Born in Twilight: Twilight Vows (31 page)

“Indeed, it is. I don't like this idea of you fightin' so hard to dislike me. An' I know that if you kiss me once, you'll forget about all that nonsense my ancestors did to yours, and simply see me. Not Alicia, nor Laura, but me. Rachel Sullivan.”

He started to shake his head.

“I dare you,” she whispered. “But I don't think you've the nerve.”

His eyes darkened and she knew she'd won. He set the candelabra down on a nightstand and he came toward her, a distinct purpose glowing in his midnight eyes.

I
moved closer to her, compelled by some force I couldn't begin to understand. But my lips merely brushed across hers, their touch light, fleeting. For her mouth was not my goal. Not yet. Part of me wished to frighten her, I think, but there was more. To taste her…I longed for it with a hunger more powerful than the preternatural bloodlust I'd lived with for so long. And for a moment—only a moment—perhaps I forgot where I was. Perhaps part of my mind slipped backward to the time when Dante and I lived like kings, feared by the villagers. The times when we dared walk among them at night, before they understood what we truly were. Those times when, should a maid strike our fancy, we were free to take her, to drink our fill from her pretty throat, and use the power of our vampiric minds to make her remember it only as a dream. Those times before
we were fully aware just how dangerous it was to interact with mortals in any way.

I reverted, I think, in my mind that night. So my lips brushed across hers, and then across her cheek, and over her delicate jaw, and she knew. She knew on some level. Her head tipped back, to give me access to what I wanted. Her chin ceilingward as the breath shivered out of her. My lips found the skin of her neck; the spot where a river of blood rushed just beneath the surface. Its current thrummed louder, overwhelming my senses. Her scent, her texture…my head whirled. And my lips parted, and I tasted her then. The salt of her skin, warm on my tongue. Her pulse, throbbing faster against my lips. I drew the skin into my mouth, just a little, suckling her, allowing my teeth to press down ever so slightly.

Shuddering, she pushed herself closer to me, her body tight to mine—from the spot where my mouth teased her throat, to her breasts, straining against my chest, to her hips, arching forward, rubbing softly against mine and making me hard with wanting her.

My arms were around her, one hand cradling her upturned head, one cupping a softly rounded buttock and pulling her harder against me. Hers were on my head, fingers twisting and tugging at my hair as I sucked at her throat. I wanted to pierce her flesh. She wanted it too, I sensed that in everything she did, every soft sigh that whispered from her lips. But she didn't know what it was she was craving. She would though. She would.

I bit down harder, my incisors pinching, pushing against the soft flesh, preparing to break through that luscious surface to the nectar it concealed.

She gasped. A harsh, startled sound louder than the blast of a cannon to my ears, so focused was I on the taste of her. But it was enough to bring me back to myself, to make me realize what I'd been about to do.

The desire burned through me like a flame, and I trembled all over, a quake that utterly racked me as I forced myself to step away from her—to raise my head from her throat, and lower my arms to my sides and step away.

She didn't react immediately. And I knew too well why; could see it in the wide and slightly dazed look in her eyes. The allure of the vampire—and something more, too. Perhaps she'd felt the impact of this force between us as powerfully as I. Even I didn't understand it fully. To her, it would be even less comprehensible.

She came back to herself within a moment, blinking as if to clear her vision, and then staring up at me. “I don't think I've ever been…kissed…quite that way before.” Lifting a hand, unaware she did so, she ran her fingertips slowly over the spot where my mouth had been.

“I…shouldn't have done that.”

“Why did you?” she asked me.

I shook my head. “I'm not sure, Rachel. Perhaps for the same reason you allowed it.”

Tilting her head to one side to study me, she frowned. Her hair slid away, revealing her neck to me again, and I felt a rush of renewed desire as I saw the redness forming there, and the moisture, and the way her fingers kept touching the spot and drawing away.

