One With the Shadows (37 page)

He had frozen. “Women wouldn’t say that if they knew what I was.”

What? She wagered women didn’t care that he had had a thousand other women. Oh, he meant the vampire part. Probably true. She shrugged. “Nobody is perfect.”

He examined her as though his life depended on it. Which it didn’t. Because he lived forever. They were totally unlike, different species. He cleared his throat. “You are the only one who has ever known what I was, not only that I am vampire, but … but all of me. Do you…?”

She frowned. Different species. There was no getting around that. “Do I what?”

“Do you think … you might … might want to spend some time with me even so?”

She realized she had been staring him straight in the face, just like she wasn’t scarred. But she was. She looked down. “You don’t want someone like me.”

“I do.” He swallowed. “I do. I love you, Kate.” He was standing there, wavering in the middle of the wide, rocky plane with a waning moon arcing up from behind the stony peaks of the Middle Atlas range behind him. She was so shocked, she could say nothing. He loved her?

When she said nothing, his words began to tumble out. “I know you could never love someone you must consider a monster. I understand that completely. And it would be too much to ask to be more than … than an acquaintance.” His gaze bounced from her, to the sand, the stars. “If you would but let me see that you are happy, perhaps allow me to visit you on occasion, I promise never to importune you for more.”

He loved her? She couldn’t seem to make out the meaning of the words. He couldn’t love her. Not with her scar. Her fingers crept to her cheek.

He covered the distance between them in two strides. “Don’t even think of that.” He took her in his arms. As she was pressed against the muscles in his chest, the exotic fragrance of cinnamon and something else coursed through her. “I haven’t even noticed it since the first days. I want you. Not for forever, I understand that. But … if you think you could bear … my companionship … for even a few years, I would be so grateful.”

This was so far from the arrogant man she had come to know that she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. He loved her. The thump of his heart against her scarred cheek was strong and sure. And he had said that first day in the carriage that he never told women he loved them when he didn’t. He prided himself on that. So, whatever emotion was really coursing through him, he at least believed it was love. That thought frightened her immensely. Because it meant she had to choose.

Her mind raced. He was saying he would leave her even now. “… a few years.” But of course. She believed that, expected that. Hadn’t she come back to Firenze to wait for him, hoping to get a month with him? No more … She could expect no more …

From out of nowhere an image of Ian Rufford and his wife Beth rose in her mind, the loving looks they saved for each other, the calm way they accepted their condition.

She blinked.

He held her away from his body, his brows creased in worry. He was expecting an answer from her. He was expecting rejection.

She looked into his clear, green eyes, and rebellion rose in her heart, anger even, at him for his expectations, at herself for hers. Damn it all to bloody hell. They were both stupid enough to let their past dictate their future. They would doom themselves to unhappiness just because they couldn’t get around their history. She’d never forgive her parents for abandoning her. But if she never opened herself up to the possibility of abandonment, she’d deny herself any hope of being close to another human being. And humans needed that.
She
needed that in order to be whole. She had been half a person all her life. God, did she have the courage for this? Did he? But she couldn’t control him. She could only decide what she would do. She’d always prided herself on her courage.
Then get it out and use it for something worthwhile, for once.

She took a breath. He had her by her upper arms. The pain in his expression hurt her. She was about to give him more pain, along with an extra measure for herself, probably. They couldn’t stay together. She was inviting everything she feared most.

But risking the pain of abandonment was the lesser of two evils.

She swallowed. “I love you. I never thought I could love anybody, but I love you.”

His eyes widened. He searched her face even more intensely.

“It’s hard for me to think you want me in spite of the scar.” He started to protest, but she put a finger to his lips. “It’s hard not to let my fear you’ll leave me keep me from running away. But I
have
to try. You see, I don’t want an acquaintance. I want a lover. I want forever.” She smiled. She was fairly sure it was only a little lopsided. “I’ve always been greedy. Or maybe I haven’t been greedy enough. It doesn’t matter. I want forever, like the Ruffords have. If you can’t give me that, then let us part when we reach Algiers.”

