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Authors: Amanda Ashley - Masquerade

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BOOK: Masquerade
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A sigh rose from deep within him. She knew what he was now, knew where he rested during the day, something no mortal save Jolene had ever known before. With that knowledge, Leanne held the power to destroy him...but it didn't matter. Losing her would destroy him as surely as the touch of the sun.

She followed him into the living room, as he had known she would, though she stayed on the far side of the room. Foolish girl, he thought, didn't she realize the danger she was in? He could be at her side between one heartbeat and the next, bury his fangs in her throat before she realized he had moved.

Leanne rubbed her fingertips over the two small wounds in her neck. "You did this, didn't you?"

"Yes."

A look of horror filled her eyes. "Am I going to...?"

"No!" He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, his fists clenching and unclenching as he fought to control the thirst raging through him. "I may be a fiend of the worst kind, but I would never condemn you to a life of darkness."

She touched the wounds in her neck again. "Then why?"

"Last night was to be our last night together." His gaze met hers, begging for her understanding, her forgiveness. "I wanted to taste your sweetness just once."

Leanne stared up at him, the thought of never seeing him again suddenly more frightening than the realization that he was, indeed, a vampire.

"Our last night?" she repeated tremulously.

"Yes."

His gaze lingered on the pulse throbbing in the hollow of her throat for a moment before returning to her face. "You'd better go now."

Wordlessly, she continued to stare at him, her eyes filled with anguish and denial.

With preternatural speed, he crossed the floor until he was standing in front of her, his eyes blazing with an unholy light.

"Go home, Leanne," he said, his voice harsh and uneven as he fought to control the rapacious hunger burning through him. "You're not safe here."

"Jason..."

A low growl rose in his throat as he bared his fangs. "Go home," he said again, his voice filled with pain and barely suppressed fury.

With a strangled cry, she turned and ran out of the house.

And out of his life.

 

Chapter 9

Jason slouched in his favorite chair in front of the fireplace in the den, staring, unseeing, at the flames. In his mind's eye, he saw the horror in Leanne's eyes when she thought he might have bequeathed her the Dark Gift and turned her into a loathsome creature such as himself. The sound of her footsteps running out of the house, running away from what he was, echoed like a death knell in his ears.

He stared at his hands. He had not eaten for several days; his skin looked like old parchment. He knew his eyes glowed with hell's own fury, knew that soon he would either have to go to ground and lose himself in sleep, or satisfy the awful craving that was eating him up inside.

An unquenchable thirst for blood.

A deep and never-ending hunger for Leanne.

Had it been only two weeks since he held her in his arms, tasted her sweetness, heard the sound of her laughter? Only two weeks? It seemed a lifetime.

A lifetime,
Jason mused with a bitter smile. He had walked the earth for three hundred years and never had the hours and the minutes passed so slowly.

During the long lonely hours of the night, as he prowled the alleys and dark streets of the city, he seemed to hear the wind taunting him with the sound of her name. Sometimes he paused outside a house, listening to the sounds of life inside: children crying, laughing. He watched people eating, talking, arguing, sleeping. And he thought of Leanne, always Leanne, of how wonderful it would be to be mortal again, to share her life, to sit across the breakfast table from her in the morning, to make love to her in the light of a new day, to father a child.

He haunted the shadows outside the Ahmanson, torturing himself with glimpses of her face. He read the lingering sadness in her eyes, and he was filled with bitter regret because he knew he was the cause of her sorrow. She didn't smile any more, and the world was the poorer because of it.

One night, driven by an uncontrollable need to hear her voice, he slipped through the crowd, past the ticket-takers, and made his way to the balcony. There were no empty seats, but it didn't matter. He stood against the wall, a part of the darkness, shielding his presence from the ushers.

Oblivious to everything else, he had eyes only for Leanne. Silent tears tracked his cheeks as he listened to her sing. Her voice, while still hauntingly beautiful, lacked the enthusiasm, the
joie de vive
, that had once set her apart from the others in the chorus.

Leaving the theater that night, he had told himself she would soon forget him. She was young, so young, and they had spent such a short time together. Soon, she would find someone else...

Now, staring into the fire's dying embers, he gripped the arms of the chair, his nails gouging deep furrows in the wood as he visualized her in the arms of another man.

Rising, he went into the bedroom. Sitting on the edge of the mattress, he picked up the pillow she had slept on. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, letting her scent engulf him. In his mind, he saw her as she had been the night they made love, her beautiful body lightly sheened with perspiration, her incredible green eyes glowing and alive. He felt again the touch of her hands as she undressed him, recalled the way her fingers had trembled as she caressed him, bold yet innocent. He relived every moment, every touch, embracing the pain of remembering, the shattering sense of loss now that she was gone.

Into his mind came the last soulful cry of the Phantom as he stood alone in his underground lair, bidding a final farewell to the only woman he would ever love.

The urge to kill, to destroy, welled within Jason, growing until he could think of nothing else. Overcome with rage, he stalked out of the bedroom, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. With a strangled cry, he grabbed the fireplace poker, holding it so tightly it bent in his grasp as though it were made of straw.

With an oath, he flung it against the wall, then stormed out of the house, the lust for blood, the need to hurt someone as he was hurting, driving him beyond all reason.

He found his prey in a dark alley. The vagrant struggled in vain, his red-rimmed eyes growing wide as he stared into the remorseless face of death. With a low growl, Jason lowered his head to the man's throat. He inhaled the malodorous stench of the drunk's unwashed body, felt the violent tremors that wracked the man as he realized he was about to die.

