“My son has software that adds those effects to his band’s music videos. In fact, you should visit his YouTube channel and pick up some tips. This is very poorly lit. I can’t even make out their features.”
“Why won’t you believe me? I told you what happened to my brother, what I’ve been trying to accomplish ever since he was infected. I told you about the immortals. I’m offering you access to my research materials and lab notes.”
“Montrose, I’m not sure what you’re hoping to accomplish with all of this. But if vampires existed, we would know it.”
When Montrose started to object, Emrys held up a hand to silence him.
“The general public might not know it, but we would.”
“Once again, I told you: The immortals have gone to great lengths to keep all of this secret. They don’t want anyone to know about the vampires, because then they would be exposed.”
“The immortals,” Emrys repeated skeptically. “The alternate race of beings who have somehow also escaped our notice.”
“Yes.” Why was he being such a prick? The two had studied together in college, had hung out, joined the same fraternity as legacies. The fact that Emrys had once worked in the military’s bioweapons program (or so he had boasted) should not have made him question Montrose’s work or doubt its validity.
“Won’t you even look at my research?” he asked in desperation. Now that John Florek had been killed, the only other person Montrose could ask for aid was his ex-girlfriend. And he really didn’t want to go there.
Or did he? Hell, it couldn’t be any worse than this.
“Research can be fabricated,” Emrys pointed out dryly, the condescending bastard. “Lab results counterfeited. It will take more than that to convince me.”
“But the video ... They’re moving so fast they blur.”
“Video speed can be altered with software.”
“But the trees are moving at regular speeds!”
“For all I know you could have videotaped those men fighting in front of a green screen, sped it up, then inserted the normal background.”
“I don’t know how to do any of that! I’m a scientist! A doctor! I’ve spent the last four years buried in my lab, not working as a fucking filmmaker!”
Emrys shrugged. “I haven’t seen you in years. How am I supposed to know how you’ve spent that time?”
Montrose rose and began to pace Emrys’s study. “Their eyes are glowing, and they have fangs.”
“The same could have been said of my son two years ago on Halloween. Personally, I doubted the safety of the glow-in-the-dark contact lenses, but he wanted them, and I tend to indulge the boy too much.”
“What is it going to take to convince you?” he demanded. John had not been nearly so difficult to convince. A glimpse of Montrose’s more intriguing research and a video of Casey sprouting fangs and draining a blood bag was all it had taken to draw him in. Time was short. Dennis grew more unpredictable every day. If Montrose didn’t give him the results he demanded ...
Well, he didn’t want to end up like John, did he?
“Bring me a live subject.”
Montrose stopped short. “You want a live vampire?” Excitement raced through him. He could do that.
“And one of your so-called immortals.”
That ... he couldn’t.
Emrys raised a taunting brow. “Why the hesitation?”
“I can get you a vampire. Dennis has assigned two more to work with me. But immortals are stronger and more resilient than vampires. I’ve been trying to get my hands on one for nearly two years now without success.”
Emrys leaned back and sipped his Scotch. “What seems to be the problem?”
“No matter how many vampires we throw at them, the immortals keep coming out on top. Nothing seems to faze them. They’re just ... that much stronger.”
Setting his drink aside, Emrys rose. “Wait here.”
Montrose watched him stroll from the room, then eyed the bottle of Scotch. Emrys hadn’t offered him any when Montrose had arrived on his doorstep unannounced. He had just poured himself a drink and proceeded to do his damnedest to make his old friend squirm.
Or beg.
Hell, if begging was all it took, Montrose would do it. Better to beg Emrys for help than return to Dennis empty-handed.
Emrys re-entered the room before Montrose could decide whether or not to risk pouring himself a drink. In one hand, he carried a metal briefcase, outfitted with a very high-tech lock, that looked as if it would survive a nuclear blast.
Emrys set the case down, facing away from Montrose, on the side table that separated the two armchairs.
