Blood Born (22 page)

Marshaling her defenses was an uphill battle, but she managed to say, “Making a pass is supposed to convince me? I don’t think so.”

“Close your eyes,” he whispered, and bent his head.

“Don’t kiss me,” she ordered, gathering her wits just in time, because his mouth was almost on hers.

“I won’t,” he said, and kissed her.

Okay, so he lied. Her eyelids fluttered shut and she lost herself in the experience. He wasn’t the first man to kiss her and she doubted he’d be the last, but good God, she couldn’t imagine anyone being any better at it. His mouth was warm and firm, angling across hers to find the perfect fit. He tasted like coffee, like man, like sex. His tongue moved leisurely, played with hers a moment before moving deeper, taking more. Her hands slid up his chest to curve over his shoulders, clinging when the ground seemed to fall away beneath her feet. His arms tightened around her, lifting her and holding her so close she felt as if he were trying to pull her into him.

Just for a moment, she thought. She’d let this go on just a few seconds more. Then she’d put a stop to it and—

He lifted his mouth. “Open your eyes,” he murmured.

Chloe swallowed, opened her eyes, and stared at him. This close she could see the tiny specks of black and white that made his pale gray eyes so penetrating. She could get lost in those eyes, in the power and intensity burning there—Something wasn’t right. Something flat and white was almost touching their heads, and behind him was … a light fixture?

Bewildered, she looked around, and shrieked. “Holy shit!” Desperately she threw her arms around his neck and hung on for dear life.

They were hovering several feet in the air, their heads almost touching the ten-foot ceiling.

“What the hell are you
doing
?” She craned her neck from left to right as if looking for a solution to this utterly impossible situation, but the fact was she was still floating in the air, held up only by his arms.

“Convincing you,” he said calmly, and they sort of floated to the floor. As soon as her toes touched the floor tile she shoved away from him, putting as much distance between them as she could in the small room. Too late she saw the block of knives sitting on the counter next to the oven; she should have grabbed one while the grabbing was good.

“You don’t just … just float someone in the air like that!” she shouted, so beside herself she was almost frenzied.

“Why? Is there some human law against it?”

“No, but—” But what? It was rude? It was pushy? She bit her tongue to hold back everything she wanted to yell at him, because most of it was ridiculous.

He began to rise into the air again. Furiously Chloe rushed forward, grabbed his belt, and pulled him down. “Keep your feet on the ground!” she snapped. “I can’t have a serious conversation with someone who’s doing a balloon imitation.”

He began softly laughing. “Are you convinced yet?”

“I’m convinced you can float, but for all I know you’re just full of hot air.”

He smiled, and razor-sharp fangs turned his smile from heart-stopping to nightmare-inducing. It wasn’t that he looked deformed or horrific, simply that he was instantly the most lethal-looking man she’d ever seen.

Chloe fell back, silenced, and for a moment there was no sound in the kitchen except that of her own rapid breath. “Okay,” she finally said, her voice shaky. “You’re a vampire.”

His fangs retracted and he looked up at the ceiling as if to say,
Finally
.

She remained on the other side of the kitchen, shaking from head to toe. A vampire was in the house with her.
She’d invited him in
. Jumbled bits of vampire lore raced through her mind: Would garlic powder repel him the same as a clove of garlic? Could she hold up her fingers in the sign of a cross, or did she have to have a real cross? Didn’t it have to be silver, or something, or was she thinking of werewolves?

“Now that that’s settled,” he said, “let’s have some coffee and talk about what’s happening.”

In short order she found herself sitting on the sofa with Luca beside her, the television dark, their cups of coffee sitting on the table in front of them. She didn’t know why they’d bothered to get them, because she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to swallow again.

Evidently there were Immortal Warriors on another plane of existence; they were the greatest warriors who had ever lived, and they all died in battle fighting for good against bad, or something like that. From this other plane, they watched over human kind, and whenever there was a great need they’d come back to Earth, or the present, or reality—whatever you wanted to call it—to go back into battle again.

