Claimed by a Vampire
Page 11
“Oh. Oh! I see. I hadn’t even thought of that.” But how would she? All she knew about vampires was from the movies, much of which was apparently wrong, and the few things Creed had told her. “I’m obviously uneducated.”
Terri laughed. “Most of us are until we meet a vampire who’ll tell us the truth. No, I just wanted you to be aware of the possibility of fascination. But if you don’t feel it for Jude as well, then that’s not it. So how do you feel about Creed?”
“Curious. Drawn. I like him.” More than that she honestly couldn’t say, even if her body and emotions felt more strongly. She had to keep reminding herself that she hardly knew Creed, certainly not enough to feel more than the most basic of attractions. “But your description of being a bottle of champagne… Do you mean that as food?”
“Partly. They can drink from us without harming us. But they’re so reluctant to do it. At least these two. They really have drawn a moral line in the sand. Which makes it all very difficult for them now, because their cravings are much stronger than we can imagine. It’s not like wanting a bowl of ice cream. It’s wanting something you need to survive. Like water.”
Yvonne’s closest experience had been a summer when she’d ignored the heat to play basketball with some girlfriends. When she got home she had drunk a full gallon of water, and wanted more. That had been the thirstiest she had ever been, and she well remembered exactly how good that water had tasted to her. “Creed said something about everything being more intense now for him.”
“It is. Anyway, I couldn’t hide my attraction from Jude, and you probably can’t hide yours from Creed. Just… I guess what I’m trying to say is, be sure what you want. Because there’s so much more involved than you and I can fully understand. Take me, for example. I had no idea the agony I caused Jude when I suggested I pay him for his services with my blood.”
“You actually did that?” Amazement filled Yvonne. For all she felt attracted to Creed, she had never even considered the possibility of giving him her blood.
“Yeah, I did that. I had no idea how rough I kept making it for him to maintain his self-control. I thought, well, if he didn’t want my money, maybe he’d take my blood.” Terri shook her head. “He kept trying to make me go away. Tried to shock me or horrify me so I’d just move on. And I kept right on coming back.”
“Creed hasn’t tried to drive me away. He just stays as far from me as possible.”
“Creed’s in a tough situation. He’s protecting you. It’s not like he can tell you to get lost.”
Yvonne’s heart plummeted. God, she hadn’t even thought of that. Her very presence was a severe trial, evidently, and he couldn’t tell her to go away. It sickened her to think what he might be enduring to keep her safe from Asmodai. She didn’t want anyone to suffer like that. But what alternative did she have? He wouldn’t even let her stay on her own in the daytime.
She looked down, searching for solutions and finding none. If he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, she was helpless. Helpless to be anything but an unending, painful temptation.
“This is awful,” she said finally, her chest tight with emotion. “Just awful.”
“No, it’s just what is. If Creed couldn’t handle it, he would tell Jude.”
“Maybe.” She wasn’t at all sure of that. In fact, she clearly recalled that Creed hadn’t volunteered for the job of protector; Jude had designated him. So it was entirely possible he didn’t want to do this at all.
She sighed, but when Terri questioned her, she just shook her head. How could she explain that she felt sick at heart thinking she was a burden Creed didn’t want, one that might be causing him plenty of discomfort? She hardly knew the man. She shouldn’t care that much.
But she did. And it made her a little ill.
And in her mind, she heard echoes of her mother telling her what a burden she was, how hard it was to raise a child without help, how much she had to give up in order to support Yvonne. Yvonne had reacted by becoming totally self-sufficient, refusing to lean on anyone for anything.
Now here she was, leaning again. A burden again. Her stomach flipped and something inside her turned bleak and cold.
“Yvonne?”
She looked up and saw concern in Terri’s pretty face. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not and it’s my fault. What did I say?”
“Nothing that isn’t true. I’ll try to be careful. I wouldn’t want to make it harder on Creed.” Indeed, if she could, she was going to find a way not to be a burden at all. Starting with her first job at sixteen, when she’d thrown her first paycheck down on the kitchen table and told her mother to take it, it had been a policy she had followed religiously. Need no one. Rely on no one. Take from no one. Except for that small slip with Tommy, she’d adhered to that credo. In the end, Tommy had given her nothing he hadn’t been prepared to give any attractive woman who had crossed his path.
There was a lesson in that.
Hiring Jude had been one thing. Living with Creed like a leech was another.
She felt a stiffening in her spine and knew she was going to find a way to take herself off Creed’s hands. Until then she would remain as invisible and as much out of the way as she possibly could.
