing through the Nine Realms, perhaps even in response to Margetta’s aggression against their world, but it couldn’t happen to him. Not now. Not ever.

  He couldn’t have a permanent woman in his life. He’d lost his wife and daughter and that had been it for him, his last attempt at normalcy while he was ruler of Kellcasse. He was too much of a target and Naomi’s death, as well as Joy’s, had been a deliberate attack against him.

  Yes, he had a powerful reason for remaining unattached.

  Putting his hand to his stomach, he groaned, not because of the usual cramping but because it was gone, completely gone. He was pain-free for the first time since he’d gained mastyr status so long ago.

  And to his knowledge, there was only one reason he could ever be free of that kind of pain.

  He opened his eyes, meeting Hannah’s now-worried gaze. She’d taken a couple of steps closer. “Jude, what’s going on?”

  “Did you ever wonder why you were suddenly so into me in the same way I’d become obsessed with making more frequent trips to the Gold Rush?”

  She shrugged. “I guess I just thought I’d awakened to this.” She waved a hand to encompass his entire body. She even smiled.

  In any other circumstance, he would have been gratified, his male ego stroked nicely by her words. He would have smiled as well, maybe even laughed, and he definitely would have hauled her back into his arms.

  But not this time.

  Things had just gotten way too complicated.

  “Think, Hannah. You said your heart felt weighty until you fed me. Doesn’t that sound familiar to you? I know that you’re on the loop with all the other bonded females. Surely they’ve talked about what it’s like for them.”

  She laughed and used a second towel to pat her hair dry. “But you’re talking nonsense now.”

  “Am I?”

  “Of course. Look, I think you’re overreacting to what happened between us just now.” She waved in the direction of the bunkroom. “You know, in there. And it was amazing.”

  For a moment, he let himself remember, and his tension eased a little. “It was incredible.”

  She cocked her head. “Wait a minute. I just supposed it was always like that for you.”

  He shook his head. “No. This was damn extraordinary.”

  At that, she frowned. “You mean the sex?”

  “Especially the sex. What did you think I meant?”

  “The feeding, of course.”

  “That, too.” His gaze fell to her neck and an internal vibration very deep wanted to rise, one that he’d kept suppressed for a hundred years. Shit, this couldn’t be happening, but all the signs were there. Yet, Hannah wasn’t taking his hints.

  “I need to ask you something.”

  Hannah leaned her hips against the sink, the second towel bunched in her hands. She looked troubled, and her gaze flitted toward him then away. “Sure. Whatever.”

  “Why did you throw yourself on me like you did, earlier, in the parking lot? At the time, I didn’t understand because it hurt like hell. So why did you?”

  “You don’t know what happened?” She set the towel on the sink, then tightened the one around her body.

  “Only that you seemed to be protecting me,” Jude said. “But from what I still don’t know. I was flat on my back and I couldn’t see everything that was going on.”

  Her eyes widened. “Well, because that vampire was aiming his hand-blast at you. I was looking back at the dock and caught sight of this red glow and it was coming from his palm. He would have killed you so I covered you.”

  “Shit,” he murmured.

  She then shook her head. “But Jude, don’t you remember what happened next, because you sent this kind of wave of heat passing right through me and it burned him up. He was horribly blistered and died soon after. Don’t you remember? Didn’t you see what you did to him?”

  Jude’s spirits sank one more notch. She’d just confirmed everything in those few words. It was also clear she didn’t understand what had really happened. “I don’t have that kind of power to bring fire out of my body and destroy others, to burn others.”

  She put both hands on her head. “I’m so confused. I don’t get what you’re saying. How is that possible? I mean maybe what happened was that your usual blasting power got activated somehow.”

  “If it had passed through you, you’d be dead. No, Hannah, I had nothing to do with killing that vampire.” He could see she was in a state of shock as she slowly lowered her arms to her sides.

  “If you’re suggesting that I had anything to do with it, I think you’re crazy. I run a bar, I don’t kill vampires.”

  “But you did and I thin
k it’s tied up with the flush that’s finally fading from your skin.”

  She looked away from him, shaking her head. “None of this makes sense.”

  Jude said nothing more, but waited for her to catch up. His mind rolled inward and switched lanes completely as he recalled being in Walvashorr with Mastyr Seth, and so deeply attracted to Lorelei, Seth’s emerging blood rose.