Unbidden, an image of Leanne rose in Jason's mind and he saw himself as she would see him, his eyes glittering with the insatiable lust for blood, his lips drawn back to expose his fangs as he prepared to drain this hapless creature of its life.

Filled with self-loathing, Jason shoved the man away and disappeared into the shadows of the night.

* * *

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Leanne glanced up, meeting Jennifer's face in the mirror. As always, Jennifer looked as if she had just stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. Her make-up was flawless. Her long, honey-blond hair framed her face like a golden halo. Unlike the rest of the cast, who usually arrived at the theater in jeans and a tee shirt, Jennifer invariably looked as if she were about to go to a Hollywood premiere.
Look like a star, be a star
, she always said.

Leanne forced a smile. "Talk about what?"

"Whatever's been bothering you for the last two weeks."

"I don't know what you mean," Leanne said, and burst into tears.

Jennifer sat down on the stool beside Leanne and patted her shoulder.

"It has to be man trouble," Jennifer murmured with the air of one who spoke from experience.

"Oh, Jen, you don't know the half of it."

"I've got time to listen."

Leanne plucked a tissue from the box on the dressing table and dabbed at her eyes. If only she
could
tell someone, she thought sadly, if only she could pour it all out, all the heartache, the hurt, the horror. If only...

"There's nothing to tell, Jen. I met a...a man, and I thought...it doesn't matter what I thought. It's over."

"But you don't want it to be over?"

"No."

"Maybe he'll change his mind."

A rueful smile tugged at Leanne's lips. It wasn't Jason's mind that was keeping them apart. "Maybe."

"Come on," Jennifer said, gaining her feet. "Let's go get a cup of coffee."

It was unusually crowded backstage as she followed Jen toward the exit. Some of the cast members were giving friends and family a behind-the-scenes tour, showing them the props: the huge painted elephant that was part of the first act, the boat
which ferried Christine and the Phantom across the underground lake, the numerous candelabra that came up through openings in the stage floor to light the Phantom's lair, the enormous winding staircase, and the trap door the Phantom used during the
Masquerade
number. Later, they'd see Twin's Gym, where members of the cast and crew sometimes worked out between shows.

Near the stage door, Leanne saw Michael Piontek, who played the Vicomte de Chagny, signing autographs, and Dale Kristen, who had played the part of Christine Daa
é for over four years, a role Leanne secretly yearned to make her own.

When they reached the street, she couldn't help glancing at the corner where she had first seen Jason. There was no one there now, and she experienced anew the pain of their separation, the awful sense of loss that had filled her heart since the night she ran out of his house like a frightened child.

She blinked back the tears that threatened to fall.

"Where shall we go?" Jennifer asked.

"I'm really not up to it, Jen," Leanne said. "I think I'll just go home."

"Leanne..."

"Please, Jen. I need to be alone."

Jennifer gave Leanne's arm a squeeze. "All right, honey, but you call me if it gets too bad, okay? Any time, day or night. Promise?"

"I promise. And thanks, Jen."

"I'll see you Tuesday."

Leanne groaned softly. Tomorrow was Monday and the theater was dark. What would she do all day, all night, with not even a performance to help fill the empty hours?

Shoulders sagging, she crossed the street to her car. All the magic had gone out of the play, all the joy had gone out of her singing. Jason was gone from her life, and he had taken her heart and soul with him.

Sliding behind the wheel, she drove out of the parking lot and turned down Temple Street toward the freeway.

At home, she kicked off her shoes and sank down on the sofa. For a time, she stared at nothing and then, because the silence was too much for her, she switched on the TV.

It took a moment for the black and white images to register on her mind, and then she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, for there, clad in funereal black clothes and cape, was Bela Lugosi in his most famous role, that of Count Dracula.

The tears came then, burning her eyes, making her throat ache. She sobbed uncontrollably, wishing that she had never gone to Jason's house that day, wishing she could have gone on loving him in blissful ignorance.

For a moment, she considered going to Jason, begging him to do whatever was necessary to change her into what he was so they could be together, but she knew she lacked the courage to face the enormity, the horror, of such a vile transformation. She didn't want to live forever if it meant never seeing the sun again, never jogging along the beach on a bright summer day, never experiencing the joy and wonder of motherhood. And what about matinees? How could she play a matinee if she was a vampire?

How could she live without Jason?

Tears washed down her cheeks as she watched the movie, but it wasn't Bela Lugosi she saw walking down the long stone stairway, a flickering candle in his hand. It was Jason; Jason enveloping Mina in his cloak. How many people had he killed in the last three hundred years? In the last two weeks? Or perhaps he no longer had to kill. She remembered watching
Love at First Bite
and wondered if Jason visited the local blood bank to satisfy his thirst.

A burst of hysterical laughter bubbled to her lips. She must be going insane, she thought, comparing the reality of what Jason was to Hollywood's celluloid illusions.

Jason, Jason.
Why couldn't she forget him? Why didn't she hate him? But she couldn't think of him as an evil monster, not when she remembered how tenderly he had made love to her.

Sniffing back her tears, she thought of all the hours they had spent together. Never had he done anything to hurt her, never had he treated her with anything but kindness and affection.

She lifted her hand to her neck. The tiny wounds had all but disappeared. She recalled asking him why he had bitten her, remembered the sadness in his eyes when he told her that their night together was to have been the last. She knew now he had planned to leave her because he was afraid for her, afraid of what he might do.

BOOK: Masquerade
7.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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