Creed noted her withdrawal as soon as they were alone again. Hyperaware as he was, acutely as sensitive as he was, he could tell to the millimeter how far she was from him. For two days now her distance had been minimal, something he had chosen more than she. Now he heard it, smelled it, saw it: she was staying as far from him as she could.
Of course. The reality of what he was had finally sunk in. He’d been expecting it. Sooner or later, despite what she had so far claimed, she had been bound to realize that he was a monster, so unnatural that his existence flew in the face of everything known about biology.
He was so “other” that he was scarcely to be tolerated. So alien he might as well have come from Zeta Reticuli.
He was fully aware of the irony, of course. Just a little while ago he had wished she would pull back a bit to make it easier on him. Now she had, and it hurt.
He watched her from across the room, noting the way she was trying not to look at him, the way she seemed to be hunching in on herself.
He didn’t know what was harder to endure: her withdrawal or her delicious scent. Finally he decided he’d had enough.
“I’m going to step out onto the terrace for a breath of air.” A cleansing breath of night air to escape her maddening scent for just a few minutes. Just long enough to batter down an unwanted tangle of emotions and cravings.
But he stayed out longer than a couple of minutes. The past couple of days had thrown him off stride, between Yvonne and Asmodai, and he felt a deep need to find some kind of internal balance, to settle things within himself as they had been mostly settled before Yvonne. In his own way he’d found contentment and acceptance with his mostly solitary existence, leavened by his friendship with Jude. He’d always been an introvert anyway, a man more accustomed to the reaches of his mind.
Becoming a vampire had changed all that, making him aware that he was a being with needs that had little to do with the mind, that he couldn’t live in an ivory tower above the fray, that he was most definitely part of the fray.
Yet with time and determination, he’d managed to achieve some of that ivory-tower isolation again, burying himself in work, learning to love solitude in the night. Until Yvonne.
Yvonne had reminded him once again that even in his hideaway he still had wants and needs that had little to do with his brain, and much to do with his body and instincts.
She had awakened his slumbering nature, and for her sake as well as his own, he needed to get a grip.
He thought he heard a small sound and turned to look into the apartment. He saw what he saw only because he was a vampire. Human eyes could have seen nothing except that his hall door was open.
Luc St. Just, moving a little slower because of his burden, was carrying Yvonne out of the apartment
.
Instant rage filled Creed.
He needed to pause just long enough to pull open the sliding door and then he was off, following Yvonne’s scent as surely as if she had left a trail glowing in the air.
Another sniff in the hallway beyond his open door and he knew St. Just had gone for the stairs. Of course. The elevator would slow him down.
Creed took off at lightning speed, his only advantage that he was unburdened, and it was not much of an advantage.
He caught a glimpse of St. Just whirling around the stairwell three floors below him. He didn’t hesitate. He leaped over the railing at once and dropped like a stone, counting on catlike mobility and reflexes to allow him to catch a railing farther down.
But St. Just had the same idea, and leaped, too, risking Yvonne’s life, though not his own.
Desperation filled Creed. He let go of the railing he had caught and dropped all the way to the garage level. The impact hardly jarred him. He straightened in time to see the door into the parking garage start to swing shut. He caught it and raced through it so fast he wouldn’t even register as a blur to mortal eyes.
He could only think about how terrified Yvonne must feel, caught in the unbreakable grip of a strange vampire, moving at speeds so fast she wouldn’t even be able to see.
“St. Just!”
Creed called out as he raced toward the other vampire, his voice taking on the timbre of the lethal hunter he seldom allowed himself to become.
St. Just stopped and turned to face him, Yvonne in his arms.
“Stay back, Creed, or I’ll snap her in two.”
Yvonne appeared confused and panic-stricken. Creed felt his heart hardening with hatred. All of a sudden she flailed, and Creed’s heart stopped.
“Yvonne, don’t fight. Play dead!”
She looked wildly at him, but obeyed, thank God, going as limp and still as she possibly could given the terror that had to be ripping through her. A terror he smelled, and knew St. Just must smell. Aphrodisiacal, tempting, taunting fear. A black wave of self-loathing raced through Creed as he registered his own response, and knew Luc must be responding in the same way.
Yvonne smelled like prey, and every vampiric instinct would be awakened in St. Just. Creed hovered on the cusp of terror for her. One false move and she might be bitten.
“Luc, let her go. She’s done nothing to you.”
“She’s the bait. You think I wasn’t listening?”
The conversation with Jude on the terrace after dinner. Apparently Luc had been listening to at least part of it. He didn’t know whether to damn their incaution, or damn Luc more.
He battered down his fury, knowing he needed his mind right now. Physically he and Luc were fairly well matched, so his only edge would be to think clearly, because Luc was in the grip of deep-seated drives and would be amenable to reason only if it served his ends. Right now he was thinking only one thing: to get to Asmodai. At this point he would only agree with something that dangled that promise before him.
