Adam (11 page)

As she walked through the open bailey, under the massive portcullis that protected it, she began to find Vampire servants hurrying about their work maintaining Damien’s household. She wondered who it was these days that tagged along after Damien. There was always an entourage of pleasure-seekers, looking for fun and excitement, scurrying after him.

She had barely made it back inside the actual building before she was plucked up off her feet and spun hard about by none other than Damien himself. Eyes of midnight blue dancing and strong shoulders bulging with the muscles that now held her high into the air, the Vampire Prince laughed up at her in pure delight.

“I cannot express to you how happy I am you have returned!” It was said with relief and scolding all at once, and she sympathetically stroked warm fingers through his hair.

“I am sorry. I suppose my melancholy got the better of me at the time. I simply wanted nothing more than to go to ground and sleep.”

Damien nodded, letting her slide down his big body and dropping her back onto her feet. He looked her over with a stern, appraising eye. “You look much better now. Properly attired. After a fashion.” Damien eyed the beautiful court dress she was wearing, though without rolls, ruff, or farthingale. The tailor had no doubt stitched and tacked it here and there to accommodate her unconventional manner of wearing the dress. “I highly expected you to be wearing male attire.”

“’Tis as bulky and bejeweled as a lady’s garb. Fashion has not changed much. I promise I will have a few proper ladies’ outfits so you can take me out into public. But should I dress in the English fashion or the Italian? What of the French?”

“Perhaps you can go the way of the Dutch. No heavy jewelry there.”

She snorted. “I would make a lousy Puritan. I suppose I will find my way. I just need some time to get my feet above the ground rather than below it.”

“I will have a girl assigned to you. Or do you need two?”

“One should be a good start. She can find help if she needs it.”

“I have sent for your things from storage, and I will put you in the rooms next to mine,” Damien informed her.

“Hmm. Very well. Is there anything else I should know about the world in general? Like the fact that the Demons want to kill us?”

“You exaggerate the thing, really. It is more of a ... game. We play tit for tat. It is not as though either of us is arranging huge attacks with our armies.”

“Hmm. That would explain why the Demon did not kill me,” she mused.

“What Demon?”

“I ran into one in the woods. He was no bother,” she said, waving the matter off. Well, not unless she counted the way the memory of his intimate wash over her bare body had bothered her. In fact, it had made her crave things. Things that were forbidden on both sides of their cultures. And it was clear from his distaste for her breed that he had done everything against his will or better judgment. “What night is this?” she asked.

“It is Beltane eve. You are just in time for the celebrations on the morrow. With you here, it will make for a tremendous festival!” He hugged her until she thought her ribs would snap. She was beginning to get the feeling he really had missed her.

“How long have I been gone, exactly?” she asked him.

“Oh, I would say a good forty years now. You left me shortly after we visited Queen Elizabeth.”

“After Dawn was killed on a French battlefield,” she acknowledged. “How did that freckled little queen make out, anyway?”

“Quite well, actually. She is still alive, last I heard. She never married, never produced an heir, and really never cared what anyone else thought of her. I see a bit of you in her, though you claimed never to like her.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I might have been hasty in my judgments,” she mused with a grin. “I would not have thought she had it in her to make it through without a man, the way they were always dancing attendance on her. So many think your sex is the be-all and end-all of progress and performance.”

“In truth,” he said with merriment in his midnight blue eyes, “I think it is women who are the be-all and end-all of most species. You are the ones who must work your minds, bodies, and souls the hardest in order to keep us going.”

“Such a progressive thinker,” she lauded him. “And yet you war with the Demons. Quite dangerous.”

Damien shrugged. “I like dangerous,” he said predictably.

“And what of you?” she asked. “Have you a woman? Perchance children?”

She wasn’t surprised when he shook his head. Damien had no interest in romantic entanglements. Nor did the idea of hearth, home, and family appeal to him in the slightest. Like Queen Elizabeth, he would probably die alone and unfettered by all those sorts of complications. And it was Damien’s predictability in matters like these that made it so delightful to be in his company. Jasmine smiled at the thought and hugged her body against his.

