The Immortal’s Salvation: Bloodwite Book Two

by Mecca, Cecelia

  He would finish his drink and then leave. At least he’d stayed long enough to pay his respects to the mayor of Stone Haven. If he were to stay in the area, and Lawrence had every intention of settling in the quaint Pennsylvania town for as long as a man who didn’t age could, he would weave himself into the fabric of the place as necessary.

  Staring at the bottle of half-drunk lager in his hand, Lawrence heard the music change to a song with a faster beat. Most of the guests would be dancing, he guessed, although he couldn’t bear to turn around and look for her. At least her foolish boyfriend didn’t appear to be in attendance. It killed him to see a woman so beautiful and intelligent waste her time with a man so unworthy of her. A man who disrespected her with his roving eye. But it was her choice, and it didn’t matter in the least to him.

  A bald-faced lie.

  Toni tugged at him. She always had, right from the first time he’d seen her at Murphy’s Pub, her hair swept up in an effortless bun, her amber eyes sparkling with life. That passion she felt for life, for her friends, and for everything she loved was infectious. It made him feel almost human again. Like he was the man he’d been before his brother died.

  The way he felt about her was dangerous. For him and for her.

  He drank the remainder of his beer in one long, deep swallow.

  “You’re unusually broody this evening.”

  He’d sensed her coming. Although she wasn’t a Cheld like Alessandra, Toni had an almost supernatural draw. Maybe it was her perfume, part coconut and part amber and spice. A scent that reminded him of the sun-kissed beaches of Brazil, combined with the sophistication of a Parisian boutique. Though not nearly as pretentious.

  This interaction diverted from their usual pattern. Toni typically avoided him—rather, they typically avoided each other.

  He turned slowly, careful not to lean too close or appear otherwise interested.

  “And you are unusually . . .”

  Sexy. Radiant. Desirable.

  “Talkative.”

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, cocking her head.

  “I could ask you the same.”

  Toni took a bold step toward him, the proximity making his skin prickle with awareness, and leaned over the bar.

  “I’m here,” she announced, “for another drink.” The raven-haired bartender, who was mixing a drink at the other end of the bar, ignored her. Had a man been tending bar, he would have immediately abandoned his other customers to serve her.

  “I see,” Lawrence said, leaning back and crossing his arms. He did not respond to the obvious dismissal.

  She refused to look at him. He refused to move. One minute passed. Two. Finally, he made eye contact with the bartender, who had been eyeing him as if he were a dessert martini that she intended to drink rather than make. The young woman smiled and glided toward him.

  “What can I get you?”

  He lifted his bottle in response and added, “And a Pinot Noir for . . .” Struggling, he landed on, “. . . the young lady.”

  He’d said it on purpose, knowing it bothered Toni that she was approaching thirty. Though the milestone was still a year off, she’d told Alessandra it made her uneasy.

  She gave him a look that said, Go to hell, even as she smiled.

  A grin twitched on his mouth. He should back off. Stop provoking her. And he definitely should not say what he was thinking at this moment.

  But Lawrence Derrickson had never been a cautious man.

  Chapter 2

  “No Tyler?”

  A simple question on the surface, but there was no mistaking his tone. He hated her boyfriend and absolutely didn’t mind if she knew it.

  It wasn’t fair, really. To everyone else, Lawrence was the perfect gentleman. Well, maybe not to Kenton. Lawrence had a seven-hundred-year history of despising Alessandra’s fiancé, although one would never know it. They’d put aside their bygones now that Kenton had abandoned his goal of eliminating the Cheld, and anyone who didn’t know their history would think the two shared a deep and abiding bromance.

  When their drinks arrived, Toni couldn’t help but notice the way the bartender let her hand linger on Lawrence’s as she passed over his beer. She looked like a college student. Certainly too young for Lawrence, but that didn’t stop her from looking at him with the same hunger Toni had noticed in every other single, and not-so-single, woman here.

