My eyes strayed downward of their own volition, taking in the hard lines of an athlete’s body visible under his black t-shirt. Tattoos wrapped around his right bicep and part of his forearm. The upper part of the black ink appeared abstract, but lower down, I could make out what looked like Chinese characters melded into the design.
I dragged my gaze back up to meet his.
“So,” he continued, “Tell me about your parents.”
“This is insane,” I said.
He gave me a little eyebrow shrug as if to say, ‘And your point is...?’
I frowned. “My dad’s an accountant. My mom was a state representative.”
“Was,” he echoed. “How did she die?”
I didn’t like the way old grief and fresh paranoia were scrabbling around the edges of my happy sex high. “A crazy guy shot her during a campaign rally while she was running for the US Senate. It’ll be twenty years ago this July Fourth.”
He nodded. “And the killer?”
“Hung himself in prison,” I muttered.
“Anything unusual about your father?”
God, where to even start with that question...
“Not unless you count being kind of a passive-aggressive asshole as unusual. Although he earned some serious brownie points today.” Damn. I needed to call him, too. Let him know what had happened. “He wired me money for a bus ticket. He was going to pick me up on the other end, too. Help me find some kind of legal help.”
Rans nodded thoughtfully. “Just as well you didn’t get that far.”
“Why?” I asked, confused.
“Family members make excellent leverage,” he said grimly, and a shiver of unease ran through me.
Had I put Dad in danger, too? How far did this thing reach? Whatever this thing was.
“I need to call him,” I said.
Rans was still watching me closely with those piercing eyes. “I would strongly advise against that.”
“But—” I began.
“Let’s say someone is watching him,” he interrupted. “If you fail to show up at the bus station and he doesn’t know why, he’s not immediately useful to them. But if he’s in contact with you... if they intercept calls between you, then suddenly he’s a rather attractive source of information.”
A weight landed on my chest. “But... I bought a burner phone. Two, in fact. I’ve still got them.” Fortunately, the phones had been in my pockets, not my lost backpack.
“And did he do the same?” Rans asked.
“No,” I acknowledged with a sinking feeling. “I’d have no way of getting his new number, if he did. And I didn’t contact him with either of the burner phones, so he won’t have my new numbers either.”
“Where is he?”
“Chicago,” I said, still not totally sure why I was trusting this man with so much of myself.
He looked thoughtful. “All right. That’s a fair distance away. Since they clearly know you weren’t able to leave the city, with luck he’ll be low on their priority list right now.”
My head was spinning again. “You keep saying ‘they.’ Who are ‘they’?”
“Your mate Caspian and his lot.” Rans’ voice dripped with disdain. “Since the war ended, they’re the ones in charge.”
I almost didn’t want to ask, but... “The war?”
Rans must have seen how overwhelmed I was, because he shook his head. “Too much, too soon. Practical upshot—Golden Boy and his cronies aren’t just going to let this go. They know who you are and, more importantly, they know what you are. They also know where you are—in a general sense, at least—though with any luck I can remedy that last part before it comes back to bite us in the arse.”
I still wasn’t ready to tackle the ‘what you are’ part of things.
“Why do you care about any of this?” I asked instead. “Why are you going out of your way for me?”
He tilted his head, his expression thoughtful. “I have my reasons.”
“Altruistic ones?” I asked tartly.
A brief smile twitched at his full lips. “Not originally. Though for what it’s worth, you’re growing on me. If nothing else, luv, you give phenomenal head.”
He was trying to distract me from the real issues, I was pretty sure. And right now, I decided to let him do it. Too much had happened in too short a time. I needed a chance to sort everything out. If that was what he was offering me right now, I’d take it.
“Yeah? Well, you’re no slouch in the foreplay department, either,” I told him, my voice wry. “Or the ego-stroking department. Men mostly run for the hills after sleeping with me. I’d always sort of assumed that meant I was lousy at it.”
