A Vampire's Fallen Christmas Star (Vampires On Holiday #2)

by M. L. Guida

  Jayden whirled around. Desmond was not at stage left. Where the hell had he gone? Plotting his demise?

  Shit, Eleanor. She was alone at the corner table.

  He gripped the microphone tight as he forced the words to come out and scanned the jammed dimly lit room. People clustered around tables, shoulder to shoulder. Others stood at the bar, pressing against each other. The jam-packed wooden dance floor had people pressed up against the stage. Couples squished together, moving to the beat. People had to squeeze between the masses to move. He glanced at Eleanor’s corner. She wasn’t sitting, but standing. Her eyes narrowed, she focused on a sea of people parting as a bald man with broad shoulders slowly made his way toward her.

  Desmond.

  He waited for her to call upon her vampire powers to flash out of there, but she didn’t move. Her hand held something small and silver. Ah, shit.

  Without thinking, he hopped onto the dance floor. Lights followed him. It wasn’t part of his normal routine, but hell, Springsteen did it. And he needed a cover to get to Eleanor before either his best friend staked her or she blew Desmond’s brains across the dance floor.

  “Clap with me,” he said into the microphone. A sea of arms raised into the air, and the clapping rocked Michael’s bass drum. Jayden danced his way toward Eleanor. The booming drums and clapping shot adrenaline through Jayden’s veins. His long hair stuck to his hot skin.

  Jayden edged closer to Eleanor, and the stage light followed him. He reached out his hand, and Eleanor pushed her way through the crowd. At least she wasn’t bent on shooting Desmond dead. Jayden seized her hand and pulled her onto the dance floor. Desmond darted to where Eleanor had been standing, clutching his fist. Jayden twirled Eleanor around. Her sweet smell of jasmine teased him. The crowd moved around them, blocking Desmond.

  He grabbed her hand to pull her up on stage. Robbie glared and bared his teeth like a junkyard Rottweiler. Jayden wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her against his chest, her breasts pushing against him. The crowd roared. Dirty dancing came easy to him, and he hoped Eleanor would ease her stiff body. But she wouldn’t even sway her hips. This wasn’t going to work. He led her toward stage left where Justin was nodding. “Stay with him,” he said. “And put your damn gun away.”

  “Desmond has hallowed mud.” She slid the gun inside her jean pocket. “He—”

  Not waiting for her to finish nor caring about hallowed mud, he swept back onto the stage. Desmond wouldn’t do anything with Justin nearby. Justin owned several bars in Frisco and Breckenridge and wouldn’t appreciate a scene in his establishment. He was one of the nicest guys Jayden had met. He was around the same age as his father would have been but the exact opposite. Overweight and jolly, Justin liked his bar food and beer a little too much. The man always made Jayden smile, and with Christmas in a few weeks, with his round belly, short height, and light blue eyes, he could pass for one of Santa’s elves.

  Desmond was too smart of a manager to risk his reputation or the band’s. At least, Jayden hoped he still felt this way.

  Jayden rocked out on the stage while Eleanor stood next to Justin. Desmond hovered in Eleanor’s dark corner, not moving, his fist clenched as if he held something precious.

  Sweat trickled into Jayden’s eyes, and the pulse of the night spurred him on and on. Before the last set, he introduced the band members, and they all bowed. He went back-stage to where Eleanor waited. Alone.

  He panted and tried to catch his breath. “Where’s Hammer?”

  “He went to go to talk to the manager about tonight’s receipts,” she said.

  “Come on,” he said. “I need some water before I do the last set.” He clasped her hand to lead her down to the dressing room, but she refused to move. She squeezed his hand, and steel crushed his fingers.

  “Ow, damn it, Eleanor.”

  “Sorry. We need to talk,” she said. “Desmond. He’s got hallowed mud.”

  “Nightmare!” a male voice yelled. Followed by more hollers and cheers. Clapping matched Jayden’s pounding heart.

  “Eleanor, release me.”

  Justin walked toward them. He had a smile that brightened his red cheeks.

  “Stay here,” Jayden said. “I’ll be back.”

  “Good performance.” Justin clapped. “Got bottles of cold water for you in the dressing room. Hurry and get one. Don’t want to disappoint the crowd.”

