by Morgan Hawke
Rick grabbed her jacket and bag from the chair. “To put you to bed. It’s late and I want to get some sleep.”
- Seven -
Vault
Rowan followed Rick past the main staircase, then stopped right by the small table with the lamp in the dimly lit hall. Turning to the right, he faced the side of the staircase, then reached up and pressed something. Rowan heard a distinctive click. A hidden door painted and papered to blend into the wall, swung out into he hall. He flicked a switch and light filled a narrow stair that descended steeply under the main staircase.
Rowan’s eyes widened. “You keep the guest room in the basement?”
He glanced back at her with a wry smile. “In your case, yes. It’s a vault.” He waved her into the alcove under the stairs. “Come on.”
Rowan dug in her heels and eyed the narrow alcove with skepticism. “A vault? In your basement?”
“Yes, I have a vault in my basement.” He sighed and rolled his eyes at her. “I had it put in when I built the house.” He tapped his foot and jabbed a thumb at the tiny stair. “Will you come on?”
Rowan looked up at him. “You are not serious? You want me to sleep in a vault in your basement?”
“Yes, I’m putting you to bed in the vault.” He sighed, then unceremoniously grabbed her elbow and pulled her into the small alcove, then shoved her toward the stairs.
“Hey!” Rowan grabbed the handrail to keep from skidding down the stairs. She turned to face him. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He closed the door firmly behind them. “I already told you, I’m taking you down to the vault.” Rick scrubbed at the back of his neck, then stepped past her and yawned. “It’s where I sleep.”
Rowan nearly tripped. “Where you sleep?”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say?” Rick started down the stairs carrying her bag and jacket then turned to look at her in annoyance. “Trust me, you are far safer in the vault with me. Come on.”
Rowan turned to look at the door. “Safer?” There was no knob on this side. She couldn’t see a way to open the door. “With you?”
Rick frowned. “I don’t know how safe you’d be anywhere with Klaus in the house. He doesn’t actually have to sleep, just stay out of direct sunlight, and he holds a corporeal form indifferently. There’s not a single place in this house he can’t get to you.”
“So, I’d be no safer in the vault with you?”
He shrugged and bit back a smile. “We’re better off together. If Klaus pops in for a snack I can hold him off long enough for you to…” Rick wiggled his fingers. “Do something.”
“Terrific,” she said sourly.
He leaned against the banister to stare at her. “You’re not going to be able to open the door from this side, so you may as well follow me. Unless of course you really want to spend the next few hours on the stairs?” He shrugged and started down. “By yourself.”
Rowan made a face at the descending vampire’s back. Piss and firewater… I don’t exactly have a choice here. She grabbed the narrow banister, then followed the vampire down.
The stairs ended at a huge vault door that looked like it belonged more to a high security bank rather than to a bedroom. Rick pulled on a huge handle and the round door swung silently toward them.
“That door has to be at least three feet thick,” Rowan remarked softly.
“It’s four feet thick and tungsten alloy steel, layered with brass. The bedroom floor, walls and ceiling are just as thick as the door.” Rick grinned. “A bomb could go off and we’ll never know ‘til we get up.”
“Terrific,” she said sourly.
Rick shoved the door open wide. “Welcome to my chambers.”
Rowan stared at a huge room and her eyes opened wide. It had to be the full breadth of the house. Two rows of immense and smooth round columns of black-veined marble supported a twelve-foot ceiling. A vast bed set up on a broad, three-stair marble pedestal occupied the center of the room. The rounded art deco headboard and footboard were of solid black marble.
The distant walls were painted in deep red with black trim. Black velvet curtains draped to the floor, framing enormous, gilt-framed landscape paintings of dark, brooding mountains in place of windows. An antique art deco black lacquered armoire and matching mirrored dresser sat against the far wall near a white-painted door.
Rowan raised a brow. “Wow, this looks like a cross between a bordello and a mausoleum.”
“Thank you, I think.” The sarcasm was thick in his voice.
