by Amelia Elias
She found the bread and the toaster and popped a couple of slices in. “Mmm hmm. You mean everyone in your family has suffered from this mental illness where you think you work for a vampire?”
James laughed again. “I’m not going to try to convince you, if that’s what you’re after,” he said, turning off the burner and dumping the eggs onto a couple of plates. “I’ll leave it for Diego. You’ll see for yourself soon enough, I’m sure.” He put her plate on the island and handed her a fork before snagging the first slices of toast as they popped up.
“Help yourself,” Sian said sarcastically as she put some more bread in.
“Thanks, I will,” James grinned. He pulled down two glasses and went to the fridge, but glanced back at her before opening it. “Um, if you want to keep living in your vampire-free fantasy world, I’d suggest you stay out of here.”
Sian raised an eyebrow at him. “What, is it the secret entrance to his coffin or something?”
James shook his head and opened the refrigerator a crack, blocking her view inside with his body as he withdrew a carafe of orange juice. His shoulders were broad enough she didn’t have a chance to peek past him. Why in the world did she have to get stuck with two lunatics who were this massive?
“Trust me on this one,” he said, closing the door with his hip. She rolled her eyes and refused to question him further.
She accepted the juice from him and started in on her eggs in silence. From the first bite hunger overrode every other concern and she remembered belatedly it had been over twenty-four hours since the last time she’d eaten. James watched her in silence as she cleaned her plate in minutes. “Didn’t he feed you something last night?” he asked as she took a big bite of her toast.
“There wasn’t much of an opportunity for food,” Sian admitted between bites.
James went back to the stove without another word and cracked a couple more eggs into the pan, leaving his own half-eaten breakfast on the counter as he made her a second helping. When he scooped them onto her plate, she met his eyes for the first time. “Thanks,” she said.
He shrugged and went back to his own breakfast. “I suppose there wasn’t time to get you anything else to wear, either?”
Sian tugged self-consciously at the hem of Diego’s shirt. She was feeling decidedly grungy in it and wished James hadn’t reminded her of what had happened to all the rest of her clothes. “No,” she said, pushing her plate away, her appetite suddenly gone at the memory of those black figures scrawled on her paintings.
James pushed it right back at her. “Eat and don’t think so much,” he said and Sian glanced up at him, wondering if he had his boss’s eerie ability to pick up her thoughts. “When you finish tell me your sizes and I’ll go get you something to wear until Diego can take you shopping himself.” He grinned at her look of surprise. “All part of the job, my lady. If you have a need, I take care of it. It’s what I’m paid for.”
She took another bite and chewed automatically, unsure what to think of this man. He had to be nuts if he thought Diego was really a vampire, but apart from that he seemed like a decent guy. Still, she was hesitant to take anything about this situation at face value. “What if I need to get out of here?”
His grin faded. “Please don’t put me in that position,” he said, suddenly serious. “Diego asked me to keep you here but if I lay a hand on you to restrain you he’ll probably tear it off. If I let you leave I don’t even want to think about what he’ll do. Let me get you some clothes and you can talk about it with him when he wakes up, okay? Please?”
He was telling the truth, or at least he thought he was. Sian could catch a lie better than any lie detector and James honestly thought Diego would be furious with him if she left. She bit her lip and pushed what was left of her eggs around on her plate. Why she should care what happened to this man was beyond her, but she didn’t feel right about making trouble for him. So far he hadn’t done anything to her except make some killer eggs.
Apart from keeping her here against her will, that was.
Sian sighed. Who was she kidding? She had no clothes, no car, no house and no destination. It would be stupid to run right now. If Diego truly wasn’t affiliated with Santonyo, it would take her enemy at least a little longer to track down where she’d gone. She would have to leave eventually, there was no doubt about it, but she had at least a little time to prepare before she did.
She would rather face Santonyo’s wrath alone than bring a murderer down on Diego and James. No matter that they’d kidnapped her and were holding her for some bizarre reason of their own, they didn’t deserve to die for it.
“All right, I won’t go anywhere,” she told James at last, and he relaxed visibly. Yet, she added silently.
“Thanks,” he said. “Now, tell me what you need and what size to get it in and I’ll go pick up something for you to wear.”
Sian swallowed her embarrassment at the thought of a stranger picking out clothes for her and gave him her sizes. James left almost as soon as she was done speaking and she gathered up the dishes. When they were done she looked around the kitchen, wondering what she was going to do with herself until James got back.
She dried her hands on the dish towel and bit her lip. She knew exactly what she should do. James was gone and Diego was sleeping like the dead upstairs. There would never be a better opportunity to snoop around.
But something in her hesitated as she left the kitchen and glanced around. Her conscience didn’t care that Diego was holding her hostage and James refused to help her leave, she still felt awkward as she stepped into the den and caught sight of an enormous desk in the corner. Why did it feel wrong to snoop on Diego?
She pushed the feeling away resolutely and turned on the computer. The login page came up and she hit enter out of reflex, used to her own personal computer which she’d never bothered to set up with a password. The screen briefly went blank and she swore softly under her breath, hoping she hadn't locked up the system.
