The Last True Vampire (41 page)

Claire gripped the knob of the door gingerly, turning it with just the tips of her fingers. The bolt released with ease and the wooden panel didn’t even made a squeak as it whispered open.
Score!
Likewise, she kept her footfalls light, as though walking on thistledown, as she padded down the hallway to the staircase. Her feet whispered over the hardwood without a sound to betray her passage. Very cool. Step by step, she used her trek to the ground floor as a study in mastering her new gifts. Even her mind began to calm. No longer racing through thought after endless thought as she learned to ignore the Collective and filter through everything around her, taking it all in at once rather than trying to pick through and separate it all.

Really, it wasn’t as tough as she thought it would be. Her fingers slipped through the strands of her hair, combing it out into some sort of order as she hit the last step. With any luck, she’d get this whole vampire thing down yet.

The upbeat sounds of the TV filtered from the living room into the foyer. Definitely not something Mikhail or Ronan would watch. Claire treaded softly, creeping into the other room as a predator approached potential prey. Her guard was up, but she didn’t know why. Danger prickled along her skin like icy rain.

“Claire!”

Vanessa sat on the carpet, her legs crossed in front of her. She shot up with a wide smile on her face and sprinted the length of the living room, nearly taking Claire out in a huge tackle hug.

“Mikhail said you didn’t feel good. Did those guys hurt you? Have you ever seen a house this big in your entire life? He has every channel on TV. Even the Disney Channel! Holy crap, Claire! Your eyes are all shiny and gold. You sort of look like Mikhail and Ronan and Jenner now. Oh, and this other lady who came over earlier, too. Do you have superpowers? Does it hurt? Mikhail says it hurts to become a vampire and that humans can’t do it. But you did. Why do you think you can do it and no one else?”

If Vanessa didn’t stop to take a breath soon she was going to pass out.

The gravity of the situation hit Claire like a five-ton mountain collapsing on top of her. Right now Vanessa was riding the high of the excitement; her little ten-year-old brain hadn’t wrapped itself around everything that had happened yet. How could it? The human psyche could only take so much. Claire remembered feeling like she’d lost her own grip on reality from the moment she’d met Mikhail.

“Are you all right, kiddo?” Claire guided Vanessa back toward the TV and eased herself down on the floor. She patted the carpet beside her. “How are you holding up?”

Vanessa plopped down and fixed Claire with her wide brown eyes. “I’m okay. Sad. But I’m not scared, Claire. Not anymore.”

Truth. Vanessa’s scent was sweet, almost like too-ripe watermelon. There wasn’t a trace of distress to sour it. A worry and a relief. “You’re tough, kiddo.” Claire pulled her in for a hug, so,
so
careful not to squeeze too hard.

“Mom’s still in a coma.” Vanessa sniffed and looked away. “Mikhail talked to the doctors about it, but they don’t know when she’ll wake up. She has a head injury.”

Claire listened to Vanessa regurgitate words that she’d no doubt been told several times over the past days. It could be months—or longer—before Carlene recovered, if at all. What would happen to Vanessa in the meantime? Where would she go? Claire pulled Vanessa in for a hug, careful to handle her as though she were made of cobwebs. “I’m so sorry, kiddo. She’ll be okay. We just have to think positive thoughts.”

“I like Mikhail.” Vanessa’s voice was muffled by Claire’s shirt. “He reminds me a little of my principal at school, but he’s nice.”

Claire couldn’t help but laugh. Mikhail would probably love to hear that he gave off an elementary school principal vibe. “How’s he like your principal?”

“Sort of scary. Like, you know he’s a nice guy, but if you get in trouble he’s definitely not a nice guy.”

Huh. Strangely accurate.

“Claire, are those guys who took us going to come get me?”

Claire pulled away, looked Vanessa in the eye. “Why would you ask that?”

“One of them said that no one should hurt me because I was special. Are they going to try to put me in jail?” Her voice broke, and for the first time Claire sensed her fear. “Or foster care?”

Claire thought back, slogging through the haze of her muddled human memory. Gregor had forbidden the other slayers from killing Vanessa. But why? What did they know about her that Claire didn’t? How did this innocent child who wasn’t even old enough for her first kiss fit into their grand notions of Fate?

