Drawn to the Vampire (Blood and Absinthe, Book 4)

by Chloe Hart

  His frustration rose with every step until he thought he might have to hurl something against the wall just to break the tension. He’d gone as far as picking up a glass paperweight when there came, of all annoying things, a knock at his door.

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered, gripping the paperweight.

  He knew he should calm down before he answered. It was either a student or a colleague, and even though it was late for a visit, he had a reputation as a cultured and civilized professor to maintain.

  “Come in, damn you!” he shouted.

  To hell with his reputation.

  * * *

  Kit paused outside the heavy oak door, her hand resting on the cold metal handle. “Come in, damn you,” wasn’t exactly a warm invitation, but she hadn’t expected to enjoy meeting Luke Cadris, had she?

  The day already seemed a million years long. She’d landed in London early that morning, exhausted from a red eye flight on which she’d gotten no sleep at all, only to risk life and limb on the wrong side of the road in an impossibly tiny rental car. She’d expected to be killed every moment on the busy highways and relaxed only slightly when she crossed the border into Wales.

  Several miles past the border, she’d been forced to stop in a narrow country lane. A herd of sheep was blocking the road. The light was fading fast, on its way to leaving her alone in the darkness of a rural night.

  Alone with a million sheep. Well, maybe not a million, but more sheep than Kit had ever seen in one place. More sheep than she ever wanted to see again.

  Honking the horn had absolutely no effect on them.

  What a horrible country this is, Kit had thought with sudden violence. She felt in that moment that she hated Wales with every fiber of her being.

  The hedges on either side left her little room to maneuver. She could see more sheep coming through a gate up ahead, filling the road in front of her. Several had squeezed past her car and were blocking the way back.

  Now they were at an impasse. The sheep blinked at her with mild, stupid eyes in mild, stupid faces, and Kit looked back helplessly.

  It might have been funny if she hadn’t been so determined to reach her goal.

  “Screw it,” she muttered finally, opening her car door and stepping out into the raw December air. She hadn’t come this far to be stymied by a bunch of sheep. She only had twenty more miles to go on this miserable journey, and she was damned if she was going to let a herd of animals stop her now.

  “Okay,” she said out loud, trying to sound reasonable and commanding at the same time. How the heck did you talk to sheep, anyway? “It’s obvious you guys are flying solo, since we’ve been sitting here for a while and nobody’s shown up to tell you what to do. It’s cold, it looks like it’s going to rain or snow any second, and it’s going to be dark in less than an hour. Don’t tell me there’s not a cozy barn or sheepfold or something you’d rather be in right now. Forward, backward, I don’t care, just move!”

  Nothing doing. The sheep directly in front of her was looking particularly unintelligent, which was really saying something. Kit tried a gentle push to encourage him. He didn’t budge an inch. She pushed a little harder. No movement at all. Maybe if she picked up each and every one of them and carried them back through the gate? There had to be at least a hundred sheep here. Kit’s heart sank.

  “All right, then, you wooly morons, I’ll drive right through you!” Kit heard herself shouting. “You think I won’t? I’m getting back in that car and I’m going to run you all down. I mean it. Get a move on or I’ll—”

  “I don’t believe that’s a very good plan,” said a female voice.

  For a moment Kit thought one of the sheep had spoken and she wondered if she’d finally snapped under the strain. Then she saw a young woman several yards away, leaning back against the gate the sheep had come out of. A small black and white dog stood at her side.

  “Why not?” Kit asked. “Too many of them?”

  The other girl shook her head. “Your eyes are too kind. You’d never deliberately hurt an animal.”

  The light, or what little there was on this cold, damp afternoon, was rapidly fading into dusk. Kit could see that the other girl wore corduroys and a pea coat, but she couldn’t make out her hair color or read her facial expression. She found it hard to believe that kindness or anything else could be discerned in her eyes at this distance and in the lengthening shadows.