To her complete shock the screen came back up, Windows booting almost instantly. She stared at the screen, too surprised for words. Diego didn’t even have a password on his computer?
This certainly didn’t fit his super bad-guy image.
She glanced over her shoulder at the door, wishing she had her watch back so she could keep track of how long James had been gone. The curtains in here were heavy and she couldn’t tell if it was day or night outside. If Diego was really into this vampire fantasy, he probably wouldn’t come downstairs until after the sun was down, but she didn’t dare rely on that assumption too much. He might be crazy, but Diego had done nothing to indicate he was stupid.
Vampire fetish or not, he would probably be up and looking for her as soon as he realized she’d left the bedroom.
Sian opened up his word processing program, not sure what she was looking for but not having any better ideas of where to start. There wasn’t much in there, just a few files that looked like personal letters. Sian opened the first one and started to read, turning the monitor to the side so she could glance between it and the doorway.
She was hardly aware of time passing and gasped when a hand fell on her shoulder. She jumped and spun around in the chair to find Diego leaning over her. He reached past her and eased the mouse from under her hand.
“There’s nothing earth-shattering in there,” Diego said mildly, closing the window and opening the Internet connection. He clicked on his favorites file and selected a webpage. “There,” he said, stepping back again as it loaded. “This might be more along the lines of what you’re looking for.” And to her utter shock, he turned and walked back out of the den without another word.
Sian gaped after him for a long moment, too stunned for words. He’d caught her red-handed but not only hadn’t been upset, he’d actually guided her to what she was looking for? It was too bizarre. She finally made herself look back at the screen and blinked at it for a long moment.
Diego’s face stared back at her f
rom the screen, the image as dark and forbidding as he was in person, only without the goatee.
It was some kind of genealogy site, she discerned after a moment, but unlike any she’d ever seen before. There were ancient-looking engravings of a castle, several different ones showing it gradually expanding from a simple stone keep to an impressive fortress. Next to the most elaborate one was a sepia-toned photo of an ancient-looking ruin. From the silhouette of the mountains behind it Sian knew she was looking at what remained of the once-proud castle. She scrolled down and the words “House of Leonides” appeared at the bottom of the page. She clicked them and a new page loaded almost instantly.
This time there were no photographs. Beside most names were exquisite paintings, each looking more ancient than the last. Her eyes traveled over the screen, scrutinizing the names and faces. Paintings and engravings were beside most of the names with a few exceptions. One had a photograph of a marble bust, weathered by time. Another showed a statue in a remarkable state of preservation. Several of the most ancient names had no image at all beside them.
Diego was there too, right at the very bottom of the family tree. There was a painting beside his name as well, a worn oval cameo of a boy of eight or nine. His name was listed “Diego Leonides, b. 997.” Beside him was a cameo of another boy, his face a few years older—a boy on the threshold of manhood. His name was listed as “Anton Leonides, b. 992, d. 1899.”
She stared. Of course it was hard to tell the authenticity of anything on a computer screen, but the paintings were amazing. The boy in the cameo beside Diego’s name looked so much like him Sian couldn’t imagine it being a portrait of anyone else. Even in the boyishly innocent face those green eyes were compelling, seeming to stare straight at her with a knowledge far beyond his years.
The cameo of Anton was just as impressive. The resemblance to Diego was incredible—the same straight nose, the same stubborn chin, the exact same eyes. She stared at the date of death listed and did a quick mental calculation.
If this was to be believed, Anton had been 907 when he died.
It was insane. Sian scanned the page again, noting similar ages for almost every name listed there. Yasina Gonzalo de Leonides, listed as Diego’s mother, had died a few months shy of seven hundred years old. Claudio, his father, had apparently made it to the middle of his eighth century. The date shown for both their deaths was 1215. In fact, quite a few of the names had 1215 listed as the date of death and she absently wondered if a plague or something had hit around then before shaking her head sharply. Why would a plague wipe out someone who’d already lived a few hundred years? She kept looking, doing the math in her head, finding most names on the page averaging in the five- to eight-hundred year mark in age. She shook her head, bemused.
Diego’s name was the only one without a date of death beside it. If this website was to be believed Diego had passed his thousandth birthday a few years ago, making him the oldest member of a family that gave new meaning to the word longevity.
“It wasn’t a plague.”
Sian jumped when Diego set a cup of coffee at her elbow, turning to stare up at him accusingly to hide how much she was shaken by the website. “This is a very well put-together prank,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and ignoring both the coffee he’d brought and the eerie way he seemed to know what she was thinking. “I’m surprised I don’t see Methuselah on here. Isn’t he your great-uncle or something?”
Diego’s eyes lit with warm amusement. “I don’t think he’s one of my relations,” he said. “Maybe you should check with Eli, though. I think he might be Methuselah.”
“Surely you don’t expect anyone to believe you’re really a vampire. If you were, why would you post your family tree on the net for all to see?”
