“I think,” I said, recognizing the coarseness in my voice, hearing the slight tremor in my words, “that we should split up.”
“Do you, now?”
I nodded, forcing myself to look him in the eye. “We could cover more ground. Find Amber Lily that much sooner.”
“You mean you’d find her sooner. You’re the one with the link to her. And then what, Angelica? You disappear with the only child I’ll ever have?”
I lifted my chin. “I give you my word, Vampire. I won’t run away.”
“Ah, but you’re just one of the damned now, aren’t you, Angel? A monster like me, without a soul or a shred of morality. What is your word worth?”
“I won’t run away,” I said again. “Besides, you say there’s a…a connection between us, now. Surely, even if I ran, you could find me.” I was testing him.
“I’d find you,” he said softly. “If I had to search to the ends of the earth, dark Angel, I’d find you. Make no mistake about that.”
“Then why not let me go on my own?”
“Because I don’t want to have to find you. And because I don’t trust you. You have to admit, your judgment has been rather flawed to this point. I don’t want you making a mistake that would get my daughter killed.”
I lowered my head, closed my eyes and sat down on the concrete floor. “So the things you said in the car were only lies. I should have known.”
He came closer and sat down beside me. “Let’s talk about lies, shall we, my dark Angel? Hmm?”
I lifted my head and looked at him. Saw the anger in his eyes. “I haven’t lied to you,” I said.
“Oh, but you have. You don’t want to get away from me for the baby’s sake. It’s for your own. You can’t stand it, can you, Angel? A saint like you. It makes you sick to your stomach to be so hot for a monster like me. Doesn’t it?” I turned my face away but he pressed his palm to my cheek, turning me to face him again. “You think I can’t see it, Angel? You want me. You’re burning up inside for me. You can’t stop thinking about it, can you? My hands on you. My mouth on you.” He smiled bitterly, and shook his head. “Poor little Angel’s spirit is at war with her flesh, and she’s disgusted by it.”
“You’re wrong,” I told him. “I don’t want you! I don’t even want you in the same room with me! I hate you!”
“I know you hate me,” he whispered. “But it doesn’t matter, does it?”
Shaking my head in denial, I clambered to my feet, turning my back to him. But he was right there behind me, standing so close I could feel the heat of his flesh. And then his breath fanned my neck, and his body brushed up against the back of mine. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. With one hand, he swept my hair aside, and lowered his head, his lips hovering close to my throat, but not touching. I trembled all over, from head to toe, I shuddered. And inside I was screaming for his touch.
He moved his hips, and his hard arousal pushed against my backside. And then he bent lower, and his lips brushed my throat. All the fight went out of me in a long, shivering sigh, and I let my head fall back, and to the side, baring my neck in blatant offering to him.
His breaths on my skin were coming in hot gusts now. “I thought you didn’t want me in the same room with you,” he whispered, but it was a breathless whisper, and strained.
“Please,” I moaned, from deep in my throat.
And he wrenched himself from me, turning away, pushing his hands backward through his hair. “So who’s the liar now, Angel?” he growled.
I wrapped my arms around myself, hugging tight, and slowly sank to my knees. My head bowed, and I wept in bitter frustration.
He stood there, looking at me. “Believe me,” he said, “it’s every bit as distasteful to me, wanting someone I can’t stand the sight of. But at least I’m not so goddamned self-righteous that I lie about it. You’re not going anywhere, so we’re both going to have to live with this situation.”
And I rose, anger and indignation giving me the strength his nearness had robbed me of only seconds before. I turned, and looked him in the eye. “The hell we are,” I told him, and I turned toward the doorway at the top of the stairs, bent my knees and pushed off. Amazingly, I sailed upward as easily as I’d once stepped over a crack in the sidewalk, and landed on the floor above. And then I ran, out of the house and into the night.
The wind whispered in my hair and my ears, as I ran. I knew he was coming after me, but I didn’t turn around to confirm it. I just ran, and in seconds, I’d forgotten about my pursuer, my demon. There was a new thrill in running this fast, so fast everything around me became a blur. I didn’t run into anything, though I was going far too quickly to see clearly. Some kind of inner guidance system I hadn’t been aware of before, kicked in, to steer me around obstacles and over dangers in the path. I raced through the forest, for miles. Miles I ran.
