“No. If they were to become vampires, they’d be old, sick vampires. We have no ability to reverse aging or cure mortal ills.”
“Oh. Then you only turn young, healthy mortals?”
“Julie. I don’t turn mortals at all. No matter how much I might want to.”
He hated the way her lower lip quivered, as though she wanted to cry but was determined not to. Feeling helpless, devoid of words to make things better, Stefan smiled hopefully at the couple coming toward them.
“A beautiful dog,” he commented loudly enough that the owner of the elaborately clipped white miniature poodle would be certain to hear.
“Why thank you.” The poodle’s owner, a statuesque black woman with a heavy accent, smiled broadly, then bent to admire Noodles. Her sandy-haired companion, who reminded Stefan of the stereotypical all-American mortal male, grinned.
“Can’t separate a woman from her dog, can we?” he asked, shaking his head. “At least you don’t have to take that one to the groomer every Friday afternoon.”
Stefan glanced down at Noodles, then at the beribboned, perfumed poodle. “Every Friday?” he repeated.
“Yep. If Princess misses her bath, Areatha says her coat begins to get dusty looking. How long can yours go?”
Stefan shrugged. “I’m not sure. Julie?”
“I bathe Noodles once a month. She’s low maintenance.” Julie looped her free arm through his, giving him the feeling that while he was not totally forgiven, getting out and about in her world was making her feel better. Giving her a measure of contentment he couldn’t offer her. “Speaking of maintenance, we’d better be going. Noodles is going to want her breakfast.”
“I’m sure we’ll see you again,” the other woman told them as she tugged on her dog’s hot-pink leash. “Take care.”
“They’re from different worlds, Stefan. She’s cosmopolitan, elegant, obviously a world traveler. He’s like a small-town boy from the way he speaks. It seems they’ve managed to bridge the gap.” Julie interlaced their fingers once they’d moved along, then paused to look out and admire the sunrise. “Why can’t we?”
Stefan let out an audible sigh. “They’re both mortal. They occupy the same world, have the same expectations about who they are and the kind of life they’ll lead together. Acceptance as members of the same species. We do not.”
“You’re here. You function just fine, from all I’ve been able to observe.” She paused, raking him with a glance that was half teasing, half sexual -- hopeful and serious all at once. “The only difference I see in us is that you get your nourishment from blood instead of conventional food. And, of course, the fact you’re the most desirable male I’ve ever had the pleasure of loving.”
He took her hand, led her to a bench underneath the shade of a large, spreading tree. “Could you stand living in darkness, rarely venturing out? Not seeing much of the beauty you now preserve in your art?”
She glanced at the bright sky, then looked at him. “Sunlight’s proven to be disastrous to a woman’s skin. Besides -- “
“As vampires age, they become less sensitive to light. You would be a very young vampire for a very long time. Perhaps as long as several mortal lifetimes. Another thing. I’ve seen how you enjoy your food. If you became like me, you not only would get your nourishment from blood, you probably would never be able to consume any other substance without becoming deathly ill.”
“On the other hand, I’d still look and feel young when mortals my age would have long been dead. I’d get to love you for centuries, not decades, see our children -- “
“That might not happen, no matter how diligently I’d try.” He hated to burst her bubble, but... “The reason there are so few born vampires is that we don’t procreate easily. With luck, I might be able to father one child. Many of my clan have lived and died childless, not for want of trying.”
“I don’t care.” She turned to him, laid one hand on his shoulder and the other on his thigh. “I know this doesn’t make sense, Stefan. Don’t you think I realize how crazy it is for me to feel this way? What is it that’s made me feel so strongly about you in such a short time?”
When she smiled at him, Stefan couldn’t help but smile back. “I don’t know. You’ve given me the greatest pleasure I’ve known for centuries. Centuries, Julie. I cannot deny I want you for my own. But I’m a four hundred and fifty-year-old vampire. You’re a human. You flourish in the sunshine, while I move freely only in the shadows.”
“But you’re outside now. You were yesterday, too. Why couldn’t I...”
