Drawn to the Vampire (Blood and Absinthe, Book 4) (21 page)

It was mid afternoon, but the skies were already dark and snow was thick in the air. Luke was barely visible several yards ahead of her, striding through the rising storm. Kit had to run to catch up to him.

“Luke!” she cried out, her voice muffled by the wind. “Luke!”

When she finally reached him she grabbed the back of his shirt and jerked him around to face her. She didn’t understand the emotions in his face. Anguish, despair, and a kind of desperate resignation.

“Damn you, Kit, you’re not even wearing your jacket.”

Only then did Kit realize she was shivering uncontrollably. Without warning, Luke swept her up into his arms and strode forward into the storm.

When they reached the tower Luke carried her to the bedroom. He set her down gently and then turned abruptly away, heading out the door and up the spiral stairs.

For a moment she just stood where he’d left her. Then she charged out the room and up the stairs after him, yanking open the door of the sitting room and slamming it shut behind her.

He turned to face her, and she glared at him with her hands on her hips. “Don’t walk away from me again. You have to tell me what’s happening. What did Merton mean when he said you were courting your own destruction?”

Luke ran a hand through his dark hair, damp with melting snow. “Don’t worry about it,” he said quietly. “It’s already happened. You’ve already destroyed me, Kit.”

She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ve destroyed the man I was. The creature.”

Luke turned away from her, walking over to the chairs by the fire and sitting down in one of them. Kit followed and sat down in the other, remembering their conversation in this room the day they met. It felt like an eon ago.

 “I’ll never touch another woman again, you know.” He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together, his eyes on the fire in the hearth.

“I will never again touch human blood. I hate myself for what I am, for what I’ve been. I hate every woman I’ve ever been with for the sin of not being you. I wish I were some college boy, a pimply computer geek who could ask you out on a normal date, offer you a normal life. I wish I were anything but what I am. Isn’t that enough destruction for you? Whatever I have been is gone. I don’t know what I am now, except that I’m yours.”

Kit’s heart skipped a beat. “Mine?”

“Yours. Yours forever, if you like that better.”

He still wasn’t looking at her. From his tone, he might have been talking about weather or sports or gardening. But the words were there, hanging in the air between them.

Kit took a deep breath. Her very blood was singing. “You don’t sound too happy about it.”

He finally met her eyes, his expression savage. “Why should I be? What good do my feelings do you, or me, or anyone? I couldn’t save your brother—”

“Saving Peter isn’t your job. It’s mine.” Suddenly Kit realized something. “I want to do it. I’m honored to do it. I think…I think maybe I was born to do it. To be a warrior. You’ve given me that, Luke. You’ve helped me recover my destiny.”

* * *

Luke had been working himself up to a pretty good tirade when Kit said those words. They echoed in his mind a moment, effectively shutting down the rage and desire and self-pity that had been fueling him for the last several minutes.

That was what Kit did to him. She cut through all his defenses and all his selfishness, through the insistent voice of his own personality. She drew him outside of all that and into her.

She looked small and fragile sitting in his oversized leather chair, but there was a dignity about her, a grace, that made her belong wherever she was.

“I love you,” he said before he could think, or stop himself, or wonder if it was the right thing to do. He didn’t even realize he’d said it until he saw Kit’s eyes widen and heard her breath catch.

Damn it, he thought wildly. What was happening to him? In four hundred years he hadn’t said those words to another living—or non-living—soul.

“Kit, I—I don’t—”

She leaned forward suddenly. “If you try to take it back, I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

“I love you,” he said again. “I love you. I think I’ve loved you from the moment you walked into my life and tore it apart.”

She reached out and took one of his hands in hers. The expression in her eyes turned his heart to water.

“Does this mean we get to kiss?” she asked, and her lips were soft, and parted slightly, and he sensed her heart racing and her pulse pounding.

He shook his head. “No.”

Kit glared at him and let go of his hand. She sat back in the chair again, tucking her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around her shins.

“Explain,” she said.

