With another shrug, he said, “I liked Meghan. She made me laugh, when she wasn’t all wonky about being human again.”
“She was young, Blake. Too young.”
“So was I,” he said angrily, surprising her. “So were you. And unlike Diego or his little chit, I’m assuming you didn’t choose to become this way.”
No, Samantha thought. Becoming a vampire had been the furthest thing from her mind on the night she’d died.
New Orleans, 1861
“Is there anything I can do?”
Samantha brought a cup of tea to Mrs. Danvers, who was seated in a rocker by her son’s cradle, watching her husband pace back and forth. From the look on the doctor’s face, he didn’t like the way the illness was progressing.
Despite Dr. Danvers’ best efforts, his baby’s fever had been rising steadily. Now the boy’s breathing had grown labored.
“I know it’s late—” He quickly dashed off a note. “Please take this to the apothecary on the corner near the convent of the Ursuline nuns. He’ll still be open and able to make this medicine for you.”
The Danvers family had been more than kind to Samantha in the months since Ryder Latimer had secured her a position in their New Orleans household after the death of her husband. She was willing to help them in any way she could.
Samantha shot a quick look at the paper and hurried from the room. She paused only long enough to grab a shawl and check her purse for cash.
The walk wasn’t far, just a dozen or so blocks, but a low-lying fog blanketed the ground. It whirled and eddied past her long skirts. Even with the shawl, the damp chill reached into her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Or was it something else?
Was that a footfall behind her? She stopped and looked, but there was nothing except shifting fog.
Wrapping the shawl tighter around herself, she kept a fist clutched to the cloth as she continued on. But once more, the sound came. This time, Samantha didn’t stop. She increased her pace and rushed around a corner.
Holding her breath, she waited against the wall of a building but no one appeared. Telling herself that it was just her imagination, she turned—and found her way blocked by a tall man in a long black cloak and hat.
“Excuse me, sir.” She tried to pass by him, but he shifted to bar her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose once more and she stepped back. He followed her. She had only once choice.
Samantha ran, as fast as she could. But like before, when she looked behind her there was no one there.
She held a hand to her midsection as she tried to catch her breath. She had detoured a few blocks from the main street, into a part of the French Quarter that was not well-traveled at this time of night.
Merde. The Danvers baby waited at home for the medicine she was supposed to fetch. Concern drove away her fear. She turned back toward the convent.
She had gone only a block when footsteps chased behind her once more. She didn’t stop. She had something to accomplish. She would not let unwarranted fear keep her from the important task. The sounds behind her were just…
A hand covered her mouth as a man’s strong arm wrapped around her waist. Struggling against his hold, she kicked and rocked from side to side. But he easily picked her up and dragged her into an alley.
Samantha had little doubt what awaited her, but she wasn’t about to give in. She bit down hard on the palm clamped against her mouth. The man shifted his hold, but not long enough for her to scream. He quickly covered her mouth again and roughly shoved her against a wall. Her head connected with the bricks. She saw stars and shook her head to clear her vision.
When she was finally able to see the face before her, horror choked her. Her assailant was not a man. He was a demon.
His eyes were a bright unnatural green and long pointed fangs extended well beyond his upper lip. “Do you like what you see, cherie?”
He moved his free hand to the neckline of her dress and gave a vicious yank, ripping the fabric to reveal her chemise. With a second yank, he tore the fine lawn to expose her breasts.
Samantha increased her struggles, kicking and pulling, but the demon’s hold was too strong. His grip on her mouth was unyielding, making it hard to breathe. She clasped her legs tight together, but he was too powerful.
With his leg tucked between hers, he quickly made rags of her underthings and roughly opened her with his fingers. Then he shoved himself into her cruelly.
Samantha cried out in pain. It only brought a smile to her attacker’s face.
“It’s big isn’t it, cherie.” The force of his thrusts picked her up off the ground and ripped apart her insides.
Her tears made the demon laugh.
Anger filled her—against this violation and all the others she’d suffered in silence at her husband’s hands. She bit down. Hard enough to break the skin of his hand, and she kept biting even as he smacked her head against the wall.
“Like to bite, do you?”
The glow in his eyes intensified and his fangs grew. Almost as if he were excited by her struggles.
It made her hesitate. A hesitation that cost her her life.
The demon turned her head to the side, bared her neck and drove his fangs in deep.
Pain seared through her. She screamed and screamed, but no one heard her. No one helped.
“That’s a bitch, love. I’m sorry.” Samantha shook her head to drive away the memories. Though her recounting tonight had been matter-of-fact, she’d not yet been able to remember her turning dispassionately. And ever since the detective—Peter—had touched her scars, the first person to do so since they’d healed, memories of her pain and loss had been too close to the surface. Close enough that she’d needed to share them with Blake, a virtual stranger.
