Stefan (Lost Nights Series Book 1)

by Jocelynn Drake

  “I don’t understand.”

  I stopped trying to shove items into my bag so I could close it and turned where I was kneeling on the floor so I could look at the nightwalker seated on the edge of the bed. She just looked uttered dumbfounded and her gaze was locked on me. “What is it?”

  “How did you capture Stefan’s attention? You’re not a witch.”

  “Nope.”

  “Then what?”

  I didn’t truly understand her line of questioning and how it related to my relationship with Stefan, but I had a guess about why the nightwalker was interested in me.

  “Honestly?” I paused and gave her a little half smile. “I think it was because I made him laugh.” I shrugged as the memory of the first night ran through my head. “Or maybe it was because I laughed at him. I don’t know. Am I really that different from the other women you’ve seen him with?”

  “There’s been no one for as long as I’ve known him and I’ve known him most of my existence. You’re... not what I’d expect him to be drawn to.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound as if the question wasn’t important. I returned my gaze to the bag, but I was waiting anxiously to hear her thoughts. Despite our continued intimacy, there was a lot about Stefan that I didn’t know. If you considered that the nightwalker was over a thousand years old, the amount became nearly astronomical.

  Mira was silent for so long that I finally looked over my shoulder to find her staring off into space with her lips pursed in thought. “Stefan is a snob,” she started slowly. “He believes in good breeding and believes in his superiority because of his birth. There is no one more important to Stefan than Stefan and he puts his happiness above all others. Of course, that’s most nightwalkers.”

  I frowned and redirected my gaze to the bag tightly clenched in my hands. I didn’t agree with her, but I was troubled. That wasn’t the first time I’d heard that description.

  “Many years ago, I read Oscar Wilde’s book, The Picture of Dorian Gray. When I was finished, my first thought was that Mr. Wilde had met Stefan and used him as inspiration.”

  That was an unsettling thought. Would I prove to be the poor artist who idealized the lovely Dorian?

  “I can’t really say why he’s interested in me. I probably just break up the monotony,” I said with a shrug. If that was true, I certainly hoped that he didn’t lose interest in me before we managed to get me clear of danger. I didn’t like the idea of not having Stefan around to fill my nights, but then he was a nightwalker and I was a human. It wasn’t like we had anything that resembled a future together. Hell, I was supposed to be in Venice for only a couple more weeks and then I was off to Istanbul.

  “That’s not true,” Stefan snapped. My head popped up to find him standing in the open doorway, looking pissed. I just didn’t know if he was pissed at me or Mira.

  “You know, I’m going start demanding that all nightwalkers wear bells. You guys are too freaking quiet,” I complained, finally crushing everything into the bag so that it zipped.

  “But if I wore a bell, I’d miss out on so many of the interesting things that come out of your mouth,” Stefan said. The tall nightwalker reached over me and easily lifted my bag as if it weighed nothing. While the blood-drinking thing and the allergy to sunlight annoyance were minuses to vampirism, I was really starting to envy their strength. It was certainly come in handy.

  Taking the sketchbook from Mira, I did one last glance around the bedroom to make sure that I wasn’t forgetting anything before I followed them into the living room. Danaus was in the kitchen, poking around in the mostly empty refrigerator. He pulled out two bottles of water and handed one to me while he took up position in front of the windows looking out on the city.

  Stefan dropped my bag on the floor and slumped elegantly on the sofa. I stared at him for a moment as I sipped the water, only now realizing how parched I had become, but I had a feeling that my recent blood donation might have something to do with that. My mind replayed what Mira had said and there was an arrogance about Stefan. I had never really seen it directed toward me, but at the rest of the world. His every movement was so damn perfect, as if he were dancing.

  “How old is Carla?” I asked suddenly.

  Stefan arched an eyebrow at me, silently questioning the unexpected query. “Not old.”

  I huffed at him and put the half-empty water bottle on the table. “I have a feeling you and I have a different definition of what ‘not old’ is. Could you be more specific?”

  “A little over a century,” Stefan clarified.

  I put my hands on my hips and stared down at Stefan. “And that’s not old to you?”

  “A fledgling,” Mira said, as she sat on the opposite end of the sofa from Stefan.

  “A baby,” Stefan explained.

  “And Knox? Is he old?”

  “No,” Stefan said firmly but didn’t elaborate.

  “Knox is a little over two hundred. Why do you ask?”

  “I just noticed that some of you move differently. Carla just seems faster, like I’m missing frames in a movie. Knox is sort of like that sometimes, but smoother.” I paused and frowned at Mira and Stefan. “And then you two move… like you’re not moving. You’re floating across a ripple-less lake or gliding on ice. There are times when you don’t, but I get the impression that it’s more intentional, like you’re trying to move like me.”

  “Nightwalker can move with blinding speed from early on, but the older we are, the better our minds are able to process it,” Stefan explained. “It’s why our motions smooth out with age.”

  “It’s a little frightening, but definitely beautiful.”

  “Just remember that they can rip your throat out before you’ve even realized that they’ve moved,” Danaus added in a low voice as he turned from the window to look at me.