*   *   *

He stared at her, shock making his heart thump in his chest. She loved him. So much, she wanted … Did she know what she was asking for? “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“But I do.” She said it calmly. “I know it all, remember?”

“Even I don’t know all of it. I am what they call a firebrand, and I don’t understand that.”

“Then we both have parts we don’t understand. I don’t know why I have visions, or what to do about them.” She took a breath, then had the temerity to chuckle. “After drinking human blood and compulsion, starting fires seems a little paltry.”

It was the things one couldn’t control that frightened one. They had that in common. “You can’t make light of becoming vampire, Kate. It’s irrevocable.”

“I don’t make light of it,” she said, growing serious. “I want it. And don’t you dare tell me it isn’t allowed.”

“The Elders—”

“I know. And the Rules.” The way she said it dismissed them as unimportant. “It’s your duty to make us both unhappy by refusing to make me vampire. Haven’t you done enough duty in your life? You fought those dreadful wars. You took the stones back where they belonged. A little rebellion would do you a world of good.”

If my mother had made my father vampire, their love would have lasted for eternity.
He knew that. His mother must know it too. She obeyed the Rules at the cost of an eternity of regret. Not to mention the fact that his father aged and died. How did she live with that? All her effort to do good in the world was really a compensation for the fact that, when her situation called for courage, she had retired from the field. All the women in his life had compared badly in his mind with his mother. Her vibrancy, her intelligence made them all pale in comparison. But Kate showed up his mother’s cowardice for what it was. He didn’t love his mother less. Kate had made her comprehensible. But his mother couldn’t hold a candle to Kate.

And Kate wanted him. No matter that he was vampire. Enough to become vampire herself. He didn’t deserve that. He should protect her from herself. He should refuse.

As he had been refusing to become involved with women all his life? His mother’s pain was so frightening Gian had refused to allow the possibility of pain in his own life. Oh, he was more of a coward than his mother was. She at least had taken the plunge once.

Kate was waiting. Giving him time. Now it was up to him to give them both time. If only he could be sure what he was doing wouldn’t hurt her. His eyes roved over her, looking for answers. She still had that silly silver-beaded reticule hanging from her wrist. He gave a nervous laugh. “Maybe you could reassure us both by reading our future in the cards.”

She looked down, surprised, then shook her head. “They never told the future.” She took the reticule from her pocket and opened it. She removed the tarot deck encrusted with gilt stars and tossed it to the hard-packed sand of the plateau. “I thought the cards were part of me. They’re not.”

“But you know the future,” he said, trying not to sound desperate.

She smiled ruefully. “I never see my own.” She grew thoughtful. “And I’ve never seen anything of yours beyond the time when Elyta tortured you.”

They looked at each other.

He was the one to say it. “Maybe … maybe that’s because our future is together.”

She took a breath. “Or maybe not.”

So. No easy answers. No guarantees. One had to just take the plunge, not knowing.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing Kate’s wrist in one hand, and the reins of the horse in the other. “We need shelter.”

Twenty-two

Kate stood, trembling, inside the thick-walled, single-room structure that was the best the little cluster of houses around the oasis had to offer. It belonged to a family who had gladly vacated to a tent when they saw the color of Gian’s gold. The floor was packed sand, the only furniture a wide bed and a table with two chairs. Gian was seeing to the horse. Kate was busy sweeping the corners of her soul to gather up any dusty speck of courage she could muster.

She was going to let him make her vampire. When he could abandon her at a moment’s notice, and leave her standing on the shores of eternity. When he would
have
to tire of her, scarred as she was. When changing meant she must drink human blood, and lose the sun forever. When she would become something children had nightmares about and their parents feared.

Yes. All of that. Because she saw that there was a giant hole in the fabric of her soul. And the only way she could knit up that awful rent was to do the thing she feared most. Grab for the brass ring. Take a chance on abandonment.

