Chapter 10

A bombardment of sensory input rushed at Jesse as she stepped across the castle’s threshold, best summed up in stunted, singular adjectives. Ancient. Cold. Freaky. Frightening.

Chilled to her marrow and beyond, she was too frozen to shake warmth back into her cramped muscles as she soaked in the details of her surroundings. Her nerves were on full alert.

She stood in a vaulted hall composed of bare stone walls and stone floors, all that rock probably whitewashed at one time and now aged to a gray patina. Funny color, she thought, for vampires who can’t stand silver.

She had expected years’ worth of dust and piles of rubble, and found neither. The place was empty. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in sight. No paintings, rugs or drape of fabric warmed the place, providing an inkling of someone in residence. That’s because someone wasn’t.

Something was.

In testament to that, she saw no windows in the great hall—no big surprise—though light slanted downward in ribbonlike streams from somewhere high overhead. Candles hung from sconces attached to the walls around her, if not exactly mimicking hazy daylight, then producing a similar effect. The result of all this dim, drafty bareness seemed as imposing to Jesse as the castle’s fortresslike facade. Neither of those things compared with the problem of facing the creature who reigned here.

As her unearthly host walked past her, Jesse rode out another chill. She remained just inside the hall with her back to the door, ready to run if the need arose. Working to quell her rising panic over being alone with this creature in his windowless lair, she studied more details of this vampire prince and his nightmarish palace.

As on the first time she’d laid eyes on him, he wore a white untucked shirt, this time over dark, loosely fitted pants. He wore the black knee boots. Once again, he seemed impervious to variations in temperature, and even more inhuman for it, up close.

The icy breath Jesse had been holding hurt her throat. A nerve-racking, sharp stab of anxiety dissected her emotions—no help at all in warding off her body’s continuous quaking.

What would this creature do now? Would her life continue or not? Facing those possibilities, she had to admit, reluctantly, that the bastard across from her was nothing short of stunning.

The bleak gray surroundings made him stand out even more than usual, and quite exotically, as if a set designer had created this scene for him to star in. The black pants, white shirt and unblemished ivory skin, when contrasted with the starkness of the silver-gray room, made him seem almost colorful, and definitely the center of attraction. His blond curls that she’d likened to a halo gleamed here just as unnaturally in the candlelight.

Jesse swallowed her fear, refusing to address the disturbing words gathering at the back of her mind. If only he were human.

“It has been a long time since I told a lie,” he said, halting on a stone step, expecting her to follow as his bare, long-fingered hand reached for the carved banister of a stairway leading upward and out of sight. “At one time, I was heralded for my honesty.”

“Then what happened?” Jesse parried, her gaze riveted to the swinging movement of his hair against his collar as if some hidden clue remained clouded by all those curls.

She allowed her attention to drop to the open neck of his shirt and the show of more taut skin, and fielded the urge to run her hands over him to prove to herself that he was what he was. More disturbing, a snap of heat accompanied the thought of having been up close and personal with him, twice.

Hypnotism? Mind control? Pathetic. Dangerous. Was she merely picking up on what she supposed his thoughts might be? The intensity of his stare brought up another word. Devour.

Keep it together. Don’t give in to whatever he’s doing to you. Fight.

The vamp above her on the stairs smiled wearily, as though he had indeed read her mind and was sorry getting close wasn’t going to be a possibility. His expression seemed to hold more than a hint of sad ness.

Jesse shook off the shiver of apprehension working its way through her body. The vamp’s appearance had to be some sort of glamour. Nobody was this perfect. There was a better-than-decent chance this creature’s looks had been artificially generated. He could, in fact, be a hundred years old and sleep in a coffin.

Jesse continued to avoid his eyes, knowing the possibilities awaiting her there, and fearing them. The loss of her will could not be condoned. She had to be careful.

She began to flip through her mantra.

Losing control is not an option. I’ve fought too hard to maintain, to lose it now. Stay on top. Don’t give in.

Mid-mantra, her stomach turned over with the desire to chuck it all and look into his eyes. Stand up to him. Show him that someone would dare. All cops and law enforcers looked into the eyes of their adversaries to assess whether anybody was home. Avoiding this vampire’s gaze was wearing on her. Her body, quite apart from her mind, wanted to address this—which meant that anxiety was chipping away at her reasoning powers. She needed to move, work, fight, get somewhere.

This is what they did. Lure with their looks. She knew this.

The cavernous room seemed to echo a whispered Beware.

“It’s actually quite comfortable upstairs,” her host said, breaking the silence Jesse only then realized had lengthened as he turned to take several more steps with his perfectly proportioned legs.

He moved as lightly as if his body were composed of clouds instead of muscle, though she could see the muscle beneath his white shirt. He was a thing of grace and brooding angles, just as she’d first noted in the meadow. A brilliant, if toxic, collection of ingredients, so flagrantly like a man in shape and substance.

