“What does that have to do with my question?” The other agent asked, and Gina frowned at her.
“I would choose to be turned rather than die,” Agent Norris told her pointblank. “Life as a vampire isn’t bad, and it beats the alternative.”
“I agree,” Agent Hyde spoke up. “I was turned in nineteen oh eight, and would gladly choose that path again.”
“See, not so crazy,” Gina said and looked at Baxter. “What about you? Would you choose to be turned instead of dying?”
“No,” Baxter answered honestly. “Not because vampire life is bad though. I have my reasons, and they have nothing to do with being a vampire. And no, I’m not going to share those reasons with everyone. My past, and the things that happened in it, are not something I’m willing to share with everyone.”
“We understand,” Norris said and looked at Gina. “Most of us do, anyway.”
At her words, he glanced at Gina and the look in her eyes nearly made him tell them all everything about his past. Instead, he picked up the radio and reached out to the others.
“We’re stopping for the night. I know it’s early, but we all need some sleep, and the humans need food,” he said and once everyone responded he sighed. Once they were in a hotel he would talk to Gina. He’d hoped to wait until they were in California to have this conversation with her, but the look in her eyes was his undoing, and he needed her to know what was in his past more than he needed anything else right now.
Chapter Five
“So, what’s going on with you and Baxter?” Lexie asked when she sat beside Gina in the small dining room of the restaurant where they decided to have dinner at. It was a buffet style restaurant that was beside the hotel they’d be staying in, and Gina loved the selection.
“Nothing,” Gina responded truthfully. There wasn’t anything between them. Not yet anyway.
“We all saw that kiss,” Randee said and Gina looked at her.
“I’m sure,” she responded, recalling the kiss that had caused her toes to curl and her body to long for something she hadn’t thought about in years. “But that doesn’t mean anything is going on between us. We kissed, yes, but it didn’t mean anything.”
“You sure about that?” Lexie asked, and looked over to where Baxter sat at a table with Karma, Dylan, Nevaeh, Harrison, Jackson, and Delanie.
“Yes,” she responded with a lot more confidence than she felt. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen between them, but she’d been attracted to Baxter since first meeting him. She’d shoved that shit aside at the time, but the attraction had been growing since that first meeting, and she was nearly ready to scratch that itch and get the Vampire Enforcement Bureau leader out of her system.
“Is he?” Randee asked after she chewed and swallowed.
“He’s just like every other man out there,” Gina commented. “He just wants to get laid, then he’ll move on to his next conquest.”
“If you say so,” Lexie said and looked away from Baxter when he looked at their table. “But I think it’s more than that.”
“Like what?” Gina asked, remembering what he’d said about tasting his copula. She knew he’d never drank from her, so there was no way she could be his lifemate.
“Have you really not noticed the way he looks at you?” Randee asked.
“It’s lust. Once we fuck, if we do, it will change. He’s just a man, after all,” Gina responded. Since Jaxon she’d been with a few men, but none had made her feel what Baxter had with one kiss. The feel of his lips on hers, of his tongue intertwined with hers, was seared into her memory just as much as everything to do with Jaxon was. Shaking herself, she looked at the nearly untouched food on her plate and sighed. Her appetite was gone, but she forced herself to take a bite.
“If you say so,” Lexie said again.
“Yeah,” Gina responded, not knowing what else to say.
Gina tuned out the other two Huntresses as she focused on her food and thought about the vampire who occupied her thoughts more than he should.
When someone said her name, she looked up and her eyes locked on the vampire she couldn’t get out of her head.
****
“Are you finished eating?” Baxter asked for the second time. When he’d walked over to the table, Gina had been so lost in thought he’d had to say her name three times before she’d looked up from her still nearly full plate. The turbulence in her eyes as his locked on them, made him want to scoop her into his arms and carry her somewhere they could be alone for the next few hours, but he knew they needed to talk first, and the conversation may leave her wanting to stake him rather than what he wanted to transpire between them.
“Yes,” she responded and laid her fork down.
“Would you be willing to go somewhere so we can talk? Somewhere private?” He asked, hoping she’d invite him back to her hotel room.
“Sure,” she answered with the same flat tone she’d answered his first question with.
“Thank you,” he responded and nodded at the two Huntresses sitting with her before he stepped back and watched her rise fluidly to her feet. She was human, but the way she moved may fool some into thinking she was more, and that scared him worse than anything ever had.
“Since Nikki went with Jensen, I have a room to myself. We can talk there,” she told him once they were out of the restaurant. “Karma and Dylan have the room to the left of me, and Nevaeh and Harrison have the one to the right, but they won’t leave the restaurant until the other Huntresses do, so we’ll have privacy.”
“Thank you,” he said again. His only hope now was that she didn’t stake him after he told her what he needed to.
Once they were on the floor he’d gotten for the VEB and Huntresses, Gina led him to her room. When he noticed it was just across the hall from his, he grinned a little. If things went as he hoped, he wouldn’t be sleeping in his room tonight.
“What do you want to talk about?” Gina asked as soon as she opened her door.
