All because of an evil vampire she’d never even met. “I can’t, Julian. I can’t just run away.” Though hadn’t she told Officer Wells that running away was her specialty?
Julian dropped her hand, and his gaze darkened. “You call it running away. I call it staying alive. I don’t relish hiding from him, but if it helps me defeat him in the end, I’ll do it. Besides, Lambert won’t kill me outright, not yet. But someone else might. He’s not the only powerful vampire around, and you can’t protect yourself from the others.”
A chill battled with the rising heat of Zoe’s anger. Her whole life was collapsing because Julian had ended up in the basement of Dollars and Sense. She was about to protest again when he took her hand. “Let me protect you while I can,” he said.
Something in the middle of her chest seemed to melt. She remembered the eerie feeling from last night when the wraithlike vampire had accosted her in the alley. A sense of gloom had settled in her soul then and hadn’t let go. She might not have wanted to admit it, but she was scared.
“You’ll be safe at Hester’s,” Julian said. “For now.”
For now would have to be good enough.
After they stopped at a discount department store to augment Julian’s wardrobe, Zoe seemed to recover from her snit. Though he had no doubt that her anger at being spirited away from her home still bubbled under the surface, her petulant silence dissolved as they neared the bay. Despite having convinced himself he liked her better when she did nothing but stare out the passenger window, arms crossed over her chest, breathing steady and controlled, he grudgingly admitted relief when she deigned to speak to him again.
“Tell me more about this Draconus. Do you think he’ll be able to reverse Lambert’s spell?” she asked. The salt breeze had picked up and swirled through the car’s open windows, seeming to revitalize her.
“If anyone can. He is the keeper of some very ancient magick, and there are very few mystical boundaries he can’t breach.”
“Why didn’t Hester just take you to him in person? Wouldn’t that be the fastest way to get you revamped?”
“I can’t just walk into Drac’s lair. It’s accessible only by invitation. If Drac can help me, he’ll either give Hester what she needs to reverse the spell or, heaven forbid, he’ll summon me.”
“And you don’t like him?”
“Astute observation.” Julian pulled onto Hester’s street and coasted to a stop in front of her bungalow.
“Why?”
“If you ever have the misfortune to meet him, you’ll see. He’s insufferable. That adage about absolute power corrupting was coined with him in mind. He takes himself far too seriously.”
“Well, then, we’ll just have to hope that Hester can handle the reversal on her own.”
Julian made no comment. Dealing with the Draconus face-to-face would be almost as intolerable as losing his vampire abilities. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to survive the added humiliation.
They climbed out of the car and retrieved Zoe’s duffle bag and the items he’d purchased at the discount store in Easton. That had been bad enough—shopping for bargains on the closeout racks. Once this ordeal was over, he’d have the jeans and T-shirts he’d bought with Zoe’s spare cash burned and replaced with proper clothing, but for now, they would serve as his disguise along with a nylon windbreaker and an extra pair of sunglasses. The upside of dressing down was that no one who knew him would believe he’d be caught dead—or worse, alive—in something that wasn’t hand-tailored.
Zoe stared at him expectantly when they converged before Hester’s front door. For some reason, he felt self-conscious. Under his breath, he mumbled the password that would gain them entrance.
“What was that?” she asked, utterly guileless.
He sighed. Apparently the house hadn’t heard him clearly either because the door remained stubbornly locked. “I said, furry…handcuffs.”
The door popped open, as did Zoe’s mouth. She stared.
“It’s a magical password,” he explained.
She squeaked, and Julian couldn’t tell if the sound was one of amusement or embarrassment. “I had no idea furry handcuffs were…magical.”
“It depends on who is using them.” He shouldered past her into the house and, as he trudged toward the sitting room, the lights came on one by one, illuminating his path.
“Hey, maybe Hester could teach me a magical password. Then I wouldn’t have to hide my spare key in the stairwell.”