With a gentle push, Rowan was shoved into the room. Her feet sank into thick silver-gray carpet. Rowan glanced over her shoulder at the vampire. “Business must be good if you can afford all this.”
“These are just a few things I’ve picked up on my travels.” He pulled vault door closed. The lock engaged with a decisive clank. “There’s a full bathroom through the far door.”
“This is not what I had in mind for sleeping arrangements. I can go to a hotel…”
“No.” He shook his head firmly then walked past her toward the bed. “I want you in here, with me.”
She walked toward the imposing bed and glared at him. “What the Hell for?”
He glanced back at her with a sarcastic grin. “You mean beyond the obvious?” He dropped her satchel by the side of the stairs leading up to the bed.
Rowan flinched. That was a stupid question.
He chuckled then climbed the stairs. “Actually I have another reason beyond that.” He flopped carelessly across the end of the mattress. “As far. I can tell Klaus still hasn’t fed and damn it, I don’t want to wake up bled half dry and snuggled up next to him.”
She stopped at the foot of the stairs and smiled sourly. “What? Am I your bodyguard now?”
“You know, that oath really came in handy.” Rick abruptly rolled to one side and propped himself up on one elbow. “Your light doesn’t bother me a bit now.” He licked his full lips, then smiled suggestively.
“Just keep rubbing it in, Fang Boy.” She gave him a nasty grin. “I can get creative if I have to.”
His smile broadened, showing the points of his fangs. “I’m looking forward to it.”
I’m going to ignore that. She raised a brow. “You know, I can ward a hotel room and most come with two beds.”
“You can ward against daylight?” He raised a brow.
Rowan shook her head. “I’m not that good, but most have light-blocking curtains.”
“That would be fine, except for one thing, when I do sleep, I have to be under ground level and I have yet to see a hotel that has rooms in the basement.”
“You have to sleep underground?”
He shrugged. “It’s a vampire thing...”
“Look, Rick, I really don’t want to share a bed with you.” Rowan hugged her bag to her chest. After all the magic I just used, when my sex drive kicks in it’s going to be a whopper. Sharing a bed with the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen will be far too much to resist, vampire or not.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s my bed and I am not sleeping on the floor.” He watched her face then pointed a finger at her. “And neither are you, so don’t bother suggesting it. Klaus can come up through the floor. I’ve seen him do it.”
“You are making this really hard on me.”
He smiled. “Not yet, but getting there,” he said very softly.
“What was that?” She looked at him suspiciously.
“Nothing…” He bit back his smile and shook his head. “Not a damned thing.”
Rowan raised her brow at him. Do I really want to know? She thought a moment more. No, I don’t… She looked at the vampire lounging on the bed. He was looking very smug about something. She shook her head then frowned, pacing back and forth across the thick carpet. “I’d ward this room against him, but I have no idea why the barrier spell around the house didn’t work and it’s active, I can feel it…” She stopped and rubbed her eyes tiredly with a hand. “He waltzed right in
as though it wasn’t there; like he’d been invited.” Rowan looked over at the vampire with a sudden nasty suspicion. “Rick, did you tell him that he was welcome in your house?”
Rick abruptly slid off the opposite side of the bed and busied himself with pulling back the deep black brocade comforter. The sheets and pillows were a vibrant crimson. “I, um, told him it was okay to come talk to me.”
“You told him that he could come talk to you?” Rowan’s mouth fell open. “You issued an invitation?”
Rick turned to face her. “I didn’t think he’d follow me home and I certainly didn’t expect him to hang around.”
An inarticulate sound of utter frustration burst from her lips. “Mother of us all, no wonder the damn spell didn’t have any affect on him, it was designed for uninvited guests!” She turned away and wiped her hands down her face. “I don’t believe this. A vampire that invites another vampire to come visit.” She wheeled to face him with her hands on her hips. “Don’t you know any of your own vampire lore?”
“What lore?” He frowned. “Most of that stuff is pure crap.”