“Don’t worry about them,” Claire said. A low growl vibrated in her throat and Vanessa’s brow furrowed.
Whoops.
She was going to have to learn how to control her new animal impulses. Pushing thoughts of violence against the Sortiari to the back of her mind, she gave Vanessa a reassuring smile. “No one’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Can I stay here?”

The hope in Vanessa’s voice twisted Claire’s heart in her chest. How could she answer that when she wasn’t entirely sure if
she
was staying here? And for that matter, she couldn’t just invite Vanessa to stay in a house that wasn’t hers. “I’ll talk to Mikhail about it,” she said. “We’ll figure it all out, don’t worry.”

Vanessa let out a sigh much too heavy for such a little girl. “Okay.”

“Okay. You watch TV for a bit and I’m going to go find Mikhail. Holler if you need anything.”

Vanessa flopped down on her tummy in front of the TV. “I will. But I pretty much already know where everything is.”

The tether that bound Claire to Mikhail tugged at her chest and she let it lead her to her mate.
Mate
. The word was so foreign, even to her new vampire mind. But it rang with so much truth that it stole the air from her lungs. Like a mouse after a piece of cheese in a maze, she crossed the foyer, went past the staircase and down a long hallway, her feet taking her where she needed to go even though this was a section of the house she’d barely had time to explore when she’d been there last.

She turned toward a set of sliding doors and smiled. He was in that room. His presence burned in her soul like a flame.

*   *   *

Mikhail stopped midsentence and smiled. Her steps had been so light he hadn’t heard her approach. But his mate stood on the other side of those doors just the same. He held up a hand to Jenner and said, “Come in, Claire.”

She walked into the room, beaming. Mikhail’s blood stirred at the sight of her, and any thought of business took a backseat to his lust. Their moments in the shower had been far too fleeting to fully satisfy him, and he couldn’t wait to take Claire back to their bedroom, where he could strip her bare and enjoy her body until the sun rose.

Jenner cleared his throat, breaking the spell, and Mikhail shifted in his seat, his hardening cock causing him discomfort in the restrictive cut of his pants. Damn it. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” She graced him with a knowing smile and a rush of pleasure flooded him.

“I’m glad.”

“I just saw Vanessa.” Claire gave Jenner a wide berth as she approached Mikhail’s desk, as though she sensed that it would ignite tension to see her standing so close to another male. Mikhail marveled at her intuitiveness. Claire had indeed been born to become a vampire. “She’s afraid that the Sortiari are going to take her away. Or that someone is going to make her go into foster care. I wasn’t sure what to tell her—”

“The child can stay for as long as it pleases you, love.” Mikhail leaned back in his chair and studied Claire. How could she think that he would turn away anyone she cared about? “This is her home as much as it is yours.”

Claire smiled wide, the tiny tips of her fangs brushing her full bottom lip. Mikhail thought of those fangs scraping along his shaft and suppressed a pleasant shudder.

“Thank you.” Her voice lowered an octave and the husky tone vibrated along his skin.

Jenner cleared his throat once again and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Mikhail, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to keep an eye on Siobhan. If you’re right, she won’t waste any time in going after Gregor.”

“Yes.” With Claire so close, it was hard for Mikhail to remember that there were other people in the world, let alone the same room. “Go. We’ll discuss the rest later.”

Jenner gave a curt nod, turned toward Claire and nodded again, and took his leave.

“Come here,” Mikhail commanded as soon as the doors were closed. It had only been a couple of hours since he’d taken her in the shower, but it felt like centuries. “Let me smell you, touch you, put my lips on your skin.”

Claire giggled as she rounded the desk. He pulled her down into his lap and she leaned in to his chest. “You sort of make me sound like a gourmet meal when you talk about me that way.”

“I could devour you like one,” he murmured against her throat as he breathed her in.

Her previous pleasure evaporated under worry that soured the air and Mikhail tightened his grip, encircling Claire’s waist. “I know this is going to take some adjustment, but you’re through the worst of it.”

“It’s not that.” Claire worried her bottom lip between her teeth and one sharp fang nicked the skin. She licked the blood away and Mikhail was disappointed he hadn’t beat her to it. “It’s Vanessa.”

He stroked a loving hand over the silky length of Claire’s hair. “I told you, love. She can stay with you.”

“There’s something wrong with her,” Claire blurted. “No. Not wrong.” She paused as though searching for the right word.
“Different.”

