Damek's Redemption l(-6

by N. J. Walters

  “Not much more to tell than Craig already did. It’s an ancient organization, about three hundred years old, that assists paranormal creatures living in the modern world, helping them hide in plain sight. These days that takes legal and financial know-how.”

  “Which your family provides…for a fee.”

  Sonia frowned at him. “It’s not like that. We work strictly on donation only and never turn away a paranormal creature as long as it’s a legitimate claim.”

  “Legitimate?”

  “We don’t help those that kill indiscriminately, only those who want to live in peace. We have to protect ourselves as well.”

  That made sense but Damek still didn’t understand. “If you’re not making money off the proposition, why do you do it?”

  “Because they need help.”

  Sonia wanted to cry at the complete lack of understanding on Damek’s face. She could tell the concept of helping others simply because it was the right thing to do was a completely foreign concept to him. What kind of life had he lived?

  Wanting to comfort him, she shifted closer and leaned against his shoulder. His arm came around her, immediately engulfing her in his protection. She curled her body closer and he hooked his arm beneath her legs and shifted her so she was on his lap. She liked her new position more than she wanted to admit.

  She sensed he needed her more than he’d ever admit. “Tell me about your life.”

  “What do you want to know?” That he wasn’t clamming up and saying no to her was a step in the right direction in their relationship. That brought her up solid. They didn’t have a relationship, not a real one. He was an immortal vampire and she was a human with a little shot of werewolf in her veins. They made Romeo and Juliet look like a feel-good love story. Any relationship they had could only end in tragedy.

  “Sonia?” He stroked her hair and leaned down to press his lips against her forehead. “Are you tired? You should rest after your ordeal and after—”

  “Your taking blood from me,” she finished.

  He gave a jerky nod.

  “No, I’m okay. Really.” She was thirsty, but that could wait.

  “Juice,” he continued as though she hadn’t even spoken. “You should have some orange juice.” He reached out his hand and a second later his phone appeared in the air and floated to his hand.

  “Wow, that’s some trick. How did you do that?”

  Damek laughed, exposing a flash of fang. “It’s a little talent.” He hit several buttons and moments later someone answered on the other end. “I need orange juice.” He paused and glanced at her. “And bread and whatever else you think might feed someone for a few days.” He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the bedside table. “It won’t take long.”

  “You have someone on call in the middle of the night.” She wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was definitely late.

  “For what I pay them, yes, they are on call twenty-four/seven.”

  There was a new stiffness to his attitude and Sonia wanted it gone, wanted the easy conversation of only moments before. She wanted him to laugh again. Although she couldn’t know for sure, she sensed there had been far too little laughter in his life.

  “So, tell me about your life when you were still human.” If anything, he stiffened even more, his muscles becoming like iron beneath her. “If you want to,” she added. Maybe they should forget talking. They did better when they concentrated solely on their physical attraction.

  That depressed her. She’d had intellectual connection with her old boyfriends but never the fireworks in the bedroom. Now she had the fireworks with no connection. She wanted it all, and she wanted it with Damek.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Their time together was finite and she knew that. Better to take advantage of what was working between them. She’d be gone soon enough and she’d never have a man in her bed like Damek again, because he wasn’t a man. He was much more.

  “I was born more than a thousand years ago in what is now the Middle East. It was a small town, not of much interest to anyone but those of us who lived there.”

  Just the thought of the things he must have seen in his lifetime was enough to blow her mind. As an academic, it was like discovering a lost city or an unknown language. She could get information from the source. He was much older than even her grandfather, who was one of the oldest people she’d ever known. Roberto Agostino was a half-breed werewolf who’d lived for three and a half centuries, but Damek was truly ancient.

  She rubbed her hand over his chest and the muscles beneath her palm jumped and flexed. “What was your daily life like?”

  “I fished, did some farming.”

  It was hard to imagine this man as a farmer or fisherman. He seemed to be right at home in the big city running a nightclub, not the outdoorsy type at all.

  “Were you married?” She had to ask even though she knew she was better off not knowing. What if he still loved his wife? Not that it mattered. What they had was a modern relationship, purely physical. Yet her heart ached at the thought of Damek pining all those years for another woman.

  “No, I wasn’t married.” He ran his fingers through her hair, comforting her without even knowing it. “I had three brothers who all had wives and children but, for some reason, I never found a woman I wanted to commit to.”

  Seems even ancient men had commitment issues. Sonia was disappointed with Damek even though she was glad he hadn’t had to watch his wife and children die. Bad enough he had to watch his family age and pass away.

  “What happened?” How had he become a vampire? The curiosity was eating at her.

  “It is a long story,” he began, but a bell chimed from out in the apartment. “Ah, the delivery is here.” He eased out of bed, grabbed his pants and slid them on before padding out of the room.

  Sonia blinked when she realized she was still staring at the space where his bare butt had been only moments ago. The man certainly looked spectacular naked. She wished he’d finished his story, but supposed it didn’t really matter. He was a vampire and nothing could change that fact.

