Macey shifted against him, sending a little twitch of lust into the depths of his belly, for they were still joined. He came out of his moment of half-consciousness to help her to her feet, not quite ready to look at her yet. Not willing to see what was in her eyes and expression…and certainly not wanting her to see what was in his.
He spewed out a mental breath, shoving away guilt and remorse and a whole lot of other things, and focused on the fact that his body was still humming pleasantly and Macey didn’t seem to have any problem with what had just happened. Except that… Damn it to hell.
No condom. No bloody damned condom. Chas went cold, and the last remnants of pleasure were gone. Just like that.
“Well,” Macey said, jolting him from his dark thoughts. Her voice was breathy and low, and she was looking down at the tatters of her frock instead of up at him. “I think I might need something to wear.”
He found his voice. “I didn’t use a condom.”
Now she looked up at him, tucking her short curls behind an ear.
“I—uh—it all was—rather unexpected,” he added, desperately wishing the whiskey was within reach. “I don’t usually…need…” Fuck. Shut the fuck up, Woodmore.
She shook her head. “It’s all right. Temple gave me—well, there’s a concoction to prevent pregnancy. Victoria Gardella used to use it too, and I suppose her daughter did as well.”
Chas couldn’t quite control a blast of relief, but he hoped he managed not to appear too giddy. “Good.” He felt as if he should be saying or doing something to alleviate the tension between them—why the hell was there tension after that, anyway?—but there was a sort of prickly aura around Macey that suggested he keep his distance, even though only moments ago she’d been gasping for more.
Please, she’d whispered. Oh, yes, please, Chas.
Whatever she’d wanted, he’d given her. And it appeared, at least for now, that was all.
And he, at least, wasn’t going to complain. It was a hell of a lot easier this way. And for the first time in far too long, he’d allowed himself pleasure without needing a pair of fangs jamming into his shoulder.
“I don’t suppose you have a bathtub I could use,” Macey said, rising from picking up her strewn clothing. She leaned against the counter and tossed back the rest of her whiskey.
“Yes, of course,” he replied, a little taken aback by her matter-of-fact attitude.
For it was clear she wanted a soak—and he wouldn’t be invited to join her.
This was going to be very interesting.
FOURTEEN
~ A Dawning of Hope ~
Sebastian dragged himself from the dream as though he were fighting out of a deep, dark pit. He was hot, sweaty, and hard with arousal, for the nocturnal visions had been dark and erotic and compelling. Dangerous.
He sat up, a shaking hand pushing away the hair plastered to his face. No, he told himself. Not that. Never that.
But the dream tried to lure him back, insistent and tempting as the images filtered through his sleep-fogged, weary mind: soft white skin, lush curves, full lips parted with pleasure and desire, glossy, dark hair, deep, velvet eyes…first it was his Giulia, then Victoria…and then their images had metamorphosed into Macey: the perfect combination of both of the women he’d loved and sacrificed for. She was twining with him, touching him, opening herself to him…and he took. Viciously, passionately.
That was what terrified him.
And there was blood—from him, for him—shiny and sleek, sliding down the long curve of her neck, tempting him even now in his memory. His nostrils flared as if he could scent her here…though she wasn’t nearby.
He’d scented her tonight. Perhaps that was why this dream had come again—this time stronger, longer, more insidious and much clearer and more detailed than the ones that had previously tormented him. Harder to push away, more difficult to ignore. Terrifying.
He knew Macey had come to the Silver Chalice tonight, for though she hadn’t even broached the threshold, Sebastian smelled her. When Chas rose suddenly from the bar and didn’t return, he wondered…and when Ned brought him a message that they’d gone to Woodmore’s, Sebastian’s suspicions were confirmed.
Thank you for taking her away.
But they were at Woodmore’s. The two of them. Surely the natural thing would occur…the tension between them, though subtle and dark, had leapt and sizzled—just like it had done with Victoria and Pesaro all those decades ago.
