Nightwalker (22 page)

“T
his is
so
not fair. You need a bell around your neck,” she teased while she breathed in the sight of him.

His hair was loose, straight around his shoulders. He had that five o'clock shadow on his face and chin. He wasn't wearing his usual suit. God forbid, no tie, and a wrinkled cotton shirt. Something was definitely wrong with this picture, but he was still so handsome it hurt her eyes to look at him. She gazed down at the steps.

“Then I wouldn't be able to scare defenseless women,” he said, a definite warmth in his voice that she'd never heard before. He seemed relaxed, his guard down.

“I'm not defenseless.” She shot him one of her proud and defiant looks.

“How well I know that.” He stared at her, some nameless emotion swimming in the purple depths of his eyes. He pulled a small box of imported Belgian
chocolates from his pocket and tried to hand them to her. “Do these do anything in the way of softening you?”

“You can't buy me with food.”

“My mistake.” His jaw muscles clenched until tension pulled along his shoulders, straightened his spine. For a brief flash, he looked almost wounded. He blinked once; then the walls went up again and his poker face was back in place. He shoved the chocolates back in his pocket.

As much as Takala wanted to throw her arms around his neck, she kept her distance. Why was he here anyway? She felt his emotions rolling around her head, but they were all jumbled. She wouldn't let herself hope he was here to sweep her off her feet. That was the old Takala thinking.

“So—” she forced an aloof note into her voice “—you're finally getting around to saying goodbye?”

“I am sorry about that. I had to personally oversee the destruction of Raithe's businesses.”

“Make the world a safer place,” she finished for him. She couldn't endure the weight of his dark eyes, and she stared down at the toes of her high heels.

“Yes.” The one word seemed to separate them a mile apart.

“You've gotten a new laid-back look.” She pointed to his clothes.

“It appears so.” He frowned down at the shirt.

“Kind of like it. You're not all starched up.”

Silence built between them, and it pulsed against her.

After a contemplative moment, he said, “I don't know who that man was.”

The painfully adrift tone in his voice went right to her heart and squeezed it. He sounded so sad, and she wanted to make the sadness go away, but she wasn't certain if he wanted that or not, so she said nothing.

After a moment, he said, “Who was that man you were talking to?”

Was that jealousy beneath his voice? “Didn't you hear everything with that Superman hearing of yours?”

“Caught the tail end of the conversation.”

“It was Akando.”

An almost chilling smile slowly inched across his lips. “Are you two back together again?”

The old Takala would have told him the truth. The new one was a little more leery about putting her feelings out there, so she tested the waters by saying, “I don't know.”

He fell silent and made a point of studying the moon.

She watched a vein throbbing in his neck, watched his fists tighten and loosen. He seemed uncomfortable, on edge.

When Takala couldn't stand the pressure of the silence any longer she said, “I'd appreciate it if you would stop getting into my head.”

“What?” A blond eyebrow cocked in surprise.

“You heard me. Something weird is going on with both of us. I know it comes from sharing my blood with you. You have to make it stop.”

“You can feel my emotions?”

“Yes, and it's annoying, let me tell you.”

“I don't see how that's possible. I blocked them from you.”

“Well, maybe you can't, and I'd appreciate you severing the connection.” There. She'd put him on the fence. He'd have to fall one way or the other, and she'd know how he felt about her.

When he didn't move, only stared at her with that fathomless, unflappable expression, she couldn't stand it any longer. She had her answer. He didn't care.

She said, “If you don't, my grandmother will.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Yes.” The pressure moved up into her throat. She felt it building behind her eyes. Any moment, tears would flood her eyelids. “Why did you come here?” she asked, the pressure moving down into her chest.

“I guess to say goodbye.”

“Okay, goodbye.” The words tumbled out of her mouth. She reached for the doorknob and opened the storm door.

He grabbed her hand. “Takala, wait!”

She turned to look into his handsome face and saw fear and loneliness, so wide, so deep she found herself drowning in it. Tears streamed down his pale cheeks, but they were thick, the color of blood. She'd never seen a vampire's tears before. She didn't even know they could cry—especially one who was two thousand years old and had said he couldn't feel anything.

“Takala, I know I'm a vampire and the life I offer you will be a difficult one, but I love you.”

Takala just blinked at him.

“You're the only woman I've ever loved,” he continued. “You made me feel things that I thought were lost to me forever. I can't go on without you.”

“You mean it?” she asked, still leery on the outside but bubbling over with joy on the inside.

“Yes.”

She flung herself at him, inhaled him. He held her with a trembling fierceness; then he was kissing her, stealing her breath, making her toes turn under, her knees weaken, stoking a fire inside her only he could fuel. After a long moment of reveling in being held in his all-encompassing embrace, she broke the kiss and dabbed at the red tears on his cheeks with her fingers. “I'll get that bell around your neck yet.”

He grinned and said, “I'll settle for a chain.”

They both laughed. She felt his laughter resonate through her own body, just like she felt their souls were inexplicably tied together. She hugged him even tighter.

The screen door opened and Meikoda said, “Hmm. Akando, you have changed.”

They broke apart. An awkward moment ticked by where Meikoda's blue eyes challenged Striker's purple ones.

Takala said uneasily, “Grandmother, this is Striker Dark.”

“Oh, the vampire who possesses my granddaughter's spirit.” Rarely could anyone stare down Meikoda, but Striker seemed determined. He didn't blink.

The clash of two powerful Titans.

It was Meikoda who made the concession by glancing at Takala. “Well, do not keep him standing on the porch all night. Where are your manners, Takala?” She waved a gnarled hand at Striker. “Come in, and I will read
your tea leaves and tell you if you are worthy enough to possess Takala's heart.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Takala and Striker walked hand in hand inside the house. They didn't see the amused gleam in Meikoda's eyes that she leveled at their backs.