Blood Sin (10 page)

To take what is mine
, he said at last.

It could have meant anything. It shouldn’t have brought the surge of desire and pleasure shooting to her core. She wouldn’t allow it, of course, but the idea that he had come to claim her, despite all her objections, was insidious, intoxicating. Trying to quash it, she reached for the more likely meaning. Josh.

You can’t have Josh. I won’t let you harm him.

Can’t I?
He sounded merely amused.
Why not? Is he your lover?

Of course not!

No need to sound so indignant. I didn’t accuse you of adultery. Then he’s just one of the lucky few you happen to feel responsible for? Like the unspeakable Konrad. At this rate, I shall run out of other descendants and be forced to consume you. Again.

She gasped. Flame licked through her, burning.

“Are you all right?” Josh asked in quick concern.

“Oh, yes, I’m fine. Thank you,” Elizabeth murmured. “I just swallowed the wrong way.”

“So, Elizabeth, you live in St. Andrews?” Dante said jovially. “Love that town. Great golf. Do you play?”

“No,” Elizabeth said apologetically. “Though over the years I’ve learned to avoid flying golf balls.”

From the corner of her eye, as she spoke, she could just make out Saloman’s long, pale fingers curled around the stem of his crystal wineglass. It was full of bloodred wine. He lifted it out of her line of vision, drinking as she tried to concentrate on the spate of golf stories that sprang up.

Saloman’s glass reappeared on the table, still held in his long fingers, but this time his forearm just touched hers. The tiny hairs on her naked arm seemed to stand up to meet him. Electricity sparked, as it always did to his touch, and yet she couldn’t withdraw her arm without making it too obvious.

There came an inevitable burst of laughter at Josh’s golfing story. Elizabeth, who’d barely heard a word, forced herself to smile. Saloman shifted in his seat and suddenly his thigh was against hers too.

Oh, God, don’t do this to me, Saloman. . . .

She shifted her arm, at least, away from his touch and turned to see him pronging a small piece of fish with his fork. Beyond him, the friendly Nicola laid down her glass. Behind the perfect grooming, she looked thoughtful and intelligent, with tiny yet deeply etched lines of character, or perhaps humor, at the corners of her eyes and mouth.

“What is it you do, Nicola?” Elizabeth asked, covering her desperation for distraction. Saloman’s thigh, firm and muscular, moved against hers in an obvious caress.

“Advertising,” Nicola said. “Which is how I know Adam here. My company’s doing some work for him.”

Involuntarily, Elizabeth’s gaze flew back to Saloman, in time to see him lower his fork with the fish still attached. He seemed to be hacking up the rather delicious sole without eating it.

This doesn’t make sense. Why does she think you’re Adam Simon? Where is he? How long have you been
—

Meet me outside later. I’ll call you.

Saloman . . .

But his presence had withdrawn from her mind. It would have felt like a loss if his leg hadn’t been pressing against hers, if she didn’t have the promise of a meeting with him, alone in the dark. She knew it would be a mistake to let this happen all over again, and she knew that when they met, she’d have to be strong enough to assure him of that. And yet she couldn’t prevent the surge of excitement, of pure hunger just to talk to him, just to be in his arms for one more minute.

Well, if she was honest, the hunger went well beyond a minute in his arms, but she couldn’t, she really couldn’t afford to be that honest.

As the evening wore on, it occurred to Elizabeth that she was being played. Waiting to speak to Saloman, she delayed warning either Dante or Josh. And although she couldn’t actually imagine Saloman doing anything as crazy as killing everyone in the house, she knew it wasn’t beyond his capabilities. The hunters had told her a few weeks ago about a rumor from Spain, according to which, in one of the few violent confrontations of his “reign” so far, Saloman had killed ten strong vampires in less than five minutes—before going on to drain the wily old professor who was Tsigana’s descendant. Legend said Saloman had no help in the battle, but then, legend probably said the same thing about the fight in St. Andrews. Saloman had written the book on self-propaganda. He’d taught Vlad the Impaler and no doubt his detractors too, to devastating effect.