That must be why he’d dreamt so deeply tonight. It had to be.
Sebastian closed his eyes and touched his vis bulla. The sharp, pain-laced energy skittered along his hand, jolting through the rest of his body—a welcome shock, a necessary reminder. Then, following his habit, he found the ruby signet ring Wayren had given him long ago when she knew his intention. It will give you strength, she’d told him just before Sebastian embarked on the journey that took him to Lilith the Dark and set him on this path of the “long promise.”
When the hell would this promise be finished, anyway, dammit?
The ruby ring was heavy and comforting—it was almost as steadying as Wayren’s own presence was—and Sebastian felt the edge of his anxiety subside. Thank you.
And then, continuing on the rite of sorts, his routine to remind him of who he was, from where he’d come, and why he was here, Sebastian touched each of the five copper rings on his other hand. The Rings of Jubai hadn’t moved for more than a hundred years, attached to his skin after he plunged his hand into the Pool in the mountains of Romania. It was then, as he knelt there with his hand in the horrible, cutting, thick waters, that Giulia had appeared to him the first time.
Help me.
Sebastian was never certain whether he’d actually heard her plea, seen her face…or merely desperately visualized it all in his mind, but she’d been there nevertheless. Freed to communicate with him, perhaps, when he donned the rings—or when he shoved his hand into the harsh waters of the Pool. He didn’t know for certain whether the Pool and the rings were the impetus for Giulia appearing to him, giving him the chance to save her, but the two events would be forever connected in his mind.
And that was why he’d secretly gone back to the Pool, long after things had changed for him, long after he’d lost Victoria.
Now, he touched all five rings, out of habit attempting to twist or loosen each of them in turn…and then he froze. His eyes bolted wide in the darkness. His heart thudded sickeningly.
One of them moved.
Had it? Had one of them moved?
His fingers were suddenly slick and clumsy, but he managed to try it again…yes. The fourth one moved. It turned, shifted just a little, rotating the slightest bit. For the first time in a century.
Surely it was a sign.
He could hardly breathe, afraid he’d been mistaken…but when he tried it again, the ring moved once more.
A quick, hard shudder rushed over him. His hands turned to ice, his pulse surged and leapt, his lungs felt constricted.
Surely this meant the time was near.
At last.
* * *
Macey opened her eyes to find sun streaming into the room. Through the haphazardly drawn curtains, she could see the roof and spire of a church, with its cross sitting proudly on top of it.
Next to her, the bed sagged a little under Chas, who still appeared to be asleep—“appeared” being the key word. She was certain he could fake sleeping as well as he did most everything else.
Everything else. She gave a pleasant little shiver at the memory of last night.
She hadn’t intended to end up here in his bed, but after her bath—and a long, steaming interlude of unpleasant thoughts—he’d poked his head in as she was wrapping up in a towel.
“Thought you might have drowned,” he said. “You were in here so long.”
“Takes more than a bath to get the best of a Venator,” she told him…and found herself distracted by his dark, broad shoulders—still bare and now mar
ked by her fingernails—and the rest of his nude torso. He was simply the most darkly attractive man she’d ever seen, and he tasted and felt as good as he looked.
“I’m going to bed,” he said casually. It was neither an invitation nor a rebuff. Simply a statement.
“Alone?” The word popped out before she thought it through. Or maybe in the back of her mind Macey already knew she no longer wanted to be alone with her thoughts. She’d had plenty of time in the bath to relive those moments with Iscariot, to see the evidence of his power and malevolence in the slender red line down her sternum and around her breast, and to battle back reams of confusion and fury—and even guilt. To wonder and regret and stew.
Being with Chas would keep her from thinking about Iscariot and Capone, Sebastian and her father…and Grady.
“That’s up to you, lulu.” He made it clear he could go either way, and for that Macey was both grateful and insulted.
