“This restaurant is my favorite,” she said.
He nodded and motioned for her to go inside. The smell of garlic assailed as she opened the door, and he wrinkled his nose. She threw him a look to ask if that bothered him. He shrugged.
“Luigi. How are you?” Stacy asked as they walked in. Luigi stood behind the counter and beamed, his white apron not so white, his bald head shining under the artificial light, and a bushy mustache highlighting his dark, swarthy features. “This is Chaz.”
Luigi bowed. “Nice to meet you.” Then the man turned to her. “You too thin, Stacy. I keep telling you. Mangiare. Eat.”
Stacy laughed, and he was glad, hoping she was beginning to calm down. “Luigi, you know I drive up here once a week for your pizza, not the girls.”
They sat at a table near the window. “Once a week?”
“Our sorority is headquartered here in Hoboken. I’m good at organizing. We run the annual ball. I know it’s just as easy to FaceTime, but it’s an excuse to see my friends.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Talking to me.”
She made a face, and he shrugged, hoping she’d remember their truce.
“I’m afraid nine hundred years of habit can be hard to shake.” He tried a peace offer. “Think you could trust me? Even though I don’t?” He didn’t have to add the word. She knew he meant ‘eat.’
She nodded, throwing him a look that said pizza yes, the rest no.
“Your house special. For two. And you look like a man who makes his own, yes?”
Luigi nodded.
“Then, let’s have a bottle of the homemade.”
“Just between us, eh?” Luigi cautioned. “Bring your own.”
“Luigi’s wine is some of the best I’ve ever had. How did you know?”
He lifted a brow. “Oh. Right. His head’s not sacred either.” She frowned. “You can drink wine?”
He smiled, only one side of his mouth lifting and that touch of sadness inside filling his gaze. “No more than a small glass. Anything more and well, think of your worst hangover times ten.”
“By all means, drink away.”
He deserved that. Then again, maybe he didn’t. “Right reasons, wrong execution.”
Her shoulders slumped a little, and her stony demeanor softened. “Apology accepted. Sort of. I’m not fond of having an offer of putting my life on the line thrown back in my face.”
“You’re right. And I would’ve played out the whole scenario.” Chaz figured he had nothing to lose. “You’d have enjoyed it.”
She tried to continue to be angry, but he watched as her lips twitched then parted in a smile. “You’re incorrigible.”
“And impressed that you hid your thoughts from me so well.”
Luigi brought an old family pasta dish and two plates to the table. Chaz leaned in. “If he doesn’t serve me, people get suspicious. You can take the leftovers home.”
She took one bite and sighed with pleasure. “Damn straight, I will.”
“I hope you get a chance to eat them.”
Her face fell, and she stopped chewing for a moment. Then she dug back into her food. “I’m pretty hard to get rid of.”
Chaz made the motion of eating. “I’m glad.”
A short while later, he watched Stacy push back from the table with a satisfied smile. Then she frowned. “You know, if Tori ever finds out I was here, she’ll know I was lying to her.”
“We’ll have to hope she doesn’t.” He motioned to Luigi for a check, gave him an enormous tip, and watched Stacy hold onto the bag with the leftovers like they were gold.
When they left the restaurant and began walking down Kennedy Blvd, Chaz remembered when he used to do this regularly. For a time, Chaz lived in New York City. He would let go and just enjoy, becoming one of the crowd, and reveling in the sights and sounds of a place with people. And though the city wasn’t New York, and there weren’t crowds out, there was a nice flow, a vibe, that he always appreciated.
As they walked, he thought about how long it had been since he’d simply enjoyed someone’s company. He looked over at Stacy to find a shaft of light from a streetlamp catch a few golden strands in her hair.
God, she was beautiful. Her bright blue gaze that could shine with joy, cloud with confusion, smoke with heat. On the outside, she seemed like a simple woman, but like Luigi’s wine, she was so much more complex. She was also human and as forbidden to him as his own kind. She had a mess-with-me-at-your-peril set of her shoulders. Where the women of his time were strong because they had to fight to survive, Stacy was strong because she wanted to be strong.
