A Kiss Beneath the Veil (2 page)

When something sounded too good to be true...

Most women might’ve thought the everlasting life thing was
another perk, but not Daphne. The night Isaac came out to her, she’d run for
the hills. Or to Anaheim, Dallas, Cleveland, and now Rockford to be precise. Trying
to hide from the vampire that had fallen in love with her.

See, that was the thing. Why her? Yes, she was honest and
kind and smart, blah, blah, blah. So were a lot of women! And there was also
her infallible sense of humor supported by an awesome collection of 80’s
movies. “Space Balls” anyone? But what else had he seen in her? What made a
thousand year old vampire fall in love with
her
?

Daphne had summed it up in one word. Boobs.

Isaac was the most gorgeous man...vampire...whatever that
she’d ever met. But Daphne was a bona fide hotty herself. She knew that “like seeks
like” so she figured that in a thousand years the one thing Isaac hadn’t found
was his female equal.

And Daphne really was beautiful. With a generously full pout,
and soft heart-shaped face, she could’ve been a model. But her mom had
instilled in her a deep-seated mistrust of celebrity and the superficial
pursuit of beauty. So Daphne erected walls around her heart and developed tests
that any date had to pass to go out with her. She figured that was the best way
of avoiding falling for someone who only liked her for her body. They included
a series of not-so-subtle questions about things that mattered to Daphne, in
the hopes of avoiding a guy’s usual minefield of “compliments” such as the
classic
“you’re so hot!”
or the ever popular
“you’re so beautiful!”
or her least favorite,
“your ass is kickin!”

Isaac was the first guy she’d ever met who might have been
even prettier than her. Still, she’d immediately mistrusted his interest, going
into full beauty battle mode, and singing Gaston’s wooing song from “Beauty and
the Beast” in her head.
Did he only want to date her because they were equally
beautiful?
But he’d passed her tests with flying colors, talking easily
about politics and art and popular literature. He even liked the same movies as
her! After he quoted “Rockula” during one email exchange, Daphne had finally
been convinced to give him a chance. She’d realized that mistrusting him for
being beautiful was just as bad as other men pursuing her for it.

So they’d gone out to dinner and ended up talking all night.
And every night after that. For two weeks they’d been inseparable from dusk
till dawn. And every morning he’d kissed her goodbye without pressing her for
anything further. Kisses that had, honest to god,
almost
made her cum.
Seriously. But they’d never actually done the deed.

The night Isaac told her that he was a vampire, he’d said
that he needed her to know what he really was before he took her - his words -
and that she was the first woman he’d ever fallen in love with. The only woman
he would ever love...

That last part had been the nail in the coffin, so to speak.
Daphne bolted. Terrified that she couldn’t really measure up to that kind of
pressure. A thousand year old vampire had fallen in love with her in two weeks
and was ready to quit the search. She was the one. Like
THE ONE.

He’d let her go when she ran, calling for her, begging her to
stay, but not restraining her. Not stopping her when she left him. And he’d let
her keep running as well. Her first few moves had been over the course of a
couple months, and she’d actually thought she’d lost him. Wrong.

He’d followed her. Not only had he followed her, but he’d
waited outside her door every night since. Waiting for her to come back to him.

She hadn’t realized he was there at first. Then a neighbor
mentioned her “guard” in passing. That was in the early years after V’Day. Lots
of people had hired protection for the night. Daphne had written the comment
off and hadn’t realized it was him until her last move, when she’d settled in
Rockford. She’d almost convinced herself that she was free of him, that he must
have moved on. A friend had invited her out to a late dinner party at the
museum and Daphne told her she’d consider. That night she’d gotten dressed, all
the while feeling nervous and uneasy. This would be her first foray into the dark
since the night breeds revealed their true face. She’d peered out the peephole
in her apartment door, thinking she’d scope out the street one last time before
leaving. Then she saw him. He was standing beneath one of the trees that lined
the curb. Isaac. His large form was unmistakable.

