by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
“I understand that. I can handle it.” He resisted the urge to tack “young upstart” onto the end of that sentence. As much as it grated on him to take lessons from a cub who’d barely passed his first half century, Max had to concede that he’d asked for the lecture.
“Can you care for her the way your brother did for his ‘weakness’?”
“Don’t taunt me with that,” Max snarled. “I was wrong about Anthony. He loved his woman, if the word means putting her welfare above his own. I want to love Linnet. I just don’t think I know how. Even the kind of sexuality she expects—”
“Yes, you have to consider quite a few practical matters like that. She doesn’t know you aren’t cross-fertile with human females.”
“We didn’t discuss it in detail.”
“Before you can fairly expect a lifelong commitment from her, you have to make it clear that you may be able to couple with her, but you’ll never be able to impregnate her.”
“If she wants children…”
“You have to warn her, just as any infertile man would.”
Max shook his head. “It will take some time to get used to the idea of being inferior to an ephemeral male in some ways. That’s getting ahead of myself, though. She may not listen to me, much less accept me as a lover. Remember, she doesn’t trust me.”
“Did she say why?”
Max sighed in frustration. “As far as I could understand, she thinks I regard all human beings as lower animals, her included. I couldn’t convince her that she’d changed my mind, at least about her, if not all the others.”
“You implied that you saw her as an exception, and she didn’t believe you? Can you blame her?”
“Then what do you suggest I do?”
“You have to demonstrate that you value her mind, her selfhood, not merely her blood.” Amusement crept into Darvell’s voice. “Not unlike a human male, except that with your woman, you also have to convince her that you aren’t using mental control to make her desire you.”
“And how the hell am I supposed to do that?” Though he knew it didn’t make sense to lash out at the doctor, Max couldn’t keep the annoyance from his voice.
“That’s part of the test, isn’t it? If you truly care for the woman, you’ll know her well enough to think of some proof that will be meaningful to her.”
Since it wouldn’t be courteous to dismiss the advice as “voodoo,” Max simply thanked Darvell while silently fuming.
“One more thing,” said the doctor, before hanging up. “Contrary to the belief and practice of creatures like Nola, your brother had it right. Preying on an endless succession of casual victims is settling for second best. It’s far more satisfying to bond with a single donor and merge, body and mind, with that one. If you have a chance at that union, don’t throw it away.”
Max spent the rest of that night and all of the next mulling over Darvell’s advice, sifting the memories of every moment he’d spent with Linnet. On the following day, he caught a flight to Maryland.
Chapter 16
Linnet transferred the last box of Deanna’s things from the car to the floor of her own garage. After Robin had accepted her offer to clear out the couple’s apartment, Linnet had waited until almost the last minute, mid-July, to undertake the ordeal. She still felt detached from the rest of the family and her own everyday life. Sometimes she felt as if she was talking to people through a pane of glass. Her whole view of the universe had been shattered and reassembled in a bizarre new shape, and she couldn’t tell anyone about it.
Thank goodness, she didn’t have to return to the apartment again. Sorting Deanna’s household possessions had been hard enough, but stumbling across a sketchbook partly filled with self-portraits of Deanna and a few drawings of Linnet herself had almost wrecked what little serenity she could claim. The clothes and nonperishable food had gone to charity, makeup and most other personal supplies into the trash. She’d packed only such items as pictures, books, CDs and jewelry, which had still required several trips with her compact car. She rubbed her dusty hands on her shorts and wiped sweat from her forehead. Grateful to have the job over with, she entered the house through the kitchen. A couple of minutes later, while she hesitated over whether she felt hungry enough to bother fixing a meal, the doorbell rang.
Who would visit her at five in the afternoon without phoning first? Since she wasn’t expecting any packages, she marched to the door prepared to confront a salesperson or petition bearer. Squinting through the peephole, she saw the distorted shape of a man’s face obscured by sunglasses.
A hand slowly reached into her field of vision and removed the glasses. Max.
To her horror, her first impulse was to throw herself into his arms. This is insane! I can’t possibly be glad to see him.
Just when she’d rejoiced to think that chapter of her life was closed forever! She considered pretending not to be home. He could probably hear her heartbeat through the door, though. He could catch her if she tried to flee and outwait her if she stonewalled.
Unlocking the door, she opened it a crack. “You aren’t here. You’re a figment of my imagination.”
His eyes swept up and down her body, making her shiver from more than the air conditioner’s draft on her damp neck. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve decided that entire trip never happened. I fantasized you, and now I’m cured. Don’t waste your time trying to convince me any different.”
“There is no cure for our bond.” His voice reverberated through her like the bass notes of an organ.
“What bond? It doesn’t exist, because vampires don’t exist. You’re a figment of my imagination.”
“You know that isn’t true.” With one hand, he blocked the door she tried to shut.
“It’s true for me if I want to believe it. Go away.”
“I can’t leave. I’m withering away with need for you. Give me a chance to show that our bond is not an illusion.”
Though his voice lingered over the words like a caress, he made no attempt to invade her thoughts. That restraint weakened her defenses. Maybe she could trust him to carry on a civilized conversation. Rationalizing that if she locked him out, he would lay siege on the stoop, she opened the door.
