And one of Julian’s kind, maybe Julian himself, could be responsible. Anger flared inside her as the screams of victims echoed in her head and the hideous faces of vampires, their mouths open, fangs bared and dripping with blood, flashed in front of her again.
She wasn’t aware she was pummeling Julian’s chest with her fists until his fingers closed like steel bands around her wrists and his voice cut through the noise in her head.
“Stop, Simone. Stop.”
But she couldn’t stop. Her anger was too great. “You . . . You’re one of them. One of the ones responsible for my stepsister’s disappearance!”
Julian’s grip on Simone’s wrists loosened and his arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her hard against his body. “Shush, Simone. Shush.”
There was very little space between them when Simone brought her hands up and pushed against Julian’s chest in an attempt to break away.
Julian’s hold around her waist remained firm. “It’s true. I am a vampire, but I swear, I had nothing to do with anyone’s disappearance.”
She wanted so much to believe him, but even if she did, he was still a vampire. The sickness rose again like bile to her throat. She swallowed hard as deep, painful sobs burned her chest and hot, stinging tears flooded her eyes.
Julian held her while she cried. After the wracking sobs ended, she slumped heavily against him, lowered her fists to her sides in defeat and accepted the inevitable. For better or worse she was tied to this man, this vampire. And she had no earthly idea how or why it was so.
The knowledge pressed against her chest like a boulder. How could she survive knowing what she did? How could she go on like the normal human being she had always considered herself to be? It was too much to bear. She started crying again, not the earlier anguished sobs, but quiet, shuddering sobs of desperation.
Julian drew her closer and held her until there were no more tears left and she felt nothing but the safety of his arms. Safety? How could she feel safe ever again?
When she finally lifted her head and looked deep into Julian’s soul-searing blue and gray eyes, everything inside her shifted. It was as if their minds and bodies merged, then split apart, leaving them singular, yet united.
An incredible surge of sexual heat moved through her body, and a peculiar calm settled over her like the beginning of sleep. Only she was wide awake and more aware of what was happening to her than at any other time in her life.
It was as though she had suddenly become an empty vessel and Julian was the only one who could fill her.
How such a thing had happened so quickly, how it had happened to her at all, was a mystery beyond her comprehension. But that it had happened was a certainty. She was no longer the same person she’d been this morning, and that was as clear to her as the feeling she now held for Julian.
Only a few days ago she had not known he existed, and now she knew beyond doubt that he was inextricably bound to her future. It frightened her, but it also thrilled her. She had never before felt so alive.
JULIAN FELT THE instant Simone gave herself up to the bond that had been forged between them. Now he could link their auras with the strength of the ages whenever he chose, no matter the distance that separated them. He would now be able to unite their minds through time itself, if necessary.
Simone would still be master of her own will, and she would still have the freedom to shield her mind from his whenever she chose. But her voluntary surrender to the passion between them gave him the freedom to help her understand how intricately bound their destinies had become.
For now though, he needed to answer the questions that were still in the back of her mind.
Yes, my dear Simone, I will help find out what happened to your sister.
Simone pulled away from him, breaking their mental link. She shook her head several times as if to clear it. “I’m still not sure this is real. Maybe I’m in another world, some altered reality.”
“I think you know better than that.”
She lowered her head and sighed. “Yes, that’s what frightens me. As much as I know this can’t be, I know that it is.” As if struck by another thought, she snapped her head back, her eyes seeking his in understanding. “Mike, too?”
“Not a vampire. A shapeshifter.”
She sucked in a quick breath. He could only imagine the image that had formed in her mind and forced her to ask, “You mean he can change into a . . . a wolf?”
He couldn’t hold back a smile. “Among other things.”
Simone turned away from him and covered her ears as if to drown out a noise he couldn’t hear. “Vampires. Shapeshifters. What else is going on that I don’t know about?”
He didn’t answer, but waited instead for another question he knew she wanted to ask.
“Has Mike always been with you?”
Her back was still to him and he figured it was easier for her not to face him while she asked her questions. “With my family, yes,” he said. “With me, since birth.”
She turned and faced him. “And how long is that?”
Her voice sounded steadier and he relaxed slightly, surprised to find he’d been so tense. “As vampires go, I’m still a baby. I’ve only been a mature vampire for less than a century and a quarter.”
Her eyes widened. “It’s going to take me a while to grab hold of this . . . to grab hold of everything.”
He nodded his understanding. “Would you like some time to yourself?”
She checked her watch. “I’m due downstairs in fifteen minutes.”
“We can manage without you for a while. Take as much time as you need.”
Even though she seemed to have accepted everything she’d just learned, he didn’t fool himself into believing this was the end of it. After the initial shock passed, there would still be a lot left for her to work through.
Simone shifted nervously and lowered her eyes. He watched the flush rise in her cheeks. He was certain he knew what had put it there.
“Last night wasn’t a dream, was it?”