And then I stopped. And I wasn’t even breathless. Amazing. My blood was surging in my veins, my heart beating strong and sure in my chest. I felt strong. Stronger than I had ever felt in my life. And I thought I understood what Jameson had said before, about not fully savoring his life, until it ended.
Oh, but that fool understood very little else. I wasn’t disgusted by him! I yearned for him. Why did he have to be so cruel?
“Dammit, Angelica, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
* * *
Ah, yes, my Lucifer had caught up to me at last. I turned to face him. “You can’t keep me against my will,” I said. “I’m every bit as strong as you are.”
He rolled his eyes. “Remind me to thank Rhiannon for telling you that, will you?”
His sarcasm was not mean. Not biting. And I almost smiled at it. Almost. Perhaps the exertion was what we’d both needed to break the tension between us.
No. It wasn’t what we’d needed. But it was better than nothing.
And then I heard something. A cry, very distant. The cry…of a child. My heart tripped to a stop in my chest. But the wailing sounds grew louder, more insistent.
“The baby,” I whispered. And Jameson stared into my eyes, every bit of animosity gone. As one we turned and raced as fast as we could, in the direction of that sound. Down a wooded hillside we flew, crashing through dense undergrowth and thorny briars, and all but tumbling onto the gravel-topped road that wound along at its base.
“There,” Jameson shouted. And I turned to see a woman, lying still on the ground. The wailing was louder now than ever. In a single leap, I was crouching at the woman’s side, lifting her head and shoulders from the ground, shaking her.
“Wake up, woman! Where is she! Tell me, where is the baby!”
Groggy eyes opened, then widened. A look of panic came into them as she scanned the area around her. And then she screamed, clasping her face between her palms. She screamed and screamed and screamed.
I turned my eyes to where she was staring, and saw it then. The car, flipped over and lying on its top. The child, trapped inside, hanging upside down and howling in fear. The flames licking up into the night sky from the base of the automobile, where the gas tank would be, unless I were sadly mistaken.
“My baby!” the woman screamed, over and over again. “Please, save my baby!”
Her baby. Not mine. The cries I had heard had been the cries of this woman’s child. The result of a car accident.
“Hurry!” she shouted, struggling to her feet. “Hurry, for the love of God, the gas tank!” And then she collapsed in a heap of unintelligible sobs.
I could not believe what I was seeing. Jameson was clambering over the vehicle to reach the door nearest the child. The flames—and I had seen firsthand the explosive effects of flames on a vampire—were licking up around him. So close to him…
I got to my feet, leaving the woman, hurrying forward. The vampire wrenched the door free and sent it flying into the night. If daylight had allowed the young mother to see his strength, she’d have fainted dead away. I nearly did, when I saw how far that scrap of metal sailed. And then Jameson was ins
ide, crawling, tearing at the belts that held the child prisoner. He paused no less than three times to beat at flames that lapped at his clothes. But each time went right back to the child.
I ran closer, reaching the car just as he emerged with the baby cradled in his arms. He raced toward me, pushing the child at me, dropping to his knees, and it was only then that I realized his delicate vampire’s skin was smoldering. Thin spirals of smoke rose from it like specters reaching to the night sky. His black eyes held mine for only an instant, and I saw the agony there. And then I felt it, the hot brands searing his skin, as if it were my own. He rose, staggered away from us, and I saw the stream gurgling in the distance. I heard the splash as he reached it, and the heat on my skin faded, but the pain remained.
The baby cooed and chirped at me, drawing my gaze. I looked down at her, and hugged her gently to my breast. But my heart was slowly breaking. Her lush hair wasn’t raven, but red. Her eyes, not jet, but baby-blue. And the plumpness to her cheeks and triple chin, her drooling mouth gave me to know she was a good deal older than my Amber Lily. Cutting teeth already, perhaps.
