After she’d found a small refrigerator tucked beneath a table and finished the sandwich and coke within it, she returned to the couch and opened the book. A stark white envelope was wedged between pages yellowed with age. Damien’s name, written in a sweeping script she instantly recognized as her grandmother’s, was scrawled across the front.
Diana stared at the envelope for a long time before deciding that her grandmother would understand her need to read the enclosed letter. Unfolding the page, she immediately smelled her grandmother’s favorite perfume. A lump formed in her throat before she began to read. Here and there, tiny round areas of faded ink revealed where each of her grandmother’s tears had fallen. Taking a deep breath, she leaned back and began to read…
My darling,
How can I explain why I sent you away? Will you ever forgive me for not pledging my love for you before the elders? Did you look into my son’s eyes? Did you see the pain I saw? Pain I caused?
You are my love, my life.
But Frank is my son and he was my love and my life long before we met. Please understand why I chose him.
I will never forget our time together. You were so patient with me as you explained how loving you would change my life. I would have gladly given up ever feeling the warmth of the sun for you and would have done anything to keep you by my side for eternity. Anything, except hurt my child.
I’ll never forget the look in your eyes when I took Frank’s hand and not yours.
Last night, I hungered for you so much that I had to hold a pillow to my face to silence my cries. And every minute apart seems more unbearable.
Come to me, Damien. We may not be able to spend eternity together, but couldn’t we at least see each other from time to time? My life is nothing without you.
Please, my love, come back to me. Let me love you.
I’ll always be your
Angel of the Night
“Oh, Nana.” Diana softly cried.
Running her fingertips over the extensive wrinkles in the paper, she envisioned Damien crumpling it up in anger, then carefully smoothing it out, refolding it exactly as her grandmother had, then saving it in his book. How many times had he taken it out to revisit his loss? How could he ignore what he must have considered the signs of her grandmother’s impending madness?
Her heart broke for the man who had so gallantly charged into the cottage to protect them last night. His soft snores mingled with Sebastian’s. Uncurling her legs, she rose and put the book back where she’d found it. A shiver ran down her spine.
Suddenly, her heart began to pound erratically. Something was wrong, terribly wrong. She could feel it.
Chapter Twelve
“Where is she?” Frank Nostrum bellowed from the landing of Angelina’s stairs.
“Frank, if you’ll just relax—”
Bounding down the stairs, he collided with her at the bottom. When she tumbled to the floor, he moved to offer her a hand. She reached up. Her heart sank when he shoved his hand into the front pocket of his trousers.
He glared down at her. “Terry called, sick with guilt because she let Diana leave the mall with a man you said was her soul mate. Now where the hell is my daughter?”
Angelina stared up at the man her son had become. While his body was built to perfection, his soul had shrunk, leaving him heartless in his need to destroy any he deemed undeserving of the right to share his world.
He grabbed her arm and yanked her up from the floor, then shoved her into the dark living room. “God, you disgust me. Living like the vampire you wish you were.”
He pushed her down onto the couch, then strode over to the picture window facing her and flung open the heavy drapes.
“Frank, no.” Sunlight poured into the room, blinding her, thrusting shards of pain into her eyes. She buried her face in her hands and whimpered as the heat, more unbearable than she’d ever imagined it would be, scorched her exposed skin. She reached for the few wafers scattered across the end table, hoping she wasn’t too late to stop the sun from doing too much damage, but Frank unveiled another window, sending a beam of sunlight across the table.
She flinched away empty handed.
“You are not a vampire. When will you get that through—?”
His face twisted with horror when he turned to face her. She knew what he saw. Saw it through his eyes. The skin on her hands and neck grew red. “My God, Mother, what has that demon done to you? Have you been seeing him all these years?”
“No, Frank. Please close the drapes.” She sobbed into her hands as she dropped to the floor and crawled blindly to a spot safe from dawn’s scalding rays. “Have mercy on me. I’m your mother.”