“So it will be just you and me, two lone and contented bachelors, walking the centuries together,” she said happily.

“Always,” he assured her. “Provided you manage to stay aboveground with the rest of us.”

“I shall do my very best,” she promised him.

Adam walked through the tightly grouped wagons and tents the Gypsies had pitched on his father’s lands the night before. In honor of the Beltane festival, gaily colored banners had been set to fly. These wanderers were often labeled as thieves and whores, pickpockets and criminals, but Adam had never agreed with that harshly judgmental assessment.

Since Demons had begun to find themselves forced to emulate the human culture more and more over the centuries in order to keep from standing out and attracting unwanted attention, they could appreciate how restrictive such narrow-minded thinking could be. However, it had been wise for Demonkind to keep a low profile as humans began to heavily populate the earth. All they had to do was watch how the more blatant Lycanthropes and, worse yet, the Vampires had made targets of themselves and were now hunted by superstitious human zealots. As powerful as the Nightwalker breeds were, they had their weaknesses that the peoples of the sunlight hours could exploit, causing them great harm and even death.

The Gypsies were perhaps the closest things to humans who were aware of what Adam’s family’s true nature really was. While to most outsiders his kin looked like just another wealthy noble family, the Gypsies had their ways of seeing beyond that facade. They, too, lived mostly in the night, and with their own mysteries and mystical perceptions of the future, they were perhaps destined to one day be the first humans who would earn the label of Nightwalkers for themselves.

Adam was interested in the Gypsies’ nomadic lifestyle. It always amazed him how widely things changed from clan to clan and year to year. Sometimes he saw the same face every holiday for years, at other times he never recognized a single one from Samhain to Beltane.

He had been busy since leaving Noah, chasing down a few Demon strays in need of enforcement, so he was ready to enjoy a little time to wander on his own for a while. The Gypsies were just the distraction he needed to get his mind off ...

Disturbing females. The encounter still clung to him, like a mist hugging low and damp to the ground. The form of the sensual little female Vampire seemed burned into his mind like the sun burned itself into a man’s eyes after he had stared at it too long. He needed a healthy distraction, although he couldn’t imagine why hunting had not been enough to do the trick. Usually the focus he devoted to his craft was all-consuming and burned away all of life’s minutiae. He had been frustrated to discover that was not the case in this instance. Those dark, damnable eyes had dogged his thoughts with unending stubbornness.

Adam turned his attention to his immediate surroundings once again. The tents were open, fires were warm and inviting, and almost everywhere there were gaily dressed young women singing and dancing. Soothsayers were setting up areas where they could read runes, tarot, or other fortune-telling devices for whoever paid a bit of coin in exchange. The men were gambling or peddling, the children running madly about as if there were not a care or danger to be found in all of the world. It was a jolly and exotic atmosphere, one that truly delighted him.

As he moved away from the encampment and into the forest, Adam felt his senses clearing of the clutter of stimuli the Gypsies provided. He began to settle into a peaceful place within himself.

The soft snap of a twig came from above him and he looked up sharply. All of a sudden he could sense the presence of another being. Just the water content in the blood was enough to attract his attention, but it was the sudden appearance of a pale and beautiful face amidst a cloud of ebony hair that really grabbed hold of him.

She was wearing clothes this time. After a fashion. They clung to her womanly figure in most places, or flowed in careless drapes away from her in others. The rich satins and velvets were all tawny and gold in color, emphasizing the brown beauty of her eyes, and it was clear she had no interest in wearing her clothing in a fully conventional manner. But she was laced up into a corset, the snugness of it accentuating the thrust of her breasts over a low, curved neckline.

“Vampire,” he growled out, the roughness of his tone making sure she knew it wasn’t a greeting and she was not welcome. He was still ashamed of himself for the way he had lost control with her, and he could still remember the divinity of her skin and how it had felt as he had moved over it in a flowing rush.

