Mallory didn’t have to access her ability before she accused him, “You already know my name.”
Leigh’s smile didn’t falter, but he flinched internally. She had a massive amount of mistrust for him. It was to be expected, he told himself, and ordered himself to move forward.
“I do. Forgive me.”
Mallory crossed her arms over her chest, hoping the defensive position would deflect some of the dangerous, easy charm Leigh radiated. She felt herself panicking, regardless. Leigh exuded calm, cool disinterest, like he couldn’t care less whether she accepted his help or not. But if Mallory’s family had been taken by the Hunters, she was desperate to get them back. Mallory had been the most recent thorn in their side. She knew they would keep them to draw her near.
Her father was the only member of her immediate family besides Mallory herself who had any unusual talent. Did they know, or did they think it was Mallory alone in possession of a magical ability? Would they hurt them all to get to her? If they knew only Mallory and Luke were gifted, would they still kill her normal, human mother and brother?
“Time really is of the essence if you wish to help them,” Leigh insisted. Mallory could barely see him in the thick darkness that wrapped around them. She bet he could see her perfectly, though.
“Why?” she questioned. She wanted to convince him and herself she wasn’t wild with fear for her family, and she hoped the simple question would do that. Her voice shook, and the fine tremors in her arms made standing with them crossed more uncomfortable with each second that passed. She doubted she was very convincing.
“Because in order for you to save them, you have to let me kill you—and that, my dear, is a rather lengthy process.”
Mallory’s heart skipped a beat at Leigh’s words. Had she for years secretly fantasized and yearned to have as her lover a deranged, murdering psychopath?
Taking a step back, Mallory hit the wall. Her squeak of shock was purely female, and she hated the sign of weakness. Kill her…he could damn well try!
“Now you listen here,” Mallory began in a warning tone, but Leigh moved closer, unperturbed.
He spoke in a sultry voice that dripped over Mallory like ice water. It pricked and needled her in a way that was not at all unpleasant. “I am listening.”
Leigh’s scent struck her mute. She’d expected him to smell like the forest, earthy, rough, and wild. Instead, his aroma was like a hint of exotic spices being carried on a cool, crisp winter wind. It was mouth-watering.
Leigh drew even nearer, close enough to where when he bent down to whisper near Mallory’s face, his whisker-rough cheek brushed her smooth, ivory one. Mallory jumped and gave that uncontainable squeak again. “What is it you would like to say?”
“Um, you can’t kill me?” Mallory offered. She chastised herself for a weak, mumbling fool. What had gotten into her that she appeared so pathetic?
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Leigh responded as he backed away from her. “I will return to your human life. In fact, your acceptance of my help is contingent upon it.”
When he turned to walk away, logical Mallory warred with curious, impatient Mallory. She couldn’t glean much from the strange man, but one thing her heart and psychic talent agreed on was that he wasn’t lying about her family. She needed to help them as soon as she could, and she needed Leigh to help her.
“Wait.” Her voice was stronger. Leigh had nearly melted into invisibility in the deep shadows, but she caught the gleam of one silvery eye as he turned back to her. She took a deep breath and said, “Tell me how you can help get my family back.”
Chapter Two
Leigh knew caution and misdirection were his two greatest allies in the tightrope act he’d begun to walk with Mallory. He wanted nothing more than to be open and honest with her, truly, but in order to keep them both from the temptation of trying to make her permanently like him, the greatest of sacrifices were in order.
“We will walk and talk,” Leigh commanded as he led Mallory through the shadow-flooded house by hand. She seemed disinclined to touch him, but cared more about avoiding a broken ankle in the dark than some innocent handholding, or what seemed innocent. Her hand burned where it rested against his.
Leigh could smell blood in the place as they walked. Recently, there’d been death witnessed by the walls. The shadows seemed fitting as a mourning shawl and he dared not remove them by turning on a light. Even a vampire had more respect for the dead than that.