Blake’s commiseration was…unexpected. Propping her head in one hand, she examined him as if for the first time. He was a handsome young man, all the punk trappings notwithstanding. And tonight there was an unexpected sense of connection between them.
“What were you before?” she asked.
Blake motioned to Samantha’s drink, which sat untouched on the table. “Mind if I have a sip? I’m a little low on cash tonight.”
After she nodded, Blake took a drink. “Ah, only the finest for Diego, our little lordling, and his friends. That’s the way it always is. Even in my small village in Wales.”
She hadn’t known he was Welsh. His accent was more Cockney than anything else. “Is that where it happened? In Wales?”
“There was a rich man in my town. He had a penchant for young men and we were poor.” He paused and took another small taste of the blood, as if he were sampling a fine brandy. Maybe in the vampire world, it was. As he continued, the Cockney twang lessened and a rich, more cultured accent replaced it. “It had been an especially hard season. Crops were bad and my family was hungry.”
“You went to him,” Samantha said when he hesitated.
The pain on his face was unsettling. “What good was my virtue when the little ones’ stomachs were empty? So I went to him and he paid me. I became his favorite. One day he showed me his true face and then…he turned me.”
He slugged back the rest of the drink and angrily slammed the glass down on the table.
Samantha laid a comforting hand on his. “I’m sorry. I’ve misjudged you.”
“What of your family? A beautiful woman like you had to have a husband.”
&nbs
p; She had never told anyone before, but she couldn’t hold back after what Blake had just recounted. “My husband had been killed in a poker game.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she replied harshly. “He used to beat me. He killed our baby, so I was…relieved. Finally free.”
“Free.” Blake’s gaze was filled with yearning. “The only time I’ve ever felt that way was with Meghan. She made me feel free again. I didn’t want to lose her.”
“Is that why you sired her?”
“Yes. And you? Have you ever turned anyone?”
An odd combination of guilt and relief swept over her. “Only one. After my husband died, someone befriended me.”
“He was the one you turned? Did you care for him?”
She had cared for him, but not in the way Blake thought. “Ryder Latimer was a doctor. He’d helped me when I lost my baby and then after, when my husband Elias died.”
“How did he help?”
Samantha suddenly felt exposed before the punk vampire.
“Samantha.” The understanding in his voice convinced her to finish her story.
“Ryder had a friend whose wife had just had a child. Ryder arranged for his friend to hire me as his housekeeper and it was wonderful. The Danvers family was kind and treated me well.”
“Unfortunately, you didn’t live happily ever after.”
“Is there ever a happily ever after?”
An empty silence followed, as if the telling of their stories had drained them of words. Blake signaled the waitress for another round of drinks, and then proposed a toast.
“To finding Meghan,” he said.
“To finding Meghan.” Although with each day that passed, Samantha grew more doubtful that they ever would.
After taking a bracing sip of the human blood, which tasted as if it had just been drawn, she said, “Do you remember anything about the man with Meghan?”
Blake shook his head. “Only that he was carbon-dated.”
“Carbon-dated? As in—”
“Fossilized.”
“In English. Please, Blake.” She suspected Blake’s concept of old could range anywhere from thirty to eighty.
“Gray hair. Fiftyish? I don’t right remember. Human, I think. All buttoned-up and proper. Does that ring a bell for you?” he asked as he finished the drink.
Samantha racked her brains for anyone, either vamp or human, that matched the description, but could think of no one. “Not at all, but maybe Diego and Esperanza know.”
“Yeah, well. You can fill them in about Meghan’s friend. In the meantime, I’m going to take another look around. I intend to find her.”
With a wave, Blake sauntered away, his cocky swagger and good looks making a few female heads turn.
Normally Samantha would sit and wait for Diego and Esperanza to return, but she was filled with nervous energy from her discussion. Rising from the bench, she slipped into the crowd. An older man was likely to stick out like a sore thumb. And as for “buttoned-up and proper,” in a crowd of black, leather and chains, that kind of dress was like a neon sign.
Which made her wonder just why Meghan had gone with the old man.
Samantha worked her way through the throng and along the edges. Until she ran into Diego and Esperanza, who were huddled in a deserted corner, their search for Meghan apparently forgotten.
She tried not to look, but failed miserably.
Diego fondled Esperanza’s breasts and his leg was tucked tight between her thighs. Esperanza rode him that way, relieving her need for the moment. Her head was thrown back in passion, but then she sensed Samantha’s presence. Esperanza lowered her head, met Samantha’s gaze, and transformed. Then, she sank her fangs into Diego’s neck.