“Asmodai isn’t ready to emerge,” he told Luc. “We’re looking for his circle, but it’s not completely formed yet.”
“But he wants this one. He’ll come for her.”
“And just how much do you think you’ll be able to do all on your own, Luc? How much? He killed Natasha. What makes you think you can face him alone?”
“I don’t care what he does to me.”
That was the problem. Luc would get his vengeance or die trying. Beyond that he could not think or see.
“If you harm that woman, you’ll have no bait.”
That finally caused a flicker of awareness to enter Luc’s wild, black eyes. Creed seized on it. “Let her go, Luc. You know you can’t harm her or you’ll be back at square one. Just let her go and we’ll figure out some way to have you join us in our plan. You know we stand a better chance than you’ll stand alone.”
“I want him!” The words came out of Luc in a deafening, pained roar.
“I know you do. We’ll find a way to help you. But you’ve got to let the human go. She’s our only real link.”
He could tell he wasn’t getting through. Luc jumped back a step, still clutching Yvonne. “I need her. He wants her, so I need her. You’re not going to take her from me.”
“I didn’t say that. I said we could cooperate. The three of us will stand a better chance than you alone. But one thing is certain, if you harm that woman you’ll have no way to draw him.”
Luc emitted a growl, so deep and loud it sounded like a lion. At the sound, Yvonne struggled again, drawing Luc’s attention.
Creed stopped breathing, his every muscle tightening in preparation to spring.
“I could make her mine,” Luc growled. “I could make her mine forever. She’d stay with me then of her own free will.”
Yvonne froze. Black fear and loathing beyond measure filled Creed at that threat. He had to figure out how he could attack without hurting her. But he knew the instant he sprang, Luc could kill her. Humans were so fragile in the grip of a vampire.
“Don’t do that,” Creed said, forcing his voice to sound calm even though he was ready to tear this entire building to the ground. “If you do that, he may no longer want her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know he chose her. And that tells me what he wants. He certainly didn’t choose some vampire’s toy.”
Luc unleashed another deafening roar. Then he crouched, Yvonne still in his arms, and Creed steadied himself, waiting for the spring, knowing it might be his last chance to save Yvonne.
After the barest instant of hesitation, Luc flung Yvonne away. It was all Creed could do not to wince as he watched her fly like a rag doll. She was a human, so frail, so easy to harm. Fear for her fueled his rage at Luc. When he spoke it was between his teeth.
“You better not have harmed her.”
Luc crouched again, snarling. “You get in my way, Creed. You should know better.”
“You’re the one who should know better.” But he, too, crouched, ready to spring. In the balance hung Yvonne’s life. He couldn’t afford to lose this confrontation for that reason alone.
Luc shifted. Creed braced. Never had he been so acutely aware that he knew absolutely nothing about fighting.
Luc sprang with blinding speed. The impact nearly knocked Creed over. Creed fought for balance even as he grabbed Luc, knowing that one of them was going to die if they battled. Strength pounded into his muscles, strength he seldom allowed himself to use.
The only way to end it would be to rip Luc’s head off, and he didn’t have purchase. He was fighting arms as steely as his own, being kicked by feet as powerful as his own. Pain, so seldom felt, ripped through him.
Taking a chance, he overbalanced and kicked one of Luc’s legs from beneath him. At once they tumbled onto the concrete.
For an instant he was on top. He tried to squeeze Luc between his legs, felt the power of opposition. He reached for Luc’s head, desperate to put an end to this now. For Yvonne’s sake. At once Luc batted his arms away.
He felt ragged pain across his chest, felt himself rolling, then almost before he registered it, he heard the wind of Luc’s movement.
He leaped up immediately, half expecting an attack from behind, but none came. He lifted his head and sniffed the oily, exhaust-laden air. Luc had left.
Ignoring the pain that raked his chest, he sped to Yvonne’s side, kneeling beside her. Her eyes were open, and for an instant dread pierced his heart. She looked so lifeless!
But then she whispered, “Is he gone?”
Creed was past rationalizing anything, including his own behavior. With extreme care, making sure she didn’t cry out at any movement, he scooped her up gently in his arms. “Let’s get back to my place. Then we’ll see if you need a doctor.”
“I’m just bruised,” she said weakly, but then she nearly tore his heart in two by wrapping her trembling arms around his neck and burying her face against his throat.
The stairs raised the inevitable possibility that he might encounter someone, but he listened carefully, planning to dart into a hallway if necessary. No such need arose at this hour. Dawn approached, still some hours away, but he could feel it in a prickling along his neck, a built-in timer.