“I drove straight from the airport in full daylight,” he said, as he stepped into the living room. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Just proves you don’t like to lose, which I already knew.” She detested the quaver in her voice. “Now that you’re here, come in and sit down. Can I get you anything?” Remembering his favored type of refreshment, she blushed.
His eyes locked onto hers, traveled down to her breasts and reversed course to her neck. The blush grew hotter. Finally he said, “I’d appreciate some water.”
She snatched at the excuse to flee to the kitchen. Suddenly realizing how grubby she looked, she paused to wash up at the sink. Wiping her face with a paper towel, she waited for her breathing to slow and her hands to stop shaking. So much for her plan to forget him.
When she entered the living room with a glass of ice water, he was waiting on the couch. Slightly calmer now, she noticed that he was holding a small, leather-bound book, which he placed on the coffee table before he took the glass from her. She caught her breath when their fingers touched. “What do you want here?” She sat on a chair out of his reach.
“As I said, you.” He drank, watching her over the rim of the glass.
“We’ve been through this already.” After his acceptance of her decision in California, why had he resurfaced to torment her?
“Since then, I’ve had three weeks to think it over.” He gazed at her from violet-silver eyes shadowed by his dark brows. “I’ve come to the conclusion that I love you. And I can see in your aura that your feelings for me haven’t faded.”
Speechless at the shock of that word love, she had to gulp air before she could answer. “It’s not fair. You can skim my emotions at will, but I can’t read yours.”
; “You could if we opened our minds to each other. But you won’t allow that, will you?”
Linnet shook her head. “One time was scary enough. I could hardly tell my thoughts from yours.”
With a shuddering breath, he said, “Don’t you think it was equally hard for me? But I would like to try again.”
“Why? You should be glad you escaped falling for an ‘ephemeral,’ right?”
“Don’t hold that prejudice against me. These weeks without you cured me of it, at least as far as you’re concerned.”
Threatening to melt under the heat of his gaze, she sat up straight and hardened the shell around her mind. “I don’t buy that. What’s so special about me?”
“You’re beautiful.”
She couldn’t restrain a snort of disbelief. “Coated with dust?” She pulled the smudged T-shirt away from her sticky chest. “And with my hair a mess?” Though she’d tied it back with a scrunchy, loose strands dangled into her face.
“I would like to see your hair unbound, feel the weight of it.” He clutched the cold glass like an anchor. “I wasn’t referring mainly to your surface charms, dear Linnet. I’m enjoying the glow of your aura, the blood that pulses under your skin, the rhythm of your breath and heartbeat.”
“That’s another advantage you have over me, X-ray vision.”
He sighed. “I would like to tell you in detail how I feel, but I’m not accustomed to framing such things in words. Among ourselves, we don’t have to, with our power to sense each other’s emotions. And you won’t let me reveal myself to you telepathically. So I decided to borrow some words.” He held out the little book.
She automatically took it, hastily sitting down before he could touch her. It turned out to be a nineteenth-century edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets with gold edging on the yellowed pages. She opened it to the inside cover.
At the top of the page she saw Max’s name in faded ink. Farther down he had written in ballpoint pen, Until I can show you the Globe. Under his signature were the words Sonnet 75.
“Max—” Her breath caught in her throat.
With a tight-lipped nod, he silently mimed turning pages.
Flipping to the seventy-fifth sonnet, she scanned the first line: “So are you to my thoughts as food to life.” She read through the poem, conscious of his eyes on her. When she reached the end, she backed up two lines and recited aloud, “‘Possessing or pursuing no delight, Save what is had or must from you be took.’”
Max stared at her with what almost looked like anxiety. “You sound dubious.”
“I can’t help thinking that ‘no delight’ part is a little bit of an exaggeration.” She stroked the leather binding.
“Not at all. I’ve spent the past few weeks thinking of you constantly. And, yes, it’s been a disconcerting experience.” His lips quirked in a fleeting smile. “You can’t honestly claim you haven’t had similar thoughts.”
“I’ve done my best to forget you.” Again she read aloud. “‘And for the peace of you I hold such strife.’”
“Your poets do have a way with paradoxes.”
“Well, I’ll take the peace without the strife, thanks.”
“Ah, Linnet.” His voice softened to a caress. “Have you found peace in these past weeks?”
“What’s the use of lying to a man who can read my emotions like some kind of thermometer?” She leaned toward him, hardly aware she was hugging the book to her chest. “Okay, I haven’t had peace. I’ve had weird dreams, and when I wake up, I wonder if I imagined everything that happened on that trip.” She flushed at the memory of a few less weird, more pleasurable dreams. “I can’t discuss it with anybody. Whenever I talk to my parents and Robin, I have to cut off sentences in the middle to keep from saying things that would make them think I’m crazy.”
“You are not. Deep within, you know it’s all true.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not true in the everyday world where I have to live. Robin’s seeing a counselor to help her deal. I can’t do that, because it would be a waste of money to pay a therapist and then lie to him.”
