Midnight Rose (31 page)

“It looked sexual to me.”

“It wasn’t. Not for me. But sex and bloodlust go hand in hand for creatures like us. I’ve never been able to have sex with a mortal woman without bloodlust coming to the surface. With Caroline, I handled it the best I could…I was so mindless. But after she died, I swore I’d never love another mortal. That’s why I pushed you away at first. I fought making love with you because I didn’t want to hurt you. I fought it with every ounce of my being.” “Yes, you did,” she said ruefully. “But nothing happened after we made love, Gideon. I never saw what you’re speaking of. Nothing happened.”

“No. Miraculously, nothing happened. For a while, I lived as a man again.” He looked at her in bittersweet despair. “Sometimes, Kate, when I’m inside you and your arms are around me, I’m human again. There’s a beginning and an end to my life again. And all because of your love. It’s been a gift to me, one I’ve never deserved. But I cherished it.” And maybe he’d destroyed it with the ungodly truth. He didn’t know. He drew a shaky breath, battered by a fresh wave of regret, and his voice trembled. “I thought I had broken your heart a while ago. I didn’t know how to make you hear me, and I knew that by telling you the truth, I’d lose you. But here you sit.

You haven’t flipped out, not visibly anyway, nor accused me of being a liar. And you haven’t run in terror, now that you’re truly free to go. I don’t know what to think. Tell me, Kate…have I lost you?” Her throat moved when she swallowed, drawing his gaze. Her breasts rose and fell beneath the simple flowered sundress she wore, drawing in life, releasing the past. He wanted to lean across the two feet between them and bury his face in her lap, clutch her warm, soft body, breathe her in, sunshine and sweetness and pure, unadulterated Kate. His lover. His greatest love.

She seemed to consider the question as she gazed back at him, dry-eyed now, posture straight, tissues twisted and pulverized in her lap. “I—”

The terse, expectant moment shattered when the doors leading to the back hallway swung open and Jude stood on the threshold, still clad entirely in black. The shadows engulfed him, undulated around him like excited footmen, ready to do his bidding. Truly he was no longer the son his father remembered, and grief twisted Gideon’s heart at the sight of him.

“Trouble in paradise?” Jude asked with a wayward smile.

Gideon released a growl of frustration and rubbed his palms over his face.

“Hi, Jude.” Kate stood, hugged herself as if banishing a chill, and strolled toward him. “Long time no see.”

“I missed you, Kate.”

“And I’ll miss you, Jude, as I knew you.” She stood before him, fists clenched, small and mighty and more courageous than any woman Gideon knew. “Whatever you are, you’re still just fourteen.” “Yes,” he said, his smile widening. “For eleven more months, at least. But Delilah says that even in my altered state, I’ll reach manhood like any kid would. And then I’ll stay there. Always young. Always healthy.” She shrugged. “Yeah? Well, you’re in pretty big trouble right now, I hear.” He cocked a brow and glanced over her shoulder at his father. “He’s already taken my video game console away. I wonder what it’ll be this time.” “Nothing worse than what you’ve already done to yourself,” Kate said.

“So he told you, then. Not just about me, but about him.”

“He told me everything.”

Jude looked impressed. “And you believe him?”

Kate glanced back and met Gideon’s eyes, a guarded mask cloaking her features. Nothing remained of the passionate, weeping woman from moments before except a slightly reddened nose. “I think I do, yes.” Getting to his feet, Gideon stepped toward her, resisted the urge to touch her. She was so calm. It frightened him. “We can talk later,” he said, his gaze searching hers. “Don’t go anywhere just yet.” She gave a faint nod, then slipped by Jude and disappeared around the corner before Gideon could say anything more. In desperation he reached out with mental, probing fingers, placed them on Kate’s pulse as she climbed the steps to her room. Her heartbeat seemed to leap and skid, a dance he recognized all too well. The dance of uncertainty and indecision.

