Read Drawn to the Vampire (Blood and Absinthe, Book 4) Online

Authors: Chloe Hart

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Drawn to the Vampire (Blood and Absinthe, Book 4) (19 page)

BOOK: Drawn to the Vampire (Blood and Absinthe, Book 4)
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Luke’s eyes were blue again. The monster was gone.

“I guess you’re not ready to die yet, after all,” he said, his voice hoarse. He coughed, and Kit sank down onto her knees beside him.

“I don’t understand. You did that on purpose?”

Luke closed his eyes. “I didn’t know what else to do. Death still had you by the throat. I had to get you away, but—” he winced. “I guess I always end up hurting you, don’t I? Even when I’m trying to help you.”

“No,” she said, so harshly that Luke’s eyes flew open. “You saved my life, Luke. Again.”

She blinked as her eyes filled with tears. She started to use the hem of her shirt to wipe the blood from Luke’s face but he grabbed her wrist to stop her, levering himself up to a sitting position.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. She saw his jaw tighten as he looked at her neck, and then Kit remembered.

Her hand flew to her throat, and there was blood there—but not as much as she’d expected. “You didn’t really bite, did you?” she asked.

Luke shook his head. “I used my fangs to cut you, but not deeply.”

“It hurt,” she said softly, remembering.

When Luke spoke his voice was rough. “I meant it to,” he said. “I would have hurt you worse if I’d had to, to make you fight back. But I’m sorry, Kit. God, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said simply. She felt drained and a little shaky, but also oddly peaceful. And she could hear in her heart a wondering refrain—
I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.

* * *

She was alive.

Among all the thoughts in his head, that was the one that sang in his heart.

Kit was alive.

His face hurt like hell, but that didn’t matter. His own wounds meant nothing to him. The only wound that bothered him was the one on Kit’s neck.

He didn’t regret what he’d done, since it had broken the death spell Hecate had woven. But he wished there’d been some other way. Not only did he hate to see Kit hurt, but the blood on her neck was affecting him in ways he didn’t want to think about.

There was the simple fact of a vampire’s instincts, fanned into flame by the sight and smell of human blood. But this was no ordinary instinct. His desire for Kit’s blood ran deeper than mere hunger.

In the land of the dead, after he’d kissed her, he’d felt a kind of wondering joy—the closest thing to true happiness he’d ever experienced. Now he was face to face with the other side of his feelings for Kit: sheer lust, savage and powerful. The urge to mark her, to possess her, to make her his so thoroughly she would never want—or be able—to leave his side.

He’d attacked her to make her fight for her life, to wake the warrior he was sure was buried inside her. But the feel of her beneath him had woken the demon inside him, too.

If he had any chance of becoming the man Kit Bantry deserved, then that part of him had to die.

“Will it leave a scar?”

Luke’s eyes snapped to hers. “What?”

 “I’m just wondering if it will leave a mark,” Kit said quietly, her hand going to her throat again.

Luke shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so, but it couldn’t hurt to—I’ve got a first aid kit in the bathroom,” he said, starting to rise to his feet.

She grabbed his arm to pull him back down. “Wait a minute,” she said urgently. He looked at her in surprise, and her cheeks flooded with color. “I’ve heard that a vampire’s saliva can help heal any wound…and that Fae blood can help heal a vampire.”

He stared at her for a long minute. She couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying. “Are you saying you—that you want me to—”

“Yes,” she said. “Please, Luke. It’s the only thing I can give you—the only way I can thank you.”

He jerked his arm away from her and stumbled to his feet. Warring desires were making his body a battlefield.

“Another sacrifice?” he asked bitterly. “The stench of nobility is starting to get a little cloying.”

That stung her. “I’m not being noble,” she snapped.

She rose to her feet and walked towards him, and Luke, trying desperately to ignore the scent of blood mingling with the scent of Kit, found himself backing away until he felt the wall at his back.

Just like in Paris—only this was a thousand times worse. Kit was in her right mind, and he loved her, and she was offering him her blood.

Her gray eyes were wide and almost pleading. “I’m not being noble, Luke. Honestly. And it wouldn’t be a sacrifice, because…because I want it, too.”

Her face flamed again, and Luke’s nostrils flared as he sensed the increase in her heart rate.

