“What’s going on, Glynda?” he demanded, giving us a suspicious look before Rans’ eyes caught and held him.
“Hullo, Tom,” Rans said. “Do you concur with your wife that this would be a good time for a weekend getaway?”
Tom’s eyes lit up with interest. “Yes. This would be a good time for a weekend getaway, Glynda. We should go to the lake house.”
Glynda nodded. “What a good idea! Let’s go to the lake house.”
“Got enough money to cover the trip?” Rans asked, addressing both of them.
“Oh, yes,” Glynda said. “Our investments did especially well last quarter.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Rans told her. “We’re your house sitters. You’re going to pack and leave in the next thirty minutes, so we’ll just wait here while you do.”
“Thank you for agreeing to house sit for us on such short notice,” Glynda enthused. “It really means a lot to us.”
Rans smiled as Tom put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and squeezed, nodding in dazed agreement.
“It’s our pleasure,” Rans assured them. “Oh, and you’ll want to leave us the keys to the second car when you go.”
“Of course!” Glynda chirped. “It’s in the garage. I just filled up the tank last Tuesday.”
With that, the couple bustled off, presumably to pack. Rans and I showed ourselves to the upstairs living room to wait. I stared at the ugly print pattern of the sofa and chairs, which seemed to waver back and forth in a disturbing moiré pattern before my drunken eyes.
I must’ve zoned out for a bit, because it seemed like less than half an hour had passed when Glynda called a cheery goodbye, the door opening and closing as she and her husband left, suitcases in hand. I narrowed my eyes at Rans, who lounged carelessly in the far corner of the sofa, one ankle propped on the opposite knee.
“That,” I said slowly, “was creepy as hell.”
TWO
RANS SHRUGGED ONE shoulder, unconcerned. “Being creepy is in the vampire contract, somewhere below the part about good dental hygiene and needing SPF ten million before spending a day at the beach.”
I digested that for a few moments.
“Why am I still drunk?” I asked. “In fact, why am I drunk at all? Did Tinkerbell really roofie me? Because if so, I feel like you should have beat him up for me before we left.”
His air of casual relaxation faded, his expression growing serious. “Half a cup of Fae mead shouldn’t have made you drunk, no. But I think you roofied yourself, luv.”
I glared at him, offended. “Did not!”
But he only shook his head. “You attacked Alby by drawing on his animus. Fae animus. I imagine all the Fae magic you swallowed when you did that interacted with the Fae magic in the drink. Your demon blood probably made the effect even worse.” A brief smile tugged up one corner of his lips. “Face it, Zorah—you’re well and truly sloshed on faerie juice.”
I couldn’t help it—I started snickering. Rans rose gracefully from the couch and pulled me to my feet, slinging an arm around me so he could guide me into the kitchen. Once there, he poured me into a chair at the breakfast nook… thingie, and started puttering around in the refrigerator.
I slumped forward, resting my forehead on my arms—still smiling, though I couldn’t have said why. On some level, I knew there was a whole lot of stuff going on that wasn’t remotely smile-worthy, but it all seemed oddly distant and unimportant right now.
Maybe I dozed a little, because when the sound of a plate landing on the table in front of me jerked me upright, there was drool on my left forearm. A large glass of water and a couple of little white aspirin joined the plate, which appeared to have a sandwich on it. My mouth watered. I grabbed for the food and took a big bite without even thinking, my eyes slipping closed in ecstasy at the taste. An almost sexual groan slipped past my lips.
“You’re welcome,” Rans said in a wry tone, seating himself in the other chair. “I do so appreciate a woman with a healthy appetite.”
Something important occurred to me at the same instant I swallowed, almost making me choke. Coughing a bit, I reached for the water glass.
“Shit,” I managed when my throat was clear. “Wait. Sorry. I can’t eat this. I’m gluten-intolerant.”