“So, talk,” Mallory insisted as she allowed Leigh to pick their path through the hallway and living room to the front door.
The heat that sprang up from their interlocking fingers was making its way up her arm and into her chest until it spread in fluttering warmth through her veins, muscles, and bones. Whatever magic he had, Leigh was something fantastic and dangerous.
Leigh waited until they were on the front porch to speak again. The more he dominated whatever limited relationship they would have, the better the odds would be that things would go according to his plan.
Mallory frowned at Leigh, but in the face of the gorgeous night, she couldn’t stay mad. It had stormed violently for days at the beginning of the month, but the weather had been absolutely perfect since, with summery breezes and sun-drenched days of warmth for a week. The moon was in its waxing process, but still struck an impressive figure on the canvas of diamond-dusted black that was the night sky.
She smiled up at the moon and Leigh felt his heart heat and melt into a puddle in his stomach. It was a dangerous sensation.
“You cut your hair,” Leigh murmured before he snapped his idiotic mouth shut. He furiously wondered how in the hell the words had escaped him.
Mallory looked at Leigh in confusion and touched one hand to her shoulder-length locks.
“A while ago, yeah,” she agreed in a pondering tone. “Super long hair is for younger women, my dad started telling me.”
Leigh laughed at that, full out and musical. Mallory frowned at his back, perplexed, as he walked away.
“And what are you laughing at?” she asked as she easily fell into step beside him. Leigh may have been taller, but Mallory had a giant of a brother and father to keep up with. Inheriting her Gran’s diminutive size had not deterred her from developing quick strides and a hardy pace to make up for her lack of height.
“You know you are centuries younger than me?” Leigh asked with a smile firmly set upon his face. His fangs, white as the moon, were clearly visible against his wide and fairly thin-lipped mouth.
Mallory didn’t stammer for an answer like she wanted to, nor did she reclaim his hand as her body craved to. She settled for a simple, “Wow, you look good for an older guy.”
Leigh laughed again and assured her, “You cannot consider yourself old when you are compared to me.”
“Duly noted.” They walked and Mallory adored the warm night air on her face.
She didn’t pry or needle him to continue their conversation, Leigh noted to himself. He rewarded her silence with an explanation of his plans and motives. False as they were, they worked for what the situation demanded of him.
“I am very old,” he began. “Old enough to know the Hunters and their strengths and weaknesses, their motivations and obsessions. They do not bother my kind because we are so few and so hard to kill. They do their work in the night, as I do. Your family will be guarded by two to six of their young Hunters, untrained in the deadly arts and, if I am not mistaken, for the most part unaware of what their little group actually does.”
“So we go and get them at night,” Mallory said, following his train of thought. “Great. It’s night now. Let’s go.”
Leigh smiled at her, but this smile was different from those he’d given her before. This smile was fainter and held a hint of danger and darkness.
“You forget about the part where I need to kill you,” he chided.
Mallory swallowed the imaginary ball of ice that had become lodged in her throat and sidled away from Leigh. H
im being a vampire, she could take in stride. Honestly, she’d met weirder. Hell, she’d spent a few days with alien souls recently. But she’d never had anyone talk so casually about killing her. That was pretty strange.
“Yeah, I’m trying hard to skip over that part.”
Leigh tsked at Mallory’s words.
“I will allow you to return to your human life,” he promised. “But to snatch your family from those pesky Hunters, you simply can’t go in as a human.”
Mallory had been relatively sure she knew how Leigh planned to kill her, but now she was certain.
“You want to make me like you?” A flutter of what could either have been panic or excitement shivered through Mallory. Become a vampire? Was he nuts?
“Only for as long as it takes to get your family back,” Leigh stressed as he effortlessly guided their path. “Then, you can return to life as a human.”
“How?” Mallory asked. She was intrigued by the premise. Leigh made it sound like contracting and then discarding vampirism was as simple as changing a coat. “Do you have some kind of super cure for it?”
