Blood Sin (5 page)

“Will they succeed?” Elizabeth asked doubtfully.

“Who knows? It’s causing some worrying unrest in the States, but at least the East Coast’s stubbornness has to slow Saloman down, postpone whatever his next plan is.”

“True. He might even have grown content ruling the vampire world. Perhaps it will be enough for him.”

Mihaela snorted. “For
him
? I doubt it.”

“Well, you never know.” It was hard not to sound as if she were pleading for leniency, so she kept her voice deliberately light. “You thought he’d bring chaos and carnage to the world and so far it hasn’t been like that at all.”

“True,” Mihaela allowed. “In fact, the vampires here are quieter these days. Fewer lethal attacks, fewer fledglings. To be honest, that’s what freaks me. No one should be able to control them like that. God knows what he could make them do now, if he felt like it.”

Elizabeth shivered. She didn’t know if there was more fear than happiness in remembering what he’d made
her
do, what he’d made her feel in his arms, in his bed. . . .
Stop!

“Anyway,” Mihaela continued briskly into the silence, “he could be anywhere by now, so you’d better be especially careful.”

“I told you, he won’t touch me.” Elizabeth tossed down her final crust and reached for her coffee.

“If he doesn’t change his mind,” Mihaela said dryly. “Vampires are not known for keeping their word. Anyway, what’s he like?”

Elizabeth froze with the cup resting against her lips. Shite. Had Mihaela found out? Was she asking for salacious details of her turbulent but passionate relationship?

Elizabeth set her mug back on the table. “Saloman?” she said weakly. How did you describe a man, a being, of so many contradictions and attractions and sheer, unimaginable power? Sexual and otherwise.

Mihaela laughed. “Josh Alexander! Is he as gorgeous in real life?”

Elizabeth, trying not to collapse with sheer relief, gasped. “Yes! I think he is. A tiny bit craggier, maybe, because he’s definitely in his late thirties, at least, but I think that improves him. He’s got an edgy look, although he isn’t at all like that underneath. He’s rather sweet, really, very polite and good fun.”

“Fun? Did he make a pass at you?”

“Don’t be—” Elizabeth broke off and smiled. “Actually he did, at first, but I suspect it was just habit, because we both forgot about it afterward. We went out for dinner and he insisted on paying and then dropped me off at the station. I’m afraid I let him.”

“Bloody hell,” Mihaela said with awe. She’d learned the phrase from Elizabeth. “You had dinner with Josh Alexander.”

“Wow, so I did. Think of the kudos I’m going to have in the staff club now.
And
I can finally impress my students!”

It was good to end the call on a laughing note and go immediately off to work. Talking to Mihaela generally buoyed her if she was down, and she was grateful again for the unusual friendship. It had begun last summer, when she’d been researching her thesis in Romania, and three vampire hunters had come to her door to tell her she’d just awakened the most powerful vampire of all time. Josh’s reaction to Elizabeth’s warning last night had actually been quite tame compared to Elizabeth’s response to Mihaela, István, and Konrad. Until she’d discovered the truth.

Once, she’d nearly wrecked the spontaneous friendships that had begun to form, by storming away because they hadn’t revealed all the truth to her; but she was wiser now and appreciated what she had with them, especially Mihaela.

She walked to the department, enjoying the rare sunshine. As always now, when she passed the ruined cathedral, with its tall, distinctive towers, she recalled the disastrous and terrifying showdown with Saloman that had taken place there last Halloween. The fight had been meant to finish him. Instead it had built him another legend on which to base his power in the vampire community. But in the end, this hadn’t spoiled Elizabeth’s feeling for the cathedral itself. The atmospheric ruins had always moved her. Now they made her physically tingle, because what had happened there with Saloman after the fight—her desperate confession of love and the fierce, urgent passion with which he’d taken her under the east gable arch—had washed away the horror and given her the strength to move on.

Turning her back on it, she crossed the road and walked on to the department building. She was anticipating a difficult morning with her most problematic tutorial group.

On the other hand, she didn’t expect to find one of her students already waiting at her office door.

“Hello, Emma, you’re early,” she greeted the girl, who looked as if she hadn’t slept all night. There were dark rings under her eyes and lines of worry around her usually smiling mouth. Emma Forrest, who sometimes reminded her a little of her younger self, had blossomed during this year, both academically and socially, and Elizabeth didn’t like to see her upset. “Revision giving you trouble?”

