by Ashley Ladd
She wished to God he hadn’t used the term “grave”. According to him, she had one foot in it and the other was slipping precariously. “I’ll take my chances. I can’t just run and hide. I can’t abandon my patients…”
Luke swooped in on her and scooped her into his arms. “End of discussion. We do this my way. You’ll be no good to your patients dead.”
Incensed, she wanted to throttle the man, but she pummeled his chest with all her might instead. “Release me this instant, Lukas.”
He carried her as easily as if she was a child, ignoring her assault. “Or you’ll do what? Damn me to hell? Sorry, you missed your chance, that’s already been done, darlin’.”
Ugh! The man was intolerably more insufferable than he’d been in life! Obviously, they’d left his testosterone intact. “So where are you going to take me? Where will we be safe from your nemesis?”
Luke’s lips twisted into a grimace. “To my family’s hunting cabin out in the middle of nowhere. They haven’t used it in years.”
And just where did he plan to get his sustenance? If he planned to use her, the blood bar was permanently closed, thank you very much.
“I can drink the blood of animals when need be,” Luke said as if she’d spoken her thoughts aloud.
Shocked, she swallowed a gasp. “Stop doing that!!” Was nothing sacred? Even her private thoughts? But just how far into her awareness could he travel? Was there any point in trying to mask her thoughts?
“All vampires can. It’s one of the perks.” He grinned roguishly.
Argh! He infiltrated her heart against her will. She hoped he hadn’t read that thought. All he needed was more encouragement.
“Great, so now you’re super-vampire. I’m sure you’re very proud.” She sucked in a sharp breath. The conceited son of a bitch… If only he wasn’t so devastatingly handsome and charming when he was in high vampire mode.
“And you think I’m devastatingly handsome and charming,” he said, his lips a whisper away from hers.
She thrust her chin out and glared at him. She couldn’t deny that. “And insufferably conceited.”
As if proving her point, Luke laughed in her face. “Not conceited, darlin’. Charming, as always.”
Conceited, conceited, conceited! And she didn’t care if he could read her mind. In fact she hoped he read every single word. He deserved what he got if he insisted on intruding where no man belonged, dead or alive.
“I’m not just any man, darlin’.”
She fluttered her lashes at him in exaggeration. “Obviously not. You’re an ordinary vampire.”
Luke’s smile turned upside down. “Not ordinary at all.”
She tried to hide her thoughts that he was anything but ordinary, but when he grinned, she cursed herself. It was imperative to find a way to keep him out of her head as well as her heart.
“We’re soul mates.” His voice was far too husky to be legal, making her libido throb.
“Since when do vampires have a soul?” If only he did, that would solve so many problems. But he didn’t and so he wasn’t her Luke anymore. She couldn’t forget that if she valued her immortal soul.
“That hurts. Perhaps you’ll open your eyes and see the truth.”
It was her turn to scowl. “Kinda hard when you keep responding to things I didn’t say aloud. I wonder why I bother to talk. You prefer to ravage my mind anyway.”
The grin turned roguish again, tugging at her heart, despite her strict resolve to keep him at bay. “I love to ravage you.”
That rendered her speechless as heat flooded her face. She struggled to rein in her thoughts, to rein in her yearnings to be ravaged by him again.
“If you truly want me to, I’d be happy to oblige,” he said a hairsbreadth from her lips, his breath warming her face.
“For God’s sake, stop that!” He was freaking her out on several levels. She could barely sort out her thoughts before he mucked them up. Oy! To say she was confused was an understatement.
Luke strode purposefully to a sleek sports coupe and deposited her inside. Then he slid into the driver’s seat and hot-wired the borrowed vehicle so that the engine purred to life.
Before he could steal the words from her mouth, she said dryly, “I thought you’d fly us there on your wings of the night.” Or some other such nonsense.
“You’re a bit large for an owl or a butterfly to carry.”
“Then change into a horse or a wolf and I could ride you.” He was a vampire, he could do anything.
Luke tossed her a very naughty look, making her quiver uncontrollably, earning himself another black mark in her book. She didn’t want him to make her tremble with lust. She wanted to be immune to him and had to find an antidote. “Darlin’, you can ride me anytime you want.”
She almost choked on her tongue when she tried to swallow her shocked gasp. He was positively irredeemable.
He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, letting his heated glance slide over her, undressing her. “You know you want to.”
Mortified, she turned away from him, regarding her blushing reflection in the window. “I don’t want any such thing.”
“I know differently.”
“I don’t care what you think you know, it’s never going to happen again.” She almost added “dream on” but bit her tongue at the last second. In this instance, that was an extremely dangerous statement. She didn’t want to say or do anything to imply he was welcome in her dreams, for he wasn’t.
He chuckled.
She knew he had read her thoughts again. “You know something? You’re hornier now than you were in life.”
Luke let out a hearty burst of laughter, his eyes crinkling in glee, nullifying her intended insult. “Vampires are very sexual, very erotic creatures.”
“Another perk?” If the mortal world was ever to find out that vampirism was genuine, they’d be lining up to take the fatal, blissful bites. If she was to believe him, being a vampire was almost as good as being Superman. Now he had a phenomenal human sexual aptitude as well as mind reading and astral projecting capabilities.
