In the next second the mirror was gone, cascading down the wall in a waterfall of glass. Then the one next to it. And the one beside that, until every mirror in the practice room lay at his feet, so many shards of silver.
His left hand had shattered as well – the impact from his staff against the mirrors had fractured it. He swung the staff around again, a growl that turned into a cry of rage escaping him. Mounted swords and knives crashed to the floor, beams and bars for balancing and strength came down under the staff, until Sebastian swung his eyes around once more and found nothing left to attack.
He screamed once and launched into the practice dance with such fury, such vehemence, that he finished in moments. He started over. Again. And again.
“And if you do not, you will share her fate, which shall be neither quick, nor painless.”
He longed for Specter’s perfect face to be what he shattered, ached to pound his staff into Specter’s body until he lay limp and dead. Unmoving. Gone.
Damn. Damn.
“Damn!”
In the living room, the phone rang.
Sebastian stopped. It rang again.
He wrenched the practice room door off its hinges, stalked through his apartment to the living room and grabbed up the phone. The lobby attendant. He spoke, but Sebastian heard only the news that someone had come.
“I’ll send the car,” he snapped into the phone and slammed it down.
They had followed him after all. If they thought they could come sauntering into his home, walk in through the front door and take him in his own territory, they were wrong. He wanted nothing better than to show them how wrong. A smile broke across his face. He punched the call button hard enough to crack it, then stepped back to wait.
The elevator hummed to a stop on his floor. He flexed the arm holding the staff. The one that Specter had ruined last night. It was fit and strong tonight, healed in his sleep.
The doors slid open. He tensed.
Josephine. Alone. A frown on her rich red lips. His disappointment lasted less than an eye blink. The scent of her blood called to him, the thick, cold blood of another vampire. He imagined his fangs sinking into her flesh, felt the desperate need to do something –
She stepped off the elevator. The doors closed. Her frown deepened. “Are you –”
Sebastian flung the staff aside and leaped, taking the full distance between them in that leap. Her expression registered her shock as he did.
He took her shoulders in his hands, gripped them tight . . . and paused. Her shoulders were thin and small in his hands. Her posture open and undefensive, not fighting him. She was not the pack. Not Specter. To kill her would be purest murder.
He loosened his hold on her, but before he could release her, her expression changed. She lifted her hands to place them on his arms, her face soft. Mistaking the nature of his grip on her.
He opened his mouth to explain, to apologize, to send her away so that he could scream and beat things. She stopped him with one word.
“Sebastian.”
He paused. More because of the tone than the word – it sounded so familiar –
Sarah, pressed close to him, sweating, reaching for him, moving with him –
“Donal.”
Suddenly his grip on her was no longer a mistake. He stared at his hands on her shoulders while an entirely different need took him, with as much intensity.
She kissed him.
Something hot raced through him, a shudder, a desire – he returned the kiss, pressing tight into her, felt her fangs slide into his lower lip. His fangs found her skin, sliced it wide. He sucked at the wound, dizzy with the scent of her, the taste of her. She gasped, whispered his name. Clutched her nails deeply into his back.
He had been about to kill her, some dim part of him remembered. Murder her. Because of frustration.
He would have regretted that. Would have hated himself for it. This . . .
He did not know if he would regret it.
But he would not hate himself for it.
She kissed him again and in that instant, he let himself give up caring.
PENTHOUSE
“As I was saying.” Josephine leaned close to murmur into his ear. “Are you all right?”
Sebastian opened his eyes to look at her. Her face lingered close to his, curious. That question again. How are you? Asking so much and so little in the same sentence.
“I am healthy.” He realized that wasn’t entirely true and added, “my hand is broken.” He flexed it once automatically. Bone rubbed against bone. Broken.
“Oh.” Josephine reached out to touch it lightly. “How did that happen?”
He took his hand away from her. He didn’t want to answer. From a rational state of mind, his tantrum seemed ridiculous. Acting on his base emotions and doing . . . doing damage. To his home, to himself, and very nearly to someone he had begun to care for.
“I broke it in the same fit of rage in which I took you.” He turned his face away from hers. The same sort of fit which had brought him so close to attacking Ian.
He levered himself up off the floor. Avoiding her eyes didn’t help. There were other things for him to see. Her nudity, and his. Their clothing scattered across the living room floor. Reminders that he had lost control of himself. He picked up her blouse, her slacks, and handed them to her, meeting her face as he did. She smiled, took her clothing and kept his hand.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I wasn’t exactly an unwilling victim.”
He took his hand back. “It is not something I would have done in a stable state of mind,” he said, and pulled his own pants back on.
She made no move to dress herself. He rather wished she would. He found her nudity thoroughly distracting. Instead, she tilted her head. “That makes me sad.”
Sebastian buttoned his jeans, waiting for her to explain.
She tucked her legs to her chest and folded her arms over them. “I mean, you probably don’t want to get caught up in angry rages that make you do things you wouldn’t normally do. But . . . I enjoyed this. I’d like to do it again. I’d like to think it wasn’t just the product of anger.” She laughed. “A release of frustration.”