“No,” Leigh responded with a casual shrug. “I would have you kill me.”
Mallory stopped walking so abruptly she may as well have face-planted into a streetlamp pole.
“Kill you?” she said, hoping she’d misheard him. “Why on Earth would you want me to do that?”
Steeling himself, Leigh embraced the reminder that he did as he was required to and must at all costs continue to act the part.
“I have a solution to your problem that helps me with one of my own,” Leigh explained coolly as he prompted her to walk again. “I am bored.” He tried to make his voice convey the words as truth. He had centuries perfecting the art of lying. Young, human Mallory would not be able to nose out his deception, especially as he was able to block her psychic talent from accessing his mind.
“Bored with…?” she urged him on, not even realizing her psychic shield did not prevent her from mindlessly walking the path he was guiding her feet on.
“Existence,” he answered simply. “Therefore, my deal is this. I will turn you, help you recover your family and then, under my careful instruction, you will kill me.”
Mallory felt her heart trip over itself at Leigh’s far too calmly spoken words and her feet followed suit. He caught her effortlessly and they stared at each other for the space of several breaths. The feeling that passed between them was like December wind, skin-shivering and goose bump–inducing. Kill him, Mallory thought. Was he serious?
Leigh released Mallory and fought not to shake his hands of the residual tingles touching her bare arms had left in his own flesh. They began to walk again and Mallory frowned, deep in her own thoughts. At length, she spoke.
“Why don’t you kill yourself?” she finally asked. “I mean, if you’re bored of life, why make me do it? And why now?”
Leigh had already decided on a course for this very vein of question and he answered her in a humorless voice. “I’m Christian, and the punishment for suicide is very widely acknowledged.”
Mallory raised her fine, arched eyebrows at him and he rebuked the expression with a practiced, stormy glower. “What, vampires can’t be religious?” he asked in a testy tone. He didn’t have to sell it too hard. He was testy, albeit for different reasons.
“Um, no. I mean, sure? Just…whatever,” Mallory stammered before sighing. Then, as she caught sight of the house they’d stopped in front of, her eyes lit up. She asked, “Oh, is this your house?” before walking up the driveway without so much as waiting for Leigh to reply. It was his, for the time being, so he didn’t mind as she happily inspected the structure.
It was a house for a couple, Leigh had thought to himself when he’d procured it and did so again as he watched Mallory walk beneath the arched trellis that led to the porch. It was dark, sturdy wood and flowering vines crept all over it, though the deep indigo blooms had closed their petals for the night.
Before the porch, where the trellis sat as a focal point, was a smooth square filled with pretty white stones. The trellis was placed so that it looked to be sprouting from the rocks, which glowed faintly as though reflecting the moonlight shining all around.
The siding of the house was done in a deep, masculine blue with smoky gray shutters on the windows. Mallory would eventually find the other trellises that decorated his side and backyard, and the rooftop terrace Leigh had taken over for his personal nighttime relaxation space. He was sure Mallory was already moving around to the right side yard, where a towering willow tree stood sentinel before the backyard. Leigh hated how many annoying little leaves and twigs fell off the big, old bastard but he had no heart to cut it down. Leigh had only been there slightly more than two decades and the willow had been in its home far longer, after all.
By her sharp, delighted intake of breath, which Leigh could easily hear from the front yard though she was now well into the backyard, he knew Mallory had found his apple and pear trees, plus the cherry which inexplicably still had its flowers fairly late into the summer.
Leigh knew his backyard, which was complete with a modestly sized, enclosed Japanese rock garden, was very beautiful. He so enjoyed the glory of nature.
The further away from Leigh Mallory got, the less calm she became. Seeing his gorgeous backyard stopped the frantic flood of panic and fury once more, but it was a short-lived and muted effect. She needed to get to her family, and Leigh needed to show her how.
Mallory turned away from her desire to play with the pretty black rake in the rock garden and nearly ran right into Leigh’s massive chest. She gave that high-pitched squeak of female shock again and wanted to punch herself in the jaw for it.