“Go to sleep,” I whispered, but it was more than a whisper. I flexed the astral muscle, the one that didn't exist phys
ically but was there all the same, the one that sent my wishes out to the minds of others. “Forget this happened.” I caught her eyes with mine, sending the force out to her, the command that must be obeyed. “Forget the kiss, Rachel. It never happened. Go to sleep, and when you wake—”

“Oh, I doubt I'll sleep at all, Donovan O'Roark,” she whispered with a soft, shaky smile. A bit of the mischief returned to her pretty eyes. “But forgettin' that kiss is certainly not an option whether I do or not. I'll either lie awake thinkin' about it, or go to sleep and dream it up again.” Her smile broadened. “'Twas a rather nice kiss, you know.”

I stepped backward, an instinctive act, rather like reeling in shock, I thought later. She didn't react to the mind control at all. It hadn't…it hadn't even given her pause.

I realized I was standing in the hall now, when she reached for the candelabra and offered it to me. “You should take this with you, to find your way.”

“No,” I blurted, still trying to puzzle out her lack of a reaction to my commands, too much so to censor myself, fool that I was. “I see perfectly well in the dark.” I could have kicked myself the moment the words left my lips.

“Can you, now?” She drew the glowing tapers back to her side. “I'll leave you to it, then. Good night, Donovan.”

And she closed the door.

I stood there, trembling. Never had I been so drawn to a mortal before. And never, not ever in two hundred years, had I been so ineffective in influencing the thoughts of one of them. Making them forget. This told me two things. That her will was very strong, and that she didn't
want
to forget.

And she was here, in my home, my haven. God, what if she learned more than she should? What then?

 * * *

Rachel closed the door, leaned against it, lowered her head and closed her eyes. She was shaking so hard she could barely stand, and she'd been terrified he'd see it before he left. She'd hidden it, she thought. Pulled the mask into place in time. Assumed the demeanor of the flirtatious, irreverent, and slightly cocky barmaid to conceal the depth of her reactions to him.

My God. The way he'd kissed her…the way his mouth had, not just caressed, but devoured her…and then the feel of those…

Those teeth!

She stood bolt upright, still shaking, but no longer weak. Her hands flew to her neck once more, fingers searching, feeling, terror creeping over her soul. Had he…?

Diving into her deep pockets, she extracted a compact, struggled to open it, dropped it, and scrambled to snatch it up again. Finally, she leaned over the glowing candle flames, staring into the small, round mirror at the red mark on her neck. But there were no telltale puncture wounds, and there was no blood.

Just a small patch of bruised skin.

What her friends in the States called a hickey.

“Lord a' mercy,” she breathed, snapping the compact shut, sagging once more. “I don't know whether to be weak with relief or to question my sanity for thinking…” Shaking her head, she drew herself upright, turned and went to the bed, taking the candles with her. She set them on a
nightstand, and well away from the bed curtains that draped down from the canopy to swathe the thing in luxury. Beyond the sheer fabric, a red satin comforter swelled from the stacks of pillows beneath it, and when she pulled it back it was to find sheets of the same fabric, only black, not red.

The pulse in her throat beat a little harder.

She had no nightclothes here. But the bed hardly seemed made for such things.

Glancing quickly back toward the door, she saw the lock there, waiting to be turned. She saw it, licked her lips, and turned toward the bed once more. This time, to begin undressing.

And she slid naked into that decadent satin nest, felt its cool softness caressing her heated flesh, surrounding her in sensual pleasure. Cushioned and covered and enveloped within it. And when she fell asleep it was to dream of things more carnal than she'd ever done before.

 * * *

She woke to the morning sunlight streaming through the window and bathing her face—and she was more curious about the man than ever before.

She flung the covers aside, got to her feet, naked in the chilly bedroom. Her clothes lay folded on a chair, just as she'd left them. She glanced at the unlocked door. He'd said he would be gone by the time she woke. But it was still early. Maybe…

She dressed quickly. Over and over his voice rang in her head.
Don't snoop. Leave by the back door as soon as you wake. I value my privacy.

It would be wrong to go against his wishes, after he'd been so kind to her, letting her in when he obviously didn't want to. Letting her stay when he'd seemed almost afraid to.

Why?

She finished dressing, ran her fingers through her hair in lieu of a comb, and checked her appearance in the compact mirror since there were none to be found in the bedroom itself.

No mirrors?

