by Nina Lane
“But he was being beaten. Tortured.”
“All the wounds that you saw will heal. In truth, he savors the violence. He enjoys it.”
I shiver.
“You should rest, Lauren,” my father insists.
“Can I go home?”
When my father shakes his head, I explode. “But this is crazy. I want to go back to my apartment. I have a hugely important meeting tomorrow. You helped me get my job—now you’re going to help make me lose it.”
“Stay here tonight. I have bedrooms in my quarters. In the morning, early, I will take you home so you can change and prepare for your meeting.”
I sigh. “Do I have a choice?”
“I am afraid not.”
“And I’m going to be totally exhausted tomorrow.”
“That I can cure,” my father says. “I can give you a pill—it allows you to function on very little sleep. Dangerous to take for a long period of time, but one night is harmless.”
I frown. “I don’t know. What is it?”
“Something not available to anyone but vampire hunters. And it will be completely safe. Now, let me show you to your bedroom.”
Chapter 4
The bedroom attached to my father’s office is more of a small apartment, complete with a bedroom, bathroom, fully equipped kitchen, and a small living room fitted with a wide screen television and leather couch.
I told my father I wanted to see Batiste, but he refused to listen. He left me in here, told me to lock the door. I just want to run from this place. His office might be fitted like an expensive home, but I know a creepy institutional laboratory lies just beyond the wood-paneled door. I’m so upset by what they have done to Batiste that my limbs are shaking...
At the same time, I can’t understand why I feel anything for Batiste, for a vampire. Over a thousand years, how many innocent victims had he taken?
I have known, since I was a child, that vampires were real, that they were real bogeymen who lived in the dark. But even though I knew the truth, I’d never encountered one before. I had never had to really deal with the idea that vampires are real. Even when Christiane disappeared, my father had insisted it was not a vampire who took her. Now I knew it was, my father knew it all along and he had lied to me.
Is that why my heart is telling me to trust Batiste? I know I can’t trust my father. Not now. Or is it because Batiste protected me when I never dreamed a vampire would show mercy. But maybe he doesn’t care about me. Maybe it was an act. A trick. After all, I thought Leo cared for me. Even during the two weeks he was seeing supermodel Rachel while still sleeping with me, I hadn’t seen the truth.
Thinking out Leo brings out another boatload of pain.
Maybe the reason I trust Batiste is because I never believed my father could torture someone. Or even let such a thing happen. It makes me physically sick.
But then, Batiste might deserve such torture.
I go into the bathroom and throw up in the toilet. I sink down to the floor and cry for a while. Then I realize I have to stop behaving like a wreck.
I get up and scrub my teeth with toothpaste on my finger, rinsing my mouth over and over. I go back to the bedroom. I have no idea how to get to Batiste. I don’t even know if I should go. But my gut instinct says I must talk to him. Which means I must go to him.
Even though I suddenly feel so groggy I’m swaying on my feet…
* * *
I must have gone to sleep. I realize that when I’m jerked awake. My first thought is surprise. How did I fall asleep so easily, given the turmoil I’m facing?
The food I was given—was it drugged?
“Lauren.”
A voice. That’s what woke me up.
I’m frozen for seconds, too stunned to move. Did I dream it? No, I’m awake.
“Lauren?”
The voice is soft, low, questioning. And not going away. It’s real. There is someone in my room
I sit up, sheets tumbling down. It must be my father—
A dark figure stands at the foot of my bed, his face pale as a silver-white moon. Dark eyes watch me. His straight, shining black hair falls around his starkly beautiful face, reaching his shoulders.
It’s not my father.
Batiste watches me, a look of aching loneliness on his face.
I realize now that he is naked from the waist up. His body looks like a marble statue, lean and muscled without an ounce of fat. He’s utterly perfect, beyond any sculpted torso I’ve ever seen in pictures. Smooth and unmarked—not a blemish, bruise or scar.
There’s no sign of the beating he took. I look for a wound in his side from the crossbow arrow. There’s nothing there.
I pull the sheets back up against me. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t expect him to take me by surprise in the bedroom. “H—how did you get in here? You were in a cell. You were chained up. How can you be in here?”
“Your father has fame as a hunter of vampires,” he says, in his deep, soft voice. He draws his “s” into a sensual zee sound. “He apparently has no idea how to keep one captive.” Then he smiles. “I am teasing you, Lauren. I am not really here at all. I can project into your mind. I’m speaking to you, seeing you, but I am nothing more substantial than an illusion.”
“You look real. Did you transform into a bat and fly to me?” But why would he and not escape? Am I in danger from him? Given this is a place where vampires are kept, why isn’t there a stake in the bedroom?
“Come and touch me. You can put your hand right through me.”
“And you could grab me and sink your teeth in my neck. Or use me as a hostage to get out of here.”
He sighs, a long sigh that sounds as if it comes from a man who has waited until the end of time. He moves to a table where my black purse lies—which I managed to cling to through all the events of the night. He puts his hand out to grab the purse. His hand goes right through.
He is not lying.
