Bitten & Smitten

by Michelle Rowen

  She sobbed into the napkin for a moment.

  “What about Thierry?” I said again.

  She looked up at me sharply. “If I did not know any better, I would say that the only thing you care to learn about is Thierry. Thierry’s life, Thierry’s fate. But it’s my story. My story. And my love was dead.”

  She was feeling such pain for something that had happened more than six hundred years ago that my heart bled a little for her. Just a little. I decided not to provoke her, to make the pain any worse. I waited until she was ready to continue.

  “When it finally registered with me that he was gone for good, rage filled my soul. Such rage, such vengeance— but they gave me strength. I, who had never fought anything in my life but perhaps a light cold, took to arms and fought back against the hunters. But I was not the only one. Others in the club fought back. It was a true moment of glory for me as I fought, shoulder to shoulder, with those I’d never met before but now considered as close to me as my own family.

  “In the wee hours of the morning, when it was finally over, I looked around for Thierry. He was nowhere to be seen and I felt a sharp pain go through my heart.”

  “You were stabbed?”

  She looked at me. “It was a metaphorical stab of pain. Not literal, dear. I was concerned, for I thought that my young charge—not to mention, loyal and devoted husband—had met the same fate as my beloved Marcellus.”

  She shook her head. “It was not for two days that I found him. At the first sign of trouble he had left, hid himself away from danger. He had not come out until he felt that it was safe.

  “I did not greet him with the open arms he perhaps expected. I was angry with him. Marcellus had fought bravely and died, and he had hidden like a coward and lived.”

  I let her story settle over me. This was her proof that Thierry was a big, fat coward because more than six hundred years ago he hightailed it out of a fight to the death? Didn’t seem like the Thierry I knew nowadays, a man who came off as brave and strong and impenetrable. But I was pretty sure that six hundred years could change a lot of people.

  Veronique smiled at me, though her eyes were a bit red from thinking about this Marcellus dude. Yeah, the man who cheated on her and left her without a word. I could see why she was still in mourning. Sounded like a great fellow.

  “You’ve lived a very interesting life.”

  She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I have.”

  “How long have the two of you been apart?” I asked. “At least I got the impression that you and Thierry didn’t live together anymore.”

  “That’s a rather personal question, isn’t it? But I feel as if we’re old friends now. I don’t mind personal questions from old friends. Our marriage has been in name and memory only for over a hundred years. It was patchy before that. Ever since the incident at the Paris club, I have not felt the same toward him.”

  “If Marcellus had lived, would you have left Thierry?”

  She blinked. “Goodness, what a question! He was my husband; how could I have left him? I simply would have taken Marcellus as a lover.”

  “Oh.”

  I saw someone approach the booth and figured it was the bartender wondering if we wanted more drinks. I looked up, and my breath caught in my throat as I saw Quinn’s father staring down at me.

  “Hi there,” I squeaked.

  “I recognize you.” He wagged a finger at me. “You were in here with my son before.”

  “Uh, that’s right.”

  He frowned. “Have you seen the boy? I cannot find him anywhere tonight.”

  I swallowed hard. “No. Haven’t seen him.”

  He shook his head. “I have reached the end of my patience with him. He’ll receive no more mercy from me.”

  “Roger?” Veronique said, and Quinn’s father glanced over at her.

  “Veronique?” He raised a bushy eyebrow. “It can’t be you.”

  She stood up. “But it is.”

  His eyes tracked down her tight black dress. “Stunning. A vision of beauty, just as I remember you from so long ago.”

  “You have a few more lines in your face,” she said with a smile. “But it suits you. You are as handsome as I remember as well.”

  He smiled back at her, and it was almost a leering grin. “And how long ago was that?”

  “Thirty years? Perhaps more? Sarah, dear, would you excuse us for a moment?”

  I nodded, since I couldn’t find my voice to speak. I watched Veronique follow Quinn’s father, the leader of the vampire hunters, into a dark and smoky corner of the bar. Their faces grew close, and they whispered and laughed and touched each other like old friends.

  Did he know that she was a vampire? He had to. I think he was smart enough to figure out if someone hadn’t aged a day in decades that something was up. He was acting a little different than I would have expected him to in a situation like this, not that I knew him at all. All I knew was what I’d overheard when he reprimanded Quinn as if he were a naughty toddler. Quinn had been bullied all of his life by this zealot of a father who despised vampires and had devoted his life to wiping them off the face of the planet.

  Then why was he giggling with Veronique like a schoolboy with a crush? It just didn’t make sense.

  Unless…

  A thought so horrible went through my mind that I immediately pushed it away. But it came back and poked me, insisting that I give it more consideration.

  Could it be that Veronique was the vampire traitor? Was that why she’d shown up in the city just before the hunters had come up with their new and improved annihilation plan? Veronique gave me the impression that she cared about one person and one person only—and it wasn’t Thierry. It was herself.

  Then it had to be true. It just made sense. She was the informant. She was giving the hunters information on the secret clubs’ locations and then turning her pretty, dark-haired head in the other direction when they went in and slaughtered everyone in sight.

