Zan interrupted. ‘Sil had to be “disappeared”. This seemed the most effective way for that to happen.’
As though it had gained a life of its own, the hand that wasn’t clutching Sil’s shot out at the end of my arm and smacked Zan hard and loudly across the face. ‘You bastard. You utter and complete turd! How dare you do this to me?’
Zan gave me a level stare. He didn’t even attempt to touch the reddening mark which stood livid on his skin, he just stared me down with a hellish glow smouldering deep in those green eyes. ‘You had a better suggestion?’ One hand raised and moved quickly, removing any atoms that I might carelessly have left on his surface. ‘I thought not. Sometimes, Jessica, one must act upon the moment that presents itself, not enter a debate.’ His demon slid behind his expression, ecstatic at the emotional response. ‘If we had to save Sil by committee vote, he would still be hiding with his life in peril.’
I couldn’t speak. His dismissal of the agony I had been through was, although understandable from Zan, so cold-blooded that it cancelled out the heat of my anger, and all I could do was shake my head.
‘We need to move.’ Liam broke in to our staring competition. ‘Get off this cliff before souvenir hunters start raking around for bent bullets and blood.’
‘And you are so not off the hook either,’ I said, quietly but with a goodly amount of future ill-will injected into my tone.
‘Hey, you bit me! And I’ve got scratches that look as though I’ve had a passionate affair with a Siberian tiger, so I’m up for calling it quits.’ Liam’s hand rested, briefly, on my shoulder, a passing touch of empathy, if not apology. ‘And, like Zan said, nothing better was coming up, so …’
‘If I may speak, as the corpse in question.’ Sil squeezed my fingers. ‘I really think we should take Liam’s suggestion and move somewhere a little less public. The office, perhaps? Because, trendy as my new hairstyle may be, it does leave a certain amount to be desired in the heat-retention line.’
I looked at him again and my heart wouldn’t stand still, it was leaping like a circus act. The shaven head made his face look entirely different, more regal and ninety per cent eyes. ‘What happens next?’ The question was quiet. ‘To you. To us.’
Zan answered, and I noticed he’d retreated beyond arm’s length, clearly I still had a murderous look in my eye. ‘Sil will continue to work in our office, but it will be strictly in a backroom capacity, and there will be certain … measures taken to ensure his appearance remains altered.’
Sil smiled. ‘We may still be together. It must be only when nobody is looking, of course, but in the privacy of the house …’ His dark look and the touch of his fingers made me shiver. ‘We may be as we were.’
‘Oh, get a room,’ Liam said, cheerfully. ‘One without windows, though.’
‘Won’t anyone notice?’ I managed. My emotions were still sitting there on that knife edge between ecstasy and breaking down in irrevocable tears, as though my heart couldn’t make up its mind which way to fall. Going with practicalities was pretty much the middle ground as far as it was concerned.
Zan gave a dark look. ‘It will be a part of your new job, Jessica, to ensure that they don’t. And, just to establish some ground rules, that does not mean by burying the entire office in biscuit wrappers and pieces of scribbled-upon paper.’
‘Right. Back to Vamp Central?’ Liam asked.
Ryan was, uncomplainingly, stretched out in the cheap coffin in the back of the hearse. Another of the advantages of zombies – they could really do ‘waiting’. ‘Not too many bumps, guys,’ he said. ‘These things are really flimsy.’
‘Customers don’t usually complain,’ Sil said, closing the boot. And in a parody of a funeral cortege, we drove back to York with the hearse leading the way.
Chapter Forty-Five
Sil and I lay in the paddock-sized bed, wound around in sheets and sepia-toned in moonlight. I still couldn’t stop myself from touching him, although now passion had burned down to a low-lit gas and a vibration running under my skin.
‘Wow.’
‘I have missed you. Missed this.’ He half-sat against the galleon-sail pillows ‘I never thought it could be so, but I missed this life we have made.’ A cool, long-fingered hand tangled in my hair. ‘I am to be known as Jonathan now. Sil died at the hands of a Hunter, and so I reclaim my old name, the name that means something.’