  The same way you did the first time you saw him. And every day since. The same way you’ve snuck glances at him all night.

  Oh, if only the voice in her head didn’t know her so well.

  Why was he here anyway?

  Softening her tone slightly, she asked, “Who do you know here?”

  He took a long swig from his beer.

  “The mayor.”

  Of course. Just like Kenton, Lawrence knew only extremes. Upon arriving in Stone Haven, they’d purchased the only two mansions in town. Power was a given with them. They had relationships with the top officials. Money on top of money. Sex appeal, and . . .

  You shouldn’t have let yourself think of that word.

  “This doesn’t seem like your kind of thing,” she said.

  He raised his brows. “Oh?”

  “Weddings. They’re so very—”

  “Romantic?”

  She’d meant to say human.

  “You think they’re romantic?” she asked, despite herself.

  Lawrence held up his beer to indicate the dance floor packed with people swinging their arms in the air to a rap song lauding lower back tattoos.

  “Perhaps not this particular song,” he acknowledged with a quirk of his lips.

  Taking a sip of wine, her third thanks to Lawrence’s presence, Toni tried not to smile. She was fully aware of his easygoing manner and deadly sense of humor. She’d spent half the summer struggling not to laugh at his jokes when Tyler was around.

  “And you?” he asked.

  Toni nodded toward her aunt and uncle. “The bride’s mother is a good friend of Birdie’s. One of Ye Old Curiosities’ very first customers. A fortune teller, or so she says.”

  He looked as if he would say more, but he simply nodded.

  If he had an opinion about her working there instead of doing something worthwhile with her life, he kept it to himself.

  Toni’s gaze drifted to the dance floor. The sight of the guests swaying happily to the music made her sigh aloud. If only one of her girlfriends were here. Tyler would have been useless in this situation.

  He didn’t dance.

  “You’re looking at the dance floor as if it’s a long-lost lover.”

  The words wrapped around her like a seductive promise. An image flashed through her head, one of the time she’d attempted to go running with him and Alessandra. She’d been so distracted by the flex of his back muscles, Toni nearly forgot how much she despised the sport.

  The number of times she’d stopped herself from thinking of Lawrence in ways that were probably illegal in some countries was embarrassing.

  “I love to dance,” she murmured.

  “I know.”

  The way he said it, full of warmth and familiarity, made her heart leap in her chest.

  Take a sip of your drink, nice and slow. This is just a conversation with a friend. No, a friend of a friend. Nothing more.

  “The first week,” he said, “before everything went sour, we went to the Jazz Hall—”

  She remembered. “And danced our butts off,” she finished with a smile. Only in Stone Haven did the Jazz Hall not actually play any jazz. Someone should change the name, but everything else in their sleepy town had a habit of staying the same. Alessandra had brought him that night in a not-so-subtle attempt to lure Toni away from Tyler. And it had very nearly worked. He’d looked impossibly beautiful that night—those green eyes flashing at her as he whirled her around the dance floor. Except things had indeed gone sour after that. Her friend had discovered the town’s newest and most handsome residents, Lawrence and K
enton, had both come to town because of her—one to kill her, the other to save her. Initially, Alessandra had misunderstood the situation. She’d thought Lawrence was her enemy, when in truth Kenton was her would-be assassin. The Derricksons and Morleys were the first vampire families, and while the Derricksons had made it their mission to protect the Cheld, the Morleys sought to destroy them. It had taken time for the truth to unravel, and for Kenton to shift his allegiance from his family to Alessandra and the Derricksons, but all had worked out for the best.

  Except for you. You still want what you can’t have.

  Stupid voice.

  He put his beer on the bar. “That we did. Which makes me wonder why you’re standing here with me rather than dancing.”

  “One does not just go off and dance alone. I don’t know a soul here. Birdie begged me to come. She thinks it’s good for me to be seen in ‘these circles.’”

  “And you would do anything for her.”

