A Vampire's Promise (26 page)

And even as I prayed in my head that I was mistaken, I knew it was not a lie.

He called my name again as he did when I was asleep. Able to reach me inside my dreams, he would pull me back to semi-wakefulness and slide himself inside me.

I couldn't answer him. My larynx contracted and refused to function. All that came out of my throat was a guttural moan, a wild, painful sound, like that of an animal with a paw caught in the cruel teeth of a steel trap. I was slipping beyond reason.

“Rowan . . .”

The huskiness was threaded with sorrow. I should have pulled open the fucking door and run! Barreled my way into the hall and kept heading down it until I found a way out of this mausoleum that fronted as a house. Then I could have spent the rest of my life coming up with some rationalization for what I had seen, all the while denying it was him.

But I didn't open the door. Instead I turned around and stared at Gabriel.

Standing no more than an arm's length away, I was strangely thankful to see he was wearing loose-fitting black silk pants, which meant there was a possibility he hadn't been having sex with the woman on the bed. No matter what it looked like. What was wrong with me? That should have been the least of my worries.

I've just watched my boyfriend commit murder, but on the plus side, I'm pretty sure he is still faithful to me.

Caught by the glow of one of the huge floor candles, his body smoldered, a sheen of sweat making it glisten in the light. He was the embodiment of male physical perfection, a statue created by one of the Italian masters and brought to life. Except I'd made a mistake. His skin wasn't unblemished. Golden illumination revealed the outline of my mouth just below his clavicle—the scar I'd given him when he'd taken my virginity. Seeing it dashed to pieces any doubt about his identity.

Forcing my eyes away from him, I looked over at the bed. With the last of her waning strength, the woman was trying desperately to crawl toward me. It was difficult to know if she was begging for help or trying to warn me. I watched the blood from her wound slow as her blood pressure dropped, and in the space of a few beats from her dying heart it became not even a trickle. A soft hiss of air escaped her lips, carried on a wave of pale pink froth. She stopped moving and fell forward. I was grateful her hair hid her face.

I was in a room with a dead woman and . . . something else.

I felt Gabriel move closer to me, and I turned to look at him. His mouth appeared stained, as if he had gorged himself on some forbidden, succulent fruit. Sweet juice, overflowing his mouth, colored his lips and chin and chest. Only I knew it wasn't true. He held out his hand to me and parted his lips, letting my name fall in a rush of regret. The light caught the pointed tips of fangs that had not yet fully retracted, and I knew
this
was what Katja had wanted me to see.

And the voice in my head piped up, the familiar singsong words now expanding their litany.

You know who I am . . . you know what I am . . . you have always known . . .

Silently I screamed back my denial.

Yes, you know this to be true . . . you were there to bear witness to what I became . . . to what I am now . . .

No! Impossible! Not this . . . never this.

Say it . . . say what you know to be true . . . admit what I am . . .

I don't know what you are!

Yes, you do . . . I am Fallen . . . I am Gabriel . . . I am vampire . . .

I don't fucking think so!

The voice in my head began to scream, but as I took a shuddering gasp of breath, I realized the screaming wasn't in my head. Now my fingers obeyed me, gripping the door handle and yanking it open to reveal Katja leaning against the opposite wall, a look of supreme satisfaction on her face. The desire to slap her was strong, but I couldn't contradict instinct. My brain was too busy telling my legs to keep moving as I ran from the nightmare standing behind me.

T
he hallway seemed at least a mile long. As my legs drove me forward, I risked looking over my shoulder—and ran full tilt into Aleksei, who seemed to materialize out of thin air. I suppose I should have been grateful that he caught me before I bounced off him and really hurt myself, but feelings of gratitude weren't at the top of my list right now. In one of those odd, surreal moments, I realized this was the second time I'd bounced off a vampire—and yes, I had no doubt that's exactly what Aleksei was. As was Katja, the debonair Vladimir, and, I suppose, the wholesome-looking guy with the Kansas accent.

Spinning me around, Aleksei locked his arm across my upper body, holding me to him. The position was so eerily similar to what I'd just witnessed, I shuddered, but if the big guy noticed my reaction, he chose to ignore it. Instead he kept his gaze fixed on the open doorway at the far end of the hallway.