Sebastian watched her, unsure what to think of that. He pulled his shirt on, silent. The fabric still smelled of her perfume and blood. The scent made him think of her skin against his, the taste of her filling his mouth. He hadn’t thought he would ever touch anyone that way again. It shamed him, how he had leaped on her, how his anger had so utterly ruled him. But shame for letting her so close, shame for making love to her – he did not think he could feel that.
“Perhaps,” he said, and buttoned his shirt. He should have said “no.” Being so vulnerably intimate with anyone should not happen again. He should allow no chance of it, no hope of it. Knowing that did not make refusing any easier.
She shrugged and stood to dress. “I suppose I can live with that. I suppose I have to.”
He found himself watching her while she dressed. The fluidity of her motion, the soft curves of her white body. The almost familiar heat he had felt when she kissed him began again.
Had it been like this? With Sarah?
He could barely recall. He thought so. Gentler, perhaps. He could not imagine from what little he remembered of Sarah that she would tolerate the same treatment that Josephine had encouraged. But like this, yes.
“So,” Josephine said, doing up the last button of her blouse. “What had you so upset?”
Sebastian’s warm contemplation tumbled over itself into cold. The memory tried to come rushing back with that reminder. Specter’s mocking words, the blade of the sword sliding through his throat, and the threat –
“If you do not bring her to me, I will hunt her down myself.”
Sebastian’s fists tightened at his sides. He did not recall these attacks Kent had supposedly made. His pack had been hunted, of course. Others had always sought to thin their numbers. But Kent? Sebastian had often spent years aw
ay from the pack, on missions, guarding territory. Perhaps Kent’s attack on them could have happened during one of those periods. But why had none of the pack said anything to him when he returned? Why had he never known?
“Hey.” Josephine set a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, what is it?”
Sebastian resisted the urge to tear her hand from his shoulder, break her arm, drink her dry. He had let her close to him. Specter would say she must die. Pack law demanded it, and he had known nothing but the pack for centuries.
But I left them because I did not understand them.
He placed his hand over Josephine’s and held it.
“I met with the members of my pack last night,” he said, uncertain of saying anything, equally uncertain of remaining silent. “Our leader ordered me to bring Ian to him to face justice for crimes he claims Kent committed against us. If I refuse, he has said that he will hunt not only her, but myself. And that our deaths will not be pleasant.”
She nodded while her forehead creased in worry. “Well,” she said. Then stopped. “Well,” she said again.
Sebastian met her eyes. “If I resist him, he will defeat me. But I do not . . . I do not see the point . . .”
“You don’t want to hand Ian over,” Josephine finished for him.
He nodded, mouth tight. He had not wanted to say it out loud. Old training, preventing him from admitting weaknesses. The reason so many things in his life remained unsaid.
I do not want Ian missing from my life. If I cannot say it aloud, I will not hesitate to act on it.
“So what are you going to do?” Josephine’s hand was still on his shoulder, under his.
“My only thought is that my home offers a more defensible position than Ian’s or yours,” he said. “At least if we gathered here, we may have a chance of holding off an attack.”
“I can see that.” She tilted her head at him, a little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You said ‘we.’ Does that mean you assume I may become a target, and you wish to keep me safe as well?”
“I do not put it past Specter to use you against either myself or Ian.” Sebastian watched that smile. “I would prefer if you joined us.”
The smile went from tugging at her mouth to consuming it. She leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his, a soft touching of lips. A gesture –
Sarah had done this, often, accompanied by such a smile. He had enjoyed it when she did –
Josephine leaned back, breaking contact, and the memory faded. But not to the oblivion it had once occupied. Sebastian could remember Sarah doing that now. Specific incidences. The sudden clarity of the memories startled him. He watched Josephine, who looked back into his eyes with that slight smile again.
“If you think it would be safer here, we should go get Ian and Amanda,” she said.
“Yes.”
Distracted, he got his coat, watching Josephine get hers. She did not move like Sarah. Did not look like Sarah. Did not act like Sarah. Where Sarah had been earthy and coarse, Josephine was delicate and graceful. Where Sarah had sandy blond hair that fell past her shoulders, a square face and cloudy blue eyes, Josephine had auburn waves kept tied up, a narrow face and eyes colored a rich golden green. Noticing those differences dispelled a small concern – that perhaps he would only continue this as a way to recapture Sarah.
I believe . . . I believe I have been attracted to her. It’s been so long, I did not know at first.
He called the elevator and together they rode down, Josephine’s hand lightly over his.
IAN
Amanda came upstairs after I’d started cleaning the blood off the walls. It came off easily enough once I got it wet, turning the water in my cleaning bucket pink. The couch and carpet needed a shampoo. At least I knew of a couple twenty-four hour places that would rent a machine to me.
Mistress of the Undead, shampooing the rug.
I bet Sebastian never shampooed a rug in his life.
At least I was cleaning up blood. If any thriller novelists stopped by for an interview, I wouldn’t look entirely like a housewife.
Vampire housewife. “I just can’t keep the blood off anything, I swear . . .”
I giggled inanely at that.
“What?” Amanda asked. I shook my head, still scrubbing at the walls.
