Shadowlight (20 page)

It must have been only a dream, Jessa decided. One she’d think about later, when she was alone. “Last night the kitchen was locked.”

“It’s open when the rest of us are awake and harder to stab with the kitchen knives.” She turned to go.

“I didn’t need to go into the kitchen for that,” Jessa pointed out. “I could have pried open one of those weapons cases.”

Rowan looked back at her. “With what? Your teeth?”

Good point. “Why do you have all those old weapons down here?”

“Matt just likes to collect them. It’s a guy thing.” She hesitated, and then said in a gruff tone, “I serve three meals a day, but you can use the kitchen when I’m not working in there. Whatever you mess up, you clean up, or you and I are going to have a problem. Matthias is a vegetarian, and I cook for him, so don’t go looking for anything that had legs.”

Jessa eyed the wooden spoon in Rowan’s hand. Obviously the girl knew about her ability or she wouldn’t have used it—but there was something more to this ongoing hostility of hers. “If you like, I can help out with the cooking.”

“Ah, the tentative hand of friendship is extended, right on schedule.” Rowan’s upper lip curled. “Be still, my fucking heart.” She walked out.

Jessa made a trip to the bathroom before she ate. Rowan’s breakfast tasted as delicious as dinner the night before, and she didn’t have difficulty finishing it. She carried the tray back to the kitchen, where she found a fresh pot of coffee but no Rowan. She poured herself a second cup to sip as she hand-washed her dishes and put them in the rack beside the sink to air-dry.

“How did you sleep?”

Jessa turned quickly and almost bumped into Matthias’s chest. It reminded her so much of the dream that she jumped backward to avoid the contact. “God, you’re like a cat. What did you do, teleport in here?”

“What is teleport?” He said the word slowly, as if for the first time.

“It means … Never mind.” He was just very quiet, and she needed to stop thinking about her ridiculous dreams and pay more attention to her surroundings. “I’d sleep better if there were a lock on my door.” She wouldn’t be worried about dreaming anymore, either.

“You do not need one.” He gave her his flash of a smile. “You are safe, Jessa.”

“As you keep telling me.” She made the mistake of gazing into his eyes and once more fell into that golden jade trap. She’d seen men with prettier eyes, but none with the intensity of his. Whenever he was around her, he gave her his full attention. It should have made her feel self-conscious, not gratified. “What time is it?”

“Morning.” He retrieved a mug from the cabinet and poured a cup of coffee for himself.

She looked around the kitchen. “Don’t you have any clocks down here?”

“We do not need them.” He looked at her clothes. “I asked Rowan to fetch fresh garments for you.”

“She gave me some.” Now she felt self-conscious—and grubby. “I was going to change after I take a shower.”

He sipped his coffee. “Tell her if you need any potions or paint.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He frowned. “The unguents and colors women use.” He made a vague sweeping gesture. “To put on the face and skin after you bathe.”

“Do you mean lotion and makeup?” she suggested. When he nodded, she asked, “Your English is good, but I can tell it’s not your native language. Where do you call home?”

“No place.” Something—anger, regret—darkened his expression before he turned away from her. “When you are finished bathing, come to the library. We have much to discuss.”

Lucan pressed the button and held it until the glass slid down into the door. He understood her request as he breathed in a particularly sharp scent. “The sentry is afraid.”

“He is, and not of us. Wait here.” Samantha got out of the car.

While his
sygkenis
questioned the guard, Lucan sat back and closed his burning eyes. He had not tried to dissuade her from joining him on the hunt for this rogue Kyn; he knew from past experience that even if he ordered her to stay behind, she would simply follow him. Even when she had been human she had been utterly fearless.

Except when it came to her nature,
he silently amended. Samantha could hunt vicious killers day and night, but when it came to feeding herself, she balked at the necessity as if she were a nun being asked to join an orgy.

He understood her aversion to their need for human blood. She was a child of the twenty-first century, and had grown up in a land of affluence and compassion. In America, it was said, no one needed to go hungry or die of starvation. She had also been brainwashed by dozens of ridiculous movies about vampires, all of which portrayed their natures as evil and their dependency on blood as uncontrollable and murderous.

