"Better?" he asked. I nodded, rubbing my arms against the chill of the room. Odd how I hadn't noticed how cold it was when I had been snuggled up to him. He kicked aside more wood, clearing a path to a wall a few feet away.
"Ryan," I said, watching as he sat down, his back against the wall.
"Adrian," he corrected, leaning back, his arms crossed, his eyes closed.
"Ryan is friendlier. Ryan all but oozes niceness. I like Ryan. A Ryan would never snack on someone's leg. Adrian sounds"—I made an expressive gesture with my hands—"cruel. Heartless. Savage."
"I am cruel, heartless, and savage. I am the Betrayer."
"Mmm. Ryan reeks of normalcy."
His eyes opened at that.
I made a face. "Maybe you're right. You're not exactly the Ryan type. Adrian it is."
I rubbed my arms again, glancing around for somewhere I could curl up and keep warm.
"No one has ever called me anything but Adrian the Betrayer." For a moment there was a look of surprised longing in his eyes; then it disappeared as he closed his eyes again.
"What are you doing?" I asked, shivering slightly. I hadn't seen any sign of them, but I couldn't help wondering if there were any rats trapped in the room with us. I bet if there were, none would bother Adrian. Weren't vampires supposed to be able to control the creatures of the night?
"I am trying to sleep. There are no rats."
"Stop reading my mind!" Annoyance at the way he dipped into my mind whenever he felt like it drove away the worry about rats and discomfort of the cold.
The corners of his lips quirked stiffly, as if he hadn't smiled in a long time. Even in partial shadow as he was, my inner squeal girl couldn't help but point out just how handsome he was. The faint glow of light picked up the red notes in his hair, kissing the hard planes of his face, the reddish whiskers softening an otherwise hard line of jaw. When his lips quirked upward at the corner, a hint of dimple showed on either cheek. His nose had a couple of small bumps down its length, indicating that he must have broken it once or twice. Eyelashes, thick and black, lay fanned on his cheeks, hiding those beautiful, haunted eyes.
He really was the most gorgeous man I'd ever seen.
The faint line of dimples on either cheek deepened.
Sexy as hell, too, but I expected he knew that.
One side of his mouth curled.
He probably didn't even have to go shopping for dinner. I bet the women were on him so thick, he had to shovel them off.
The other side of his mouth twitched. The dimples deepened.
He didn't do anything for me, though. Nothing at all. I was more sexually attracted to the burned root that lay on the floor than to him.
His eyes opened in surprise.
"Ha!" I told him, rubbing my arms. "That'll teach you to eavesdrop in people's private fanta… er… thoughts!"
"I assure you, it's not an ability I sought. In truth, the fact that we can read each other is more than a little disconcerting since it means…"
"What?" I asked, shivering with the damp and cold of the room.
"Nothing."
He closed his eyes again and appeared to go to sleep.
I kicked his foot. "You have dimples."
One of his eyebrows raised, but he didn't even bother to open his eyes.
"That's got to be against a law of nature. Everyone knows it's physically impossible for vampires to have dimples. Men who have dimples are cute and adorable, like little fluffy bunnies. Vampires are dark, brooding, and tortured. You can't be dark, brooding, and tortured if you could burst out into dimples at any moment."
His eyebrows lowered, but his arms remained crossed over his chest.
I kicked his foot again. "Men with dimples sing Broadway show tunes. Upbeat Broadway show tunes!"
"I don't have dimples." He crossed one ankle over the other just as I was going to kick his boot again.
"Yes, you do. I've seen them. You just don't know you have because you can't see your reflection in a mirror."
You shouldn't believe everything you read.
"You can see yourself in a mirror? Oh. Well, the next time you're near one, you'll have to smile at yourself and see your dimples."
His eyes opened for a few seconds to glare a steel-blue glare at me before closing again. Do I look like the sort of man who goes about smiling at himself in mirrors?