Curious, Montrose retook his seat and waited while Emrys entered a security code.
A beep sounded, followed by a click. Emrys opened the case and spun it toward Montrose. “This should aid you in achieving your goal.”
Montrose looked at the contents, then up at Emrys.
What did Emrys know that he didn’t?
Hot water sluiced down over Marcus as steam rose all around him. The wounds that hadn’t yet healed stung at the contact as though being inflicted anew. Blood, some sticky, some crusty, softened and liquified, trailing down his flesh like paint following an artist’s brush.
Bracing his hands on the tiled wall, Marcus ducked his head under the pounding spray. His long hair straightened beneath the assault and fell in a sleek, gleaming curtain.
The water pressure dipped. The temperature fluctuated, shifting from hot to warm. Above him, Marcus heard the clink of metal rings as Ami stepped into the shower in her private bathroom and drew the curtain closed.
He turned the hot water handle until it almost shut off, wanting Ami to have as much hot water as she needed. Besides, cooler water would do him some good. His body ached with the need to race upstairs, join her in her shower, and run his hands over her glistening flesh.
He groaned.
The drive home from Roland’s had been a quiet one. Expectation had vibrated between them, lingering until they had arrived and stood staring at each other in the foyer.
Desire had burned through Marcus as Ami gazed up at him with shy invitation. But her shoulders had drooped with weariness, her face had been smeared with blood, and ... he needed to know the extent of her relationship with Seth before he considered taking things further.
Though Ami didn’t know it, the whole time they had been straining against each other on the sofa, Roland had been yammering in Marcus’s ear (a slight exaggeration—he had been whispering softly enough for his words to pass undetected by humans), asking Marcus why he was tonguing Seth’s woman.
You really are a suicidal bastard, aren’t you? he had demanded roughly. I had actually begun to have some hope for you, but ... anyone stupid enough to grab Seth’s woman’s ass must have a death wish. And she is Seth’s woman. Every time I see the two together, they’re joined at the hip.
Marcus had been able to block Roland out while Ami wrapped her legs around him and heated his blood with her kisses.
Now, however, those words fluttered back and wouldn’t stop pecking at him.
He reached for the soap and lathered up a soft cloth.
If nothing else, imagining Ami wound around Seth succeeded in dampening his arousal and rid him of the erection he’d sported ever since her lips had touched his. Just the thought of it made his gut clench and his fingers curl into a fist he wanted to plant in Seth’s face.
Which would probably be the last thing he ever saw if it came to that. He had no illusions over which of the two of them would win in a fight.
Ami began to hum upstairs. Marcus smiled, then winced as he scrubbed one of his cuts too hard.
Roland must be mistaken. Ami wouldn’t have kissed him the way she had if she were Seth’s woman as Roland persisted in naming her. Even Seth had admitted she couldn’t lie worth a damn. And keeping a relationship with Seth from him would be one hell of a lie.
The water pressure increased suddenly
as Ami shut off her shower. Metal rings clinked.
Don’t picture her naked. Don’t picture her naked. Don’t imagine her smoothing one of those fluffy, white towels over her pale, slick, perfect body.
And, just like that, he was hard again.
Sighing, Marcus turned off the hot water and embraced the frigid cold.
After five minutes of such torture, he dried off and covered his icy flesh with a dark gray T-shirt, a pair of black sweatpants, and socks.
He spent another couple of minutes working a comb through the tangles in his long hair, which he left to dry on its own. It took too damn long to dry it with a hair dryer.
Maybe he’d cut it short like Roland’s. It would certainly be less trouble.
He had only let it reach this length—had even grown a beard he’d kept until a couple of years ago—for Bethany.
Setting the comb on the counter, Marcus paused.
The pain that had always accompanied memories of Bethany had dulled significantly.
He frowned. Did that say something about him? Something negative?
