Dead Sexy (13 page)

Santiago rose at dusk. He paused at the door between his lair and the bedroom closet, listening. Only when he had ascertained that Regan wasn't in the adjoining room did he leave his lair.

He found her in the living room, curled up in a corner of the sofa, asleep. He studied her face a moment, noting that her complexion was still pale. There were dark shadows under her eyes, hollows in her cheeks. She looked worried, even in sleep. He supposed he couldn't blame her. Given a choice, he knew he would rather be a vampire than a werewolf. He wondered if, given the choice, Regan would feel the same.

Sitting beside her on the sofa, he gently brushed a lock of hair from her cheek.

She woke with a start, her body tensing, her eyes widening with fear.

"Do not be afraid," he said quietly. "It is only me."

She blew out a sigh of relief as she slumped back against the sofa once again. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Fine, now, but…" She looked up at him, her eyes haunted. "Joaquin, I don't want to be a werewolf. If… if it happens…" She shuddered. "If I start to turn furry, I want you to…" She took a deep breath. "I want you to do whatever you have to."

"Let us not worry about that now. It is rumored that there is a cure."

She sat up, her eyes alight with interest. "A cure? Where?"

He told her quickly of the little he knew about the shaman in the Black Hills.

"I have to go there," she said, her voice rising with excitement. "Will you… never mind."

"Will I what?"

Her gaze slid away from his. "Nothing."

"Were you perhaps going to ask me to go with you?"

"Yes, but… I have no right to impose on you. We hardly know each other, and…"

Santiago took her hand in his, turned it over, and lightly kissed her palm. "Did you really think I would let you go alone?"

She shook her head. "No," she said. "No, I guess not."

She sat back, suddenly having second thoughts about the whole thing. Maybe she wouldn't turn into a werewolf. Maybe she should wait and see how Vasile's bite affected her before she took off on a wild goose chase to the Black Hills. She considered putting the trip off, then decided against it. Better to go now. If she found the cure and Vasile's bite hadn't affected her, no harm would be done. And if she was infected, well, she wanted to be cured as soon as possible.

Just worrying about the possibility of turning into a creature like Vasile made her head ache. Better to think of something else. She looked at Santiago. "Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"When were you born? What was your life like before you became a vampire?"

Leaning back on the sofa, he slipped his arm around her shoulders. "I was born in the time of the conquistadors in what is now New Mexico. My mother was Apache. My father was a conquistador who deserted his post. He was found wandering in Apache land, half out of his mind from exhaustion and lack of water. The People took him in and nursed him back to health. He died in a hunting accident a few years after I was born. My mother soon followed. My grandfather raised me to be a warrior."

"Joaquin Santiago is a funny name for an Apache warrior."

"My Apache name is Nepotonje."

"Ne-pot-on-je? What does it mean?"

"Bear Watcher."

"So, how did you go from being a warrior to a vampire?"

"I had left the village in search of buffalo. The third night, as I sat by my fire, a woman came to me, she asked if she could warm herself. I had never seen anything like her before. She had silver hair that reached past her waist and dark eyes that sometimes looked red in the light of the fire. She was not Apache, yet she spoke my language as if she had been born to it. I offered her food and drink but she refused.

"She said very little but suddenly I was aware that she was sitting close beside me, and then she placed her hand on my thigh. In spite of the heat of the fire, her skin was cool, yet her touch burned like fire itself.

"I started to ask her if she was ill, but she placed her hand over my mouth, silencing me, and then she kissed me. I remember very little after that. When I could think again, she told me she had given me the gift of eternal life. I would have to drink blood to survive, and because the gods would be jealous of my immortality, I would only be allowed to live by night.

"I wanted to question her but I was suddenly wracked with pain. She stood over me, watching dispassionately while I writhed in agony in the dirt at her feet. There was nothing to be afraid of, she said, it was just the death of my old body and the birth of my new one.