“Damn it, Rick!” She stomped her foot on the thick carpet. “Even the movies have it right when they tell you not to invite a vampire into your home!” She jabbed a finger at him. “You should be scared to sleep! Traditionally, as your guest, he has every right to dine under your roof.”
“I just wanted to talk to him.” Rick bit his lip.
Rowan threw up her hands. “What the Hell for?”
“I’ve never met another as old as he is.” Rick turned his back to her and shrugged. “I want to know what changes are coming to me. I get older.”
Rowan frowned. “That’s it?”
He arranged some of the pillows. “And, uh, he told me that he might be my sire.”
“Your sire?” Rowan tilted her head to the side. “I thought you knew your sire?”
Rick bit his lip and looked at her from the corner of his eye. “I wasn’t exactly in the right frame of mind at the time to commit everything to memory.”
She looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean; the right frame of mind?”
He gave her a vague shrug. “I was barely conscious the whole time.” He busied himself with folding the blankets on the foot of the bed. “I was on the edge of starvation and I was dealing with blood-loss from a bullet in my shoulder when he um, changed me. After that, everything is kind of a big blur. ” He shook his head. “He never told me his name and I um, can’t quite remember what he looks like, only that he was Russian, like Klaus.”
“I see.” Rowan shook her head. “So when Klaus said that he might be your sire, you believed him?”
“If I’d believed him, you wouldn’t be here.” Rick looked over and smiled grimly. “That’s the other reason I wanted you here. You’re the only reliable lie-detector I know.”
“He’s not your sire. He doesn’t even feel like you.”
“I guessed as much.” He stared at the bed sourly.
Rowan bit her lip. “Look, I’m sorry.” She walked toward the bed. It must be hard not knowing where you came from.
He shrugged carelessly and gave her a grim smile. “Truthfully, I’m relieved. Klaus for my sire is a very scary thought.” He sat down on the folded blankets at the end of the bed. “So now what?”
She stopped at the stair on the side of the bed. “Now, I have to reprogram the spell.” She pressed her fingers to her temple. Her head was still throbbing.
“That simple?”
She shook her head and climbed the steps. “Not that simple.” She frowned thoughtfully and pressed her hands into the scarlet sheets on the thick mattress. “Klaus now knows that I spelled the house to repel unwanted guests, so he’s probably guessed that he’s not exactly welcome.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, he has to be off the property for me to key the barrier to him personally. I surprised him last time, so he left. He’ll expect me to reset the barrier, and now he probably knows that the range of my radiance is limited. I may not be able to get him off the property far enough to key the barrier, or even out of the house.”
“Oh…”
“’Oh’ is right.” She turned and sat on the side of the bed facing one of the gloomy paintings then yawned. She twisted around and looked dejectedly at the vampire. “What if I can’t get him out?”
“I have a better idea.” He slowly leaned across the bed toward her then rested on one elbow.
Rowan looked at him suspiciously. “What?”
He tugged the elastic from his hair. It fell in a silken, midnight cloak over his shoulder and spilled on the scarlet sheet. “I vote we sleep on it and worry about it tomorrow.” He smiled and began unbuttoning his shirt with one hand. Pale skin and the lean muscle of his breast slid into view along with an erect masculine nipple.
Oh, shit… Rowan leapt off the bed as though it was on fire. “Um, then I better get to warding the room.” She took a few hasty steps to her satchel, knelt and fumbled among the contents.
“That’s interesting...Death doesn’t seem to bother you, but sex does.”
Rowan dug around in her satchel and refused to say a word.
The sheets rustled on the bed. “You’re ignoring me.”
Rowan nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“Come on, you can tell me. What is it about sex that scares you so much?”
Rowan turned around with her black handled dagger in her hand. “I’m not sleeping with you, so what does it matter?”
“Fine, okay, whatever... I’ll change the subject.” Rick sat up to watch her and tilted his head to one side. “Will the ward you’re working on now keep Klaus out?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, it’ll work, but that’s because I’m going to use an archaic seal.”
“An archaic seal?”