Everyone else seemed to think eight years an inordinately long time to mourn Bethany’s loss, but to him it seemed short considering the eight centuries he had loved her.
One of the things that troubled him so much about Ami was that he feared he could come to feel for her what he had for Bethany. Maybe even more. With Bethany, after all, there had been no reciprocation of his feelings. No real chance to build upon those feelings, to know each other as a man and a woman rather than just friends. No intimacy at all. Not one single kiss.
Ami ...
Ami blew Marcus’s mind. If he let her, she could be everything to him, including his undoing. Because she wasn’t a gifted one and couldn’t become an immortal. He would lose her.
It always came back to that.
He would lose her just as he had Bethany, only losing Ami would be worse. He had known her kiss. Her touch. Her innocent explorations.
And she did seem innocent, despite the fact that she appeared to be in her early twenties.
Marcus wondered if Roland had felt this conflicted with Sarah. If he had wanted to get as close as possible to her and, at the same time, run far and fast in the opposite direction.
Leaving his basement bedroom, Marcus headed upstairs. Though he called himself every kind of a fool, he found his morose thoughts falling away as every step took him closer to seeing Ami again.
“Sap,” he muttered.
But he couldn’t help it. He enjoyed spending time with her. When he reached the landing, Marcus opened the door to the ground floor and couldn’t stop the broad smile that stretched over his face.
Ami waited for him in the hallway, pacing back and forth. Like him, she had left her hair to dry on its own, merely combing it back from her face. The ends had already begun to lighten and draw up into curls that floated on the breeze her smooth movements created.
Her small bare feet trod the bamboo flooring with fascinatingly inhuman silence. Her clothing mirrored his: dark sweatpants that settled low on her hips and a matching T-shirt that hugged a slender waist and full breasts that swayed with each step despite the bra he could glimpse the outline of beneath the soft cotton.
As soon as she saw him, Ami leaped forward. “Finally!” Grabbing his hand, she took off down the hallway toward the front of the house.
Marcus grinned as she pulled him along after her.
No, he just never knew what she would do next.
His stomach fluttered as their palms merged and she twined her delicate fingers through his, reminding him how he had felt as a boy sneaking into the shadows to share his first kiss with the blacksmith’s daughter.
“Hurry,” she urged him, “before he leaves.”
He? Who the hell was he?
Marcus sent his senses searching as she swung him around the corner and tugged him toward the kitchen. His ears registered no vampire, immortal, or human on his property.
Into the kitchen she led him and over to the sink. Her sweet scent, free of perfumes, distracted him as she drew him up against her side.
“There,” she said, and pointed out the window.
Marcus leaned forward and peered into the night. Like most immortals, he lived apart from others in a relatively isolated location. No nearby neighbors. Only field and forest.
The years he had spent in the house next door to Bethany in her typical, middle class suburban neighborhood in Houston, Texas, had been—apart from the time he had spent with her—fairly miserable ones.
Living amongst the humans he protected hadn’t always been so. But, in recent decades, humans had become a noisy, inconsiderate lot, acquiring a narcissistic, fuck-you-I’ll-do-whatever-I-want-whenever-I-want-and-if-you-don’t- like-it-you-can-kiss-my-ass attitude, blasting music in their garages, on their back patios, and in their homes for hours on end and booming ludicrously loud music in their cars and trucks every time they drove past. It was an assault on the senses that raised blood pressure and eroded peace of mind in humans who still believed in practicing common courtesy and proved physically painful, sometimes agonizingly so, to immortals with hypersensitive hearing.
Those brave (or insane) few immortals who lived in cities and suburbs sometimes had to spend tens of thousands of dollars soundproofing their homes just to achieve some level of peace.
Thankfully, Marcus no longer had that particular problem, surrounded as he was by nature rather than humans.
Beside him, Ami leaned forward and flicked on the back lights installed purely for her benefit.
Marcus could see clearly without them and scoured the backyard, looking for predators of any kind.
