Blood Eternal (9 page)
Wordlessly, she lifted her face to his. But he didn’t kiss her mouth. His silken lips took her neck in a strong, urgent pull. The hard shaft of his erection pressed between her thighs, and inappropriate lust galloped through her. Well, it had been a long time, several weeks. . . .
It seemed he felt the same. His tongue lapped at her vein and without warning his teeth pierced her skin. Her mouth opened in a silent cry of pain that vanished into the surge of fierce, familiar pleasure. She gripped his arms hard, letting herself glory just for a moment in the blissful weakness of her blood rushing into his mouth in answer to the tug of his lips.
So lost was she in the blood kiss that it was a moment before she realized he’d unzipped her jeans and pushed them and her panties down over her hips.
“Saloman, the hunters are here,” she managed. “They’re coming now.”
His cool, stroking hands left her hips, perversely disappointing her, until he seized the Ancient detector from her frozen hand and hurled it into the night. Before she could object to this vandalism, he lifted her and entered her body in one swift, gliding movement that shattered the remnants of her resistance.
Blood and sex and Elizabeth,
he said inside her head.
he said inside her head.
Bastard. Can’t you even say hello?
He detached his teeth from her neck and flicked his tongue over the wound to heal it. His burning gaze lifted to hers.
“Hello,” he said huskily, and took her mouth.
Her gasp was at least part sob as she threw both arms around his neck and met his thrusts with desperate urgency. It was insane, the danger of discovery far too great, and yet the very knowledge of that drove her excitement beyond what she could resist. She was Saloman’s. The world knew she was Saloman’s. His hands spanned her chest, running down over her breasts, tugging them free of her clothing for more intimate caresses.
In the distance, Elizabeth could hear the voices of the hunters, anxious and questioning, but she couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop. There was only Saloman and the wicked pleasure she reached for without inhibition. He ground her into the rock, hammering pleasure into her while he sipped again from her neck, dividing the attentions of his lips between the wound and her mouth. She could taste her own blood among the intensity that was Saloman, and it all became part of the same massive, necessary joy that tore her apart in his arms.
He came with her, shuddering in rare silence, even while he sealed her wound once more and held her upright against the hill’s slope. His climax was different from those of the human males she’d known, though quite how, she’d never properly analyzed. Sometimes it felt as if her body absorbed everything he gave it.
She reached up and took back his mouth.
“Hello,” she whispered against his lips. They smiled on hers.
“Go find your hunters. Tell them I’m here and I’ll call later to talk.” He kissed her again, hard, and slid out of her before fastening his trousers. He readjusted the sword, which she saw through his enchantment only because she knew it was there.
“You’re leaving again?” she said, bewildered by the speed of this new change.
“I’ll be back.” He pulled her jeans up over her hips, as if now,
now
, he was in a hurry. With sudden pique at being so casually treated, she brushed his fingers aside to refasten them herself. When she glanced up again, he’d gone.
now
, he was in a hurry. With sudden pique at being so casually treated, she brushed his fingers aside to refasten them herself. When she glanced up again, he’d gone.
“Elizabeth!” Mihaela gripped her shoulders so hard they hurt. “Are you all right? We found your detector—”
Elizabeth hugged her back, too briefly because of her own guilt, and yet she couldn’t help being touched by the show of friendship. “He threw it away,” Elizabeth blurted, and perhaps fortunately was misunderstood.
“My God, he got that close?” Mihaela gasped. “Did you stake him?”
Elizabeth drew a little away from Mihaela. The other hunters, Turks as well as her Hungarian friends, used flashlights now that seemed blinding after the all-but-impenetrable darkness. Everyone gazed at her with round, avid eyes.
“He moved too fast. I knew in theory they could do that—I’ve seen Saloman run across cities.” And been with him while he did. “But I guess he never troubled in any fights with humans. . . . He was alone,” she added abruptly. “And he ran off back the way he’d come, far too fast to catch.” She drew in her breath. “I don’t think he’s got any idea what’s going on. He called me Tsigana, although I’m told I look nothing like her, and then he ran away as if genuinely distraught when I said Tsigana was dead.”
