I lower my head and laugh as if I would present it that way. “I need to abstain from you for a couple of days.”
Confusion spreads across her features. “Alex, what’s wrong?”
“Loren found me last night.” I brace myself fearing how she’ll react. One vampire hanging around seems to be all she’ll tolerate.
Her mouth drops open. “The lethal vampire who made you?” When I nod, she confirms that she listened to me carefully the night I told her about Loren. “After all this time. Out of nowhere?”
“Francisco located him. Our computer guy tracked him down. He picked up the signal and thought it was me.”
“Can he help us? Is he going to get you out of this commitment?”
I drop my head. “Elizabeth, I can’t think of a way out of this. I just hope some extraordinary event, some fluke will relieve me from the obligation. There is only one thing I can do.”
“What’s that?” she whispers.
“Ensure that you and Annie will be safe.” I touch her knee gently. “I truly can’t predict what will happen. Loren easily smelled you in my cottage. Christiana already smelled you on me. I don’t know how any of this is going to play out. I have to make sure you will be protected against any retaliation.”
She crosses her arms. “How will you protect me?”
“I can’t. But Loren will.”
“You trust him with me and Annie?”
“I will trust him.”
“When?”
“After he’s bedded you.”
~ ~ ~
“Excuse me?” I must have heard Alex wrong. I spring from the bed to get away from him.
“Hear me out.” He walks toward me. “This is the only way.”
“He’ll only agree to protect me, if you let him fuck me?” She backs up against her closet door. “That’s pretty sick and cruel. I can appreciate how you feel about the man who made you, but—”
“Elizabeth, it’s not being cruel or taking advantage of the situation. He doesn’t know what you look like. And he’s got it bad for someone else. It was pretty gracious of him to agree to do this.”
“So, this is some pity fuck?”
Alex blinks. “Please stop using that word. It’s not fucking. He needs to make an intimate connection with you in order for his instincts to want to protect you to kick in. I can tell you from experience, my desire to protect you increased dramatically after we made love.”
This all sounds medieval, creepy, and sordid. How could Alex hand me over willingly? “And when did you and your sire want this to happen?”
“We need a few days for my scent to dissipate from your skin.”
“He can’t f— be with me if I smell like you? Wouldn’t that make it a little more erotic to him?”
Alex grabs my shoulders. “This isn’t a sex game, Elizabeth. This is for your protection as well as your daughter’s. I purposely painted a picture of myself and others like me as harmless, pacifists, even. Most aren’t.”
The feel of his hands affects me since he won’t touch me again for a while. Maybe ever, as he said, this Christiana bitch can smell me on him. Alex is nothing if not pragmatic. He won’t go to her reeking of another woman. Still, I can’t bear it. I lift my chin to kiss him but he turns away.
“I can’t,” he says with obvious pain in his voice. He gathers a bundle of my hair, smells it, and steps away from me.
“Then you need to leave.”
“I never expected it to be like this.”
“Like what? Good between us? Did you think you would just pound me a few times to get me out of your system and then go back to reading books in the middle of the night?”
“Maybe,” he admits with his head down as he walks toward my bedroom door. “I never expected to fall in love with you. Now, I can’t give you any kind of realistic life, if I’m being forced to mate with someone else!” His shouting will certainly wake up Annie and I will have to go to her.
The way he twitches, I can tell she’s awake.
I walk to the door and he steps out of my way.
“I guess as a vampire you couldn’t have given me any kind of realistic life, anyway,” I say quietly and leave the bedroom, before he can say anything else to make this worse.
When I return, Alex is gone.
Chapter 21
I broke my promise to Elizabeth.
I said I would never sneak into her house again.
It’s been several days though and I’m incapable of staying away from her. I revert back into a stalker, watch her from my car and wait for the lights to go out. I had her basement window repaired, but I figured out a way to get in through a cellar door. I swiped the key before I left Sunday night and had a copy made.
I sit on her stairs. It’s too much to be in her bedroom, I don’t trust myself. The sounds of her and Annie sleeping, their heartbeats, blood rushing through their veins is like listening to Mozart. When . . . when I have to go to be with Christiana, there will be none of this.
All I can do is hope for a miracle.
After days of prodding, Elizabeth agrees to meet Loren. I should have known she wouldn’t jump at the chance to sleep with another man. I appreciate at least, she wants to get to know him first.
Loren will be a gentleman. If he was ever a savage, that beast is long gone. He also understands how excruciating this will be for me. The idea of him touching Elizabeth fills my body with acidic venom whenever I give in to think about it. Still, this is what’s best for her and Annie. Loren is doing this as a sense of duty to me.
I set up their meeting in my office at the university after my Wednesday class. Elizabeth did not attend, claiming she was too nervous to concentrate. I considered cancelling the class, knowing I’d be distracted as well, but I honor my responsibilities. Even to my detriment.
I return to my office after the class and Loren is there. We make brief eye contact and he gives me a minute to properly shut down this part of my life.
“Your teeth are going to crack, Alexander,” he casually mentions, peering out the window. Even he acts uncharacteristically anxious about meeting Elizabeth.