  Jayden raised his eyebrow, and Eleanor slowly released his crushed fingers. He shook his hand, surprised that a mere woman could nearly break it.

  “Be careful,” she warned, licking her luscious lips. “Desmond. He’s a bad egg, a bad bird.”

  “I will.”

  Justin’s wide forehead furrowed.

  Jayden shrugged, not wanting to divulge the tension between him and his band members. Dissension among band members was one sure way to lose their gigs.

  To keep Eleanor from arousing any more of Justin’s suspicions, he grabbed her neck and pulled her toward him. He captured her lips, and she gasped. He pushed his tongue into her tight mouth, and she tasted honey sweet. Woman usually melted into his arms and begged for his kiss. But not Eleanor. She acted as if she were repulsed. He stepped away from her. Her face paled, and her eyes widened. She wrapped her arms tight around her body. Had he read her signals wrong? He’d thought that she was attracted to him with the way she followed him with her eyes and her protectiveness over his safety. God, it was as if he was back in junior high at his first social. He’d tried to kiss Sally Matthews, and she had pushed him away. She had yelled, “Eew!” loud enough for her friends to burst out laughing.

  Heat warmed his cheeks. He jerked away from her, feeling like a world class moron.

  He hurried toward the dressing room, but Michael and Derek waited in the hallway. “Here,” Derek said. He tossed him a cold bottle of water. “We need to get back on stage now.”

  “Yeah, you’ll have time for chicks later,” Michael said. He grabbed Jayden’s arm and tilted his head at the dressing room. “Uh, don’t go in there.”

  “Why?”

  “Desmond and Robbie have stepped off the mountain into craziness,” Michael said.

  “Craziness?”

  “Yeah,” Derek said. “You could say that. Dipping a switchblade into mud and smearing mud into a bottle of water that they wanted to give you. Talking nonsense of vampires and shit.”

  The dressing room door opened. Desmond came out with mud smeared on a blade. Hallowed mud? Was this what Eleanor was trying to tell him?

  Jayden followed Derek and Michael onto the stage and tried to stay ahead of Robbie. He played cat and mouse with Robbie on stage, just in case the bastard had a knife. Robbie couldn’t get near Jayden with his vampire speed.

  Jayden grabbed the microphone. “I’d like to play our last song for my brother who loved Frisco—‘Colorado Mountain Sky’.”

  The crowd whooped. Jayden smiled. The strumming guitars pumped sizzling energy through him, and he strutted across the stage. He sang, “Trouble’s a comin’...”

  He was surprised at how the song matched the vampire killers threatening him and Eleanor.

  The curtains closed. Jayden put the microphone back into the stand. Derek unplugged his bass as Robbie unhooked his guitar. Jayden headed for Eleanor, but Robbie grabbed his arm. He whipped out a ball point pen coated in dirt and stabbed him in the arm.

  “Hey, what the fuck are you doing?” Jayden asked.

  Robbie’s eyes darkened, and he shoved the pen back into his back pocket. “You’ll see—vampire.”

  “Robbie, are you stoned?” Michael asked.

  Michael’s voice was an echo as if he talked into a coffee can. Burning pain shot up Jayden’s arm, and his stomach twirled.

  “Hallowed mud,” Desmond said, as he grabbed Jayden’s arm.

  The triumphant words were far away.

  “Now you, bitch,” Desmond said.

  Jayden wanted to argue to protect Eleanor, but his lips refused to
move. His throat closed. His legs wobbled, too weak to hold up his body. A scream sent his heart thumping faster than when Michael beat on his snare drum. The room faded and spun around and around and around, as if it had changed into an out of control Ferris wheel.

  As his eyes closed, his legs lost the fight to hold up his body.

  Chapter Six

  Eleanor forced her fear down to her toes then rushed across the stage. She tossed Robbie and Desmond out of the way of Jayden.

  “Bitch.” Desmond jerked out a blade, coated in mud and swiped it at her.

  Eleanor darted out of the way. He was too slow to nick her with the point of the dagger.

  Michael and Derek grabbed Desmond’s arm.

  Desmond struggled, hate blaring in his eyes. “Get off me, you two idiots. She’s not human.”