“So I’m in trouble, huh?” Jude strolled into the room and sat down on a leather occasional chair, stretched his long legs out in front of him.

Gideon couldn’t stand to look at him. “If you’re asking me do I plan to punish you for running away and creating all sorts of hell, the answer’s no. You’ve brought the worst kind of punishment upon your own head. Nothing can change that now.” “I just don’t get it. How could this possibly be bad for me?” Jude folded his arms behind his head, satisfaction radiating from him in shimmering waves. “No more PCT. No more doctors or pain. No death.” “That’s where you’re wrong. Death is all you’ll know, Jude. You’re surrounded by it now. It’s what will keep you alive, if you follow what Delilah has taught you.” Jude seemed to consider the words, then gave a restless sigh. “You make Delilah’s way sound so miserable, Dad. Seems to me you’re the one who’s miserable. Even if Kate decides she can live with the truth about you, what’ll come out of it? A few decades with her are like milliseconds to you. She’ll get old and pass away. You’ll be alone again in the blink of an eye. Drinking blood out of bags from the refrigerator in the basement and mourning the loss of your mortality.” Gideon started to reply, but the newly articulate teenager held up a hand, anxious to try his tongue. “If you’re going to tell me again about that vial of saint’s blood some crazy old priest gave you, don’t bother.

I asked Delilah about it, and she laughed. One of two things is going to happen if you drink it, Dad. Either you die, like the edict says, or nothing. No change. Nada . That last scenario’s got my vote, by the way.” “Thanks for the feedback.” Gideon folded his hands behind his back and moved toward his son. Jude’s skin was so pale, it was nearly translucent. He was ghostly and exquisite and horrible. “You certainly seem to know a lot for a novice nightwalker, Jude,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “I wish I’d had your confidence during my first days.” The boy shrugged. “You and I, we’re the same now. I tell you what I know, and you can tell me what you used to know, before you turned your back on your true nature and started spouting goodness and—” In a flash, Gideon had him by the throat, his face an inch from Jude’s. “Listen to me, my son. Things may have changed for you, but around here, they’re status quo. As long as you live in this house, as long as you move in my world, you will live by my guidelines. Since your vampire ego seems to have taken over your common sense, shall we go over the rules we discussed this morning, or can you remember without my help?” Choking, Jude grabbed Gideon’s wrist with both hands, but only wrenched free when his father finally loosened his grip.

“Geez,” he rasped, rubbing his throat. “You almost killed me.”

“One day you’ll wish I could have.” Gideon turned back toward the fireplace, where the flames now flickered and died. “One day you’ll wish you hadn’t made a decision at fourteen that will cost you an eternity.”

“I’m coming home,” Kate told Mike over the phone that night, her voice choked with tears. “Amtrak station. The afternoon train from Putnam. I can get a taxi if you can’t be there at two to pick me up. And I’ll say it ahead of time; don’t ask me what happened, don’t ply me for information. I’ll never talk about it. Not ever.” His surprised pause followed her passionate declaration. “Fine. I won’t ask you any questions. Oh, wait…I do have one.” With a heavy sigh, Kate closed her eyes. Of course he was going to bug her until she told him something

. She’d have to play around with excuses on the taxi ride to the train station tomorrow, concoct some reasonable explanation for why her heart floated around her chest in a million shattered pieces. “All right. One question. And it can’t be all-encompassing, like ‘what happened’.” “I’m not being nosy, Miss Priss. I just want to know if you’d like to stay at my place for a while.” The gentle patience in his tone triggered a rush of grief. “Oh, God, Mike. I’m just sick. Sick that I have to leave him. But I can’t live with the truth. I can’t! My heart is broken. I love him, and I may never see him again.” “Kate, honey. It’s okay. You just get yourself on that train, and once you pull into Richmond, I’ll take care of everything. All you have to do is grieve and sleep.” “You’re such a good friend,” she sobbed. “I love you, Mike. Why can’t you be straight?”