‘Jonathan,’ I tasted his name. In some ways it brought him closer to me, made him more human. But in others it drove a tiny wedge between us – Jonathan had been married to Christina. Had a son and a daughter. Marriage, a lifetime commitment, not something I could offer someone who would live three times as long as me; for all he said he would be with me until the end, could I trust that? He would grow slowly towards the grave with his demon-enhanced beauty intact to the end, whilst I would start to look more and more like Yoda. Would he still love me then? And children … Did he want to attempt to fully regain the life he’d lost by having a family? How did I feel about that – after all, with my confused bloodline my offspring may turn out to be anywhere along the continuum from enhanced human to outright demon.
But all that was in a future we hadn’t yet contemplated. Had barely even begun to acknowledge as existing for us. We were here. Now. Alive. Undercover, but alive.
‘Are you ready to forgive us for our deception today?’ Sil tipped my chin with a finger. ‘We really did think it was for the best to keep you in ignorance.’ And now his lips were close. ‘Forgive us.’
‘Of course I do.’ I brushed his mouth with mine. ‘You, anyway. The others can await my wrath. Liam lives on his nerves anyway.’
A laugh. ‘Very wise of him.’ Fingers moved from my hair to stroke my neck. ‘But can you truly forgive me? For all that I did?’
I laid my head against his chest. ‘You did what you had to, to stay alive.’ My mind still hadn’t let go of that image from the London camera of Sil standing in that street, blood on his mouth. And his eyes … they had been so animated. A glimpse of the vampire within the man I loved, the creature that made him what he was. ‘And I can live with that.’ Now I half sat, to look in his face. ‘But if you ever do anything like that again …’
His eyes darkened from the pale sky-grey they’d turned during our love-making to a blue-black. Was that regret? And for what? His actions, or lost opportunities? ‘Our relationship must be one of trust,’ he said quietly. ‘Or it is nothing.’
‘Er, lying in bed with you. No noticeable armoured clothing.’ And then I dropped the slightly sarcastic tone. ‘I trust you.’
But it cuts both ways, I thought, losing myself to the feeling of his fingers on my skin. You have to trust me too. And, given the information that has turned up about me, I’m not entirely sure that I trust me.
‘And how do you feel about this new position of yours?’ His voice was still quiet, but his body had grown more relaxed, as though a secret fear had evaporated.
‘What, the one where you …’
‘Working for Zan.’ A gentle hand moved lower and my back broke out in pleasurable goose-pimples at the cool surety of that touch. ‘The human government will not dare to touch you whilst you are under his protection, but there is still the matter of the rumours surrounding a new uprising.’
‘Mmmm. Uprising. I like the sound of that. Uprising.’ I writhed closer to him. ‘But you’re right. We need to find out where that rumour is coming from. Make sure it gets firmly … ooh, yes, firmly handled.’ I shivered as his fingers moved from my back and trailed around my shoulder, passed under the cover and drew lace on my skin with their tips. ‘I just wish Mum and Dad were allowed to know that you’re still alive.’
‘I am sorry. But for the safety of all, I must remain dead.’
‘Yes. Don’t worry: Zan explained it to me. In great detail. I think he would have used pictures if
I hadn’t threatened to stake him.’
Fangs just beginning to descend, he kissed my arm. ‘Zan is very pleased that you have come to work for us.’ Lower … ‘But then, so many things about you are pleasing, Jessica.’
‘I suppose I’m your boss now?’
The fingers continued their descent. ‘Yes. Zan is handling the press release.’
I started to giggle. ‘That’s going to put a stop to the York Herald doorstepping me – I can threaten to go round there and set the vamps on them. Oh, I wish I could see their faces …’ The giggles stopped and I bit my lip. ‘Hey, if I’m your boss, I can tell you what to do, can’t I?’
‘Mmmmm.’
So I bent and whispered my instructions into his ear. And Jonathan complied with all of them, until I fell into pieces beneath him.
About the Author
Jane was born in Devon and now lives in Yorkshire. She has five children, four cats and two dogs. She works in a local school and also teaches creative writing. Jane is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has a first-class honours degree in creative writing.