I slide out of bed. I found pajamas in my father’s closet. Dark blue cotton, they are far too big on me, but they cover me. I walk to him and his dark eyes never leave my face. Hesitantly, I touch his forearm.
He remains motionless. My hand goes through his arm.
“So you can’t bite me.”
A rueful smile curves his lips. “I can’t bite you for many reasons, Lauren. Ironic for a vampire isn’t it? I came to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“If we begin to talk, you’ll quickly find out, Lauren.”
“Sarcasm isn’t going to make me beg you to tell me more…”
“Batiste. Call me Batiste.”
How could he tell that’s what I was wondering? Whether to use his name. I look at him warily. “Aren’t you…hungry?”
“I was fed. Your father did not deny me blood.”
I squirm, not wanting to think about that. “But I want to know something.” There is so much that I don’t know, I barely have any idea where to start. But I want at least one answer. “Why did you protect me instead of drink from me?”
Again, the slow and mesmerizing smile.
“You are special,” he says. “Important. And it meant I denied my brother his pleasure. That was enjoyable in itself.”
“Why am I important?”
He lifts one dark brow. “Renoir and I were told that you are, years ago, when you and your twin sister were very young. We were told that when you became of age, you had to be turned. If you were not…both of you could destroy all vampires.”
“Seriously? How?”
He laughs. “If you don’t know and I do, I would hardly want to tell you. In truth, I do not know how you can do this. But I do know you are very important.”
Batiste Carlyle—at least the projection of him—leans against my wall, which displays his broad chest fully. Leather pants fit tight to his lean, slim hips, the waistband sitting low on his sexy, pronounced ridges of hipbones.
“So you plan to turn me into a vampire?” I can’t believe I’m asking it so calml
y. This all feels unreal. A bad dream that won’t end.
His hair tumbles around his face as he shakes his head. “It took me almost a thousand years, but I am no longer an evil, soulless monster. Renoir, however, wants to use your sister as a way to lure you. Renoir wants to turn you.”
I swallow hard. But that is not going to happen. “Has my father also hunted you for decades?”
He inclined his head. “He has. He followed Renoir and me when we came to New York from London.”
“But he never caught you before tonight?”
“Tonight, I was distracted.”
“By me.” I cross my arms over my chest, walking back and forth. “Why did you risk so much for me?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asks softly.
“No, it’s really not. I can understand that you want to thwart your brother. But to risk your…your life? Do you call it ‘life’?”
His wicked smile plays on his lips, taking my breath away. “The formal term is ‘undead existence’. But I understand what you mean.”
“Renoir took my sister. Did he watch us?” Suddenly I’m creeped out. “Did he watch us since we were young? Christiane was taken when we were thirteen!”
“I did not. I rejected our sire’s plan. I would not allow innocent girls to be taken and used.”
“You were a vampire for a thousand years. You must have killed thousands of people. Why would you care?”
“Because you are responsible for giving me a soul, Lauren.”
“How—?” I break off because he reaches out and touches my hand. A jolt of…of something sizzles over my skin. As if his touch is electric.
“Wait—I felt that.”
“You’re feeling what I do when we touch,” he says softly. “Lauren, you changed my existence. You changed me from a monster without a conscience to a vampire determined to end the predatory nature of his race.”
“I didn’t do any—” I break off on a whimper. His fingers skim the inside of my wrist and it’s like touching a live wire to my flesh. I feel a tingling rush. And it’s good.
“You did. I came to you when you were eleven years of age. After all the stories I had heard I wanted to see you. I laughed when I did, thinking you were just a small, normal child. I was going mad with hunger, but for some reason, I could not bite you. I chose other prey—a teenage boy. But you found me, just as I was about to feed from him. You touched me. You stopped me. You were so afraid for the boy—but also you were worried about me. You felt for me. I could sense so much compassion in you, it stunned me. At that moment I—I cared about you. I could not hurt you, and then, like a bolt of lightning, my soul slammed back into me. It was the most agonizing moment of my existence. Made death look like fun in comparison. After that night, I never used humans as prey. I never killed anyone again.”
“I—”
“You don’t even remember it. The pivotal moment of my existence and it never even stayed in your mind. Of course, you didn’t know what I was. You had no idea the danger you faced—”
“I think I did.” I’m shocked to discover his words have stirred something in me. A memory that flirts in my mind. That gives me a glimpse of itself and then hides.
Am I just imagining a scene where my shaking hand reaches out to someone in pain? Or did it really happen and is it actually a memory of Batiste and I? Why can’t I remember more? Why don’t I recognize him? Did it traumatize me and I’ve buried it? I still struggle to remember the night Christiane disappeared. I’d pushed my memories so far back that they didn’t seem real—they felt more like surreal nightmares than like something I had really experienced. And even though I knew that, I couldn’t bring them back.
“I don’t remember,” I tell him.
He lifts his hand to my face, but this time he can’t touch me. The image of his fingers seems to dissolve against my cheek.
He curses and pulls his hand back. “I’m running out of time, Lauren. This takes a lot of power. It’s draining from me.”
So I don’t have much time. “What happened that night?” I ask. But do I really want to know?
He shakes his head. “If you don’t remember, it is because you don’t want to.”
