Harlequin Nocturne September 2014 Bundle: Beyond the Moon\Immortal Obsession (46 page)

Chapter 22

W
ind whipped through Madison's hair. Buildings moved past as if they were made of rubber. Streetlights left thin streams of luminous thread suspended in the air.

The surroundings passed by at a fantastical pace as she and St. John rushed through it, seemingly shredding all known theories of time and space.

St. John hadn't lied about being exceptionally fast. He was also stronger than anything she had imagined. She hoped that her trust in him was warranted, but a debilitating fear of vampires hadn't entered the picture. Her stomach hadn't turned over.

Cohesive thought patterns were returning. She no longer felt heavy with fatigue. The reason she allowed St. John to carry her was that he was so much faster than she. And because he still had a fight ahead.

Her plan had always been to be self-sufficient, and most people perceived her to be. Madison Chase, they thought, was strong, independent and forthright. Her very private fear was that by giving in to St. John, or anyone who got close enough to mine the gaps in her plan, she'd lose some crucial part of herself. That was a feeble thought, she admitted now, when a vampire had hold of her and she had delved her fingers into his thick blond hair for no other reason than she liked the feel of him.

This special being carrying her had helped her that first night to escape the rogue vampire gang who'd had her in their sights. He had checked to make sure she was all right, she now felt sure, using her hotel window when she was at her most vulnerable, unconscious, asleep, without disturbing her.

St. John had provided the information about the Yale girls being at the other hotel and had taken her there, intending to help her find them. Because of that, the girls had been found, Crane had said. The girls were safe.

Jesus, they were safe.

St. John and his tip about the Germand hotel had proved that he had a tender side. He had proved this over and over, as a matter of fact.

He had come to her after her ordeal in the abandoned apartment, keyed up and worried about what she had been through. His features had registered pain and guilt and sorrow over having left her open to that awful event.

They had kissed, screwed their brains out and shown evidence of their feelings for each other in one way or another each time they met. A quickly formed kinship had taken the place of fear and wonder. In spite of what St. John was, and what he'd told her she was, they always found each other.

Finally, most importantly, St. John had allowed her to see him, sharing a confidence that could turn out to be harmful to him in the long run. He didn't have to let her know his secret, or view his fangs. He had trusted her.

In all their time together, and through all those things, he had not harmed her in any way, or shown an inkling of an intent to harm her.

The truth was...she had feelings for him. Deep feelings. For a vampire.

Vampires, he had told her, had been people once upon a time. Some of them could and did adhere to the path of virtue. Not all of them were evil bloodsuckers.

Bigger, stronger, twice the presence of anyone else
. That had been her first impression of the man on the club balcony. This remained as obvious to her now as it had then. It was indeed a special kind of being that held her.

“God help me,” she whispered. “I think I'm falling in love with you.”

When she again looked up, they were exiting an antiquated elevator, the kind historical warehouses used, made of an open-weave iron mesh with visible cables.

Time regained its foothold after having brakes applied to its wheels, dumping them into a lofty open space filled, not with dungeonlike darkness, but brilliant wood floors and long spans of floor-to-ceiling glass.

Bewildered, Madison stared at St. John's refuge as her head cleared away the last remnants of the sedative.

“No one has seen this place,” he said, setting her on her feet. “Except you.”

Madison faced him. He still had a stabilizing hand on her elbow. “What are you, really?” she asked.

“First. Can you repeat what you just said?”

“I said I think I'm falling in love with you.”

She watched him close his eyes.

“So, now that I have admitted that, what are you really?” she pressed.

“Immortal,” he said.

“Another term for vampire.”

He shook his head, corrected her gently, his voice little more than a sigh. “Not a vampire, Madison. The source from which vampires spring.”

“You...make them? Make vampires?”

Another shake of his head tossed his golden hair away from his cheekbones. She would have touched his face, had they been real lovers having a reunion. As real lovers, human lovers, she would have remained in his arms.

“I do not make them. I fight against those who do, as you soon will,” he said.

“You've got that wrong. It's my brother who carries a stake.”

Without pausing, she spoke again. “You are older than the vampires on the street, and in the club, right?”

His affirmation was a nod.

“You are different,” she pressed.

“Yes.”

“There is a distinction, then, between the term you used,
immortal,
and vampires? A real difference?”

“A vast one.”

“I have to know if there are others like you. Not vampires. Immortals.”

“Only a few.”

“In London?”

“There are immortals in London. Old vampires we call Ancients.”

“Not like you, though. Not exactly like you.”

“No. Not like me.”

“Stewart wrote that the club,
Space,
along with half of London, is owned by vampires.” She gestured to the stunning room around her. “This is yours?”

“Not material gain by way of tyranny or theft,” he said. “Only a long succession of careful acquisitions.”

She nodded, feeling the pressure of time's passage, and St. John's need to confront what lay beyond those windows.

“The creature in Germand's lobby is a vampire, you said. An old one.”

“Vampires are what most Ancients originally were before they learned to control their appetites.”

Madison waited out a beat of silence before continuing. “If they don't feed on mortals, how do they sustain themselves?”

“As a vampire ages, it loses the necessity for sustenance.”

“Does that mean they live on air? Regular food?”

“They must take in blood now and then, when necessary, but only if it's offered freely. That's the way it's supposed to go, anyway.”

“Except when they feel like biting somebody for fun, like in the good old days?”

St. John remained patient, his voice quiet. “The Ancients in this city are supposed to forego their beginnings and their pasts. They've evolved.”

“All of them?”