Jane writes comedies which are often described as ‘quirky’. Falling Apart is Jane’s fifth Choc Lit novel and the sequel to Vampire State of Mind. Her UK debut, Please don’t stop the music, won the 2012 Romantic Novel of the Year and the Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year Awards from the Romantic Novelists’ Association. Her other novels published with Choc Lit are Star Struck and Hubble Bubble.
For more information on Jane visit
www.janelovering.co.uk
www.twitter.com/janelovering
More Choc Lit
From Jane Lovering
Please don’t stop the music
Winner of the 2012 Best Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year
Winner of the 2012 Romantic Novel of the Year
How much can you hide?
Jemima Hutton is determined to build a successful new life and keep her past a dark secret. Trouble is, her jewellery business looks set to fail – until enigmatic Ben Davies offers to stock her handmade belt buckles in his guitar shop and things start looking up, on all fronts.
But Ben has secrets too. When Jemima finds out he used to be the front man of hugely successful Indie rock band Willow Down, she wants to know more. Why did he desert the band on their US tour? Why is he now a semi-recluse?
And the curiosity is mutual – which means that her own secret is no longer safe …
Visit www.choc-lit.com for more details including the first two chapters and reviews.
Star Struck
Our memories define us – don’t they?
And Skye Threppel lost most of hers in a car crash that stole the lives of her best friend and fiancé. It’s left scars, inside and out, which have destroyed her career and her confidence.
Skye hopes a trip to the wide dusty landscapes of Nevada – and a TV convention offering the chance to meet the actor she idolises – will help her heal. But she bumps into mysterious sci-fi writer Jack Whitaker first. He’s a handsome contradiction – cool and intense, with a wild past.
Jack has enough problems already. He isn’t looking for a woman with self-esteem issues and a crush on one of his leading actors. Yet he’s drawn to Skye.
An instant rapport soon becomes intense attraction, but Jack fears they can’t have a future if Skye ever finds out about his past …
Will their memories tear them apart, or can they build new ones together?
Visit www.choc-lit.com for more details including the first two chapters and reviews.
Vampire State of Mind
Jessica Grant knows vampires only too well. She runs the York Council tracker programme making sure that Otherworlders are all where they should be, keeps the filing in order and drinks far too much coffee.
To Jess, vampires are annoying and arrogant and far too sexy for their own good, particularly her ex-colleague, Sil, who’s now in charge of Otherworld York. When a demon turns up and threatens not just Jess but the whole world order, she and Sil are forced to work together.
But then Jess turns out to be the key to saving the world, which puts a very different slant on their relationship.
The stakes are high. They are also very, very pointy and Jess isn’t afraid to use them – even on the vampire she’s rather afraid she’s falling in love with …
This is the prequel to Falling Apart.
Visit www.choc-lit.com for more details including the first two chapters and reviews.
Hubble Bubble
Be careful what you wish for …
Holly Grey only took up witchery to keep her friend out of trouble – and now she’s knee-deep in hassle, in the form of apocalyptic weather, armed men, midwifery … and a sarcastic Welsh journalist.
Kai has been drawn to darkest Yorkshire by his desire to find out who he really is. What he hadn’t bargained on was getting caught up in amateur magic and dealing with a bunch of women who are trying really hard to make their dreams come true.
Together they realise that getting what you wish for is sometimes just a matter of knowing what it is you want …
Visit www.choc-lit.com for more details including the first two chapters and reviews.
To be published in December 2014:
How I Wonder What You Are
Jane Lovering
“Maybe he wasn’t here because of the lights – maybe they were here because of him …”
It’s been over eighteen months since Molly Gilchrist has had a man (as her best friend, Caro, is so fond of reminding her) so when she as good as stumbles upon one on the moors one bitterly cold morning, it seems like the Universe is having a laugh at her expense.
But Phinn Baxter (that’s Doctor Phinneas Baxter) is no common drunkard, as Molly is soon to discover; with a PhD in astrophysics and a tortured past that is a match for Molly’s own disastrous love life.
Finding mysterious men on the moors isn’t the weirdest thing Molly has to contend with, however. There’s also those strange lights she keeps seeing in the sky. The ones she’s only started seeing since meeting Phinn …
Visit www.choc-lit.com for more details.
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