“Maybe because I’m proud of my heritage, or perhaps so any lost members of my family might find it and contact me?” Diego replied, leaning on the edge of the desk. “It’s hard to be the last of your clan, Sian. I was a prince of Spain, though such titles are outdated now, and anyone of the Panther Clan who lived would naturally search for me, the Clan patriarch. I don’t care who believes it or who thinks it’s a joke—except for you, of course.”
She was momentarily too taken aback to even laugh. “A prince?” she finally choked out. “Oh, this gets better and better. Tell me, Diego, do you honestly believe this fantasy?”
He didn’t get upset with her as she’d expected him to. Instead he smiled and ran a gentle hand over her hair. “Not only do I believe it,” he said, “I won’t rest until you believe it, too.” And he took her hand and dropped something into her palm.
Sian watched him walk out, almost mesmerized by the sexy way he moved, before looking at what he’d given her.
It was the cameo of himself as a boy.
* * *
Chapter Six
James returned an hour later, carrying three large shopping bags. He grinned at Diego when he passed him in the kitchen. “I take it she didn’t run off,” he said, raising an eyebrow as Diego absently drummed his fingers on the kitchen table.
Diego shook his head, glancing at the bags. “Did you buy the entire store?” he asked with only a trace of his old smile.
James shrugged. “I just did what any woman I know would’ve done and bought everything they had in her size. I assumed you’d tell me to spare no expense.” He gave an exaggerated wink. “Damn shame to cover her up, though.”
Diego sighed, not rising to the bait. “You’d better go give it to her,” he said, resuming his finger-drumming and staring out the window again. “I think she’d rather go naked than take anything from me.”
“Well then, by all means, you take this,” James laughed, holding out the bags.
Diego only shook his head. “That’s all I need, more frustration.”
James’s smile faded. “This is really getting to you, isn’t it?”
Diego sighed. “Can you think of any reason why it shouldn’t?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve been ducking the Council’s insistence that I take a bondmate since before your great-grandfather was born, and now I’ve not only lost the fight, I’m stuck with a woman not of my choosing who apparently has someone trying to kill her and doesn’t even believe vampires are real. You might say it hasn’t been the best few days.”
James hesitated in the doorway. He’d only been officially working for Diego for five years but he’d known him all his life and had never seen anything get the vampire down. “There’s bound to be an adjustment period,” James said, knowing it sounded lame but unable to think of anything better to say.
Diego shrugged, still staring out the window. “Go give her the clothes,” he said. “She’s in the den. I’ll be along in a while.”
James left him in the kitchen, frowning. He didn’t like to see Diego like this. He came from a long line of Stewards and he knew his duties practically from the cradle. Chief among them was keeping his vampire’s spirits up.
Diego was already older than most vampires. There were older vampires in the League, but not many. Only Eli was truly ancient and he seemed to be immune to the cares that eventually wore down even the most resilient of their kind. Life eternal could wear on the spirit, leaving scars that would never show on the surface.
Sian looked up when he came in and her eyebrows raised at the sight of the bags. “You didn’t have to get me all this,” she said, breaking him from his dark thoughts. “A pair of jeans and a T-shirt would have been completely sufficient.”
He shrugged. “Never let it be said Diego doesn’t take care of his own,” he said. “Completely sufficient is completely unacceptable when it comes to you.”
She looked away as if unable to hold his gaze. “Look, I don’t know what he’s told you, but there’s nothing going on between me and Diego.”
He snorted. He knew it was rude, but honestly, if Sian thought she could protest her way out of this she was insane. “You keep living in that dream world,” he said, turning to walk out. �
�Let me know how it works out for you.”
“You know I’m not going to stay here.”
Her words stopped him at the door. James turned and gave her a hard look, remembering Diego’s slumped shoulders as he’d sat at the table. “You do what you think you have to do,” he said, his tone cold, “but don’t think for one second Diego’s just going to walk away and forget about you. The two of you are bound now, whether you like it or not. You’re in some kind of trouble and there’s no way in hell he’ll leave you to face it on your own. Maybe if you knew anything about honor you’d understand.”
She stood, angry now too. “And what if I bring that trouble here?” she challenged, but he saw the sudden fear behind her eyes. “You don’t know what’s going on, James, and I don’t expect you to understand. Diego may be a nice guy apart from his vampire delusions, but I’m not about to endanger him or anyone else by sticking around.”
James laughed. “Lady, whatever trouble tries to follow you here will have to go through him first,” he said. “It’s no easy task whether you want to believe he’s a vampire or not. But like I said, you do what you think you have to do. You’ll see.” He grabbed the bags and set off through the door.
“Where are you going with my clothes?” Sian protested.
“Putting them in your room,” James said over his shoulder.
He heard her push the desk chair back and hurry after him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You people haven’t given me a room!”
He laughed as he went up the stairs with Sian right on his heels. “If you don’t know which room I’m talking about you’re thicker than I thought, and babe, I thought you were pretty damn thick already.”