Harlequin Nocturne September 2014 Bundle: Beyond the MoonImmortal Obsession

by Michele Hauf

  “I’ve merely been seeking truth in the rumors.”

  “There are rumors about me?”

  “Now who is being naive?” Her gaze rose a few inches, though she didn’t make eye contact. She had not resumed her dancing.

  “Actually, I was thinking the word naive applied to you.” St. John alluded to her outfit with a pointed finger. “I came down here to tell you so, and to warn you to watch out for yourself, though not quite so directly. I’d hoped to use some tact.”

  “Yes, well where I come from, directness is not a flaw. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I seriously doubt that, Miss Chase, or you wouldn’t still be here talking to me.”

  When she used lean fingers to press a strand of hair back from her face, St. John knew he had surprised her with his own frankness and the use of her name. Her heart rate exploded, one loud boom after another visibly pounding against the bare skin of her long, lovely neck.

  His gaze hesitated on that stretch of creamy skin longer than was prudent before realizing that two of the vampires in the periphery had also sensed the rise in Madison’s pulse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw them take several steps onto the crowded floor.

  “You know who I am, then?” she asked.

  “We Brits aren’t as backward as you might think. Some of us even have television sets.”

  “What else do you know about me?” Her tone was husky now.

  “I believe rumors on this end have you as the bane of anyone’s existence who tries to get in your way. Is that a fair assessment?”

  He expected her to dash for the exit now that personal truths were being revealed. Instead, she replied with equal candor, “It’s a good enough description, I guess.”

  “Since you’re here alone, and looking for vampires, you know pathetically less about us than you give yourself credit for,” he said.

  “Us, as in Brits, pick-up artists or vampires?” she countered.

  Right after, and as though something had disturbed her, Madison’s attention shifted to one of the ravenous rogues. “This has been fun,” she said. “But the question in need of an answer is if you’ll help me, now that we’ve been introduced?”

  “Help you how?”

  “I think there are others here who are looking at me strangely.” Her expression remained unreadable, with her blue eyes again cloaked by lowered lashes. “Will anyone try to harm me right here?”

  Had she somehow sensed the other vampires? Nailed that closest rogue as one of them? She had looked directly at the fledgling.

  “Not here,” he said, checking that fledgling out. “No ruffians will harm you here.”

  “Why won’t they?” she asked with obvious distaste.

  “For several reasons, not the least of which is that bloodstains may be difficult to remove from the floor.

  She didn’t respond to his remark. Didn’t smile. Her expression remained unreadable, even for a master like himself, which made him wonder what she might be thinking.

  Her heart gave her away, in the end. It beat dramatically, each strike lifting the skin beneath her right ear.

  She truly was scared.

  Was all that thumping in honor of the presence of the others she thought might wish her harm, though, or due to his nearness to her? St. John couldn’t quite get a handle on that, or which Madison Chase was the real one... The dancer, with her loose, inviting body, or the intruding, borderline-aggressive, slightly frightened and very nosey media insider, who might or might not have a nose for vampires?

  He decided that the unique mixture of all those ingredients was what had fascinated him, and also what made him unexpectedly excited by their continued closeness to each other.

  “These ruffians you mentioned are also vampires?” she asked, and followed that question rapidly with another. “If that’s true, or even if it isn’t, will you see that I get out of here, or at least as far as the door?”

  The way she tilted her head exposed another dewy length of ivory skin. Her tension made the enticing lacy network of lilac veins in her neck stand out like a road map to the source of every vampire’s inherent need. And though he wasn’t a vampire, per se, he had been created by drinking of the blood of his Makers, and was reminded of this now by a treasonous thud in his chest.

  “Then again,” she added, “if I’m to be the bane of anyone’s existence, including yours, why would you help me at all?”

  Since she preferred directness, and was still thinking in terms of vampires, St. John answered in kind. “Isn’t it possible, since vampires were once like you, they’re not all heathens? If you can’t believe this, I wonder about your sources, Miss Chase.”

  The spine that had so mesmerizingly taunted him just moments ago snapped straight. The rigidity made the woman beside him seem even younger, and more vulnerable.

  Had she taken him seriously? She who had brought up this vampire game?

  Her sudden show of frailty sent a reactionary shock of emotion, with the force of a fist, slamming against St. John’s rib cage, kicking his nerves into overdrive. He didn’t want to hurt her; didn’t want anyone else to hurt her. Madison Chase was like a rare, glittering jewel, no matter how her mind worked.

  “You wanted to find monsters, and that’s it?” He spoke to cover his tremendous need to touch her.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Maybe.”

  “Now you’ll go? Simple as that?”

  “If I can.”

  “If you were hunting vampires, expecting to find some here, I take it you planned for an escape route?” he said.

  “Aren’t you that escape route? My free pass out of here?”

  “Why would you assume so?”

  She glanced up. “Don’t they call special beings like you Protectors?”

  That stunning announcement actually stopped his breathing for a while before St. John reminded himself to take in a lungful of stale, sweaty air. He withheld a blasphemous oath.