Stefan held up his hand to silence her. “You’d move even less freely than I. I may seem to move freely in the sunlight, but I’ve been a vampire all my life, and tolerance to the sun increases as vampires age. It doesn’t mean being outside in the light is comfortable for me, even this early in the morning.”
He paused, barely able even after all this time to put into words the fact of his youthful selfishness, his shame. The grief had faded, yet guilt still rode him hard. “I need you to understand...why. Why I can’t take what I want more than anything.”
“Then tell me. It won’t make any difference about how I feel.” Squaring her shoulders and grasping both his hands, Julie looked him in the eye, as though she was daring him to test her conviction.
“It will. It must. I loved a mortal once before. I wanted to keep her enough to try to turn her. She’s dead. Because I loved her, I killed her. In my selfishness to keep her with me, I drained her lifeblood.”
Julie drew in a breath, but as she searched his face with her gaze, she didn’t recoil in horror. Her eyes filled with tears, as though registering the pain it had taken him to say the words. He loved her, more than he’d ever loved before, and she was not making this any easier. Her grip tightened on him. “Don’t try to tell me you ever hurt any woman intentionally. I may not have known you long, but I know you well enough to know that.”
Even now, almost two hundred years later, thinking about the youthful lover he’d killed with his affection brought tears to Stefan’s own eyes. Not so much for his lost love, but because he must walk away from Julie, realizing how deeply she cared, how much she trusted him despite his initial deception. His heart ached. Leaving her would hurt her, and hurting her would literally destroy him, end his existence long before his natural demise.
Or else he’d lose control and turn her, ending her life if he failed, changing it forever if he succeeded.
He couldn’t chance history repeating itself. “I won’t consign you to living forever in darkness.”
“I want you to.” Her eyes glistened with ice-blue tears.
Stefan clasped her hands, forced her to meet his gaze. “I won’t risk killing you to feed my own obsession.”
“How about for love? I’m not an obsession. You love me, damn it. I can see it in your eyes, feel it in your touch.”
Stefan closed his eyes. Since he couldn’t bring her across to him safely, he wished he could change for her. He longed to shed the mantle of darkness and step into the light. Claim Julie. Raise a family with her, watch them grow up and proliferate mortality. Not even the thought of dying young -- having only fifty years or so to love his golden woman -- dampened the sudden desire to leave his world. Join hers.
It couldn’t be, though. There would be no children, for he could only sire a child on another vampire, one born or one he’d made. “Yes. I love you. Too much to stay with you here, watch you ostracized by your friends. Too much to risk changing you in order for you to bear my dhampir child.”
Julie’s eyes widened, as if that thought hadn’t crossed her mind before. “We’ve risked that already.”
Stefan took her hand, stroked the soft skin, admired the pinkness of her short, neatly trimmed nails. “No. No mortal can carry a vampire’s seed.”
She choked back a sob. Her hands shook, revealing at last some of the emotional drain the past hour must have extorted from her.
“I’m sorry.” He put his arms arou
nd her, offering comfort...shared regret...a mutual wish for what must not be. For what he must not allow to become, for her sake.
Noodles barked, her hackles rising on her long, round back. Stefan spun around on the bench, saw a flash of a white shirt and dark pants, an apparition swallowed almost instantly by the park’s thick foliage behind them.
He pulled Julie to her feet, and she saw his eyes turn icy jade as he scanned the area in all directions. A moment earlier, he’d been pensive and sad, trying to persuade her she didn’t know her own mind. Now he’d turned fierce. The tips of his fangs gleamed in the early sun, and he let out a low, menacing hiss -- a clear warning to any who dared threaten what was his. It froze her in his grasp, a man who had gone from gentle nobleman to fierce predator in mere seconds. For her. To protect her.
This was the man she loved. The man she now understood would protect her, even at the cost of his own life. Even if that meant protecting her from dangers he himself posed to her safety. Dangers she must find a way of persuading him she’d face with joy, if only they might hope to share a lifetime together.
After a few tense moments, he loosened his painful grip on her arm. “Reynard,” he spat out, the name projecting more hate than the most violent of curses. “He was here, spying on us. Come on, let’s go home.”
