Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (3 page)

“Very cosy,” I said to break the  silence. I curled up in the

corner of the couch.

“I’m glad you like it.” He leaned forwards. “It is your home

now.”

A prickle of foreboding ran up my spine. I narrowed my eyes. “Is that a threat? Are you saying I don’t have the freedom to leave?”

I struggled to hear Connor’s voice in my head, but there was

no sign of him.

Luke sighed and tented his fingers, elbows resting on the knees of his long slender legs. “It’s not that complicated, but it may be hard to get used to at first. You’ve been given a virus.”

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“A virus?” I stood quickly, but didn’t miss that his gaze  lingered on my braless breasts  bouncing under my sweater. He  cleared his throat. I crossed my arms and sat down again.

“Vampirism is caused by a virus,” he said, meeting my gaze  again, warmth in his amber eyes. “Infectious. Passed through  body fluids.”

“Blood.” I felt it rush to my cheeks at the memory of  drinking from Connor. “I’m infected.”

“It’s more than vampirism. There’s also hypertelomerase at  work, the excess production of a hormone  that halts the ageing  process. It’s not a death sentence. We’re working to find a  cure.”

“So it’s more of an eternal-life sentence?” I smiled so that

he could see that I was joking. I tried to relax.

“It’s true that the bearers of the virus don’t seem to  die from  natural causes. The body ceases to age. That’s not a bad thing.  In fact, it’s one of the properties of the virus that we’re fighting  to preserve.”

“But there are properties you would rather eliminate?” I

raised a brow. “The blood-sucking?”

His  turn to stand. He began pacing in front of the fireplace.  “I don’t think it’s fair for some of us to spread our disease to the unsuspecting.”

“Disease.” It was the first I’d thought of myself as diseased, though he had referred to it as a virus. “But I was given a  choice.”

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He shook his head. “Not without understanding the full implications. The need to hunt. The powerful urges to mate. The restlessness.” His voice broke.

“The loneliness.” I had no  idea yet, having been infected

such a short time and most  of that spent unconscious, but I did  know about being alone and the suddenly sad look in his eyes  clued me in to the rest. I thought of the Shelleys, of Mary’s  refusal to let Connor turn her. “You’re infected too. Aren’t

you?”

“I am.” His arm rested on the mantel and I could see his  hand curl into a fist. “But I would never be so callous as to bite  another human being. We’ve taken an oath here.”

“We?”

“Back to you.” He tipped his perfect, chiselled chin in my  direction. “For all intents and purposes, you’re dead. Your  family, your friends, your work, everyone believes you to be  gone.”

“Without a body?”

“All signs led to abduction and murder. It was a logical

conclusion.”

“All signs.
 
Planted
 
signs. Who are you people? How long  have I been here? Where are we, for that matter?” I stood and  walked to the curtains behind us, opened them and looked out. I  gasped. It wasn’t night, but midday. The most beautiful band of  coastline met my eyes, pristine sand, crystalline blue waters  lapping to the shore in waves.  “Palm trees. There are palm trees  for god’s sake. Where have you taken me?”

“It’s an island. All ours. You’ve only been here for two days

now.”

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“Ours?” Two days. Two days of my life gone. But how

many gained? Eternity?

“SPAHC’s. ‘The Society for Prevention of Advanced

Hypertelomeric Cruorsitis.’”

“That’s what I have? The full name for it? Advanced

Hypertelo-whatsis Cru-oh-who?”

“Hypertelomeric Cruorsitis. Yes.”

“And you want to make it go away? That’s why we’re

isolated here? On an island?”

“We have  a full research facility. State of the art. Complete

with luxurious living quarters, private beach ”–

I held my hand up, interrupting. “I’ll grab a brochure on the

way out.”

“You are free to leave. Please, don’t be frightened. We’re  all here by choice. It might be awkward for you to try and go  home again, but if you with it.”

I didn’t wish it. He probably knew as well as I did that there

was nothing left for me there. “I’ve always wanted to travel.”

“We can arrange it. All I ask is that you stay here for a  period of time. We like to get a full study of all the infected, to  see if there’s a mutation or something we may have missed  along the way.”

“Something you can use to find a cure?”

“Exactly.”

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I thought about it for a moment. “What if one doesn’t want

to be cured?”

“Everyone wants to be cured.” He looked at me, his eyes  wide with incredulity. “If not right away, they come to it  eventually.”

“Eventually,” I echoed. I had no idea how I felt about who I  was, what I had become. Until I understood what  the disease  was all about, how would I know if I wanted to be cured.?

“You’ll stay then? A month or two?”

I had no idea where else I could go. No job, no money, no  identity.  “I’ll stay. For now. Until I can investigate some job  possibilities, see who’s hiring.”

He reached for my hand, a tender look in his eyes. “I’m sorry Miranda. You can’t go back to teaching. You have no credentials.”

My lungs constricted with sheer panic. “All my years in

school? All that time?”

“Gone.” His lips drew to a tight line.  “It’s like witness  protection. You have to leave everything you knew behind and  start fresh. Clean slate. In the process, you discover things about  yourself that you never even knew existed.” His lips curved as if  to show it was a good thing, but the smile never reached his  eyes. It made me wonder.

I looked out of the window to the sand, the ocean and the horizon stretching endlessly beyond. I thought of my mother, ice clinking in her old-fashioned glass as she raised it for my stepfather to refill. “
I always told her she would come to no good.
 