“I’m sure you could ask her when she gets back. In fact, it might be a very good idea.” He put his bags down and surveyed the place. It smelled sweet and homey, and the lamps glowed cozily. Best of all, there was nothing in the entire house that was neon pink.
Zoe shrugged. “We’re here. Now what?”
“There are guest rooms upstairs.”
“There’s an upstairs?” She glanced at the ceiling. Another advantage of witchery, Hester’s bungalow had two floors, only one of which was visible from outside the house.
“It pays to kiss up to the Draconus, apparently.”
Zoe nodded. “Ah. So he’s got something going with Hester, and you’re jealous?”
Julian arched a brow. “Of course not. Follow me if you want a place to sleep.”
Zoe followed Julian up a flight of stairs to Hester’s well-camouflaged second floor. There seemed to be four rooms branching off from a short, central hallway. One was a bathroom, and the others were bedrooms.
For a one-story beach-side bungalow, the place was huge. Julian flung open the door to one of the bedrooms, revealing a cozy hideaway reminiscent of an English cottage, and a little envy colored Zoe’s thoughts.
A lacy canopy covered a champagne-hued queen-sized bed. Organza draperies hung from arched windows and puddled on a highly polished hardwood floor. A rose-tinted area rug separated the bed from a small gilt-edged dressing table that looked like it had come directly from the sitting room of a fairy princess.
Candles in fluted hurricane jars flared to life as Zoe stepped over the threshold. She felt like she’d just entered Cinderella’s castle, complete with a glowering Prince Charming eyeing her from the hallway.
“Is the room all right?” Julian asked, his voice somewhat husky. The place oozed romance and, Zoe had to admit, the ambiance made her just a bit lightheaded.
“Uh…fine.”
With a curt nod, Julian disappeared into another room at the end of the hall and left Zoe to contemplate how she’d ended up in a magical house, in a magical room with an ex-vampire down the hall. Her friends would never believe this!
Zoe’s thoughts came back to earth. She dropped her bag on the floor and rummaged in her purse for her cell phone. She dialed Tanya’s number twice before she noticed there were no bars on the tiny display screen. Heaven knew where Hester’s second floor actually was, but it certainly wasn’t anywhere near a cell tower. Naturally there was no land line to be found amid the glowing candles and delicate lace doilies, so she’d just have to wait and try to make a call from downstairs or better yet outside, as soon as she got the chance.
After tossing the useless phone onto the bed, where it bounced once before nestling into the fluffy, pearlescent comforter, she turned her attention to the duffle bag Julian had packed for her.
Inside she found two pairs of jeans, sneakers and socks, a couple of sweaters, camisoles and white cotton briefs. He’d packed for a cross-country road trip, it seemed, practical and comfortable.
Her cheeks burned at the thought that he’d been through her drawers and found only sensible, virginal underwear. What would he have thought if he’d come across teddies and thongs and bustiers—all the things she drooled over in the Victoria’s Secret catalog but didn’t have the nerve to buy, or the reason to wear? Maybe that explained why her last three boyfriends had gone looking elsewhere.
She bet Hester owned thongs, and lace-edged bras and those stockings with the seams up the back that attached to old-fashioned garter belts.
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br /> And furry handcuffs.
Had she imagined it, or had Julian looked a bit embarrassed by the magical password? Apparently Hester had a wicked sense of humor and very little shame.
Zoe tossed the duffle bag on the floor and dove onto the bed. It was like landing on a cloud, and that only heightened her growing envy of the wicked little witch. But now wasn’t the time to indulge in a comparison between her and Hester. She had bigger problems to worry about, starting with how long she could remain on the lam with Julian.
It had been one thing to try to help him when she thought he might be suffering from post-traumatic stress or some other psychological dysfunction, but now, with each passing moment, she was more and more convinced that everything he’d been telling her was true.
That meant vampires were real, and he was one of them—or had been—and wanted to be again.
Maybe her best course of action would be to run now before she became too deeply involved, before she cared too much about Julian’s fate to be able to abandon him to it.