* * * * *
Louis huddled in the darkened cocoon of his hotel room, sealed off from daylight and danger. But sleep wouldn’t come. He’d taken in stride the presence of one d’Argent shadow, even laughed at the young vampire’s inability to shield himself from view. But another? This one apparently had taken to trailing not him but his next victim. Louis clenched his fists until the nails cut into his palms, his fury building by the moment as he pictured them together, Julie’s bright head nestled on the broad shoulder of some wet-behind-the-ears youngster from the d’Argent clan.
Julie Quill was his. Only his, for all eternity, like all the rest. Not d’Argent’s. Never his.
The d’Argent pup had been holding Julie as though he had the right. As though he knew her body as only mortals or born vampires could. Louis imagined d’Argent caressing her first, the way Louis had wanted to stroke Alina, nipping at her lips and throat and breasts before burying his face between her legs and sampling the honey there. Finally, when she was hot enough, he’d drive his male tool into her warm, moist human cavern and clamp down on her jugular to feed.
No. D’Argent hadn’t turned the woman. Not yet. Louis would have sensed it if his victim had become a vampire. With jerky movements, for being outside in the dim light of dawn had burned away much of his strength, Louis straightened his legs and unclenched his right fist long enough to curl it around his useless prick.
It felt soft, malleable, cool. Once it had been hot and hard.
It had been the feast of the summer solstice, 1102. A mountain village in the Caucasus, a celebration of the series of successful raids that had filled each hut with food and drink. Much wine had flowed, so much that Louis had dared to rape the nubile daughter of a tribal chieftain in full view of all, including his own wife and the girl’s sister and brothers. The chieftain had taken his ballocks, then buried him alive in the small town cemetery.
Nine hundred years and more had passed since a vampire of the Reynard clan had plundered that village and taken refuge in the wooden coffin where Louis had lain. Louis still felt the fangs sinking into his neck, the slow return to consciousness, the agonizing pain in his groin from where the chieftain had taken his seed sac several days earlier.
The ghoul who had restored his life had laughed when asked to give him back his stones. “They’re of no use to the likes of us, my friend,” he said. “I’m called Igor the Fox. Come with me. We’ll wander the world in search of blood to drink. You’re now a creature of the night...a vampire whose only pleasure will be in the taking of life from mortals.”
Nine hundred years. Nearly a millenium since Louis had swelled with sexual energy. Too long.
For years he’d blamed Igor, wished the other vampire had let him rest in peace. He’d even rejoiced when his maker had been destroyed by a vampire hunter during the craze following the reign of Vlad Dracul. A lost soul, Louis had migrated first to Prussia, then to France, always seeking fulfillment that lay beyond his reach. Three useless brides. A string of dead humans on whom he’d fed had marked his path until, two years ago, he’d outlasted the others, finally ascending to leadership over his depleted clan two years ago.
One of the leader’s supposed duties was to sire an heir, though none in his memory had ever accomplished that feat. Louis had gone to the eldest of his clan, a crone who’d been ancient when Igor had turned her centuries earlier, and sought her advice as to how best to make this miracle happen. She’d cackled and mocked him, told him what he asked was impossible, and so he’d tortured her. He’d broken her fragile bones and disemboweled her, yet refused to drive the wooden stake through her rotten heart and end her suffering until she told him what to do.
Her eyes had turned dark as death, their fire extinguished by pain, but she’d summoned up enough strength to hold his gaze and choke out a few clearly audible words. “Go...find the queen of the born vampires, the d’Argents. Join forces with her, and you’ll be able to mate. Now, I beg you, grant me death, for the injuries you’ve inflicted on me will never heal. “
Louis had believed her then, ended her suffering, certain she’d not have dared lie with her dying breath. He’d wondered, certainly, for the Reynard connection with the aristocratic d’Argent clan had been one of envy on the part of his clan, disdain on theirs. Over the centuries the d’Argents had blamed Reynards for the destruction of their elders -- more often than not with justification. Still, Louis had trusted the vampire’s last words, done as she’d bade him do.