I was grinding my molars so hard even he heard it. When I think of the fantastic sex Elizabeth and I have, the way she responds to me, then think of Loren taking her? I’m surprised my jaw isn’t broken.
The loud whack of a knock springs me to my feet. Even from out in the hall, Elizabeth’s light floral scent of spring air floats under the door and finds me. I’m not sure I won’t lunge for her myself when this steel barrier is out of the way.
~ ~ ~
Alex calls what would happen between Loren and me a protection ritual.
It will not take place tonight. The intimacy level he wants Loren to feel for me cannot be achieved by impersonal mindless stranger-fucking.
While I prepare to meet this Loren, my mind struggles to formulate a face. He’s supposedly very old and that gives me pause. Even though fiction depicts every vampire as gorgeous beyond words, I can’t imagine that’s always the case.
With my luck, he’s a short pasty man who was turned in his eighties, or nineties. Hunched over with long white hair and yellow crunchy fingernails shaped like daggers. Perhaps there’s a reason that little minx, Julianna ran off. This whole thing has me sick to my stomach.
I wasn’t sure how it would feel to see Alex’s face after so many days, but my legs weaken the moment he opens the door. All I can think is, I won’t be able to go through with this. I don’t want anyone else’s hands on me. Ever again.
“Alexander, let her in,” a voice, hinting of a strange combination of Italian and English, commands from a shadow.
The way my vampire acquiesces speaks to the respect he has for the creature who made him. I’m not sure I like to see Alex
in anything but a position of strength.
We don’t even have a moment to greet each other. Alex takes me by the elbow and gently steers me inside the office. The other vampire steps into a harsh bath of fluorescent light that provides me a better view of him.
Good God!
I actually trip at the site of him. To start, he’s a giant, but not wiry, lanky-tall like Francisco. This vampire has to be at least six-foot-four but he’s filled out and formidable. His broad shoulders taper down to arms, bulked up with muscles that scream power while they are crossed against his chest, like now.
Then, there’s his face. Holy cow. Chiseled cheekbones, angled profile, perfect nose. He can’t be real. That’s right, he’s not. He’s dead and this is what the venom did to him. Still, wow!
Despite his age, Loren wears a fitted black leather jacket, charcoal denim slacks, and a causal white button-down shirt. As usual, my vampire is a vest shy of a three-piece suit.
Seeing these two together makes me think there should be some rule against co-mingling. A pair of such beautiful men standing next to each other must draw a lot of attention. Especially in a close-knit, quaint city like Princeton, New Jersey.
“Good evening.” Loren approaches me and extends his hand while his eyes focus intently on mine.
“Hello,” I manage, grateful for Alex’s hand steadying me by the waist.
He’s a ten, but this vampire is a goddamn twenty-five. How does he walk the streets without being stared at and gawked over?
He flashes a smile like he read my mind, but this can’t be an unusual reaction to him. “I’m Loren Tagaris,” he says and bends to kiss my hand.
“Um, Elizabeth Lockspier. Nice to meet you.” I try to stop myself from shaking. I can only imagine how many human women this vampire beds a year.
“It’s quite the pleasure to meet you, Elizabeth.” Loren’s voice is musical and I’m drawn in by the odd accent. “And I bed enough women to keep me satisfied.”
I stagger back. He can read my mind and I didn’t feel a thing. Interesting.
“Excuse me.” I escape to the cramped bathroom in Alex’s office.
After I slam the door, I put my hands on the sink, thankful for the cool porcelain to bring my temperature down. I’d rather have Alex’s hands on my back or neck soothing me. After I scoop splashes of cold water in my mouth, I smile when I see that Alex listened to my advice and replaced the toilet paper. Just because he didn’t use the toilet, is no reason to be rude to guests.
Feeling only a touch more relaxed, I open the door, but my calmness evaporates as soon as I see Loren again. I lick my lips to restore them to working order. “You look pretty good for one thousand years old.”
Loren howls with laughter. “You were right, Alexander. Your human has an amazing sense of humor.”
I was never so relieved to see my vampire. He steps in front of Loren and takes me in his arms. These few days apart were agonizing. At night, I was calm enough to sleep, letting the high-powered tension of the day, along with the worry and ache for Alex, exhaust and drain me. While it makes Loren shift uncomfortably, Alex kisses me softly.
“Do you find Loren attractive enough, Elizabeth?” Alex asks, as if Loren’s beauty is a matter of opinion.
It’s like his height. It’s a fact.
“He’s quite handsome, yes.” I vocalize my thoughts and distance myself from how this makes me feel.
Alex narrows his eyes at Loren as he speaks in a derisive tone, “He finds you attractive as well.”
I highly doubt that. This vampire can have every single Victoria Secret model, one by one as they march down the catwalk.
Loren steps closer to me and it stills me instantly. “It’s okay. I don’t bite. In fact, I was told I’m a very good lover.”
A cool finger traces the angle of my jaw, sending my heart into a pounding I’m sure everyone on this floor can hear.