Well, hadn’t he always had extraordinary sexual appetites and abilities? Her face burned with the memories of her erotic dreams that weren’t really dreams. He had orchestrated them.
Stop that! She had to focus her attention on escape. Of course she could open the car door and jump out if he wasn’t cruising at a good seventy miles per hour. Or what had her self-defense class taught her? To make him wreck the vehicle. Yank the steering wheel from his hands and stomp her foot over his on the accelerator. It worked in several movies she’d watched.
Damn, I watch way too much TV.
“Don’t even think about it,” Luke said, sliding her a stern glance.
Pointless to overwork her lips, she just glared at the maddening man and crossed her arms over her chest daring him to read her livid thoughts now.
“Whoa, darlin’. You’ve grown quite a temper. What happened to my sweet, little Chloe?”
Sweet? Little? Fighting words if ever she heard them. Staring out the window, she looked way back into time, intense pain melting into her bones. Mumbling so that she could barely hear herself, she confessed, “She was forced to grow up when the love of her life was brutally murdered and stolen from her. She had to learn to deal with unbearable heartache and inconsolable pain. She’d finished her physician’s training and put her energy into making others happy and well.”
Luke stroked the hand clawing at her thigh, but she jerked back as if burned. “Believe me, Chlo’, I didn’t want this to happen any more than you did. I never wanted to hurt you, and I never wanted to be damned for all eternity.”
The raw, blistering ache raged through her, threatening to tear her apart yet again. She was a lot more fragile than she liked to admit even to herself. In a ragged voice, she whispered through a mist of tears, “Then why prolong our agony? Why keep torturing us? How can our hearts ever heal if you won’t let the wounds scab over?” Th
ey just kept festering, getting so infected she was liable to expire from the heartache.
Oh, she was being melodramatic, not at all like her usual logical, scientific self. But then again she cut herself some slack. This was an extraordinary, inhuman situation in which she found herself. How many people were marked for death and kidnapped by vampires? If by some miracle she were ever to escape, nobody would believe her, just as she had never believed in Luke’s case all those many years before. They would think her the deranged deviant.
Insane laughter bubbled from her lips and she massaged her pounding forehead. This was all so surreal. Maybe it was just one colossal, horrid nightmare, all of it.
“Oh, it’s real all right, except that I’m not kidnapping you.”
Infuriated beyond belief, she spun around in her seat, and glared at him. “Then what do you call this?” Spreading her hands wide, she motioned to the car, not much larger than she presumed his casket must be.
Casket… She constantly had to remind herself this creature was not her Luke, that he was a fiend who made up his own set of rules and who held her life in his hands. His insane, unpredictable hands.
In a great quandary, she stared longingly at the car door. Perhaps it would be better to take her chances diving out of the car at any speed. Death would be far preferable to what he held in store for her.
“You can’t really believe that?” Raw bitterness laced his tone. “I love you. I’d never hurt you.”
Choking back a sob, she regarded his wavering reflection on the windshield, unable to meet the raw ache in his eyes straight on. “Yeah? You’ve failed to convince me.”
Luke heaved a huge sigh, his features contorted. “I don’t know what else to say, how else to convince you. I’d give my life for you, and chances are high I’ll have to.”
How she longed to believe him! How she wanted to bury herself in his arms and give herself to him heart and soul. Only he wasn’t alive. He had no life left to give.
Yet he sat not one foot from her side, so full of vitality, so full of life. But how could he be full of life when he was dead? The questions devoured her, ravaging her heart as much as he had ravaged her body.
“It’ll drive you crazy if you try to figure it out, if you think about it too long. Don’t you think I’ve had to come to grips with this every day for the past seven years? The best answer I’ve been able to come up with is that there’s no questioning God. He can do anything, even make monsters.”
Hearing him call himself a monster ripped her heart to shreds. Her hand fluttered toward him consolingly, and then she thought better of it, and let it drop impotently to the seat.
But she took a small drop of comfort in the thought that he still believed in God, that he accepted His omnipotent power. Perhaps she should do the same and pray to Him for deliverance from this unholy mess.
She wondered how God could forsake someone, even a vampire, who believed in Him so unwaveringly, who put his faith and trust in him.
“I’ve asked myself that many times, too.”
Disconcerted anew, she jumped, wondering if she’d ever get used to his mind reading capabilities. Annoyed, she snapped at him, “How are you able to tell thoughts from the spoken word? Didn’t your vampire mentor, your maker, or whoever it is that teaches you how to be a vampire, teach you that it’s impolite to answer unspoken words?”
Luke flung his head back and roared with laughter. “Trust it to you to tell off a monster.”
Frustrated, she rolled her eyes. “Stop calling yourself a monster.”
He sobered instantly, his eyes darkly unfathomable, a grayish cast stealing over his face. “I call the truth as I see it, darlin’. What is a creature that is neither dead nor alive? Who is cursed to drink the lifeblood from innocents? Who has had his soul ripped from him?”