  It was possible for Madison to know superficial things about his community, since her brother had been interested, but it was damn inconvenient for her to know about his position within it.

  Protector.

  No one knew of this. This precocious woman’s brother certainly hadn’t known it when he’d come nosing around. Yet reason told him that if Madison hadn’t been kidding, and that if she knew what kind of beings ran this club, as well as about Protectors, she had to have an informant. One too close to the fold.

  The question, though, was still whether she had really pegged him as a vampire? Beyond that, did she actually know that by asking a Protector for help, he was bound to oblige?

  The game had changed. Gaining knowledge about what Madison Chase knew about his society was crucial, as was the importance of finding who her informant was. She almost certainly hadn’t seen her brother, or she would have been running for the airport to get as far away as possible. If she’d truly been looking for vampires, would she have come to the club alone?

  He wasn’t sure, couldn’t read her. For the sake of the immortal community, as well as his own well-disguised presence in it, though, he was driven to find the answers.

  The room seemed to darken somewhat. He had always loathed the dark when there were so many genuine surprises hidden in it.

  “You are far from your home and out of your league on this one,” he warned, noting that Madison, with good reason, seemed more and more uncomfortable, and was trying hard not to show it. Her arms were taut with long lines of anxious, wiry sinew. Her pretty jaw had set.

  He went on. “There will be trouble if you roam the city alone, and probe into issues that don’t really concern you. It’s best that you forget about this club and the word vampire before some real blood hits the fan. There are all sorts of monsters, you know.”

  Although her lip
s parted and he expected a comeback, she didn’t offer one. The word blood had an effect on her. They had wasted far too much time. He had to get her to move. The only way to make her believe the seriousness of her predicament, as well as seek those answers he needed, would be to get her to safety with a minimal amount of damage to anyone here. Two of the rogues, partway onto the dance floor, were losing patience, being taken over by a bloodlust too ferocious for anyone’s good. Their gaunt faces were feral in the fallout of the club’s neon lights.

  “If the word you use for bodyguard is Protector,” he said over her silence, “I can help. But if you persist in taunting ruffians of any species, they might hunt you down for sport.”

  In fact, they already were. And Madison would be like Easter candy to creatures so much better than television journalists at going after their prey.

  “To the door, then,” she said, bringing him back to those wide blue eyes that nearly met his. “Please escort me there.”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely...”

  Of course, he knew it would be easy to get her to the door, being who and what he was, and also that it was too late for her to take ten steps beyond the exit by herself. Madison, in all her silver-sequined glory, had attracted the attention of too many creatures tonight. The place virtually hummed with ill intent.

  Three of the five miscreants had already cleared out, though the dark, gaping hole by the exit suggested they were out there, eagerly awaiting her departure. Their anticipation, excitement and tangible bloodlust rolled across St. John’s skin as if it were his own.

  When his fangs raked his lower lip, he imagined what using fangs on the woman beside him would be like for those others. They might take their time biting into her, using quick flicks of their teeth to tear apart her flawless flesh. Would they offer a tender kiss to her throat before the final bite, though, or whisper a caress?

  Probably not, since those things were issues of control that had to be learned over long spans of time, and most vampires didn’t make it past their first year. Although fledglings had Makers, they lacked tutors, as well as self-restraint.

  He told himself to stop imagining kisses and caresses and fangs and throats. All of those things were too erotic with his libido this fired up. Care had to be taken not to maintain his closeness to Madison for too long. An immortal’s idea of foreplay was different from the norm.

  Damn those rogue vampires. Besides needing information from Madison that necessitated his continued contact with her, he wasn’t ready to have her removed from the world—and not for any altruistic reasons. He wanted to bask in her heat awhile longer. Part of him longed to feel the remembered humanness and anticipation of indulging in an all-encompassing man-woman attraction. Since mortals and immortals didn’t mix or play well together, he’d had no desire before this to explore those things.

  Madison Chase was different.

  And he was a sucker for redheads.

  “Would you trust me with my help beyond that doorway?” he asked, observing the daring sideways movement of the two remaining rogues. He knew he’d be unable to take care of them here, with so many mortals around.

  “You have got to be kidding.” She sucked in her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell with each staggered breath, so that her breasts were close enough to touch. Only inches away.

  “I’ve never been more serious,” St. John said as his heart fell in sync with hers, virtually stealing her rhythm and adapting it as his own—a trick that happened with all vampires and their superior immortal counterparts when confronting a victim or an enemy. They tuned in, sensing every move, beat and thought.

  The bloodsuckers closing in on Madison would know how frightened she had become and would be anticipating her departure with their fangs gnashing.

  Following his gaze, she glanced to the exit. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  “The answer to that would take time that you don’t have, I’m afraid.”

  She threw a second glance to the doorway, visibly shaking now. Her little silver sequins made tinkling sounds that only he could hear.

  All that femme-fatale bravado on the dance floor had indeed been a show, St. John realized. Her expression had changed. The scent of her fear was stronger.