That’s when her neighbor’s comments finally clicked and she
realized that he’d been with her the entire time.

The thing that had never added up for Daphne was why he
hadn’t simply hired someone to catch her during the day. Why had he waited for
her to enter the night on her own? Now that she’d come face to face, well, face
to
chest
with him, she could finally ask.

“Let me go.” Daphne said firmly. She didn’t raise her eyes
beyond the shiny button on his black silk shirt, and tried to maintain pressure
against his chest, holding herself away from him. She knew that if he wanted
to, he could squish her like a stuffed teddy bear, but he didn’t draw her any
closer.

She watched the button begin to dip as his head bent toward
her, so she scrunched her shoulders up as though that could keep a thousand
year old vampire from biting her if he chose to.

She felt his smooth cheek slide against hers and heard the
whisper of his breath as he smelled her hair.

“Never.”
he whispered.

####

Daphne blinked and found herself standing in the center of a
giant stone room. Isaac was still holding her lightly, his hands resting
against her shoulder blades, his head dipped close to hers. She tried not to
look into his face as she gawked at her surroundings. It wasn’t just a stone
room. It was the vaulted great room of a castle.

“Is this real? You guys can actually
teleport
!?
You told the Human Relations Inquiry that you couldn’t! You totally lied!”
Daphne huffed accusingly. She couldn’t believe that she was actually in a real
live castle. The ceilings were painted with celestial scenes so exquisite that
she had to wonder if they were a lost Michelangelo or something. They were held
up by towering columns carved with vines and leaves. The floors were polished
marble and covered in expansive Turkish rugs. The furnishings were elegant and
tufted and probably named after some king or another. Daphne had never been
this close to anything so splendid before, it nearly took her breath away.

“
I
didn’t tell the Inquiry
anything. Jocomus of Briarspear spoke for the vampires. And
he
lied,”
Isaac replied.

Daphne didn’t have an intelligent
rejoinder. The sound of his voice near her ear, the way each word rolled and
purred off his tongue, made her knees weak. Something began to ache in her
chest. The memory of loving him and the fear of what he was, what his being a
vampire meant to that love. If she were honest, she would admit that she’d
spent her whole life avoiding men and distrusting their motives. Two weeks knowing
Isaac and those walls she’d built had begun to crumble. Until he revealed eyes snapped open and she that
he was in love with her, and fear drove her away.

Not her best moment. She’d even
realized that she acted rashly, but too late. Once she’d started running, she
couldn’t very well stop, could she? And face Isaac after she betrayed his
trust? Better just to avoid the whole mess, right? Of course right...

Anger and embarrassment warred within
her. Anger won.

“So you beamed me to your lair? Nice
to know that you guys can do that. I’m so telling,” she said, reining in her
awe of the place and trying not to wince at how childish she sounded. When she
was nervous her brain usually wound up frozen and buffering. Then it started
spitting out movie quotes in place of conversation. It was just a matter of
time before she told him that
his
brain had the shell on it.

  “My lair?” he asked, laughing
softly against her temple and raising goosebumps along her arms. “Would you
really tattle on me, Daphne? I doubt it. You kept my secret all these years.
You knew about the vampires weeks before the rest of the world, yet you told no
one. I think you can be trusted with the whereabouts of my bat cave,” Isaac
said with a wink as he stepped back, trailing his fingertips across her
shoulders and down to her hands.

She tried not to smile at his joke -
he really did have the best sense of humor - and focused on the rest of his
statement.

“How would you know who I told? Oh,
yeah! Because you’ve been stalking me for five years,” she said, folding her arms
across her chest and glaring up into Isaac’s sultry face.

“True,” he replied simply, finally
drifting away from her. Her eyes dropped involuntarily to his tailored slacks
and the perfect rump they highlighted.

Isaac laughed again and threw her a
wicked smile over his shoulder.