  Jude had heard the tales, about the level of possessiveness a mastyr would feel for his woman and the drive he’d have toward her, but he’d dismissed a good portion of this as outright embellishment.

  Until … and he cringed at the memory … until he’d found himself alone with Lorelei for the first time. It was as though he’d lost his mind. He went after her and something about her blood-rose state responded to his mastyr status as well. She’d all but opened her arms to him.

  The moment had ended with Seth attacking him and he and Seth would have battled to the death if Lorelei hadn’t intervened.

  As he stared at Hannah, he knew he’d just gotten thrown into the deep end once more. If she was a blood rose, or an emerging one, with unique incredible powers, and she remained unbonded for any length of time, every mastyr in the Nine Realms would eventually come hunting her.

  He’d take the chronic pain he suffered as a mastyr to be rid of this horrible situation. He didn’t want a Goddess be-damned woman in his life, he hadn’t asked for a blood rose, and like hell he was going to act on it.

  But this was Hannah. And if he wasn’t careful, a mastyr vampire of lesser ability and no character at all, could seduce her. Then she’d be locked into a life of pure torture.

  What the hell was he supposed to do?

  ~ ~ ~

  Hannah could feel that for whatever reason, Jude’s anger had taken over. Though why he was mad, she wasn’t sure.

  Of course, nothing made sense to her right now. It was almost as though she knew something in the very center of her brain, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at it.

  She glanced down at her toes once more, now more pink than red, so the flush was fading.

  But what had caused all the redness?

  Her tingling hands were still really warm and bugging her. She rubbed them together again.

  And Jude had no pain.

  She mentally danced a little more.

  Maybe this was simple. She’d fed him and something about feeding him had been a little different than what he was used to. That had to be it. And as for her killing a vampire, well, he’d lost a whole bag of screws on that one. She was more likely to shut the Gold Rush down forever than to even kill a flea. All spiders walked out of her bar alive.

  With her towel still snug, she turned toward the sink and flipped on the cold water. She held her hands beneath the stream and felt some relief from the tingling. Maybe it was time to see a doctor.

  Jude drew close and settled a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Hannah.”

  Why did he sound so resigned? And to what?

  She held her hands up for him to see. “My hands won’t cool down, even though the water is freezing. I shouldn’t have fed you. This is because I fed you. I knew I shouldn’t have. I’m human, you’re realm and we shouldn’t engage like that.”

  “I know this is hard for you.”

  She slammed the faucet off, wiping her hands on the towel still wrapped around her, then whirled toward him. “What do you mean, this must be hard?”

  But his gray eyes were filled with so much compassion that she took a step back, bumping into the sink. “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Hannah.”

  “And stop speaking my name with such remorse. I donated happily. You’re my friend. Why wouldn’t I have done so?”

  “This isn’t about your having fed me. And your body isn’t flushed because you opened a vein. Don’t you see?”

  She stared at him, but kept shaking her head.

  “Hannah.”

  “No.” She held up both hands as though to ward him off.

  Suddenly, the whirling in her brain stopped so that she finally had to stare at an enormous central monolith that had two words chiseled on it, all in caps: BLOOD ROSE.

  “No,” she cried out.

  She knew what it meant. She’d heard the women talk about how much their lives had changed and that was the last thing she wanted.

  Jude caught her in his arms and held her.

  “I don’t want this, Jude. I’m not that person. I love you as one of my dearest friends, but I’m human. I’m human.” She clung to his massive shoulders and started sobbing. It was all too much, her lust and longing for him, her respect for him, the sex that had just rocked her world. “I don’t understand how I could be a blood rose.”

  “Abigail was human.”

  Hannah drew back and stared up at Jude, though she still held tightly to him like an anchor in heavy seas. “And now she’s a vampire. Is that what I’ll become?”

  “Not necessarily, at least, I don’t think so. Sweet Goddess, I don’t know. But I do think you’re becoming realm.”

  She held out her hands and glanced from one palm to the other. “What is this, Jude? Why do my hands tingle? Why does my body grow so warm and flushed?” She drew in a long, slow breath.

  Then she remembered when Jude had begun his vibration between her legs that she’d felt all this warmth and she now knew that heat had come from her. Oh, God.

