Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (9 page)

“If you’re going to kill me, just get on with it,” I said. I  wasn’t making any progress in my current position, which  meant I had to inspire him to lower his guard. If he bit me,  maybe I could lull him into a false sense of security.

“Tempting,” he murmured, then  grazed my skin with his  teeth. Teeth, not fangs. “But I want to know more. Did Jeffrey  hire you?”

Due to factors beyond my control (i.e. a need to eat), there were times I was forced to purposely misplace my conscience.  However, it always seemed to find its way back to me. I didn’t want to get Jeffrey killed, not when he’d obviously been right about Ross Blackburn.

“Who?” I asked, hoping I sounded convincingly clueless.

“I know he was very upset about his mother,” Blackburn  said, ignoring my question. “I  don’t blame him. Elizabeth didn’t  deserve to die so young, but her cancer had other ideas. Whether  he knows it or not, he’s better off not having had to spend the  next year watching her suffer.”

“So you’re admitting you killed her?”

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I felt him shrug. “Not that it does you any good, but yes. At her request, I might add. She was already beginning to decline.  Now tell me, did Jeffrey hire you?”

“I don’t know anyone by that name.” I’m a good liar, but I  didn’t think I had much chance of pulling this one off.  Blackburn obviously had reason to believe his stepson had hired  me. Still, I had my professional pride and I wasn’t giving up my  client. I decided I’d try to distract him. “How did you know  what my handler said on the phone?” I asked. “There’s no way  he  was talking loud enough for you to hear him across the  room.”

To my shock, he laughed and let go of me, though he still hovered uncomfortably close, his palms pressed against the wall on either side of my head. Slowly, I turned around to look into those smoky eyes. He was grinning at me, making no attempt to hide his fully extended fangs.

“You’re still under the impression I don’t know what you  are?” he asked. “I thought you were quicker on the uptake than  that. If you could smell the blood over my toothpaste, what  makes you think I couldn’t smell it over your whisky, or  whatever it was you used to try and cover it up.”

Well, so much for lulling him into a false sense of security.

Of all the shitty luck! Why did I have to take a contract to kill

someone who turned out to be a bigger, stronger vampire?

“I sighed and would have crossed my arms if he weren’t  invading my space so much. “I didn’t try to cover it up. The guy  I drank from was drunk out of his mind, So you know what I  am, and I know what you are.  Where does that leave us?”

“With me thirsting for Jeffrey’s blood.”

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I opened my mouth to continue my charade that Jeffrey didn’t hire me, but Blackburn shut me up by planting his mouth on mine. I struggled pointlessly for a moment, then let myself go limp and passive. The touch of his lips and tongue did sinful things to my insides, but I had no inclination to give in to my lustful desires. Hormones be damned, I wasn’t letting him get away with being a sexual bully.

Blackburn quickly grew bored with my  passive resistance and pulled away. He smirked at me, and I was sure he knew he’d aroused me. Apparently, even centuries of experience didn’t stop me from being attracted to bad boys. They
 
did
 
give me enough experience to keep myself from acting on those desires, though.

“I have no intention of killing Jeffrey,” he told me. “He’s  hated me since the first time we met, but even though he hired  you to kill me, I don’t hold it against him. Grief will make men  crazy.”

“OK, so you’re not going to kill Jeffrey.  What about me?”

His grin was positively wolfish. “I’d rather fuck you than

kill you.”

Frankly, I’d prefer that, too. But since, regrettably, the two were not mutually exclusive, my fangs extended and I prepared for battle. “Try it, and you’ll lose body parts.”

His eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t mean to imply I’d take you without your consent.” He dropped his arms back to his sides and gave me space.

I glanced at the door, so tantalizingly close.

“I’m not particularly vengeful,” he said, taking yet another

step back. “I won’t kill Jeffrey, because he had good cause to

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hire you. I’ll merely disappear from his life so that he will not  succumb to temptation again. And I won’t kill
 
you
 
because you  cared enough to find out whether I really killed my wife before

completing your contract. I clearly won’t be releasing an

indiscriminate killer out into the world if I let you go.”

I frowned. “And what will I be releasing if I let
 
you
 
go?”

He had now crossed all the way to the opposite side of the foyer, and leaned against the wall. There was no question in my mind that I could beat him to the door at this point, which calmed my fight-or-flight instincts enough to make me stay put.

“Elizabeth and I met because we were both volunteers for a  hospice,” He said, and his smile was now wry. “Does that give  you a clue as to how I fulfil my needs?”

I grimaced. “You prey on helpless, innocent victims?”

“No, I prey on dying, suffering victims. More specifically,

on suffering victims who would prefer not to suffer any longer.”

My conscience rolled that one around for a while, but I couldn’t quite figure out what I thought of it. I tentatively decided it wasn’t much worse than what I did, if indeed it was worse at all.

“And what about Elizabeth?” I asked.