“Let’s go inside before I tell you, please,” he said, and she nodded before walking into her room.
Once he was inside, he shut the door and flipped the lock. He knew a locked door couldn’t keep the vampire with them from entering the room, but he also knew none of them would try unless they felt Gina needed their help.
“What do you want to talk about?” She asked again as she walked around the spacious room with the very inviting king-sized bed in the middle of it.
“My past,” he said, and she stopped walking to look at him.
“I thought you said you weren’t going to share the things from your past?”
“I said I wasn’t going to share it with everyone,” he corrected her. “The vampire in the VEB don’t all need to know the things I did while with my creator. These things are known by the ones who put me into this position, and they’re the only ones who needed to know at the time. Now, I want to share my past with you.”
“Why?”
“Because you and your family are in it,” he answered truthfully.
“What? How?” She asked as she sat on the edge of the bed.
“Before I answer that, let me tell you a little about myself,” he responded and ran a hand through his hair. “I was born in Alabama in nineteen fourteen and lived there until I went into the navy in nineteen thirty-two. I was stationed in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, and was medically discharged because my skull was fractured. Once I was back home, I lost myself in whiskey. On the night I turned thirty, I was at a whorehouse and was attacked by the whore I was fucking. She was a vampire but, instead of killing me, she decided to change me and trained me as her pet. I was with her for a decade, and did some horrible things before she was killed and I was freed. Since then, I’ve worked to protect humans from vampire like her.”
“Okay, but what does that have to do with my family?”
“It was nineteen forty-nine, and I encountered a young woman out with her family. She had black hair down to her waist, high cheek b
ones, and the darkest eyes I had ever seen. She was beautiful, and I wanted her. Back then, back when vampire weren’t regulated like they are now, we drank from, and killed humans without thought and I was no different than the others of my kind. I stalked her for a couple of hours, and when she broke away from the small group she was with, I followed her. Any of the women with her would have been efficient for me to feed from, but there was something about her that called to me. When she was in the restroom, and I knew she was completely alone, I went in. She was washing her hands when I stopped behind her and her eyes locked my mine through the mirror. Unlike anyone I had encountered since being turned, she wasn’t afraid of me.”
When he stopped talking, Gina looked at him, and realized he was lost in the memories of that day.
“I could see the confusion in her eyes when she turned to look at me. Who are you? she asked. My name is Nathan, I replied, and she smiled. What a lovely name for one with pale skin, she said, and I smiled back. What is your name? I asked her, and her smile grew. Indigo, she answered as I leaned closer and smelled her hair. You smell delicious, Indigo, I told her, and her smile faded as I took a step closer. So delicious, I can’t help myself. When I took another step toward her, she took a step back and her back pressed against the sink behind her. I knew I had her where I wanted her, so I leaned down and whispered in her ear, I promise I’ll be gentle, then I sank my fangs into the pulsating vein in her neck. As soon as her blood hit my tongue, I knew I couldn’t kill her, so I jerked away and ran from the restroom as fast as my vampire speed would carry me. I didn’t stop running until I was in the alley we called home, and I never told any of those with me what happened that day.”
Chapter Six
“Indigo,” Gina breathed when Baxter stopped talking.
“Yes,” he responded, knowing she’d pick up on the unusual name.
“You’re the one my grandmother told everyone about? You’re the vampire who tasted her?”
“Yes,” he said again and looked at her. “That was the day something inside me changed. Over the next five years, I watched her without letting anyone know I was watching her. A year after I met her, she had a baby. A little girl who she named Malia, and I vowed to watch over the child too, but just after the baby was born, my creator and few of her other creations found Indigo and the man she was with. They killed the man, but I managed to get Indigo away without them knowing. I led them to a group of Hunters I knew of, and managed to not get myself killed in the process. I knew Indigo and Malia would be safe with them, so I left and made my way back to my creator.”
“She nearly killed my grandmother, and did kill my grandfather, but you went back to her?” Gina asked as she rose to her feet.
“Yes,” he responded for the third time in less than five minutes. “Please remember that I was a young vampire at the time, and all I had ever known was my creator and her ways. I made sure your grandmother and your mother were somewhere safe before I left them though.”
“But they weren’t safe,” Gina told him. “The Hunters you left them with raped my grandmother, did you know that? She fled from them in the middle of the night and joined the group of Huntresses she’d met a few days before. Nevaeh’s mother, and the other Huntresses, saved her life.”
“She was supposed to be safe with them,” he snarled and nearly punched the wall before reining in his temper. “How do you know what happened while she was with them? Your mom was only a baby then, so I know she never knew anything that happened.”
“Grandmother told Nevaeh’s mother when she joined them,” Gina responded and closed her eyes for a minute before looking back at Baxter and gasping. “When we were still in Orlando, you said you once tasted your copula. It was her, wasn’t it? It was my grandmother.”
“Yes,” he answered after a moment.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” she said and jumped to her feet. “You goddamned son-of-a-bitch.”