Okay, I hadn’t really intended for that last part to slip out. Possibly I was still more out of things than I realized.
Rans hitched a hip against the corner of the heavy wooden dresser across from the bed. “No. It means they sensed you drawing animus from them. Their instincts sensed danger, even though their rational minds couldn’t understand it. So they ran.”
I didn’t want to think any more about this right now. I wanted to set it aside and... what? Come back to it later? What made me think it would be any easier to wrap my mind around this stuff a day from now... or a week, or a decade?
“I’ve always felt better when I was in a relationship,” I said slowly. “Physically better, I mean.”
He shrugged. “I don’t doubt it. Starvation is a real bastard, no matter what species you are.”
My stomach did a little flip of protest. “So you’re saying I was... feeding on my boyfriends? What would have happened if they’d stayed? Would I have hurt them? Killed them?”
Part of my mind was still protesting this whole insane conversation. Another part was connecting the dots, thinking about how, the worse my body felt, the more insistent my sexual desire became. Chronic pain and fatigue should have had the opposite effect on my libido, but instead I turned into a walking nympho.
“It’s hard to say,” Rans said, and I had to cast my mind back to regain the thread of the conversation—my question about hurting my boyfriends. “They might have succumbed to you eventually. It’s uncharted territory, really, since as far as I’m aware, a cambion has never successfully reproduced with a human before.”
... and we were back to speaking separate languages again.
“Cambion?” I asked.
“The offspring of a human and a demon succubus,” Rans explained. “In this case, almost certainly your mother.”
Damn it, now my head was starting to hurt again. “Wait... but... if I could possibly kill a guy by sleeping with him for an extended period, then what about my dad? He and Mom were married for years, and he’s okay.” I paused, and walked that last part back a bit. “Well... okay-ish, anyway.”
“I’ve no idea,” Rans said. “Maybe they were largely celibate, and she got her meals elsewhere.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What the hell are you trying to imply?”
He blinked, and pushed upright from his casual leaning stance against the dresser. “You asked. I’m just theorizing aloud. That’s enough speculation for right now, though. You still need sleep, and I still need to figure out what the hell we’re doing next.” He sighed. “I was always rubbish at chess.”
“That’s reassuring,” I told him, and was rewarded with that borderline scary flash of a smile I’d seen a couple of times before. It was a smile that said, I might be a badass, sword-wielding supernatural creature, but that doesn’t mean I still have all my marbles.
“It keeps life interesting,” he said. “Well... it keeps undeath interesting. You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I only understand about one word in three that comes out of your mouth. And I’m not talking about the accent.”
But at least you’re pretty to look at, I didn’t add.
“Oooh. Touché.” He mimed a strike to the heart, and I was uncomfortably reminded of the gaping hole that had been blown through his chest the fir
st time I’d seen him. Maybe something of it showed on my face, because he said, “Rest. No one’s going to bother us here tonight, and you’ll need your strength over the next few days. I’ll bring you some food in a few hours.”
“Food?” I asked sourly. “You’re not just going to throw a rent-boy in here for me, so I can screw the life force out of him?”
His glacier eyes bored into me for a moment, though his voice when he answered was mild. “If I’m right about things, you’re still three-quarters human—so you need to eat,” he said, “and no, I’m not.”
With that, he strode out of the bedroom with his leather coat slung over his arm and his scabbard clasped loosely in one hand. I noticed that he had not, in fact, closed the door after us when we came in here earlier.
Oops.
I flopped back onto the bed. My eyes caught on a rusty stain marring the sky blue of the duvet. It was blood. It must have come from Rans’ shoulder when I pushed him onto his back, though I’d seen no evidence of the wound just now when he’d walked away.
This whole thing was nuts.
I scooted up until I was resting on the bed properly, my head on one of the fluffy pillows. He expected me to rest? He really had lost his marbles. I was still tired, sure—though not with the bone-deep, all-consuming exhaustion I’d been fighting earlier. But how could anyone be expected to sleep after the past few hours? Hell, the past few days? At least my body didn’t hurt. For the first time in weeks, I just felt, well—normal.
