Not Quite Dead (A NightHunter Novel) (26 page)

She hadn't been able to stop him by herself, and that didn't even count the vampire that had attacked Eric, or Cicatrice, who was still out there. It had taken both of them to defeat Tristan and the other vampire. Alone, they both would have died. Against Cicatrice, they would need even more than what they'd been able to summon thus far. She knew Eric wasn't going to abandon Tristan, and neither was she, but going solo, they had no chance. They had to fight together, and they had only today to figure it out, because tonight would bring Tristan back.

"Eric," she called out.

He didn't answer.

"We need each other for this. We can't do it alone."

There was silence.

"We can work together without having sex, you know. We could just be partners. Keep an emotional distance so you don't fall madly in love with me and get all tangled up in emotions, like you did with Jane." And of course, so she didn't get so caught up in him that she couldn't see the truth for what it was.

More silence.

She sighed and let her head thud back against the door. "I'm kind of a badass, you know. I did kill my own soul mate. I will be happy to promise to kill you in the event it becomes necessary, if that will make you feel secure enough to work with me."

Again no reply.

She sighed. "Men," she muttered. "Too damned heroic to even be a hero."

A creak drifted up from the basement, and then she heard footsteps heavy on the stairs. He was coming.

The doorknob turned, and Jordyn felt Eric push against the door.

The door didn't open, because she was still leaning against it.

There was a thud, as if he'd let his head drop against the wood. "Jordyn."

"What?" She tensed, ready for some melodramatic angst, or a he-man declaration that she had to leave, or a heartfelt promise that she'd showed him the light, and he was now willing to swear on his life that he would never kill her.

"Move."

She almost laughed. So typical Eric. They'd both bared their souls, and his response was a one-word command.
Move.
She folded her arms over her chest and settled more comfortably against the door. "No."

His sigh prickled over her skin like a warm breeze. "Move your hot little ass, or I'm going to come through this door and move you myself."

She did smile then. Leave it to Eric to turn it to sex. "Did you know that there's a word in the English language that many people consider it polite to use when making a request?"

His sigh was a little more forceful this time.
"Please
move your hot little ass or I will be
pleased
to come through this door and move you myself. You may think that a ban on sex is a great solution to the fact I might kill you, but I think they're completely unrelated. I'm shallow enough to admit that if I get my hands on you again, I'm not going to exercise a lot of self-control. It was that good, and I'm a little bit on edge. Another round of sex would work for me right now. So, move. Please. Now."

That spot on her neck tingled with sudden heat. She grinned and scrambled to the side, using the kitchen cabinet as a backrest instead. The door swung open slowly, and Eric met her gaze. He was standing on the third step, so he was almost at eye level with her.

His eyes were turbulent, and his face was tense. "You are a stubborn, difficult, pain in the ass," he said.

She folded her arms over her chest, her body humming at the intensity of his gaze. This was no longer the defeated Eric from downstairs. He had become the warrior again, a brazen, heated mass of testosterone ready to go to battle. "So?"

"So, you're also right." He leaned against the wall of the stairwell, and folded his arms over his chest, studying her. His muscles were completely relaxed, but there was a readiness humming from him.

She could almost feel the energy leaping off of him and sizzling through the air. "I was right about which part?"

"That I can't do this alone." He ran his hand through his hair, which made it spike even more in a disheveled, sexy mess. "I have to save Tristan," he said simply, "and I need your help."

Disappointment sagged in her belly. Of course, it was all about Tristan, but a part of her wanted it to be more. The woman in her wanted him to acknowledge
her
and the connection intensifying between them. Dammit. She shouldn't have let him make love to her. Now she wanted it to be more. She wanted him to look at her and see the heart that was lying in broken fragments inside her body, in desperate need of being glued back together.

He didn't. He saw only sex.

Of course he did. He'd told her from the beginning that that's how he saw the world. So, yes, it was a timely reminder that nakedness and orgasms meant nothing more than nakedness and orgasms.

