2
THE REST OF THE BAR
BLURRED IN MY PERIPHERAL VISION and the throb of the music dulled
in my ears. When Matthias got within six feet of me he slowed and
dark veins faintly surfaced on his pale cheekbones.
“I’d almost forgotten
how powerful it is,” he said so quietly I barely heard him. “I
hadn’t properly braced myself for your scent.”
“I can’t believe
this.” The shock made my words sound hollow. “You died right in
front of me. Fire, ash, you were gone.”
“A parlor trick I’d
planned well ahead of time for just such an occasion. That, along
with a sliver of mental influence helped me to cloud minds and
escape. It was all smoke and mirrors, Jillian.”
I’d known Matthias
had a love of magic. He’d even been friends with Houdini himself
once upon a time. It was a possibility to me that it had all been a
trick, but with each day that had passed since it seemed less and
less likely.
He’d drank my
blood—the same blood that killed every other vampire who’d tasted
it.
I moistened my dry
lips with the tip of my tongue and flicked a nervous glance at
Noah, who stood with his arms crossed and a worried expression on
his face. My attention returned to the former vampire king. “So my
blood doesn’t kill all vampires.”
“No.”
“You proved once and
for all that the ritual—your brother’s ritual—worked.”
“In
part.”
While vampires had
the potential for immortality, they were still vulnerable and could
be killed by a wooden stake or silver blade through their hearts,
by decapitation, by fire.
In their search for
true and inarguable immortality, a secret group had formed called
the Amarantos Society. They believed that the blood of an infant
female dhampyr imbued a vampire with that immortality.
Thirty years ago,
Matthias’s brother, Kristoff, murdered his own daughter and forced
Matthias to drink her blood alongside him.
Just thinking about
it made me feel physically ill.
“You wanted to talk
to me.” I tried very hard not to let my voice tremble. I failed,
but at least I tried.
He nodded, his gaze
traveling over my face and down my tank top and short black skirt.
I felt chilled even though it was warm in the bar with all the
human bodies milling around generating an unpleasant sticky heat.
When his gaze returned to mine, I fought the urge to look away.
Matthias appeared to be no more than thirty, a handsome man with
dark blond hair that fell nearly to his shoulders, but I knew he
was at least four hundred years old.
Vampires, especially
those as old and powerful as Matthias, could easily manipulate a
human’s mind. I knew this firsthand because he’d once manipulated
mine.
“Where is my
daughter?” he asked after a moment.
Just before Matthias
faked his death, he’d asked me to take care of his baby daughter,
who’d been born in the research compound where Declan and his
father lived.
“She’s
safe.”
“Where is she?” he
asked again, sharper. “Tell me.”
“Jill doesn’t know.”
Declan’s voice made me jump. He’d entered the club despite his
earlier protests. I could see he’d already attracted the wary
glances of others around us in the bar. His gaze narrowed on
Matthias. “And this is not a discussion to have in
public.”
Matthias eyed Declan,
as if sizing up the dhampyr. “I disagree.”
“Your daughter is in
good hands. You have nothing to be concerned about.”
“But you won’t tell
me where she is, will you?”
“No, I won’t. Not
now.”
Matthias’s attention
shifted to me and I could see his frustration. “Jillian would tell
me.”
“Don’t be so sure.
She doesn’t know you very well and I’m sure she doesn’t trust
you.”
“You’re sure about
that, are you?” Matthias’s strained expression now showed a trace
of amusement. “I’ll assume she hasn’t told you much about the time
we spent together alone in my chambers.”
Declan’s jaw
tightened. “The subject hasn’t come up.”
“I can still feel her
body against mine, see her bare skin flush with desire. She has a
tattoo on her left hip—a small Japanese symbol for strength, isn’t
it?” He glanced at me. “Do you remember that,
Jillian?”
“Go to hell.” My face
was hot with anger and embarrassment.
“Hell, heaven . . .
sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.” A smile played at his
lips.
“Enough.” Declan’s
voice was harsh, although Matthias’s words hadn’t seemed to put
much of a dent into his cool composure.
It had put a big dent
into mine. What happened between me and Matthias had been a huge
mistake, one brought on by that strong mental influence of his.
