The solemnity of his thoughts brought on a moment of panic. Not even Omara had that kind of power over his soul. I think I am in trouble. How can I lose a heart that barely beats?
Holly shifted, leaning over the seat to get her backpack. The air stirred with her scent, reeling him closer still. "Are you coming in?" she asked, getting out of the T-Bird.
Alessandro sat for a moment, his hands clutching the wheel, before he could move. He was frozen, caught in a brief wave of terror and need. He was a monster. She was vulnerable.
I love her. I will make sure everything is safe inside her house; then I will leave. "Of course. I know you warded the house, but I still want to check it over. Just in case."
"Yeah, I'd hate to have to send you out for more mousetraps." Holly ran up the steps to unlock the door. There was a flirting invitation in her tone that was impossible to miss. He followed, using vampire speed to catch up.
He allowed himself to dream for the split second it took to reach her. What if I could be the man, and not the monster, for the smallest slice of time? Surely that is not asking the moon and the stars?
He shouldn't. There was too much to do. He had responsibilities. There were risks.
She switched on the entry light. "Come on in."
"Thank you," Alessandro said, wavering for the merest second before stepping inside her doorway.
Holly watched as he stood for a moment, every line of his body uneasy. Then, after a quick look down at himself, he peeled off the shredded remnants of his jacket, dropping the ruin on a chair. She would miss that fringed leather, or at least the fantasies it inspired.
"Make yourself at home," she said, leading the way into the living room. She grabbed for a note of normalcy. "Can I get you some tea?"
"Yes, thank you." There was a shred of uncertainty in his voice. Things had changed between them, but neither yet knew what that meant.
"I won't be a moment."
As she turned to head for the kitchen, he directed his attention to her shelf of CDs, methodically flipping through the jewel cases.
I let a vampire taste my blood. That should have terrified her, but it didn't. The experience hadn't been frightening at all. Instead her stomach felt curiously light, buoyed by nervous anticipation. Maybe all her assumptions were wrong, and there was some way that she and Alessandro could be more than partners. Or maybe she was just believing what she wanted to think. How can I know?
The kettle quieted to a rolling boil, rattling gently on the crooked old burner. She spooned Lady Grey, lemony and comforting, into the pot and filled it. Steam curled out of the spout, reminding her of a miniature ghost.
She let the moment linger, full of possibilities. Around her the house felt serene, its consciousness turning inward like a cat drowsing by the hearth.
It was a moment of peace. I'm so tired.
Holly took the tea tray into the living room and set it on the old walnut library table that sat under the window. With deliberate care she poured the tea and passed Alessandro his cup. He sniffed the steaming liquid, holding the raku vessel in both hands.
"Do you think we will be safe here tonight? No more changeling armies on the agenda?" she asked.
"Between us, I think we can handle any nuisance callers." He shrugged, smiling a little. The mesh T-shirt he wore showed off his chest and arms. He had hard, practical muscles, the physique of the pre-industrial age. It made the shrug a fine thing to watch.
She sat down. The crisis was over and with it the need to act. I'm so tired. She sipped her tea, feeling its warmth sliding down her throat like an elixir.
The moment of ease was treacherous. Just like after the battle with the Flanders house, the backwash of fear and magic took an emotional toll. Tears started to slip down her face before she even noticed them. Hastily she put her cup on the coffee table and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
This is ridiculous. There had to be a box of tissues nearby.
"Holly?" Alessandro rose. She could hear the confusion in his voice.
"Sorry." She jumped up, but he grasped her hand. For a moment she could not bring herself to raise her eyes, but stared at the holes in his mesh shirt instead. His flesh looked ivory white where it peeked through the threads. Twisting away slowly, she tried to turn her back without making the gesture seem angry.
Instead he put his hands on her shoulders, holding her still with a grip gentle but unyielding as rebar. When a vampire wanted a person to stay, they stayed.
"What is it?"
"It's been a long day," she said, blinking the wetness from her eyes. The storm of tears slowed but left her queasy. "It's no one thing. It's everything. Mac. The demon. School. Everything."
"How can I make it right?" Alessandro asked, his hands sliding from her shoulders to her arms.
"It's nothing you can fix. I'm just tired." She leaned into him, feeling the honeycomb of his shirt on her cheek. All those long, lean muscles were beneath her fingertips.
"Holly," he whispered, putting his hand on her hair, stroking it. "I am sorry. I wish everything were easier."
Resting there for a long moment, she drank in the feel of him. A single heartbeat thumped under her ear, just audible over the quiet music he had put on the stereo. She raised one hand, playing her fingers over his biceps. The knot in her chest was easing as courage flowed from the mere act of touching skin to skin.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"About what?" He traced the curve of her ear with one finger.
"What about Mac? And the changelings? What you said about their history was incredible." She raised her head to look at him. "You know, you've never said a word about your history."
His mouth twitched. "Never ask a vampire who they were."
"Why not?"
Alessandro closed his eyes. His lashes were a light brown, long and thick enough to make a cover model jealous. "They do not always wish to remember."