” I thought of my sisters, probably bitter that I went first and left them to deal with mother. I thought of my students marvelling at the juicy scandal of Connor Black attacking their

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dowdy old professor instead of  choosing a tempting, ripe,  youthful victim from among them. Would they all score an  automatic A? Or would Beth Hinkle, the department head, step  in and take over the class, business as usual?

It made me suddenly giddy to think of all I’d left behind.

All  that, gone. Gone. My nerves hummed with excitement. Or was it hunger?

I turned to Luke. “So, what have you got to eat around here?

I’m starving.”

Over a large meal of steak (rare) and potatoes (garlic mashed) hand delivered by Luke to my room, he explained the vampire myths that weren’t true. Garlic wasn’t anathema, as evidenced by the delicious potatoes. Sunlight didn’t burn us to a crisp. We weren’t immune to death or invincible to injury. We didn’t age, true enough, and our cells had remarkable resilience, but we could bleed and we could die given the right damage. As for our souls, who could tell? Who could tell what happened to any man’s soul? Why should we be any different?

“Fair enough,” I wiped my mouth after the last bite of steak  and leaned back  in my chair. “So, we’re just like ordinary  people except  ”–

“Not the lack of aging. And the fact that we do crave  blood.” Luke used a crusty bit of bread to wipe the excess juices  from his plate, then popped it in his mouth and smiled,  savouring it, as if to prove a point. “A desire we try to keep in  check with a limited diet.”

“Rare meat?” I raised a brow.

He shook his head. “Breakfast. Oatmeal. With blood.”

“Ew.” I recoiled

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“You’ll get used to it. Trust me.” His eyes crinkled at the

corners when he  smiled. Just a hint of age?

“I do. So tell me.” I leaned  forward, my chin on my hand,  suddenly interested in all things Luke. Appetite sated, I began to  crave something else. “how old are you, Doctor Jameson?”

“Old enough to know the signs.”

“Signs? What signs?”

“Your body’s sending you signals. For all our advancement,

we’re still so primitive under the skin.”

I didn’t mind the idea of getting primitive with Luke.

“Aha, see? The gleam in your eyes. You’re feeling the

effects.”

He got up, crossed over to the side table, picked up the opened bottle of wine, and returned to pour more into my glass, then his. “You’re too young to control it. It’s about to overwhelm you.”

“I’m hardly overwhelmed.” But even as I said it, I felt my  lips curl in wily ingénue fashion. “I’m just trying to get to know  you better, Luke.”

“I can see that.” His gaze followed to where my hand toyed  with the neckline of my sweater. “I’m sure we could know each  other quite well by the time the sun sets.”

He stood confident in front  of me, his hands resting in the pockets of his khaki trousers as he allowed my gaze to run over his lean, muscular form. He’d removed his white jacket before dinner. Blond curls grazed the collar of a button-down blue

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oxford shirt that hugged broad shoulders. A powerful chest  narrowed to a slender waist, probably washboard abs, and the fit  of his pants left no doubt about the muscular thighs beneath.  And in between?  My glass in one hand, I rose and approached,  the index finger of my other hand extending to  make friends  with the skin between his collar and hairline. His pulse worked a  fierce tattoo under my finger pad. He backed away.

“This is why we keep the newbies isolated.” He stepped  around me to pick up his glass, downed half the contents and set  it back on the table. “You’re all so eager to test your skills.”

“My skills? So I do have superhuman powers?”

He laughed, a low rich chortle that hummed in echo through

my bloodstream. “Superhuman urges, perhaps.”

“And we’re discouraged from indulging?” I pouted, a

recalcitrant child.

He faced me. “For now.” His words indicated a delay but his heavy-lidded gaze, dropping down the length of me, indicated anything but rejection. “Until you know yourself a little better.”

I hazarded contact, stepping right up  so that the tips of my breasts brushed his chest as I looked up into his arresting amber eyes. “Perhaps I could find myself through knowing you better first.”

“You want to know me?” I could feel him breathe. I was

just a lad. Not even thirteen when he took me.”

“He?” My gaze caught his. “A man turned you?”

“Mm,” he nodded. His hands ran up my arms. “It happened

in the sun king’s court.”

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“Louis XVI?” My momentary distraction from the heat of

his touch made me wonder if I’d got it right.

“My father, a devoted courtier to England’s Charles II, died  some six months before the marriage was arranged between  Charles’ sister Henrietta and the King’s brother Philippe, Duc  d’Orleans. It was decided that Henrietta needed some more  experienced women among the entourage and my mother, a  widow, was enlisted. I was an only child. She brought me  along.”

“To the court of Louis XIV?” My heart raced. How  exciting! I always lived to find good primary sources, and I had  one standing right in front of me. “You were there?”

He stepped back, his hand reaching up to rumple the back of his hair. “Mother lost herself in intrigues and affairs, all the while forgetting she’d brought me along, or so it seemed.  She found me a position in Philippe’s service: glorified footman. It

wasn’t long before I graduated to favourite plaything.”

“Oh Luke.” I ached for him. A boy left to fend for himself

among the fondling of jaded courtiers?

“Philippe’s favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine, was kind to  me at first. He plied me with wine, whispered that it wouldn’t  hurt, that it would make me stronger. I wanted to be stronger to  be able to fend off some of the more forward members of  Philippe’s entourage. Philippe eventually joined us, but he  apparently didn’t know.”

“That the chevalier was a  ”–

“A vampire, yes. Or that he had made me one. Philippe had  been drinking heavily. Lorraine convinced him I was dead, that  he had somehow killed me accidentally, and he talked Philippe

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into letting him do away with my remains before a scandal

could erupt.”

“But you were just a boy.” And now he was clearly a man. I

grew confused. How had he aged?