The man she loved just happened to be a vampire. Well, they were alike in lots of other ways: stubborn, arrogant, sometimes angry, controlled by their pasts, determined not to be. Now they’d be alike in this one too.

He ducked in under the flap of leather that stood in for a door in the little hut. “They won’t disturb us, except to leave food outside the door.” He was carrying a tray filled with the ubiquitous dates, a bowl of some kind of stew, and two crude cups full of wine. It all smelled lovely. He set it down on the pallet supported by a wooden frame and rope netting which formed the bed. “Eat,” he whispered. “You will need your strength.”

That sounded ominous. He went around the room pulling closed the shutters, sliding the fabric or leather over the windows to keep out the rising sun.

She ate, hardly tasting the lamb stew. He did not join her, but watched from a corner, his arms folded and a closed expression on his face. Was he having second thoughts? When she pushed away the bowl, he came and knelt in front of her.

“This will not be pleasant,” he said. “After you are infected, you will get sick. Then you must have more of my blood to give you immunity or you will die. There is a possibility you could die anyway, if … if the parasite weakens you more than I can counteract with my blood.” Courage drained from his expression. He turned away. “I can’t risk it.”

“You can’t
not
risk it, Gian Vincenzo Urbano. I want this.” She was surprised at the ferocity in her own voice. “If you betray me with cowardice I will never forgive you.”

He sucked in a breath, then let it out and nodded. “I’ll drain the last drop in my veins to give you strength. Know that.” He gathered himself. “In three days, if this works, you will recover, and you will be vampire. The instant my blood touches yours, there is no going back.”

She swallowed. Why was nothing ever easy? “I understand.”

He pulled her to him. “God forgive me. I’m selfish. I love you so much I can’t imagine being without you. Ever.”

She pulled him even closer. “And I love you so much I demand it of you.”

He took a breath. “I’ll try to make this as painless as possible.”

“Then love me as you do it.”

He blinked in surprise, and then his eyes ignited. She opened her thighs. He knelt between them and kissed her lips. He was tender, though she felt the latent power in each straining muscle in his body. She drew his head closer and deepened their kiss. His arms slid around her and he held her close. The need for him was a pain between her legs. She felt him swell against her most private parts and they ached even more.

“God, Kate,” he swore softly. “I never thought you’d love me.”

“Every woman who has ever seen you has loved you,” she said into his mouth. He was pulling at his burnoose, even as he kissed her.

“They didn’t love me. They loved the body.” Then he was naked and pulling at her loose shirt and the flowing pants.

She pressed her naked breasts against his chest. Her nipples peaked. His four-day growth of beard was prickly against her lips. He was rock hard now. How she wanted him inside her! So she took his shaft in her hand and guided it to the entrance of her womb. He groaned, but it wasn’t in protest. He lifted her buttocks, as easily as though she weighed nothing, and she opened to him farther so he could thrust inside her.

She threw back her head as he penetrated her. But she could not be parted from his lips for long. They collided again and again as he held her and thrust into her. She scoured his mouth with her tongue as though she was searching for something she’d never known before. How would he do it? Would he wait until the sleepy afterglow of passion? She opened her eyes, and saw his open too. They were red. She pulled back and watched in fascination as his canines lengthened. He bit his own lip. Blood welled, viscous and bright red in the dim hut. She knew now how he would do it. She threw back her head, arching her neck to invite him.

And he accepted. His kiss on her throat turned sharp, and she felt the twin stabbing pains even as he thrust into her again. This time he took only one long sucking pull on her throbbing artery and withdrew. The blood on his lips was now both hers and his own, mingled, for all time.

“Is it done?” she whispered.

He nodded. “For better or for worse.”

She smiled. There would be no “poorer.” Gian had seemingly limitless money. Any sickness would be fleeting. And with luck, death would never part them. “So be it,” she said, and pulled him into her. He adjusted her so that his lovely cock thrust against that spot inside her that felt so wonderful. She squeezed her eyes shut in ecstasy. He was controlling the pace, and he quickened it. Her panting breaths began to have small yips of pleasure mixed in with them.