Maybe it was already too late for that.
Chapter Ten
He remembered the taste of blood, sticky sweet and salty, redolent with the flavor of fear. Julian never abused his food the way some vampires did, but he’d always enjoyed the feel of a rapid pulse beneath his lips and that first anxious surge across his tongue.
He longed for it once again. The power of it beckoned him as he crept into Zoe’s room. She lay cocooned in Hester’s voluminous comforter, her arms curled around an overstuffed pillow, the curve of her neck exposed to his curious gaze.
He wondered what she’d chosen to sleep in since he hadn’t packed any of the slinky tank tops he’d found in her bureau.
As a vampire, he might have peeled back the blanket and looked, but he’d already stubbed his toe once on the way in to retrieve her cell phone and keys from her purse. He doubted he could touch the bed without waking her. His vivid imagination would have to suffice as it had before they’d left Baltimore.
Despite his concern about getting away from Lambert’s growing sphere of influence, he’d indulged in a few lascivious thoughts while he’d tossed her clothes into her bag. He’d purposely bypassed the multi-hued skirts and fringed tops that dominated her wardrobe, and had gone instead with jeans and soft sweaters. Guiltily, he’d pictured her perched barefoot on a sand dune clutching an oversized turtleneck around her throat while the wind whipped her blond curls into a riot around her face. Then he’d pictured her in nothing at all and admonished himself for that. To someone who’d lived as long as he had, she was little more than a child and almost as innocent. Besides, how could she satisfy him if he couldn’t drink from her? He kept coming back to that question.
Briefly while he watched her sleep, he envied her male friend—the one who had bedded her, tasted her. He relished the thought that the pleasure she’d known at his hands hadn’t been memorable enough to repeat.
Annoyed by the direction of his musings, Julian tried to distract himself with memories of Hester. They’d had their recreational times, not as a result of any true feeling between them, but because they were well-suited physically, and because such an allegiance helped to augment his power and prestige in the world he’d helped to create. A long-standing agreement between witches and vampires allowed them to co-exist peacefully while keeping the human population largely unaware of their existence.
That thought led him to miss his carefree vampire life. Little had concerned him a week ago except maintaining control over the dominion Anton Brae had left in his hands.
Governed by little more than his own desires and the loose guidelines of the allegiance, his existence had been easy and relatively comfortable, until a moment’s arrogance and his own dismissal of the true extent of his former ally’s treachery cost him everything.
Now he couldn’t even move through a room unnoticed, couldn’t influence anyone’s thoughts or actions with merely a gaze. He couldn’t wake her, feed from her, then leave her to remember nothing more than an arousing dream.
Being human sucked. Annoyed with himself for dallying, he retrieved what he’d come for and headed toward the door. Beneath the comforter, she stirred and murmured something questioning. He stared at her, heart thundering so loud she had to hear it, but she quieted and made no further move.
He sighed and slipped out of the room, hungry and, once again, unfulfilled.
Zoe awoke when the strange half-light outside her windows changed from white to golden yellow. The room glowed with warmth that seemed to infuse her. She’d slept well. Too well, perhaps. She hadn’t even remembered to try to call Tanya or her family before she’d fallen asleep.
She rolled out of the big bed and retrieved her purse from the chair in front of the dressing table. A moment later, in a panic, she dumped the contents of her purse out on the bed. Wallet, change purse, essential makeup, a pack of gum and her birth control pills were all there, but no phone. No car keys.
She tossed the empty purse aside and tore through the contents of her duffle bag as well. There, as she expected, she found nothing but the clothes Julian had packed for her.
Incensed, she bounded into the narrow hallway and rapped on Julian’s door. He didn’t answer, but the aroma of fresh coffee drew her downstairs where she found him in Hester’s sunny kitchen, sprinkling cinnamon and sugar on a piece of buttered toast.
“I’d have made eggs, but Hester is a strict vegetarian,” he explained, offering Zoe a plate.
“Where’s my phone?”