  “Thanks for the compliment,” she said dryly. “But—” and suddenly she heard her own voice harden and tighten “— to get where I need to go tonight, I’ll leave a trail of dead sheep behind me if I have to. So if you’ve got anything to do with these ridiculous animals, I’d appreciate it if you could get them out of my way.”

  The young woman didn’t answer her directly, but she said something in a low voice to the dog beside her, who went to work immediately. By a mysterious process involving a few staccato barks and some businesslike trotting amid the sea of wool, he actually got them moving down the lane past her car.

  Kit began to relax.

  “So where are you off to, then, in such a terrible hurry?” the shepherd girl asked curiously, coming closer as she followed the flow of sheep.

  “Snowdon University,” Kit said.

  She heard the girl’s sharp intake of breath. “But…why? I mean—you’re American. Americans don’t usually go to university here.”

  Kit looked around her. The mountains in the distance seemed grim and lonely, and the yew trees that grew along the lane had an unfriendly look. The air was clear and fresh but it was cold, and Kit shivered.

  “I can see why. Sorry. That sounds insulting, since you live here and probably like it…but to answer your question, no, I’m not a student. I’m going to see a professor at Snowdon. Professor Cadris. It’s a matter of life and death, actually, so I really appreciate your help with the sheep. Thank you.”

  The last of them passed by her as she spoke, and Kit was reaching for her door handle when the other girl covered the last few steps between them and grabbed her arm. Her movement was so sudden that Kit gasped.

  “You’re going to see Luke? Oh, you mustn’t! Please…just turn around right now and go back where you came from.”

  Kit stared at her in surprise and the young woman bit her lip. “There’s something about Luke—Professor Cadris—that you don’t know. You’re not safe with him unless you’re a student. He made some kind of bargain with the Vice-Chancellor about that. But you…oh, I can’t possibly explain, but you—he—”

  Kit pulled her arm away and opened her car door, creating a barrier between her and the other girl. She didn’t need anyone else telling her how dangerous all this was. She knew it was dangerous. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice.

  “I’m sure you mean well, and I appreciate it. But this thing about Professor Cadris you think I don’t know…well, I do know. I know all about it. But he’s the only person in the world who can help me now, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to be on my way.”

  The girl frowned. “Even if you think you know...you don’t. Not really. Maybe you know the facts about what he is, but you don’t know the danger. Not if you’ve never seen him, never felt what he can…how he can make you feel. He’ll seduce you. He won’t take what isn’t his, but what if it’s freely offered? For a while you feel like heaven…but then he leaves and you’re lonely, so terribly lonely…as lonely as he is.”

  Kit already knew Luke Cadris was supposed to be…how had Jessica put it? Appealing to women.

  Well, that she could handle. Her Fae blood would protect her from any kind of mind control or hypnosis, so if all she had to deal with was a sexy grin and washboard abs and maybe a really great set of pectoral muscles, then she had nothing to worry about. And the whole “terrible loneliness” thing was only an issue if you fell for his act, which Kit had no intention of doing.

  “Look, I really do know all this, okay? Seductive, deadly charm, yada, yada, yada. Falling for Luke Cadris is the least
of my worries. Not that I don’t appreciate your effort, though. A dire warning was all I needed to make my day complete. Fits right in with the general ambience. How do you keep away all the tourists?”

  The girl started to say something else, but Kit shook her head firmly and slid into her car, slamming the door shut and turning the key in the ignition. As the car started to move she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the girl looking after her a little forlornly, her bright-eyed dog by her side again.

  Less than an hour later, darkness had fallen and she’d pulled up to the iron gates of Snowdon University.

  She tried telling the porter at the gatehouse that she had an appointment with Professor Cadris—a barefaced lie, of course—and the old man had peered at her through his barred window for a long minute before finally saying he was sorry, but there was no admittance to strangers after dark.

  She came as close as she could to him, laying a hand on one of the iron bars that separated them.