“Straight men make terrible friends at times like these. Be glad I swing both ways. I can sympathize with the loss of a dark, gorgeous man.”

That made her cry all the harder, and quickly he soothed her with a few nonsense words and a funny anecdote or two. She only half-listened until he finally said, “I’ll meet you tomorrow at the station, sweetheart. And Kate?” “What?” She pressed a tissue against her streaming eyes.

“You’re going to survive this. It might not feel like it now, but you’re going to be okay.” Kate hung up. Without giving herself time to second-guess her decision, she hauled her luggage out of the closet, then began emptying the bureau drawers.

Martha knocked on her door, presumably to call her for dinner, but Kate feigned a headache. She couldn’t bring herself to sit across the table from two vampires pretending to eat dinner, acting as though everything was perfectly run-of-the-mill. She spent the rest of the evening in her room, and Gideon stayed away, as though he sensed her need for separation. She wondered if he knew it was a permanent one, that she couldn’t live with his darkness, no matter how she loved him.

With her entire world once again compressed into the two suitcases, she finally turned out the light, climbed beneath the bedcovers and stared at the red glow of the radio alarm. One-ten a.m. Was Gideon asleep? Was Jude prowling the shadows of the countryside with fangs bared?

Of course not. Gideon would never allow it. So how would Jude get the blood he needed to live?

She sat up on the edge of her mattress. Where did Gideon get blood to drink, besides Delilah? He didn’t kill, that much she believed. He had to have it almost every day, though. Did he stockpile it somewhere in the monstrous house?

Seeking an answer to that conundrum served as a thinly veiled excuse to see him, because despite her shock and fear and disbelief, she still loved him, still desired him.

She was in love with a vampire. Bela Lugosi. Nosferatu. Vlad the Impaler. Count Chocula . The urge to laugh seized her and she buried her face in her hands and cried instead.

Minutes later, she stood outside Gideon’s bedroom door, half-crazy with sadness and confusion. She twisted the knob; the door was unlocked. Stepping inside, she closed it silently behind her and stood in the blackness, waiting for her vision to adjust.

The bed was empty, covers wadded at the foot. The balcony doors stood open, curtains wafting gently in the breeze.

Slipping outside, she found the balcony deserted and wandered to the rail. The backyard was bathed in moonlight, mist floating like thin souls a few feet above the ground. Fog and clear, crisp moonlight shouldn’t exist simultaneously. It was meteorologically impossible, wasn’t it? Why hadn’t she noted that her first night at Sister Oaks? She’d ignored so many warnings that things weren’t right, that life at Sister Oaks belied common scientific law, and it took inhuman courage for a mere mortal to dwell here. It was her fault her world had come apart. She’d enthusiastically laid her wellbeing in paranormal hands.

The sound of splashing water reached her ears and she glanced down to see Gideon rising from the darkened pool steps, his gaze fixed on her, naked and glorious as he’d been the first time she saw him.

How fitting that they should meet again in this manner, when in a matter of hours she’d be gone from Sister Oaks, and his life, forever.

He paused on the edge of the pool, never taking his attention off her face as he dried himself and wrapped the towel around his waist.

“Stay there. I’m coming up.” He spoke softly, but the stillness of night carried his voice to her, and she nodded.

Mere heartbeats later he stepped into the bedroom and closed the door gently behind him. He moved almost soundlessly, but she felt his presence behind her. The hair stood up on the back of her neck and chills of dread and anticipation brushed her skin.

She turned and rested her back against the balustrade, watching his approach. When he stood a foot away, she said, “Should I be afraid of you?”

Gideon raked a hand through his damp hair, shoving it back from features made stern with sadness.

“Only in the sense that I’ve inadvertently hurt you. And myself, in the process.”

“I don’t know why I’m standing on your balcony in the middle of the night.” Her fingers gripped the concrete behind her. “I don’t even know who you are. I thought I did, but never in a million years could I have guessed the truth. How can you look so human, act so normal and gentle and…how can you be so wonderful when you…when…oh, hell.” He listened, a frown darkening his brow, until it became apparent she couldn’t finish. Then, wordlessly, he took her hand, led her back into the bedroom and closed the French doors on the late summer night.