“What? No dungeon?” Jesse quipped.

“Oh, there are several dungeons. I doubt if you’d be comfortable there, though. And as I’ve said, you are my guest.”

“I brought protection.”

“I know,” he said.

“How do you know, just to be clear?”

“I can smell what’s in your bag and tucked at the small of your back, just as I can smell your fear.”

“What does it smell like?” she asked.

“The metal?”

Jesse shook her head. “The fear.”

The vampire turned toward her fully, his hair falling in silky curtains around his face. Jesse caught a breath, then chastised herself for it. The rawness of his energy reached out to her, just as if he had extended a hand. The room virtually expanded with his presence, pushing outward so that the air moved in and around her. If she closed her eyes, she thought, she’d imagine him beside her, breathing on her neck.

Her scar pulsed in reaction to the thought. At least that small bit of herself recognized him for what he was. Monster. The same kind of monster that had branded her in the first place.

Putting a hand up, Jesse stopped with her fingers halfway to her throat as a flash, like a hidden-camera lightbulb, lit her mind so suddenly, she winced in the dim gray hallway.

White shirt. Halo of fair hair. Energy.

Those concepts rode the fringes of her subconscious, telling her this creature was familiar. Not being able to place how she knew him was driving her insane. She’d felt this every time they’d met. But maybe that, too, was a false sense of security he’d planted in her mind so she would follow him up the staircase. So that she’d trust him, as he asked.

God. Extra caution was required to separate the threads he was weaving, lest she be caught in his web of deceit.

“Iron,” he said, his smile slightly dissolved. “Fear smells like iron. Also like the ozone of an impending storm.”

“You think I smell like that?”

“Yes, only better.”

“You smell like this place,” Jesse said.

“How so?” he prompted, surprise lifting his tone so that it echoed off the bare stone.

Tossing the flip reply that had been on her tongue, Jesse went for truth instead. “Yours is the smell of rocks and the lighted wick of candles.”

Even those things didn’t fit him precisely. She tried to be more specific. “Leather and pale skin …” Her description trailed as another flash went off in her mind, highlighting a memory that may or may not have been real this time; one that was, as always, partially hidden, elusive and dangling just beyond her grasp.

She couldn’t be sure about what was real. She’d seen this creature in the alley that morning, so picturing him surrounded by darkness wasn’t a stretch. What, then, about the red haze in this jagged bit of memory? The very deep crimson aura around him that triggered her anxiety alarms?

“I’ve encountered smells like those before,” she concluded. “I can’t place or describe them exactly.”

“Do they bother you?” he asked.

“Shouldn’t they? I suppose you’re causing this? Instilling a false calm so I’ll be caught off guard?”

“I’m doing nothing of the kind. Well, perhaps I am, in a way. I’d prefer, however, to think that anything I’ve done is to prevent you from being caught off guard.”

“Why do you care about what happens to me?”

“Caring is what I was created to do. Although I may have forgotten about my task for a while, you’ve managed to bring it all back.”

Caring? Was he serious? Beyond that, was he trying to make a point? If so, she didn’t get it. Vampires took lives. Vampires didn’t care about anything other than their next meal. Yet this vamp was suggesting that bloodsuckers had feelings, morals. What a crock! In no possible universe could a being with the ability to care have done to her parents what had been done to them. No way in hell.

Still … some part of herself, some chip that had detached from the more reasonable parts, wanted to understand what was going on, really. She wanted to make sense out of all of this. Was he going to help her find Elizabeth Jorgensen, or did he have another motive for getting her here?

Did the fact that she was still alive mean anything?

Concentration was important, and she was having a hard time keeping hold of hers. She was slowly losing the ability to focus, aware of self-control inching away. She wanted to explore the familiarity angle. She needed the time to think and gather herself together, and didn’t have that luxury. Darkness was a couple of hours away. She’d planned on being in and out of here before then.

“You’re willing me to be at ease?” Her hand finally covered the scar on her neck, though holding it didn’t do much good in keeping the ache to a minimum.

“Are you at ease?” her host asked.

Her silence lay heavily between them.

“Then I’d be incompetent, if that’s what I was going for, don’t you think?” he concluded.

“Why am I here, since you’re going for honesty?”

“You want to know about Elizabeth Jorgensen. I’ve found out where she is, and you’ve come to ask for my help in getting her back.”

“Have I asked for your help?”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

Jesse’s anger rekindled. “Yes. That’s why I’ve come. Not to be your guest, your dinner, or to waste time. Finding Elizabeth is what I was created for.”

“I know that, too,” her host conceded in the same gentle voice he’d used that morning to try to soothe her. “We’ll get to that. My housekeeper makes a good cup of tea,” he said, turning from her, heading upward. “Unless you’d prefer something stronger? My housekeeper is not like me, in case you’re wondering. I don’t, nor have I ever fed from her. I have not made her my minion. You can ask her if you like. Her name is Nadia.”