He frowned. “They have taken vows to, if not fit in with the mortals surrounding them, come close to doing so. They stay away from people and are lucky to have made it this far without being hunted and killed. They are well provided for with stocks of blood, kept stored for needs that arise, and willing donors who are well paid for their services.”

Though Madison winced at the
donor
part, she took all this in ravenously.

“They have formed their own community here,” St. John continued. “They do more good than harm, for the most part.”

“How many? How many of the old ones are there?” she asked.

“I can't tell you that for reasons which will soon be made clear.”

“Can an Ancient die? Again? Can you?” She didn't wait for his reply. “Just how ancient are you?”

“Older than you. Older than the rest.”

“Are there females among these Ancients?”

This was a selfish question. The thought of females like him, tall and elegant and hurtfully beautiful, brought on a wave of jealousy she could barely contain.

St. John read this, and smiled. “None. No females.”

“Why not? If you mention the words
weaker sex,
I'll stake you myself.”

Something she had said caused him to smile again. Madison sensed a fresh round of heat beating at the air between them.

“Actually, I'm not sure why,” he finally replied.

“You've never asked?”

“It never mattered.”

His answer took some time to absorb. She'd been correct, then, when she had touched his bare back and thought his reaction odd. He hadn't been handled by a female for years.

How many years?

She wanted to be the only one to ever touch him, and ever get near to him. She felt an icy blast of jealousy for this creature beside her that was so very much the male she wanted.

“If you're not like the others, why are you here?” she asked.

“I have a task to do, and have been building up to it.”

“Where does the term
Protector
come in?”

“I serve the Hundred in a guiding capacity, when I choose to. I help them to deal with mortals and keep their secrets, a job that suits us all, for now.”

“Mortals like me,” Madison said.

She held up a hand, as if asking him to hold off on answering her. “Why would they believe you'd serve them in any capacity, if I can see the flaw in that in about two seconds, and that you're so much more than they probably are?”

Did he smile again? She thought he did, though the darkness outside the glass wall now hid all but the outline of the contours of his face.

She was aware of the line of his shoulders. Aware of the fall of his hair and the lean hardness of his hands. She tried desperately to erect a barrier against the notice of those things, hoping to section off her feelings. It was more than the masculine attributes of this figure beside her she craved, though the exact meaning of what she needed from him still remained out of reach.

“They don't know everything about me,” he said. “And serving them serves my purpose.”

“Now I sense a change in you, St. John,” Madison said.

“That purpose has almost been satisfied, after a very long time.”

Madison watched him, soaking up every detail.

“I believe that my brother came to London to find all of you, for a reason I can't comprehend,” she said. “Not to kill you. Not as a vampire hunter. Stewart used the case he was working on as an excuse to get here, where he had something else in mind.”

“Yes,” he said. “It is possible that your brother had other motives.”

Excited, Madison pressed on, desperate to know everything.

“Possible, or probable?”

She placed her hands against St. John's chest, ready to shove the answers out of him if necessary. Finally, they were getting somewhere. Half the questions had answers. Surely he sensed her frustration over him withholding the rest.

Against her palms, she felt the hardness of muscle and bone beneath his sweater. She felt a beat, and wanted to damn this creature whose heart worked much in the way a mortal man's would, each stroke strong and sure and as fast as her own. Each stroke seeming to bring her closer to him.

Beside her stood a being whose pulse was a mockery of life. The forces invigorating him should have disappeared, fading to nothing on the day he had died.

God, yes. St. John had died.

Did the remembrance of that death pain him, as it pained her to think of it? Was that the source of his dark demeanor?

She knew in that moment that she did truly love him, in spite of all that. In spite of knowing about him.

The acknowledgment of her emotions wasn't a shock. It was depressing. St. John was a special being, even within the tiers of special beings. He had a job to do that might soon take him from her. And though he'd said she was special, she was still mortal, and would eventually, after finding her brother, go home.

Twisting the fine weave of his sweater between her fingers, Madison felt the steady throb of his heartbeat reverberate in her forearms, shoulders, chest and the pit of her stomach. She had always tuned in to Christopher St. John as if they were fatefully connected. This made them closer than normal, and incessantly intimate.

“If Stewart wanted to chase vampires, he could have done so anywhere. But he came here, Christopher,” she said.

It was the first time she had used his given name. Madison observed how his expression softened.

“Your brother came here to find himself,” he said, his velvet voice husky. “He tried to distance himself from you, having to leave you behind in order to find answers.”

Her grasp on his sweater tightened. She didn't have time to think about ruining the expensive cashmere, or the fact that St. John was already facing the door.

“His wasn't a completely selfish action,” he said. “Your brother also came here to find those girls, hoping to pick up their trail, meaning to ask for direction from those who could find out what had happened to them.”

“The Ancients,” she said.

“Yes.”

“You knew who he was?”

“I saw him once. By that time, it was too late to help.”

“Too late? What do you mean?”

The immortal male she clung to remained silent for a short time. Then, as if he had considered what he was about to say from all angles, he said, “Stewart killed a vampire when eyes were watching. No one could have saved him from what came after.”

Hearing this, Madison wanted to change her plea. She wasn't ready for this. How could anyone be ready, no matter how desperate they were for facts?

“What did Stewart want to find out about himself?” she demanded.

St. John's hands covered her own, inflicting a level of pleasure and support that by all rights should have been torture. Madison allowed the sparks flickering between them to fuel her depleted energy.

Her voice emerged strongly. “I love my brother. I deserve to know what happened to him. You must see that.”