  She glanced away and her gaze landed on his cell phone where it sat on the bedside table. In his haste to get to the door, he’d forgotten it. She only hesitated a moment before she leaned over and grabbed it. He hadn’t exactly told her she couldn’t call anyone, and her family would worry.

  It only took a few seconds to dial the number and she pushed aside her guilt. She wasn’t betraying him. She was simply putting her family’s mind at ease. “Come on,” she muttered as it rang for the second time. She wanted this call over with just in case Damek had some objections.

  “Hello.” The gruff voice on the other end made her breathe a sigh of relief.

  “Papa, where are you?”

  “Where are you? It’s Sonia,” she heard him tell whoever was with him. “Are you all right?”

  “Listen, there was an issue with a vampire hunter at my hotel room, but I’m fine,” she hurriedly reassured him. “Don’t go there.”

  “Where are you?”

  She nibbled on her bottom lip. “I’m somewhere safe.”

  “Sonia Maria Agostino.” She winced when he said all three of her names. That was never a good sign.

  Her mother’s voice echoed in the background. She wasn’t surprised that her mother had come to Chicago with her father and brothers. “Give me the phone, Vincenzo.” There were a few heated words in Greek and then her mother was on the line. Not that there’d been any doubt in Sonia’s mind as to who would win that particular battle of wills. “You are with him, the vampire.”

  Sonia wasn’t surprised her mother knew. Her mother always seemed to know things she shouldn’t. Her grandmother was the same, and Sonia wished she had their well-developed sense of intuition. Hers was more vague, a sense of knowing, rather than anything specific.

  “Where are you? Sonia, we need to come to you, to protect you. If there are vampire hunters then your vampire is in danger.”

 
; Of course her family would help her protect Damek. Not that he really needed it. Not now. But the sun would come up and leave him vulnerable. No vampire was at his full strength in the light of day, and most slept from sunrise to sunset. That Damek could be up and around late in the day spoke of his strength, but no vampire was immune to the power of the sun. The rays drained their power, leaving them open to the hunters.

  She gave her mother the name of the street she’d caught from the window of the limousine. “I don’t know exactly which number it is, but it’s an older warehouse that’s been converted to condos.”

  “We will find you,” her mother assured her. “We’ll be there in a matter of hours.”

  “I’ll try to call you later. Love you.” She ended the call before her mother could ask her more questions. Really, it was weird talking to her family while she was naked in her lover’s bed.

  She sensed Damek’s presence and looked up to find him standing just inside the doorway with a glass of orange juice in his hand. His expression was deadly and the walls of the room seemed to expand and contract with each passing second. For the first time since she met him, she was truly afraid.

  “Damek?”

  “What have you done?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Damek felt as though he’d been staked out in the midday sun with a wooden post driven through his heart. Betrayal ate at him and it took all his discipline not to destroy everything in the room. Hell, the way he was feeling, he could easily raze the entire building.

  She put the phone on the nightstand and pulled the covers around her, her face pale and frightened. “I called my family. I told you they would be worrying about me.”

  “You told them where I lived. How to find me.”

  “They won’t hurt you. Really. They’re on our side and will help to protect you from the vampire hunters in the area.”

  He laughed, but the sound wasn’t pleasant and Sonia flinched. “I don’t need your help, little girl. I could easily kill every vampire hunter who dared to enter my domain.”

  She shook her head and climbed out of bed, pausing long enough to wrap the comforter around her. It infuriated him that she felt the need to cover herself from him after he’d kissed and touched every inch of her traitorous body. “If you want to convince me of your sincerity you’d be better off doing it naked.”

  She scowled at him. “Don’t be an idiot,” she snapped.

  He raised an eyebrow at her temerity. “I promise, I won’t be any longer. Obviously I was one to have trusted you.”

  Hurt flashed across her face and she jerked as though he’d hit her. He immediately wanted to soothe her, which in his mind did indeed make him an idiot. When would he learn that people always had their own agenda?

  “We can watch out for you when you’re sleeping.”

  Damek snorted. “That will never happen. I have guarded my own resting place for a thousand years and don’t need the help of a little girl.”

  She turned from him as his phone rang. He stalked across the room, slammed the glass down onto the nightstand and grabbed his phone. This fiasco was his fault. If he’d remembered to take it with him she never would have been able to call anyone.

  Now he was making excuses for her.

  He recognized the number. “Craig, what do you have for me?” Sonia was rummaging around on the floor searching for her clothing. She winced when she bent over and he frowned. Was her arm hurting her? Had he hurt her when they’d made love?

  And why should he care? She’d betrayed him before the sheets were barely cool.

  He concentrated on what Craig was saying to him. “The vampire hunters are set up much like the werewolf bounty hunters, but there are a lot less of them. They’re a paranoid bunch and don’t give out any personal information even to one another. From what I can find out, this Luther Kostas guy seems to be running the show here in America. There isn’t much out there about him, but when he does talk it’s about his family heritage. The guy comes from a long line of vampire hunters that goes back to ancient times.”