Which... I guess irony could be pretty ironic sometimes, right? A vampire had just told me that I was part demon—right after I’d sucked his cock, mind you—and I felt normal. As pillow talk went, I felt like we both had some room for improvement.
I closed my eyes, telling myself I’d just enjoy my pain-free self on this comfortable mattress for a bit while I tried to sort everything out. I was out cold within moments.
* * *
It was still dark outside the window when I blinked awake. The atmosphere of the room had that silent, middle of the night feeling to it. My body felt pleasantly rested, even if my brain was stuck in just-woke-up mode. Was it possible to be jet-lagged when you hadn’t managed to leave the city you lived in?
I rolled out of bed, feeling vaguely bad about having slept on such nice linens with my boots on. At least I hadn’t been the one to bleed on the comforter—though an argument could be made that I’d been the one to tackle Rans to the bed, resulting in him bleeding on the comforter.
I decided to go in search of the nearest bathroom. For one thing, I needed it. And for another, I might be able to get the bloodstain out with cold water. The hall outside was dark, lit only by the wedge of light cutting through the bedroom door. All but one of the other doors in the corridor were closed. Fortunately, the open door was, in fact, the bathroom.
Like the rest of the place, it was tastefully decorated and posh as hell. White marble gleamed; black and white tile laid in a chessboard pattern led the eye to the massive claw-foot tub that dominated the airy space.
When I was done, I washed my hands and eyed the scalloped sink, trying to decide whether it would be worse getting caught trying to wash blood out of a stranger’s duvet on the sly, or leaving said bloodstain for Guthrie to find later. Though I suspected it would actually be cleaning staff who found it, since I had a hard time picturing anyone who owned a place like this doing their own laundry.
After a few moments of internal debate, I chose the coward’s option of leaving it for someone else to find. Outside, the sound of low voices reached me. I followed them, wandering through the darkened living area. Light spilled through an archway to my left. The voices grew clearer as I approached, and I paused a few steps away.
“Normally I wouldn’t ask, but...” That, in Rans’ English accent.
“Yes, you would.” A sigh. “Go on, then. It’s not like you can do any real damage to me, is it? Just try not to drain me dry. I’ve got a full day today, and you’ve already kept me up half the night.”
“I’d apologize, but we both know I wouldn’t mean it.” A pause. “You’re a good mate, Guthrie.”
“Yup. That’s me. And you owe me lunch next time you’re in town.”
A snort. “Apt, I suppose.”
“Damn straight.”
I cleared my throat and walked in as though I hadn’t just been eavesdropping. Then I froze in place, caught by the tableau before me. Guthrie was seated on a barstool at the freestanding kitchen island with his back to me. He was wearing the same dove gray button-down I vaguely remembered him wearing when Rans had half-dragged me into the apartment, but it looked noticeably less crisp now than it had then. His left sleeve was rolled up to the elbow. Rans held his arm in one hand, and his lips were pressed to Guthrie’s pulse point.
Glowing blue eyes pinned me as I crossed the threshold, gluing my feet to the floor, daring me to comment. Guthrie must have sensed my approach, because he glanced over his shoulder.
“Oh, perfect,” he said. “An audience.”
“S-sorry,” I stuttered. “I didn’t realize you were...” I floundered for an end to the sentence. “... doing that.”
I still couldn’t seem to peg Guthrie. There was an air about him—a sense of having been beaten down by some great weight until he’d just... given up. And yet, he lived in this stunning penthouse, obviously a successful businessman. A successful businessman who let fugitives crash in his home, no less, and was apparently good enough mates with a vampire to voluntarily submit to the low-rent Red Cross blood drive routine.
Rans lifted his head, still regarding me steadily. “You’re staring,” he said mildly.
