by Chloe Hart
It didn’t help that Luke was sitting there looking irritatingly alive. More alive than she probably did at the moment, which was pretty ironic.
She shivered. He might be looking forward to his payment, but she found the prospect so terrifying that she’d better decide right now to put it out of her mind completely until she actually had to face it. By then she’d have her brother back, and everything would be all right.
“So,” she said, going for a business-like tone. “I guess we have a deal.” She paused. “What should we…what do we do now?”
Luke shrugged. “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to get some rest.”
“You don’t sleep during the day?”
“I teach during the day. I’ve changed my habits enough that I can sleep at night when I need to.” He looked at her appraisingly. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you look about done in. I don’t want you fainting on me when we embark on this little quest of yours, so I suggest you get some rest as well.”
Kit nodded. She was tired, too tired to do anything more tonight. “All right,” she said wearily. She looked around the room. “Where should I sleep?” she asked.
Luke rose from his chair and frowned down at her. “Hm. Well, we do have guest rooms for visitors to the University, but that would involve meeting the Vice-Chancellor and a few other people…”
Kit shook her head sharply. “No, please…I don’t want to meet anyone else tonight.” She stopped, hoping she didn’t sound as pathetic as she felt.
The vampire looked at her, and Kit had a hard time reading his expression.
“You can sleep in my bed,” he said after a moment. “And get your mind out of the gutter,” he added before she could say a word. “My bedroom’s on the floor below this one. I’ll sleep here, in the sitting room. Will that satisfy your virtuous scruples?”
“You don’t need to give up your bed,” Kit said stiffly. “I’m happy to sleep up here. If I could just have a blanket and a pillow—”
He looked at her in exasperation.
“What did I say about needing you in peak condition? A journey to the underworld isn’t like a trip to the mall. I need you in top form, not fainting or falling apart.”
“I won’t fall apart,” she said indignantly, but he talked right over her.
“You’ll take my damn bed and you’ll sleep yourself out. That means you wake up naturally. If I don’t happen to be here when you get up, I’m just out making arrangements for our journey. We’ll leave after sunset tomorrow. Got it?”
If she hadn’t been so tired she would have said something about his brusque assumption of authority, but there’d be time to straighten him out on that score tomorrow. For now it seemed easier just to nod and get to her feet. She opened her mouth to ask a question when the room began to spin and she stumbled, reaching for the back of the chair and missing.
A pair of strong arms was there immediately, supporting her.
“Okay, Kit, when’s the last time you had something to eat?”
Kit swallowed. “Sometime this morning.” She frowned. “I thought you were going to call me Miss Bantry,” she said, pushing against him. He released her immediately, and she noticed he avoided touching her bare skin.
“I’ll take you downstairs and then I’ll get you some food. Come with me, Miss Bantry.”
Then went down one flight of spiral stairs and he opened the door to his bedroom, which was like the room upstairs except for the intricately carved four poster bed. The scent in here was more distinctive somehow, a blend of wood and leather and incense.
Luke nodded towards the bed. “Make yourself comfortable, but try not to fall asleep until you’ve had a chance to eat something. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” The next moment he was gone, his footsteps echoing on the stone staircase.
Kit folded back the covers and slid between the sheets without bothering to get undressed, although she did kick off her boots. She pulled the thick quilts up to her chin and tried hard to stay awake, but by the time Luke returned her eyes had drifted closed.
They opened again when she heard Luke’s voice. Why am I thinking of him as Luke? she wondered sleepily as he set a tray down on the bed beside her.
“Hot buttered toast. Mushroom soup. Apples and cheese. Warm milk with honey,” he said, pointing at each item in turn. “Eat as much as you want and then get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She nodded, already reaching for a piece of toast, and then looked up as Luke hesitated by the bed.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just…goodnight, Miss Bantry.” He started to reach a hand towards her, then pulled it back.
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, go ahead. You want to see if you still feel that supernatural shimmy, right?”
He smiled faintly. “Well, yes, as a matter of fact. But I thought you didn’t want me to touch you again. Ever.”
Kit sighed. “Well, you brought me food, and gave up your bed, and you’re helping me save my brother even if it’s for totally selfish reasons. For a bloodsucking fiend you’re not so bad. And you know you’re going to wonder about this until you find out for sure. You were really freaked out when it happened before. So go ahead. Get it over with so I can get some sleep.”
Luke lifted an eyebrow. “Quite a romantic, aren’t you? You should try out that line on the boys back home. Will you tell me if you feel anything unusual?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
She sat back and waited, and Luke reached out his hand. He paused just before he touched her, and then laid his palm softly against her hair.
Kit knew she should be on the alert for anything “supernatural”, but after a moment her mind wandered and she found herself staring at Luke’s face. She felt oddly comfortable doing so, partly because she was too tired to feel self-conscious and partly because his gaze was inward as he assessed his reactions, not focused on her at all.
He had nice hair for an evil demon. A nice face, too. His features were rugged, with a formidable looking brow, a square jaw, and a strong Roman nose, but there was keen intelligence there too, especially in those blue eyes, which held a surprising power of expression.
