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

by Chloe Hart

  “The harp of Taliesin? I don’t even know what that is, or where it could—”

  “I do,” he interrupted. “It’s here in Wales, guarded by the Order of Arthur.”

  Kit felt bewildered. “Then—do you mean—is it really that easy? All we have to do is get the harp from those guys, whoever they are?”

  He hesitated. “Well…yes. But it’s not going to be easy.”

  Foreboding tingled along her nerve endings. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m familiar with the Order of Arthur. They’re a warrior clan.”

  “Fae?”

  “No. Human. They claim to be the descendants of King Arthur’s knights.”

  “But King Arthur was good, wasn’t he? Why wouldn’t these people want to help us, if we tell them why we need the harp?”

  “They are willing to help us.”

  “You’ve already spoken with them?”

  “Yes.”

  She searched his face. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

  He hesitated again. “The Order has a legend about the harp—one that’s been passed down from generation to generation. They told me about it when I spoke with them. According to the legend, they’ll give the harp to a Faery woman who will use it to redeem her brother from the land of the dead.”

  “But…that’s me!” Exhilaration swept through her. “I’m the Faery woman—an eighth-blood, anyway. Did you tell them about Peter?”

  “Yes.”

  “So they know I’m the right one. What’s the problem?”

  “The other part of the legend. Apparently the Faery woman will be a great warrior, and earn the harp through combat.”

  “Combat?”

  “Yes. You’ll be tested against their best fighters. Once you’ve proven your courage and strength in battle, the Order will give you the harp.”

  Dismay replaced the joy she had felt so briefly. “But I’m not a warrior.”

  “Not yet.”

  Kit stared at him. “Not yet? What are you suggesting? That you can turn me into a warrior in nine days? I’m a computer scientist, for God’s sake! How am I supposed to face these guys? I’ve never even held a sword!”

  He looked at her in contempt. “So you’d rather not even try? I didn’t figure you for a quitter, Kit. At least this way you have a fighting chance.”

  “Damn it, Luke, I don’t know how to fight!”

  In a second he was kneeling at her bedside, gripping her shoulders hard enough to hurt. His eyes were burning into hers. “I can teach you. We have nine days. You’re not an ordinary woman, Kit. The power is already within you. The instincts are already there. All we have to do is unleash them.”

  “But I—”

  “What happened to the girl who came storming in here a few days ago, demanding my help to rescue her brother? That girl had fire in her eyes and courage in her heart. That girl kicked me halfway across a hotel room in Paris. Don’t you remember? How could you let Hecate bring you so low? Are you really so eager to die?”

  “Yes!” she cried out, knowing it was true. She wrenched herself out of the vampire’s grip. “Why do you care, anyway? Unless it’s our bargain. If I’d died back there in the underworld, you would never have gotten your payment. Is that it? Are you protecting my blood so you can take your share?”

  Luke rose to his feet, his face cold and hard. “That deal’s off, sweetheart. I wouldn’t touch your blood. I made that bargain with you because Fae blood is supposed to be special, full of life and strength and power. But you’re a weakling who’d rather die than fight for your life.”

  Something altered in his expression, and it was as if the temperature in the room fell fifty degrees.

  “Come to think of it,” Luke said softly, “that’s something I can help you with. Dying, I mean. I can kill you so fast you won’t even know you’re gone. I can do other things too. Drink from you, rape you, take anything I want from you.”

  The change came so quickly that Kit screamed. His eyes turned, his fangs descended, and she didn’t have time to do anything but jerk her hands up, pushing against him futilely as he brought his fangs to her throat with an animal snarl.

  The belief that he wouldn’t really do it, wouldn’t really hurt her, died when she felt him tear at her flesh, felt the stabbing pain of the vampire’s bite.

  She screamed again, thinking dazedly, so this is it, this is death…and then a sudden fury boiled up in her, a fierce desire for the life he was taking from her by force.

  He had the advantage of weight and position and strength, added to the savagery of his sudden attack. Knowing she had only a split second to act before it was too late, Kit did the only thing she could think of. She slid her hand between their bodies, found his groin, and squeezed with all her strength.

  Luke reared back in pain and surprise, and that was all the opening she needed. Blazing strength flooded her limbs, the same strength she’d felt so briefly in the hotel room in Paris, and she smashed a fist into the side of Luke’s face. She gasped in pain as she bruised her knuckles, but followed up her advantage as he rolled off the bed and crashed to the floor.

  She was on him in a second, straddling him, her knees on either side of his torso as she rained blows on his face and head and throat.

  But Luke wasn’t fighting back. When she realized it she stopped, panting and shuddering in the aftermath of violence. As her vision cleared and her heart rate slowed, she saw that Luke’s human face had returned.

  Kit stumbled to her feet, feeling sick. She wasn’t sure what had just happened.

  Luke’s eyes were blue again. The monster was gone.

  “I guess you’re not ready to die yet, after all,” he said, his voice hoarse. He coughed, and Kit sank down onto her knees beside him.

  “I don’t understand. You did that on purpose?”