  It was true. She would do anything for her aunt who’d become more like a mother when her parents were killed in a car accident.

  “Something like that.”

  “In that case . . .”

  He took her wine before she could think to protest. Placing it next to his drink, Lawrence presented his hand in an invitation only an uber-confident seven-hundred-year-old vampire could pull off.

  Well, shit.

  “I—”

  “Love to dance. So let’s dance.”

  But . . . a slow song had come on. The very fact that she wanted to accept his invitation told her that she should not.

  “You’re worried about Tyler?”

  “Of course not.”

  She’d not planned to say it so . . . vehemently, but his tone grated. So did the insinuation that she didn’t believe she could enjoy herself, or even allow herself near another man, because she had a boyfriend. Certainly she could dance, if she wanted to . . .

  “Fine,” she said, with no way out but to accept. She took his hand, flinching ever so slightly at the jolt of energy that ran between them.

  Taking two steps down from the bar area, Lawrence blessedly released her hand as they made their way to the dance floor. Toni ignored the stares, most of them directed at her dance partner, and reached up to wrap her hands around his very tall neck. And then, holy shit, his hands were on her back. She couldn’t feel them, precisely, through her dress. But the knowledge that they were there burned a path to her gut.

  Each breath she took carried his scent. Leather and cinnamon and dark chocolate.

  And pure sex.

  How many times had she almost asked what cologne he wore? But the question had always seemed too intimate. Though not as intimate as swaying with him to the slow, deep tones of this song.

  Her mind raced, but she pushed the thoughts aside and allowed herself to be led. The words to the song? She had no idea if they held some deep meaning. They didn’t matter.

  Nothing mattered beyond this moment.

  He pulled back, and God help her, he was going to look at her. She didn’t have the strength to look back. She was such a coward when it came to this man.

  But he wouldn’t let her off the hook.

  Sensing his scrutiny, she finally relented.

  So very, very green. So full of emotion.

  She looked away.

  The tune changed suddenly, the dance floor clearing as a faster song replaced the ballad that had just stripped her denials bare. How could the song be over already? They’d just started dancing a second ago . . .

  His hands dropped.

  She stood there alone. Bereft.

  Her only consolation? Lawrence looked just as shaken as she felt, and that was saying something. He usually appeared so very much in control.

  She’d done that. To him. To this man who’d lived for centuries.

  “Excuse me,” she said, her hasty retreat from the dance floor as telling as the dance itself. But she didn’t care. She needed to put space between them.

  Tyler accepted her, faults and all. And never pressed her to go to college or reminded her of her limited career opportunities. She owed him more than this.

  It was time for her to leave.

  * * *

  Lawrence watched her go.

  Toni’s scent remained on his suit, wafting up to him as clearly as if she still stood pressed against him. His heightened senses ensured it would continue to tantalize him until he changed out of his suit, something he was suddenly desperate to do.

  He’d been at the reception for over an hour, plenty of time to glean the mayor’s goodwill—just as his substantial gift was sure to do. Time to leave. After giving Toni enough lead time to make herself scarce, he left The Lakehouse.

  On the way back to Stone Haven, he regained some of the composure he’d lost on the dance floor. Still, when he reached his Victorian home, one of two mansions sitting atop a hill overlooking Main Street, he found he wasn’t ready to go inside the empty house.

  Perhaps his neighbors would be amenable to a visit. He’d been mulling over something he’d like to discuss with Alessandra. Now that she lived next door, and he and Kenton had called a cease-fire, he did this sort of thing. Paid visits. Of course, the newly engaged couple was often indisposed, but surely the housekeeper would warn him if such was the case. Slamming the car door, he walked the well-worn path leading next door to the more Italianate-style home.

  One of the town’s founding fathers had built both homes—one for himself and one for his daughter, Addy. Both residences were known as mansions, although he had seen too many true mansions to think of them as such. When he and Kenton had first come here and purchased the houses within days of each other, it had caused quite a stir. Especially since Kenton’s new home had been a popular bed-and-breakfast.

