by Barb Hendee
Philip walked into their hotel suite at the Oxford, fighting his own rising panic.
He kept his face calm, so Eleisha would not know.
Simone was a predator. Like he was.
For all his promises to help Eleisha find these “lost” ones hiding from Julian, it never occurred to him that they’d find anyone besides an elder like Robert (who functioned purely on outdated moral reason) or a damaged, stunted creature like Rose.
He’d been shortsighted.
Simone liked to inflict pain.
He could sense it in her every word and gesture. He did not blame her for this. In his darker moments, he liked pain, too. She was . . . a hunter. Just sitting there with her, sensing the flickers of her emotions, had filled him with a longing to hunt.
But he couldn’t let Eleisha anywhere near Simone. Not yet anyway.
So he’d pulled her away from the cafe, and now he struggled with what he had to do next.
“What’s wrong?” Eleisha asked him, dropping her bag onto a chair. “It went well, Philip, and you were right about giving her some time to think. I always want to rush things. But I know she’ll call us. She was smiling.”
He watched as she headed for the electric teakettle in their half kitchen. She wore a new pair of jeans and a little red tank top. She’d even tried doing something with her mass of hair tonight and had woven the long side strands into a thin braid over the top of the rest.
She could never even begin to understand Simone. She still viewed Maggie as some kind of savior—but Philip knew Maggie better.
He did not believe that Maggie would have joined Eleisha’s little community. He didn’t believe that she would have been satisfied with altering the memories of her victims and leaving them alive or with following some dried-up old laws that their predecessors had worshipped. Not for love. Not for anything.
He didn’t know whether Simone would find such an existence attractive in the end, but if she was to be presented with the possibility, he’d have to do it alone, see how she reacted, and then . . . he’d have to make some hard choices.
Eleisha could not be involved.
“I want to go to her house and talk to her by myself,” he said abruptly.
She stopped walking and turned to face him. “What?”
“Tonight,” he added.
Upon seeing her hurt confusion, he wished he was better at speaking. He could not ever remember being skilled, or even competent, at expressing himself with words.
He knew that Eleisha had killed to survive for many years, but not like Maggie.
His mind slipped back to a night in 1836, when Maggie still lived in France, to one of the rare occasions that he, she, and Julian had joined up and gone hunting as a pack. They’d murdered an entire family in Wales and then burned the house down. Maggie had latched onto a young teenage boy and drained him while he wept and begged. Afterward, she’d laughed.
Without warning, he flashed that memory into Eleisha’s thoughts, shocking her so quickly, she wouldn’t have the presence of mind to shut him out. He did not stop, even when she gagged and fell to her knees.
“Philip!”
In two strides, he was kneeling at her side. He pulled out of her mind and let her hang on to him.
“That is the Maggie I remember,” he whispered, “and she trained Simone to hunt. You cannot believe Simone’s smiles. Maggie could smile, too.” He waited until she stopped shaking. She wouldn’t look at him, but he didn’t care. Better that he hurt her a little himself than allow her near Simone. “Let me tell her about the underground, about how we feed there, about why . . . about the laws. It has to be me.”
She let go of his coat, still kneeling and looking at the floor. He didn’t mention the memory he had just forced upon her, and neither did she. They just sat there until she began to recover.
“What about Julian?” she whispered. “We’re supposed to stay together. We all agreed it would take two of us to fight him.”
“We’ve seen no signs that he’s here. But I’ll keep sharp, and you’ll be safe in this room. He’d never risk a frontal attack after you invaded his mind in Seattle.”
She crawled away from him, leaning against a couch.
“So that’s why you took me out of the cafe?” she asked. “To tell me you wanted to go by yourself? You don’t think I’m strong enough?”
“No!” This had nothing to do with strength. “She is like me. She won’t understand anything you say to her. But she might listen to me.”
Eleisha didn’t answer or look at him.
How could he explain himself ? After searching for the right words, he gave up.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered.
She nodded, still looking at the floor.
“Then let me do this alone.”
Simone was upstairs in her bedroom at home when she heard the front door open, and she frowned, thinking it must be Alex coming for a late rendezvous.
She’d nearly forgotten him. He was nothing now, not after she’d seen the way Philip looked at Eleisha.
Maybe she should just feed on Alex and be done with it. Hailey didn’t know about the two of them yet, and neither did anyone else, so nothing would connect his disappearance to Simone. She loved feeding on victims who had been obsessed with her in one way or another. All their recent memories focused on images of her. This was the sweetest way to feed.
Yes, she might as well enjoy herself tonight.
Walking from her bedroom, she noted the new shade of light beige she’d had the hallway painted, thinking how well it worked with the dark trim around the doors. She was endlessly particular about this Tudor-style house, as it was one of the few things she truly cared about.
She’d bought it in 1972, having fallen in love with it at first sight while visiting the botanical gardens with her current target for the game. The man’s name was Henry Folger, and he’d already given her a small fortune.