"When the worst of the pain had passed, she knelt beside me, her lips cool as she kissed my cheek. 'Find a place to hide from the sun,' she whispered. 'Or your new life will be over before it begins.' And then she disappeared."

"She left you out there, alone?"

"Yes."

"Just like that? Where did she go?"

"I have no idea. I never saw her again. I never knew her name or where she came from."

"It must have been awful for you."

He nodded. "The next few weeks were filled with confusion and self-loathing. I craved blood the way an addict craves cocaine. Because I was afraid that I would prey upon my own people, I left the Apache and preyed on our enemies.

"I had been roaming the land like a wild animal for about a year when I attacked a man who turned out to be a man of learning." Naveen had been a short, slender man with long brown hair and the face of a saint. He had been an old man, even then.

"He begged me to spare his life," Santiago said after a moment. "He promised that he would do whatever I asked. I kept him as a slave for several years, feeding off him at my leisure. In return, I made sure that he had the best food and drink I could steal. At my request, he taught me to speak English and French and Latin. He taught me of the world, and how to read and write. When he had taught me everything he knew, I let him go. I spent the next seventy-five years traveling the world."

And what a world it had been! Especially for a man who had been raised with the Indians. He had visited every continent, every country, marveling at what mankind had accomplished—the art, the literature, the inventions of the time. So much to see, so much to learn. He had spent years reading every book he could get his hands on. He had toured palaces and cathedrals old and new and wandered through museums and zoos, awed as much by the works of the masters as he was by the strange animals that he saw. If he had to enter such places by night and by stealth, then so be it. Silent as a ghost, he had walked the dark halls of the world's art galleries and museums, admiring the works of Picasso and Chagall, Goya and da Vinci, Michelangelo and Cezanne, Raphael and van Gogh.

Santiago expelled a deep breath. "Eventually, I grew weary of wandering and I settled in the hill country of Romania. It was there that I met Marishka."

"Ah, a woman, at last," Regan murmured. "I should have known there would be a woman sooner or later."

He made a soft sound of assent, remembering the beauty of Marishka's smile, the warmth of her flashing brown eyes. "She was a wild Gypsy woman with the body of a temptress and the soul of a saint."

"You loved her, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And she loved you?"

"Yes."

"Did she know what you were?"

He nodded.

"And she didn't care?"

"She never knew until it was too late."

"You made her a vampire against her will?"

He nodded again, his expression shuttered, leaving her to wonder if he had regretted bestowing the Dark Trick upon her. As much as she wanted to ask, she didn't have the nerve to probe into something that was still painful even after such a long time.

"Where does Vasile come into all this?"

"Marishka and I settled in a little village outside of Transylvania. Vasile found us there six months later. He killed Marishka while she slept. It wasn't until Vasile came to your apartment that I learned he had been in love with her. He had killed her for leaving him."

"I'm so sorry," she murmured, though the words seemed inadequate.

Santiago nodded. Vasile was here, in the city. It had been Santiago's intent to hunt the werewolf down and kill him for destroying Marishka, but now that would have to wait. Revenge would not restore Marishka's life. It was Regan he must think of now. It was her life that was in danger, and only he could save her. Choosing between revenge and saving Regan's life was no choice at all. Regan had to come first. Avenging Marishka's death would have to wait.

"What about other vampires?" Regan asked.

"What about them?"

"I don't know. I mean, don't you have any vampire friends here in the city?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I do not trust any of them."

"Why not? I mean, you're like them."

"It is not normal for vampires to gather together. Werewolves run in packs. Vampires are by nature solitary creatures."

"Really? I didn't know that." She looked thoughtful a moment. "What about women? You must have known a lot of them in your long life."

"Yes," he replied, looking past her, "but I have loved only one."

She looked at him, her eyes wide with surprise, or perhaps disbelief—it was hard to tell. He wondered what she would say if he told her he was very much afraid he was falling in love with her, and that he feared his growing fondness for her would only bring about her death. No doubt the best thing he could do for Regan Delaney would be to leave her, and yet that was something he could not do. If he left her now, alone and defenseless… no, it was out of the question. He could not leave Regan at the werewolf's mercy; he could not let her face the next full moon alone.