“I realized something in the underworld,” she said, her eyes dropping to the floor. “I want your scar on my throat. Like you gave to—” she stopped suddenly.

“Hecate,” Luke said almost under his breath. “This is about Hecate.” Her eyes rose to meet his, and he stared at her. “You’re jealous.”

She took a step back, but her expression was defiant. “Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be? She’s a goddess, and I’m—”

Luke was still trying to wrap his mind around this concept. “If you’re jealous of Hecate, then you must…” No. He couldn’t say it out loud. “I thought Hecate made you hate me.”

Kit shook her head. “She didn’t make me hate you. Well, she sort of did. But mostly she made me think about the fact that I can never—” she stopped again, and Luke forced himself to stay still.

“Never what?” he asked, and Kit’s eyes fell again.

“Never have you,” she whispered.

Luke was sure his dead heart had begun beating again. How else could he explain the pain there, the glorious pain that threatened to make his chest explode? He put a hand over his breast bone as though he might be able to feel it.

“You have me,” he said, his voice breaking. “Oh God, Kit, you have me. But you have to trust me when I tell you that what you’re asking is impossible. I couldn’t control myself if I tasted your blood.”

He took a deep, unneeded breath. “If you want me to do to you what I did to Hecate, you’re going to be disappointed. The creature who did that was an animal who doesn’t deserve the smallest drop of kindness from you. I don’t understand what’s happening between us…it’s something I’ve never experienced before. But I know what it isn’t. It isn’t what I’ve had with any other woman. I will never put a scar on your throat, Kit.”

She returned his gaze for a long minute before she spoke. “Will you put a scar on any other woman?” she asked finally, her voice trembling.

“No. Never,” Luke said almost violently. The thought of touching a woman who wasn’t Kit made him physically ill. “But we can’t be together. It’s too dangerous. Even now…God, Kit, I want to drain you dry. Don’t you understand? I want to rip you apart to get inside of you. To possess you. If I let myself give into that hunger, it will destroy you.
I’ll
destroy you.”

He expected his words to horrify her. He wanted them to.

But there was no revulsion in Kit’s eyes.

“I don’t believe you’d ever hurt me, Luke. But I know
you
don’t believe that…not yet, anyway.”

“No, I don’t,” he said harshly. “And I never will. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to be allies like before, and nothing else. Our only focus will be getting you ready to win the harp of Taliesin.”

“The harp.” Kit shivered slightly, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’d forgotten about that for a minute. Nine days isn’t a lot of time.”

“It’ll be enough,” he said, willing confidence into his voice. “But for now, the best thing we can do is sleep. After we clean up a bit,” he added, putting up a hand to touch the dried blood on his own face. “You really do pack a punch.”

Kit opened her mouth to speak, but bit back whatever she’d started to say. “Thanks,” she said instead. “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Chapter Twelve

This time when Kit woke up she knew exactly where she was. She rolled onto her side and looked down at the floor, where Luke had spread out blankets and pillows for himself last night.

He was still there. His face was stern in repose but quiet, too…almost peaceful. Kit lay on her side for a long time, just watching him, and after a while she realized there was something a little odd about his stillness.

No breathing. No heart beat.

No life…

“Luke!” she cried out suddenly, and his eyes snapped open.

“What’s wrong?” he asked sharply, raising himself up on one elbow.

Kit breathed a sigh of relief. “Nothing. You just looked so quiet. So…well…
dead
.”

Luke sat up and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I am dead, sweetheart. Sorry if you were confused by this concept…”

Kit threw a pillow at him.

“Oi! Let a bloke wake up before you start pelting him.”

Kit slid out of bed and stretched, a stretch that used all her muscles and every joint in her body. When she looked down again she saw Luke staring up at her, his eyes wide and dark, and she remembered suddenly that she was wearing her panties and the white tee shirt Luke had given her last night, and nothing else. The shirt had probably ridden pretty far up her thighs while she’d stretched, not to mention the way her breasts must have strained against the soft cotton…

Red with embarrassment, she took three steps backward and bumped into the bedside table, knocking over a lamp.

“Well, this is certainly a hopeful beginning to our first training day,” Luke said as he rose to his feet.