  “I know you have ways of sensing power…and danger. I’m asking you to use your abilities to verify that I’m not a threat, and that I mean no harm to anyone within these walls.”

  A moment of silence. Then the porter shuffled to the gatehouse door and opened it.

  “There’s no scent of evil on you, that’s true enough. But I ought to call the Vice-Chancellor,” he muttered.

  “You said yourself there’s no scent of evil on me. I’ve come to consult with Professor Cadris about an urgent matter, and I don’t want to bother the Vice-Chancellor.”

  All Celia had been able to tell her about Merton Ambrose was that he was a mysterious figure, his motives unclear. At best, he was an unknown quantity. At worst, he might get in the way of her mission. Best not to involve him, Kit had decided.

  The porter eyed her for a moment. “I can see you’re not one of Luke’s women,” he said in a creaking voice, leading her towards the heavy iron gate. “I know how to recognize them easy enough.”

  The old man shook his head, unlocking the gate with palsied hands. “Poor things, I always think, though they do go away eventually. After they get the message, so to speak. But of course they can’t be allowed inside.”

  Kit started to walk past him, but now she turned back with a frown. “I don’t understand. If they’re ‘Luke’s women’, then why can’t they come to see him?”

  The porter winked. “Luke’s orders, eh? Oh, he’s a bit of a rogue, is our Luke. But it’s not his fault, is it, if the ladies fall for him the way they do? And of course he and the Vice-Chancellor don’t want the place crawling with lovesick women. Wouldn’t do, would it? Not seemly, if you take my meaning. They’re important men, got a lot of other things to do.”

  Kit’s frown deepened. “I see,” she said coldly. “So what do these women do once they’ve been turned away at the gate?”

  “Oh, eventually they go home, as I said. Sometimes they wander around a bit first, looking for another way in. Don’t find it, of course. Luke’s left orders to give ’em a bit of supper if they seem to need it, and to hold off calling the local bobby as long as possible. He’s a generous sort is our Luke.”

  “Yeah, he sounds like a real prince,” Kit said dryly. “So where can I find him?”

  “In the tower,” the porter said briefly. “You can’t miss it. It’s the oldest building on campus, at the north end of the main quad. Luke’s rooms are at the top.”

  The university itself seemed fairly ordinary as she walked along its well-lit stone paths. Lights and music spilled out of dormitory windows, and there were students hurrying to and fro. Kit thought of her own dorm with a pang of longing.

  Of course if Celia’s information was accurate, Snowdon University was ordinary…with a few notable exceptions.

  One of which was on the other side of this door.

  “Well?” the voice growled from the other side. “Are you coming in or aren’t you?”

  Kit took a deep breath. This was it. She’d traveled so far to get here…she wasn’t going to turn back now, was she?

  Of course she wasn’t. It was natural to be nervous. Jessica had been right when she said she didn’t have any experience with this kind of thing.

  She didn’t know what to expect when she opened the door, and she didn’t know what to expect tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. She was heading into uncharted waters here and she would just have to deal. Without much knowledge, all she had to rely on was her courage.

  She lifted her chin, pushed the door open, and walked inside.

  The room was lit only by the bright fire in the hearth. Kit had a vague impression of wooden furniture, tapestries and oil paintings, and hundreds of books on every available surface.

  But all that was registered in the back of her mind. The only thing she could focus on in those first moments was Luke Cadris himself.

  All right, so he was handsome. Celia and Jessica had been right about that. He looked like a young man in his early thirties, and his clothes—a white tee shirt and faded jeans—made him look even younger. He had wavy dark hair he wore a little long and which was attractively tousled at the moment, as if he’d been running his hands through it in frustration.

  He was tall, and his body was proportioned to match. The muscles beneath his shirt looked like they’d been sculpted out of granite. The planes of his face were sharply defined, and there was an arrogance to the set of his jaw, not to mention the expression in his blue eyes, that spoke of someone who was used to getting his own way.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  The less than hospitable words jerked her abruptly out of her thoughts. His voice was rough with bad temper, but despite the tone she could tell his accent was educated British with just a hint of Welsh.