Then there were the vampires. Rebel vampires were
organizing to destroy the status quo and resume what they thought of as their rightful place in life, which was a position of power. The man, vampire, who had attacked Valerie was part of the insurrection. Luca had protected her because … okay, she wasn’t real clear on that part. Something about following whoever attacked her back to headquarters and finding out who was behind the murder of his friend, only he hadn’t done that; instead he’d stayed with her, which defeated the purpose. She didn’t know if he was a good vampire or a bad vampire, or if he simply had a different agenda right now and would turn on her when he’d accomplished what he wanted.

Not that he came out and actually said that, of course. Instead he told her about the Warriors and the vampire rebels, speaking as calmly as if he wasn’t talking about something so far beyond her experience that he might as well be talking about flying to Jupiter. “They can’t just come through, though; they have to be called, by one of their descendants here in the present. You are one of those descendants, a conduit for the Warrior. The dreams you’ve been having, the voice you’ve been hearing—that’s your Warrior, trying to contact you. The connection will gradually become stronger and clearer, until you can call the Warrior home.” He gave her an assessing glance. “Your Warrior probably has other descendants, of course, if your parents are still alive, or you have siblings or cousins, but you must be the most clairaudient.”

Lucky her. She was clairaudient. Of all the things she’d ever wanted to be, that had never even blipped on her radar.

She sat in silence for a while, trying to absorb what he’d said. Light blazed all around her; the television might be dark, but every other light in the house was on. Before she’d let him lead her into the living room,
she’d raced around the house flipping switches and turning on lamps, banishing every shadow. Even then, she felt safer with Luca sitting beside her on the sofa rather than in a chair, which was sort of like a bird feeling safer under the cat’s paw. But every nerve in her body felt raw and exposed, and a part of her expected some new boogeyman to jump out of a closet or a dark corner; she couldn’t do anything about the closets, but a boogeyman would have a hard time finding a dark corner in her house.

It would soon be dawn, but Chloe didn’t think she could sleep. She might never sleep again. On the other hand, she was utterly exhausted, and wanted nothing more than to lie down. Failing that, she leaned her head back on the couch and closed her eyes. “Let me see if I have all of this straight. I’m a conduit, Sorin is a vampire rebel, the guy that jumped me last night is also a rebel …”

“Was,” Luca interrupted.

“Was what?” she asked, opening her eyes to look at him.

“The man who attacked you last night. His name was Enoch, and I killed him.”

She shouldn’t be surprised to hear that, but a chill ran down her spine. Luca said the words so calmly, so matter of factly, as if killing someone was everyday business for him. She shook off the chill and continued. “Anyway, Valerie had the misfortune to be my friend, and to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But what about you? You didn’t follow Sorin when you had the chance. Why not just let him kill me, then you could do what you intended to do. Why save me?” Twice.

He gave her a hooded look. “There are several reasons I won’t go into right now.”

Chloe sighed. “You’re kidding, right? What could
possibly be worse than what I already know? Vampires, warriors, rebels … what else could there be?” She almost hoped he didn’t answer that question, as her mind took her to places she didn’t want it to go. If this was all true, what else might be waiting around the next corner? What other monsters must exist?

“All you have to know about me right now is that I’m on your side, and I’ll keep you safe.”

That was honestly reassuring, though she knew it shouldn’t be. Luca had a strength about him that gave her confidence, even now. There was an aura of power she was drawn to—if she believed in auras, which she didn’t. Well, hadn’t. Tonight she didn’t know what to believe.

Maybe he was somehow forcing her to trust him. She had to at least consider the possibility. “How do I know you’re not going to make me your own personal meal wagon and voodoo me into doing whatever you say, like I’m some sort of Renfield?”

No reaction. “What’s a Renfield?”

She sat up, staring at him incredulously. “Oh, come on. A vampire who doesn’t know who Renfield is. What, you don’t watch Dracula movies?”

He snorted. “Why would I? They’re always wrong.”

“Renfield is a fly-eating guy who calls vampires like you
master
, does whatever the master orders, and has this really freaky laugh as he betrays his own kind.”