He could feel the fury rolling off her like waves during a hurricane, but he knew if he backed off now, he’d never be able to break through her anger and make her see how much he cared for her.
“Gina,” he said calmly.
“Don’t!” She yelled and walked to the door. “Don’t say another fucking word to me. Don’t even fucking look at me again. If you do, I will stake you, consequences be damned.”
“Gina,” he said her name again. “Just let me finish, please. Then, if you want me to go, I will, and I will never speak to you again outside of the job we have to do.”
“What could you possible say that could make you not come across as a bigger fucking douche canoe than you already are?”
“I’ve realized my feelings for her, whatever bond I had with her, has shifted to you,” he said, and her eyes sparked with anger. He knew he needed to leave, but he didn’t want to walk out and leave her hating him.
“Go fuck yourself, Agent Baxter,” she spat out and reached for the doorknob. “And get the fuck out of my room. You are no longer welcome here.”
“Gina,” he said for a third time, and took a step toward her. When he reached his hand out to touch her, she shifted her stance and grabbed him. Before he could react, she had him on his ass, and was pressing a dagger to his chest.
“I said to fucking leave,” she told him as she pinned him harder to the floor.
“No,” he responded and reached up to tangle his hand in her hair. “You’ll have to stake me.”
“Fine,” she said and pressed down on the dagger. When it ripped through his shirt, and nicked his chest, blood seeped in around the tip, and tears filled her eyes.
“Do it,” he said and pressed against the tip of the dagger. “I deserve to die for the things I’ve done. I am truly a bastard, and would stake myself, but I’m too much of a coward.”
“No,” she said and tossed the dagger aside before she leaned down and pressed her lips against his.
The fury that filled her thirty seconds ago was melted away as a fiery passion filled her. She lost herself in the feel of his body beneath hers, and the taste of his mouth. When he rolled and pinned her beneath him, her arms wrapped around his neck and her hands tangled in his hair.
As the kiss deepened and spiraled more out of control, Baxter’s phone let out a shrill ring.
“Fuck,” he said when he broke the kiss and picked his phone up from where it landed on the floor when Gina knocked him on his ass. It was Karma’s ringtone, and he knew she’d only be calling if something had happened.
“Answer it,” Gina said and pushed him off her.
“Baxter,” he said into the phone as he watched Gina rise to her feet and walk into the small bathroom.
“Jensen and the others have landed,” Karma relayed to him. “Nikki just called me to let me know they were being followed as soon as they left the airport. They’re all okay, and they have one of the vampire who was following them held in an undisclosed location.”
“Is that all?” He asked, not trying to hide the frustration in his voice.
“Yeah,” she responded. “Everything okay with you?”
“No,” he answered. He could hear Gina’s sobs coming from the bathroom, and he wanted nothing more than to walk in there and comfort her. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Don’t cross any lines with her, Baxter,” she said, and he sighed.
“If I do, I’ll stake myself before you have the chance, so there’s no need for the warning,” he responded and ended the call. He wasn’t about to sit here and listen to Karma-isms while Gina was in the bathroom crying.
He rose to his feet, and tossed his phone on the table beside the bed before he walked into the bathroom.
“Leave me alone,” Gina said without looking up. She was sitting on the edge of the tub with her hands covering her face, but he could smell her tears and hear the utter exhaustion in her voice.
“You’ll have to stake me for that to happen,” he told her as he walked to her. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to talk to, but
I am here if you want to talk about it.”
“I’m sorry I cut you,” she said and looked up from her hands. When her eyes landed on the bloody hole in his shirt, the tears started falling again.
“I’m okay,” he told her and sat beside her on the edge of the tub.
“I wanted to kill you,” she told him.
“And you had every right to kill me,” he responded.
“No,” she replied. “You are not one of the evil vampire, and haven’t been for a very long time.”
“Maybe, but I should have talked to you the first time we officially met. I should have come to you and told you everything then.”
“Yes, but I’m sure you had your reasons for not doing that.”
“I did, and they were all stupid reasons,” he confessed. “What I said earlier, about my feelings transferring to you, I’m not even sure it’s possible.”
“Ramsey would know,” Gina told him. “Ramsey knows everything.”
“That he does,” Baxter responded. “And I will talk to him when we get to California, but for tonight, I would like to hold you.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t leave you alone right now,” he told her. “If you ask me to leave, I’ll just sit outside your door so I can hear you if you need anything.”
“Then stay,” she told him and rose to her feet. “But I’m not having sex with you.”
“Gina, sex is the furthest thing from my mind right now,” he responded. “All I want to do is make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m not okay, Nathan,” she responded and sighed. “You can stay, but if you try anything, I will cut off your nuts and feed them to you.”
“Thank you,” he responded, and tried not to think about her threat. “And all I want to do is hold you and make sure you’re safe.”
“Okay,” she responded and walked to her small suitcase. “I’m going to get a shower, then I’m going to bed.”
“Let me run to my room and grab my bag so I can shower when you’re finished.”
Gina's Passion (Vampire Huntress Sage Book 4) Page 3