Rans raised a glamoured blonde eyebrow at me. “You’re not gluten-intolerant. You’re a succubus-human hybrid who was starved of sex for… how long? I’m impressed that you were able to manage your malnutrition with lifestyle alterations for as long as you did, but trust me when I say—on the list of things that are likely to kill you right now, sandwich bread is quite near the bottom.”
I stared at him, and then I stared at the sandwich in my hands.
“Do vampires have really good hearing?” I asked.
“Yes,” Rans replied slowly, obviously unsure where I was going with that.
I nodded. “Good. In that case, your punishment if you’re lying to me will be to stand outside the bathroom door during my hour-long bout of explosive diarrhea.”
He sighed. “I’m not lying to you.”
I shrugged and devoured the sandwich.
At his prompting, I also drank the water and swallowed the aspirin. Then I let him lead me to what I gathered was the guest bathroom, where he rummaged around until he found an unopened toothbrush in a cabinet drawer. I brushed my teeth, eyed the shower stall warily, and decided in a shining moment of self-preservation that I was quite likely to fall down and split my head open in my current state. Maybe that was what Rans had meant about gluten being low on the list of things that would kill me?
I stumbled out of the bathroom and into the bedroom across from it, to find that Rans was waiting there, standing near the bed. He’d shed his glamour. That was good. I was one seriously shallow bitch when I was drunk, apparently, and Mr. Blonde and Forgettable just wasn’t on the same shag-ability scale as his real appearance.
“Hi,” I said, a bit breathlessly. Without really intending it, I’d plastered myself against his body. I breathed in deeply, taking in his scent.
I felt his small huff of amusement more than I heard it. He let me pull him down to press our mouths together for only a moment before he pulled back, capturing my wrists in a gentle grip and easing me away.
I frowned. “What’s wrong?”
He kissed the furrow in my brow. “You’re the one who keeps saying you’ve been roofied, luv. You need sleep right now more than you need a top-up. Get all that Fae shite out of your system first, and hit on me again later if your hangover isn’t too atrocious.”
A sinking sensation pulled at my stomach. For the first time since drinking the mead, all of the circling thoughts and fears surrounding the past few days threatened to descend and crush me beneath their weight once more. I caught at Rans’ arm, distantly aware of how pathetic I was about to look.
“Stay anyway,” I breathed.
He stilled, and I realized that it was the first time I’d asked him for something bigger and more important than sex. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Being drunk was the absolute worst. Mentally berating myself, I drew breath to backtrack before he could point out how ridiculous I was being.
I was too slow.
“You should be careful, Zorah,” he said. “I’m not a good person to trust in that way.”
I held his gaze for a long moment. “Then stop rescuing me, goddamn it,” I shot back, anger swelling to join my humiliation.
And that was reasonable, wasn’t it? If you didn’t want a girl to start trusting you, then you shouldn’t save her from monsters. You shouldn’t protect her and watch over her and say nice things to her, if you were just going to pull away and pretend later on that you were no good for her.
Huh. Apparently I’d stymied him, at least temporarily. Twice, he started to speak before stopping himself. Finally, he settled on, “Lie down on the bed, Zorah. I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”
My stomach unknotted itself, and I nodded. Crap, it was pretty clear I’
d slid past the fun part of being drunk and into the depressed, weepy part. That was bad. I needed to keep my damned mouth shut before I started sounding like even more of a pathetic, whiny bitch than I already was.
I could do that. Sure I could. I mean, how hard could it be?
I sat on the bed and kicked off my boots. Deciding that the rest of my clothing wasn’t worth the effort of dealing with, I rolled onto my side, turning my back to the room. After a moment’s hesitation, the mattress dipped and a cool body slotted in behind me. Another pregnant pause, and an arm wrapped around my waist.
An ache built in my throat. I’d had so little of this in my life. Could I trust it, when I’d practically had to beg for it before he agreed to give it to me?
Eventually, Rans broke the pensive silence. “You’re terrible at guarding your heart, aren’t you,” he said, not really phrasing it as a question. “You told me your father was a passive-aggressive arsehole, and yet you were ready to charge in and save him without a plan… or even a single bit of backup.” He paused for a beat before adding, “I admire you for that… even if it scares me half to death.”