It was too dark in the room for Kate to see his face, but the blackness painted his figure a velvety silhouette. Passion radiated from him. Passion and desperation.

Still, he didn’t reach for her. When she made no move toward him, Gideon turned on the bedside lamp and she squinted in the flood of soft light.

“I’m the same,” he said, gaze lingering on her face. “The same man who made love with you less than a week ago. The only thing that’s changed is your perception.” She swallowed. “Thank you for telling me the truth, Gideon. But I don’t think I can live with it.” “I understand.” He took a step closer. “Have you come to say goodbye?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing.” She drew a shuddering breath. “I’m in love with you.

Dangerously, deeply in love.”

His expression softened. “I guess we’re in the same boat, then. I’m in love with you, too.” For a long moment Kate studied his eyes, the shift of shadows, the deepening passion there. Then he broke their gazes and moved away, fingers loosening the towel knotted at his waist as he headed for the bathroom. “You’re welcome to stay. I’m going to take a shower.” He disappeared around the corner, left her standing alone in the middle of the room, discombobulated and inexplicably aroused.

“For crying out loud,” she muttered.

The sound of the water spray, followed by the click of a shower stall door, drew her toward the bathroom. Vampires took showers, she thought aimlessly. Vampires made love and laughed and cried and not all of them were like Dracula, skulking in the shadows, or Delilah, wreaking emotional destruction wherever the chance arose.

She paused in the doorway and breathed in the familiar scent of Gideon’s soap. His outline was blurred behind the frosted glass, but she could read the long lines of his body, the breadth of his shoulders, the strength in his arms and legs.

Vampires could hurt, too. Their hearts could break. They yearned and desired and regretted. They could fall in love.

Gideon had. With her. Whatever he was, he loved her, and she knew it.

Her fingers went to the hem of her nightshirt and she drew it up and over her head, let it whisper to the marble floor. Her panties followed and she pushed the clothing aside, naked, her emotions just as bare.

Shivering so violently her teeth chattered, she crossed the chilled floor and silently opened the shower stall door.

Gideon’s back was to her. He stood under the spray, hands braced against the shower walls, letting the steaming water cascade over his dark head. There was despair in the way he held himself. He’d broken her heart. He’d broken his own.

For a moment she stood in trembling silence and filled her senses with the sight of him, the proud, graceful breadth of his back, the curve of his buttocks, his muscled legs. Water sluiced over his fair, smooth skin. He had a faint spattering of freckles on his shoulders. A funny vestige of humanity that had never faded.

Her heart swelled with yearning. Just for tonight, she wanted to lose herself in him, in his beauty and passion. She wasn’t afraid of him, her Gideon, the one who’d made her laugh and weep and cry out with pleasure. It was the impossibly dark future that drove her away. But for tonight she could sink into him and love him, woman to man, one last time. Couldn’t she?

Stepping into the stall, she laid her palm against his back and felt the instant stiffening of his spine. When he finally moved, he didn’t face her, just turned on the additional showerhead and stepped aside to let her stand beneath it.

She sought his gaze and found him watching her, his eyes hot with desire.

“You realize, of course, that I can only stand so much of this.” His low voice echoed over the drum of water in the high-ceilinged room. “And then I’ll touch you, and I won’t be able to stop there. I’ll take you to bed. You understand?” “Yes.” Kate shivered, a mixture of excitement and fear as fingers of water trickled down her shoulders and back. “And I know I can’t stand another second without it.” Wordlessly he lifted a hand and brushed his knuckles over her cheek, then drifted them down to her breast, against her nipple until it tightened under the faint caress. Water clung to his lashes, beaded his nose, his lips. Sculpted details, a fine part of a finer whole. His throat moved as he swallowed and stepped closer to her.