"You look like the sort of man who eats small children for breakfast," I answered. He said nothing to that, just went to sleep sitting on a hard, cold floor in a hard, cold room that somehow didn't seem to be quite as oppressive as it had a few minutes before. Dimples or not, I had to give him credit for calming the major panic attack I had been brewing. I stood for a few minutes shifting from foot to foot, finally saying in a whining voice that had me flinching in embarrassment, "I'm cold."
The martyred look was back on his face, but he opened his arms without saying anything. I didn't wait to debate the pros and cons of curling up next to a mind-reading vampire, I just threw myself onto him, apologized briefly for inadvertently jamming my knee into his groin, wrapped my arms around him, and buried my face into his neck. He was warm and strong and he smelled good. I relaxed into his body, his arms closing around me with a solidness that left me feeling safe and protected.
Which was ridiculous, considering he had just kidnapped me and wanted me to destroy myself in order to save him from a curse.
"Nell?" His voice was low and deep in my ear, his breath hot on my temple as he spoke.
"Hmm?"
"I've never once had to shovel women off me."
I chuckled into his neck, too warm and comfortable to protest the fact that he had been reading my mind.
"But it pleases me that you think I'm sexy."
I pinched a bit of flesh on his back exposed between his black cotton sweater and the waistband of his pants. "Bad vampire."
As I was falling asleep, a thought shimmered in my mind in a way that made me wonder if I had imagined it, or heard an echo of his thoughts.
There can be nothing between us. There is no hope for me. I must die, and you must live.
Chapter Five
"Ow. Stupid rock. My next kidnapper is going to have a Porsche."
Adrian said nothing, but the hand nearest me tightened into a fist, as if he wanted to strangle something. I had an uncomfortable feeling I knew what. Or rather, who. That worry didn't stop me from continuing, however. For some reason I didn't care to examine fully, I had gone from being terrified of Adrian to comfortable. Oddly comfortable. As in very, very strangely comfortable. And all because he was nice to me when he could have been cruel.
The fact that he didn't eat me for dinner also helped improve my overall impression of the Betrayer.
I shivered and trudged down the winding road that led from Drahanska Castle to the nearby town of Blansko, where I fervently prayed Adrian had a car stashed. "My next kidnapper is going to know how to kidnap a girl in style. He won't drag me off to a dirty, rat-infested hole, starve me, then make me walk miles and miles and miles after the sun has gone down. He'll kidnap me using his sports car with comfortable heated leather seats, complete with picnic basket filled with goodies. A sexy red sports car."
There was no response from Adrian other than his jaw tightening.
"A convertible!"
"For the love of God, woman, what do you want from me?" he burst out, his eyes flashing an irritated midnight blue. "I asked you if you wanted me to carry you, but you said you'd rather die first."
"Yeah, but I didn't mean it literally! Death by blisters, what an ignominious way to go." I rubbed my arms to keep the circulation going, wincing as I stepped on yet another rock.
"You have absolutely no respect for me, do you?" he asked, shooting me an annoyed look. "You have no idea how powerful and dangerous I can be. I am feared and loathed by all of my people, hunted like an animal by those who would destroy me, but you aren't the least bit in awe of me, are you? You should be terrified of me, and a
ll you do is complain."
"Well, I'm a bit in awe of those fangs," I said, trying to make him feel better, although I honestly didn't know why I cared if his feelings were hurt or not. "Aren't they in the way like that? You must have to mumble a lot when you're in public, so people won't see them. And don't your lips get snagged on them? I had braces when I was in my teens, and I tore my lips on them something terrible. I'd offer you some lip balm, but my purse was left behind when you abducted me. I hope the real Christian gives it back. All my money and my passport are in it."
"Dark Ones do not wear lip balm," he said in an outraged voice.
I shrugged and amused myself for a few minutes by trying to make the white puffs of breath that hung briefly in the air before me into a bat shape.
"No," Adrian said before I could ask the question. "I can't change into a bat."