The ache grew worse. “I have to, though.” The words slipped past my self-imposed wall of silence. “I have to know if—”
I cut myself off sharply.
“You have to know whether he intended to help you or betray you,” Rans finished for me.
I thought of all the hurtful words my father had hurled at me over the years. All of the distance. The neglect. The emotional abuse.
You’re going to come to a bad end, Zorah—just like your mother.
I never wanted a child like you, Zorah. Why did you have to be like this?
On the cusp of adulthood, I often found myself wondering why no one had intervened on my behalf as a child. Where was everyone else in the family? Where were my teachers and school counselors? But the answer was pretty obvious. My family members were dead, distant, or mentally unwell. My teachers were overworked, a bit freaked out by my strangeness, and quite possibly taken in by my long-perfected act of everything being okay.
And it hurt. It hurt that no one had cared enough to see the truth of things. It hurt that no one had thought to check in on a grieving widower with a six-year-old daughter, and make sure they were coping all right.
Because we hadn’t been coping. Not even close.
How much of that was the fault of a man who’d just seen his wife shot to death in front of his eyes? A man who—if I was to believe what I’d learned in the past few days—might well have been damaged in unseen ways by the years spent with my mother?
I had no idea.
“He’s all I have left,” I choked, and… shit. My cheeks were wet. I was drunk-crying now, complete with tears and snot and puffy eyes and clogged sinuses.
“I know,” Rans said softly, the arm around me tightening.
That arm didn’t let go until much later, after I’d drunk-cried my stupid, drunk ass to sleep.
* * *
Hours later, the pounding throb of my headache woke me. I wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed, but it was dark outside the bedroom window. I’d expected to be alone, abandoned to my pathos the instant Rans thought he could get away from me without triggering more waterworks.
Instead, I was wrapped around him, drooling on his shirt, the ever-expanding circle of dampness cool against my cheek. My eyes felt like sandpaper. When I raised my aching head, my hair tugged against my scalp where his fingers had become tangled in the matted spirals.
“How do you feel?” he asked, and even his low voice was enough to drive a spike through my left temple.
“Like I’ve been roofied on faerie juice and then made a complete fool of myself,” I mumbled, the sound of my reply driving in a few more spikes for good measure. “Ow.”
Those long fingers kneaded my nape. “Shower. More water. More aspirin,” he said, focusing on the practical. “Then come back to bed. It’s the middle of the night. There’s nothing that needs doing until morning.”
I bit my lip and nodded, afraid that if I made any further mention of my drunken breakdown, it would give the whole thing more power, somehow. As it was, I could pretend it had all… I don’t know. Been a dream or something.
“Okay. Uh… sorry about your shirt.” I rolled upright, gesturing vaguely at the drool-stain.
“I’ve survived worse, believe me,” he said.
An image of bloodstains and cratered flesh flashed in front of my eyes, making me shiver.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know you have.”
I gingerly eased off of the bed, glad beyond measure that Glynda and Tom had demonstrated the thoughtfulness to put a nightlight in the guest bathroom. That saved me from having to turn on an overhead light, which I suspect would have been excruciating.
The bathroom was well stocked, but I dragged my overnight bag in with me anyway so I could rummage for my hair-pick and conditioner. The mirror revealed what I hadn’t quite realized before—Albigard’s glamour had worn off while I slept. I stared at my reflection as though seeing it for the first time. Red, puffy eyes stared back at me.
The cup by the sink looked clean, so I filled it with cool water and followed Rans’ advice with the painkillers. I showered in the near-dark, letting the hot water and steam clear out my head as much as anything could right now.
There was something to be said for being clean and moisturized, even under circumstances as sucktastic as these. I decided that my best strategy for now was definitely going to be denial.
Drunken breakdown? What drunken breakdown?
I have no memory of this drunken breakdown of which you speak.