All she could do was stay close to Josh after they left the dining room—the meal had been delicious and Elizabeth regretted being far too anxious to do it justice—and wait for Saloman’s call. The worst part came after they gathered again in the large drawing room, where Dante entertained them with an eclectic mix of rock, country, and jazz music. People inevitably split up into groups, and Josh chose to carry out his promise to the senator by seeking out Saloman and falling into some story about how Dante had saved his business interests.

Elizabeth had cringed for him, but couldn’t halt him without rudeness. Saloman listened with apparent interest, even remarking on what a “player” the senator was. Inspired, Josh told an amusing story that served to show just how powerful the senator was, since it brought in all sorts of important people, including a former president of the United States.

Relieved when Dante himself came to join them, Elizabeth happily followed the conversation to more neutral ground and ignored Saloman’s hooded gaze when she felt it burning her neck. She drifted away with Josh after that, watching Jerri and a couple of others dancing an enthusiastic Charleston.

“I had to learn this for my last film!” Jerri crowed, showing off her long, elegant legs.

“She can dance,” Josh allowed, and Elizabeth had to agree. In fact, she got so caught up in it that by the time she remembered to look around again, Saloman was no longer in the room.

Her nerves tightened as she waited for his voice in her mind, which would summon her. Somewhere, she hated herself for it, but she knew she had to go, to find out what was going on, since Saloman wouldn’t talk to her any other way. And the hunters had no leads on what he planned next. It would be another battle of wits and sex that she was damned if she’d let him win. And if Saloman was with her, then he couldn’t be harming Josh.

If Saloman was with her, if he had come here for her . . .

He didn’t, idiot. He had no way of knowing you’d be here.

Didn’t he? Saloman always had ways of knowing things he couldn’t possibly know.

“So, Josh.” Dante came up behind him and placed a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “We’re about to go on to the smaller sitting room upstairs so I can show these fellows some of the pieces I collected in the UK. Do you want to bring down your sword?”

“Sure,” Josh agreed. “Want to come, Elizabeth?”

Before Elizabeth could agree, her phone rang. Although various phones had gone off all evening, the sound of her own seemed so mundane in this room full of film stars and foreign dignitaries—to say nothing of visiting vampires close by—that for an instant she couldn’t think where it came from. Then, hastily retrieving it from her purse, she cast Dante an apologetic smile.

“Sorry. I’ll follow you up, if that’s all right.” If it was Mihaela or one of the other hunters, she certainly didn’t want the conversation overheard by any of the “paranormal object” collectors.

Dante gave her a wave of approval on his way out. Josh patted her shoulder and winked. Elizabeth moved toward the door in their wake, acknowledging that the number on the screen was new to her. She took it anyway.

“Hello?”

“Elizabeth.”

She froze. “What the . . . ?”

“I said I’d call.”

“I didn’t think you meant—”

“I’m outside, on the terrace.”

Where the hell was that? She’d just have to go out the front door and walk around the house until she found it.

“There’s a French window,” Saloman said from the phone, as if he’d read her thoughts, “behind the closed curtains. Just keep talking. No one will think it strange that you choose to take a call in private.”

He was right, of course. Mumbling something, still holding the phone to her ear although he’d already rung off, she changed direction and slipped behind the red velvet curtain. The French door was open a crack, and she slipped easily out into the cool darkness, closing it firmly behind her.

The long northern evening had almost turned into night. Rain pattered on the canvas awning that covered the terrace and its few wooden tables and chairs. Beyond stretched a well-kept garden, rising outward and upward into the black, misty hills. In spite of herself, the beauty of her surroundings distracted her, and she was almost startled when a shadow detached itself from the wall of the house.

She caught her breath and moved to meet it. Her heart hammered in her breast; her stomach twisted in familiar pain and longing at the sight of him. A hundred questions tried to burst from her lips at once, but as soon as he was close enough, Saloman simply took her in his arms and kissed her.

Saloman’s kisses were like a drug. And she’d been deprived of them for so long that surely she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t thrown her arms up around his neck and kissed him back.