  “You know, for someone with a reputation as a charmer, you’re not very polite,” she said coolly, folding her arms and leaning back against the door she’d closed behind her.

  Luke’s scowl deepened. “Looking for polite, are you? Go across the quad and see the Vice-Chancellor. I’m sure he’ll be happy to oblige. As for me, I’m not in the mood. Bad luck for you, but I suggest you go peddle your business someplace else.”

  Kit pressed her lips together as she watched Luke flip a heavy glass object back and forth between his strong hands. The movement was vaguely menacing, and between that and his harsh words she was sure he expected her to turn tail and scuttle away like a little mouse.

  She smiled grimly. “Sorry. My ‘business’ as you call it is with you, Mr. Cadris.”

  A wary expression crossed his face and he closed his eyes, frowning, as if he were listening for something or trying to catch a certain scent in the air.

  His eyes opened again. “I’ve never met you before,” he said coldly. “I don’t recognize your…I don’t recognize you. What business do you think you have with me?”

  He set the glass object down on a table, the movement causing his arm muscles to tighten briefly and release. In spite of herself, Kit was distracted. Shoulders were one of her big weaknesses and his were perfect, broad and strong and…

  Damn! Was this how it started? First you noticed his eyes, then his shoulders, and the next thing you knew you were exposing your jugular vein and begging him to—

  Kit gave herself a quick mental shake and pulled herself together. She was just being paranoid. Even if he did have some kind of mojo going on, her Fae blood made her much less susceptible than a human might be.

  There was nothing supernatural about Luke Cadris’s shoulders. They were just…nice.

  “You know, you’re not at all what I expected,” she said casually, trying to regain her sense of detachment and control. “Everyone’s been warning me to watch out for the whole dark desire thing, you know? They said you were dangerously seductive…irresistible, in fact. Well, I’m here to tell that you’re completely resistible. Of course your shoulders get top marks, and your eyes might be very nice if they ever looked, you know, friendly, but overall I’d have to say—”
>
  “Listen, little girl. You’re the one who knocked on my door without an appointment. I happen to be in a bad mood, in case you hadn’t noticed. Either get out now or tell me what you came here for and then get out. It’s your choice.”

  Kit bit her lip. She’d had the last twenty-four hours to figure out how she was going to start this conversation, but she hadn’t decided on an approach.

  “I need a favor,” she blurted out.

  He stared at her. “You need a favor,” he repeated finally, his voice echoing with sarcastic disbelief. “I’m already counting the seconds until you leave, and I’m looking forward to never seeing you again. Why would I want to do you a favor?”

  Good question, Kit thought wryly.

  “I know the truth about you,” she said, trying to sound menacing. Might as well at least make it clear she wasn’t here to sell girl scout cookies.

  “Well, now.” There was an icy edge to his voice that made Kit shiver in spite of herself. “What exactly is it that you…know about me?”

  Time to lay her cards on the table. Some of them, anyway.

  She folded her arms and did her best to look cool and confident, the way she imagined Peter would look in a situation like this.

  “I know what you are, Luke Cadris. I know what happened to you in Carmarthen in 1604.”

  Was it just her imagination, or was the fire dying a little?

  “I know why a supply of animal blood is delivered here every week by local butchers…even though you still have a taste for something richer. You pass as human, but you’re not. You’re a creature out of myth and legend and nightmare…”

  She felt a draft of cold air that raised goose bumps on her skin. Her eyes were fixed on Luke’s, but his were unfathomable, unblinking, and he stood as still as if he were made of stone.

  Kit moved slowly forward, to the place where Luke stood looking at her. When less than a foot separated them she reached out a hand and laid it flat on his chest.

  “No heartbeat,” she said.

  Still he didn’t move. When she spoke again it was only one word.