“My mother?” His face filled with hatred. “Have mercy? You were willing to leave me for that monster. How dare you ask for mercy?”
“But I didn’t, Frank. I didn’t leave you.” She crouched behind an ottoman, fear nearly immobilizing her. He took pleasure in killing vampires. If he felt she was one, he wouldn’t hesitate to do the same, would probably enjoy every minute of it. She had tried so hard over the years to get him to forgive her, to show him that she truly loved him.
Frank squatted down in front of her and pried her hands from her face. “Terry said the man ran off into the woods with Diana in his arms. Ran faster than anyone she had ever seen. And she spoke to Diana last night. Want to know what she said, Mother? Diana told her she had to go with this man because you told her he was her soul mate. She mentioned a bonding. We both know what that means, don’t we, Mother?”
Angelina glared into her son’s cold gray eyes. “You have no idea what it means to bond with anyone.”
He grabbed her shoulders and dragged her to the window. Ignoring her screams, he brought his face up to hers. “Diana told me she was spending the night here. What did you do, Mother? Offer my daughter up as a sacrifice to your demon lover?”
In her struggle to escape the searing rays, Angelina knocked her wig off.
Frank let out a low moan and stared in horror at the gray wig lying at their feet. “You were twenty-four. A wife. A mother. How could you believe a vampire was capable of love? You sold your soul to a creature that wanted nothing but your blood.”
Angelina broke free and ran to a dark corner. Frank tossed the wig into the fire, then turned and peered intently at her face. With a curse he strode over, yanking his shirt from his waistband. He spit onto it.
“Frank, no!”
Ignoring her, he scrubbed mercilessly at her tender skin. Glancing down at the black smudges marring the stark white cloth, he shook his head, then raised incredulous eyes to her. “You’ve fooled us all these years.” A sob caught in his throat. “I always thought you looked younger than you should, but the gray hair and the wrinkles.” His chin quivered as he turned and glanced at the walls on either side of her. “The wrinkles.”
To her horror, every portrait she had painted over the years was wrenched from the wall and sent, one by one, to join her wig in the fire.
“I should have known,” he spat out, wiping at his eyes with the palms of his hands, “Dad always said you were the best at painting old people. I used to stare at those damn paintings, convinced I could bury my fingers in the deep wrinkles you were so, so good at.”
Angelina watched him stride to the front door. When he turned, she cringed, expecting another outburst. Instead, he spoke so softly she barely heard him.
“You’d better pray I find my daughter before it’s too late for her too.”
The door slammed shut. Trapped in the corner, Angelina watched the sunlight inch closer and closer. She whimpered when it glanced over the toes of her shoes. When it touched the exposed skin on her ankles, she yelped and charged through the fiery rays to the stairs.
Sitting on the edge of her tub later that afternoon, she winced as she dabbed ointment over the blisters covering her cheeks. They would heal quickly. Since her time with Damien, she rarely got sick and always healed within twenty-four hours, but the smalles
t cut produced excruciating pain.
She’d always known that Damien’s blood running through her veins had permanently changed her. She puttered around the house every night, then usually slept most of the day. Cosmetics and lies about face-lifts and chemical peels covered the fact that her body barely aged over the past forty years. And although she ate, her hunger for Damien never ceased.
Closing her eyes, she popped a wafer into her mouth and said a silent prayer of thanks to her deceased husband. He had accepted that vampires existed, that they were not the demons of lore, that her heart would always belong to one, yet had still taken tender care of her. He had opened an all night diner and left her in charge, understanding her need to sleep during the day. Using her job as an excuse, he had taken her place during the day so Frank would never question her absence.
If not for her husband, she would have gone mad and lost everything she had sought to gain by leaving Damien. And when he had died, Diana’s love held her together.
The shrill ringing of the phone nearly sent her tumbling into the tub. Wincing as she rose, she hurried into her bedroom and snatched up the handset before the answering machine came on.
“Hello?”