Rans was born in the Middle Ages. People were big on chivalry back then. I felt reasonably confident he wouldn’t rub my nose in it if I decided to play dumb about the whole thing. I slipped on my black silk nightie and headed back to the bedroom on tiptoe, praying that Rans had fallen asleep in my absence.
Rans… had not fallen asleep in my absence.
Instead, Rans was lying naked on the bed, his upper body resting against a pile of pillows. I actually felt his sexual energy flowing across the room to me before I registered his hand sliding slowly up and down his cock in the faint light of the moon streaming through the window.
My heart fluttered before settling into a strong, steady rhythm, my blood humming beneath my skin. The dull throbbing behind my eyes eased, as though someone had placed a cool cloth over my forehead.
Dear god above, this man was beautiful when he was naked. Hell, he was beautiful when he wasn’t naked, but that didn’t mean I was going to squander this opportunity to stare at all those sleek muscles layered under skin that glowed silver in the moonlight. I hardly registered the slow sigh that escaped me, taking the rigid tension in my shoulders with it.
“Thought this might help a bit more than aspirin,” he said, his free hand cradling the back of his head as he leaned against the headboard.
“Uh-huh,” I breathed, watching the play of his chest muscles as more of that replenishing power flowed into me. Jesus. Every time I got to experience this, I felt like I should be pinching myself because it couldn’t possibly be real. It couldn’t possibly be this… good. With difficulty, I tore my attention away from all that pale skin to ask, “Are you sure about this?”
I broke off, silently berating myself. Idiot. Did I really want to remind him that he was offering to sex up an emotional wreck with daddy issues? Of course I didn’t.
Quickly changing tack, I said, “I mean, do you want some of my blood first? So I don’t wipe you out as badly?”
His lips pursed in distaste, the brief expression followed by a wry, lopsided smile. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll wait until the rest of Tinkerbell’s animus makes its way out of you. Fae life force isn’t really to my taste.”
I was still glued in place in the doorway. Part of me was screaming, ‘Are you mentally deficient, girl? Why are you standing all the way over here when you could be on th
e bed?’ But the rest was fixated on a new question.
“Why do I react so strongly to you?” I asked. “And not just you. Albigard, too—although his energy made me feel like insects were crawling under my skin. I’d never felt like this with anyone I slept with before I met you. I had no idea I was drawing anything from them… but with you, I can feel it happening. Hell, if I close my eyes, I can practically see it.”
Rans released himself, lacing his fingers behind his head as he considered his reply. Immediately, I felt the flow of energy slow to a trickle.
“They were all human,” he said. “Fae and vampire animus is stronger. Demon, too, I imagine. Our life force is bolstered by magic. It’s not surprising that as demonkin, Fae magic doesn’t agree with you. The two races have been enemies for longer than humans have been walking upright on two legs.”
“Guess I’m lucky that vampire animus is demon-compatible, in that case,” I said lightly.
“You know what they say,” he replied in the same tone. “Once you go undead, you never go back.”
I chuckled. “That’s a terrible slogan. You need a better copywriter.”
He shrugged. “The pay’s shite and the hours are worse. Makes it hard to find good talent.” A dark eyebrow cocked. “Now get your arse over here, unless you just want to stand there and play voyeur all night.”
Honestly, I could think of worse things than watching Rans unselfconsciously fisting that gorgeous cock—but even that would be better when viewed close up.
“Maybe I’ve just discovered a secret voyeurism kink,” I told him as I crossed to the foot of the bed. “Is that a succubus thing?”
He snorted. “All kinks are a succubus thing, luv. It sort of comes with the territory.” His head tilted in interest. “So, do you have any others?”
THREE
OKAY, THAT WAS a rather unexpected question—though maybe it shouldn’t have been. Was this what sex partners normally did, when they weren’t too busy running for the hills after sleeping with you? Asking about your likes and dislikes, feeling out your kinks?
Shit, maybe it was.
The Last Vampire: Book Two Page 2