“How will I know she’s not …”

“You will know, I promise. I can also assure you that we’re not in the habit of drugging anyone by way of a teacup or wine goblet. The dungeons are completely out of the question, being that they are in disgusting need of repair.”

The vampire actually grinned over his shoulder at her after saying that. It would have been a heart-stopping grin, too, Jesse noted, coming from a full mouth like his—an intriguing mouth that not only hid the wrong kind of teeth, but a mouth that had recently rested on her mouth. Except for the fact that her heart had stalled one too many times lately. Heart-stall twice in two days was unacceptable, unnatural and taking things too far. This time, she had hoped to be prepared. It was too late if she wasn’t.

“You seem unconcerned about time being of the essence,” she said.

He stopped and turned back. “No one is more aware of that fact than myself. However, a plan is needed, don’t you think? Details? I promise we’ll get to it as soon as you’ve gotten to know me a little better.”

“Is Elizabeth Jorgensen resting?” “No. I am certain that she is not.” The vampire was not going to give in and she couldn’t make him. If Elizabeth was dead when they got to her, Jesse was going to take it out on this creature. That was a promise she made to herself.

Rolling her tense shoulders, she hoisted her duffel bag and put one foot in front of the other, walking warily toward the staircase, heading toward him. If she didn’t look up, maybe she’d be all right, at least for a while longer.

One step up, and Jesse hesitated with her hand above the banister his hand had skimmed, afraid to touch anything having to do with her host. The place was probably booby-trapped. Although her fingers were trembling, she gripped the railing anyway, and hauled herself onto the next step.

He was watching. His attention was like heat; the hot and creamy kind that accompanied passion and slipped between your legs. The kind that made women come unglued if they weren’t careful … and the sort of intimacy she’d avoided so far. Which made this particular show of the vampire’s power to lure all the more sinister, and stopped her from reaching for her parka’s zipper. There was nothing remotely normal about her attraction to him. It was disconcerting that she’d tuned in to his sexuality. It had to be true that vampires exuded special pheromones that could dial right through an unwilling victim’s defenses. The Dark Seduction that lead to total surrender.

She glanced up accusingly. Her brutally handsome host shook his head.

“You are merely opening up to the possibilities,” he said.

“What possibilities would that be?”

He was a master of the “concerned” expression. In fact, if it were possible for him to look paler, at that moment, he did. Was his wary demeanor insinuating that he didn’t know about the oddly erotic sensations he caused in her? That he wasn’t toying with her on purpose, or causing these unwanted feelings of arousal?

Maybe …

Looking up at the vampire—at the set of his features and the way he stood there, Jesse knew suddenly that he really didn’t want to kill her, and that he actually expected to help her with this case.

It was as if she had tasted light—that same light she’d sampled that morning when his lips brushed hers. If truth had a texture, this was it, soft, and not too bitter—though this new awareness wasn’t altogether free of the need for concern, because the light was rimmed in scarlet.

“I don’t think I like you having such an advantage,” she said. If this creature wasn’t planning on biting her, drugging her or tossing her into a dungeon, there was something else he wanted from her in return for his help. He expected something. And it would be a whole lot better if he looked more like the gaunt freak she’d tussled with that morning, instead of himself.

“If you’re so expert at mind games and in tweaking other people’s perceptions of you, what do you need me for?” she added. “Why not just go and get Elizabeth Jorgensen, yourself?”

“Is that what you want?”

No, she wanted to shout. She didn’t want the Jorgensen girl taken from vampires by another vampire. The thought of how Elizabeth might react to such a thing made her shudder. But she would have accepted it, all the same, if this vampire proved to be as good as his word. The end result was the prize here. The Jorgensen girl’s safe return.

“You said I’d need to learn a few things in order to get Elizabeth back. Why don’t you just tell me what I need, so I can get on with that?”

The vampire’s hint of a grin, whether sad, amused or condescending in origin, showed very white teeth, two of those teeth slightly longer and obviously sharper than the rest. Fangs.

Jesse rode out a wave of shock. She had wanted the truth, had asked for it, and the truth is what she was getting, from between lips that had rested on hers. Possibly she’d find out what other secrets he held if she looked into his eyes. She just wasn’t stupid enough to try it again.

But she wanted to.

He was doing something to her, all right. Fangs. Pheromones. Remote castles. It was scary stuff, and no matter what he had to offer that he hadn’t yet mentioned, she was in trouble by remaining to find out. The heat of his nearness hadn’t gone, despite the evidence of his species. He was affecting her, big-time, and looked like a god up there on the stairs. A god with a bite.