“I just wanted to see if you changed your mind.”
A shiver of fear ran down her spine at the sound of her son’s cold voice. “Changed my mind?”
“Don’t be coy, Mother. Tell me where she is.”
“I don’t know, Frank. I told you—”
“Tell me, goddammit. I’ve looked everywhere.” He sobbed, tearing at her heart. “She’s all I have left.”
She almost felt sorry for him, but the pain of her burned skin reminded her just how cruel he could be, how he might hurt Diana if he knew that she too had the blood of a vampire running through her veins. “I swear, Frank. She never told me where she went.” She sat on the bed and wearily closed her eyes.
“What about this man? I know she told you about him. It can’t be your lover. I killed him.”
She clutched the phone, still refusing to believe she’d lost Damien. “Frank, please calm down.”
“Calm down? Calm down? My daughter is probably spreading her legs for some monster as we speak.”
Glancing at the clock, Angelina chose not to point out that, with the sun perched directly overhead, such a thing was highly unlikely. She took a deep breath and began to lie to her only child. “No, Frank. You’re wrong about this man. Diana met him at the ranch in broad daylight. He couldn’t possibly be what you think.”
“Say it, Mother. A vampire. And why should I believe you?” His voice grew even shriller, his words more unintelligible by his sobs. “What happened? Did some other vampire come along and promise to return your lover to life if you gave them Diana? It won’t work, you know. Once they die from the sun, they stay dead, Mother. You gave up your granddaughter for nothing. Nothing.”
“Frank.” The phone shook in her hand. “Now you listen and listen well. I gave up that vampire for you. You. Why can’t you remember that? I chose you, dammit. Your daughter might live under your roof, but she’s still a twenty-five-year-old woman with the right to stay out overnight without worrying that her father is scouring the town looking for her.”
“But—”
“No buts, Frank. Let her grow up. She met a man and decided to spend a night with him. Period. Now if you have a problem with that, then I’d advise you to keep it to yourself, otherwise she might decide living at home isn’t all that great after all.” She took a deep breath and tried to calm her racing heart.
“Swear she’s not with a vampire.” His voice finally sounded normal.
“You have my word.” Tears burned her eyes.
“Well, at least I know it’s not your vampire. I personally nailed him to the post and didn’t leave until his screams stopped. I know you don’t believe me, but I’ve never forgotten his face. Those eyes haunted my dreams, Mother. The vampire I killed was yours.”
“No.” She bit down on her knuckles. It couldn’t be Damien. She’d know if he’d died. She’d know.
“I wish you could have heard his screams. He begged me to spare him and cried for his mother.”
She shook her head, refusing to admit she’d heard those screams, felt the need to answer those cries, could almost hear them even now. But she’d been hearing a child cry for its mother ever since she lost the baby that was hers and Damien’s.
“Goodbye, Frank,” she mumbled and, without waiting for his reply, hung up the phone.
The afternoon hours lagged. Knowing instinctively when the sun had finished its descent, she rose to open the blinds. As soon as she raised the first an overpowering sense of foreboding rushed over her. She released the cord and rushed from window to window, checking all the locks. Glass shattered somewhere downstairs.
She ran to lock her bedroom door. Her eyes darted about the room as she frantically tried to remember her visions. Dark, bleak, frightening visions. She’d thought they foretold danger for only Diana. Now, feeling the evil emanating from whom or whatever had entered her house, the same evil she’d sensed in her visions about Diana, she realized their fates were intertwined.
Angelina flung her sweater to the closet floor, then grabbed the oversized, woolen one her husband had insisted she always keep fully stocked with enough wafers to last a month. He had placed one such sweater in every closet in the house. He hadn’t foreseen this night, had only included her wafers on the necessary medications list he’d written the day after the attack on the World Trade Center.
She caught sight of an old pocketbook. Deciding to take as many wafers as possible, she grabbed the bag, then reached up to the shelf and retrieved one of the boxes of wafers stacked there. Trying not to scream when the sound of an approaching helicopter filled the room at the same time another crash resounded from below, she emptied the contents of the box into the bag.
