Shades of Gray

by Katie MacAlister

  “There is nothing interesting about the Abbey. It is just an old house, nothing out of the ordinary. Part of it is falling down; the other part is unremarkable in all senses of the word.” Even to my ears, the words sounded false and forced. I swore to myself.

  Are you all right?

  Yes.

  You tensed up all of a sudden, as if you were worried about something.

  “Unremarkable?” Teresa asked, gaping at me. “It’s almost five hundred years old! It’s gorgeous. Well, the part of it that’s still standing is gorgeous. Not to mention it’s haunted, which is just awesome. And of course, there’s the secret treasure.”

  The acid turned to fire in my belly.

  Gray?

  The word was soft in my mind, filled with genuine concern, distracting me for a moment. How long had it been since someone felt anything but fear and loathing for me? How long had it been since someone was sincerely interested in what worried me, in what I wanted? How long had it been since someone cared?

  I do care, you know. I was told once that it’s hardwired into Beloveds and Dark Ones to be attracted to one another, but this is different. It’s not just your adorable chin, and your nipples, and your stomach, and all the other interesting parts of you, it’s . . . you’re filled with so much darkness, Gray. So cold and alone, and you hurt. I want to change that. I don’t want you to hurt any longer.

  For one exquisitely painful moment, I let myself imagine what it would be like to allow Noelle to ease my pain, to fill me with her soft, gentle light, to warm me in the glow of her being. Her mind, I already knew, was unique, her thought processes endlessly fascinating. She would never bore me, never drive me away as mortal women had done over the centuries. I could at last experience the ecstasy so long sought by those of my kind.

  And then the memories clutched at me, ripping such thoughts to shreds with little daggered fingers, tearing apart the finely spun web of illusion until I was left with nothing but despair.

  No. I firmly pushed her from my mind. I enjoy the cold and darkness and pain. I am giddy with happiness to experience them every moment of my endless life. I would miss them terribly if you took them from me. Begone from my mind, woman. I have no need for your concern or your warm, gentle feelings, just as I have no need for your luscious, silky-soft body.

  You are the strangest man I’ve ever met.

  I am not a man. I am a Dark One. And I’m damned.

  Only if you want to be. And she turned back to the others.

  What the hell did that mean?

  “What treasure?” the smug actor was demanding of Teresa. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a treasure? That sort of thing is hugely popular with the public. They’ll want me to find the treasure on air. Get that ghost back, and make him talk.”

  Do you seriously think I want to be a vitiate?

  You’re not talking to me, remember?

  Do you have any idea what my life is like, being vitiated?

  I would know if you were talking to me, because you’d apologize for shoving me out of your mind in such a rude and callous manner.

  I am not rude and callous. I am not enjoying being a martyr, which is what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Ha! I can see you do think that!

  Stop rummaging around in my mind. She cast my own words back at me, but I was too incensed to care.

  I do not enjoy this! A demon lord has marked me for destruction. Every single member of his extensive legions of minions is sworn to destroy me on sight. Do you think you can live your life happily with imminent destruction at the hands of vengeful demons hanging over your head?

  If you were talking to me, I would point out that I’ve mentioned repeatedly that I’m a Guardian and thus perfectly able to handle demons and even a demon lord, given enough preparation.

  You’re not my Beloved. I growled, desperately praying she’d finally have enough of my boorishness and spurn me as any sane woman would do.

  She sighed. If I’m not, then this won’t do a single thing for you, will it?

  Before I could turn tail and run, she was there, in my arms, her warm, soft body pressed against me, her lilac scent filling my head. I had a brief glimpse of smoky gray eyes before she stroked her hands up my chest, digging her fingers into my hair and pulling my head down so she could kiss me.

  Reject her! my mind demanded, even as I filled my hands with her delectable ass and hoisted her upward so she could better kiss me, angling her head just so, allowing me to take control of the kiss.

  Dimly, I heard Teresa exclaim, “Noelle! What on earth are you doing?” and at the same time, the man Miles made a lewd comment.