  If only the residents knew the truth of how Kenton Morley and Lawrence Derrickson had acquired the funds to purchase the mansions. Nothing grew a fortune quite so much as time.

  There were towns around the world where vampires coexisted with humans who knew of their existence. Not many, but a few. Places referred to as “open” towns, where the residents eventually learned of, and accepted, their kind. But such towns were rare.

  Stone Haven was not one of those places.

  “Good evening, Mr. Derrickson,” said the housekeeper, a rather pleasant older woman whom Kenton had kept on from the bed-and-breakfast.

  “Good evening, Mary.”

  He peered around her.

  “They’re in the living room, sir.”

  Sir. It was at least better than my lord or chief, the title he despised most of all. The one he’d never wanted. Funny how reminders of the past—of the man he’d been—still smarted.

  “Thanks.”

  Unlike his own house, the Henry Hutton Mansion looked more like a home than a museum. Some original pieces remained, as did the artwork of old, but tasteful modern touches gave it a warmth the Addy Hutton Mansion lacked.

  “Lawrence!” Alessandra jumped up from her seat on the couch where she’d been lying, her feet cradled in Kenton’s lap. Tossing a book onto the coffee table, she came around and hugged him as if it had been more than two days since they’d last seen each other.

  Saving someone’s life tended to forge an unbreakable bond.

  Kenton wasn’t as quick to greet him, understandable given the time of night and their bitter history. Yet greet him he did—he walked over and shook his hand, a nicety that still felt peculiar given the number of times they’d fought over the years. If Kenton’s grimace were any indication, the Englishman felt the same way.

  “What are you doing here?” Alessandra asked.

  “So late,” Kenton added, sitting back down and pulling Alessandra down onto his lap. She laughed as he reached for the gin and tonic sitting on the table in front of them.

  It was, indeed, eleven. Too late for a casual visit, even though he’d suspected they would be awake.

  Lawrence sat opposite his hosts in an oversized le
ather chair that was a new addition to the room. Like the walls, which now sported a burnt orange color in stark contrast to the white mantel of the largest fireplace in the house, the update struck a nice balance between old and new.

  “My apologies for the hour,” he said, directing the apology to Alessandra, “I saw the lights on . . .”

  She tilted her head to the side. “What’s wrong?”

  “I wanted to ask you about the old bank near Le Trousseau,” he said. It had the virtue of being partially true. Perhaps he had also wanted to discuss Toni. But his bar project was never far from his thoughts.

  “The old Penn Community Bank?”

  “Yes.” Mary returned to the room holding a small tray topped with a bottle of his favorite beer. He hadn’t requested a drink, but he wasn’t surprised. She possessed the knack of knowing, without being asked, when a guest required refreshment. “Thank you.”

  She smiled at him, a kind smile, not the hungry sort the bartender at the wedding had given him, and left the room.

  “I’m taking her home with me one of these days.”

  Kenton ran a hand through his pitch-black hair. “Like hell you are.”

  “What do you want to know about the bank?”

  Whenever he and Kenton crossed swords, Alessandra quickly deflected the conflict. Always the peacemaker. It had taken loving her, a woman who didn’t possess a violent bone in her body, to convince Kenton that just because the Cheld were powerful enough to hunt vampires didn’t mean all of them would. Some Cheld were bad, and some were good—something he’d discovered was equally true for vampires.

  “It’s owned by a man named Robert Davis—”

  “The real estate mogul?” He’d heard the name before. “The one who lives in Philadelphia?”

  Alessandra nodded, shifting off Kenton’s lap and sitting beside him. “I’ve never met him, but they say he’s a real bastard. Grew up in Stone Haven, but he moved on to bigger things after flipping a bunch of houses and using the money to buy the bank and a few other buildings.”

  “And yet the bank sits empty?”

  Alessandra shrugged. “It’s been that way for years. An eyesore, if you ask me.”