The truth was far more complicated. After returning to their homelands from the Crusades, Lucan and many of his brother warrior-priests known as the Knights Templar had been stricken with the plague and had died. Three days after their deaths, they came back to life, clawing their way out of their graves and rising to walk the night. The warriors discovered they were no longer human, but vampiric creatures who could feed only on human blood. They were also incredibly strong, fast, and, with a miraculous ability to spontaneously heal, nearly impossible to kill. Each transformed warrior discovered he possessed a unique psychic talent along with a beautiful, powerful scent, and that the combination of both allowed them to bespell humans as well as control their minds. They became known by many as the “dark Kyn” of humanity.

The Darkyn soon discovered that they had to protect themselves and their kind, and formed secret communities known as jardins with their own ruling lords, territories, and strongholds. They also discovered that they didn’t have to kill humans in order to survive, and began the work of learning how to coexist with them while hiding among their societies. They transformed some humans into their own kind, and used other, trusted mortals as their servants and guards.

A century passed, after which two things happened: The Darkyn lost the ability to change mortals, and every attempt they made proved fatal to the human. At the same time, a group of religious zealots became aware of the existence of the Darkyn, and vowed to hunt down and kill the former Templars. The zealots formed an order known as the Brethren, and while impersonating Catholic priests pursued the Darkyn all across Europe. As they hunted, captured, tortured, and killed the former Templars, the Brethren also realized they would not outlive their enemy. So they began breeding, raising, and training their own replacements, and the secret war between the Brethren and the Darkyn had endured for the last six hundred years.

It wasn’t until early in the twenty-first century that Michael Cyprien, the seigneur who ruled over all of the jardins located in America, had accidentally changed a human into a Darkyn. Dr. Alexandra Keller, whom he had abducted and forced to perform reconstructive surgery to restore his ruined face, had become the first human in six centuries to survive the process of transition—this, according to Alex, only because she had first been genetically altered by the Brethren to become a vampire hunter. It was Alexandra’s blood that Lucan had used on Samantha as she lay dying from a fatal gunshot wound, and that had transformed her into Darkyn.

Lucan had never regretted taking away Samantha’s humanity in order to snatch her back from the cold clutch of death. By that time he’d known that he loved her more than any woman he had ever known, even the one he had once thought to be the great love of his life. Losing her would have been the same as committing suicide. Yet despite her transition, his
sygkenis
had not yet accepted what she had become. Sometimes Lucan wondered if she ever would.

Samantha was not using
l’attrait
on the guard; that much was obvious by the mortal’s tight-lipped responses to her questions. She still insisted on relying on human methods, a practice he found charmingly naive but highly inefficient. Tired and rapidly losing patience, he climbed out of the Ferrari and went to deal with the guard himself.

“I thought you were going to wait in the car,” she said when he joined her. Her eyes narrowed as his scent flooded the air around them. “Wait a minute.”

“I have waited twenty. This is faster,” he told her, and turned to the shack’s small window. “You, there. Sentry. Attend me.”

“Sir, as I told the detective …” The mortal breathed in, blinked, and gave him a foolish smile. “What can I do for you?”

“Where was this man of yours murdered last night?” Lucan asked.

“Right over here.” The guard pointed to the other side of the shack.

Samantha gave Lucan an impatient glance as she walked around and then stopped. The strong odor of disinfectant cleaner did not entirely mask the smell of blood and gunpowder.

Lucan examined the wall. “There.” He pointed to traces of pink staining the concrete.

Samantha crouched by the stain and examined the ground. “No shell casings, but …” She reached down with her scarred hand and pressed it over a spot in the grass, and then closed her eyes.

Her scent, as dark and seductive as midnight in the Amazon, grew strong and hot.

“His name was Theodore,” she murmured in a faraway voice. “No. Ted. He’s working on a crossword puzzle. He needs a five-letter word for ‘temptation’s fruit.’ ”

“Apple,” Lucan told her. To the guard who was coming out of the shack, he said, “Stay there and do nothing.”

The man beamed. “Whatever you say, sir.”