  But one more horrible thought intruded. “Did I really kill that vampire?”

  Jude nodded slowly.

  The thought that she had taken a life, even one that needed to be brought down, caused her to tremble.

  Jude pulled her close once more. “I’m so sorry, Hannah.”

  She let him comfort her for a moment, then pulled out of his arms. “You don’t understand. This bar is my life. I ended my last long-term relationship because my ex wanted me to give up the Gold Rush, to sell it, just to be with him.”

  “I know. I remember.”

  She planted a hand against her chest. “The Gold Rush is who I am.”

  “I know. By all the elf-lords, I do know who you are. But we’re in trouble here, Hannah. Please tell me you understand. I didn’t ask for this and I definitely would never have wished this on you in a million years, but we’re here and we’re in trouble.” He then reminded her of what each of the bonded women would have already told her, that she would be pursued heavily by other mastyr vampires.

  She put a hand to her forehead. “Oh, God. This can’t be happening. And I’m so unfit for anything like that. I thought I was performing a good-enough service here, giving you men a place to chill and even to sleep over, not to mention running the communications center. So why wasn’t that enough that somehow the powers of your world have descended on me? I just don’t get it.”

  “I don’t know, either, but I do know someone who can help, who can give us some answers.”

  Hannah began to relax. “Vojalie.”

  Jude nodded. “Tell you what. Let me contact her and see if we can meet up tonight.” He glanced around. “How about at your house at full-dark?”

  She couldn’t help the tears that rolled down her cheeks. “Sounds like a plan.”

  She watched Jude move back into the bunkroom, pull out his locker and slip into a pair of boxers. He then sat down on the side of the bed and turned inward, eyes closed. From the energy she felt radiating from him, she knew he’d connected with either Vojalie or her husband, Davido. Most realm-folk didn’t have that kind of power to hold a telepathic conversation realm-to-realm. Jude did, as did all the other mastyrs of the Nine Realms, which was one reason power-levels defined the mastyr-status. The most powerful mastyr in each realm ruled. Simple.

  When Jude finally relaxed and looked up at her, she knew the call had ended.

  “What’s the word?” she asked.

  “Both Vojalie and Davido will join us at your house at full-dark. Sound good?”

  Hannah finally breathed a sigh of relief. “Like the best possible
news.”

  He stood up and took her gently by the shoulders. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”

  Hannah wasn’t quite as hopeful as Jude appeared to be, but she nodded. “I really need my bed. How about you?”

  “Yep.” He kissed her once, a brief warm kiss, after which she put her clothes back on and left the bunkroom. Jude needed his sleep as much as she did.

  She returned to the communication center and made arrangements to have one of her workers, Greg, take over until Sandy arrived from her dental appointment.

  When Greg had settled in, Hannah walked up the hill to her home, a climb that she usually enjoyed but which felt about a mile long given all that she’d been through.

  By the time she fell into bed, sleep roared toward her and she embraced it with open arms.

  ~ ~ ~

  Later that evening, after Hannah had shared wine with her guests, she invited Vojalie to join her on the roof deck that overlooked the Sound. In older days, this would have been called ‘the widow’s walk’. When the sun shined, Hannah often came here to lay out and try to pink up her very white, Pacific Northwest skin, usually without much success.

  Vojalie had already admired the view and thanked her for the lovely Cabernet Sauvignon. She then asked Hannah to give her a brief history of the current situation with Jude and what appeared to be a strange realm gift that had come to her so unexpectedly.

  Hannah quietly outlined the details, including how and when her interest in Jude had suddenly exploded. Vojalie even smiled at the supply closet scenario.

  She explained as best she could about how she seemed to have some kind of power that had released as a wave of heat and killed a vampire.

  Vojalie lifted her brows this time.

  After Hannah was done, Vojalie remained looking out to sea for a long time, her forearms on the railing. Peace radiated from the beautiful fae woman who was probably the most powerful of her kind in the Nine Realms.

  She wasn’t quite as tall as Hannah and had very fae features with a thin nose and a strong pointed chin. She wore a lavender headband holding back her long, dark brown hair. Her equally dark eyes glimmered with a mountain of compassion. Though she’d never seen it before, she knew that Vojalie’s eyes would turn silver when she enthralled someone, usually while seeking information.