She shook the thought away and examined her reflection. She looked storm-tossed. Wild. Hardly studious, much less virginal, and probably more like a barmaid than she ever had.

Why?

Him. His kiss, and a night spent reliving it beneath the caress of satin sheets that reminded her of his eyes.

“Damn,” she whispered, and quickly made the bed before heading out the door, into the hall. Light now. Dim, for lack of windows, but enough light made its way in to see by. The door that led out of here was obvious. At the end of the hall to her right stood a tall, wooden door, with light glowing from beyond its thick pane of glass. Swallowing hard, stiffening her spine, mustering her willpower, she marched toward it, found it unlocked, and pulled it open.

Warm Irish sun bathed her face, her eyes. Stretching before her, like the crooked, graying teeth of a very old crocodile, were the crumbling stone steps, curving intimately down this tower's outer wall and disappearing round its other side. From here she could see the sea, glittering blue-green, with white froth roiling as the waves crashed against the rocky shore. The cliffs were almost directly below her.

The steps were probably perfectly safe.

“But he kept goin' on about the place perhaps bein' dangerous,” she muttered to herself. “No, I really do believe he'd want me to go out the front way. Indeed, if he were here, he'd likely insist.”

She stepped back inside and closed the door. Then she put her back to it, and faced a long, twisting corridor lined with doors, and open archways leading into other halls, or stairways going up or twisting downward. Shrugging her shoulders and battling an excited smile, she whispered, “I suppose I'll just have to search until I find a safer way out, won't I?”

S
he got lost. Hopelessly, frighteningly lost. Lord, but she'd never realized how large this castle was, or how its corridors writhed about upon themselves like serpents in ecstasy. And so few windows! She no longer had any sense, even of what floor she might be wandering. Her only means of navigation was to try to go toward lighter areas, and away from the darker ones. But even this plan had its flaws, for she could only go so far before the light began to fade. Her choice then became, walk into the darkness or go back to where she'd already been. And going back would serve no purpose.

She made many discoveries that day. Some pleasant ones, but mostly unpleasant in the extreme. She discovered how thirsty she could become in a single day. How gruesome it was to walk face first into a sticky spider's web in
the dark. How much she valued a good breakfast when one was unavailable.

Some of the more pleasant discoveries diverted her from her misery for short spans of time. She spent hours exploring rooms full of fascinating antiques, and when she was tired, took a nap on a satin chaise fit for a queen. Later, she stumbled upon the music room, where a harpsichord rested, dusty and old. The soft cushioned window seats built into the stone wall. She sat on one to rest, and caught her breath as she gazed out over what surely must be all of Ireland. She was up so high. She'd been up and down so many stairways that she'd lost track, and truly had no clue where she'd ended. Now she knew, though the knowledge did her little good, except to tell her she ought to be going down. And down some more. And doing it soon, for from this vantage point she could see that the sun now rested on the very edge of the horizon, and would soon sink out of sight. She must have napped longer than she realized.

She lingered there only a short time. She might have stayed longer, despite the late hour, but she made the mistake of leaning over the old instrument, her fingers just lightly caressing the keys. And it let out a belch of sound that nearly stopped her heart. After that she had to be out of the room. Ridiculous, the feeling that pervaded her senses then, but no use denying it. She had the distinct sense that she must get out before Donovan learned she was here. And that blast from the harpsichord might have given her away, even told him exactly where she was, had he heard it.

She ran from the room, back into the snakepit of corridors, and took the first set of stairs she found that led downward.

Only they led into darkness. Or perhaps it was that night was falling now. She kept going down, and the stairs twisted, circling and spiraling, lower and lower. She kept one hand pressed to the walls on either side to keep from falling as she continued endlessly downward. And yet there seemed no end. She began to feel stifled, constricted by the walls at her sides, and even imagined them narrowing. Tightening. Squeezing in on her as if she'd been dropped into a funnel.

The stone step beneath her foot crumbled, and she drew back quickly, listening as the bits of it clattered and echoed into the darkness. She could no longer see at all. And that might have meant full night had fallen, or perhaps it was only that no light could penetrate this narrow spiraling staircase, all encased in stone.

“Enough,” she muttered. “I'm goin' back.”