Rowan gave him a small tight smile. “Let’s put it this way: if you need anything, you better go get it now.” She stood up with her black-handled dagger shoved in her belt, a small cloth bag of salt in one hand and five silver-dipped horseshoe nails in the other.
He pulled his unbuttoned shirt from his pants. “I think I have everything I need.” Rick leisurely peeled the shirt from his shoulders. Muscle rippled in his arms.
Rowan couldn’t help but stare at the defined planes of his broad chest and arms. Her eyes latched onto a jagged double scar, pale with age, that started at his shoulder and curved down onto his upper chest. It looked like someone had taken two claws—or two fangs—and savaged him. She swallowed and tried to look away. “Are you sure you have everything?”
With a small smile, he reached for the belt on his jeans. “I sleep in the nude.”
Rowan’s mouth fell open. “I am so not sleeping in that bed if you’re naked!”
“What?” He grinned and slid the belt from his pants. “Shy?” His hand went to the button on his pants.
Rowan turned her back to him. “I can sleep on the floor and ward myself against both of you—You can wake up with Klaus, for all I care.”
“All right, already!” He chuckled and Rowan heard him step off the stairs. “I have some pajama bottoms in my dresser somewhere. You can go to the bathroom and change into your nightclothes. I’ll change out here and you can ward the room after.”
Rowan turned cautiously around. He was over by the dresser and rummaging through a drawer. She stared at the muscular line of his back and her mouth dried. I’m going to share a bed with that? I must be insane. She swallowed hard. “Um, I’ll sleep in my clothes, thank you.”
He turned around with a double handful of black silk. “The Hell you will. Not in my bed.”
Rowan crossed her arms under her breasts. “My suitcase with my night clothes is still in my car.”
He leaned back against the dresser and raised a brow. “If you want to sleep nude, I won’t mind.”
Rowan tossed her head, ponytail flying. “Oh, give me a break!”
He rolled his eyes and stalked toward her with a smi
le firmly on his lips. She stepped back and he lunged, grabbing her wrist in a blur of motion. “Here,” he said sourly and shoved a handful of black silk into her palm.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the top of my pajama set. I’ll wear the bottoms.” He pushed her to the bathroom door. “Now quit being a pain in the ass, and go change.”
Pushy bastard… Rowan flicked on the bathroom light and gawked. Holy shit! She closed the door behind her as an afterthought.
Everything was silver-flecked white marble and chrome. By the sink were tiny bars of luxury soap in a tasteful dish beside a silver comb and brush set and a small pile of neatly folded white face cloths. Huge fluffy white bath towels edged in silver sat on a small table nestled between a glassed in shower stall and the silver curtain that was pulled back to reveal the tub.
Damn, you could have an orgy in here. The bathtub was enormous, with three steps that led down into a marble basin large enough to hold four bodies comfortably. It was mounted with jets that were obviously meant for a spa. A small wicker basket holding at least a dozen different kinds of shampoos and not a few designer bubble baths perched on the edge of the tub.
Rowan put her dagger, salt and the loose nails on the counter by the sink, then sat on the edge of the tub. With a sigh, she peeled out of her clothes, folded her jeans and tucked her underwear discretely into her T-shirt. She unfolded the pajama top she’d been given. It was short-sleeved, but long and very soft. Must be made of real silk.
Rowan looked longingly at the shower stall and decided against it. Stark naked, she ran hot water in the sink, unfolded a washcloth, then unwrapped one of the small bars of soap. Hastily, she scrubbed her face and body, drying herself with a white towel.
She pulled on the black silk shirt. It fell to the top of her knees. Rowan looked at herself in the beveled mirror and bit her lip. I look like an advertisement for a porno-movie. Even though she had buttoned all the buttons the shirt had, the neck plunged deeply, showing the swell of her breasts and emphasizing her pale skin. A single button sat directly between her breasts. If she moved just wrong, she was going to pop out. And all my safety pins are in my bag out in the other room. She picked up the brush and dragged it through her long, tangled mane.