“You move quietly.” Her words and tone were accusatory, but she fell into step behind him as he began to walk back toward the house. She heard the jingle of keys before he responded silkily, “And quickly. Soon, so shall you.”
Mallory wasn’t sure about all of that but she didn’t object as Leigh opened the front door and held it open for her. She slipped inside and Leigh reached to the right of her to flick light switches. He stepped inside and closed the door. Mallory noted that he locked it, and she suddenly had a disturbing thought.
“The Hunters!” she blurted out. “What if they knew where I was? What if they followed us here?”
Leigh led her by the arm through his living room, beyond the open archway that led to the kitchen, and down a hallway to the second of four doors. The bathroom had been the first. Mallory had seen when she glanced inside. With black tile for the flooring and the walls and silver highlights, it was a sexy-looking little room. The first door on the opposite side was closed.
When Leigh guided her through the threshold that denoted the bedroom he claimed as his own on the first level, he finally addressed her concerns.
“They did not, but you should not be concerned if they had. When you leave my home, they will no longer be able to threaten you physically. The bodies they possess are human. Their weapons are tailored toward different, weaker beings. The vampire is not a creature the Hunters are yet equipped to deal with.”
“Yeah, we still haven’t really hammered that whole situation out yet,” Mallory said uncomfortably. “What if I don’t want to be a vampire or be the one to drive a stake or a crucifix or whatever through your vampy little heart?”
“You will be required to cut off my head with a silver blade, actually,” Leigh informed Mallory. She laughed until she saw the deadly serious set of his expression. Mallory snapped her jaw closed, cut off her laughter, and stared at Leigh.
He said, “Do you wish to save your family?” Mallory nodded. He knew she did, but he needed her to know this was the only way. “Then get on the bed.”
Chapter Three
“Excuse me?”
Leigh wanted to be brusque and disinterested with her, he truly did. He found he was incapable, and the gentleness in his tone could attest to his inability as he explained the situation
to her.
“The process is remarkably difficult and painful. It will be pain as you have never known. It is a process few survive, but I can help you through the initial assault on your system by…distracting you.”
It wasn’t the way the majority of his kin went about The Turn unless it was purely for love, as Leigh’s initial attempt with Mallory’s previous incarnation had been. Vampires focused on bringing strength into the fold. Weakness was washed out by the agonizing process one must survive in order to change. But Leigh was as reluctant to hurt Mallory as he had been so long ago. So, he would offer her the alternative method, even though he feared the closeness it would inevitably foster between them.
Mallory cocked a disapproving eyebrow at Leigh. She was relatively sure of what he was implying and she wasn’t amused by it.
“Are you trying to say we need to bone before I can become a vampire?”
Her terminology, coupled with the blush in her usually milk-pale cheeks nearly made Leigh fall victim to a fit of laughter. She was shy about sex. It was a notable difference from her previous incarnation he found wonderfully endearing.
Careful not to let his adoration of her sweetness show, Leigh focused on the very real and serious issue of the pain she would face during the transformation. It was enough to sober his expression and stay his smile.
“My kin choose only the strongest humans to convert to our bloodline,” Leigh told Mallory in a warning tone. “If you wish to live through the change you must embrace in order to save your family, I must help your body forget the agony it will endure every step of the way.”
Mallory twisted the beaded bracelet she wore around and around on her left wrist. She didn’t mind sex, to be certain, but she was no heel-wearing Lothario. In fact, most men she’d ever been with physically—all of three—hadn’t returned for a repeat performance. And the one who did had become a bad and scary individual during and long after the termination of their relationship, until he eventually, unexpectedly disappeared altogether. Two men who hadn’t wanted her beyond a night and one who had that turned out to be a psycho. The odds were in favor of Mallory’s concern that she just sucked in the sack.
Pierced [Pain & Love 2] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) Page 2