The house was two stories and looked rather like an enormous cottage, with V-shaped points across the top stretching toward the sky. She loved the mix of red brick and timbers on the exterior. The yard was landscaped liked an English garden, with a wide variety of flowers growing in the front and back.
Despite her penchant for decorating her own body in a theme from the past, she always decorated her living spaces by the fashion of the era, and so the interior in the seventies had been somewhat garish, but she now had the entire place done in soft neutral tones, with simple but upscale furnishings, leather couches, granite countertops, and art by locally celebrated painters and sculptors.
Alex had wanted to photograph the inside and publish the pictures, but she wouldn’t let him.
This place had had been her home and refuge ever since the night she found it, and no matter where she traveled, she always came back here. In recent years, she’d gone farther and farther away, staying in lavish suites for months at a time in order to pick the right couple and then play the game, lest someone in Denver connect the disappearances to her. This game with Alex and Hailey had been the first one she’d played near home in about five years, and she’d made certain none of their acquaintances had ever seen her.
The thought of Alex brought her back to envisioning the pleasure of feeding on him, and she walked down the hallway. But as she neared the staircase, she sensed no life force in the house. She could smell no hint of blood pumping just beneath the surface of his skin.
“Simone?” a masculine voice with a French accent called out.
She stopped.
Philip was here, and he hadn’t bothered knocking. She liked the way he said her name, and how he stretched out the long “o” sound.
Excitement built in her stomach. He and Eleisha must have changed their minds.
She moved down the stairs, still wearing her red dress from the cafe.
“Here,” she called back casually.
He was standing in the foyer, and to her disappointment, he was alone. She’d wanted Eleisha to see the
house. She’d wanted to keep this a series of friendly meetings a little longer, while she slowly worked on Philip.
But if he was here by himself, he was after something, and it certainly wasn’t her. Not yet.
How to proceed?
She considered herself a good judge of character, and he wasn’t the type to be impressed by places. But still, she let a bit of her gift seep out as she drifted toward him. He was watching her, unblinking, and she could see something in his eyes akin to hunger. She wasn’t vain or stupid enough to believe he’d already forgotten Eleisha and fallen madly in love with her, so what was he hungry for?
She had no experience with male vampires.
This was new.
It was exciting.
“Turn it off,” he said.
She nearly quivered. How long since she’d played with someone who was consciously aware of her gift? She loved this.
“Don’t you like it?” she asked, tilting her head.
He took off his coat and dropped it on the floor, exposing some kind of sheathed blade hooked to his belt, but the sight didn’t frighten her. If he was going to kill her, he would have done it by now. He unhooked the short sword and dropped it. Through his T-shirt, she could see that his body was lean and long and hard muscled.
“Turn it off,” he said, “or I’ll turn mine on.”
Oh . . . he had a gift, too. Of course he did. What was it?
“Go ahead,” she teased him, still not afraid. Maggie’s gift had been strong, and it had never overcome Simone.
“You won’t like it,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because it will make you act like a simpering girl.”
His arrogance astonished her. He still seemed to think he had the upper hand here.
She smiled. “I showed you mine. You show me yours.”
His face didn’t even flicker. For a few seconds, nothing happened.
Then an uncomfortable feeling began growing inside her—one she didn’t recognize. He was different from other men and not just because he was undead. She took a step toward him, suddenly realizing that his face was beyond handsome.
She wanted to touch him, to run her hands down his chest, put her face into his hair. The drive was overwhelming.
“Philip,” she rasped, moving toward him with her hand out.
Just as she reached him, just as she was about to touch him, he stepped away, and the mad desire vanished.
He’d turned his gift off.
She stumbled forward, almost falling, realizing in the same moment how awkward and ungraceful she looked. Rage replaced desire. Her hand formed into a claw, and she half turned to slash her nails across his face.
Moving faster than she could see, he caught her wrist.
“I told you,” he whispered.
On instinct, she tried to jerk away and realized she couldn’t break his grip. She couldn’t even make his arm move. For the first time since he’d entered the house, discomfort began creeping up the back of her neck . . . uncertainty.
“What do you want?” she asked raggedly, still shaken by the foreign desire she’d just experienced. A part of her wanted to kill him, and another part still wanted to touch his chest.
“To know you,” he answered. “I want to see what Maggie was to you, what you were to her, how you hunted, how you were together.”
Simone was rarely surprised, but this answer was so confusing and unexpected, she didn’t know what to say. What did he mean by “see”?
“Eleisha does not understand her own kind,” he went on. “She knows things . . . many things that can’t be taught, but not how to read one of us. She wants you to come home with us, but I need to see you first.”
When he mentioned Eleisha’s name, his voice softened, and Simone’s mind finally cleared. She had to stay focused on the game. The stakes were growing higher by the moment.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she answered softly, trying to figure out whatever it was he wanted, so she could give it to him. “You can see me right now.”