  I slipped out of the booth and left the bar without letting Veronique see me. I thought briefly about going back across the street to tell Thierry my suspicions, but didn’t. I didn’t want to be near him, either, after what I’d witnessed earlier. Veronique’s story hadn’t changed my opinion of him or softened my judgment that what he was planning to do to poor Eugene was wrong, wrong, wrong.

  Instead, I went back to my apartment. I was so tired that I just wanted to sleep and push the conscious world far away. Maybe everything wouldn’t seem so hopeless tomorrow, although I had a feeling that was just wishful thinking.

  I fiddled with the key for my lock and slid it in, turned the handle, and pushed open my door. I tossed my purse and keys on the kitchen counter and sighed long and hopelessly in the darkness. It did feel good to be home. Something normal after such a crazy day. Here I could still pretend that nothing in my life had changed. That I was still the same girl who watched Sex and the City while eating Haagen-Dazs ice cream right out of the carton. Who talked with Amy over the phone for two hours straight about a cute guy one of us was seeing, even though we’d already just spent the whole day working together. Whose closet was color-coordinated for ease of wardrobe choices.

  Yes, my apartment was my own space. My rented safety zone. My Ikea-decorated oasis.

  I flicked on the overhead light.

  And screamed.

  Quinn was sitting on my sofa. He blinked at the sudden harsh light.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I managed, my heart beating wildly in my chest. “How the hell did you get in here?”

  He got to his feet and held out his hands to calm me down. “Easy. Take it easy. I’m sorry, I just… It wasn’t that hard figuring out which unit was yours. Dearly isn’t that common of a last name, you know.”

  I felt in my purse for the knife I’d stolen from the restaurant. It was only a butter knife, not very sharp at all, but I bet it would hurt a lot. At the very least, it would cause a bad bruise. I held it up in front of me.

&
nbsp; He glanced at it and almost grinned. “Are you going to start singing something from West Side Story?”

  “I don’t sing. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I thought we left things off pretty well earlier. I thought you trusted me now.” He took a step closer to me.

  I took a step backward.

  “Trust is not in my vocabulary when it comes to you, Quinn. Besides, you just broke into my apartment when I wasn’t here. Not exactly a way to build my confidence in you.”

  “But I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Ever hear of the Holiday Inn? There’s one just around the corner. You get a free continental breakfast and everything.”

  He sighed. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I needed to see you. And you did say if I needed anything, I shouldn’t hesitate to ask.”

  “I meant you should ask somebody else. Someone who gives a shit. Now I suggest you get the hell out of here before—”

  He closed the space between us before I could do anything about it and snatched the knife right out of my hand. I heard it clatter to the floor at the same time I felt his strong, warm hands on either side of my face as he pulled me to him, taking my breath away with a passionate kiss.

  Chapter 20

  We made it to the bed before I came to my senses. Even then, I was still kissing him back, clutching at him like a life preserver for the drowning woman I’d become.

  “No.” I broke off the kiss and pushed at him weakly. “We can’t do this.”

  He wasn’t listening very well and ran his mouth down my neck. I let out a quavering little moan before I gathered all the willpower I could manage.

  “Quinn, no.” I pushed him harder this time, and he stumbled backward to the floor. He lay there looking up at me. His eyes were dark.

  “Why not?”

  “Just because, that’s why. Isn’t that good enough?”

  He shook his head. “You want me, I can tell. Don’t try to deny it.”

  I stood up and straightened out the dress I’d bought for our double date tonight. I noticed that there was a fresh tear in my panty hose. Just perfect. “I think you should leave.”

  He got to his feet and came closer than I would have liked. “Sarah.” His voice was low and sexy, and it made my stomach tighten. But I backed away from him and refused to meet his eyes. He stopped moving toward me.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?”

  “Him who?”

  He sighed. “Thierry. You’re in love with him.”

  I frowned. “Just because I don’t want to put out on the first breaking and entering doesn’t mean that I’m in love with Thierry.”

  He sat down heavily in the purple beanbag chair in the corner of my bedroom. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

  The very mention of Thierry’s name had made my heart pump loudly and painfully against my ribs. “Go away, Quinn.”

  I heard him swallow, and his eyes grew shiny and moist in the darkness. “I thought… I thought that you and I had a connection. I feel something when I’m with you. You feel it, too. Forget him. We’re a much better match, anyhow.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Do you know the kind of day I’ve had? All I wanted to do was come home and blank it all out, even if it was just for a couple of hours. I don’t need any more complications.”

  “That’s all I am to you? A complication?”

  “Do you really want the truth?” I saw his face start to crumble. He’d had a pretty hard day himself, and I was just being a bitch to him. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I’m so sorry.” I moved toward him and took him in my arms. He began to sob against me. We sat like that for a while, nothing sexy about it anymore, just comforting.

  After a few minutes he looked at me. “I’m a vampire.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “I hate this. I want things to be the way they used to be. I knew what to do then. I knew how to behave, how to think. I don’t want to be a vampire.”

  “Neither do I.” Now I was crying, too. Yeah, we made a good pair, all right. The overly emotional monsters of the greater Toronto area. How fierce, how scary, how much in need of a box of tissues.

