Born in Twilight (17 page)

Would have been…but I wasn't. Because I wasn't alone in my misery of need. He might see my hidden desires, but I could see his just as clearly. I had seen what flashed in his eyes, in spite of himself, before he turned away from me.

He wanted me, too.

J
ameson had been driving in silence for several hours, with no real idea of his ultimate destination, aside from Tamara's vague reference to Petersville. Once there, he had no idea what to do next. But he'd worry about that when he got there. For now, he had other things on his mind.

Angelica.

She sat beside him, pensively silent, and he knew she was worrying about Amber Lily. She'd spoken little since getting into the passenger seat. But her skills at guarding her thoughts were still not quite what they should be—what they
would
be, with a little more practice—and he could read them. He suspected that even when she became adept at building the wall to guard her mind,
he'd
be able to see inside. Because there was something between them. Something powerful and potent, and he was beginning to suspect that all his explanations for it were no more than nonsense. Because he was beginning to think that this was something that had been between them from the very first. It was what had allowed his mortal ears to hear her preternatural sobs. What had drawn him to that building in the first place. It was what had made her lose control when she'd taken from him that first time.

He didn't know
what
it was. But there had been something there. And he was a fool. A thousand times a fool. Because he thought she was the most beautiful, passionate, fiery, strong woman he'd ever known. And he wanted her more every time he looked at her.

And she was disgusted by him.

And knowing it didn't stop his stupid mind from wandering into forbidden territory. All it did was wound his pride, and his pride, when wounded, was more deadly than an injured grizzly.

He knew she wouldn't want him sharing her thoughts, invading her mind, as she called it. But he couldn't stop himself. He even tried. But it wasn't working. It was as if each feeling that flitted through her mind was flitting through his as well.

The sex had deepened the link between them. He'd known it would. Just hadn't been certain how it
could.
Now he knew.

He didn't hear her thoughts word for word, as he'd been able to do at first. But the feelings came through. Fear. Gut-wrenching, soul-wringing fear. She was sick with it. Utterly ill with it. It was killing her, slowly, and by cruel degrees, that she didn't know where their baby daughter was.

And he'd been unmercifully tough on her. He was regretting it, now, though he really shouldn't be, because she'd deserved it, and then some. Looking down at him as if he were some lower life form. Thinking of him as a demon, a monster. Believing him unfit to be a father to his own child. She deserved his anger for that. What did she expect, that he'd be thrilled with her condemnation of his kind?

Her kind?

He glanced across the car at her. And he knew above all that it was his pride she'd hurt. He wanted her to be as completely engrossed in him as he…

Scratch that.

She sat stiffly, concentrating very hard on trying to get a sense of the child. But he didn't think she was having much success at it. They'd been driving for hours, and she'd been doing this the whole time. Searching, striving, reaching with her mind. He could see the lines of tension at the corners of her lush lips, and in her forehead. And he was overcome with the ridiculous urge to ease them.

“We have no reason to believe she's not safe and sound with the Garner woman,” he said. He couldn't believe he was trying to comfort her. Couldn't imagine what would make him even give a damn how much she was suffering right now. Dammit, if he couldn't
feel
her pain, he might be able to ignore it.

“I know,” she said, her voice gruff.

“Tamara says Hilary is a good person. We have to believe that.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

And then she went right back to worrying again. Her head was throbbing with a pain that reached all the way down the back of her neck. He could feel that. And the pain was weakening her, as pain tended to do to their kind.

“You're making yourself sick, Angelica.”

She blinked, and turned to look at him. So much pain in those eyes of hers. So much…ah, God help him…
need.
“I can't help it.”

“You have to help it. Try not to think the worst. You'll be so worn down by the time we find them that you'll be no help at all.”

She tilted her head. “Worrying can weaken me?”

“No, but the headache it's causing could damn well do it.”

Her brows drew together in a frown. “You're poking around in my mind again? Reading my thoughts?”

“Not voluntarily, I'm not.”

Her curious gaze scanned his face. “What do you mean?”

Jameson drew a deep breath. He had not wanted to bring up the subject with her. Not when just thinking about it reduced him to a mass of unfulfilled yearning. But he supposed he owed her an explanation. “We shared blood, Angelica, and that was enough to forge this bond. We had a child together, and I think we both know that strengthened it. And then we…we had sex.” He saw the flare of memory in her eyes. It seared him before she quickly turned away. “That forged an even more powerful link between us. Kind of like the link between you and Amber Lily.” He shook his head, sighing hard, knowing she'd likely be even more repulsed when she realized how much a part of her he had become. How much a part of him she had grown to be. “Whether I like it or not,” he said, “I know when you're hurting. I can feel your pain, and I imagine you could probably feel mine as well.”

“Yes.”

Not disgust in her voice. Not that at all. Just affirmation. He looked at her quickly, but she wasn't grimacing.

“I felt it even before we made love,” she whispered.

Made love?

“I felt it when you were shot. Knew you'd been hit even before I saw the wound. I thought at first the bullet had torn through
my
side, but then I looked, and there was no wound in me. It was in you, instead.”

“And you felt it?” he asked her, amazed.

“Yes, I did.”

He blinked, thinking this through. “Then the tie between us—whatever the hell it is—was already very strong. The sex…well, that would only serve to make it even more powerful. Very strange.”

“It's disturbing,” she said. He looked at her. Not disgusting, but disturbing.