  To my surprise, neither nightwalker looked perturbed by his dark reminder. In fact, they actually looked pleased by the thought. If my own limited experiences were to be trusted, nightwalkers were violent creatures at heart. Maybe it was a fair assessment.

  “So, who do you think killed the woman?” I asked, waving to the blood stain on the floor I had been diligently ignoring since I came in the room.

  “We’re not sure,” Stefan said, his expression instantly turning grim. “While I’ve never questioned that I have enemies, it has been a very long time since any have made their presence known to me. I can’t begin to guess as to who is behind this.”

  “Danaus?” Mira asked, looking over at the hunter.

  “We were followed today,” he announced, causing my mouth to fall open shock. That that explained why he took such a long route to my apartment. “I didn’t catch a clear look at who it was. At least two, but they were smart enough to keep a good distance from us. She’s being watched.”

  “But if we were followed during the day that would mean that they were humans, right?” I interjected as I tried to keep score of the humans and the magical creatures.

  Stefan nodded. “Possibly pets of someone to keep an eye on you. Their job is likely to report back whether Mira had seriously taken an interest in you.”

  “Do you think that they would have attacked me if Danaus hadn’t been there?”

  Mira gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. We haven’t been able to determine the culprit’s true intent yet. They could have intended to see you killed to hurt Stefan, or they could have been trying to put him in a vulnerable position.”

  “But they’ve failed. You saved me,” I said, sliding my hands into the back pockets of my jeans to settle my nervous fingers. As it was, I was straining to keep from pacing.

  “Temporarily,” Danaus sharply reminded me. “We still have to prove that you didn’t kill the human. The culprit could be watching the investigation in hopes of finding an opportunity to place the blame squarely on your shoulders.”

  Stefan bonelessly rose and closed the distance between us. He placed both his hands on my shoulders an
d narrowed his eyes on me. I got the impression he was trying once again to read my mind but in the end he just shook his head and frowned. “I want you to go through every motion and thought from right before the police appeared at your door.”

  I pointed to the sofa where Stefan had been sitting. “It wasn’t late, just a bit after eight, and I was reading.” Twisting around, I scooped up the paperback romance novel from the coffee table and flashed it at him. “Someone knocked on the door. I thought it was strange because I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

  “Not even Stefan?” Mira asked, sliding to the edge of her seat.

  “No, he said that there were delegates or something like that in town,” I said with a shake of my head.

  “Your underlings from Budapest,” Stefan interjected, glaring at Mira. “I thought it was important that I was present.”

  I quickly continued, not wanting Stefan and Mira to fall into an argument. What had happened to me was not Mira’s fault. There was no point in arguing over whether or not Stefan truly needed to be away from me that horrible night. It was done. “Stefan warned me that it was unlikely that he’d be by for a couple nights. Besides, he doesn’t knock. He finds it more amusing to scare the shit out of me by just appearing from out of nowhere.” I smiled up at Stefan, but he didn’t return it, his expression grim as he focused on my story.

  “I put the book I was reading on the table and got up.” I led the way over to the front door with Stefan close on my heels. “I didn’t hear any voices or movement. My first thought was that it was one of my neighbors needing something. It’s never happened here, but I’ve had plenty of neighbors stop by for random things at strange hours back in the States. I unlocked the door and opened it.” My words mirrored my motions and then I simply stopped.

  “And then what?” Stefan asked.

  “Nothing.” That single word fell from my lips in a haunted whisper.

  “Did you see someone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Were you attacked?” Stefan’s questions became more clipped and urgent.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Your memory goes black?” Mira asked.

  “No. It immediately cuts from me going to the door to the morning. My memories are initially foggy, but the first thing I remember is the pounding on the door by the police and then I saw the body.” Shutting the door and locking it again, I quickly walked over to the bloodstain on the floor and pointed to where I was kneeling. My hand shook as I mentally relived that awful moment when I awoke that morning. Bile rose in the back of my throat and it was a struggle to breathe evenly. Terror clenched my soul, leaving me wishing that I could remember those empty hours and at the same time praying that I would never remember because it had to have been terrible for the poor woman who died.

  “The police were at the door and I started screaming when I saw the dead woman. I-I-I have just always assumed that someone was at the door that night,” I stuttered, trying to get a hold of my emotions. “Someone knocked on the door. Someone knocked, but I have no memory of seeing or talking to a person.”

  I dragged my gaze away from the dried blood to find Mira and Stefan looking at each other. There was something meaningful in their stare. After a couple seconds, Stefan shook his head and muttered something under his breath that I didn’t quite catch.

  “Can nightwalkers speak mentally?”

  “Telepathy? Yes,” Mira said with a little smile.

  “Cool. Can you do that with humans?”

  Can you hear me? Stefan’s voice whispered through my brain. His lovely voice was like a caress that I felt brushing across my soul.

  I gasped, covering my hand over my mouth, blinking back tears. Yes, I thought back to him, but his expression didn’t change. “I can hear you, but you can’t hear me,” I said with a little disappointment.

  “No, I am sorry. I cannot read your thoughts.”