She’d reverted back to logical Kit, and he was relieved. Logical Kit he could deal with. Logical Kit would force him to be logical, too, which would help him keep his bloodlust in check.

“Down in the underworld, we talked a little about claiming.”

“I remember.”

“A claim is…well, an act of possession. It’s the closest thing vampires have to a marriage.”

“How does it work?”

“Well…the first stage you saw. Down in the underworld. When I claimed my right to protect you with my body.”

“You said it was like a supernatural signature. You also said I wasn’t affected.”

Luke nodded. “It’s a commitment that binds me but not you. The next stage—” he hesitated. “The male bites and draws blood, and speaks a phrase of possession.
You’re mine.
If the female accepts the claim she says it back to him.”

He could see Kit turning this over in her mind. “What happens afterward? You said it’s like a marriage.”

“It is—with a little supernatural enforcement. You can’t—literally
can’t
—be with anyone else. Your body would rebel, make you physically sick. There are other changes too. You can sense each other at a distance, for example.”

Kit clasped her hands together tightly. “Have you ever claimed anyone?”

He met her eyes squarely.

“Never,” he said.

“That’s why,” she said softly. “The night we came back. When I offered you my blood. That’s why you refused.”

He nodded. “It would have been so easy to claim you. The way I feel about you…the way my body reacts whenever I’m near you…I am a vampire, Kit. There’s a demon in me, and I’m afraid of what I might do if that part of me takes control. If I claim you, you’ll be tied to me for all time. That would be bad enough, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t stop there. I’m afraid I’d turn you, even against your will. Or tear you to pieces in a frenzy for your blood. That’s why I need to keep my distance.
Now
do you understand?”

Kit was frowning down at her clasped hands. “But…you’ve bitten hundreds of human women without killing them. Or turning them.”

“I held myself back because I knew that even one death would bring the Green Fae after me. My desire for safety was stronger than my desire to take things too far with a woman. And I never cared about any of them. We exchanged a moment’s physical pleasure, and that was all.

“With vampire women I went further…and with Hecate, too, because I could. She’s immortal; her body can tolerate a vampire’s passion. But you—” he swallowed. “Your body couldn’t tolerate what I want to do to you. And I want you more than I wanted Hecate, more than I’ve ever wanted any woman. I couldn’t be with you and not claim you, or hurt you, or turn you. It’s not safe, Kit.”

He could see the lines of stubbornness in her face. “But my cousin, Celia…she’s mated to a vampire. They’ve claimed each other, but he hasn’t turned her or ripped her to pieces. And…and the North American Faery Queen. She’s mated to a vampire, too. And he hasn’t—”

“I don’t know those vampires, Kit. I only know myself. And I know you. You value your free will more than anything. A claim would bind you, and you would hate that. You value the rational mind, and a claim is the antithesis of reason. It’s primitive, possessive, irrational—”

She looked up and met his eyes. Her pupils were dilated and her face was crimson, as if she’d been dipped into boiling water.
“La coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas,”
she said.

He knew that quote. “The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing,” he translated softly.

She nodded. “Blaise Pascal said that. He was a mathematician. A man of science. I never understood what he meant by those words, until now.”

In the sudden silence, he could hear Kit’s heart pounding. She took a deep breath. “What if I…wanted that. Wanted you to claim me, I mean. What if I…”

His hands clamped down on the arms of his chair. He used every ounce of self-control he possessed to stay still, and it worked. But there was no self-control left over to keep his face from changing, his eyes from turning, his fangs from descending.

He had never fought a battle like this. He was dimly aware of Kit shrinking away from him, of the scent of her terror, and that helped him remember who he needed to be.

A man, not a monster. A man who would protect Kit from anything, including himself.

He closed his eyes and willed himself back to humanity.

When he opened his eyes again Kit was pressed back into the chair, her eyes wide and frightened.