Mikhail had sensed it, too, but he hadn’t said anything. Didn’t want to pile anything more onto Claire’s plate. “The Sortiari ordered Gregor to spare her. They think she’s important. And that she plays a part in their plans is, at the very least, disconcerting.”

Mikhail had managed to thwart Fate more than once in the course of his existence, however, despite the Sortiari’s grand schemes. There was undoubtedly something otherworldly about the girl, though he couldn’t put a finger on just what it was. Perhaps her father had been
other
. The world was thick with supernatural beings. If not her father, there was a possibility that someone in her bloodline had passed down whatever traits she now exhibited that not only piqued his enemies’ interest but worried his mate as well.

“We’ll keep her close, Claire. Care for her. I’ve arranged for her mother’s care and we’ll see this through. I promise you, this will all work out.”

Claire graced him with a soft smile and leaned in for a kiss. “Have you always been such an optimist?”

An optimist? Mikhail thought back over the centuries, the many years of war and excess. The taking of physical pleasures in search of the one thing that would banish the emptiness that had swallowed him whole. He thought about that gods-forsaken tomb. The hole that Gregor had left him to rot in and the wound that still pulled at his chest after all of these years, a permanent reminder of the emptiness and despair that he thought would have no end.

“No, love. I have not been an optimistic male. Until now.”

“Oh really?” Claire teased the strands of his hair, her nails scraping against the back of his neck. “And just who could have possibly instilled such a sunny outlook in such a broody vampire?”

Mikhail cupped the back of her neck and kissed her, coaxing her mouth to open for him with gentle flicks of his tongue. She responded, deepening the kiss as a purr vibrated in her chest. Ah, his mate. So full of fire and passion—

“Mikhail.” Ronan burst into the room like a force of nature. A raging storm about to ravage the land.

Mikhail didn’t pull away but kept his head bent close to Claire’s. “As usual, Ronan, your timing is—”

“I’m leaving, Mikhail. Tonight. Now. I just came here to tell you in person so you wouldn’t think I was committing treason.”

“Treason? Ronan, what in the gods’ names are you talking about?”

“It’s Chelle.”

Ronan’s twin was a wandering spirit, a dhampir hell-bent on uncovering all of the secrets of the vampire race. So many times he’d flown to her rescue when she got in over her head. Mikhail had hoped that she would settle down. Stay closer to her brother and out of trouble. “What’s she done?”

“I don’t know.” Ronan raked his hands through his hair and his agitation burned Mikhail’s nose like sulfur.

Claire placed a tentative hand on Mikhail’s forearm, also in tune to the male’s distress. She’d only been awake and alert for a few hours before she’d needed to rest and Mikhail had no idea how long she’d be able to sustain this time. He didn’t want to waste a single moment on Chelle and whatever trouble she’d brought to her brother’s door.

“What can I do to help?” Just because Mikhail didn’t want to deal with Chelle didn’t mean he wouldn’t. Ronan might not have been Mikhail’s brother by birth, but he was the closest thing Mikhail had ever had to one. He was part of the Collective now, an Ancient One in his own right. Ronan’s problems were now Mikhail’s and he was honor bound to give aid.

“Just give me your leave,” Ronan replied. “Jenner is more than capable to protect you until I come back.”

Mikhail scoffed. “Your ego’s grown since your transition. I want you at my side, Ronan, but I don’t need you to protect me.”

A spark of amusement lit the male’s eyes. “Not now that you have her,” Ronan said with a nod toward Claire. “Because I have no doubt she’d gut even the fiercest creature that sought to do you harm.”

She leaned into his touch as Mikhail brushed his thumb along her jaw. “He’s right, you know,” she said. “Anyone who wants you is going to have to go through me.”

As if he’d ever allow her to put herself in the path of danger. “Go,” he said to Ronan without making eye contact. “With my blessing. Good luck. And if you need help…”

“I know. Thanks. And Claire,” Ronan added, “you’re a serious badass now. Don’t let all of that power go to your head.”

The door closed to signal Ronan’s exit, but Mikhail couldn’t be persuaded to look away from his mate.

“He’s right,” Claire said. Her gaze flashed with liquid gold, the most beautiful thing Mikhail had ever seen. “I felt the truth in it. What does it mean, Mikhail?”