  “Which complicates matters,” Mira growled. She sat with the elbows on her knees, staring down at her hands clenched together. There was a subtle tension to her, as if she was a ball of energy ready to shoot off the sofa, but she didn’t move. “If you can’t read her thoughts, then how do you get in there and erase or change her memories?”

  “You don’t,” Danaus announced. The hunter stepped away from the window, his dark gaze narrowed on me as he came to stand behind Mira. “That leaves us with two options.”

  “And those are?” I asked warily. An ugly feeling twisted in my stomach; I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.

  He held up one finger as he counted off his reasons. “The first is that you’re lying and that you really did kill Sabrina for whatever reasons those may be.”

  I balled my hands into fists at my sides and closed my eyes as I drew in a steadily breath against the wave of panic that surged through my body. Torn between terror that maybe I had done something that I just didn’t remember because of my brain damage and the sick thought that I was innocent and Stefan didn’t believe in my innocence, I fought for my outward calm and won. Danaus was just listing possibilities.

  “And the second,” I prompted, ignoring the waver in my voice.

  The man waited until my eyes were open and on him before he continued, raising a second finger. “There really was no one at the door when you got there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like Stefan, the true killer sneaked in through an open window and attacked you from behind, knocking you out. While you were out, Sabrina was brought in, killed, and the scene staged for you.”

  Tearing my gaze from Danaus, I looked over at Stefan. He didn’t seem particularly pleased with either option when I hoped he would have jumped all over option number two. “Which do you think is most likely?”

  Stefan paused and watched me with an intensity of a cat watching a mouse. “The second one.” But his tone was far from convincing. He wasn’t lying so much as he was holding something back.

  I blinked back an unexpected swell of tears. “What aren’t you saying? I can’t ask you to defend in me if you don’t believe in me.”

  There was a coldness to Stefan that I wasn’t accustomed to seeing. The only other evidence I had faced in him before was in the throne room of the nightwalkers. It was frightening because it created this vast distance between us, like a massive gorge has split between us and could never be crossed. It was also an unsettling reminder that, man or vampire, I still didn’t know him that well.

  “I do believe in you,” he said without inflection. “While I cannot read your mind, I can read your emotions. I felt your panic at Danaus’s words. I know that Mira did as well.”

  I closed my eyes and the tears I had been holding back slipped down my cheeks. “I’m scared.”

  “No one will touch you,” Stefan said firmly, sounding as if he were ready to fight an army even if I was guilty. That fierceness was reassuring and I clung to it.

  A little laugh escaped me and I wiped the tears away. “I’m not scared of death.”

  When I looked at Stefan, I forced a little smile. “In the car accident, I nearly died so death doesn’t frighten me anymore. I’m scared of the damage done to my brain. I have these gaping holes in my memory from the past and even now, years after the accident, I still get holes. Sometimes entire days go missing. I now make notes of everything — appointments, big decisions I make, hell even little decisions like what I had for lunch. If I see the note, I usually remember.”

  “I don’t understand. Why are you afraid?” Mira asked.

  “I’m scared of what I did that night that I don’t remember. What if there is something else that went wrong with my brain besides my memory? What if I’m doing horrible things and not remembering is my way of protecting myself?”

  “Have anything like this happened to you in the past? Have you ever hurt someone?” Mira prodded.

  “No! But…but…”

  Stefan’s large hands were suddenly on mine; gently rubbing on my fingers while applying pres
sure so that I had to loosen them from the tight fists I had them in. “You’ve harmed no one. It is not who you are.”

  “You don’t know. You can’t read my mind.” I trembled in his hand and the words came spilling out — words I’d never said a loud to another soul. “What if there’s something wrong with me? What if my brain is more damaged than any realize?”

  “I cannot read your mind, but I have witnessed your actions.” Stefan cupped my cheek and forced me to raise my eyes to look at him. “When faced with a creature who planned to use you as a meal, you did not attempt to do me harm to protect yourself. You saw only a fellow creature in the cold rain and invited him into your home. It is why I am so intrigued by you. You always find a way to see the world from another’s point of view, even at a risk to yourself. You look at the world around you and see only its capacity for love and beauty.”

  “Then have a heart and get away from her,” Danaus growled as he walked back over to the window and stared out into the darkness.

  I glanced down at Mira and she looked a little sad as well. Danaus’s earlier warning was now ringing through my head. Humans didn’t live long when they were involved with nightwalkers. Sabrina’s dead body in my apartment was certainly proof of that. Nightwalkers were violent and seemed to expect everything to be handled in terms of blood and death. An intelligent person would find a way out of this mess and leave their world behind immediately. And I considered myself a smart person.

  Yet, if that was true, why the hell was I now holding onto Stefan’s hands so tightly as if I expected him to be ripped away at any second?

  “I don’t see us figuring out who killed the human,” Mira announced. She flopped back on the sofa and propped her booted feet up on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankle. “The nightwalker either found a way to wipe her memory or she never saw the nightwalker in the first place.”

  Forcing myself to release Stefan, I shoved my hands into my pockets and took a small step away from him. Distance was a smart thing. If I started building in some distance now, it would be a whole lot easier to walk away later. “So what do we do?” I asked.