  Wait a minute. I pulled back from him as a thought tweaked at me. We both hated what had happened to us. Neither of us wanted to be vampires.

  I stood up and left the bedroom. I grabbed my purse on the kitchen counter and picked through it to find the napkin. Clutching it in my hand, I went back to Quinn.

  “Here’s the answer.”

  “The answer?” He looked up at me. “To what?”

  “All of our problems.”

  “The answer to all of our problems is a cocktail napkin? Maybe your problems are a little different than mine are.”

  “Nope, same problem.” I handed it to him and knelt back down next to the beanbag chair. “That’s the phone number for a guy who knows about a cure for vampirism. We don’t have to be vampires. We just need to talk to him and convince him to help us.”

  He stared at the napkin. “There’s a cure? I didn’t know there was a cure.”

  “Then I guess it’s a good thing you know me.”

  “Have you already called him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Who did you get this from?”

  I took the napkin back from him and folded it gingerly. “Zelda, at the club.”

  He just sat there, stunned, as the information slowly sank in. “There’s a cure.”

  “Yes.” I smiled. “We can be normal again.”

  “It’s too good to be true. There has to be some sort of catch.”

  “Can’t you just be happy about this?”

  He smiled at me and stroked the hair off my forehead. “Okay. I’m happy. But what does this mean for you and me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He glanced at the bed.

  I raised my eyebrows. “It means we’ll both be human again. It also means that I have a very comfortable sofa in the living room.” I stood up so I could grab one of my pillows and throw it at him. “Sleep well.”

  I thought I was tired. I really did. But I lay awake for most of the night with thoughts racing through my brain. This was it. I was going to be cured. Being a vampire was a disease, and I was going to get the medicine that would make me all better. I could be normal again; I wouldn’t have to worry about being hunted within an inch of my life; I could lose the fangs and get my reflection back.

  I should have been happy. It was everything I wanted.

  Why, then, couldn’t I sleep? I tossed and turned, the events of the past week going through my mind like a midnight monster-movie marathon.

  After a while I must have dozed off, because when I opened my eyes, it was light outside. I pushed back the covers and pulled on some powder blue sweats. I hadn’t forgotten for one moment that Quinn was sleeping on my sofa, not ten feet away.

  I pushed open my bedroom door and peeked out. He was on the phone in the kitchen. When he saw me, he quickly said good-bye to whomever he was speaking with and hung up. I saw the cocktail napkin on the countertop.

  He looked at me. “I called him.”

  “Already? Couldn’t you have waited for me?”

  “How long did you want me to wait? It’s noon.”

  “It is?” I glanced at the clock on the stove. He was right. “Okay, so tell me all about it.”

  “He’s agreed to meet with us. We can leave now. It sounds like it’s on the up-and-up. There is a cure, and we’re going to get it. So get dressed.”

  “I am dressed.”

  “Those look like pajamas.”

  “And yet, they’re not.” I rolled my eyes. “Sorry that I don’t dress up in short skirts and heels all the time. Welcome to my real life. I just need to wash my face and brush my fangs first and we can get out of here.”

  “Whatever.” Quinn turned away from me.

  Okay. Fine. Was he in a shitty mood because of my rejection last night? I could almost see the tiny con
struction workers hovering around him, helping to build up the walls that kept his male ego safe from harm. I wondered how he would be acting if I hadn’t made him sleep on the couch. Not that I was having any regrets. I was extremely attracted to him—sure, I’d admit that. But that was no reason to complicate further my already-too-complicated life.

  If things had been different…

  Oh, I don’t know. I wasn’t even going to think that way. Besides, starting out a relationship after a failed murder attempt was not a good foundation to grow on.

  And it had nothing to do with Thierry. Absolutely, positively, almost nothing.

  The mystery scientist guy lived forty-five minutes away on the outskirts of Grimsby. The cab was going to cost a fortune. I insisted on stopping for coffee at the first Tim Hortons we saw. Just because the caffeine didn’t have any effect on me anymore was no reason to give up one of my very favorite bad habits, provided it didn’t make me want to throw up. Quinn got one, too. Black, no sugar. No big surprise there.

  After a while the cab made a left, off the main road, and drove for a few miles into the rough. I became nervous.

  “Where does this guy live, anyhow?”

  He shrugged. “Along here, I guess.”

  Great. The cure doctor and Bigfoot. I should have brought my camera.

  The cab came to a stop outside a run-down trailer home in the middle of nowhere. Quinn got out of his side of the car, paid the driver, and asked him to stick around for a bit.

  I opened my car door and stepped out directly into a big, slushy puddle of mud. I grimaced as the dampness soaked through my shoes. Great. At least today I’d decided on the Nikes.

  Quinn didn’t wait for me. He strode right up to the door of the mobile home and knocked sharply. And waited. There was no answer.

  I put a hand on my hip. “You’re sure this is the right address?”

  “Yes,” he hissed.

  “Quinn, save the attitude. We’re in this together, remember?”

  He turned to glare at me, then his eyes got wide. “Don’t move.”