  Luke closed his eyes. “I didn’t know what else to do. Death still had you by the throat. I had to get you away, but—” he winced. “I guess I always end up hurting you, don’t I? Even when I’m trying to help you.”

  “No,” she said, so harshly that Luke’s eyes flew open. “You saved my life, Luke. Again.”

  She blinked as her eyes filled with tears. She started to use the hem of her shirt to wipe the blood from Luke’s face but he grabbed her wrist to stop her, levering himself up to a sitting position.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said. She saw his jaw tighten as he looked at her neck, and then Kit remembered.

  Her hand flew to her throat, and there was blood there—but not as much as she’d expected. “You didn’t really bite, did you?” she asked.

  Luke shook his head. “I used my fangs to cut you, but not deeply.”

  “It hurt,” she said softly, remembering.

  When Luke spoke his voice was rough. “I meant it to,” he said. “I would have hurt you worse if I’d had to, to make you fight back. But I’m sorry, Kit. God, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said simply. She felt drained and a little shaky, but also oddly peaceful. And she could hear in her heart a wondering refrain—I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.

  * * *

  She was alive.

  Among all the thoughts in his head, that was the one that sang in his heart.

  Kit was alive.

  His face hurt like hell, but that didn’t matter. His own wounds meant nothing to him. The only wound that bothered him was the one on Kit’s neck.

  He didn’t regret what he’d done, since it had broken the death spell Hecate had woven. But he wished there’d been some other way. Not only did he hate to see Kit hurt, but the blood on her neck was affecting him in ways he didn’t want to think about.

  There was the simple fact of a vampire’s instincts, fanned into flame by the sight and smell of human blood. But this was no ordinary instinct. His desire for Kit’s blood ran deeper than mere hunger.

  In the land of the dead, after he’d kissed her, he’d felt a kind of wondering joy—the closest thing to t
rue happiness he’d ever experienced. Now he was face to face with the other side of his feelings for Kit: sheer lust, savage and powerful. The urge to mark her, to possess her, to make her his so thoroughly she would never want—or be able—to leave his side.

  He’d attacked her to make her fight for her life, to wake the warrior he was sure was buried inside her. But the feel of her beneath him had woken the demon inside him, too.

  If he had any chance of becoming the man Kit Bantry deserved, then that part of him had to die.

  “Will it leave a scar?”

  Luke’s eyes snapped to hers. “What?”

  “I’m just wondering if it will leave a mark,” Kit said quietly, her hand going to her throat again.

  Luke shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think so, but it couldn’t hurt to—I’ve got a first aid kit in the bathroom,” he said, starting to rise to his feet.

  She grabbed his arm to pull him back down. “Wait a minute,” she said urgently. He looked at her in surprise, and her cheeks flooded with color. “I’ve heard that a vampire’s saliva can help heal any wound…and that Fae blood can help heal a vampire.”

  He stared at her for a long minute. She couldn’t be saying what he thought she was saying. “Are you saying you—that you want me to—”

  “Yes,” she said. “Please, Luke. It’s the only thing I can give you—the only way I can thank you.”

  He jerked his arm away from her and stumbled to his feet. Warring desires were making his body a battlefield.

  “Another sacrifice?” he asked bitterly. “The stench of nobility is starting to get a little cloying.”

  That stung her. “I’m not being noble,” she snapped.

  She rose to her feet and walked towards him, and Luke, trying desperately to ignore the scent of blood mingling with the scent of Kit, found himself backing away until he felt the wall at his back.

  Just like in Paris—only this was a thousand times worse. Kit was in her right mind, and he loved her, and she was offering him her blood.

  Her gray eyes were wide and almost pleading. “I’m not being noble, Luke. Honestly. And it wouldn’t be a sacrifice, because…because I want it, too.”

  Her face flamed again, and Luke’s nostrils flared as he sensed the increase in her heart rate.

  “I realized something in the underworld,” she said, her eyes dropping to the floor. “I want your scar on my throat. Like you gave to—” she stopped suddenly.

  “Hecate,” Luke said almost under his breath. “This is about Hecate.” Her eyes rose to meet his, and he stared at her. “You’re jealous.”

  She took a step back, but her expression was defiant. “Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be? She’s a goddess, and I’m—”

  Luke was still trying to wrap his mind around this concept. “If you’re jealous of Hecate, then you must…” No. He couldn’t say it out loud. “I thought Hecate made you hate me.”

  Kit shook her head. “She didn’t make me hate you. Well, she sort of did. But mostly she made me think about the fact that I can never—” she stopped again, and Luke forced himself to stay still.

  “Never what?” he asked, and Kit’s eyes fell again.

  “Never have you,” she whispered.

  Luke was sure his dead heart had begun beating again. How else could he explain the pain there, the glorious pain that threatened to make his chest explode? He put a hand over his breast bone as though he might be able to feel it.

  “You have me,” he said, his voice breaking. “Oh God, Kit, you have me. But you have to trust me when I tell you that what you’re asking is impossible. I couldn’t control myself if I tasted your blood.”