I stopped in the middle of the road, a feeble moon casting light down upon us from between suitably dramatic wisps of cloud. "Stop. Reading. My. Mind!"
His fingers clamped around my wrist as he hauled my protesting feet forward. "I can't help it. You're projecting."
"Oh," I gasped, outraged. "I am not! I never project!"
"You are. You don't put up the slightest barrier to your thoughts. All I have to do is…" A warm presence touched my mind. I sucked in a deep breath of icy air at the feel of him merging with my thoughts. It was the most intimate touch I'd ever felt, far more intimate than just the joining of bodies.
Smug male satisfaction filled my mind.
"Stop it," I said, pushing him out of my mind. "It's not polite to wander around in someone's head without them knowing."
"You know," he grumbled. "You have to know. You also know you can read me just as easily as I can read you."
"Why would you think that?" I looked at the tall, dark figure next to me. "I've never been any good at guessing what people were thinking, let alone able to read minds."
"I've marked you," he said grimly. "It's the first step of Joining."
"Marked me? You haven't even touched me. I know you're the big bad wolf and all—"
"The Betrayer," he interrupted. "I am the Betrayer. I am hated and feared—"
"—by all your people, and hunted down like the dog you are, yadda yadda. Yeah, I know, you told me. I guess that's why I'm not afraid of you anymore, Adrian the Betrayer. You didn't hurt me when you could have."
"That's not the reason," he said shortly. I couldn't see his face because a cloud had drifted across the moon's face, but we were coming into town, which meant I should soon be able to see if his expression was as grim as his voice. "It's something much worse."
"Worse? What are you talking about?"
He refused to answer. Our conversation—sporadic at best—dried up into nothing as we started up a short hill into the town of Blansko.
"Nell," he said a little while later as we passed through a dark square. "You—"
"Oh, look, a train station! I bet you could hire a car there or something. And they probably have food, too. I'm starving. Come on."
"Nell." He grabbed my arm in his steel-fingered shackle grip and pulled me up so his mouth was next to my ear. To any of the few people driving through the square, we probably looked like lovers who couldn't wait to get home. "You will remember that you are my prisoner. You will keep uppermost in your mind at all times the fact that I'm a dangerous creature of darkness. I am a killer, a betrayer, a man without a soul who will not hesitate to destroy anyone who stands in his way."
I looked up at his face, visible in the bluish-white glow of a lamppost. A little ripple of fear skimmed down my back at the expression in his eyes. They were ice blue, and utterly hopeless. Without thinking of the folly of what I was doing, I turned so I faced him fully, gently touching the side of his face. Darkness, deep and all-consuming and endless, raged within him, a gaping hole inside him where his soul should have been. I wanted to fill the emptiness, to change the darkness to hope, and love, and happiness. I knew instinctively that I could lift the curse that bound him so tightly, easing the torment that had him within its twisted grip, but to do so would mean I had to open up that part of my mind that I had all but destroyed ten years ago.
The part of my mind that had killed an innocent woman.
"I'm sorry," I said, my voice a thin ribbon of sound on the cold night air as I lowered my hand. "I can't. I can't ever do that again."
His eyes went dark as I felt the soft brush of him against my mind. I turned away, as if that would keep him from seeing the truth about me. I had not thought for one moment that he hadn't noticed the slackness in the left side of my face, or the weakness in my left hand and leg, but he had not asked about it, and I hadn't offered an explanation.
"What do you hide from me?"
I stilled, clutching my guilt to myself. He turned me so I was facing him. Suspicion filled his face as he narrowed his eyes. "I cannot read what you hide. What secret do you have that fills you with so much horror?"
I took a deep breath, trying desperately to calm my suddenly racing heart. His thumb brushed over the pulse in my neck in a gesture so gentle, I almost melted at his feet. "You're not the only one who has betrayed people," I said finally.
"Who…" he started to say, then stopped abruptly, lifting his head as if scenting the night air. "Do prdele!"