The warmth of the blankets was making her feel comfortably drowsy, but even in the pleasant haze Kit noticed the odd turn her thoughts had taken and reminded herself sternly that Luke Cadris was a vampire. She was making a temporary alliance with him to rescue her brother, but that didn’t change anything. Luke might be more than she expected—more like a person—but he was still a vampire and not to be trusted.
Then Luke’s hand moved from her hair to the side of her face.
There was nothing seductive in the gesture, at least not intentionally. He was frowning as he concentrated, still obviously engaged in his “experiment”. But Kit was no longer unaware of his touch.
His hand was cool—well, of course—and while the skin was calloused his touch was surprisingly gentle.
Kit’s face felt more and more sensitized where his hand was. The more she tried not to feel, the more she felt, until she experienced a sudden visceral memory of his hands on the bare skin of her waist and she gasped out loud.
Luke pulled his hand away and stepped back. “There!” he said triumphantly. “You felt something. Didn’t you?”
Kit couldn’t meet his eyes. She sat up straighter and pulled the tray of food onto her knees before she spoke.
“Did you feel anything?” she asked.
The vampire frowned. “Not like last time. Last time was like fire, like lightning. I didn’t feel that. But there was a kind of crackling against my fingers, like electricity. Is that what you felt?”
“No.”
“But you did feel something?”
“Well…yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “But not the kind of thing you’re talking about.”
“Then what…oh.”
He grinned suddenly, and Kit reached for the mug of hot milk in what she hoped was a matter-of-f
act way.
“You know,” the vampire said conversationally, “I don’t have to sleep upstairs. This bed is more than big enough for two. I don’t have any body heat but there are lots of other ways I could warm you up…”
Kit rolled her eyes. “And here we’d gone more than twenty minutes without an innuendo.”
“It wasn’t so much an innuendo as a direct proposition.”
“Whatever. My answer is no.”
Luke shook his head, but he was smiling. “You’re an odd girl, Catherine Bantry.”
“I’m odd because I don’t want to sleep with a vampire? I’d say that makes me intelligent.”
“And that’s what you worship, isn’t it? Intelligence. The mind. But it’s your body that holds the ancient wisdom, Kit. You should listen to it.”
She glared at him. “I guess that’s what makes me different from all those pathetic women who let you bite them. We’re all prey to physical sensations and appetites, but we don’t have to act on them. We always have a choice.”
“I see,” the vampire said gravely. “Spoken like a true computer scientist. I’m sure that’s a very nice theory when you’re at MIT, but what about when you leave your safe, cozy little world? You can’t have very much experience, Kit. I doubt you’ve ever really been put to the test.”
“Well, look at me now,” she said, taking a bite of toast. “Am I jumping your bones and begging you to devour me?”
“No,” he admitted, a reluctant grin tipping up the corners of his mouth. “You are, in fact, not doing that.” He cocked his head as he looked down at her. “I suppose that means you win this round. Goodnight, Kit.”
“Goodnight, Luke.” She blinked. “Somewhere along the line we got on a first name basis.”
“Well, we are about to embark on a perilous quest together. It’s easier to shout ‘Kit’ than ‘Miss Bantry’ when I need to warn you of impending danger.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“So glad you approve. Goodnight, Kit.”
“Goodnight…Luke.”
Kit waited until he left the room, closing the door behind him. Then she let out her breath in a long sigh of relief.
She was wide awake, as if she’d gotten a second wind, but she’d hardly finished eating when she felt her eyes drifting closed again. She set the empty tray on the floor, curled up on her side with the covers drawn up to her chin, and was instantly asleep.
Chapter Four
Kit woke slowly, consciousness returning in gradual stages.
The first thing she felt was comfort. There was a soft bed beneath her and a warm cocoon of blankets around her, contrasting pleasantly with the crisp, cold air touching her cheeks.
The second thing she noticed was a scent, unfamiliar but not unpleasant, of wood and leather and incense. It was a stimulating odor and distinctly masculine.
Masculine. That one word, forming and then crystallizing in her mind, brought her back to full consciousness. Kit opened her eyes and lay blinking up at the vampire’s ceiling, remembering the events of the past two days.
The shock and horror of learning about Peter. That terrible initial feeling of helplessness, followed by the formation of her plan and a fierce resolve to carry it through. The relief—and the fear—that came with her first success: convincing Luke Cadris to help her.
Fear because he was a vampire, and because of the payment he would exact from her if her quest was achieved. Relief because she could start to believe, now, that the situation wasn’t hopeless. Luke might be a dangerous ally but he was also a powerful one. With him by her side she had a much greater chance of saving her brother.
After another minute with her thoughts she sat up in bed, looking around the room by the cold light of day. There was no sign of Luke. She slid out of bed, put on her boots, and went to check the room upstairs. He wasn’t there either.
What should she do now? She felt wide awake and restless, and longed to be doing something. At home she would have gone for a jog or a bike ride or hopped on the internet.