Nevertheless, she gave him a slow smile and dropped her towel. When his eyes narrowed with invitation, she lunged toward him. He staggered a little as she slammed him into the wall, and they almost slipped on the tile floor of the bathroom before he yanked her out into the hallway, muffling her mouth with his.
They took a little longer this second time, but their joining was no less rough and hot. She liked that, she realized, as she lay there damp and panting next to him afterward. She liked that it wasn’t tender or sweet or sensual.
They—she and Chas—were people of violence. It seemed only right they should have sex the same way.
Still, though sated and loose and exhausted, Macey had a hard little knot of something in the center of her being—something sad and empty that kept her eyes wide open in the dark for far too long.
You’ll get over it.
You’ll get over him.
Now, it was the morning after and she looked over at her sleeping bed partner. His hard-planed face was soft and relaxed with slumber, and he had a lot of dark stubble—which had scraped and abraded her skin in several intimate places—and thick, tousled masses of hair brushing his shoulders and tumbling onto the white pillowcase. His shoulders and biceps were scratched by her, but they were also faintly scarred with fang marks.
Macey felt a little jolt of understanding when she looked at those scars. Some were perhaps a century old—perhaps even from the infamous Narcise, who’d apparently broken his heart—but most of the others were recent. Perhaps they were even from the night when she killed Alvisi last autumn. The memory of what she’d seen—Chas and some female undead, panting and writhing together—gave her both a flutter of arousal and a wave of repugnance.
And she’d seen precisely the same emotions on his face that night as well.
What a pair we are, the two of us.
The life of a Venator is a lonely one, lulu.
Perhaps they could be lonely—or less lonely—together. She looked at his face—blank and still and breathtakingly handsome with full, pursed lips and smooth olive skin dark with stubble, and all that black hair—and thought, I could love him.
Chas’s eyes opened suddenly, and Macey caught her breath as their gazes locked. Heat rushed to her cheeks and she realized she was uncovered from the waist up, and that she’d been staring down at him like a lovestruck girl.
“Good morning.” He spoke but didn’t move; she got the sense that he felt as awkward as she did.
She supposed he rarely woke up with his lovers. After all, he generally staked them when they were finished having sex. Or perhaps during; she didn’t really know. The thought made her belly shift unpleasantly and she licked her lips.
“I suppose this is a little unusual for you,” she said, then immediately regretted her bluntness. Her cheeks burned hotter and she automatically pulled the blanket up over her breasts. “But…thank you.” She added the last part quickly in an attempt to cover her blunder. “For last night. I was…”
“No thanks necessary, lulu,” he replied smoothly. “Like you said…it’s been brewing for a while.”
She looked down and picked at the decorative knots in his quilted bedcover. “Do you think my father could really be alive?”
Chas propped his head up on one hand. “I truly don’t know. And I’d tell you if I knew, Macey. I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Oh, I believe you. When have you ever not spoken the bald, blunt truth?”
He gave a short laugh. “Never. Or not for a long time, anyway.”
Silence for a moment as she picked at the coverlet threads. “Is she still alive?”
The bed gave a short, sharp tremor, he tensed up so sharply. “Narcise.”
Macey nodded.
“No.”
“Is that why you came here—moved ahead in time? What was it like? How did it happen? I can’t…I can hardly believe it. But then again, I’m a vampire hunter, so I suppose anything is possible.”
“She—Narcise—was very much alive when I left. And she was very happy. With someone other than me.”
“But you weren’t.”
He shook his head, his lips twisting in a sad, pained manner. “No.” He sat up abruptly, one powerful arm sweeping his pillow out of the way. “But I got over it.”
Macey didn’t think he’d really gotten over it. He still slept with vampires, didn’t he? He still had a combination of pain and pleasure stamped on his face when they were having sex. Surely that wasn’t “getting over” someone.
“And you’ll do the same.”
Her gaze bolted to his, and she saw cool comprehension there.
“Don’t think I don’t know what prompted all of this.” His smile was wry and knowing. “Not that I’m complaining. But.” He shrugged.