“Um, no, not really . . . I just wanted a quick word with you before everyone gets here. Is that all right?”

“Of course,” Elizabeth said, unlocking the door and preceding her inside. She had the distinct feeling she wasn’t going to like this. “Come in. Coffee?”

“Thanks, no, I’m fine.” Emma closed the door firmly behind her.

Elizabeth threw her bag and jacket on one of the tables and sat down, indicating the seat beside her.

“I have a problem,” Emma blurted as she sat. “With Gary Jackson.”

It was no comfort that Elizabeth had seen it coming. Gary wasn’t an evil lad but he had shown signs of acting stupidly, becoming aware of the power of his size and flexing more than his intellectual muscles, sometimes quite inappropriately. He and Emma had been together for a few weeks until, according to the rumors Elizabeth overheard, he’d slept with her friend and Emma had ditched him. Elizabeth had been pleased about the parting. She’d always felt the dynamic between Emma and Gary was somehow wrong.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“We’ve split up,” Emma explained. “But Gary won’t accept it. He’s plaguing me.”

“In what way?”

“He’s too . . . physical. The trouble is, he knows I still like him in, er,
that
way, but I’m damned if I’ll go out with him again. I really don’t want him back. He doesn’t believe me. He waits for me in places he knows I’ll be, cornering me, making it hard to get away. This is the only class we share, and I just know he’s going to sit beside me and . . .”

“And what?” Elizabeth prompted. There was an uncomfortable parallel here: Saloman’s teasing pursuit of her in Romania and Hungary, her rejection of him in her head while her body cried out for a taste of whatever he had to offer. Somehow it had all gone way beyond that, but Emma’s words brought those early days rushing back.

Emma’s hands twisted together in her lap. “Get in my face, humiliate me in front of the others . . .” She glanced up, a miserable plea in her tired eyes, and with a mixture of relief and pity, Elizabeth knew this was nothing like her own experience after all. Gary Jackson was no Saloman. “Look, Miss Silk, I know this sounds silly, and it’s nothing to do with work, but I need to ask you a favor. Make him sit away from me, and if you could find an excuse to keep him back for a minute or two when the tutorial finishes . . . ? You think I’m being an idiot.”

“Not at all,” Elizabeth said ruefully. She’d glimpsed some of this behavior last week but hadn’t realized the extent of it.

“It’s stupid.” Emma dashed one hand across her tired eyes. “I used to love it here. Now I can’t wait for the next couple of weeks to be over so I can get away for the summer. I used to really like Gary, and now all I feel is . . . threatened.”

“I’ll separate you,” Elizabeth promised. “And I’ll have a word. Sounds like he needs sorting out.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Oh, I think I do.” Someone had to, because left to his own devices the bullying would get worse and Emma would certainly not be the only victim. “Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle with him,” she said with a comforting grin.

At least it won a weak smile from Emma. “I’ve heard you do judo.”

And that’s not all.

As the clump of feet on the stairs sounded, Emma twitched with obvious alarm. Elizabeth gave her arm a quick pat and stood up. “Sit where you are,” she advised, and went to take her usual seat at the short end of the table farthest from the door.

Gary was not the first to arrive, and the seat to Emma’s left was not available by the time he wandered in. However, the one on the right was, and, watching carefully, Elizabeth saw his eyes gleam. He was, she allowed, a very good-looking bloke, tall, broad shouldered, and carelessly handsome. Clever too, but beneath the clear intelligence, his gray eyes were a trifle bloodshot. Hangover, Elizabeth recognized. Which wouldn’t make him easier to handle.

“Ah, Gary,” she called as he began to pull out the chair next to a rigid Emma, and crooked her finger.

Insolently, the lad stood still, gazing at her. “What?”

“A word, please,” she said dryly. Since he picked up, as he was meant to, the fact that he might not like what she had to say to be overheard by the others, he moved reluctantly toward her.

Elizabeth gestured casually to the chair beside her. “How’s revision?” she asked as he sat on the edge of it, as if not planning to stay.

He shrugged. “All right.”