What I’d felt for him for a few brief moments hadn’t been remotely
real. It had been more of that smoke and mirrors he’d spoken about
earlier.
Declan didn’t trust
Matthias to start with, and it looked as if the feeling was mutual.
The dhampyr had been raised to hate vampires all of his life and he
didn’t disappoint. It was one of the reasons he’d taken his
original serum so religiously—because of his hatred of his vampire
father who’d allegedly raped his mother.
All of his life he’d
been led to believe that monster was Matthias himself. But that had
been a lie.
Declan moved his
seemingly unaffected gaze from the vampire king to Noah, ignoring
the previous bait Matthias had thrown out. “Do you have any
information tonight that can help Jill?”
Noah cleared his
throat. He’d been watching our uncomfortable exchange like a
spectator at a tennis game. “Still working on it, Dec. It’s not
easy now that I’m away from the compound since all the research
material’s there, but I’m doing my best. I’m gathering info on your
new serum, too. That’s not quite as top secret, so I expect to have
some solid news soon.”
“If you have nothing
useful to tell us, then being here tonight is a waste of our time.
Jill was attacked earlier.”
“I know,
but—”
“When and if you
learn anything that can actually help us, please contact us again.”
He wrapped his fingers around my wrist. “We’re
leaving.”
I expected Matthias
to try to stop us, but he didn’t. He stood in place, his hands
fisted at his sides, and silently watched us leave the
nightclub.
DECLAN AND I RETURNED
TO OUR MOTEL NEAR VENICE Beach, the latest in a succession of
motels we’d stayed at for the past week. It wasn’t The Ritz or even
the Holiday Inn, but it had a bed and a TV and a bathroom that
actually worked. It was a one-story U-shaped motel with a vacancy
sign flashing out front of the small parking lot where our
ten-year-old Buick—admittedly acquired through less than legal
means—was parked along with a couple other cars.
My entire life now
easily fit into a tote bag and had been purchased entirely at
Walmart. Including the tote bag. It definitely made it easy to
leave a location quickly without worrying about forgetting anything
important. But it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a life of
luxury.
Back home in San
Diego, working as a temp, I hadn’t had tons of money and clothes.
At twenty-eight, I’d still had a roommate to afford rent downtown
as I figured out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I’d
lived paycheck to paycheck. But this was much different than even
that modest lifestyle. All I could do was hope that one day very
soon things would return to normal and I could stop running and
hiding like a criminal who’d escaped from prison.
Declan hadn’t said
anything to me on our half hour drive back here. I’d stayed quiet,
trying very hard not to let what had happened since arriving at the
bar only an hour and a half ago haunt me. My neck stung and I
immediately went into the tiny bathroom to clean the vampire bite
with a damp facecloth.
“He won’t just let
the subject of his daughter drop, you know,” I said, glancing over
my shoulder.
Declan stood by the
door, his arms crossed over his hard muscled chest. He didn’t
reply.
“Declan, are you
listening to me?”
He finally looked at
me, his gray gaze flat. “He shouldn’t be alive.”
“But he
is.”
“You said he drank
your blood. That he killed himself right in front of
you.”
“It was a trick so he
could escape.”
“Did you know it was
a trick?”
“I ... had a feeling
it might be.” Just before he’d bitten me, an act of rebellion
against a woman who meant to use Matthias as a stud to breed
dhampyrs, he’d whispered that he’d find me.
He did. It was just a
bit quicker than I ever would have imagined.
“I see.” Declan
watched me dab at my injured throat with the cloth.
“About his daughter .
. .”
“I told you that
she’s somewhere safe. Somewhere she can be looked after. We don’t
have the means to properly take care of a baby. It would have been
too dangerous to keep her with us.”
“I know that.”
Frustration welled inside of me. “But why can’t you tell me where
she is? Don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you. I don’t
trust Matthias.”
“She’s his
daughter.”
“And she’s a dhampyr.
She’s very valuable. Her blood is worth more than diamonds to those
interested in the immortality ritual.”
I was surprised by
how cold he sounded. “He wouldn’t just hand her over to the
Amarantos Society.”
Declan regarded me a
moment longer. “Then you have much more faith in him than I do. But
I suppose I now have a good idea why that is.”
I felt myself pale.