"What of you?" he said, stroking her cheek with the tip of one finger. "Tell me of you."

She shrugged. "There's nothing to tell. I was born in Chicago, the youngest of three children. My parents still live there. My younger brother, Josh, is a test pilot. My older brother, Kevin, is married."

"And you are not."

"No. I guess I'm still looking for Mr. Right."

"Why were you at the scene of the murder in the park?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" she said with forced aplomb. "I used to be a vampire hunter, before your kind became an endangered species and put me out of a job."

Santiago looked at her, one brow raised. She had surprised him that time, Regan thought, and wondered, somewhat apprehensively, what his reaction would be. It was entirely possible that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. Vampires and vampires hunters were like oil and water. They just didn't mix.

"I do not believe you," he said at last.

"Well, it's true!"

He shook his head. "Why would you pursue such a distasteful career?"

She took a deep breath. His hand, resting on her shoulder, seemed suddenly heavy. "A vampire killed my best friend, Amy."

"Ah." He understood the need for revenge all too well.

"We were seniors in high school when she met Dante. Of course, we didn't know he was a vampire. He just seemed like a nice guy. Amy fell for him really hard. The summer we graduated, she spent practically every minute of every night with him. And then one night she didn't come home. The police found her body two days later."

"I am sorry for your loss."

"It was a long time ago."

"But the pain is still there. How does one become a hunter? I always thought it was like a rite of passage, passed on from father to son."

"I took classes from a school in Los Angeles." Rigorous classes, she recalled. At the time, she had thought she had learned everything there was to know about vampires—how to detect them, how to render them helpless, how to destroy them. Only after meeting Santiago did she realize she still had a lot to learn. "I passed the test and received my credential as a hunter. A year later, I was hired as an investigator for the police department."

"A test?" he asked, his eyes glinting with wry amusement. "What kind of test?"

"Nothing like what you're thinking," she replied tartly. But close. Students had practiced staking and beheading on dummies that were all too lifelike. Three students had fainted the first time they had to take a head. She prided herself on the fact that she hadn't been one of them.

Santiago looked at her through heavy-lidded eyes, the weight of his gaze like a physical caress as it moved over her face, touching on her lips before moving down to her throat, sliding downward to linger on her breasts before returning to her lips.

"Ah, Regan," he said, his voice low and enticing, "you have no idea what I'm thinking."

To the contrary, she knew exactly what he was thinking. It was there, in the sudden heat of his eyes, in the lazy sensuality of his voice, in the way his arm tightened around her shoulders.

He laughed softly as her breathing became erratic. "Perhaps I was wrong." He leaned toward her, his intentions clear. "Perhaps you do know."

She stared at him, confused by the conflicting emotions that plagued her. He was a vampire, Nosferatu, Undead. She shouldn't want his kiss or his caress. Why didn't he disgust her the way others of his kind did? Why didn't she find his very existence repulsive? She had met other vampires. They had all been handsome and charming, and yet their very nature had repelled her. She didn't know why Santiago should be any different, but he was. He enchanted her with a look, mesmerized her with a smile, and enraptured her with a kiss. Why was he the exception to the rule?

All her questions and confusion were wiped away when his mouth closed over hers. His tongue seared her lower lip and she opened for him, hungry for the taste of him. Her tongue met his, tentative and uncertain, but only for a moment. Desire unfurled deep within the very innermost part of her, unleashing a shiver of pleasure as he kissed her again, and yet again, each kiss deeper and more intimate than the last. His hand moved up and down her back, massaged her nape, tangled in her hair. His thigh pressed intimately against her own.

There was a roaring in her ears. Images flitted through her mind. Images of the two of them locked in a torrid embrace. Images that were so real, she felt herself blushing.