She couldn’t disagree with him, and thus pursed her lips. Neither could she gaze into those sharp, knowing eyes, so she gazed down at her folded hands demurely. Finally, after a lot of soul-searching, she ventured to look back up at him. “So what is your plan? Kill this Anika and her band? That won’t help you retrieve your immortal soul.”
Luke pulled the car to the side of the road and cut the engine. Then he pulled her gently against his chest and cradled her against his powerful chest, stroking her hair reverently.
No fight left in her, she let him, sharing comfort.
“If only I could get back my soul, but I’m not aware that’s possible. It’s never been done in the real world. Don’t you think I would if I could? I’d do anything except risk your wellbeing. Besides that, the only thing I can do is protect others from her vileness.”
Quivering against him, wrapping her arms around his waist, she laid her cheek against his surprisingly warm chest. “Then you’d die. Is that what you want? Truly?”
Oh, she knew he purported to be dead already, but he wasn’t. How could someone so intense, so warm, so concerned about his soul be dead in any sense of the word?
“I die a thousand deaths every day now. Legitimate death would be a relief. What kind of eternity is this? You can’t begin to know what it’s like. The only ray of joy in my life is when I’m with you.” He dropped a light kiss on top of her head.
It made her feel more cherished than she ever had. She felt like a louse for having doubted him.
Her heart melted and her breath grew ragged. How could she ignore such misery, such heart-wrenchingly confessed grief from the man she had adored half her life? He certainly sounded like her Lukas. If anything, he was more introspective now. There was an added depth of spirituality to his character that hadn’t been fully developed before, that she found breathtaking. He had matured.
Stinging reality slapped her in the face, and she chastised herself and pulled away from his arms. He’d grown up all right. He’d grown into a full-fledged vampire.
“A beast,” he completed her thoughts on a frayed sigh, staring at her with undisguised anguish. Restarting the ignition, he pulled back onto the dark, deserted road leading off Alligator Alley, going deep into the swamp. She wondered that his decision to remove them from civilization was a wise one. Then yet again, it wasn’t as if the police or even the Marines could fight a vampire and win. Her Luke was a prime example.
The sounds of alligators grunting and wolves howling did little to make her feel better, so she hugged herself. But she was unable to dispel the chill creeping deep into her bones. Her life felt as dark and spooky as this perilous swamp. The two entwined to suck her into their black morass of despair.
Luke reached over and squeezed her hand. “I’m still here. I won’t let anything harm you.”
Like he had been able to protect himself with such sterling success? If he had been so confident of his victory, why bother to bring her out here? Why not just deal with this Anika in the city?
“I will die before letting her so much as touch you.” His voice rang out vehemently as he slammed the steering wheel with the flat of his hand.
A tornado of emotions whirled through her. His declaration thrilled her. But the heartbreaking thought of his deaths, the first that had almost been her demise, but also the almost inevitable second, which was sure to be an even more violent one, quickly drowned her elation.
She couldn’t allow him to die all over again. When Luke started to interrupt her thoughts, she cut him off. “I’m not worth your life, Luke. Let me go, forget about me, and maybe she’ll be appeased.”
Luke parked beside the cabin and turned to face her, his knee brushing her thigh where it rested on the seat, sending shivers down her length. “You don’t know her like I do. She’s insane. This is a vendetta for her now. I rejected her, so now she wants to make me pay. Releasing me from this existence would be a favor. Killing you would truly kill me. If I’d had any idea what I was letting you in for by visiting you in your dreams, I would have stayed away. But I didn’t know until it was too late.”
Truth rang loudly in his profession. The best part of her Luke still
lived inside this man. She wished with all her heart and soul that was enough. But what was blind love? Or love without life? She studied the rustic cabin in the dim moonlight. Could she live the rest of her life hiding out in a swamp? Worse, she was mortal and he was immortal. After a few short years, she’d wither and fade to dust while he would be forever young and vital. Certainly he wouldn’t want her when she was a matronly fifty. Or worse, when she was a wizened eighty.
There was no hope…
“There’s always hope,” Luke said against her ear huskily, as he helped her out of the car. In a grand, gentlemanly gesture, he looped her arm through his and guided her across the marshy ground. “Hold onto me. The swamp can be treacherous, especially in the dark.”
“That’s the story of my life.” Oy! Too much pathos flavored what she intended to be an upbeat quip.
In a surprise move, he swooped her into his arms and carried her across the threshold as if she was his bride. “Home away from home, Madame.”
Although endearing, the gesture reminded her of all they had missed. Their wedding, their life together, the children they’d planned to have… Angrily, she swiped at an errant tear that dared escape her eye.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” Luke kissed away the second tear that dared drop from her eyes.
The import of his words amazed her. “You couldn’t read my mind?”
He set her on her feet, his hands resting heavily on her shoulders. Gazing down upon her with tenderness, he admitted ruefully, “I can’t read through extremely intense emotions.”
Hallelujah!
The revelation felt like a victory. Now she knew how to block his mind probes. But she wondered if she could keep up such intense emotions perpetually. And if she did, would they rip her to shreds?
Luke cupped her cheek with the palm of his hand and caressed the line of her jaw with his thumb, almost making her purr. “What caused the tears?”