Something that looked  like it might be genuine grief crossed his face. “Elizabeth had ovarian cancer. She had some particularly brutal surgery, and then she started chemo. The side effects of that form of chemo can be excruciating, and she seemed to have every one. Her future  would have been filled with pain, more surgery and long hospital stays. She’d loved me for quite some time, and I was fond enough of her to want to give her some happiness before she died. So I married her

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shortly after she was diagnosed, cared for her and  eased the way

when she was ready to call it quits.”

I stared at him sceptically. “And convinced her to leave you

half her estate.”

He waved that off. “That was her decision, and I didn’t know about it. I’d have stopped her if I had. I don’t need the

money, and I certainly didn’t need to give Jeffrey any more

reason to hate me.”

Call me an old softie, but I believed him. Mainly because of all the bad things he could have done to me by then but hadn’t. I hoped that the fact that I lusted after him wasn’t  any factor in my decision, but I can’t say for sure.

“So you’re just an all-round nice guy, huh?” I said.

“Something like that. Now are you leaving or staying?  Because if you’re staying, I’m sure we can find somewhere  more comfortable than the foyer.”

The glint in his eyes told me just where he had in mind for us to go. Temptation swamped me, though I figured it wasn’t exactly professional for me to sleep with my supposed target.

A smile curled my lips as a thought occurred to me,

Blackburn’s eyes widened. “Now
 
that
 
is a truly evil smile,”

he told me. “Do I want to know what you’re thinking?”

“You said you were planning to disappear from Jeffrey’s

life.”

He blinked at what must have seemed like a non sequitur.

“Yes,” he answered cautiously.

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“Would you be willing to do your disappearing within the

next two weeks?”

He cocked his head at me, brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“May I ask why?”

“My agreement with Jeffrey was that you would disappear,  never to be seen again. And that your body would never be  found. I didn’t actually  say I would kill you.”

Blackburn threw back his head and laughed. “So you claim

to have ‘taken care’ of me, and you’ll take Jeffrey’s money?”

“I get my money, Jeffrey gets his revenge and neither one of

us has to die. What more could you ask for?”

He was no longer leaning against the wall. Now, he was stalking across the foyer towards me in his full predatory glory.  The door no longer seemed even remotely tempting.

“Oh, I can think of a few more things to ask for,” he  murmured as  he took up his former position, crowding into my  personal space.

“What makes you think I’d give them to you?” I asked.  “You were a total asshole last night, and you’ve been an  insufferable bully so far tonight.”

His crooked grin made my libido dance a jug. “Oh, and you would have been the soul of courtesy and hospitality if you’d found an unfamiliar vampire on your doorstep? And then discovered she meant to kill you?”

I had to grant him that. I still don’t get why you let me go

last night.”

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He shrugged.  “I found you entertaining. And I knew you’d

be back.”

Arrogant bastard! “It would have served you right if I’d

staked you as soon as you opened the door,” I grumbled.

He pressed up close against me, letting me feel his own, er, stake. I guess death threats were a turn-on for him. “If you find me so terribly unappealing, you could always leave,” he said. “I won’t try to stop you, and I’ll even disappear for you so you can collect on your contract.”

I glanced pointedly at his ring, though I made no attempt to

move away. “Aren’t you in mourning?”

A shadow of grief crossed his face. “When I lost Elizabeth,  I lost a dear friend. But not a lover. If we were to explore our mutual attraction, I would not feel it disloyal to her memory.”

I was running out of reasons to turn him down. And truthfully, there were many advantages to having a vampire lover. Especially one as smoking hot  –  and relatively decent (if such a term could be applied to any vampire)  –  as Ross  Blackburn.

“OK,” I said. “I’ll take you for a test drive.”

He smirked at me in a way that would have infuriated me if he weren’t so damn sexy. I grabbed double fistfuls of his hair and pulled his head down to mine. And believe me, that smirk died a quick and glorious death.

73

The Righteous

Jenna  Maclaine

Castle Tars, I reland, 1 675

T
 
he  warrior stood with his hands braced on the huge oak table, his brow creased in concentration as he studied the map laid out before him. The flickering flames of the firelight played over the thick muscles of his  chest and cast his face into shadows, As she watched, he tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. How she longed to reach out and brush his hair back, to feel the soft strands that changed from black to brown to coppery blond between her fingers. He looked so  very young tonight and yet centuries had passed since he’d been born into this world. Physically, he appeared as though he’d seen no more than 25 years, but his age showed in the hardness of his eyes and the sharpness of his tongue.

“Morrigan, if you must be here the least you can do is not

skulk about in the shadows,” he snapped.

The goddess sighed and stepped into the room. “Good

evening my love.”

He raised his dark angry eyes to hers, “I am not your love.”

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She felt a surge of pleasure as she noted the way he watched the sway of her hips as she walked towards him. “Such harsh words from your lips that used to speak naught but tenderness to me,” she said.

He grabbed her wrist as she reached to lay her hand against his cheek. “Any tenderness I felt for  you died when you killed me.”

She cocked her head to one side. “Do not act as though you

were not complicit in your own downfall.”

“You deceived me,” he growled.

“And you betrayed me,” she pointed out. “And yet I have