“In my room. I can’t have you calling your friends and giving away our location.”
She whirled around in a truncated circle, unsure of whether to flail her arms in indignation or pace away her anger in the small square of tiled floor between the table and the spotlessly clean counter top. “I want my phone back. And my keys. I agreed to come here with you, but I can’t just drop off the face of the earth. My family will lose their minds. My friends will alert the National Guard—everybody I know will freak out.”
“Probably, but not as much as they would if your bloodless corpse is found in an alley somewhere.” He set the plate down on the table.
“I’m a big girl, Julian. I can—”
He stopped her with a dismissive wave. “Take care of yourself? Please. I could have eaten you half a dozen times in the last three days. And if I hadn’t dragged you with me into the tunnels, Lambert’s men would have murdered you for sport.” His gaze hardened, and Zoe actually stepped back from the table. “Besides that, my life is at risk too. You can be coerced into giving away my whereabouts. I have no doubt we’re perfectly safe here for the time being, but if Lambert had access to magick powerful enough to un-vamp me, you can bet he has other tricks in his repertoire. You’ll stay here, under my protection, until Saturday. Then I’ll have Hester escort you home.”
Zoe seethed. Tanya and Bryan would go ballistic if they couldn’t locate her, and she refused to think about how her parents would react to the news their daughter was missing. “I wouldn’t tell anyone where you were. I promise.”
“You wouldn’t have a choice.”
“You don’t trust me. That’s why you took my things.” He’d done so in the middle of the night, while she slept. She wouldn’t think about that right now either.
“It’s not in my nature to trust, Zoe. If it were, I’d have a network of allies helping me turn the tables on Lambert. Instead I have only you…and Hester.”
“But you trust her?” That bothered Zoe more than the rest of it.
“We have an understanding, a mutual exchange of power. Besides, as a witch, she has a number of protective charms against vampires. I can’t hurt her. I can’t use her, except as she permits me to, and neither can my enemies.”
Zoe swallowed her ire and consoled herself that even though her family would worry themselves sick, she was alive and safe and would come back to them on Saturday when Julian was…gone.
“I hope the clothes I packed for yo
u were acceptable.” His pointed remark, delivered with a rise of one sculptured eyebrow, reminded Zoe that she wore only a T-shirt and panties. She’d stormed downstairs without thought that she was nearly naked.
With a calculated huff to cover her embarrassment, she turned her back on her infuriating captor and hurried back upstairs to seethe some more.
Julian watched her bare legs as they disappeared up the staircase. A swallow of fresh squeezed orange juice was cold comfort. He’d have preferred something with a kick, but Hester didn’t imbibe either.
He should have bitten her. Just now, while she stood ranting at him, his gaze had fallen to her inner thigh, and his mouth had watered for a taste just as it had last night. He wasn’t used to wanting. Since Anton Brae had turned him, his life had been one of privilege. He’d always had the finest things but had learned never to consume to excess. Brae had insisted overindulgence was foolish and wasteful, a weakness of character rather than a prerogative of the rich.
Julian had practiced moderation in all things, but nevertheless, he’d long ago forgotten the sting of self-denial.
Standing in Zoe’s room, watching her sleep, he’d begun to despise the limitations of humanity all over again. He promised himself now, even as he prepared another piece of toast to bring upstairs for her, that he’d soon be back to the existence he knew where nothing he desired was beyond his grasp.
The second floor windows looked out on nothing but a diaphanous white expanse, as if the bungalow’s upper story were surrounded by clouds or dense fog. Staring into the soft, unending blankness gave Zoe a feeling of being completely disconnected from the known world. It bothered her that she relished the isolation.
She’d often fantasized about having a retreat where the pressures of life couldn’t touch her. She had to grudgingly admit that hiding out with Julian wasn’t all that bad, as long as she kept her mind off what her friends were probably thinking and how broke she was going to be at the end of the month if she spent a whole week earning nothing from the shop.
Uncross My Heart Page 11