  “I’ll get her.” Robbie reached into his back pocket.

  “May the devil take ye,” Eleanor said. Her voice was stronger than her quivering insides.

  She heaved Jayden onto the back of her shoulders and raced off the stage. Vampire speed was faster than human eyes could follow. She plowed through people, knocking them onto the ground, hoping she hadn’t hurt anyone. She had to get Jayden home to pump blood down his throat. It was the only way to stop the weakness spreading through him that threatened to put him into a coma.

  Two flat tires greeted her at the Hummer. Damn, Desmond! She headed to the Snowshoe Hotel across the street from the Mountain Grill Bar. The No Vacancy sign glared at her.

  Robbie and Desmond burst out of the front door of the bar. Eleanor slumped against the wall under the hotel’s stairwell, away from the glaring streetlight. Her breathing was so heavy she feared the men would hear.

  She leaned against the wall with the derringer in her hand. If the two bastards approached, she’d put a bullet in the middle of their foreheads. But she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. It would draw too many questions, questions that would lead to more war.

  She counted to a hundred, hoping they had left the area. She peeked around the stairway and didn’t see them. Wishing she had grabbed her coat, she plodded through the snow as fast as she could. The temperature plummeted as snow started to fall. Grand!

  Jayden’s unconscious body weighed heavily on her shoulders, but she had to get him home. Despite her vampire speed, the deep snow slowed her progress. Sweat dripped down her shivering body. When she made it to her locked gates, she jumped and landed on the other side, falling onto her knees. Jayden slipped through her frozen hands onto the white ground. She bent over, trying to catch her breath. Her eyes blurred. She forced back the dizziness. She grabbed Jayden’s arm to toss it around her shoulder. God, he was such a tall and big man. It was like dragging a redwood log.

  She took one step then sank into the frigid snow. She forced her shaking legs to tread through the deep banks and slippery ice. As she raced toward her home, she panted, inhaling chilly air and ignoring screaming muscles. After what seemed like hours, she made it to her front door and collapsed. Home.

  She didn’t detect any humans nearby and quickly got Jayden inside. Jayden’s eyes were closed. Snow dusted his hair and shoulders. Besides being infected with hallowed mud, he must be freezing. She couldn’t help but stare at his stiff blue lips. He had kissed her at the Mountain Bar Grill, but what had she done? Froze. She hadn’t been kissed in a long time. Admit it. No one had ever kissed her like Jayden. His kiss had been demanding, but tantalizing.

  She grabbed a bag of blood out of the freezer, heated it in the microwave, then rushed back to where Jayden lay unconscious on the marble floor. She knelt next to him and laid his head in her lap. His normally flushed skin was gray. She pushed his wet hair away from his face. “Drink,” she said, making her voice strong to penetrate the spell immobilizing him.

  He failed to part his pale lips. Her command wasn’t working. She tore open the bag and pushed on his stiff lips to squeeze drops of blood into his tight mouth. Crimson spilled down his chin onto his naked chest. Icicles had formed in Jayden’s hair. Sweat had frozen on his muscular body. He should be shivering, but he was as rigid as her father’s Irish pride.

  Tears slipped down her cheeks and splashed onto Jayden’s nose. “Come on, Jayden, drink.”

  Since Jayden was a newly formed vampire, hallowed mud was far more dangerous to him than it was to her. Old vampires built up resistance to it, but newly turned vampires were extremely vulnerable to the poison. Hallowed mud was a fast-acting toxin, seeping into a vampire’s skin and then their blood-stream. Once in the blood stream, their organs shut down. They would fall into the death sleep and never wake up. His face was so pale, so very pale. Please don’t let him die. She pinched his rigid cheeks to try to get his lips to pucker. They moved enough to allow the blood to seep inside.

  Jayden groaned.

  Hope pulsed through Eleanor. God, let him live.

  He coughed and gasped.

  She tossed the bag onto the marble floor. “Jayden! Jayden, can you hear me?”

  His chest rose up and down. His eyelids fluttered open. “What happened?”

  “Hallowed mud.” She brushed his wet hair off his face. “It’s cemetery dirt mixed with holy water. Deadly to vampires.”