One chubby, questing hand reached up to grip a handful of my hair and tug almost playfully.
“Please…”
I lifted my gaze. The woman. She’d managed to get to her feet again, and she stood before me now. Her face already bruising, her hair tangled and her lip bleeding. She stretched out her arms toward her child, tears streaming down her face.
Closing my eyes, I swallowed hard. Her child. Her precious child, not mine. I bent to kiss the infant’s silky-soft cheek, and then I placed it in its mother’s loving arms.
She hugged the baby close, bowing her head as sobs wrenched her slender frame. Sirens in the distance, then. Another vehicle pulling off the road. White headlights illuminating the darkness, contaminating its preternatural purity with artificial light. Light that didn’t belong in the night, I thought. It was an intruder.
I took one last look at the mother and child, embracing and sobbing. And then I slipped away into the shadows, where I belonged.
Chapter Eleven
Jameson lay neck-deep in the icy waters of a fast-running stream, and let the chill sink in. Its cold seemed to work into his pores, easing the horrible searing sensation. Stopping the blistering and popping of his skin. It slowed the burning. Even numbed the pain a little. Not nearly enough.
Dammit, he was hurting.
He closed his eyes, wishing the cold would anesthetize him to it, but he knew better. The best he could do was find shelter and let the day sleep do its work. At least he wouldn’t have to suffer long.
And as soon as the sun set tonight, he’d go after Angelica. No doubt she was long gone by now. He just hoped she didn’t find his baby and take her off to parts unknown before he caught up with her. He wanted to see Amber Lily. He wanted to hold her just once in his arms, snuggle her close, before he returned to take DPI down. He needed to feel her, to know she was real.
He didn’t really blame Angelica for seeing him as an unfit father. An unrepentant vampire must seem like a pretty strange being to her. One who loved what he’d become. One who relished it, and wouldn’t go back to being mortal if it were as simple as swallowing a pill. When it was all she longed for in her heart of hearts. And besides all that, there was his violent nature. His hatred for DPI, and his determination to destroy it. She didn’t really think he’d expose his daughter to that dark side of him, did she? He only wanted to love her. Just for a short time, before he did what he had to do.
But thanks to some cruel twist of fate he might never get the chance now. Angelica would be far away by the time he’d recovered enough from the burns to go after her. But he would find her again. He didn’t think there was a force on earth that could keep him from finding her.
Soft splashing sounds made him jerk his head up fast. And then he blinked and squinted to be sure he wasn’t seeing an illusion. Angelica, sloshing through the water, soaking the sexy black dress she wore clear to her hips as she made her way to him. She stopped beside him. And he looked into her eyes and was thinking of making some smart remark about how he’d expected her to be gone by now.
But he couldn’t. Because what he saw in her eyes was devastation. And she looked at him, and her lips pulled away from her teeth in an expression of pure heartbreak. Her back bowed forward and her shoulders shuddered and her eyes squeezed shut tight. But she didn’t burst into tears. She battled them back. Fought them valiantly. And won.
Ah, hell, he knew that bitter anguish. He’d felt it, too. At first, when he’d heard that baby’s cries, he’d thought…
He’d thought he’d finally found his daughter. And when he’d held the baby in his arms, even knowing by then that she wasn’t his own…it had been heaven and hell all rolled into one.
Angelica drew a shaking breath and stiffened her spine, slowly standing straight and strong again. A water goddess, rising from the waves, taming them. A phoenix bird, full of fire, rising from the ashes. Pulling herself upright, despite the pain. “Can you stand?” she asked him. “Walk?”
Her voice was brittle. Like it would snap right in two in a stiff breeze. She hated him. He didn’t blame her, either, after that little fiasco in the basement. But for Christ’s sake, he was half out of his mind wanting her. Craving her. Fantasizing about the things he wanted to do to her. Knowing full well she felt the same…and all the time knowing she was repulsed by wanting him that way. He repulsed her. It was a lot for a man’s pride to take.
And he’d been hot as hell and frustrated and furious over the entire situation. Who better to take it out on than her? She who was disgusted by his very touch. Who better?