“Another example of your human need to catch experiences in nets of words. As it happens, I know a psychiatrist not far away—in Annapolis—with whom you could discuss these events freely, if that’s what you want.”
She blinked at him in surprise. She’d expected that offer almost as little as she’d expected a declaration of love. “Don’t tell me he’s a—he’s like you?”
Max smiled at her astonishment. “Yes, why is that so strange? Most of us do hold some sort of job.”
“You’re kidding.” She met his steady gaze, then quickly glanced away. “No, I guess not. You really wouldn’t mind having me pour my heart out on a psychiatrist’s couch?”
“Given basic safeguards, I’ll accept anything that might break down the barriers between us.”
Maybe he really had changed his mind about “ephemerals.” Recognizing her eagerness to believe him, she knew she needed to exercise caution all the more. “What if I go through all that, just to have you get tired of me a few months or years from now?”
“Since I’ve waited almost five centuries to find a human woman I can care about,” he said, “I won’t let you go once I have you.”
“How can you promise what you’ll do in the future?”
With unexpected gentleness, he said, “My love, could any human mate guarantee the future, either?”
“You’ve got a point.” The way he sat motionless, speaking softly as if coaxing a wild doe to eat from his hand, made her wonder how he’d developed such patience in so short a time. He was making an honest effort not to pressure her. “But there’s one big difference. I’ll get sick and old, while you won’t. You’ll probably have a major change of heart when I develop gray hair, wrinkles and liver spots.”
“I told you, we don’t focus on superficial standards of beauty. Your heat, your fragrance, your…flavor, physical and emotional, won’t fade.”
“But eventually I’ll die!” Anguish stabbed her at the thought of being only one in a long succession of women whose “flavor” he’d enjoyed. She jabbed a finger at the page that lay open to the sonnet. “‘Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure.’” She clapped the book shut. “There’s no doubt in this case.”
His eyes mirrored her pain. “I’ll postpone that moment as long as the ‘filching age’ will allow. And human lovers also lose each other to death, sooner or later.”
“Why me? Because I resisted you? Because I’m a challenge?”
The indignant denial she half expected didn’t come. “That was part of it at first. Then I saw your determination and courage demonstrated in other ways. And I touched your mind. I want to plunge into those depths again. I’ve craved that ever since I saw you last. I’m starved for you.”
A hot blush crept over her neck and face. “With you, that’s literal. Am I supposed to believe you haven’t drunk any other woman’s blood in three weeks?”
“No. I need human blood every few days. Once we’ve renewed our bond, though, I won’t be able to feed on anyone else. Literally. I’ll have to depend completely on you.”
“Is that even possible?” The memory of Nola’s attack gave Linnet a chill at the pit of her stomach. Yet the thought of “donating” to Max swept away that image and replaced it with a core of heat.
“Yes, with proper care. I know of couples who’ve managed an exclusive relationship for years.” He stood and took a step toward Linnet. She sprang from the chair and edged away from him. “Please, I have no intention of forcing you, physically or mentally.”
“I know. But if you touched me—” She chopped off the sentence, appalled that she’d admitted her weakness aloud.
“I won’t do even that without your consent.” His smile held a hint of smugness, though. “There are many details we need to discuss, if you decide to accept me. But it’s all beside the point if you don’t. Since you won’t allow me into your mind, all I can do is ask. Linnet,
could you love me?”
Light-headed, breathing hard, she clenched her fists at her sides to suppress the urge to rush at him and cling to him like a pillar of rock in a whirlwind. “I think I could.”
He held out an open hand. “Shall we go into your bedroom?”
The breath whooshed out of her as if he’d punched her in the diaphragm. “Whoa! I said ‘could.’ How does that translate into jumping between the sheets?”
His brows arched in clear amusement. “I hope you know that if I planned to seduce you, I’d be more subtle. I have something else in mind, and it requires privacy.”
“Why bother asking, when you could hypnotize me into anything you want? I’m not wearing the ankh.”
“Surely you realize you don’t need it. We’ve established that you have the strength in yourself, thanks to my brother’s influence, reinforced by the exercises we performed. The necklace was only a prop.”
“Like the magic feather that made the elephant think he could fly, but when he lost it, he found out it wasn’t magic. All he needed was to believe in himself.” At Max’s puzzled look, she said, “Sorry, pop-culture reference.”
Another thought popped into her head as she led the way to her room. “I guess you figure I’ll quit my job so you can whisk me away to a life of luxury.”
“That depends entirely on your wishes. I can work anywhere. If you don’t want to leave your teaching position, we could divide our time between here and Colorado, which has much more pleasant summers.”
“Maybe you really aren’t looking for a pet, after all.”
“If I were,” he said with a chuckle, “I wouldn’t choose a woman who knows so much about me.” The smile vanished. “I want a bond-mate, a companion to nourish me with her passion as well as her blood.”
Again the memory of the first time she had “nourished” him flashed across her mind, igniting a flame that nervousness couldn’t entirely quench. “All right, what are we doing in the bedroom?” She sat in the chair at the dresser, where he couldn’t alight next to her. Though the curtains were closed, blocking the late-afternoon sun, she could see him well enough.