He and Alex step away to engage in a private conversation. The way Loren’s hands rest on my vampire’s shoulders worries me. What else could they be discussing? A thought shoots through me so violently that my legs wobble. When Alex is mated with Christiana, does that mean I would belong to Loren?
Finally, they remember I’m still in the room and Alex crosses it quickly to get to me.
He brings me to the window. His fingers curl toward me but cramp back. He’s so used to touching me that trying to stop the knee-jerk need he says he has to feel my skin or touch my hair must be like me trying not to close my eyes when I sneeze. “Loren would like to be alone with you, so you can talk and get to know each other.”
I begin to shake again. This is real. What’s more upsetting is that it has to be real. I nod, to show some semblance of bravery, but the pain in Alex’s eyes suggests he knows I’m full of shit.
The next cold hand on my back is Loren’s. As if he understands how difficult this is, he handles my departure from Alex like ripping off a bandage and whisks me out of the office.
I don’t even get a chance to say goodbye. Which may be too difficult, anyway.
Walking down the hall, Loren asks, “Can I buy you a glass of wine?”
“Sure!” I roll my eyes in embarrassment and hope I don’t sound like a slut, willing to go off with any strange man who promises alcohol. “Wait, you drink wine?” I can kill for a glass of anything right now.
“In limited quantities. My stomach thinks it’s blood.” He winks.
“There’s a nice bar just outside the south gate.”
He brushes his hand at the base of my spine and steers me in the direction of the building’s main door. “I know a much better place.”
Considering he’s more than one thousand years old, I take his word for it.
~ ~ ~
I’m not sure how long I’m catatonic after Loren leaves with Elizabeth.
It’s one of those things that no matter how many times you tell yourself something bad is going to happen, when it does it knocks the crap out of you.
Only my phone brings me around and I pray it’s Elizabeth telling me she’s hiding under her car and wants me to come find her.
No. “Yeah, Armand?” Grrrr.
“Alexander, how are you?”
“Good. But now’s not a great time. Can I call you back?”
“I had an amazing breakthrough with my research. I think you may want to see this,” he insists. “If I were you I would get over here right away.”
“Fine. Give me about twenty minutes.” I end the call and reluctantly get in my car to drive to his lab.
Armand greets me at the steel security door. I’m jealous of him. He has this world to retreat to at all hours. Thanks to the blissful ignorance of those around him, no one seems to notice he’s there around the clock.
“We can speak freely.” He nods to the other side of the lab.
My gaze slides over to the woman at a workstation whose heart rate spikes watching me. I smell she’s not vampire, and that she’s Armand’s lover.
Noticing my interest, Armand gestures to her. “This is Taylor, my assistant.”
When she holds out her hand to me, the warmth of her skin reminds me of Elizabeth. Armand’s scent clings fiercely to her. Taylor’s pheromones are highly potent. This affair with Armand is new. Why couldn’t I be anonymous in a lab like this, able to screw whoever I wanted?
Armand and Taylor exchange heated glances. They don’t have a care in the world, no crushing time bomb ticking above their heads. Many moons will pass, I’ll be stuck in Philadelphia with Christiana and Armand will be here fucking the woman on his desk.
“So what did I rush here for?” I need science to distract me right now.
“As you know, the primary focus of my research is to study human blood.” Armand comically tosses his clipboard aside and pul
ls out a massive binder from under his desk. His real research. “But, I’ve been messing around with another theory.”
I touch my chin and recall his lecture. Hosts and parasites. “What kind of testing have you done?”
“Thanks to those rogues who seem to enjoy destroying each other, I had plenty of dead vamps to experiment on.” He walks to the back corner and stops at a metal containment freezer. “Francisco brings me the bodies to dispose.”
“He discovered a nest of rogues?” Great, another thing to worry about when I leave Elizabeth.
“A few, actually. I falsified the paperwork of who they are.” Armand lowers his head to a monitor and swipes the screen.
“Elijah’s handiwork?” I flip the pages of the fake records, concerned Armand takes too many risks. “Wait, you have dead vampires in these?” The shock in my voice makes Taylor quickly glance at Armand.
“Yes and no.” He nods.
“Which the hell is it?”
“You tell me.” Armand opens one of the steel freezer bins.
Having been in the medical field for so many years, I don’t expect to be moved by what lies on the metal tray slid out before me. But I am.
To start, this man had some type of brain surgery. By Armand I suspect. Part of his head is shaved; a very long incision starts at the hairline then snakes down behind the ear.
What’s more startling: Armand said this was a vampire. While this man is dead, I would never guess he was vampire. “Armand, despite what your grant says, have you developed some kind of post mortem treatment to make a body seem human?”
He and Taylor exchange sneaky smiles, but Armand speaks. “Yes and no.”
I dump my aching head into my hands, not in the mood to follow Armand’s damn breadcrumbs.
“Alexander, you look tired. What’s going on?”
“You don’t want to know.” I collect myself. “Just please explain what this is about.”
Drawing Bloodlines (The Princeton Allegiant Series Book 1) Page 18