Damn it. She was human. He couldn’t have her, but she made him feel alive. The soft curve of her breast, the sexy swing of her hips. What he saw inside her. Like sunlight. Like compassion. What he would die again to have. Like love.
Maybe that was why he wanted her to live.
“How did you end up this way, Chaz?”
He sighed. He guessed he owed her that truth, at least. “My real name is Charles, of the first guard of the Tower of London. I was a soldier and a blacksmith. One day, a very dangerous prisoner was due to be executed. I’m not sure what made the commander request extra guards, only that I was one of them. Maybe he had a hunch something terrible was about to happen. I don’t know.”
Chaz remembered the horror, the paralyzing fear as he watched the poor jailer’s throat torn open. “You see, there was nothing unusual about escorting prisoners in those days, only I was never usually one to be requested. My skills were in honing blades, not using them.”
“Did you ever kill a man? I mean, in battle?”
He simply stared at her. “Of course. Just because I was a blacksmith, that didn’t mean I wasn’t a soldier. But I can relate to how you felt last night. I know what it’s like to become paralyzed by fear. A human can starve for weeks. Not a vampire.”
Chaz closed his eyes to blot out the worst parts of a scene that would never leave him. “The vampire inside the cell had what we call blood fever. Imagine your worst craving and multiply by one hundred. He kept raving about how he’d been double-crossed and that he’d made his payment. The day before, the jailer showed me a silver cross. Very ornate, one only a wealthy noble could own. He asked if I could change the design.”
Chaz opened his eyes. “The vampire tore open the jailer’s throat so viciously, you could see his spine. Drained him dry in seconds flat. Then it jumped to another soldier and did the same. The rest of the men tried to flee. Two had their necks snapped. The other, he simply lifted into the air and broke in half. I’d never seen such cruelty before.”
He watched her shudder, not needing to hear her thoughts as her face paled. “My god, what you must have been thinking.”
“Thinking?” He gave her a sad smile. “All I could think of was that it was going to drain me too. You see, I never found out this vampire’s name, but I understood anger. Obviously, the vampire had bribed the jailer with that silver cross to set him free, and the jailer reneged on the bargain.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Terrible? Worse than that. You see, my fear kept me there. I couldn’t move, and in all my worldly life, I’d never been afraid. He sank his incisors into my neck just as I have with you, so don’t think I don’t know how that feels either.”
She nodded in commiseration.
“But you only know a moment, Stacy. In that short space of time, while he drained me dry, I begged and pleaded for my life like a coward.”
“A human reaction, no?”
Chaz shrugged. “When he was finished with me, he threw me away like a piece of garbage and left me to die. Only I didn’t die. I wanted to, but I didn’t. And to this day I don’t know why. I became a vampire, but I never turned. I never became a vampire willingly. Which made me a vampire yet not a vampire.”
“I don’t quite follow,” she replied, her tone perplexed.
“I know. It’s a hard conce
pt to equate. Hell, even I had a hard time with it at first. As I told you before, when a vampire is made, their human body is drained of blood. But just as death occurs, there seems to be a moment of truth. The essence is transmitted. It takes, or it doesn’t. Some vampires become vampires to become immortal. Some out of revenge. Others because they believe they have no choice.
“But I wanted to die. I fully embraced the fact that I would die. To this day, I don’t know why I didn’t. And that makes me, well…There are others around the world who’ve suffered a similar fate—so that makes us different. It makes us a little more human. It sets us apart. We take advantage of that. We police our own kind.”
“I think I understand. You retained your compassion?”
Chaz smiled. God, she was smart.
“I know.” She held up her hand to forestall his answer, creases forming above her nose as her brows drew together, and her lips pursed. “Some of you don’t.”