Holly froze for a long moment. Having no answer, she kissed him. His eyes were still closed. She could feel his body respond to the touch of her lips, the inhalation at the unexpected contact, a flinch that was at once self-protection and unabashed need.
"You know I am a bad bargain," he said.
"Why?" Her voice was a whisper.
Alessandro put his hand on her arm, squeezing lightly. "You already know the answer. Vampirism is not just a matter of peculiar eating habits."
Holly pulled away, feeling inhuman strength even in the gentleness of his grip. "But that is only half of you…"
His eyes drifted open. "Don't make that mistake. There is no separation of the two. I lost myself when Kalil took me. I left your world."
"Kalil?" she asked.
Alessandro stared into her eyes, and for a moment she saw nothing more than another soul. "Kalil," he repeated, as though the name held countless associations. "You want to know who I was? I was a gift to him. He made me what I am. He was my sire."
"A gift?"
He hesitated, then nodded once, slowly. "It may sound strange to you, but absolute control over another person was natural enough in my time. You and I are separated not just by our species, but by centuries of custom and culture. The world I was born into was very different."
Holly remained silent, digesting what he had just said.
He frowned, as if unsure where to begin. "In my time as a human the Medici were a rising family of bankers, ambitious to achieve political power in Florence. They had money beyond imagining. I worked for them as a household servant, one of their many musicians. In every way that mattered I was theirs to give."
Holly squinted, struggling to envision people who would give a man away like a case of beer. "Did they know Kalil was a vampire?" Did they know he would eat you?
"Yes. He was an honored guest at their home." Alessandro paused. "That was why their gift had to be special. They wanted to impress him, for he had great influence with the merchant traders from the eastern lands."
"So they gave hi
m you?"
"They gave him many gifts. I was but one. I was a curiosity, like an exotic pet. The people from my village were descended from the northern hordes—the great warriors from Germania who had brought Rome to its knees hundreds of years before. We were physically impressive, fair-haired and tall, a novelty. Besides that, I played many instruments. I sang in seven languages. I was an exquisite token, the way a fine horse is a prized gift."
Okay, not man as case of beer, but man as entertainment unit. The situation still mystified her. She groped for something, anything she could relate to. "I met you at a musical concert."
"Yes. I still enjoy listening to it, and I still play. That, at least, Kalil did not take."
"He decided you were a gift that ought to keep on giving? Forever?"
Alessandro smiled, but it was sour. "Perhaps he wanted to preserve my ornamental value the same way one might preserve a flower by dipping it in wax."
"Ornamental?"
He shrugged. "I was pretty and made nice sounds. I didn't learn to fight as a warrior until after I was Turned. I had no real taste for battle before that. Kalil's curse brought a hunger for the sword."
"What happened to him?"
His face grew shadowed. "Human hunters. They came in the day, while my clan slept, and killed them all. I survived by pure chance. I was away on a trip to buy horses."
"Thank the Goddess," Holly murmured.
"Thank an argumentative and hard-dealing trader. Now you know all there is to know about me," he said, touching her cheek with the back of his fingers. "Nothing more happened that was good or kind until the night you and I met."
"I think you're editing history to suit the moment."
He gave a smile that answered nothing, his eyes searching her face. "I remember that coffeehouse concert. You walked over and handed me a listing of who was playing there that month."
"You looked like you were enjoying the music."
"Still, it's rare for someone to make such a gesture, a casual kindness, to one of my species. And for good reason."
Holly blinked, trying to follow what he was saying and not making it. She was falling into his gold-shot gaze.
His voice dropped to a whisper. "You looked at me and responded to what was there, just as I was at that moment. Everyone else in the room saw a hunter, a danger, but you saw me."
She waited as he kept stroking her face, and all she wanted was that touch. The words were incidental.
"Holly, you deserve as much from your lovers. You deserve someone who will look at you, your house, your work, and adore all of it. Ben could never have seen you, or he would be here laying his heart at your feet."
Oh. Her own heart drifted in her breast, a giddy, sideways ache of sweet pain. Holly could feel the blood creeping under her skin, rising under his touch. Oh. "Alessandro…"
"Yes?"
"Can we be together without it going all wrong? Just once?"
Holly was not sure what she expected him to do or say. He sat still and silent, as motionless as only the Undead could be. Then he drew her close, his body hard against hers.
"Once." He said it like a prayer, as if he bargained with his soul for that single chance.
His lips touched hers, the sensation melting all the way down the back of her legs. Holly's fingers slid down to caress the tight leather encasing his thighs, winding the fringe around her fists. She used it as leverage to pull closer to him, arching her torso against his chest.
Holly took his mouth greedily, his teeth sharp against her tongue. She shivered, imagining their pressure against her skin. She was testing their self-control in dangerous ways, but she had run out of the stamina it took to resist. "I've wanted to do this since I first saw you," she breathed.
"Where is your bed?" It came out as a demand, rough and deep.
He picked her up and she grabbed his shoulders, the electricity that ran between them humming in her belly, up her spine, tingling in her fingers' ends. A faint sheen touched Alessandro's cheekbones. He was feeling it as much as she was.
"Upstairs," she replied, not sure how she convinced her mouth to form the word.