“No.”
He shook his head and led her toward the living room.
Sinking down upon her Asian area rug, he gently pulled her after him. She settled down upon her knees, all the rage and embarrassment fading while the excitement began building again. The entire past three decades seemed dull. It had been so long since she’d experienced anything new—truly new.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Our kind has more tools than just our gifts. If you think back, think back to Maggie, I can see your memories.”
Disappointment replaced excitement.
Was he delusional? If so, the game lost some of its shine.
But he was studying her face, and without warning she began to feel his gift again; the desire to touch him nearly overwhelmed her, and he leaned forward, moving his fingers lightly down her wrist until he grasped her hand.
“Close your eyes and think back,” he murmured in her ear. “All the way back.”
She closed her eyes.
chapter 7
Simone
Simone Stratford was born in Boston in 1913, but she retained few memories of this city. Her father was a doctor, and he moved his family to Denver, Colorado, when Simone was only seven years old—an act for which his wife never forgave him.
He said that Boston was already chock-full of doctors, and he wanted to set up practice someplace new, someplace with less competition.
It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy competition. He simply didn’t like being the one involved. But he loved to instigate it in the people around him. This was how he married Simone’s mother, the lovely debutante Victoria Grayson, who then became the lovely Victoria Stratford.
Most people wondered how he’d managed to win her consent—as he came from decent money but no bloodlines to speak of. However, if there was one thing he knew, it was how to pit women against one another. He’d simply manipulated her into competing for his attention, and before she realized it, she was married to him.
Afterward, she wondered why.
Their union produced three daughters: Miranda, Kristina, and Simone. After Simone’s birth, Victoria announced that she wasn’t going through the indignity of childbirth again and moved herself to another bedroom.
Her husband did not object.
Three daughters were enough. He didn’t particularly want sons, and he didn’t wish to ruin Victoria’s figure.
Then in 1920, he decided to move his medical practice to Colorado.
Victoria did object, but to no avail.
Simone did not learn of these familial dynamics until much later. At the age of seven, all she remembered was her mother quietly weeping on a seemingly endless train ride, and after days of travel, she remembered looking out a window at the flattest, driest, loneliest land she’d ever seen racing past her.
“What is that, Daddy?” she asked.
He liked them all to call him Daddy.
“Wyoming,” he answered.
She had no idea what this meant.
Two days later, when she finally stepped down onto the platform at Union Station in Denver, she felt a little better. People bustled around her, men wearing crisp white shirts and ladies in stylish felt hats. Perhaps Mother was wrong, and they would not be living among savages. These numerous people all looked quite similar to the ones in Boston.
But that day was also the first time Simone noticed what would later become a pattern. Miranda was twelve by this point, with black shining hair and milk white skin, like both her sisters.
But Miranda looked older than twelve, with the curves of her hips and breasts visible beneath her muslin travel gown. As she stepped from the train onto the platform, men from all around turned their heads to look at her.
Then Simone’s mother stepped down, and the men turned their silent attention to her.
Simone looked up at Daddy, wondering whether he would be offended. He was not. His eyes glinted with pleasure,
and his mouth formed the barest hint of a smile. He was more than pleased.
Kristina was only ten, but she was watching Daddy’s face as well.
He bought them a house in the Capitol Hill district of Denver, where the best people lived. Their home was not as large as the great mansions, such as the Byers-Evans House, with its three wings, but it was large enough to satisfy Simone’s mother.
They did not employ an army of servants, but they had two maids and a cook. Simone’s mother considered the “society” here beneath her. So, with little else to do, she kept careful watch over the household menus and management. She paid little attention to her daughters other than maintaining firm control over their wardrobes, hair, and social graces.
This pleased Daddy, who liked to have his new colleagues to dinner, and he expected all four of his women to look perfect at the table . . . to look perfect walking in and out of the room.
Later, at his request, Victoria began having some of the more socially prominent ladies over for afternoon tea on Thursdays.
But as the years passed, Simone became more and more aware of how the entire house revolved around pleasing her father.
When she was eleven, she overheard him instructing Mother to wear her red velvet gown for a dinner party. Victoria came downstairs in her soft yellow silk. She’d always preferred that gown. Simone didn’t think anything of it.
Three weeks later, she walked into her mother’s room on an errand from the cook.
“Mother, Cook wants to know ...” She stopped.
Her mother’s face was drawn and defeated, and she was attempting to sew up a hole in a pair of stockings.
“Yes?” she asked tiredly.
Simone wavered. She’d never seen a hole in Mother’s stockings. “Cook wants to know whether the fish will keep until tomorrow. She thinks she ought to dress the turkey today.”
“Tell her that will be fine.”
Simone walked down the hall to find her oldest sister coming up the stairs. At sixteen, Miranda had grown into a great beauty, with generous curves and a mane of shining black hair.