“Mikhail was my friend. I met him when I was fairly young. He was like me. We safeguarded the world from our own kind. He became my mentor and taught me what I needed to know.”
“You loved him.”
Chaz nodded, a familiar sense of loss welling inside. “Yes. There haven’t been that many instances of a rogue that I know of in the last nine hundred years. Only a couple dozen. At least until six months ago.”
“It’s your job.”
“Mick told me it was why we were here, to keep all living beings safe from those who would destroy them. I don’t know why I was chosen or when I’ll be released from this duty. But it is my duty, and I’ll perform that duty to the best of my ability.”
She nodded. “I feel the same way.”
“I know. I wish I’d never gotten you involved, Stacy.”
“I’m glad you did. You need my help.”
“But you also must understand that as things stand right now, you’re in danger from every vampire in this city. And you’re on his hit list.”
She threw him a look. “Haven’t we been all over this already? I really can take care of myself.”
Chaz stopped walking for a moment to catch her gaze with his. “Not when it comes to vampires.”
She frowned. “I can handle it.”
Chaz shook his head. God, he hated this situation. “I have no doubt that you can. But you also have to understand that if we do, by some miracle, manage to figure out what’s going on, not only am I going to have to let you go, Stacy, I’m going to have to make you forget you ever met me.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I would die before revealing your secret?”
He frowned. “Yes, but you can’t keep that secret.”
“Your Lethe didn’t work on me again. It may be a secret I’ll have to keep.”
“Drug or no, once this is over, I can never see you again.”
Stacy whipped her head around and stared up at him with a strange gaze. Warm yet guarded. At first, he couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell him. Her gaze cleared and opened. Then he realized she’d told him this once before; she was willing to put it all on the line for him.
No one had ever offered to put anything on the line for him before.
Not even Mary.
Standing there, staring down into her eyes, Chaz felt his inhuman heart swell. He wanted to tell her how much her caring meant to him, but the words got stuck in the back of his throat. And he knew why. Because he couldn’t tell her. He didn’t dare tell her for her own sake.
He grazed his thumb across her cheek, and she closed her eyes.
God. Nine hundred years was an awfully long time to be alone. He might deny it with every breath he took, but it was true. He was alone and had been even before his death. It’d taken hundreds of years to acknowledge that he’d loved Mary and yet not known what love really was. Now he would never know, and his heart broke into little pieces, not only because of the danger he was putting Stacy in, but because he knew he could never really have her.
“So you just want to let me go? Up and walk away without so much as a by-your-leave? Bang. Done. It was fun while it lasted. See ya?”
Chaz wanted to put his fist through a wall, stand on a mountain top, and howl in frustration. “I don’t have a choice!” he exploded. “If I don’t, they’ll kill you.”
“Kill me?”
He simply stared at her trying to make her see the truth. Then the hairs on the back of his neck rose. He whirled to see a black limousine following them. Chaz was freaking mad at himself for getting lost in her gaze and not paying attention to his surroundings. Otherwise, he might have been able to get them away. Instead, he could only put his arm around her shoulders and wait.
Stacy was about to get her wish and find out if his fellow vampires would let her live.
High up on the cliffs of the Palisades overlooking the Hudson River, the mansion sat behind a tall stone wall with iron gates. Chiseled stone pieces fit into each other with seamless perfection, the detail of the work indicating how much it truly cost. With tall windows and lacquered wooden beams between them, the mansion gave an air of modern and ancient all at the same time. No one would think that a cell of vampires lived in a very affluent suburb of New York City. Why would they? The property looked like any other gated property in the area.
Which was the point.
Long ago, vampires realized they needed to be invisible to society. Why? First, creating new vampires was forbidden. If someone turned a human being, there’d better be a damned good reason. So there were a whole lot more humans than vampires walking the earth. Second, fear made humans dangerous. Yes, vampires were stronger and faster, but vampires kept to themselves, strangers created suspicion, and mobs turned ugly with little provocation and had throughout time.