Sure-footed, he found his way up the dark staircase. As he shouldered through the half-open door to her bedchamber, she used her magic to light the candle on her bedside table. She needed to see the look of wild tenderness on his face, to savor it in her memory.
He set her down on the bedcovers like a jeweler laying out his finest piece. He sat on the bed beside her, fanning out the long, dark tendrils of her hair, smoothing them from her forehead.
"I love you," he said. "Never forget that."
The words liberated her, giving her a certainty she had been afraid to want. Holly touched his lips, her own mouth gone dry with need. "My memory isn't that faulty."
He pulled off the mesh shirt, the long, lean muscles of his chest and stomach exposed to view.
"And I'll certainly remember that," she added.
That surprised a laugh from him. She held up her arms, and Alessandro came to her at last, sinking to her side. His skin was cool, smooth as silk.
"I need to feel you," he said, running his hands under the hem of her sweater.
He was growing warmer as they touched, his heart thudding slowly, erratically. It's like bringing him to life by making love. Like being a goddess.
The sweater came off, followed by the rest of their clothes. She buried her hands in the wealth of his hair, wrapping herself around his lean, long body. He was all sinew, muscles working in ivory perfection. He was also impressively male, long and thick enough to make her insides coil with need and hesitation. No wonder Kalil and his clan had wanted Alessandro preserved forever.
Hard kisses left her lips feeling flushed and raw, the force of his demands a rush all on their own. His hands shook, and he plunged them into the bedclothes, twisting the blankets into his fists. The muscles of his neck and forearms strained taut as ropes. He's controlling himself.
That was wrong. She didn't want that. She wanted him to be as free as she felt. Holly began to stroke him harder, seeking out the places where he felt the most pleasure, but he caught her hands. "No, I don't dare. Let me take care of you. It's much safer that way."
"But—"
His face was tight. "Trust me. Let me. I know where I can lead this dance."
Holly allowed him to pin her arms and take control, but she felt cheated.
He didn't let her feel that way long. Alessandro tasted her skin from earlobes to collarbone, circling over her nipples, leaving only the faintest rake of fangs in his wake. It was a tease, a dangerous game, but, oh, so thrilling.
Holly squirmed and twisted under his touch. Now he was raising the temperature degree by degree. By the time his lips reached her stomach, she ached for more direct satisfaction. The silky hardness of his shaft was ready to be put to good use, but he had other ideas. Immortals had forever to explore the possibilities of delayed gratification.
Or perhaps he was just clinging to sanity. He looked up, his eyes bright with a smoldering hunger. Holly caught her breath, half fear, half anticipation. The hunter was dancing just beneath the surface of his gaze, roused by feral lust.
That look alone nearly pushed her over the edge, but Alessandro held her in his relentless control.
With featherlight brushes of hair and lips, he continued his way over her flesh with deliberate precision. His path crept ever downward, but bypassed the most sensitive areas. That was fine—he found erogenous zones where none had previously existed. Her ribs. Her hip. The inside of her wrist. He stopped only when he reached the inside of her thigh, the soft stretch where blood and nerves lay under translucent skin.
He was sweating, trembling under her touch.
"Are you all right?" Holly asked.
His eyes were mere slits. "Don't talk now," he said. "If you love me at all, don't distract me."
With inhuman strength, he held her down with one hand splayed across her ribs and closed his mouth over that hot, fine
flesh of the thigh where the artery coursed downward from the heart. She thrilled, cold and hot and electric with arousal. She could feel his teeth against her skin, intimate and deadly. Her body yearned to writhe in craving, and yet she dared not breathe. She could feel the strength in his jaws, her pulse straining against the hard, sharp fangs.
Her skin pinched with every throb of her heart.
He was going to bite her.
He was aching, shaking, fighting not to.
The sensation, so near her sex, was erotic and terrifying. Every pulse grew in intensity, pushing, filling her with the rush of her own blood.
Alessandro slid one hand up her thigh, pressing himself closer against her flesh. Her life dangled by the thread of his control, an unraveling weave of reason and appetite. Her fear made the moment exquisite. The universe was nothing but her heartbeat and the moment he would take that rush of life for his own.
Holly came in sharp, helpless, excruciating need.
Alessandro released her with a gasp like a swimmer breaching the surface. He kissed the swollen, tender flesh between her legs, releasing her from the frozen trance. She grabbed his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. She was shredded by the sheer intensity, her own control ripped up by the roots.
He groaned, surrendering to her. Then he plunged inside, giving himself with hard, urgent thrusts. Holly was slick and wet, more than ready.
When he climaxed, his hands tore into the sheets as if they were paper.
Chapter 21
Alessandro had split in two. He felt as though he had been standing in the desert sun. Parched. Drained. Bewildered. Denied.
At the same moment his soul unfolded like a shriveled plant finally given rain. He felt the touch of living warmth, a pure and generous pleasure he had been denied for over half a millennium.
His perception splintered. His body and soul felt the languor of satisfaction, and yet his guts raged, unslaked, unfed, empty. Primitive terror vibrated below the smoothness of his skin, an animal's panic that food was nowhere to be found.
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