  He shivered.

  She half sobbed.

  “What’s wrong?” he gasped.

  “You’re shivering.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  She wiped her tears off her face. “Means you’re responding to the blood.”

  “You mean I could have died?”

  She nodded. “Aye.”

  He sat up and panted. “Those fucking assholes. Robbie’s always been a jerk, but Desmond said we were brothers. Desmond and I have been close for so long…I never figured we’d be Cane and Abel.”

  His voice changed from anger to hurt. The tone was buried with enough sorrow to mourn at a funeral. She hesitated over putting her hand on his wet back. It was such an intimate gesture, one she hadn’t wanted to experience with a man for a long time. She wanted to erase Jayden’s pain. Forcing back her warring emotions, she put her shaking hand on his wet back and rubbed it. Betrayal was a sour medicine to swallow.

  He put his hands on the floor and tried to push himself up but fell back onto his ass. Eleanor stood and put her hands around his biceps.

  “I can get up myself.” He shrugged her off. His legs collapsed, and he fell onto his hands and knees.

  “Donna be an ass.”

  She knelt, wrapped her hands around his muscular arms, and helped him get off the floor without allowing him to push her off. He leaned against her as she helped him to his room. “You should take a bath and have some more blood and sleep. Dawn will be here soon.”

  He scanned her living room. “How did I get back here? Did you steal a car?”

  She didn’t want to answer.

  “Shit, you carried me, didn’t you?”

  “You’d rather have me leave you with those bastards?”

  He was smart enough not to answer. In the bathroom, he slumped onto the toilet, and she turned on the faucets. Water thumped into the jet tub, and steam rose into the air. “Do you need—”

  “I can do it. Damn it.”

  The you’re-messing-with-my-macho-pride voice made her swallow a retort. He was a man used to getting his way, but having a female rescue him and carry him must have bruised his ego.

  “I’ll leave you alone.”

  She left him, still sitting on the toilet. Exhaustion pierced her bones. Even vampires get weary. She hadn’t had to call upon so many powers in over a decade. Janus was right. A fledgling was a lot of work. And it wasn’t just the physical pain, but the emotional. Touching and being so close to a man brought on so many conflicting feelings, both bad and good. Being around Jayden helped push the rape into a distant memory, but she craved something more with him. What should she do? She’d seen confident women ask for what they wanted from a man. She sighed. Her? Not likely. When he’d kissed her, she’d frozen. Too hot. Too sexy.
Too scary.

  She headed to her bathroom to take a shower, a nice hot shower. She stripped off her shirt and peeled off her pants. Water cascaded down her back. She stayed under the pelting droplets until it ran cold. Rather than pulling her hair into a ponytail, she decided to let it dry naturally and settled into her robe. Jayden seemed to like her hair free. Red wine would ease the horrors of tonight. Barefoot, she padded down the hardwood floor to the bar.

  The gas fireplace flickered and cast a glow in the living room. On a nearby end table, there was an open bottle of red wine. It looked so inviting, but after she glanced at Jayden’s deep scowl, she hesitated to pour herself a glass.

  Wearing only a pair of black sweats, he stared at the fire. Damp hair curled at his shoulders. Dark circles were under his eyes, and his cheeks were drawn. A man with the weight of a tank on his broad shoulders.

  “I guess you expect a thank you…Maleficent.”

  She bristled at his insincere tone and wanted to shake him. Why was it so hard for him to understand her powers were more developed than his?

  She snatched the bottle to pour herself a glass of crimson. “Sitting here feeling sorry for yourself?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve just turned, Jayden. I’m almost a century old, so my powers have increased. It means nothing. If it makes you feel any better, you’re twice as strong as any man.”

  He walked over to her. She tilted her chin and refused to cower.

  “You’re stronger than me?”

  “I am.”

  He clasped her chin and stared down at her. His passionate stare sent her uneasiness into a palpitating frenzy. She clutched the wineglass tighter, not able to take her eyes off those lips.

  “Then why are you trembling?”

  “I’m not trembling.”

  “Really?” He pushed her hair behind her ear then brushed his thumb across her cheek. He tilted his dark head. The same lips captured hers. Determined, firm.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I—”