I frowned. “So are you.”
He blinked, and made a production of scoring the tip of his forefinger on a fang. A couple drops of blood fell onto Guthrie’s wrist, and Rans released the light hold he’d maintained on the other man’s arm. Guthrie flexed his fingers and grabbed a napkin from the pile in the center of the kitchen island, using it to wipe away the smear of red on his arm.
His dark eyes returned to me. “Hope you’re not squeamish at the sight of blood,” he said. “Otherwise, you might want to reconsider the company you’re keeping these days.”
Of course, I was squeamish at the sight of blood. Seeing your mother gunned down at a young age will do that to you.
I swallowed. “I guess it’s cheaper than desensitization therapy.”
A small flash of amusement shone through the blanket of sadness that seemed to muffle the light in Guthrie’s eyes most of the time.
“I guess so,” he allowed. “Though god knows what other kinds of therapy you’ll need after spending any appreciable amount of time with this fucker.”
“Charming,” Rans said. “Do you kiss your business associates with that mouth?”
“Not generally,” Guthrie replied, unperturbed. “Are you hungry, Miss Bright? If so, there’s a plate made up in the fridge.”
“Call me Zorah,” I said. “And thanks. Yeah, I could definitely eat.”
Guthrie waved me over to the stainless steel monstrosity of a refrigerator. “Help yourself. Ninety seconds in the microwave should do it.”
I retrieved and heated the food, trying not to think too hard about the other meal that had just taken place in this room. The plate held scalloped potatoes, steamed vegetables with a light sauce, and what looked like... duck breast?
“Wow,” I said, my stomach rumbling.
Guthrie grabbed some silverware out of a drawer, and set it next to the plate along with a napkin. I dug in.
“This is delicious,” I told him after swallowing a bite of crispy duck skin flavored with orange. I pointed the tines of my fork at him, and then at Rans. “So, tell me how you two know each other. How did you meet?”
“Through a mutual acquaintance, I suppose you’d say,” Guthrie replied. “Ransley here has a penchant for collecting human casualties of the war.”
“Not just human ones,” Rans said under his breath.
“The war,” I echoed around a mouthful of potatoes. “You mean the one that supposedly put people like Caspian Werther in charge of things?”
FIFTEEN
“YUP,” GUTHRIE SAID. “Not that the other side winning would have been all that much of an improvement.
And there it was... a trace of the kind of bitterness that belonged with such a beaten-down demeanor. Rans’ face was still, giving nothing away, but I sensed a degree of tension from him that hadn’t been there before.
Of course, that meant I had to pick at the scab a bit more. “Oh? Who’s on the other side, then?”
“Demons,” Guthrie said.
Okay, that was a bit awkward... assuming I was buying into the whole succubus thing, which I wasn’t ready to commit to quite yet.
“Right,” I said slowly. “Demons. And Werther and his bunch are... what? Angels? Because if so, angels suck and I was sold a lie when I was growing up.”
“No. Your good friend Caspian is Fae,” Rans said. “Unseelie Fae, to be specific. If angels still exist, they don’t seem to have any interest in the mortal plane these days.”
“Fae? As in... faeries? You realize how all this sounds, don’t you?” I asked, my eyes moving between them. “All right, then. So... demons and faeries. Where do vampires come into all of this?”
Rans’ tension returned. “I’m afraid I haven’t got a clue, luv,” he said, the careless tone at odds with the tight line of his shoulders.
I looked to Guthrie for some kind of explanation, but he shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I’m just a lowly human. I get all this shit delivered secondhand.” He eyed Rans. “If you’re all set with the ID and credit card accounts, I’m turning in now. Some of us still have to be at work in the morning.”
Rans gave a short nod. “Sure. I’ll contact you next time I’m in the area, and you can collect on that lunch. I’ll leave the bike here out of sight, if you don’t mind.”
The Last Vampire- Complete series Box Set Page 11