Her hands slid over his shoulders and she pulled him to his feet. “I asked if you could walk, Vampire. Answer me.”
“I can walk,” he said. Then he stood up to prove it.
“Then you’d better do so. And fast. It will be dawn soon.”
He narrowed his eyes, tilted his head. “I thought you’d decided to go off on your own, Angel? Thought you’d be halfway to Timbuktu by now.”
“Well, I’m not.” She walked close beside him, one hand poised near his elbow, as if she’d catch him should he fall. She walked slowly, her dress dragging through the swift-running dark waters. And he remained at her side, and wondered why she hadn’t left him. Why she was helping him. Why it made him so damned angry to know her true feelings. The emotional ones, not the physical.
To his horror, he stumbled the second he stepped out of the water. Without the stream’s icy touch, the pain was back, full force, and it hit him like a mallet.
But his Angel was right there, living up to his sarcastic nickname for her. She stood close, pulling his arm around her shoulders, and slipping hers around his waist. She held him so close it was almost as if she truly cared. And she winced each time the pain flared hotter, and he knew she was feeling it, too.
He couldn’t move very far. He knew that. He hadn’t the strength, and he’d never make it all the way back to that abandoned farmhouse they’d planned to spend the day in. Maybe, if he had strength enough for speed. But not like this. He’d never make it before dawn. She ought to go on alone. He ought to tell her….
But he needn’t have worried. It was only minutes before she found shelter, a miniature cave cut into the rocky hillside. She own anguished tears. He hated this woman, he told himself. He hated her because she was disgusted by him.
The hell with it. He’d get back to hating her later. He didn’t hate her now. Not at all. He stroked her silken hair, and caressed her trembling shoulders, and he rocked her in his arms until the pine needles at the entrance began to lighten with the rising sun. And then he cradled her as she slipped into sleep. A few moments later, he followed her there.
* * *
He was not a monster. I stirred awake, still nestled in his arms, my head resting upon his chest. And I knew that I had misjudged him so thoroughly that I could not have been more wrong. Of course I had
. I’d put him on the defensive right from the start, attacked him and accused him, and he’d shown me his worst in return. If he despised me, I realized, I’d given him reason.
He had known that the screaming child was not his own. He had known it before he’d gone to the overturned car. There was no doubt of that. And yet he’d gone, all the same. He’d burned himself, and I knew enough of my kind to realize that a single false move or stray breeze or misstep could have sent him up in a blinding conflagration. At any moment, he could have suffered the same agonizing death as that creature I’d killed. But he risked it, to save the child of a stranger. And a mortal stranger, at that.
I had known mortal men, Christian men, who would not have done what this dark demon had done. He was not the embodiment of evil. He was not a devil sent to tempt me into sin. He was just a man, I realized, lifting my head and allowing my eyes to roam his face. A man filled with anger and in search of vengeance, yes. But also a man with a good heart, and boundless courage, and unselfish valor.
And beautiful velvet-brown eyes with stripes of ebony that glittered in the moonlight.
And a well-deserved dislike for me.
His eyes opened, searched mine. “You’re awake before me,” he said, still sounding sleepy. “That’s unusual.”
“The burns must have weakened you more than you realized.” I sat up slowly, hating to pull my body from the wonderful nest of his. His chest made a fine pillow, and his arms had remained around me even as he’d rested.
“You’re probably right. I still feel a little fuzzy.”
My head came around, my eyes locking with his. “Perhaps you need…”
His gaze dipped to the hollow of my throat only briefly, before he slammed his eyes closed and turned his head away. “What I need is to get the hell out of this cave.” He lunged to his feet and hurried to the doorway, a single swipe of his powerful arm sending my pine-bough door sailing into the night. Then he stepped outside, tipped his head back and inhaled, expanded his marvelous chest and stretched his arms overhead. I remained in the doorway, simply watching him. Fully appreciating—not for the first time—the utter beauty of the man. And I realized that perhaps I had been unable to see such things before. Clinging to my mortal ways of thinking.
Born in Twilight: Twilight Vows Page 17