She lifted her chin, and gave him a haughty look. "Fine. Great. I love being right." She grabbed the edge of the counter, and pulled herself to her feet, keeping her voice brisk. "So, what now? Where do we go from here? He'll be back tonight." She noticed her grandmother's bag on the dining room table, half open, with most of the contents untouched. She'd been so consumed with Eric's state that she hadn't taken time to go through it in detail. Once she'd realized the stake wasn't inside, it had felt like a dead end. But maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe there was more. "I should check her book. I haven't had a chance to do that yet." She started to walk toward it. "Maybe you could grab us some breakfast, and I'll see if maybe she knew more about vampires than she told me—"

 Eric moved with alarming speed, grabbed her arm, and pulled her to a stop. "I wasn't finished."

"Wow, relax, a little. I wasn't going anywhere," she said, startled by his quick move. How had he moved so quickly? "I was just going to look at the book—" Her words died when she saw the blazing intensity of his gaze, and suddenly, her skin felt hot. "You had an idea about Tristan?" Even as she asked the words, she had a feeling that his twin was not on his mind at that moment. The heat in his gaze was too searing for him to be thinking about his brother.

"What I was going to say," he said softly, "was that I'm staying in town not only because of my brother, but also because I'm not done with you."

She swallowed, trying not to notice the sudden pounding of her heart. "Oh? What does that mean?"

"A lot of things." His gaze swept over her face. "It means that I dragged you into my hell, so it's my responsibility to keep you safe. Pushing you away clearly won't work, because you're too damned stubborn to back off, so I'm keeping you close." His fingers tightened on her arm, and he drew her closer against him, until her breasts were against his chest.

Her heart felt like it was going to pound right out of her chest, and heat coiled in her belly. He was so dominant and strong, as if he were wrapping her in this great cloak of power...and sex. There was simply no way for her to be this close to him and to have his hands on her body, and not respond physically.

His eyes were blazing as his grip tightened around her waist, anchoring her so tightly against him that she had to crane her neck to look at him. "I swear on the soul of Jane McPherson that
I will not let you die
."

His words were suspended in the silence between them, and she felt tears threaten again. She wasn't sure if it was for the promise, or the fact that he'd decided to believe in himself enough to make the promise. She couldn't even imagine what it had taken for him to say those words. It was a tremendous moment for him, and for her. Eric had a lot of flaws, but staying true to his word wasn't one of them. His promise was real. It mattered. It made her believe. She nodded, unable to come up with the words to reflect his oath. So, she simply nodded. "Okay. I accept that promise—"

He slapped his knife into her hand. The blade was almost transparent, but there were hundreds of shadows shifting in the green-tinted blade, as if it were a portal into an unknown world of spirits and specters. "This will kill me. Take it."

She stared at the knife in surprise. "You want me to kill you?"
That
was his promise? Not that
he
wouldn't kill her, but that he'd arm her so that she could carve out his heart if he tried to kill her? Because that really wasn't high on her list of romantic moments she aspired to.

"I want you to have the ability to kill me if necessary." He closed her fingers around the handle, his eyes dark. "You were able to kill your soul mate when he went rogue even though you loved him, so I know you can do it to me if necessary." His gaze met her in a challenge. "I know you don't love me, so it should be easy for you."

She swallowed, her entire soul rebelling against the feel of his knife in her hand. She wanted to hurl it away and watch the blade plunge deep into the kitchen wall. "Easy?" she repeated in disbelief. "You think it would be
easy
for me to kill you?"

For a split second, he hesitated. Doubt flickered through his dark eyes, along with something else. Hope? A yearning? A longing? It was gone before she could fully identify it, but she felt as if she'd glimpsed something deep inside him, the true Eric that he kept hidden.

"Don't waste emotional energy on me," he said. "This is the
only
thing that will work on me for sure." His grip was tight around hers. "Promise me that you'll kill me if it is necessary to save your life."