Chaz laughed to himself. Hiding in plain sight hadn’t always been easy, and his usual modus operandi for feeding was a lady’s bed. But jealous husbands could be just as dangerous as rogues at times.
Rogues. Only one vampire that he knew, Samira Anai Se-Bat or Sam for short, was exempt from that fate. She was a high priestess of Ancient Egypt, turned with the blood of the ancients. Sam was of pure blood and the oldest of their race.
The limousine pulled into a driveway, and the gates opened automatically. No visible security was necessary for the mansion. The vampires inside would know if the visitor trying to enter had been invited or not.
Chaz got out and walked up the steps trying to dispel a feeling of absolute dread, and when their guards took Stacy away from him, his stomach went south. She turned her chin over her shoulder as she struggled, but to her credit, the look she gave him was one of trust. He nodded, knowing he was going to have the devil of a time living up to that look.
Chaz walked into the room and noted the lack of windows. The room reminiscent of an older age with its vaulted ceiling, but there were no paintings on the walls, no sconces to light, no crystal to shine. Simple. Austere. Much like his host.
Close cropped black hair, long aquiline chin, Hunter Pierce was one of the oldest vampire leaders and a member of The Council. The New York cell was his cell.
Hunter entered the reception hall, shoulders back, and head held high. “You really blew it this time, Charles.”
“Did I?” he replied, not really appreciating Hunter’s use of his given name.
Cold gray eyes stared back at him without emotion. Their gazes fenced for a few tense moments. As one of the oldest vampire leaders left, Hunter didn’t waste time with amenities. Or wasted emotions. Hunter’s brow lifted ever so slowly in answer. While on this property, Chaz and especially Stacy, were at the mercy of Hunter’s decisions. Chaz tamped down on his fear and reined in his thoughts. “You’re as disturbed by this rogue as I am,” he answered. “And you know it.”
Hunter tented his fingers and tapped the first two against his chin as he leaned back in his chair. No other furniture graced the room. Which was meant to intimidate.
He figured Hunter knew he was successful at it.
“Yes, but I’m not sure which is bothering me more. A human knowing we exist or another rogue vampire running loose in the area.”
“Hunter.” He paused and swallowed. “It’s one of us. The Paladins.”
If Hunter was shocked, he certainly didn’t show it. “Not anymore.”
Pain knifed his guts. “I have to stop him. You know I do.”
“And the woman?”
“She’s the least of our problems right now.”
“Our problems?” the vampire leader asked, his tone a bit incredulous.
“Look. She’s my responsibility,” Chaz tried to reassure him. He didn’t want Hunter to find out he’d enlisted Stacy’s help. That might turn out to be a disaster. “She won’t betray us,” he insisted.
“So you say.” He cocked his head, the stare growing harder. “And why is that, Charles? Why hasn’t she been enthralled?”
“Because she might not live long enough to be a threat. The rogue has her scent.”
He watched Hunter’s gaze fill with surprise at his statement. “Indeed.”
“I wouldn’t have allowed you to bring me here if I wasn’t sure, Hunter. The rogue will come after her. We thwarted its will once. You know there won’t be a second time.”
The vampire leader frowned but answered without emotion. “Yes, I do.”
“Hunter.” He paused. Chaz hadn’t said before, but now he needed to make the man understand. “It’s…it’s Mikhail.”
Hunter’s eyes widened but the vampire did nothing more to acknowledge what that meant. Stoic described Hunter the best.
“But that’s nothing compared to our growing problem,” he told him, bothered by Hunter’s lack of emotion.
Vampires made great soldiers, they knew how to fight, how to protect, but not how to be great friends. Making him wonder. Would being alone always be the curse of his kind?
“I know,” came Hunter’s cool reply. “I believe this makes three in the last six months.”
“Then, you might also want to know something else.”
“And that is?”
“Before I found the rogue, I met a couple of young vampires. Not newly made, but pretty young.”
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