“You think so? You left too quickly for me to talk to you at the end of the last session, but your responses then led me to believe your understanding of constitutional issues is still not deep. If you want to shine, Gary, you need to put in the hours.”

She caught the flash of resentment with some pleasure before she looked up and asked the last in to close the door. James MacQueen obliged and dropped into the vacant chair beside Emma.

Satisfied for the moment, Elizabeth began the revision discussions. While the others talked and argued with occasional gratifying surges of enthusiasm as well as inevitable clashes of personality, she watched Gary, who watched Emma. Oh, yes, the bastard was aware of the effect he was having on her. He rather liked the element of fear he was inspiring, and knew she was still physically attracted to him, however reluctantly. Elizabeth could see it in his body language, his casual, open-legged crotch display as he sat back from the table. And he was unrepentant when he caught her observation, merely grinned at her.

Oh, yes, they needed a chat.

“Okay, I think we’ll stop there,” Elizabeth said, bringing the class to a close. “I’m sure you’ll all do fine. Good luck with Friday’s paper! Not you, Gary,” she added as he leapt to his feet, no doubt to get to Emma on the stairs. “I need to talk to you.”

“I’ll be back,” Gary said, walking purposefully away.

“I don’t think so.”

Although she didn’t shout, she put every ounce of steel she had into that phrase, and it cut through the cheerful departing babble like a knife. Everyone glanced between her and Gary. Watching, wide-eyed, Emma edged toward the door. Elizabeth didn’t blame her. She had no idea whether Gary would obey. If he didn’t, she’d need to find some other way of dealing with him.

Slowly, he turned back toward her, his gaze flickering around the interested stares on its way to Elizabeth. Their eyes locked and Elizabeth saw exactly why Emma was afraid of him. His face was blatantly intimidating, his gaze hard, almost glaring into hers. It didn’t help that he was far taller than she. A year ago, even less, Elizabeth would have been petrified. As it was, she wanted to smack him and tell him to grow up.

Restraining herself, she held his gaze, even gave a condescending smile. “I’m sure you can spare me five more minutes from your important schedule.”

A derisory snigger from one of the students greeted this. Someone else said, “Five less in the coffee bar, Gary—how will you cope?” And Gary, presumably realizing what a complete arsehole he’d look by leaving now, raised one hand in farewell to his friends, and Elizabeth knew she’d won the first round.

However, he began almost as soon as the door was closed. Taking a step nearer her, he said mockingly, “
Another
talk? Miss Silk, how
have
I managed to attract so much of your attention?”

“By sloppy work and ill behavior,” she returned at once. “We’ve already discussed the first. Now I’m coming to the latter.”

He leaned closer, definitely in her personal space, large, male, and overwhelming. At least, he meant to be overwhelming as he said with open mockery, “How do you want me to behave,
Miss Silk
?” He managed to speak her name in a tone that crossed insult with caress.

“With courtesy and respect,” she replied as calmly as she could.

Gary smiled, a young man who believed himself irresistible both physically and sexually. “Oh, I respect
you
, Miss Silk.”

“No, you don’t,” Elizabeth snapped. “Right now the only respect I see in you is for the immature and hungover adolescent I’m looking at. Sit down,” she ordered before the shock in his eyes gave way entirely to anger. She guessed it was a long time since anyone had made him feel small, and it wasn’t a technique she normally approved of. In this case, however, it seemed necessary.

But she misjudged him. The anger was there, all right, furiously there. But he had an arsenal of weapons. Changing tack, he smiled through his hatred and, instead of stepping back out of her personal space, he actually reached up and touched her hair.

“Aw, Miss Silk,” he said soothingly, “what’s got you so hot and bothered?”

“Take your hand off me,” Elizabeth said evenly.

The boy’s smile only deepened as his hand touched her neck. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll make you,” Elizabeth warned.

“How?” Gary asked with soft derision. Just before she swiped his legs from under him with one flick of her foot and pushed him into the seat behind, keeping him there with one hand hard on his chest.

“I asked you to sit,” she said coldly into his stunned face. “And now you listen to me. There’s a word for boys like you who discover they like bullying women. Don’t make me use it, not to your face, and not to your parents or to the university authorities. You
can’t
bully me. Nor can you bully Emma Forrest.”