  He took a deep, unneeded breath. “If you want me to do to you what I did to Hecate, you’re going to be disappointed. The creature who did that was an animal who doesn’t deserve the smallest drop of kindness from you. I don’t understand what’s happening between us…it’s something I’ve never experienced before. But I know what it isn’t. It isn’t what I’ve had with any other woman. I will never put a scar on your throat, Kit.”

  She returned his gaze for a long minute before she spoke. “Will you put a scar on any other woman?” she asked finally, her voice trembling.

  “No. Never,” Luke said almost violently. The thought of touching a woman who wasn’t Kit made him physically ill. “But we can’t be together. It’s too dangerous. Even now…God, Kit, I want to drain you dry. Don’t you understand? I want to rip you apart to get inside of you. To possess you. If I let myself give into that hunger, it will destroy you. I’ll destroy you.”

  He expected his words to horrify her. He wanted them to.

  But there was no revulsion in Kit’s eyes.

  “I don’t believe you’d ever hurt me, Luke. But I know you don’t believe that…not yet, anyway.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said harshly. “And I never will. So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to be allies like before, and nothing else. Our only focus will be getting you ready to win the harp of Taliesin.”

  “The harp.” Kit shivered slightly, wrapping her arms around herself. “I’d forgotten about that for a minute. Nine days isn’t a lot of time.”

  “It’ll be enough,” he said, willing confidence into his voice. “But for now, the best thing we can do is sleep. After we clean up a bit,” he added, putting up a hand to touch the dried blood on his own face. “You really do pack a punch.”

  Kit opened her mouth to speak, but bit back whatever she’d started to say. “Thanks,” she said instead. “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Chapter Twelve

  This time when Kit woke up she knew exactly where she was. She rolled onto her side and looked down at the floor, where Luke had spread out blankets and pillows for himself last night.

  He was still there. His face was stern in repose but quiet, too…almost peaceful. Kit lay on her side for a long time, just watching him, and after a while she realized there was something a little odd about his stillness.

  No breathing. No heart beat.

  No life…

  “Luke!” she cried out suddenly, and his eyes snapped open.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked sharply, raising himself up on one elbow.

  Kit breathed a sigh of relief. “Nothing. You just looked so quiet. So…well…dead.”

  Luke sat up and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I am dead, sweetheart. Sorry if you were confused by this concept…”

  Kit threw a pillow at him.

  “Oi! Let a bloke wake up before you start pelting him.”

  Kit slid out of bed and stretched, a stretch that used all her muscles and every joint in her body. When she looked down again she saw Luke staring up at her, his eyes wide and dark, and she remembered suddenly that she was wearing her panties and the white tee shirt Luke had given her last night, and nothing else. The shirt had probably ridden pretty far up her thighs while she’d stretched, not to mention the way her breasts must have strained against the soft cotton…

  Red with embarrassment, she took three steps backward and bumped into the bedside table, knocking over a lamp.

  “Well, this is certainly a hopeful beginning to our first training day,” Luke said as he rose to his feet.

  Their hands touched as they both reached for the fallen lamp, and Kit jerked back as if she’d been stung.

  “So what’s our agenda for today?” Kit asked, taking a step back to allow Luke to place the lamp back on the table.

  The gray sweats and navy tee shirt he’d put on after his shower last night weren’t particularly sexy, but the body beneath them could make her mouth water no matter what he wore. The way his forearms flexed as he lifted the lamp, the strength of his back, his shoulders, his—

  “Breakfast,” Luke announced as he turned back to face her. His eyes flicked over her body, lingering a moment on her bare legs. “After we find some clothes for you,” he added, looking away. “Then we’ll spend the rest of th
e morning in the training room.”

  Kit nodded. “Where will we get clothes?”

  “There’s a lost and found basket in the dormitory laundry room. A lot of things get left there, especially between terms. That’ll get us through until I can find time to run into town.”

  Kit frowned. “We’re between terms now?”

  “Today is December 15th. Classes ended yesterday, and they won’t resume again until January 6th. A few students and professors stay over the recess, but for the most part, the University is deserted. The Vice-Chancellor always travels during the holidays,” he added.

  “We lost time in the underworld,” Kit mused. “It felt like just one night, but it wasn’t.”

  “No. When I brought you out through the portal, three days had passed since we went into Père Lachaise.”

  “How did we get back here, to Snowdon?”

  “The return portal is only half a mile from here, on a headland above the ocean. I brought you out that way.”

  Kit remembered that you couldn’t leave the underworld the way you came in, and vice versa. “Do we have to go back to Paris to reenter the underworld?”

  “No. Hades himself will call us back, wherever we are. All we have to do is accept his invitation.”

  “Okay,” Kit said, nodding. “Then the only thing to worry about is how we’re going to turn me into Xena, warrior princess, in less than two weeks. I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake.”

  Luke smiled at that, reaching out a hand to cup the side of her face. “We can do it. I’d lay money on you and me, working together, against any combination of forces working against us.”

  “We do make a good team,” Kit said shakily, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that Luke’s touch raised goose bumps on her skin.

  Luke pulled his hand away suddenly. “Clothes and breakfast,” he said after a moment. “And then training.”

  “How exactly are you planning to train me, anyway?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  * * *