“And when he came back?” Mihaela urged.
“Ah. He didn’t come back. That was Saloman.” She forced herself to meet each gaze in turn. She just wished she didn’t feel so childishly defiant about it.
“So he
is
here,” Konrad said flatly.
is
here,” Konrad said flatly.
“Apparently. I think he’s pursuing Luk, but he said he’d call later to discuss things.”
“What things?” Mihaela demanded.
“How the hell should I know?” Elizabeth snapped. “Ask him when he turns up. Trust me, I am
not
his bloody keeper!”
not
his bloody keeper!”
She marched off in the direction of the car without looking back. After about five minutes of striding that probably looked more like stomping, István fell into silent step beside her.
“Sorry,” she muttered at last. “I’ve had a trying day. Seems I can’t take the constant suspicion when I’m tired. I’ll get over it.”
“She isn’t suspicious. She’s worried about you. We all are.”
Elizabeth sighed. “Look, I don’t blame any of you for the suspicion, but I do know it’s there, whether you want it or not. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry. I’m not walking out on you over a disagreement about Saloman.”
“I know that. We all know that.” He pointed his key into the darkness and something chirped in response. He shone his flashlight on the car with a grunt of satisfaction and they made their way toward it.
“Where are we going now?” Elizabeth asked.
“To the house. To sleep. The Turkish hunters are going over to the commune. We’ll go tomorrow.”
“What house?” Elizabeth asked, latching onto the first point.
“It’s a holiday villa in one of the hill villages. Very nice. Modern. Fantastic views.”
She regarded him with half-amused fascination. “Does nothing faze you, István?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you go from vampires to villas with as much effort as breathing.”
István shrugged. “All part of life.”
You sound like Saloman.
She bit her lips before the words tumbled out, but the thought remained.
She bit her lips before the words tumbled out, but the thought remained.
The villa was substantial and built in a traditional Turkish style, although it was too opulent to blend in with most of the other village houses. Guarded by a pair of tall wrought-iron gates, the surrounding garden boasted an olive tree and some nice rosebushes, as well as some dry, scrubby-looking plants and a kidney-shaped swimming pool.
“The owners are British,” István explained as he unlocked the front door. “They rent it for most of the summer. Fortunately for us, they had a cancellation.”
“Best of both worlds,” Elizabeth observed, looking around her at the curving marble staircase before wandering into the open-plan living area, where rugs were scattered across the ceramic-tiled floor and red plush sofas faced the bay window and a large television. Beyond was a dining area and a well-appointed kitchen with a washing machine and dishwasher. “Turkish style and British convenience.”
István took her upstairs, where there were three bedrooms. “Share with Mihaela if you like—there are two beds in there—or there is a large attic room upstairs. The ceiling beams are too low for me. I got bruises just looking at it.”
“It’ll be fine for me,” Elizabeth said quickly, and went on up the staircase. Right now she suspected Mihaela needed some space between them. And besides, there was Saloman. . . . Her desire for him was like a pain, mocking her anger.
“Hungry?” István asked, laying her bag on the double bed while Elizabeth took in her spacious surroundings. There was even an en suite bathroom. “There isn’t much in, but the village shops are open late. Or we can go out when the others come back—there are a couple of decent restaurants.”
“Whatever you guys want to do,” Elizabeth said, and he left her to shower. She wasn’t hungry. She felt too churned up with Luk and Tsigana, with Saloman and sex. Standing under the shower, her body still tingled with remembered pleasure, with excitement, because at last they were in the same country again. And yet it had been too quick, too much taken for granted by Saloman, and too easily welcomed by herself. It wasn’t the steam that made her body flush when she remembered what they’d done almost within spitting distance of the hunters who were searching so anxiously for her. “What the hell is the matter with me?” she whispered, letting the water into her mouth and blowing it out again.
The same thing that had always been the matter, ever since she’d first wakened Saloman from his three-hundred-year sleep. Lust.