The phone fell from her fingers to the ground with a dull thud. Elizabeth didn’t care. His mouth delved deep, his tongue exciting hers to dance while his palms pressed on her back, drawing her closer in to his body. His full-on erection pressed into her abdomen, making her gasp into his mouth with triumph and longing. She seized his head between her hands, smoothing his soft hair, relearning the contours of his cool, distinctive face with her fingertips. She opened her mouth wider under the force of his kiss, welcoming the ferocity of his hunger because it matched her own.

She pressed against him, licking at his sharp, wicked teeth, sucking on his tongue, kissing him as if she could absorb him into herself. Between her thighs pooled warm, lustful wetness.

“Saloman,” she whispered against his lips, and went back to kissing him. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“So I see.” He took back her mouth, more slowly now, but with a deliberate sensuality that devastated her.

“Oh, God,” she said, trying to get a grasp on reality before she slid back into the haze of no return when sex, raw, exciting, and blissful, would be her only option. “What are you doing here, Saloman?”

“I’m kissing you. Caressing you.” His hand slid around to close over her breast and a low moan escaped her.

“Why?” She gasped. “Did you come for Josh? Why do so many people think you’re Adam Simon?”

Saloman paused, although he didn’t release her. “I came for lots of reasons. To meet Dante, and Josh; to take what is mine; to kiss you again.” Suiting the action to the word, he grew bolder, sliding his hand inside her dress to feel the aching, tender peak of her nipple. At the same time, he moved his groin against her, letting her feel the shape and hardness of his erection. Releasing her mouth, he added, “And they think I’m Adam Simon because I am. At least, I stole his papers to become him. The real Adam died as a baby around the time a man of my appearance might have been born.”

Clutching his silk cravat for support, she stared into his face uncomprehendingly. “Why?”

“I needed to be someone. The way to power in this age is wealth. And so I am amassing it. Legally.”

“So quickly?”

“It helped to have some stashed away. Gold is very valuable these days.”

It shouldn’t have hurt. She hadn’t expected anything else. “So you haven’t given it up. You still want to rule the whole world, not just the vampires.”

“I never pretended anything else.”

She pulled away from him, and yet was perversely sorry when he let her. Pushing her fingers through her hair, she tugged, and most of it tumbled loose around her neck and shoulders.

“Bugger,” she muttered, seizing it and rolling it back up under the elastic ribbon. Saloman bent and picked up her fallen phone, reminding her of another question. “Since when do you have a mobile phone?”

“Since Dmitriu gave me one. He’s right. They are very useful.”

Dmitriu, the enigmatic vampire who had caused her to awaken Saloman, Saloman’s own “child,” one of the only two vampires he was known to have created. “Is he here too?” she asked.

“Dmitriu? No, he’s back in Hungary.”

“Do you have . . . support here?”

“Do you? Are there vampire hunters skulking behind the garden shed?”

“You know there aren’t. You’d smell them at fifty paces.”

“More.” He held out the phone to her. She considered asking how he found out her number, but in the end there were too many more important issues, so she simply took it and dropped it back into her bag. “I am alone,” he said.

“It makes no difference, does it? I can’t warn anyone against you. They wouldn’t believe me. I can just picture the senator’s face.”

“Our genial host,” Saloman observed. “Very interesting man, but I certainly wouldn’t trust him farther than Josh could throw him with one hand tied behind his back.”

“He wants you on his side.”

“I know he does. I don’t suppose you do?”

Elizabeth frowned. “What?”

“Want me on your side,” he said patiently. “Or by your side. On top of you, perhaps. Inside you, definitely.”

“Saloman!” She had to stop him before her desire got the better of her and she hurled herself at him. She didn’t know whether to run, or to seize him up against the wall and impale herself on him. Pride forbade the former; and fortunately, the remains of her common sense prevented the latter.

His mouth twisted at her half-angry, half-anguished cry. “I’ll take that as a no.”

She stared at him, her lust fading slowly back to the old, painful longing, barely understanding yet that she’d refused him again. His dark, knowing eyes bored into hers as if he could see her soul and all its conflicts. The bastard had always known exactly what he did to her. Except the love. He hadn’t guessed that until she told him, thus casting and losing all her chances in one throw. It had won her a night of joy and a lifetime of sorrow.