And she turned, but her foot slipped, as a still larger chunk of the stone step fell away. It bounded down, crashing like the feet of a giant. And then there was another sound. Soft at first, light. Like the gentle beat of wings and a timid cry…

And then louder.

Screaming.

The air above her filled with rapidly beating wings and piercing shrieks as the bats that falling stone had startled awake swarmed above and around her. Blind beasts! Her scream joined their unearthly voices as she flailed her arms, but they battered her, colliding with her one after another, only to bound off in another direction. She felt them hitting her. Their small, furry bodies wriggling, and those
rubbery wings pumping madly. Tiny clawed feet, scraping her face and moving on. Wetness—God alone knew what that was.

She screamed and beat at them, turning in circles and covering her face with her arms.

And then she tumbled.

Head over heels, her body hurtled down the staircase, bounding up and crashing down onto the uneven stone again and again. Smashing against the curving wall, only to rebound from it and follow the downward spiral. No bats now. She'd fallen past them and their mad flight. And for a single moment she thought the fall would be endless.

She came to a stop some seconds before she realized it. Her head still spun and her body screamed in pain from a hundred bruises, each one throbbing as if it were being beaten anew. But gradually, the sense of motion faded, and she realized she was still. She lay on her side, more or less, though her limbs were twisted and bent in unnatural angles.

Slowly, she pulled herself upright, into a sitting position. Every movement hurt. Every spot on her body cried out in protest at her cruelty in moving it at all. But gradually, she did, getting her arms and legs into a more natural state, checking them to be sure they still functioned properly. Nothing seemed to be broken. At least, she could move everything.

God, but it hurt!

Slowly, inch by inch, her hands on the wall nearest her, she pulled herself to her feet. Her trouble, she realized, had not ended simply because her fall had. She still needed to find her way out of this castle. For the first time it occurred
to her that she might be trapped here indefinitely. She could starve, or die of thirst before anyone found her.

And somehow the thought didn't frighten her as much as the thought of being found…

But that was foolish.

The stairs had ended, and she was now on a level floor, more or less, though there were chips and breaks in the stone that made walking precarious at best. Still, she made her way forward, wishing for nothing so much as a candle to see by…

The lighter.

She quickly dipped into her pocket and praised her lucky stars, it was still there. She lit it, held it out in front of her, and saw that she was in a long, wide corridor of stone and utter darkness—very much like a cave. But in the distance, doors stood, silent and closed. Perhaps one would lead to…to somewhere.

Her footsteps echoed—unevenly, since she was limping now—as she made her way down the hall, and paused before the first doorway. Pushing it open, she found only an empty room. So she moved on to the second. And of course, an empty room greeted her there, as well.

Only one door remained. Her heart in her throat, tears of frustration beginning to burn in her eyes, she touched the handle.

Locked.

A sob welled up to choke off her breath, and she lowered her head to the wood to cry.

But then there was a sound. A soft creaking sound…a sound that came from beyond that door.

Like another door of some kind, opening…. slowly opening.

Straining to hear, she pressed closer, listening with everything in her. Gentle taps upon the floor. Someone moving around. Then a flare of light from beneath, one that grew brighter.

The steps came closer. And something…something made her back away.

The door opened with a deep, forbidding moan of protest.

She looked into the eyes of Donovan O'Roark, saw them widen with shock and something that might have been fear—perhaps even panic. And then she managed to tear her gaze from his to look past him into the room, where candles glowed now. There was nothing there…nothing except a large, gleaming coffin, its lid standing open, its satin lining aglow in the candlelight.

Black and red, the satin inside that box. Black and red like the satin in which she'd slept.

She backed away.

He reached for her.

She whirled, the lighter falling from her hands, and then she ran.

“Rachel! Rachel, wait!”

Panic bubbled in her chest, larger and larger, expanding until she felt the bubble would burst and she'd die, right there, from the force of the fear that possessed her. She fled, headlong, having no idea where she was going, what she would do.

But she knew he pursued her. She knew he'd catch her soon, and Lord help her, what would she do then? What?