And he knew it, as he’d always known it. He didn’t need even to crook his finger, it seemed. He just had to approach her and she opened her legs like a bitch in heat. He’d taken his pleasure without any lead-in, and left immediately about his own business, as if she were no more than a convenience. Which was what she’d made herself, when in fact she wanted to be so much more, to be to him what he was to her. Everything.
She turned off the shower and reached for the towel. She’d never been ashamed of sex before. Not with him.
Emptying her bag, she found some clean underwear, an old skirt, and a loose top, and dressed. Then, while she combed out her hair, she examined the views from the two large windows in her room. Both opened onto balconies. One looked onto the village and some holiday apartments beyond, the other onto the swimming pool and the majestic hills. It was beautiful at night. She stepped out onto the second balcony to appreciate the sights and sounds of a new country and breathed in the fresh, calming air.
When she walked back inside, Mihaela stood by the bedroom door in white cotton trousers and a red top. Elizabeth paused, hating that she no longer knew what to say to her once-close friend. Saloman stood between them now, a beloved barrier she couldn’t remove if she wanted to. And yet it was through him, and the hunters’ determination to exterminate him, that she and Mihaela had met in the first place. At that initial encounter, Elizabeth had thought them either pranksters or nutters. There was no way she could have known then how much the hunters—or Saloman—would come to mean to her.
“You okay?” Mihaela asked at last.
Elizabeth nodded. “Are you?”
“Of course. Want to eat?”
In a small, basic restaurant five minutes’ walk from the villa, over a delicious meal and unexpectedly fine wine delivered in an old Coca-Cola bottle, things were more normal.
“I thought Muslims didn’t drink wine,” Elizabeth said, after the waiter had left their bottle.
“They don’t, for the most part,” said Konrad, lifting his glass to her. “Doesn’t mean they can’t make it or sell it. Cheers.”
“It’s good,” Elizabeth exclaimed, after a very tentative taste.
“Local,” István said. “Made by a man who understands what he’s doing. But don’t touch the stuff at the back of the corner shop. You’ll go blind.”
The restaurant had a convivial atmosphere with a friendly, attentive staff, and Elizabeth found herself relaxing back into the old ease of banter. The hunters called her “Dr. Silk” and asked her about jobs and career moves. Elizabeth thought of the envelope still lying on her sofa in St. Andrews and mentally, ruefully, kissed the post in Budapest good-bye.
As she always did, she warmed to the hunters all over again, and found herself wishing it could be as it was before. But nothing ever stayed the same. Everything moved on.
They walked back to the villa in companionable silence. Only when Konrad pushed open the gate did unpleasantness intrude. István seized his wrist. “Wait,” he breathed. “My detector’s just gone off.”
Elizabeth’s, in her handbag, was silent. She took out the sharpened stake.
“Which one?” Konrad whispered. “Where?”
“Ancient.” He pointed his thumb toward the swimming pool end of the garden, invisible from the gate.
Konrad jerked his head, and, stakes in hand, he and Mihaela crept around the back of the house. Elizabeth and István advanced toward the swimming pool.
The pool lights were on, and in their glow, a dark figure sprawled on a sun lounger. Supremely elegant and at ease in light trousers and white shirt, one foot crossed over the opposite knee, the sword that she doubted the hunters could see dangling over one side of the lounger, he looked impossibly handsome. His long black hair was tied behind his head, although a stray lock had escaped to fall fetchingly across his sculpted cheek.
Elizabeth’s heart beat harder, yet for the first time since those very early days, her pleasure in seeing him was mixed with dread. She wasn’t ready for this meeting, because she hadn’t yet managed to deal with the last.
Tough.
Tough.
Other books
Blood Symmetry by Kate Rhodes
Morgan and Archer: A Novella by Burrowes, Grace
Compulsion by Jonathan Kellerman
Murder by Mocha by Cleo Coyle
Great Lion of God by Taylor Caldwell
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon by Isabel Allende
Interference & Other Stories by Richard Hoffman
A Singular Woman by Janny Scott
Temple Of Dawn by Mishima, Yukio
Sunsets by Robin Jones Gunn