He took a step toward her, and when she stepped back, he stopped. “No, Simone, it wasn’t a dream.”
Simone covered her face with her hands. He waited. When he figured enough time had passed, he reached out to her mind again and she immediately let him in.
I’m not ashamed to say I wanted very badly to make love to you. But I wasn’t ready to trust myself yet.
She lowered her hands and he read the question on her face.
Using his power of physical transportation, he covered the short distance between them. Unlike the first time he had used the power, she showed no surprise. She seemed to be accepting his vampire abilities more quickly than he had anticipated. When she didn’t move away, he put his arms around her. She leaned into him willingly.
The fierce reaction of his body set him back on his heels despite knowing how deeply his desire for her ran. He forced himself to tenderly stroke her back and then her shoulders. He was giving her time, giving them both time, to adjust to his passion.
“I want you more than you can ever know,” he told her when at last he had his lust under control. “But when I come to you it will be different than anything you’ve experienced before. You need to be ready for me to make love to you. I need to be ready as well.”
She made a sound low in her throat, a signal of her readiness to yield to him. He felt his groin tighten as her scent wafted around him, not just her perfume, but the heady scent of her arousal.
He lowered his face within reach of her lips . . . her neck. Everything he wanted, everything he needed, was so close. Perhaps he could take a small liberty, just enough to hold him until he could go to her bed . . .
As if sensing his ambivalence, Simone curved her body more perfectly to his. Involuntarily, his hips brushed back and forth acr
oss her pelvis, and his gums throbbed as his fangs began to drop. Saliva pooled as hot in his mouth as the blood in his loins.
His moan vibrated low and deep, traveling the span of his body. It would be so easy to take her now, but he knew he couldn’t. Seconds that seemed like centuries passed as a battle raged between the needs of his flesh and the need to fulfill the Legacy.
The warring within him continued until the memories of the past coalesced into an ancient tapestry, cloaking his mind and quelling the needs of his body. In control again, he remembered the reason he had come to Simone’s apartment. He arched his body away from hers. It was better not to ignore temptation.
“Before I leave, I need to know if your stepsister’s disappearance had anything to do with the reason you wanted to see me.”
“Yes. Everything.”
“Then tell me everything.”
He listened with concern as Simone laid out the circumstances surrounding Dottie’s disappearance. The more she told him, the more concerned he became. And when she came to the events of that afternoon and the conversation with Deke Williams his concern exploded into full fledged rage. He could feel the muscles in his neck bulge and the veins at his temples distend as his blood raced through his body.
He tried to relax the muscles in his throat, the tension in his jaws, but couldn’t, so he spoke through clenched teeth. “It was either Zurik or one of his clan.”
“Zurik?”
His jaws still tight, he told her, “He’s a vampire as old as time and as evil as the Demon Asmodeus, himself.”
“You . . . you know him?” The fear in her eyes far exceeded what he’d seen there when she’d finally faced his own vampire nature.
“More intimately than I would like. He and his evil clan have plagued the world—and my family—since the first Whitcombe saw the light of day.”
“Whitcombe.”
Simone said the name as though she were hearing it for the first time, and he realized that was exactly the case. There had been no need to mention his surname to her before now.
Simone drew her brows together. “What was your family like?”
“We can talk about my family and a lot of other things later.” He could only imagine how difficult it must be for her to think of him growing up in a family of vampires. “But for now,” he continued, “I have something much more important to tell you.” He paused long enough to capture her full attention and look deeply into her eyes. “I don’t want you to go out alone again and talk to strangers like you did today.”
It was evident from the startled look on her face that she didn’t take too kindly to his order. “Before you say anything let me assure you that I’m thinking only of your safety. Until Zurik and his clan are eliminated, no one in New Orleans is immune from his evil.”
She remained silent.
“Promise me,” he insisted.
Several heartbeats passed before she whispered, “I promise.”
He wasn’t convinced she intended to keep the promise, but there wasn’t much he could do about it at the moment. He’d work on convincing her later when he came to her bed. Not trusting himself to stay physically close to her for one second longer, he backed away to the door.
“Come down when you feel up to it.”
He blew her a kiss from the tips of his fingers. She blew a kiss back. He caught it in his palm, closed his fist around it and shut the apartment door behind him, the first laughter he’d known in decades bubbling up inside him.
The wail of the downstairs alarm doused his laughter before the latch on the apartment door clicked shut behind him.
Chapter Eight
AT THE SOUND of the alarm, Simone raced from the apartment and jerked open the door that led outside. She was met with shouts and screams from behind the building. What was going on? It had only been seconds since Julian left. Was he in some kind of trouble?
She ran to the small porch at the end of the stairs. Night had just fallen and the automatic lights on the back corners of the building illuminated the courtyard. Her heart began to pound. Below, several shadowy figures were already engaged in a fast-paced battle. Was Julian one of them?