“If you’re talking about what he said earlier . . .”
“It doesn’t
matter.”
I hissed out a
breath. “It does matter. If it’s bothering you . . .”
“It’s not bothering
me.”
“Fine.” I nodded
stiffly. “Then let’s just forget about it.”
Declan moved to the
small window at the side of the door and opened the gingham curtain
so he could look outside. The nearly full moon hung heavy above the
parking lot, the only light apart from a couple lamps around the
motel’s cement lot. There was one sorry-looking palm tree out front
next to the sign, but that was about it for greenery in the general
vicinity.
“You said his name in
your sleep last night,” he said after a moment.
The facecloth froze
at my neck. “What?”
“I heard you. You
were dreaming and you said his name. I thought maybe you were
having a nightmare about what happened, but now I’m thinking it
wasn’t a nightmare at all.”
I’d all but forgotten
about it until this very moment. It hadn’t been a nightmare. It had
been a dream in which I’d been seducing Declan, feeling his warm
hands sliding over my body, when suddenly it had turned into
Matthias’s cool touch. It wasn’t the first time I’d had the dream
this week and I worried it wouldn’t be the last.
My face burned.
“There’s no reason for you to feel jealous.”
“I’m not
jealous.”
“I didn’t sleep with
him.”
Declan brushed his
fingertips lightly against his eye patch, then scrubbed his hand
back and forth over his scalp. “So he lied? He made it sound like
you were in his bed, naked, while he explored your body enough to
know you have a tattoo on your hip.”
“He influenced
me.”
“To have sex with
him.”
I shook my head,
wishing I could rewind this conversation and try again. “He was
trying to test himself, see if he could be close to me without
giving in to the need to taste my blood. It was a power thing for
him, that’s all.”
He studied my face.
“I know vampires are very powerful. That bastard could have made
you do anything. I just wish you’d told me. Is there anything else
you’re keeping from me?”
I shook my head. “It
happened. It’s over. It feels like a million years ago. And it’s
not going to happen again.”
At the time I’d
believed Declan was dead, a horrible lie told by Matthias himself
as a means to manipulate me. But as a human, one look in the
vampire’s eyes was all it took to make me forget all of that, for
me to strip off my clothes and climb into his bed at his command.
And I’d come very, very close to letting him have sex with me as he
tested his limits by using me as a guinea pig.
I looked at Declan,
surprised by his lack of reaction to this news. “You really don’t
care, do you? You’re only asking this out of curiosity, not
jealousy.”
“Do you want me to be
jealous?”
“That another man
nearly manipulated me into letting him fuck me? Yeah, a little
jealousy might make everything start to make some kind of sense
again.”
“The serum won’t
allow me to feel jealousy.”
“Must be great to be
emotion free. Keeps things nice and simple.” The words tasted sour
on my tongue.
His jaw tensed. “You
know it isn’t like that for me. And now that I know what happened,
it all makes much more sense.”
I raked my hand
through my hair until it caught on a tangle, then went to toss the
facecloth back into the bathroom sink. “None of this matters. And
it’s just distracting us from the real problems we need to deal
with.”
“You’re right. That
is, unless you’d rather be with him right now.”
I almost laughed.
“You manage to make that sound more like a bland question than an
accusation.”
“I swore to protect
you, Jill. To do everything in my power to get you through this and
back to your regular life.”
I swallowed hard, my
anger quickly being replaced with anxiety. “And now?”
“Nothing’s
changed.”
He came closer and
touched my chin, raising it so I’d look directly at him. I wasn’t
sure what to expect after our little conversation about Matthias. I
didn’t feel particularly better about having it all out on the
table even though it had been weighing on my conscience for days.
Even though it hadn’t been full intercourse, I still felt as if I’d
cheated on Declan.
I wanted him so much,
but I couldn’t have him. I was coming to terms with this very
slowly. It was likely the reason behind my disturbing dreams about
both Declan and Matthias. One was shut off from me sexually and
emotionally, and the other—wasn’t. But only one was the man I truly
wanted to be with.
“I’m sorry for
everything you’ve had to go through since we met,” he said softly.
“It’s all my fault.”
Strange. I hadn’t
expected an apology from him at the moment. My heart, which felt
rather battered and tender tonight, grew a few degrees warmer. “If
my life hadn’t been completely turned inside out, I never would
have met you.”