  None of that pierced beyond vague awareness; the only thing that mattered was claiming the sweetness that lay within Noelle. I nipped at her lower lip, causing her to giggle breathlessly against my mouth, her fingers tightening in my hair as she squirmed against my now painfully erect penis.

  Stop that, I ordered, moaning when she parted her lips and my tongue swept into her warmth. Christos, you are so hot, so sweet.

  So are you, she said, wiggling more until I hoisted her higher and she wrapped her legs around my hips.

  “Noelle! Raleigh, do something!”

  “What?” the cameraman asked.

  “Well . . . I don’t know. But surely we should be doing something? I mean, that man is kissing her like there’s no tomorrow. We should stop him.”

  “Noelle went to him, Teresa. I think she’s enjoying it. She’s making happy noises.”

  “I am not going to stand around here wasting my time watching people snog each other,” Miles said in an aggrieved voice. “Raleigh, come with me. I will attune with the spirits in the other garden, the one with the statue.”

  “Wait, guys . . . I can’t leave Noelle. Can I? Noelle? Are you going to be all right? Moan twice if you are not being assaulted and are OK with this stranger kissing you like there’s no tomorrow.”

  Noelle moaned twice.

  “Oh, hell! I don’t know what to do . . . dammit, wait up, Miles! I don’t want to have to try to find you in the dark . . .”

  Teresa’s voice trailed off as Noelle’s heat sank deep into my bones, driving out the chill that had gripped me for as long as I could remember.

  All coherent thought ceased when Noelle’s tongue swept alongside mine, twining around it, and when she actually began to suckle it, I thought my knees were going to buckle. I staggered over to a stone bench, sinking down gratefully onto it so I could further concentrate on kissing the very breath right out of the goddess in my arms.

  Feed, Gray. Noelle gave another of those moans that had heat building in my groin. I know you want to. You’re hungry.

  I can’t. My body was tight and clenched with need. I cannot bind you to me. I am vitiated.

  Feed. I heard her siren’s voice as she pulled her mouth from mine, turning her head to present her neck. It will be all right. We were meant to be together.

  My gut tightened as the hunger swept over me, consuming me, leaving me with little but the knowledge that I would cease to exist if I didn’t take life from her at that exact moment.

  Feed, she repeated, pulling my head to her neck, and my resistance slipped away into nothing. I licked the pulse point that beat so strong just for me, my mind filled with the taste and scent and feel of her. Driven by a primal urge that wouldn’t be denied any longer, I bit the silken flesh, the taste of her driving me almost beyond what I was fast realizing was a tenuous grasp on control. I drank deeply, my body clamoring for relief, demanding that I claim her even as I took life from her.

  She moved against me, her mind touching mine, wrapping around me like velvet, her pleasure at feeding me burning along my skin. Gray. She was letting me feel how aroused she was. I really think I . . . I had no idea . . . I had heard, the other Beloveds had said that feeding was an erotic act, but this . . . oh, dear God, Gray, I’m going to go up in flames if you don’t make love to me right now.

  I was temporarily sated; the hun
ger had faded and left only the desperate sense of unfulfillment that only she could cure. But we were very close to Joining, and that I could not, would not, do.

  Nothing in my life had ever been as hard as gently pushing her off my lap and walking away from her, away from the warmth and light and joy she represented. I knew she’d think I was a bastard, a selfish, soulless monster who used her without apology, and I was glad. Maybe now she’d realize that there was nothing in my life that she could share.

  Where are you going? she asked with a touch of desperation as I strode away, a sneering Johannes following me.

  I have to go kill a ghost. After that, I will leave the country.

  But . . . without me?

  The pain that always held me in its grip tightened until I couldn’t breathe. Without you.

  Coward, she accused, and I knew I had at last hurt her.

  If I’d had a soul, it would have wept at that moment. But I had no choice. I had to leave her in order to protect her. I was a man alone. I had no hope. No promise of relief. No salvation.