  Maybe the dancing act had been for him, or merely to satisfy her own private needs, but getting Madison away from Space would not only save her life, but possibly also the lives of countless others in and out of the club. Newly turned blood drinkers were mean, fast and exceptionally hungry. When thwarted, bloodbath described the results perfectly. These rogues were barely hanging on.

  When he held out his hand to her, Madison winced. Nevertheless, it was necessary for him to touch her. His scent would disguise hers, up to a point, until they were out of sight.

  “There’s a back way out,” he confided.

  “So, you really are going to be my Protector?” Her voice wavered.

  He turned his palm up insistently. “In this case, you just might be right.”

  She wasn’t going to touch him, no matter what, even after soliciting his help. Her anxiousness tangibly thrummed in the air, part real and part false, the falseness signaling to him that she wasn’t completely dissatisfied with his offer.

  Time was pressing. St. John took her hand, thinking to speed things up. Immediately, with the first feel of her fingers in his, he became immersed in an inferno-like flood of heat, shockingly molten and similar to getting too close to the sun. The onslaught of sensation hit so powerfully, so unexpectedly, he briefly closed his eyes.

  It had been years since he’d touched a mortal for any reason, and centuries since he’d been one of them, yet in that instant, as their hands met and she looked into his eyes with what he knew was the fearful fire of both intrigue and disgust, St. John sensed that there was much more of this story to come. In order for him to find out about that story, he’d see to it that Madison Chase stayed out of the hands of London’s monsters and stayed alive.

  His job description of Protector, meant originally not for guarding people, but the special blood in his veins, had been changing lately, and had just morphed again to include Madison.

  She might hate interruptions in her agenda and fear forward strangers, but the sparks crackling between them said it all. Underneath her fear, she reached out to him. She wanted to know more about him, and was drawn to him. Whether she actually believed him to be a vampire, or not, would remain to be seen.

  As for himself...for whatever reason, he had made an instantaneous connection to her from afar, outside, on that street, in a way that defied description.

  He was equally aware of fact that the Ancients, called the Hundred because they had all lived past that milestone in time, would get wind of this small indiscretion—his willingness to help a human, and in particular this one, tonight—while allowing rogues to get away with murder on the streets. They would know about this breach of protocol before he left the building.

  Every action had risks.

  This one might be worth it.

  Tugging Madison to him before she had time to register his move, St. John gathered her body to his. He ran his hands over every glorious angle she possessed, exploring her with his eyes and senses wide open, looking for the secret to this unusual attraction.

  The Ancients present who were observing this might assume he merely desired the kind of steamy sexual encounter a mortal like this one could provide. Taking a woman or man to bed wasn’t completely forbidden by this fanged community. Biting them for anything other than pleasure was.

  He laid the flat of his palm against the smooth bareness of her back in an intimate touch that moved him way down deep in memory and made Madison shut her eyes.

  Daring to slide his fingers downward, beneath the loose silver fabric and over each bone of her naked vertebrae, one at a time, toward the curve of her buttocks,
he heard her sharp intake of breath.

  “You bastard. What the hell are you doing?”

  She had meant to say monster. He heard this as if she had actually shouted the word.

  He didn’t stop touching her, feeling her, caressing her. It was imperative his flesh touched hers, skin to skin, and equally as important for him to scare her out of her crazy solo reverie.

  With a gentle lightness, his hands retraced their way over every inch of her anatomy, floating briefly over off-limits sensitive spots in what would seem to her a ghastly transgression. He did this, not because he wanted to distress her further or pleasure himself at her expense, but because it really was necessary on so many levels.

  “I have to make them believe you’re mine,” he told her, leaving her most vulnerable spot for last. Nothing could be left out of this scent transfer. Not one part of her.

  With his knee between her legs, as if they were merely engaging in a slow dance of lovers, and with his mouth next to her ear, he lightly stroked the V between her thighs that was covered by damp, lacy lingerie. Touching her there seemed to alarm her. Hell, it shook him up more than he had anticipated.

  In a flash as ephemeral as a dream, he imagined easing that lace aside and slipping another part of himself in. Amid the crowded frenzy of the dance floor, if he held Madison tightly enough, close enough, possibly no one would notice the rise of her dress, and how easy it would be for him to claim that hottest and holiest of spots between her slender, silky thighs.

  What then, Red?

  She gasped with a sound that suggested she might want the same thing, and that this torrid fantasy had been one of her creation, all along. She had admitted she’d been dancing to lure him to the floor. To her.

  So, was he helping her for her sake, the public’s sake, or merely indulging himself?

  Stopping his exploration of her body, St. John rode out a series of aftershocks rolling through Madison that echoed his own. In tandem, their pulses soared. Their heated breath mingled in the steamy air.

  She wasn’t completely against his actions. When his exploration had been completed, neither of them moved. The seconds ticking by were unexpectedly rich, and roughly textured by doubt. Two strangers were pinned together for whatever reason had drawn them together, and sharing an incomprehensible desire for more.