It's funny how the mind will behave when faced with a situation that's just too whacked-out for normal reasoning. It will still record the events as they are presented, but somehow it processes everything that is relayed to it by the senses through an alternate channel of comprehension. This is usually because what is being observed is breaking every fundamental rule of trust and belief. All that you believe to be normal and safe has been torn to shreds. The dark improbability you always suspected existed, but never wanted to acknowledge as fact, has risen to claim a part of your soul, staining you forever.

Behaving this way is, I suspect, a coping mechanism for the brain. At least that's what I told myself my own was doing. It was the multicar wreck happening all over again. I saw everything and felt nothing. Emotionally, I was frozen.

Aleksei motioned with his head, and I followed his gaze, both of us watching Gabriel approach. He was still wearing the loose-fitting black pants, but I noticed he had wiped the blood from his mouth and chest.

I watched him coming closer, I'm ashamed to say I still thought he was the most perfect male on the planet, even if the fury I could feel rolling ahead of him was also reflected in his face—brows pulled tightly together, eyes narrow slits, the mouth that I always found so quick to smile now refashioned in a harsh line that slashed his face.

It took no time at all for him to cover the length of the long hallway, and I felt the fingers that held me flex slightly as Aleksei tensed. I took this as a sign that even the big guy was wary of Gabriel in his fury.

My eyes locked onto Gabriel as he came to a stop a few feet from me. Returning my gaze, he slowly pulled back his lips, giving me the confirmation I needed that I wasn't losing my mind. Fangs dropped from between his upper teeth, white, glistening, and very long. I wondered how it was I had never known they were there, and I began to shake like a sapling in a hurricane, praying Aleksei didn't suddenly let go, because I didn't think my legs would support me.

Shifting his gaze over my head, Gabriel nailed Aleksei with a look that could have stripped flesh from bone. The big guy stood his ground and said nothing, but I suspect the look that passed between them was far more meaningful than any spoken words could be.

I didn't realize Katja had been invited to join our happy little trio until Gabriel turned and spoke to her. “You I will deal with later,” he snarled in a voice unlike anything I had heard before. Viciously cold and violently ruthless, it formed a hard ball in the pit of my stomach.

“Why?” she snarled back, her own voice just as callous. “What does she have that you would put—
a human—
before me?”

I had to hand it to Katja, if she was going down, it would be spitting and fighting all the way. Incredibly stupid, but the girl—vampire—had some balls taking on Gabriel. I guess she figured she had nothing left to lose. Having already screwed up royally, her best chance was to brawl her way out of the situation.

A blur of movement made me suck in a breath, and the next thing I knew, Katja was halfway up the wall, with Gabriel's hand at her throat. She struggled, punching ineffectually at his arm, and I saw fear—real fear—in her eyes.

“Rowan is my
Promise,
” he growled in a voice I didn't think would register as human. “She is bound to me in ways you cannot begin to understand. She is all that I desire, everything I need, and all that you can never be.”

I began to shake; only I couldn't say if my reaction was from horror or delight at this public declaration. But I wasn't the only one affected. Katja was also trembling, but in her case it was easy to tell why. Screaming like a banshee, she redoubled her efforts to free herself from Gabriel's hold. Lashing out with both hands and feet, she punched and kicked and twisted her body into a wild frenzy. Her hair whipped around her as she snapped and snarled. I gasped aloud as her fangs dropped and she tried to strike Gabriel's hand, unsuccessfully. The hold around her neck tightened, temporarily cutting off her air supply.

“Enough!” Gabriel boomed.

His voice was a warning, and Aleksei smoothly moved to one side, taking me with him, as Katja flew past us. With what appeared to be no more effort than a mere flick of his wrist, Gabriel hurled her down the hall. Katja hit the far wall, crashing face-first to the floor.

It's a horrible thing to admit, but I felt absolutely no pity for her. She had brought this on herself. I suspected she'd known all along what Gabriel's reaction would be but had seriously underestimated the depth of his rage. I don't think she ever considered it might turn back on her. A serious miscalculation, and one that Vladimir had warned her of.

Slowly she struggled to her feet, her left arm hanging at an unnatural angle and her right knee already ballooning to twice its normal size. Her eyes blazed with a cold fury, one aimed solely at me. With a cry of what could have been pain, she turned and scrambled away as if her life depended on it. I wasn't so sure it didn't. Neither Gabriel nor Aleksei made a move to stop her.