  I had no future.

  Chapter Four

  I wonder if it’s a crime to kill the undead,” Noelle said aloud, then immediately qualified that thought. “Not that Dark Ones are undead. And Gray is very much alive.” She spent a few minutes reliving the taste of him as he kissed her, the feel of him so hard and hot beneath her hands as she stroked his chest and back. “Very alive. But an idiot nonetheless.” She shook her head and got to her feet.

  Men were much more complicated creatures than she’d been led to believe. As she picked her way through the tangled and overgrown garden to the lower level, she tried to pin down just what it was about Grayson that attracted her. He was certainly sexy as hell, with that chin and those eyes and a classically handsome face. Her hands itched to touch his flesh, to stroke the long lines of his back down to his tempting behind, to feel the hard muscles of his thighs, to sculpt the swells and curves of his chest and abdomen. But it was more than his body that had her feeling that she was caught up in a whirlpool of emotions. He held so much darkness within him, such pain, bound together in a noble belief that he was destruction to anyone allowed near him.

  “He has no faith,” she told herself as she caught sight of Teresa and Raleigh filming Miles before the marble statue of a woman being wooed by a swan. “The problem is whether I can change that or not, and whether . . . oh, dear. That can’t be good.”

  She stopped just outside the range of Raleigh’s camera, watching with a slight pucker between her brows as the ghostly Nostredame, waggling his eyebrows at Teresa, allowed himself to be interviewed by Miles.

  “—said there was a treasure here at the Abbey. Is this a treasure that you left when you were amongst the living?” Miles asked the ghost.

  “I left many things behind,” Nosty said with a look of smug maleness. “Both boys and girls.”

  Noelle rolled her eyes as she moved to stand next to Teresa, who asked her in an undertone, “Are you all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “You two were going at it pretty hot and heavy,” Teresa pointed out. “I’m assuming that is the man you said kidnapped you earlier? The one you just met?”

  “Yes, that’s him. Isn’t he gorgeous?”

  “His appearance isn’t what was worrying me, although yes, he was pretty handsome. I’ve known you forever, Noelle, and you’ve never been the ‘jump at a man you’ve just met’ sort of girl.”

  Noelle smiled to herself. “Gray is different.”

  Theresa rolled her eyes. “That’s what they all say.”

  “I know, but you have to trust me about this. When I say different, I mean really different.”

  Teresa said nothing more but gave her a knowing look that Noelle dismissed. Her attention turned to the scene in front of her, watching the ghost with a nagging worried feeling. What was it about Nosty that had Gray so upset? Was it the mention of a treasure? No, he’d tensed up when Nosty had first mentioned the history of the house, particularly Gray’s family. Perhaps, in the interest of finding out what had happened to leave Gray vitiated, she would have to do a little investigating.

  “Then who did hide the treasure in the Abbey?” Miles asked, trying manfully to keep the ghost’s attention on himself. “Was it one of your ancestors who lived here?”

  “I’ve told you, I don’t know who left it. I was a visiting monk when this was an abbey, so I didn’t really live here. The family who did live here later used to talk about the treasure and how someday they’d find it. No one ever did.” Nosty shrugged. “I never looked for it myself. There were so many other things to interest me.”

  “How utterly fascinating,” Miles said. “Now, tell us about yourself, how you died for love, and what happened to the nun you seduced.”

  Noelle tuned out the story that followed, certain that it would contain little actual truth and, most likely, a whole lot of fiction. Instead, she pondered the mystery that was Gray, what could have happened to him to leave him the victim of a demon lord’s wrath, and how she was going to bring the infuriatingly obstinate man around to see reason.

  Those thoughts were still with her two hours later, when Nosty had run out of both energy to remain visible and patience with Miles’s endless questions about what life was like “beyond the misty veil.” She lay in her sleeping bag in the communal music room, staring up at the patterns of shifting light cast from Miles’s shaded camp lantern, wondering what Gray was doing at that moment. Gentle snores from both Raleigh’s and Teresa’s respective sleeping bags lulled her into a semisleeping state but still conscious enough to catch the whispered sound of cloth moving against cloth.