Kit felt a sudden chill. After returning Haley’s car and telling her roommate that she was going to visit Peter in a Welsh hospital, she’d left for the airport without even bothering to pack a bag. All she took was her wallet and her passport and the toothbrush she’d bought at Logan Airport. She hadn’t brought so much as a change of underwear, much less her beloved laptop.
How could she have left that behind? She’d wanted to travel light, but under normal circumstances she’d be more likely to forget her head than her computer.
Of course these weren’t normal circumstances, and thoughts of Peter had driven everything else from her mind. But leaving her laptop back home seemed like an unconscious affirmation that she was leaving her own world behind—her normal, human, rational world—and entering a world she’d never wanted anything to do with.
She hadn’t been this cut off from cyberspace since the time she’d spent a week in the hospital with pneumonia.
Well, at least she could take a walk. Kit scrawled a quick note for Luke, left it on the pillow, and pulled her jacket on before descending the spiral staircase and stepping out into the cold December air.
The clouds were even thicker today, heavy and dark as Welsh slate, and the air was bitter. Kit hugged her jacket close to her body and hesitated.
Before her was the University, its gray stone buildings grouped around grassy quadrangles. There was bustle and life there, students walking to and from classes, talking and laughing.
In the other direction was a cliff overlooking the sea.
Kit hadn’t realized that Snowdon University was so close to the ocean. She’d always felt a strange kinship with the sea, and that, plus her disinclination to be around people right now, made her decide to walk that way.
After a few minutes she came to a rocky path leading down to the beach below. She began to pick her way carefully along it, the sound of the waves crashing on the shore growing gradually more distinct.
Soon she was standing on the pebble-strewn beach, the rough salt wind lashing against her face, carrying with it the tang of the ocean. The sea was fierce and unwelcoming here on the coast of Wales, but even as Kit shivered in the bitter wind she thought it was glorious.
A frisson that had nothing to do with the wind prickled the skin at the back of her neck. She turned her head and saw Luke Cadris standing there, his face shadowed within the deep hood of his cloak.
“Hello, Sleeping Beauty,” he said. “Do you know you slept about fourteen hours?”
“I believe it. This is the first time in days I’ve felt rested.” She peered up at him. “What’s up with the outfit? I thought the thing about vampires and the sun was just a myth.”
“It is…for most of us. I’m the lucky recipient of a curse that makes direct sunlight deadly to me.”
A curse. Kit shivered again, her hands fisting in the pockets of her jacket. “Who cursed you?”
She sensed rather than saw his wry smile. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
“An ex-girlfriend did this to you?”
“Something like that.”
She remembered what the porter had said about “Luke’s women”, and his description of forlorn girls at the gates of Snowdon. “Did you deserve it?”
That drew a chuckle from him. “Undoubtedly.”
His voice was low and resonant, with a kind of musical quality to it. It wasn’t hard to imagine being seduced by a man with a voice like that.
Kit frowned. This was a man who treated women so cavalierly that one of them had actually cursed him. She didn’t want to think any aspect of him could be seductive.
“Character points for the cloak, by the way,” she said flippantly. “Bram Stoker meets Bela Lugosi, with a little Nosferatu thrown in for good measure.”
“You do that when you’re nervous, you know.”
“Do what?”
“Make sarcastic remarks. Do I make you nervous, Kit?”
“No
,” she said firmly.
Luke chuckled again. “You’re a bad liar,” he said, a teasing note in his voice. She almost smiled at him, but she caught herself in time and pursed her lips disapprovingly instead.
Kit turned back to the ocean and Luke continued to stand beside her, the two of them watching the waves crash in. They listened to the wild music of the sea for several minutes, the silence between them oddly companionable.
“How did you know where to find me?” she asked eventually.
“I followed my nose.”
She wrinkled her own at that. “Huh?”
“Vampire senses, Kit. You have a very distinct scent. I could follow you anywhere.”
That was on the disturbing side. Kit wasn’t sure she liked the idea of the vampire tracking her like a predator.
“A distinct scent,” she said quickly. “Is that a polite way of telling me I stink? I really do need a shower and a change of clothes. I’m sure you’ve got a shower somewhere, but I don’t have anything to wear besides what I have on. I didn’t even pack a bag when I got on the plane yesterday. I suppose I ought to do some shopping…”
“Can you wait a few more hours? You’ll be able to take care of all of that where we’re going.”
“Really. And where’s that?”
“Paris.”
“Paris?”
“Paris.”
“The land of the dead is in Paris?”
Once again she detected a smile within the depths of his hood.
“Not exactly,” he said. “But there’s a portal there, in the Père-Lachaise cemetery.”
“I’ve heard of it. Isn’t Oscar Wilde buried there? And Chopin?”
“Among others.”
“How will we travel?”
“By plane.”
“Oh. From London?”
Luke shook his head. “There’s a private airfield not far from here. I’ve arranged for a small jet to fly us to France.”
Kit raised her eyebrows. “A private jet? Very impressive. Maybe the women who fawn over you aren’t so dumb. Apparently you’re rich as well as good-looking.”
Another faint smile. “One of the advantages to living forever is that you have plenty of time to meet wealthy and important people. The man whose plane we’ll be using is one of those. He owes me a favor.”