The hallway ended. Abruptly, and without a hint of warning in the pitch blackness. She heard Donovan's voice shout a warning—one she ignored—and then she felt the solid, skin-razing wall of stone stopping her heedless flight with a single blow. Her head, her body, the impact rocked her to the teeth and to the bone. But the head was the worst, and she felt the warmth of blood running from the wound and stinging her eyes as she sank slowly to the floor.

“My God, Rachel…”

He was upon her like a wolf on an injured lamb, and she knew she no longer had a chance. She'd die here in this dungeon or whatever it was. She'd die here, bloodless and pale, and the vampire would have his vengeance on the females of the Sullivan clan at last.

He knelt beside her, gathering her into his arms and leaning over her. She felt his breath on her face. His fingers, probing the pulsing wound on her forehead. “Damn fool woman, you could have got yourself killed!”

As if he wasn't planning to finish that job himself, she thought, groggy now, fading fast.

He got to his feet and carried her back down the hall, through one of the other doors, where she'd seen nothing, and right up to the wall. She tried weakly to leap from his embrace, which likely would have resulted in cracking her head again, this time on the floor, but his arms tightened around her. “Be still, Rachel.”

“Let me go…let me go…” She twisted, pulled against him, but his arms were like steel. He paused there beside the wall, lifted one hand, holding her captive quite easily with the other. He touched something and the wall moved,
backing away and leaving a two-foot gap on either side. Donovan carried her through that gap, and she caught her breath as the wall closed off again. He moved left, up a single flight of stairs, these ones broad and solid, rather than narrow and crumbling like the ones where she'd fallen. Then he touched another wall, this one at the top of the staircase, and it opened like a door.

He stepped out, and lowered her down onto a soft settee, and then he turned to a wall, and did something. Moments later a soft light suffused the room from above, growing brighter until the place was perfectly well lit.

The light above her was, she realized, the gas-powered chandelier. And the room around her was the great hall.

“So close…I was…so very close…”

“To what, Rachel? To escape?”

She closed her eyes, touched her throbbing head. He ignored her for the moment, intent on lighting first one fire and then the other as she lay there. She felt the heat, saw the light.

“If it was escape you wanted, why didn't you leave by the back door when you awoke this morning? Why did you insist on doing the one thing I asked you not to do?”

He turned to face her, she saw as she peered at him, but the sight of the flames in the fireplace, reflected in his dark hair and deep blue eyes, only made her head hurt more, so she quickly closed her eyes once again. “I wasn't snooping. I…the back stairs looked unsafe. I was only tryin' to find a safer way to leave this ruin.”

He was closer now. Right beside her. “You're lying,” he whispered.

“No—”

He gripped her shoulders, lifting her slightly, and readying, she thought, to do her in. But his hands closed on bruised flesh, and she winced in agony.

Donovan went utterly still. Then, frowning, he pushed her hair aside, eyeing her face, her neck. “My God, you're more injured than I realized.”

That he was choosing to ignore the fact that she'd all but seen him rise from a coffin would have been amusing, if she hadn't been so certain her death was imminent. “I fell,” she told him. “Down a long flight of stairs…the bats frightened me, and I lost my footing…” She bit her lip as the memory of it came up to choke off her words.

Sighing deeply, he gripped her shirt at its hem, and without even asking her consent, he tugged it over her head. Then he touched her, with his eyes as well as his hands, examining the bruises and scrapes she'd suffered.

“I'm all right,” she told him. “Nothing's broken.”

He nodded as if in agreement, but took a handkerchief, spotlessly white, from a pocket and pressed it to her wounded head. “I'll find some ice for this.”

“I don't want ice. I just want to leave. Please…”

He shook his head slowly. “Why? I thought you wanted to know all my secrets.”

She clamped her mouth closed, swallowing hard. His gaze moved, heating as it did, over her body. She felt naked, wearing no more than a bra and skirt. And the look in his eyes made her feel even more vulnerable and exposed.

“I've changed my mind. I'll find some other subject to write about. I just…just want to leave this place.”

“And me, isn't that right, Rachel? Because you've discovered the monster of your nightmares. The demon of your childhood. The legend you refused to believe. All true, all real. All alive…in me.”

She met his eyes. “It's true, isn't it?”