  Careful not to move her body, she cracked open one eye and lifted her head, catching just the momentary flash of Miles’s hand as he closed the door behind himself. That was odd. Miles didn’t care for the dark and seemed to have an aversion to wandering the house by himself. Hmm. With a glance toward the other two sleepers, she slid out of her sleeping bag and silently made her way out of the room, pausing in the long, dark hallway to consider which way Miles would have gone. She didn’t think it was likely that he’d go into another of the rooms that opened off the corridor, which left the main hall.

  With a stealthy tread, she crept toward the hall, but it was as black as midnight. Frowning, she retraced her steps to the corridor, wishing she’d thought to bring her flashlight. She didn’t want to risk waking up either Teresa or Raleigh with the noise of rustling through her bag for one, however, so she simply moved from door to door, alert for any sounds of movement as she opened each a crack.

  It wasn’t until she was on the second floor that she glimpsed a flicker of light under one of the doors. “Found you, Miles,” she said softly as she opened the door, prepared to fire off a number of questions about just what he was doing creeping around the house.

  The words froze on her lips as the sight of a naked derriere filled her vision. A wet, naked derriere, one belonging to an equally wet, naked Dark One. As her eyes grew round with the glory that was Gray, he spun around. Judging by the little wisps of steam coming from an adjoining room and a rumpled towel on the floor, he’d just had a shower.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

  Her gaze dropped to his genitals, her mouth going suddenly dry as she let her eyes wander from his endowments to the strong line of his legs, back up to his stomach and chest, and then back to his groin. To her amazement, he was becoming aroused, an effect that left her staring with even more fascination. “Um . . . hmm?”

  Hands on his adorable hips, he glared at her, saying, “Stop doing that!”

  “Stop what?” she asked, unable to tear her gaze from him. “Staring at your privates?”

  “Yes. Stop it. It’s annoying me.”

  She entered the room and closed the door behind her, her eyes still on his growing length. “Actually, I think it’s arousing you, unless you can be annoyed and aroused at the same time. Gray?” />
  “What?” he snapped, not moving to cover himself, a fact that Noelle highly appreciated. She was aware that Johannes was curled up on the bed, watching them, but she had eyes only for the tortured, delicious vampire before her.

  “I’m not going to give up on you,” she managed to say, which was a miracle considering that her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. “I know you’re trying to drive me away, but I’m not going to let you do that. You need me. I can help you. I’m a Guardian, and your Beloved, whether you want to admit it or not, and you can either be miserable and irritating and unhappy and refuse to let me help you—which won’t matter, because I’ll help you anyway—or you can realize that you’ve been blessed and get down on your knees and thank me daily for making your life worth living again.”

  He looked for a moment as if he was going to explode.

  “Was the knees bit too much?” she asked, worried for a moment that he might do himself some sort of damage if he kept all that anger bound inside.

  “Yes,” he said in a choked voice. To her surprise, however, he didn’t scream and yell or deny any of what she said. He simply marched over to the bed, picked up the cat, and put him into the adjoining room before closing the door. He strode toward her, his eyes glittering, and before Noelle could ask him if he was really very annoyed with her, he scooped her up and tossed her onto the bed, following her down onto the mattress.

  “Gracious me, what . . . oh, Gray!” Her eyes rolled backward as he pulled her sleep shirt over her head, leaving her clad in nothing but a scanty pair of satin underwear. His mouth descended upon one suddenly heavy, wanting breast, while his fingers stroked and teased the other one. She clutched at his head, her back arching up.

  So soft. He groaned as his tongue tormented her breast, making it ache with a need she had never before known. So warm.

  You’re hungry again. She was amazed that she could form words in the face of such wonderful sensations. It was as if his hands and mouth were made of fire, sending tendrils of heat radiating out of her chest and down her belly to deep, secret places.