He snorted
humorlessly. “Some prize.”
I placed my hand on
his broad chest to feel his heart beating under my touch, then slid
up to his throat, letting my fingertips trail over his scars. “It
has its moments.”
It might have only
been my imagination, but I thought I saw something in his gaze
then—a softening, a yearning.
He shook his head. “I
can’t be who you want me to be, Jill. Not anymore.”
“Then I guess I’ll
have to take what I can get.” I went up on my tiptoes so I could
brush my lips against his. His body felt like a statue, so hard and
unyielding. He let me kiss him without attempting to pull away. His
mouth felt hot against mine and after a moment his lips parted so I
could deepen the kiss. I even imagined that he was kissing me
back.
His thumb moved
across my throat, over the vampire bite from earlier.
“Jill . . .” he
whispered against my lips.
“You want me to
stop?”
“No. Don’t
stop.”
I pulled back a
little to look up at him, surprised by the sound of his voice. It
was deeper and raspier than before. It held desire, the same desire
I swear I now saw in his gaze. “Your serum . . .”
“It’s like a cloud
lifted just now. At this very moment, I can barely feel it at
all.”
I was confused. “And
how before you didn’t seem to care about what happened with
Matthias . . .”
His eye narrowed.
“Right now I want to fucking kill him for touching you. For
manipulating you like he did.”
I frowned. “Wait. But
you—”
He didn’t let me
finish. He kissed me this time, crushing his mouth against mine,
his fingers digging into my sides so hard it nearly hurt. He
groaned as his hands slid down over the curve of my buttocks and he
brought me up firmly against him, enough that I could feel him hard
against my stomach.
I wasn’t sure what
was happening. The serum made him completely impotent, the perfect
soldier unaffected by emotion or desire—one who could focus all of
his attention on hunting and killing vampires. One who didn’t have
to worry about the lustful nature of his vampire side that might
lead to the same violent crimes his father had been accused of.
Bottom line: Being on the serum meant no sex.
When he’d been off
the serum I’d been the first to . . . well, I’d been Declan’s
first. And there had only been the one
time between us before his father injected him with the new and
improved permanent drug.
This didn’t feel all
that permanent to me.
I slid my hand down
between us and over the front of his jeans to make sure his
erection wasn’t simply a figment of my overworked imagination. It
wasn’t.
He groaned again.
“Jill . . .”
“I don’t know what’s
happening right now.”
“It might not last
very long.”
Hope rushed through
me making me dizzy. “Then”—I kissed him again—“there’s no time to
waste. I want you. I need you. Right now.”
“I thought you said
there were more important things to deal with.”
“They can
wait.”
“Agreed.”
He gathered me into
his arms and carried me to the bed, laying me down on top of it.
His kiss was so hard it felt like it was bruising me. His tongue
slid over my jaw, down my throat to my chest. He pulled up my tank
top to bare my breasts and his mouth closed over my right nipple,
sucking it in hard, his tongue swirling over the very tip. I gasped
from a mix of pleasure and pain. He raised his gaze to mine and I
saw a desperate need mixed with a heavy dose of
caution.
I shook my head.
“It’s okay. Don’t stop.”
“I want you so much.”
His voice caught on the last word.
“I want you,
too.”
His hands moved to my
skirt, unzipping it and pulling it off me as I removed my top all
the way. He tore off my panties with one quick pull, then returned
to cup my sex, sliding his fingers back and forth between my
legs.
“Declan . . . please
. . .” It was little more than a moan.
Maybe this was
another dream. If so, I wasn’t going to waste a second of it. I
forced myself to sit up and quickly undid his pants, sliding them
down over his hips. His erection jutted out long and thick and all
I wanted was for him to be inside of me.
“Take off your
shirt,” I told him, knowing I sounded demanding.
He hesitated before
he pulled the black T-shirt off over his head. I got up on my knees
on the bed in front of where he stood and ran my hands over his
chest, over the scars that showed where he’d been wounded so many
times in the past. I kissed his lips and then ran my mouth over
those scars as I wrapped my hand around his length and slowly began
to stroke him.
“Jill—” There was
more than a hint of desperation in the way he said my
name.