“What?!” she demanded, trying to look
innocent. Did he have eyes in the back of his head to go along with his fangs?
Or, worse, could he read her mind? Daphne seriously hoped not, considering how
often she thought of him when her Hitachi was buzzing away at night.

“I missed you too, ch
é
ri,” he said, his smile dimming to a soft smolder.

“You barely know me,” Daphne argued.
She had to remain focused and stop getting sidetracked. She’d just been
kidnapped, for crying out loud! This wasn’t a class reunion!

Isaac shook his head and leaned his
inarguably perfect ass against a low couch. “I know all that I need to know.
I’m in love with you Daphne. You are my one true mate. There will be no more
running, no more doors standing between us. You made your choice and came to me
in the night.”

“I did not! It was an accident! I was
late getting home because of this poor mom and her daughter. I did
not
stay out for you,” Daphne said quickly, stomping her foot for emphasis.

The rushing click of claws on stone
came from a dark archway to her right.

“Oh no, you’ve woken them! Hurry, ch
é
ri!” Isaac cried, holding out his arms to her.

Daphne leapt across the room with a
shriek, landing against his chest and trying to scramble onto his shoulders as
three dogs bounded into the room.

Daphne gasped in outrage and glared
down at Isaac as he laughed and squeezed her tighter, out of reach of the
happily bouncing animals.

“Seriously, dude! Dogs?! You scared
the crap out of me,” she said, squirming until he finally let her down. She’d
had visions of scrabulating creatures of doom zooming in to eat her face off.
Her heart was still pounding so hard it almost drowned out his laughter.
Almost.

“I was trying to protect you from the
slobber monsters,” he said, grinning so playfully that she had to turn away
quickly or risk smiling back. Even the words “slobber monsters” sounded
beautiful when he said them.

“Whatever,” she muttered, sitting on
the floor to pet the mutts who’d dashed out to greet them.

“This is Percy, Audrey, and Bo,” he
said, scratching each one in turn and receiving drooling grins of adoration in
response. They were each clean and well groomed, obviously mixed breed street
dogs, and obviously loved. Daphne finally cracked a helpless smile as she
watched Isaac kneel amidst the dancing canines and promptly get dog-piled,
literally, as they tackled him for attention. The moment she felt the smile
lift her cheeks, his pale blue eyes snapped to her. It was as though he could
feel it. He smiled back at her, and for a moment she simply enjoyed their
familiar camaraderie. Then she remembered she’d been taken against her will.
Kidnapped! Kidnapped! Kidnapped!

“You kidnapped me. You need to take
me home now,” she said sternly, crossing her arms again, but quickly dropping
them to pet one of the dogs who took the opportunity of her lowered guard to
lick her face.  

“I have taken you home, ch
é
ri,”
he replied.

“Nuh uh, not
your
home,
my
home,” she said,
struggling to her feet and brushing her hands off.

Isaac sighed, saying something quietly to the dogs who
promptly sauntered away obediently.

“Have I not been patient? Have I not respected your little
wards? I could have taken you at any time, Daphne, but my love for you
prevented it. I needed you to come willingly to me. And now that you have, I
could not force myself to let you go,” Isaac spoke gently, almost hypnotically
to her. She actually had to shake her head to keep herself from nodding at the
logic of his statement.

“I told you, I didn’t come willingly. It. Was. An. Accident.”
she enunciated.

“You
accidentally
chose to make a twenty minute walk
in less than fifteen and not stop at a Sanctuary? I think you wanted me to
catch you. Perhaps not consciously, but...” he argued, smiling and watching her
from hooded eyes.

Was he right? Had she secretly wanted Isaac to catch her? She
could have told Mrs. Berkley no, or to come back the next day. She could have
stopped at a Sanctuary. Why had she risked it? The image of a man popped into
her mind, surprising her with the secret thoughts that came along with them. It
wasn’t Isaac.