“If I have a special power, how can I know nothing about it? I don’t feel any different than—” I stop. “Oh. I suppose I just feel the way I always have. And maybe I have always had the power to give vampires their souls.”
“Or maybe you could only do it with me.”
I draw away. That sounds so intimate. As though there is a bond between us. I have to remember that he is a vampire. And he could be lying to me.
“I don’t know what I am supposed to do now. I mean, I knew about vampires, but it was a secret and I never saw one. I never touched one. If I wanted, I could believe none of it was real. I can’t do that about tonight. How can I go back to a normal life?”
Batiste looks amused. His midnight black eyes crinkle. “You do not, Lauren. You were made for so much more than an ordinary human life.”
That sounds so impossible, I can barely believe it. So I talk about something else. “You were beaten up. I saw the effects of what they did to you. Yet there’s not a bruise or a cut on you now.”
“I healed. Vampires do that.” His glimmering figure lifts my hand to his lips. He kisses my hand.
I feel the soft brush of his lips like a shower of sparks.
His lips move slowly, caressing me.
I don’t know how he is making that happen now, when he couldn’t touch me before. Maybe he is getting stronger? Or it’s because he is healing?
“You gave a vampire his soul, Lauren,” he says softly. “If that doesn’t mean you are unique, I don’t know what does. You are special. The most important woman in the world to me. But I’m too weak. I can’t stay any longer…”
He drifts back, away from me, floating over the floor. Then he disappears.
* * *
Did any of that really happen?
My heart pounds in my chest and I get out of bed again. My father told me to stay in the room. In fact, he said it like an order. In his eyes, I saw certainty—the certainty I would obey. But he was gone from my life for ten years. Yes, he said it was to protect me, to keep me safe from vampires after he lost Christiane. But I’ve gotten used to questioning things related to my father, and I can’t just take an order from him.
I get dressed, then try my door. I’m sure it will be locked—
It isn’t.
Voices come from the room where I saw the monitors, where I saw Batiste’s torture. I creep down the hall, back pressed to the satin-smooth wood paneling.
The door stands open a few inches. Enough for me to glimpse inside.
Two men are standing in front of the monitor, drinking coffee. One wears the same black clothing worn by my father. The other sports a white lab coat and has long dreadlocks dyed orange. He holds a tablet and types on it with his thumbs while he watches the screen.
“It is impossible that he can take so much abuse,” Lab-coat muses.
“A stake in the heart would finish him off,” says Military-guy.
“We do not want to finish him off. If we can understand what makes him stronger than other vampires—”
“Why the effing hell does it matter?” mutters the soldier. “Three things still take them down. Stakes, decapitation and getting burned to an effing crisp.”
Lab-coat flinches. “They are a superior species, you know.”
Miltary guy snarls. “What are you? A vampire- loving leftie? This guy’s killed more people than some terrorist actions. And he did it because he was feeling peckish.”
I don’t expect Military-guy to use words like “peckish”.
Military guy picks up a microphone. “Recommence the exploration session,” he snaps.
For a while, there is silence. Then a loud explosive sound comes from the screen, following by a long, harsh wail of pain. Then more sounds come. Hard, thudding sounds. But there are no more screams of agon
y.
Military-guy explained the very reason I should turn away from Batiste. That I shouldn’t care about the torture and his pain.
But had my touch actually given him a soul? Had it changed him? How could I have done that? I’m not special. I don’t have superpowers.
And I realize something else. If vampires could get their souls back, couldn’t they be saved?
“Holy effing hell,” mutters Military guy. “How does the bastard survive punishment like that?”
I shiver, stomach churning.
Lab-coat hits a few computer keys. He talks into the mic. “Enough for now. It will be daylight soon. We will commence with the daylight tests at oh-seven-hundred.” Then he switches off the mic and glares at the black-garbed soldier. “These tests will likely destroy him.”
“Shit, I’m not the one who wants to make a glorified lab rat out of him. I’d stake him now. If he shows any sign of becoming dangerous in the next round of tests, I will kill him. I picked up a fourteenth-century sword at auction. Beautiful piece of craftsmanship.”
“Let me guess,” says Lab-coat sardonically. “It would go through his neck like butter.”
I’m close to the door, struggling to control my breathing. I feel sure my every breath sounds like a gunshot. But I must be wrong, as they don’t appear to hear me.
“We might as well get out of here,” Military says. “Observing a vampire is no damn fun, unless you’re watching it scream.”
I back away. They’re leaving. I run in bare feet back to the bedroom. Closing that door, I’m panting, closing to hyperventilating.
There’s so much hatred here. If what Batiste said is true, he doesn’t harm people any more.
Footsteps sound. They slow near my door. Wait, why was my door unlocked? I doubt it’s because this institution would welcome me with open arms. It’s probably so they could look in on me, or get to me quickly.
They might check on me.
I’m irate that strange men would walk into my bedroom while I sleep, but this is not the time to protest. I streak to the bed, kick the pajamas under the bed, and pull up the covers over my fully dressed body.
I close my eyes and sure enough, my door opens slightly.