I smiled and kissed
him again. “This is a sign.”
“A
sign?”
“That it’s all going
to be okay. That we can be together.”
“I don’t know how
long this will last.”
Hooking my hands
behind his neck, I pulled him down with me on the bed.
“Make love to me,” I
whispered, then moaned and held on to him tighter as he began to
push himself into me. His hands trembled as they gripped my
thighs.
“Like this?” he asked
gruffly.
All I could do was
nod.
He had next to no
experience with sex, but damn, he was a natural. It was so good to
feel him sliding inside of me. I’d tried very hard not to think
about this, knowing it wasn’t a possibility. Most of the time he
was simply my emotionless traveling companion, my platonic
protector, and hoping for more could only lead to
disappointment.
“Fuck, Jill. You feel
so good. You smell so good. Too fucking
good. I think you’re driving me crazy.”
That made two of
us.
I couldn’t think,
only feel. The worries of the Nightshade, of my blood, of the
vampire who’d attacked me earlier, even of seeing Matthias again,
faded away to nothing. There was only this incredible moment with
Declan and I wanted it to last forever.
“Declan—”
I arched my back and
cried out with pleasure as he began to move inside of me with long,
deep thrusts.
After a moment, his
tone changed. “Jill . . . fuck, there’s something wrong. Your scent
. . . it’s—it’s too much . . .”
I leaned back and
grasped his face in my hands and looked up at him. I gasped as I
saw that his eye had changed from gray to black, his upper lip
peeled back from his teeth in a fierce grimace.
“What is
it?”
His thrusts became
quicker and harder, and he clutched my shoulders painfully hard
before his hands moved to my throat. Fear ripped through
me.
“No,” he growled, his
teeth clenched together. “I want to ... fuck—I want to taste your
blood, sink my teeth into you—”
He growled again,
only this time it sounded like a wild animal. He let go of his
crushing grip on me and a split second later I heard a loud rip.
Shocked, I looked to see what was happening. He’d grabbed the
mattress to either side of me and shredded it to
ribbons.
His face loomed over
mine, red and furious. A vein stood out on his forehead and the
blackness of his eye scared the hell out of me. It was the same as
a vampire’s eyes when they were hungry and ready to
attack.
I was suddenly and
completely afraid of him. Afraid he was going to lean over and tear
my throat out while he still moved inside of me.
“Declan, no—” I
braced my hands against his chest, my previous desire for him
turning to cold fear. “You need to control yourself.”
“Fuck,” he snarled
and finally pulled out of me. He pushed back from the bed,
staggering back a few steps, then tucked himself back into his
jeans and zipped them up.
“What the hell is
wrong with you?”
“It’s—” His jaw was
clenched so tightly it looked painful. He grabbed hold of either
side of his head. “Fuck!”
Then he raised his
still-black gaze to mine again. Mixed with the rage there I could
have sworn I saw hate. His hands became fists and he moved toward
the bed again.
Panic clutched at me.
He looked ready to kill.
I scrambled back,
falling right off the bed, and landed hard on my ass, then crawled
backward from him as he drew nearer. I held a hand up. “Declan, try
to think. Something bad’s happening and this isn’t
you.”
“This is me.”
“What’s going on?
Please tell me. I can help you!”
“You can’t help me.
This is because of you. My need for you
turned into this. You don’t know what’s
going through my head right now. You wouldn’t like it very
much.”
I didn’t need to know
for sure. I could see it. He wanted to tear me apart.
He swore and came at
me fast, his bare arms flexed, showing taut, sinewy
muscle.
“No, Declan, don’t—”
A scream caught in my throat. I was certain he was going to hit me,
but instead he plowed his fists right through the wall, above where
I was pressed up against it, reducing the drywall to a splintered
crumble.
His breathing was
erratic, his face only inches from my own.
I shook with fear,
afraid to touch him, afraid to move. “What is this?”
“I can’t touch you,
Jill. Not again. Not like this. Not even when it’s all I fucking
want in the world.”
Before I could say
anything, and I wasn’t even sure what I could say, he grabbed his
shirt and left the motel room, leaving me there alone, naked and
shivering on the floor.
My blood might not
kill a dhampyr. But it made him want to kill me.