Samantha opened her eyes, but her gaze had a blind quality to it as she looked toward the drive leading to the building. “Del calls down. He says I have to stop him if I can. Some kind of trouble. Someone hurt.” She slowly rose to her feet and walked to the edge of the drive. “Fuck me, he’s been working out. How did he get so big so fast? Right, have to do this the way Del wants. He’ll listen to me.” She stopped speaking but her lips moved as she shaped more words. Her whole body jerked violently, and then she wheeled backward as if she’d been thrown.

Lucan caught her from behind to keep her from hitting the wall in the same spot where the blood traces were. “Samantha.”

She shook her head wildly. “No, oh, Jesus—no.” She clapped her hands to her head, stiffened, and then sagged against him, turning and burying her face in his chest.

Lucan knew Samantha’s ability allowed her to read the blood of the dead and through it see their last minutes of life, which often identified their killer for her. As much as it helped her with her detective work, it exacted a terrible price: She also experienced firsthand the victim’s death.

“Lucan, oh, my God.” She panted out the words, shuddering uncontrollably as she tried to collect herself. “The victim knew him. They were friends. And he tore his head off. With his hands. With his bare hands.”

“Shhhh.” He cradled her head and pressed her cheek to his heart. “It’s done.” Over her shoulder he saw a stocky man driving a golf cart toward them. “Was the killer one of our kind?”

She rubbed a hand over her damp face. “No. At least, I don’t think so. But there was something wrong with him. He smelled like …” She shook her head as she straightened her shoulders and seemed to regain control over herself. “I don’t know. Not like us. Not human. He smelled
wrong.”

The man in the cart stopped a short distance away and got out. He had a self-important stride, one that faltered as soon as Lucan’s scent washed over him.

“Flowers?” the man muttered, looking confused.

Lucan beckoned to him as he put a supportive arm around Samantha’s waist. She had recovered from the vision, but he could still feel how shocked she felt. “Do you know the man who killed your guard last night?”

“I do.” The portly man’s face twisted. “Bradford Lawson. He’s out of control.” He gave Samantha a stiff smile. “Sorry, ma’am. My name is Delaporte, but everyone calls me Del.”

“Okay, Del.” Samantha looked into his eyes. “Tell me, why did Lawson kill Ted Evans?”

He shrugged. “Ted tried to stop him. Bradford didn’t want to be stopped.”

“What was he driving when he left here?” she asked.

“He stole Dr. Kirchner’s car.” Del gave her a description of the vehicle and the license number.

Samantha copied the information into her electronic notepad. “Does anyone know what set this man off on this killing spree?”

“He’s trying to find out where Jessa Bellamy is,” he replied. “He really wants to kill her.”

Lucan frowned. “For what reason? Were they lovers?”

“No. Bellamy humiliated him in front of our boss. Her boyfriend used a blade on him. Cut his hamstrings and crippled him.” Delaporte sighed. “Can’t blame them. Bradford’s always been a real asshole with women.”

Samantha glanced at the bloodstained ground. “The man I saw kill the guard wasn’t a cripple.”

“He’s doing fine now,” Delaporte agreed. “Except that maybe he’s lost his mind.”

“See, this is why I don’t use
l’attrait,”
Samantha said to Lucan. “Half the time their answers don’t make any sense.”

“Regardless, we should locate this Jessa Bellamy and her boyfriend immediately,” Lucan suggested. “Kendrick will have men available who can initiate a search while we rest.” He turned to the mortals. “Both of you will forget what we have asked you and go about your business.”

The two men nodded; the guard returned to the shack and the heavyset man walked back to his golf cart.

Lucan guided his
sygkenis
back to the Ferrari and helped her inside. The pale set of her face compelled him to lean over and place a gentle kiss on her lips.

“What was that for?” she asked, surprised.

“An apology, in advance of the offense.” He pressed his gloved hand to her cheek. “You asked me last night why I would not let you die. I am a selfish man, Samantha, and I wager I will be until the end of time. But even before Dwyer shot you, living without you had already become unbearable. So you see, it was as much to save my life as yours, sweetheart.”

She didn’t speak, but her eyes glowed as she rubbed her face against his palm.