The power of that bite sent a wave of sexual awakening through Samantha. A yearning to share her life with someone besides the women and children at the shelter and her vampire friends. Someone who could love her like Diego and Esperanza loved one another. Someone strong and honorable like…
She hurried away, needing to put distance between herself and her friends. Between herself and thoughts of the detective she couldn’t drive from her mind.
Back at the booth, she grabbed the shot glass with what was left of her drink and with shaky hands, knocked back the last dregs of blood. As she placed the glass down, something caught her attention.
Blake, heading into one of the back rooms. Who had he been with? Someone older?
She tried to slip beyond the curtain but was stopped by the vampire who ran the private area. “No one comes back here alone. You know the rules.”
“Blake—”
“Had some company. Willing company.” He inclined his head in the direction of the main room and she stepped back beyond the boundary of the curtain like a coach passenger being chased out of First Class.
With her friends otherwise occupied, there was only one thing left to do—go home.
Home. Only, even with all the people waiting there for her, home suddenly didn’t seem quite so welcoming.
Chapter 9
F or the second time in just over a week, he was at the Artemis Shelter and calling himself a fool.
The review board that morning had cleared him in the shootings. Peter hadn’t expected anything else, but it was the first time he’d ever killed anyone in all the years he had been a cop. Inside, there was a dull ache that refused to go away.
The first perp had been only fifteen. The second one, who died on the operating table, had just turned sixteen. Guilt had eaten away at Peter all night and long past the review board’s verdict. It made little difference that ballistics had identified one of the guns as the weapon that killed the three teenagers the other night. No matter that the fingerprints taken from the two dead suspects had confirmed one of them as the shooter. The youngest.
An eye for an eye, the Bible said. Peter tried to find comfort in that and in the fact that he had prevented others from becoming the boys’ victims in the future.
He didn’t like violence, but sometimes it was necessary, he thought, leaning on the bullet-riddled fender of his car. And he didn’t want to think about how the recent violence in his life kept pulling him toward Samantha Turner.
She might be in danger. The third perp, a local seventeen-year-old with a long rap sheet was still on the loose. If he thought Samantha or anyone else in the shelter might have seen him, he might come back to silence them. That was the reason why Peter stood on Samantha’s doorstep. He needed to let her know.
At least, that was the reason he gave himself.
The comfort he experienced around Samantha Turner was…unwise. Possibly wishful thinking. His wife had shown him the same understanding at first. Then she had demonstrated her true colors by betraying him.
But Samantha was a different kind of creature. He sensed that about her. And he sensed that she needed…something. He didn’t know what. This fascination with the enigmatic head of the shelter was absurd.
But the temptation to find out more about her called to him.
The house was quiet. The women she sheltered were at work, their children at school. Sofia was in class at a nearby college where Samantha had managed to secure a grant for her.
Samantha was smiling when she answered the knock at the door.
“You should smile more often. You’re beautiful when you smile.”
The detective’s words wiped the joy from her face. “And
the rest of the time? How do I look then?”
“Sad, but still beautiful,” he said. “May I come in?”
She was tempted to tell him to go away, but there was something about him this morning that tugged at her heartstrings, reawakening the emotions she’d run from last night. “Come in, Detective. It’s rather late for breakfast, but—”
“I’m not really hungry, Samantha. And it’s Peter, remember?”
She had the leisure of examining him as he stepped in. His face was a little haggard, as if he hadn’t slept well. There was a small cut just above his brow. “Peter.” She motioned for him to make himself comfortable in the front parlor.
Politely, he indicated she should sit first. She chose the couch and was a little surprised when he sat down beside her, invading her space. She shied away, uneasy with his physical presence.
“Do you want me to move?” Peter pointed to the chair beside the sofa.
“No, it’s okay. Really. So what can I do for you today?”
He laid two photographs on the coffee table. “Do you recognize these young men?”
Samantha didn’t need more than a brief look. The teenagers’ faces had been etched in her memory. “They’re dead.”
Peter nodded. “Do you recognize them?”
Samantha touched the photos as if by doing so she could touch their spirits. What had they felt when released from their lives here on Earth? Had it been relief or regret? Or had it not even mattered to two souls with no regard for so precious a gift? “They were so young. Who killed them?”
Peter’s hands were clenched into tight fists. His body was tense. She didn’t need for him to tell her. It was there for her to see. His pain. His guilt. His confusion.
His emotions tore into her, making her feel more than she had in too long.
“I’m sorry, Peter.” She tried to cradle his cheek, but he yanked away from her touch. She recognized that defense all too well. Grasping her hands in her lap to keep from reaching for him again, she said, “Sometimes people deserve to die.”
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