“I just don’t want him to get hurt—any of them to get hurt—because of me,” she added quickly.
It wasn’t just about Grady. It really wasn’t. She needed to protect all of them—Dr. Morgan at the library, Dottie, Sandy and her other friends. Even Flora.
“I can’t have a normal life, with normal people around me. I can’t have normal relationships. They’ll get caught in the crossfire—just like my mother did. My father learned that the hard way, and so did Victoria Gardella. I’m not going to make the same mistake they did.”
“I wish I disagreed with you.” He laid a hand over hers. “But I don’t.”
I could learn to love him, Macey thought again, looking down at their hands. I should.
Because then it would be easier to forget Grady. It would be easier to face Iscariot and Capone. It would be easier to ignore her father—whether he was dead or alive.
If she had someone with her. A partner. Someone to touch and talk to and hold, and someone who understood. Someone who was as violent and dark and angry as she was.
FIFTEEN
~ Of French Grammar and Semantics ~
Sebastian was alone in the pub, as he usually was just after dawn broke. It was a quiet time of day, and though the place tended to smell like stale spirits and body odor until he mopped the floor and wiped the counters, it was nevertheless quiet and provided welcome solitude. The simple tasks of cleaning and preparing for the night to come were a welcome routine for they were mindless and satisfying.
He had just returned from his almost-daily visit to St. Patrick’s Church at four o’clock in the morning, leaving the sanctuary just before the sun was about to rise.
This schedule necessitated him wearing a heavy cloak when he ventured into the infant light of day, and required his driver Ned to be on the watch for enemies of either the mortal or undead type. After last autumn, when he’d been taken for that unexpected ride in Al Capone’s limousine after one predawn visit, Sebastian took no chances.
Today he’d gone with a sense of expectation and hope. He sat in the church, basking in the silence as he twisted the loose ring on his right hand. But if he’d expected some great revelation or unexpected miracle now that one Ring of Jubai had begun to shift, he was disappointed.
Instead, he was alone but for
a cloaked, veiled woman who knelt on a prie-dieu in front of the Blessed Virgin Mary and hardly moved the entire time he was present. She gave no indication she was aware of his presence, though she was here nearly every morning when he came. She rose to her feet just before Sebastian was about to leave himself, and he saw from her movements that she was very elderly, stooped, and took great care with each deliberate step.
It was a stark reminder that he’d lived as long as—likely longer, for surely she couldn’t be 120 years old—this old woman, and yet he bore no outward sign of those many decades. A blessing and a curse.
Having made his sabbatical to the church, and having been disappointed that nothing seemed to have changed, Sebastian was in a foul mood when he returned to the pub. Surely it didn’t help that the explicit, discomfiting dream still lingered in the back of his mind, and that he hadn’t heard from Wayren for months.
Why was the bloody female never around when he wanted to talk to her? Wasn’t that just like a—
The interior door opened across the room—the one attached to the hidden private entrance from Temple’s aunt’s millinery shop—and Sebastian stiffened. Before she even came into sight, he’d sensed, smelled, recognized Macey’s presence.
Devil take it, not today.
But the minute she came through the door, he realized things were going to be even worse than he’d anticipated. She had fire in her eyes, and her entire being was a ball of fury and demanding. And the faint smell of coitus, of satisfaction and musk and sensuality, clung to her in a hot, red aura.
Sebastian kept his expression calm, even managing to show his normal, insouciant smile. He opened his mouth to greet her, too, but didn’t have the chance.
“Is my father alive?”
She barreled across the room and didn’t stop till she gripped the counter, leaning toward him, her chin thrust out and her eyes blazing.
Taken completely by surprise, Sebastian didn’t respond immediately, and Macey’s hand whipped out and grabbed the front of his shirt. Half up on the counter herself, she yanked him toward her so their faces were very close. Her energy, power, and essence enveloped him. “Tell me the damned truth, Sebastian.”
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