“Got it. You don’t see vassals very often in this day and age, and I’ve never met one who ate insects. Or laughed very much either, come to that. A deep glamour capable of turning a human into that much of a slave would cause a lot of brain damage.”

Chloe’s eyes widened, and she instinctively backed away.

He rolled his eyes, such a human gesture that she
blinked at him in surprise. “You don’t have what it takes to be a Renfield,” he assured her. “Only someone weak can be glamoured so deeply, and even then it takes a very strong vampire to exert such long-term control.” He paused, his expression going still as if he’d thought of something he didn’t like. “You aren’t that weak-minded,” he finally finished. “And I promise I won’t feed from you, ever, without your permission.”

Interesting. She couldn’t help but notice that Luca didn’t deny that he was powerful enough to do … whatever, but he did promise not to feed on her without permission—as if she’d ever go there. An even larger question was, could she believe him? Should she? Hell, what choice did she have? “One more question, and then I’m going to try to sleep.”

He nodded.

“Why hasn’t this Warrior been talking anymore since Sorin’s attack?”

Luca shrugged. “Maybe he knows I’m here to guard you. Don’t worry; you’ll hear from him again.”

“
Him
. So, this Warrior is a man.”

“Most Warriors are men,” he said with simple logic. “But you’ve heard him; can’t you tell?”

If only it were so simple. “I’ve seen a long blond braid and heard a genderless, husky whisper. That’s pretty much it.”

“Hmm. The vast majority of Warriors are men, of course, but not all. The blond braid is interesting. Do you have Nordic ancestry, or Celtic?”

“I can’t even tell you where my great-grandmother lived. My folks were never much into genealogy.”

“Into it or not, the connection exists.”

“Tell me about it,” Chloe muttered. She yawned, feeling exhaustion sweep over her even though just a little while ago she’d been thinking that she couldn’t
possibly sleep. Pulling her feet up on the couch, she curled into herself. “I’m so tired,” she muttered.

“Then sleep. You’re safe here, in your house.” Luca reached out and touched her hair; his touch was very gentle, so light she could barely feel it, and yet it seared through her body. Her emotions and senses were on edge, at the surface, so it wasn’t surprising that she felt that touch everywhere: in her toes, in her fingers, in the pit of her stomach.

“Humans,” he said as he stroked her hair. “I’ll never understand you. Tonight you were willing to die in order to help your friend, even though I told you plainly that Sorin would kill you both.”

“I couldn’t just stand there—”

“You enjoy life so much, but you’d throw it all away in an instant. It’s never made any sense.”

“I swear, you sound as if you’re talking about aliens, like you don’t have any clue what I felt when I saw Valerie standing there with Sorin all but tearing her throat out. You should remember; you were human once, too, weren’t you?”

“No,” Luca said, his expression remote. “I was never human.”

She dozed off with that disturbing little item in her brain, but started awake just a few minutes later, both oddly alert and disoriented at the same time. Luca was still sitting close beside her, stroking her hair, and when she’d dozed off she’d slumped against him. His arm was around her, and he had her settled comfortably against his chest.

Chloe said the first thing that popped into her head. “I don’t sleep with dead guys.” Then she blushed hotly, because that had to be pretty close to the most awkward remark she’d made since she was three years old and announced to her Sunday school class that Daddy and Mommy wrestled naked. The other children
hadn’t understood, of course, but her Sunday school teacher had burst out laughing and, of course, told her parents.

Luca gave her an amused look. “Good. I’m not dead. Never have been.”

“But—” Vampires were dead, weren’t they? Dead people who got infected with the vampire mojo and sort of came back to life?

“I’m immortal. Think about it. If I were dead, would I need food? I’m warm, I have a heartbeat, my hair grows. But I won’t look any older than I do now. I don’t get diseases, and the food I need is human blood.”

He was definitely warm, so warm she almost felt scorched sitting next to him. He breathed—in and out, in and out—and there was certainly life in those pale eyes of his. And in that body. And in his mouth …

She forced her unruly thoughts back under control. It would be much too easy to seek comfort in sex, in the illusion of intimacy. She might fantasize about him naked, but the fantasy was far safer than reality.