“Okay,” she said shakily. “You made your point. I guess I’m not quite ready for that, or for any of this. But that doesn’t change how I feel. I’ll never stop wanting you, and wishing I was brave enough to…”

She stopped, and took a breath. “Luke, I want you to know…what I said is still true. I trust you with my life. You can do that fang thing a hundred times a day, and every time it’ll scare the pants off me, but it doesn’t matter. All you’ve ever done is save me. I don’t believe you’ll ever do anything to hurt me.”

“Fine,” he said gruffly. “Let’s keep it that way, all right? And the best way to do that is to avoid tempting me beyond the point of endurance. Don’t ever ask me to claim you again.”

“I wasn’t asking. Not exactly. I was just—”

“You’d argue with God, wouldn’t you? For once, just agree with me. Can you do that?”

Kit sighed. “Fine. I won’t bring it up again.”

“Good.”

There was a moment of silence.

“What now?” Kit asked finally, looking at him quizzically.

“Now? Speaking as your trainer, I think you should eat supper and go to bed early tonight.”

“Speaking as my trainer? Why don’t you speak as the man who’s passionately in love with me?”

In spite of himself, Luke felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “I don’t think I said that, exactly.”

“Yes, you did. Close enough, anyway. Come on, Luke—” her tone was half joking, half serious, and he prayed she would only ask what he could safely give.

She was leaning forward, her gray eyes dark. “We can’t kiss, we can’t claim, we can’t do…well, anything. The least you can do is tell me. Tell me how you feel.”

He slid off the chair and onto his knees at her feet. He looked up at her, knowing his heart was in his face and not giving a damn.

“I love you,” he said, hearing the tremor in his voice and not giving a damn about that either. “God, Kit, I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. So many years I’ve lived in darkness…it was my reality. The reality I chose. Light became a myth, a bedtime story for children. Like heaven. Like love. Then you…”

Tears had formed in her eyes. “You haven’t asked me to say it back,” she whispered, as one drop and then another slid down her cheeks.

“I don’t care if you never say it back,” he said. “It wouldn’t make any difference. If you hated me, Kit, it wouldn’t make me love you any less.”

Kit slid off her chair and knelt, too, her knees only inches from his. “I love you, too,” she whispered. “You’re the first man I’ve ever loved. The only man I will ever love.”

Thank God he didn’t need to breathe.

She was so close, so beautiful, that his physical longing for her should have flared up even hotter, burning him from the inside. Instead it melted away, leaving a strange thrumming peace in his body as he gazed at Kit.

She loved him. Kit loved him. The unexpected grace flowed over him like water.

So strange, so strange. He was a vampire, a creature who lived by desire and the fulfillment of desire, a creature for whom craving never came without satisfaction. A creature driven by lust as by a whip, needing no reason or justification for his appetites. How was it, then, that desire had become subject to love?

Kit leaned forward and kissed his cheek, quickly and clumsily, and Luke was made aware of how quickly his newly exalted state could be tempered by a return to the purely sensual.

“Good night,” Kit said, looking at him with stars in her eyes. A minute later she was gone, the door closing softly behind her.

Chapter Fourteen

Training went well the next day, but that night Kit lay wide awake in bed, listening to the storm rising outside. The wind was howling like something out of a Gothic novel.

She shivered and glanced at the fire, dying into embers. Its warmth was almost gone. The chill in the air crept inside her bones.

There was plenty of wood beside the hearth, and it would have been easy to build the fire to its former blazing glory. But she was afraid that if she got out of bed her feet would carry her out the door, up the stairs, and into the room where Luke was sleeping.

Luke.

His feelings for her had given him, somehow, a self-control and self-mastery he’d never had before. From the moment they’d met he’d protected her, even from himself.

But how was it that as he gained control she was losing hers?

Maybe she should blame it on the training they’d been doing. Over and over today, Luke had told her to let go, to trust her body’s instincts. The strength she’d felt flashes of in Paris was a part of her now. But the more she rode that power like a wave, the more the other tides of her body demanded release.

“That’s it,” she said out loud, throwing the covers back and sitting up in bed.

Maybe they couldn’t kiss or do any of the other things people did when they were in love, but she didn’t have to stay here alone in a cold bed. The least Luke could do was hold her in his arms.