Just the memory stimulated his mind and body, rousing his interest and piquing his libido. He did not want to be attracted to her like this, but it didn’t change the fact that he was. No matter how offensive the idea of taking a woman outside his species, she had a power over this part of him that was hard to control and fight off. It was as if he could feel the Beltane moon burning against his back like a full and glorious sun. It was poisoning him, making him think and feel in ways he should find offensive and off-putting.

The Vampire leapt from the thick branch she’d roosted on and dropped to her feet right in front of him. She rose up to her full height, her posture accentuated by the shining fabric she wore, her heavy skirts swirling into place against her hips and legs. She looked like a richly wrapped gift.

Adam’s knee-jerk reaction was to grab for the dagger at his waist, but it wasn’t until his hand came up empty that he recalled he had lost it the last time he’d met with her.

“Looking for this?” She held up the intricately made weapon, twirling it expertly against her palm before catching it and waving it under his nose. “I am almost tempted to keep it as a gift,” she said, her smile wily, “a sort of fair trade. You took liberties with me, and I can take liberties with this.”

Adam was stone silent as she taunted him with his dagger. He tensed from head to toe when she stepped up even closer to him. Close enough that he could feel heat radiating from her. She must have fed very recently to feel so warm. He tried to use that knowledge to harden his will against her, but it was difficult when he could smell the richness of the earth and forest on every clean inch of her. She smelled like a woman should, with all the complexity of her sex hovering right there for the senses to pick up.

“You take chances,” he said gruffly, “coming among my people. You will be perceived as a threat, and they will kill you for this trespass.” He knew even as he said it that the words were meant more as a warning than a threat. He reached out to snag hold of her hand where it was wrapped around his dagger.

“You would kill me because I am coming to return your property to you?” she asked archly, refusing to open her hand or relinquish the weapon.

“I did not mean me,” he admitted roughly.

“Good.” Her smile was sly and her eyes everything sultry as she reached out with her free hand to grab hold of the empty sheath on his belt. He let go of her hand when she turned the dagger toward his body. It should have been the last thing he did. Why would he ever let an armed Vampire get so deadly close to his vulnerable belly?

But he saw no vicious intent in those dark and troublesome eyes of hers. All he saw was her desire to taunt and tease him. He felt her tug hard at his weapons belt, and she finally turned the dagger and slid it slowly into the sheath. She pushed down hard and firm, the action bringing them together, chest to breast. She was right under his nose now. He could feel the sensuality rolling off her in interesting waves. She even tilted her head back and raised her mouth to within a breath of his.

Just like that he felt himself flooding full of hardening heat, blood rushing to stiffen his body in reaction to her allure. Adam wanted to curse her for it, to curse himself, but he was too busy being captivated by the suggestive way she stared at his mouth. Everything about her was begging for a kiss, and everything about him wanted to give it to her. He wanted to forget who he was and who she was and simply indulge in the chemistry that was flaring so hotly between them.

But the fact remained that she was a Vampire, and Vampires were not to be trusted. Moreover, to kiss her would be to break the law. He also had to consider that she was likely making sport of him, simply amusing herself at his expense.

“You’ve returned my weapon,” he said roughly. “Now you should go before you are discovered or before I change my mind and kill you myself.”

The idea made her smile, a slow curling of her lips on one side.

“You want to thrust your dagger deep inside me, Demon?” she asked.

There was no mistaking her suggestiveness. There was no mistaking it because his heart began to race with the very idea of it, the heat in his belly sinking low and hard within him.

“Would that it were a different world,” he heard himself murmur to her, dipping his head helplessly to brush his lips over hers. Such magnetism! He’d never felt anything like it! It was electric as it burst across his senses. He simply could not comprehend how he could feel so much need for a creature so very unlike himself. “But it is not,” he noted as he drew away from her.