I glanced around to see what had startled him, but saw nothing. We were in a dark square, the houses facing us dimly lit or dark already, even though it was only a little after nine at night. A few cars had zipped by us, but no walkers passed, and nothing nearby seemed to pose a threat.
"What's wrong?"
"Go." He shoved me forward. Beyond the square was a pink stone building that I recognized from the drive in with Melissande as the train station.
Melissande! I hadn't thought of her after wondering whether she would know I had been abducted. Surely she would count on my lust for the breastplate, at least, to keep me from walking out on her as it may have seemed I'd done. Had Melissande tracked us? Was I going to be rescued?
More importantly, why did I feel a distinct sadness at the thought of leaving Adrian?
"Quickly, go to the train station. Buy two tickets for Prague. The train leaves in less than twenty minutes. I will meet you at the platform."
"Wait a minute!" I grabbed at a lamppost as he pushed me down the sidewalk.
"You will do as I command," he snarled, spinning around to glare in the direction we had just come from.
I smacked him on the arm. "First of all, I don't take well to commands without an explanation. If you want me to do something, tell me why. And second of all…" I took a couple of steps back when he whirled toward me, his eyes all but spitting blue flames into the night. The words Id been about to utter, telling him he could stuff his Mr. Macho attitude, died on my lips. "Uh… I don't have any money. You hustled me out of the library so fast, my purse was left with Melissande, remember?" I held up my empty hands.
He swore again in Czech, thrusting his hand in his inner jacket pocket before shoving a wad of bills at me. "Go!"
Before I could protest, he was off, slipping into the shadows as if he'd been made of them.
"Which," I said to myself as I peered down the length of the square trying to follow him, "is just about as apt a simile as I'll ever find. All right, Nell, what are you going to do?"
I looked down at the money in my hand. I could take it and buy myself a ticket to Prague, where I could throw myself on Melissande's mercy. I could hire a taxi to take me back to Drahanska Castle, where I could recover my purse. I could trot myself to the nearest police station and report my abduction (leaving out a few key insights into Adrian's dark nature).
"Or," I said on a sigh as I turned for the pink stone building, "I could buy two tickets to Prague, and spend the rest of the night figuring out why the hell I care the least bit about a bad boy vampire. Assuming he shows up from wherever he's gone off to, that is."
I bought two tickets. The ticket seller tol
d me that the train was running a little late, but that it should arrive within the next half hour. Hunger gnawing at my stomach, my first act after paying for the tickets was to plug some change into a candy machine and consume three honey-chocolate bars in swift succession.
I think the sugar high must have done something to me, because by the time I was done licking the last of the chocolate from my fingertips, I was pacing the length of the sidewalk outside the train station, periodically pausing to consult the large clock in a minuscule waiting room.
"This is ridiculous. He's not coming. He's run off to find himself a quick dinner or something," I muttered, not believing it, but feeling better for saying it. "He's not going to make the train. You should be happy, Nell. You're free again. No more bossy vamp pushing you around. You can tell Melissande what happened, get your stuff, and go home."
Without the breastplate.
Without helping Melissande locate her nephew.
Without Adrian.
"Right, you can just stop thinking that, for one," I lectured myself, peering out into the darkness in hopes of seeing a large, vampire-shaped man running my way. "He might be nummy, and he might smell good, and he might be filled with so much pain it hurts to even think about it, but he's a vampire. A night walker. A bloodsucker. And he betrays people, to boot. He's no good with a capital NO. Who cares if those other vamps he was talking about have found him? Who cares if they beat him up? Who cares if they… aw, hell!"
I ran down the sidewalk, following the path I had taken to get to the station. Try as I might, I couldn't deny that Adrian and I had some sort of connection, and I couldn't just stand around if he needed help. I told myself it was so I could worm out of him the information he knew about Damian—I owed it to Melissande to do what I could to help, since I wasn't going to do what she had brought me here to do—steadfastly ignoring the truth that it was Adrian I really wanted to help.
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