Louis knew now. The bitch had lied. The more he’d hurt her, the more absurd lies she’d spun. Ha! The crone only thought she’d known pain. Pain he’d increase tenfold now, if he had the power to resurrect her from her grave.
He’d gone to Paris with such hope, such joy. Practically prostrated himself before the snobbish beauty who headed the d’Argent clan. She’d laughed. Laughed at him, Louis Reynard. Her minions had barely been able to repress the looks of disgust, of disbelief that he’d dared to suggest...
Alina had mocked him, tossed off his pitiful suggestion that they might join forces in governance if not in life. She’d live to regret that smile, that patronizing way she’d lifted one perfect eyebrow over one green d’Argent eye. Apparently the mere idea she’d sully her incomparable face and body on the likes of a Balkan-born peasant turned vampire had apparently amused her.
So what if she’d known he personally had taken part in the series of vampire attacks that had brought disaster down on all vampires at the hands of the evil regent, Catherine de Medici. So she’d realized he’d had a hand in causing a bloody, painful death to her father and uncle. That was no fucking excuse for the bitch to have treated him, head of the Reynard clan, with such disrespect.
Louis doubted Alina was laughing now, now that she knew twenty women had died because of her cruelty, her mockery. He reached between his legs, felt the empty spot where his seed sac had lain when he was mortal. Fuck, he’d not only kill Julie Quill but destroy her d’Argent lover, too.
“You’ll soon see just what happens, Queen Alina,” he muttered. “Nobody, not even the Queen of the Vampires, gets by with crossing the fox.”
First, though, he needed rest. Then a quick feed. To perdition with the moon cycles and the pattern he’d chosen to time his killings, creating the pattern that would keep Alina on edge, knowing when but not where he’d strike again. It was time now to alter the pattern, get his pursuers off balance. Keep taunting Alina as he’d vowed to do from the moment he’d walked out of her elegant Paris townhouse, ego battered but no more broken than his body had been when laid in that shallow grave so long ago. He’d sleep and feed, and then he’d confront the d’Argent whoreson in the arms of his lover.
>
As he was drifting into that shadow world between wakefulness and sleep, Louis remembered the dog. While he was at it, he’d do in that damned sausage dog of hers that had dared to bite him -- the same dog he’d seen again this morning, frolicking peacefully at d’Argent’s feet.
* * * * *
Noodles laid her head on Stefan’s feet while he sat with Julie, watching her prepare her breakfast. The bowl of plump, dark-red cherries and one creamy peeled banana let off an interesting fragrance -- sweet-tart, in stark contrast to the slightly sulphur-like smell of the egg she was cooking on the stove.
“I hope that tastes better than it smells,” Stefan commented when she scooped out the egg and set it on a slice of toast.
“It does.” She set the plate on the table, then turned to the refrigerator and set out one of the carryout containers he’d brought home from the bar. “Would you like a glass? Ice?”
“A small glass, please. No ice.” Stefan had to give Julie credit. Not many mortals of his acquaintance would calmly offer to let him feed while they ate their mortal fare. “I don’t feed as often as I’ve observed that you mortals tend to eat, but I’ll sip a bit while you have your breakfast.”
If he hadn’t been here, he imagined Julie would have had the shades open. The room would have reflected the bright outdoor light, patterned with the shapes of leaves and flowers from the plants she grew on the patio. As it was, white walls created light, made it necessary for Stefan to keep on his dark glasses or risk contracting one awful headache. Still, this felt right, sitting in her kitchen, sipping his sustenance while she nibbled daintily on a juicy cherry.
When a rivulet of succulent looking juices ran down her chin, Stefan had a sudden urge to taste it. Temptation, much like what he felt when he was a child playing in the vineyards near his home, overcame him. “The juice of the grape is sweet, but not for us,” his mother used to say, her tone wistful. He’d dared taste the grape, suffered the bellyache, learned by doing so that mortal foods were not for him. Yet he leaned closer, stroked Julie’s cheek, licked the sweet intoxicating juice away.
Dark Knights 1: Eternity of Darkness Page 12