The trees in the yard itself were young, planted in the meadow when his house had been built eight years ago. Little could hide behind them. Nothing moved in the much larger and thicker trees that horseshoed around the yard and house. No figures lurked on the back deck, seeking entrance.
He and Ami had transferred their combined multitude of potted plants into the garage the day before to protect them from the freezing temperatures that would blanket the area for the next few nights, leaving the deck sadly bare save for several hanging bird feeders, a bowl of birdseed on the wooden planks, and a small, furry creature that stood with one foot in the bowl.
“You see it?” Ami asked.
Marcus glanced at her, followed her gaze, and realized she was watching the creature stuff its furry face. “Yes.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“An opossum,” he said.
“Opossum,” she repeated, seemingly fascinated.
Marcus smiled. Like him, she had proven to be a softie when it came to animals. “Many people simply call them possums. They’re the origin of the saying playing possum.”
She glanced up at him. “I haven’t heard that one. What does it mean?”
“Playing dead. When an opossum is frightened badly enough, it will lie on its side with its mouth and eyes open and emit a revolting smell, dissuading predators who prefer fresh meat by convincing them it’s been dead for several days.”
Brow furrowing, she looked back at the young marsupial. “What an odd tactic.”
The opossum, hearing their voices, looked up at the window, crumbs clinging to the white fur around its mouth and pointy snout, then went back to eating.
“It’s sort of creepy looking,” she said, brow furrowing. “Its paws look like hands. And its tail looks like a rat’s.”
Marcus nodded. “The opossum sort of reminds me of the platypus. Both look like an amalgamation of several other species.”
“What’s a platypus?”
Marcus leaned against the sink, still holding Ami’s hand, and contemplated her thoughtfully. “It’s a mammal native to Australia that lives near rivers and lakes.”
Shouldn’t she know that? The platypus was right up there with kangaroos, koalas, elephants, and giraffes in terms of peculiar animals that sparked children’s curiosity. It seemed odd that
she wouldn’t know it or at least have heard of it.
Added to the myriad of other things that were new to her, yet commonplace in much of the world, it left him wondering anew about her background.
“Where were you born, Ami?” he asked.
Turning away from the window, she looked up at him.
He hadn’t seen that spark of fear in her eyes since the night he had suggested taking her to the network for medical care. It disturbed him to see it now and know he had inspired it.
Her gaze slid away from his as she nibbled her lower lip.
“Why don’t you ever talk about your past?” he queried softly, rubbing his thumb across the back of her hand.
“You never talk about yours,” she countered hesitantly.
An unpleasant laugh escaped him. “Yes, well, my life has been a fairly open book. One that damned near every immortal and his or her Second has read and reviewed ad nauseam. Don’t tell me you don’t know. You referenced it the night we fought the first wave of vampires together.”
She cast him a sympathetic look from beneath her lashes. “I’ve heard a few things.”
He started to withdraw his hand, but she held on tight. “How much do you know?”
“Only what I’ve gleaned from Seth’s and David’s conversations with Roland.”
So Roland really had been worried about him. Who would’ve thought? “And what might that be?”
“That a few years ago you lost a woman you’d loved for a very long time.”
He sighed, not wanting to go into all of that. But he couldn’t expect her to share her past with him if he didn’t share some of his own with her. “If it came from Seth, Roland, or David, whatever you heard was probably far kinder than what some of the others have said. It’s getting late. Why don’t I start dinner, then we can talk?”
She nodded and released his hand. “I’ll make the salads.”
“No, you won’t,” he admonished. “Roland may have healed your wounds, but you lost a lot of blood before he did. You need to rest, Ami.”
“I’m fine,” she insisted.
She wasn’t, but would never admit it, so he played the card he knew would gain her cooperation. “You’ll either sit and rest while I do the cooking, preferably in here where you can keep me company, or we can make a quick trip to the network so you can get a blood transfusion.”
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