Her fingers tightened on the banister. She didn’t so much as turn her head to look at the door. Because of Elizabeth Jorgensen? Because she had her own point to make—of being able to handle this, of standing up against forces of nature so far beyond human reckoning as to be completely alien? Because she did not fear death, and every moment of the last twenty-odd years had been borrowed?

“There is a fire upstairs,” he said. “I will explain everything to you there. Come,” the lord of the castle urged, and Jesse imagined she felt his gaze slip through her wavering veneer, again.

Her gaze rose a few centimeters. Not to his eyes. If the creature’s pheromones could get to her from several feet away, his eyes would possibly seal the deal.

Or those fangs.

When he turned, Jesse followed, drawn upward as if drafting in his wake, hating every step she took and dreading what she’d find in the upper reaches of his domain. If he had information, she needed him, even though each step she took distanced her from the exit, and escape.

She had finally gone insane. Around the bend. Setting one foot inside this place had pretty much confirmed this. As she eyed the vampire’s wide back and the way his shirt fluttered so softly over it, and as she watched the silent sway of his gleaming curls, she found herself hoping with all her might that Elizabeth Jorgensen was alive. She hoped to God that all this wasn’t for nothing.

Rubbing the uneven ridges of her scar with nervous fingers, trying to ease her growing fear, Jesse realized that she should have brought the army. She really should have.

“Stan,” she whispered, without tapping on her chest to make sure her pilot was listening, wondering how much he had already heard. “Are you there?”

There was just no energy left to regret the fact that no reply from Stan was possible through a one-way transmitter.

Death. Lance remembered dying, sometimes relived his final breath of fragrant springtime air. He would never be free of the memory of the moment he had ceased being human and had been reborn to the Blood. Vivid were the associations of leaving the known plane of existence, and the pain accompanying the event. The excruciating trauma of exchanging one kind of existence for another.

He wanted to tell Jesse he was not the un-dead, as people tended to think of his half-crazed, distant relations, but no longer living on the human plane of existence, either. He was unable to die again, except by the most extreme means, while he also had all but lost the will to continue.

He could mention that he was no longer privy to the variances of the seasons, illness, dark, light and love, having long ago surpassed all but the latter of those things. What kind of female would understand the turns his life had taken, and where it had led?

There had been only one female of his breed that he’d ever known. His creator. Yet look what she had done, and what had been taken from him.

Not long after his change, and the demise of his maker, he had adored the fair Gwen. Though in the end, Gwen represented nothing more than a wisp of life he had no right to grasp on to when he had become so very much more than that.

Now, here he was, contemplating removing Jesse from her world and everything she knew, when other lives were at stake. Vibrant Jesse, serious Jesse, hell-bent on setting the world to rights, had a mysterious hold on him. The woman who looked at him with the little girl’s eyes.

“Help them!” little Jesse had pleaded in that alley so long ago, her face a bloody mess as she screamed for him to aid her parents. She had not wanted help for herself. She’d had no thought for her own safety.

“Help them!”

Those memories drifted in the stairwell as he climbed, with Jesse behind him. It seemed that Jesse would still give up her safety for the benefit of others, which made his own current needs selfish by comparison. Nevertheless, he knew something of the woman behind him now. He’d seen how desperately she wanted to be saved. She knew it would take someone so much stronger than herself to rescue her. Someone able to cope with the issues coiling through her.

She was wired to her pilot through a microphone she’d just whispered through, as if Jesse believed Stan might actually be able to help her here. Stan, against an impenetrable fortress that had withstood armies of angry invaders for more years than Stan could probably count in decades on his fingers and toes. One swarthy pilot against a Guardian of the Blood?

It was inconceivable that Stan could help her, though Lance envied the pilot Jesse’s trust. Stan was able to get close to Jesse. He had probably touched her, watched her eat, heard her laugh.

Did she laugh? She who presented such a solemn exterior? He’d seen no lightness in her, though he had looked deep. A great swirling emptiness lay where hints of light should have shone. Sarcasm had replaced humor. Drive had replaced some of her fear.

What would the pilot do if he knew everything about his boss? Lance wondered. If Stan found out what was inside her, would he turn away and sprint for the hills?

If he told Jesse the truth, she might wonder if she’d be worth saving. If she realized that she was, in essence, closer to the monsters than she’d ever dare to imagine, and only had to bleed to see this … that knowledge might hasten her self-destruction.

Sacrifice. He nearly said the word aloud. Jesse was offering herself up without knowing all the rules of the game. The rules attached to life itself.

Jesse, the fighter.

I was once like you.

She would see it all, know the worst, if she went after Jorgensen. Pitting her against the vampires she despised might send Jesse spiral-ing further into herself. He had to help her. He owed her that much.

He was either going to be her guide, her lover, destroyer or executioner. Decisions were just minutes away.

Those minutes seemed like centuries.