  That made sense to Damek. If a vampire could get inside a hunter’s mind he could find out many things. But if the hunter didn’t know anything there was nothing for a vampire to find. A simple, but effective protection device. “In other words, he’s a fanatic.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Craig continued. “The only good vampire is a staked one. Guy thinks he’s Buffy.”

  Damek’s lips twitched at the pop culture reference to a television vampire slayer but he kept from smiling. Off to his right, Sonia was busy pulling on her clothing. “Where is he now?”

  “That’s where it gets a bit murky. I can’t pin down his location. He could be in Chicago for all I know. There’s no way of knowing. I don’t have a description of him, only a name. He’s not even in any of the DMV databases, and I’ve checked every state, so I’m betting he has a license under an alias. That’s what I would do.”

  “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

  “Hey, no problem. Whatever you need. I’ll keep looking.”

  Damek almost trusted him. Almost. There was always a seed of doubt and it usually flourished over time, proving he was right in the first place. Everyone looked out for themselves. He supposed, in that way, he was no different than the rest of them. His survival and safety came first, but he’d never betrayed anyone to assure it. Never.

  He turned off his phone and tossed it onto the nightstand before turning to Sonia. She had her jeans and bra on and was struggling with her top. “What are you doing?”

  She glared at him and tugged the sweater over her head. Her curls flew all over the place and his fingers itched to tame them. “You’re not serious. I’m leaving since you obviously don’t want me here and I can’t be trusted.”

  He shook his head and prowled toward her, his feet gliding over the floor. “You’re not leaving.”

  She froze in place, one arm halfway through the sleeve. “You can’t stop me.” He heard the quaver of her voice beneath her bravado.

  “Yes, I can.” He tugged her sweater off and wrapped his hands around her shoulders.

  “Why? Why do you want me to stay?” she demanded.

  Damek wasn’t sure. He should be wiping her memories and sending her on her way. But the vampire hunters were still out there and they knew who she was. The thought of her being out there alone and unprotected was more than he could stand. If anything happened to her—

  The city would see carnage unlike anything in its history. Damek wasn’t sure what he’d do if anything happened to Sonia. She’d become his lifeline to sanity. He was so close to crossing a line, to no longer caring about humanity and what became of it. But he cared about her in spite of her betrayal of him to her family.

  “Why?” He yanked her close and her breasts pressed against his bare chest. Her bra kept him from fully feeling her soft flesh against him, so he pulled back long enough to undo it and strip it away. Which wasn’t an easy task with her hands batting at him. He pulled her back against him, releasing a sigh of relief when her nipples rubbed against his skin. He stared down at her, a fierce longing building from somewhere deep within him. “Because I want you.”

  Sonia didn’t know whether she should run, slap his face or laugh. This entire night was turning into a tragic comedy of errors. Nothing in her life made sense anymore, least of all her attraction to the infuriating, overbearing vampire standing before her.

  How could he think she would betray him? She’d told him about The Keepers and how they existed to help paranormal creatures like him. She’d told him about her obsession with finding him. Heck, she’d slept with the guy. How much more could he want?

  “Everything,” he whispered. “I want everything.” He kissed her then, his lips covering hers and his tongue sliding inward, claiming her mouth. He’d read her mind, her thoughts, and she hadn’t even realized it.

  Panic threatened and she threw up some hasty barriers in her mind, hoping to block him from finding ou
t more. She didn’t want anyone digging through her brain for her thoughts and memories. They belonged to her and her alone.

  He growled and pulled back, glaring down at her. “I didn’t read your mind. You were broadcasting like a beacon.”

  “How did you…” She let her unspoken question hang there, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

  “It’s not hard to guess your thoughts, and I felt the barriers you moved into place. Rather impressive actually.” He stiffened and took a step away from her. “You should drink some juice.”

  Damn, now she felt guilty, like she’d done something wrong. This entire situation was ludicrous. Sonia reached out and touched his arm. He was wearing only a pair of pants, so his arms and chest were bare. Her fingers touched cool flesh and she glided them up his biceps to his shoulders.

  “What are you doing?” His voice was gruff with arousal and maybe a touch of anger. It was hard to be sure.

  “I don’t know,” she told him. In all honesty, she had no idea where her life was going or what she was going to do. Everything had changed the moment she’d met Damek.

  He was so alone in spite of working in a packed nightclub every evening. He wore his aloofness like a cloak, but she sensed the man beneath, the man who’d taken her to bed and touched her so gently before making love to her as though she was the most necessary thing in his world.

  He could easily ignore words, but actions were different. Praying she wasn’t making a huge mistake, Sonia cupped his face between her palms, went up onto her toes and kissed him.

  Damek stood as still as a statue while she licked his bottom lip and touched her lips to the corners of his mouth. Self-consciousness crept in. Who did she think she was, some femme fatale? She was an ordinary woman, a scholar, certainly no swimsuit model. Embarrassment swamped her and she started to pull away.

  He banded his arm around her waist and tugged her forward and up, capturing her lips with his. His kiss was hot and possessive and Sonia lost herself in it. Her embarrassment disappeared in a blink of an eye, replaced by something more powerful—lust.