“Vampire humor,” I said, and giggled that sick, I-have-to-laugh-at-this-or-I-will-go-crazy laughter. It stopped after a second. I kept scrubbing. Trying not to think of how hungry I felt – and how cleaning up blood only made it worse. Trying not to think of why I was so hungry, or whose blood spattered the walls.
Amanda went so quiet, I thought she’d gone away. Then, “That’s all mine?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to think about it.
After another minute, Amanda cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Want a hand with that?”
I wanted to shake my head, tell her “no, you just rest, I know the change is a big deal.” But then I stood back a step and got a decent look around for the first time since I’d started.
“Yeah, sponges are under the kitchen sink,” I said, and wrung mine out over the bucket of pink water again. I heard her dig around for one and shut the cupboard. She walked up beside me, hands on hips, surveying the mess. They hadn’t so much splashed the room with red as they had hosed it down. I had one wall mostly cleaned up, if you didn’t count the pink tinge to the paint. Everything I’d had hanging on that wall – a hand-woven tapestry, several locally made masks, one of my paintings – they were all ruined.
“You’ll probably want to repaint,” Amanda commented.
“I don’t have the money to repaint.” I sighed. “Or buy a new couch or even really shampoo the rug. Kent had all the money.” I glanced over my shoulder at the envelope on the floor. My inheritance, Josephine had said. I wondered how much it amounted to. I left the envelope on the floor and started scrubbing the wall again. Red came loose, wetted, dribbled down to the floor trim.
“I thought you told Mom . . .”
I cringed a little. But she trailed off. I bit my tongue on what I wanted to say and kept washing. She scrubbed, too, but slower. More thoughtful.
“You made that stuff up about your art,” she said. “To have a reason to stay without telling Mom the truth.”
I shrugged without looking at her. “Only a little. My art’s taking off pretty good for an unknown beginner like me. I’ve sold some pieces, had several shows, got more coming up. That doesn’t amount to much. I think I have a few hundred in my account. That’s it.”
“Well, you don’t have to pay rent or buy groceries.”
I blew air into my bangs. “Yeah, but there’s cat food, car insurance, gas, electric bill, phone bill, house insurance, house repairs . . .” I sighed again. Listing everything out loud made it seem like so much more than I’d thought. I really hoped that envelope had a lot of stuff in it.
“I guess,” Amanda agreed.
We kept wiping. When the bucket of water turned our sponges red, Amanda took it and dumped it in the sink, filled it up and brought it back.
“Do vampires usually spend a lot of their nights cleaning up blood?” She meant it as a joke. I gave it a weak chuckle.
“Only if they’re messy eaters,” I said, and got the same kind of chuckle back.
We got a second wall cleaned up and started on the third when Amanda cleared her throat, followed by an uneasy laugh. “Funny thing,” she said. “It’s not so bad. I thought it’d be worse.”
I wondered what she’d expected, and had to remind myself she didn’t even believe in vampires. She didn’t know what to expect. I kept wiping.
“Almost smells good, doesn’t it?” I asked softly. Her sponge paused, then kept going. I let it slide, wrung out my sponge, wiped some more.
“Hungry?” I asked after a few more minutes.
Her sponge faltered again. This time it didn’t go back up to the wall. “God, Jen.”
“Ian,” I corrected, probably more forcefully than I s
hould have. Cleared my throat and tried again. “Please call me Ian. When you say Jen, I think there’s someone else here.” I smiled.
“Ian,” she said, like a little kid told to say they’re sorry.
“Thank you,” I said as nicely as I could. I wiped the wall a few more strokes, acting casual. After a minute, she joined me again.
“So are you?” I asked.
“What?”
“Hungry.”
Her swipes at the wall stuttered.
“Starving.”
I nodded without looking at her. I didn’t say, me too. “We’ll take care of that. I won’t let you starve.”
I wondered if she’d heard me. Decided she must have. How did I expect her to respond, after all?
The sound of a car pulling up and stopping in front of the house interrupted what I wanted to say. I dropped my sponge in the bucket and went to check out the window. I saw Alec getting out of his Cadillac, carefully, to keep from wrinkling his suit. He brushed off the legs of his pants before he shut the door.
“What does he want?” I muttered out loud.
“Who?”
“My older brother.” I used his title instead of his name. It came out as an insult easier that way.
“That’s Alec, right?” Amanda asked.
“Yeah.”
“And that means Kent changed him into a vampire too, right? So Kent’s like . . . your dad.”
Something in her tone made the back of my neck prickle. The way she said “your dad.” Like we weren’t sisters.
“Kind of,” I said, not sure how else to put it. Dad would always be Dad. Kent was . . . Kent.
Suit straightened, Alec strolled up to the door. I watched him, frowning. I could just tell he didn’t plan on knocking.
Whose house does he think this is?
I didn’t like the answer.
His father’s.
I opened my door before he got to it. Taking up the whole doorway so he couldn’t push past, I raised my eyebrows at him. “Yes, Alec?”
He stopped short, like he’d run into a wall that hadn’t been there the day before. I stood my ground.
In the Dark Page 24