She draped the strap over her shoulder. The weight of the wafers dragged it down. The straps dug into her flesh. Taking off the bag, she slung it over her head, then slid one arm through the opening. Within moments she had the sweater on and buttoned over it. She turned to leave the closet just as her bedroom door burst open.
If she weren’t so terrified, she would have laughed when she saw the woman standing in the doorway surrounded by the splintered remains of the molding. Barely five foot six with soft curves in all the right places, she didn’t appear strong enough to remain upright in a strong wind much less break down a door. Oh but her beauty could stop any man’s heart. Thick black hair tumbling down over full breasts and narrow hips, fawn colored eyes so pale they were nearly gold took Angelina’s breath away.
Angelina’s eyes darted to the dark hallway behind the woman, expecting to see someone more capable of breaking down her door.
A snarl drew her attention back to the beauty. She immediately realized how wrong she’d been. Fangs dripping with saliva protruded from a cavernous mouth. All beauty vanished as the woman’s face twisted with rage.
Angelina clutched the bag to her stomach. Her heart pounded so fiercely she was sure it would explode.
“Why aren’t you insane? You should be a fucking maniac by now. Why aren’t you a Slasher,” the woman yelled, spraying the floor with spittle.
Angelina stepped back from the hatred coating each word. “I have no idea,” she lied, then began to repeat her answer over and over in her mind in case the vampire before her probed for the truth.
After a moment, the woman laughed. “It doesn’t matter. I think you are. I’ve decided you’re a danger to us.”
“Who are you?” Angelina asked, hoping to stall just in case she had somehow breached the wall Damien had erected between their minds.
“Who am I? Who am I?” Olympia’s eyes grew increasingly wider, then suddenly returned to normal. “That’s right. You wouldn’t know. You haven’t seen or spoken with my bonded mate for how long? Forty years?”
Shaking her head, Angelina once again saw the beauty of the
vampire before her. Her heart fractured. “You’re Damien’s bonded mate?”
The vampire slowly crossed the room and extended her hand. “That’s right. I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Olympia, Damien’s mate, lover and the mother of his two, well, one son.” When Angelina ignored her outstretched hand, Olympia leered and bared her fangs. “And you’re the naïve human who spread her legs for him and gave up her blood to appease his hunger after a few meaningless words. We laughed about it every time we made love.”
“You lie.”
“Really? If he loved you, why did he turn his back and never return? Why did he bond with me?” Olympia pouted. “Oh you poor thing. You thought he loved you, didn’t you? I keep telling him that he should stop his little game with humans.”
Every fiber of Angelina’s heart told her Olympia was lying. She had to be. This all couldn’t have been some sick game. “Then why are you here? If I’m just someone Damien took advantage of, why are you here?” Angelina spat back before thinking. “I’ll tell you why. Because he did love me.”
Olympia moved so quickly, Angelina lost sight of the vampire. Her back slammed into the dresser. Before she could catch her breath and react to the pain shooting up her spine, she felt Olympia’s hands clamp around her neck.
“I could kill you right now. Do you know that? One flick of my wrists and your precious neck would snap. But death would be too good for you. You should suffer. Suffer the way you and your granddaughter have made me suffer.”
Angelina’s lungs burned. Her fingers clawed at the hands growing ever tighter around her neck. Staring into eyes filled with pain, her heart broke for Olympia.
Olympia brought her face up to Angelina’s. “You stole my mate. And now your whore of a granddaughter has seduced my son into betraying me.”
Olympia sliced open Angelina’s cheek with one fang, then dragged her tongue across it. Spitting the blood onto the floor, she released Angelina’s neck and wiped her arm across her mouth. “Your blood is foul. It contaminates every body it flows through. I can never be happy, Damien can never be happy with me as long as you and your spawn walk this earth.”
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