Their hands touched as they both reached for the fallen lamp, and Kit jerked back as if she’d been stung.

“So what’s our agenda for today?” Kit asked, taking a step back to allow Luke to place the lamp back on the table.

The gray sweats and navy tee shirt he’d put on after his shower last night weren’t particularly sexy, but the body beneath them could make her mouth water no matter what he wore. The way his forearms flexed as he lifted the lamp, the strength of his back, his shoulders, his—

“Breakfast,” Luke announced as he turned back to face her. His eyes flicked over her body, lingering a moment on her bare legs. “After we find some clothes for you,” he added, looking away. “Then we’ll spend the rest of the morning in the training room.”

Kit nodded. “Where will we get clothes?”

“There’s a lost and found basket in the dormitory laundry room. A lot of things get left there, especially between terms. That’ll get us through until I can find time to run into town.”

Kit frowned. “We’re between terms now?”

“Today is December 15th. Classes ended yesterday, and they won’t resume again until January 6th. A few students and professors stay over the recess, but for the most part, the University is deserted. The Vice-Chancellor always travels during the holidays,” he added.

“We lost time in the underworld,” Kit mused. “It felt like just one night, but it wasn’t.”

“No. When I brought you out through the portal, three days had passed since we went into Père Lachaise.”

“How did we get back here, to Snowdon?”

“The return portal is only half a mile from here, on a headland above the ocean. I brought you out that way.”

Kit remembered that you couldn’t leave the underworld the way you came in, and vice versa. “Do we have to go back to Paris to reenter the underworld?”

“No. Hades himself will call us back, wherever we are. All we have to do is accept his invitation.”

“Okay,” Kit said, nodding. “Then the only thing to worry about is how we’re going to turn me into Xena, warrior princess, in less than two weeks. I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake.”

Luke smiled at that, reaching out a hand to cup the side of her face. “We can do it. I’d lay money on you and me, working together, against any combination of forces working against us.”

“We do make a good team,” Kit said shakily, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that Luke’s touch raised goose bumps on her skin.

Luke pulled his hand away suddenly. “Clothes and breakfast,” he said after a moment. “And then training.”

“How exactly are you planning to train me, anyway?”

“You’ll find out.”

* * *

An hour later, dressed in a borrowed track suit, Kit stood facing Luke in an empty gymnasium. It was housed in one of Snowdon’s oldest buildings and had the air of a stone fortress or medieval hall, except that it contained a variety of modern exercise equipment.

Luke was looking at her with a half smile on his face, and Kit wondered what he was thinking. “When do we—”

He feinted at her so suddenly she was taken completely off guard, and in ducking out of the way she ended up on the ground.

Luke reached down a hand to help her up.

“Damn you, Luke, I wasn’t ready!”

“Okay,” he said, grinning at her. “This time I give you fair warning. Get ready, Kit, because in ten seconds I’m going to attack you.”

Kit glared at him, stepping back a few paces before taking what she hoped was a good fighting stance, forward on the balls of her feet, knees bent slightly, arms loose at her sides. She watched Luke like a hawk, ready for anything, and wondering what the hell she was going to do when he came at her again.

Only he didn’t.

After what felt like an eternity she finally exploded. “Get it over with, already!”

“I don’t have to,” Luke said, shaking his head at her. “I’ve already won. Look at yourself right now. You’re tense, unnerved, paralyzed by uncertainty. Why didn’t
you
attack
me
? Why did you let me set the rules? Once you do that, you’ve lost.”

Kit ran a hand through her hair. “You’re the teacher. I’m the student. I thought you would—I don’t know—”

“Take the time to explain things? Run through a nice, tame dress rehearsal before announcing ‘Okay, this time it’s for real’? We’ve got nine days, Kit, and your final exam can’t be rescheduled. We don’t have time for classroom lectures and careful demonstrations. So here’s your first lesson: don’t let me set the rules. That’s why you defeated me last night. Logically I had you beat, right? I had every advantage. But you decided you weren’t going to roll over and die, so you had to do something. What you did was rely on instinct. Which brings me to your second lesson: you have the strength and instincts of a warrior. They’re within you already, woven through your DNA. All you have to do is trust them.”

BOOK: Drawn to the Vampire (Blood and Absinthe, Book 4)
13.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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