"Oh, no, no, no. I'm not doing this." Yes, she'd killed Walter, but it had traumatized her so badly that she'd then killed herself eight times. "If I kill you, Tristan dies." And a part of her own soul would die as well, because that was just the kind of soft-hearted wuss that she was. It was impossible to kill someone without having it knot up inside her chest and eat away at her until she was nothing but a shriveled ball of guilt and misery, and the truth was, she liked Eric, which would make it a thousand times worse. She liked him a great deal, in fact. Yes, he had all sorts of flaws, but her connection to him was strong. She admired his loyalty to his brother. The way he'd risked everything to save her spoke of a man she could afford to trust. He made her feel safe, sexy, and appreciated, despite all of her own flaws and baggage. She didn't want to kill him.

Again, emotion flickered across Eric's face. "You don't want to kill me because it would inadvertently kill Tristan?" There was an edge to his voice that slithered across her skin. "That's why?"

She raised her chin. "Of course I don't want to inadvertently kill Tristan." She wasn't going to say anymore. She really wasn't. But the moment she spoke, she saw Eric's face harden, and she felt him withdraw. "God, you dumb man!" She grabbed his jaw. "What do you think my answer is? I never had sex with Tristan. I never even kissed him. I don't kiss men anymore. I don't have sex with them. I don't get involved. I haven't kissed a man since Walter, and I haven't even wanted to. So, don't pull some macho male crap on me. You know damn well that I don't want to kill you either, and to do so would break my already shattered heart, so don't force me to make that choice. Got it?"

Eric stared at her, and then his hand wrapped around hers and he slowly removed her hand from his jaw. "I am not dumb." His voice caressed her flesh like an invisible silk ribbon trailing over her skin.

She swallowed, her entire body humming as his thumb swirled circles across her palm. "So, you did that on purpose, to make me feel bad for you so that I'd blurt out some asinine confession about how I feel about you?"

"No, I didn't do that on purpose." His thumb slid over the underside of her wrist. "But I liked your outburst. I like it when you try to put me in my place."

She pressed her lips together, unable to muster up the mental fortitude to make herself pull away from him. "Let go of me."

"No." He traced the letter E on her skin, as if he were marking her.

Chills ran down her spine, and her blood seemed to hum through her, racing toward that spot he was touching.

 "Yes, Jordyn, I know that Tristan will die if you kill me. And if we wind up having to kill Tristan to stop him, then I die. It's the cost of our brotherhood. I accept it, and so does he. Sometimes, death is the right choice. Make me the promise, Jordyn. It's non-negotiable. I will not kill anyone else, end of story...especially you." The way he said
especially you
feathered across her soul like a sensual, unspoken promise.

Jordyn bit her lip as fear of what he might do warred with the instinct to melt into him and succumb to his seduction. She had to face the fact that Eric still didn't believe he could stop himself from killing her, or anyone else for that matter. Was he right? Was she the one who was wrong? Because, she had to be honest, he was the one inside his head, not her.

"Promise me." His voice was low and rough. "Promise me that no matter what happens between us, no matter how much you succumb to my irresistible and impressive charm, that you will
never
lose sight of the fact that you may someday need to sink that blade into my heart."

Making that promise was an acknowledgment that she'd once again aligned herself with a man who could destroy everything, and betray all her belief in him. She didn't want to do that. She wanted to be right that there was someone in this world worth trusting. But as she looked into his eyes, she saw the shadows swirling. Dark, lethal shadows. "Eric—"

He pressed a kiss to the spot on her wrist that he'd been caressing. "Make the promise, or you go home."

She didn't have to look at his broad shoulders or the stubborn set to his jaw to know that he was perfectly capable of following through on his threat. "Damn you for being built like a house."

A small smile quirked the corner of his mouth. "Is that a promise?"

"You seduce me and make me promise to kill you in the same breath? You make me crazy, Eric." She sighed, jerked her wrist away from his annoying kisses, and accepted the knife from him. His expression was inscrutable as she shoved the knife through her belt loop. "Fine. I promise to showcase my amazing man-killing skills if you turn out to be less than the man that I think you are. And if you keep being so annoying, then I might even enjoy it. Satisfied?"