As bodies were hurled one after another against the brick wall, she couldn’t tell how many participants there were. She held her breath as she scanned the area. She’d never been gripped with such fear for another person. Where was Julian?
Her lungs burned from the breath she held as her gaze darted from one figure to another, trying to find him.
There. Was that him? Was that Julian? Pain radiated across her chest when a burst of air rushed out at the sight of him, his long, golden hair flying wildly about his shoulders. Twin dots of light at either side of his head glowed and flickered as he moved. His ear studs! They were flashing with a magical power. She was swamped by a feeling of relief. She had witnessed his unusual powers. He could take care of himself.
But then Julian leaped into a pool of light, and her heart lurched. He had no weapon! Cold fear knotted in her chest as the group of combatants moved into the shadows and Julian was temporarily lost from view. She held her breath again, and again her lungs burned from her inability to exhale.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Julian came back into her line of vision and the din of the battle was pushed to the background as bolts of blue-white lightning shot from his claw-like fingertips. The air crackled with the force of an electrical strike. Shrieks of pain split the night as Julian found his targets.
Unable to move, she continued to watch from the tiny porch. Her fingers ached from their clenched grip on the wood rail. With tremendous effort she fought to stay focused on Julian as the bolts of lightning ripped through the air, and other less brilliant bolts, clashed with his. She was reminded of a distant, dark horizon she’d once seen as zigzags of lightning streaked across the sky, heralding the approach of a horrific storm.
Simone was so intent on keeping her focus on Julian that she didn’t see the large black animal leap from the back of the building until it was in the air. Before the animal landed, a blade thrust upward and caught its forearm just as its huge jaws opened and clamped around the neck of the man who had wielded the weapon. Simone felt the blood drain from her face. A rush of dizziness almost brought her to her knees.
She’d only been watching the battle below a matter of seconds, but already men were falling to the ground, their screams of anguish mingling with the battle sounds of metal striking metal, metal striking bone. She gulped air into her starved lungs. She was lightheaded, barely able to keep her balance. But she couldn’t look away.
The animal leaped again and a pale shaft of light from the newly rising moon caught the bone-deep gash on its forearm. Simone put her hand to her mouth to hold back a scream. Her stomach roiled, but she was unable to move, her eyes constantly searching for the tall, golden-haired figure that had moved outside her line of sight while she’d followed the wounded animal’s plight. Dear Lord, where was he?
Before she could locate Julian again, a bloodcurdling scream snapped her attention to the edge of a tight knot of warring figures. Two bodies were suspended in midair. Julian stood beneath the two bodies like Atlas, a man’s neck in each hand. But they weren’t men. They were monsters, she reminded herself. Monsters whose eyes glittered red, and even in the throes of death, seemed to reach out and scorch her soul.
She watched in horror as Julian’s claws ripped the men’s necks into ribbons of bloody, shredded skin. The gory sight was so unsettling she felt as if the world was spinning around her, and she tightened her grip on the railing to keep from falling over it.
Then, quite suddenly, the night became deathly quiet, and the men who were still standing gathered up the remains of the fallen and carried them to the far corner of the courtyard. She turned away in revulsion, unable to watch or even think of what might be taking place.
Unaware of the passage of time, she remained transfixed, as if waiting for a spell to be broken. Finally, when she was able to look again at the now empty battlefield, a familiar figure came into view.
An overwhelming feeling of relief shot through her even as her knees grew weak. Julian was safe!
Then, all too quickly, the reality of the scene took hold. What she had just seen was an integral part of the new world in which she now lived. With a clarity that turned her blood cold, she knew that the horrors of this night would not be the last she would witness. A barrage of conflicting emotions took hold of her. How could she have witnessed such grotesque brutality . . . brutality that Julian was part of . . . and still be sick with worry for his safety? She reached behind her for the door that, thankfully, she’d left open in her hasty exit.
Simone stumbled into the small foyer, made the few steps to her apartment on rubbery legs, and raced to the bathroom sink. She retched until her empty stomach burned like the fires of hell she’d seen in the eyes of the monsters outside. Weak and dizzy, she grabbed a face cloth, held it to her mouth, reeled back into the bedroom and fell across the bed. As if she’d received a blow to the head, instant darkness carried her blessedly off to unconsciousness.
Later, she awoke with a start, her hand instinctively rising to her cheek. She fingered the wetness. She had cried in her sleep. The last time she remembered crying was when she was five years old and she’d just been told her father had died. She’d cried then as much from fear of the unknown as she did from the loss of her mother. It was that same kind of fear that gripped her now. Fear that she had lost Dottie. Fear of not knowing what lay ahead for her with Julian.
She took a few deep breaths and let her mind drift back to what had taken place before the darkness had overtaken her. The panic she’d felt during the bloody conflict had disappeared, only to be replaced by the feeling that she was in the center of a maelstrom, spinning out of control with nothing solid to grasp for support.
The Vampire Julian Page 7