“How so?” he asked her. “What do you feel from me now, Angelica? There's no pain, nothing to upset you.”

“All I feel from you now, Vampire, is rage. It's frightening in its intensity. Huge and black and potent.” She lifted her head, staring straight ahead of them, as if she could see his anger. “And I would hazard a guess that the rage inside you can be as debilitating to you as this worry might be to me.”

Jameson felt his lips thin. “You'd probably be right.”

“Why do you hate them so?”

“They have our daughter, Angelica. How can you ask me why I hate them?”

She shook her head slowly. “No. That isn't all of it. You hated them before then. That night…that night when I stupidly went away with that agent, believing all his promises, you hated them then. It was in your mind when you tried to warn me.”

“But you went anyway.”

“Yes. And you can't forgive me for that, can you? You can't forget that it's my fault they have our child. My fault, for believing their lies.” She fell sideways until her head rested against the window glass. “I don't blame you,” she whispered. “You're right to hate me for letting them take her. But you can't possibly hate me for it any more than I hate myself.”

Jameson looked at her, saw the twin tracks of tears slowly moving down her face. She was wrong. He might have blamed her for this once, but not anymore. Not since he'd realized the hell she'd been suffering in that ruined building where she'd gone to hide. Gone to starve.

“So tell me,” she said. “Why did you hate them so?”

He lifted his chin, swallowed hard. “Years ago, they held Rhiannon prisoner. Had her strapped to a table while they took samples from her flesh. This was before they'd developed their nasty little tranquilizer. Their only method for keeping us too weak to fight them was starvation. There was nothing to ease the pain of their experiments. Those bastards tortured her nearly out of her mind. But she escaped. Killed one of their top scientists in the process. Broke his neck, she did.”

“I can believe that.”

Jameson looked at her as he drove, saw her shudder in response to his words. “When Tamara was a small child, her parents died of a rare virus. And a doctor who'd sort of taken her under his wing offered to be her guardian. There was no one else, and his petition was approved.”

Angelica's lips were parted, eyes wide with interest.

“Turned out the doc was really with DPI, and the parents' exposure to that virus was all part of a well-laid plan. They knew Tam had the belladonna antigen—that rare blood type that enables a human to become a vampire. And they also knew that people with that blood type often have a special bond to one particular vampire, who tends to watch over them.”

She gasped softly. “Is that true? I had no idea.”

“Yes, it's true,” he told her. “A vampire feels a special affinity for a given mortal, feels drawn to them, senses when they're in danger. And often steps in to protect them, though most of the time, the mortal never knows any of it. Eric had been Tamara's protector. Saved her life once when she was just a little girl. And DPI knew it, knew he'd come back someday. So they wanted to hold Tamara as bait. And they stopped at nothing to do it.”

Angelica was shaking her head, her eyes filled with sympathy for the child Tamara had been. “They killed her parents…my God. It's horrible.” And then she turned those big round eyes on him, and he almost forgot to be angry with her. “And what about you, Jameson? When did you get involved with them?”

“I met Tamara when she worked for DPI.”

“She—?”

He nodded. “Yes. Well, remember, she was raised by one of them. He brought her into the organization largely so that he could keep tabs on her. But she wasn't in on any of the really sensitive stuff that went on there. They gave her milk-toast cases. Like working to discover the alleged psychic powers of a twelve-year-old boy.”

“You?” she asked.

“Yeah. Only the psychic stuff was a ruse. They wanted me under surveillance because I had the antigen. The whole damned cycle was gearing up to start all over again. But Tam figured it out. The bastards kidnapped me to get to her and Eric. Roland saved my ass, for the first of many times. When it was over, my mother and I had to get the hell out of the area. Roland took us to France with him, gave my mother a job, sent me to private school.”

“And you knew…you knew they were…vampires?”

“Sure I knew. I was young, but not blind.”

“And it didn't frighten you?”

“It was those DPI bastards who frightened me.”

She nodded, and it seemed to Jameson that she was truly interested in what he was saying as they drove the many miles that separated them from their child. “Where's your mother now?”

“Died a couple of years later. Roland took care of me, though, until later when those DPI bastards tracked us down again. After that he got to thinking I might be better off with my birth father. Hired a PI to track him down, and I ended up in San Diego living with Dad until he passed on two years ago. And my old pals at DPI didn't catch up with me again until last year. They bundled me into one of those inconspicuous gray vans and took me to their ‘research center,' for ‘testing.' In fact, the others had only busted me out of that hellhole a few nights before I found you in the condemned building.”

She nodded slowly. “So DPI has been a thorn in your side for most of your life.”

“They've been one step behind me all the way. Same as the others. No one should have to live looking over their shoulder.”

“And you're going to be the one to end it.”

“Someone has to.” He felt his jaw clench, and tried to relax it. “Jesus, Angelica, when I came for you, there were others. Those freaking cells were all full. Some dead, some dying, some just being kept alive long enough for those animals to finish their experiments on them. It can't go on. It just can't go on.”

“But can one man stop them?”

“This one can.” He slanted a sideways glance at her. “I have motivation, Angelica.” She lifted her brows, waiting. “Our daughter,” he explained. “I'm not going to let her grow up with the constant threat of those bastards looming over her. I can't.”

She blinked twice, and nodded. As if she…maybe…understood.

“So now you know what makes me such a monster,” he said. “I hate them. I want them all to pay. And I fully intend to extract their penance with my own two hands. Just as soon as my daughter is safe.”