“Tell me you didn't know,” Gabriel growled, fixing his gaze on my newly acquired bodyguard.

I couldn't see the expression on Aleksei's face, but I could feel the tension drain out of him.

I watched Gabriel visibly relax, and he apologized. “I'm sorry, Aleksei. Of course Katja would not have confided in you . . . not about this.”

“Not about anything that involved Rowan,” the big guy rumbled quietly above my head.

For the next few moments, the only sound I could hear was my own breathing. My heart rate was beginning to slow, making it a little easier to suck in air.

“Rowan?” Gabriel held out his hand to me, his voice returning to the silky whisper I loved. It swept away the fear inside me and allowed an all too familiar quiver to take its place. I hated myself for responding to him so easily.

Aleksei loosened his hold on me, and thankfully, my knees locked into place and kept me standing. I was lost, completely and utterly defeated. The big Russian, who I was certain liked me a little, would not protect me. He couldn't. Smarter than Katja, he was not about to cross Gabriel and certainly not for me. His loyalty would never be brought into question. Pushing off from him, I managed a wavering step forward. My knees held.

“Rowan?”

Gabriel's hand was still outstretched as he waited for me to place my fingers in his palm so he could pull me to him and fold his arms around me. And I wanted him to—dear God, how I wanted him to!

It took all I had to refuse him.

Smoothing a hand over my hair, I tugged on the bottom of my shirt, pulling it down where it was rucked up. I turned my back on him deliberately, focusing on Aleksei, who had moved so he was now blocking my way past him.

“If you don't mind, Aleksei, I would really like to go home.” My voice was a pale shade of hysteria, and I didn't know if I was breaking vampire protocol by addressing him directly in front of Gabriel.

I didn't much care.

A part of me knew I should be grateful for his presence. If he hadn't followed Katja, then I would be alone with Gabriel right now, and who could say what would happen. But all I could focus on was the fact that he was standing between me and the other end of the hall. His eyes flickered over my head, engaged in silent communication with Gabriel.

“Come, I will take you home,” Aleksei said with a curt nod.

That hadn't been my intention. Right now I needed to put a whole lot of distance between myself and Gabriel—and anyone associated with this house.

“If you could just get me to a phone, I can call a cab,” I said stiffly.

Squaring my shoulders, I managed to take another half-dozen steps before my body decided its next stop was a ride on the Oblivion Express. My knees, which had been doing a fabulous job, gave way.

It wasn't Aleksei but Gabriel who caught me before I hit the ground. Holding me in his arms, he cradled me against him; as I came to a little, I realized I was pushing a clenched fist against his hard chest. Ignoring my effort, Gabriel simply pulled me closer, knowing that in his arms was exactly where I wanted to be.

Involuntarily I turned my face into his neck, breathing in his scent as I felt the warmth of his skin beneath my hands. My body surged at the contact, betraying me again. How could I be so weak? How could I still hunger for him, be willing to give myself to him, when I knew what he was, had witnessed it with my own eyes?

Vampire!

Had Katja been correct in prophesying that I would think twice about inviting him into my bed once I knew the truth? I told myself he was a monster, the foulest and most reprehensible of predators. The very worst of nightmares come to life, and I was nothing but prey. But that was my head talking. My heart didn't care.

As if sensing my emotional uncertainty, Gabriel pressed his lips against my forehead, igniting an electrifying pulse that swept through me, destroying the last of my token resistance. I ached for him—sweet Jesus, how I ached for him!

And he knew it.

As he brushed his lips over mine, I felt the velvet softness of his mouth caressing me while a voice spoke in my head.

You are a Vampire's Promise . . . given by word . . . accepted by deed . . . bound by ritual to keep safe that which has been surrendered . . .

Surrendered? What had been surrendered—and by whom?

I wanted answers, but my brain decided it needed more time to deal with this unexpected ripple in my reality. A ripple it could deal with far more efficiently without my conscious help. Before I realized what was happening, my ticket had been punched and I was rolling out the station heading for La-La Land.

Oh good. Perhaps the answers were waiting for me there.

 

 

To be continued . . .