“How did you become a vampire? I mean, who did it? Where did it happen?”
“It was during the Crusades. It was a messy business, that war. A lot of men died on the way to the Holy Land. Ships were lost at sea. They were the lucky ones. The rest of us marched across the desert in full armor. Some perished from lack of food, others from lack of water, some from heat exhaustion. But we kept going, marching to the battle cry of
Deus vult
. God wills it. That was our motto. Thousands of men, women, and children joined us.”
He shook his head with the memory. “Getting to the Holy Land was only half the battle. Once we were there, we laid siege to the cities, sometimes for years. It was exciting at first, riding off to a holy war, but the excitement quickly died, replaced by the stink of fear and death. I was wounded in battle. I knew I was going to die, but I managed to drag myself away from the field where no one could find me. I guess I was delirious, but I was determined to die alone. A woman found me there. She gave me a drink of water, sang me a song.”
His eyes took on a faraway look, and Kadie knew he was living it all again. He was quiet for several minutes before he continued.
“She talked to me for a long time. I don’t remember much of what she said. I was fading fast. I remember she pinched me hard enough to get my attention, then she asked me if I wanted to die. I thought that, under the circumstances, it was a foolish question. I was weak. I could barely speak, my vision was gone. She shook me, then asked me the same question again, but I was past answering.
“What happened next remains a blur. I know she bit me. I remember feeling her teeth at my throat, but it didn’t hurt. I felt myself drifting away and I knew I was dying, but I didn’t care. I was floating in a sea of crimson when she slapped me. It jerked me back to reality. ‘Drink this,’ she said, and I opened my mouth. That’s the last thing I recall until I woke the next night.
“At first, I had no idea what had happened to me. My memories of the night before were fragmented. All I knew was that I was filthy, my armor was gone, my garments were stained with blood, and I was ravenous, hungry for something, although I didn’t know what it was at the time.
“I heard voices in the distance and I started walking toward them.” He took a deep breath, held it for a long time before releasing it. “I found three men gathered around a fire. Deserters from the look of them. I called out and they invited me to join them.” He dragged a hand over his jaw. “I guess my appearance was pretty awful. When they saw me up close in the fire’s light, they drew their weapons.”
His gaze met hers, dark and direct. “It was the last thing they ever did.”
She bit down on her lower lip. He had killed them, she thought. All of them. “What happened to the vampire who made you?”
“I don’t know. I never saw her again. I learned how to be a vampire the hard way, by trial and error. It didn’t take long to learn that the sun was my enemy, or that I could no longer consume mortal food, or that everyone I met from that night on was my enemy.
“It took me quite a while to adjust to my new existence, to accept that I was no longer human, that I would never have a family of my own.” He glanced at the fireplace. A moment later, flames sprang to life in the hearth. “For a time, I hated everyone, myself most of all.” His gaze met hers again. “I became the monster of myth and legend, and I reveled in it.”
“I’m sorry.” It was a completely inane thing to say, but she couldn’t think of anything else. It was so easy to visualize the story he had told her. She could feel his anger and his despair, and even though she couldn’t condone what he had done, she could understand it.
He lifted one brow in what was quickly becoming a familiar gesture. “You think you understand?” He snorted his disgust. “You have no idea of the bodies or the carnage I left in my wake.”
She wanted to go to him, to erase the torment from his eyes, ease the harsh lines that bracketed his mouth, but an innate sense of self-preservation warned her not to say or do anything that would ignite the anger simmering in his eyes. His preternatural power filled the room.
He was a big man, strong. Solid. He would have been a man to be reckoned with even as a human. Now, that strength, combined with his supernatural power, made him far more dangerous.
He glared at her for several tense moments, then vanished from her sight.
The flames in the hearth licked hungrily at the logs, their hissing the only sound in the room.
Weak with relief, Kadie sagged back against the sofa pillows, thinking she was lucky to still be alive.
Chapter 13
Saintcrow went to her as soon as the sun set the following night. He’d had many women over the course of his existence. Old, young, black, white, yellow, and red, but none had taken root in his heart so quickly, or so deeply, as Kadie Andrews. There was something about her that called to him, that made him want to keep her close, to tell her everything she wanted to know.
Had he said too much last night? He hadn’t intended to reveal so much of his past, or confess to the lives he had so thoughtlessly taken. He didn’t want her to be afraid of him and yet, for her own safety, she would be wise to remember what he was. It was rare these days that he succumbed to the kind of violent behavior that had consumed him in the beginning. He had learned to control his anger and his hunger. Most of the time.
Vaughan and the others thought he had been away from Morgan Creek these past thirty years when, in truth, he had gone to ground in the cemetery. Even after his body had healed, he’d had no desire to rise, until Kadie Andrews came to town. Her scent, the beat of her heart, had penetrated the thick layers of earth and darkness that had surrounded him, drawing him out of oblivion. One look at her face, one scent of her blood, and he had known he would not rest until he’d had a chance to meet her, touch her. Taste her.
And now she was his.
And he wanted her. All of her. He wanted to know her every thought, lose himself in her sweetness, take her in his arms and satisfy his every desire.
He smiled inwardly. He had no doubt that, sooner or later, she would fulfill his every desire, grant his every wish. She might deny it. She might not fully realize it. But she wanted him as desperately as he wanted her.
Looking up from the book she was reading, Kadie glanced around the room. She could feel Saintcrow’s presence, detect the scent that was uniquely his, yet she was alone in the house. How was that possible?
She laid the book aside, frowning as her sense of his presence grew stronger. It was, she realized, the same presence she had felt on awakening in the library.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a faint shimmer, like sunlight dancing on a pool of water, and Saintcrow materialized in front of her, tall, dark, and handsome in a pair of faded jeans and a black sweater.
Kadie pressed a hand to her chest. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
“Not at all. I was merely anxious to see you.”
“Well, next time try coming in through the front door.” She couldn’t stop staring at him. So, she really had sensed him there. How long had he been in the room? Had he been spying on her? “Do you live in the house somewhere?”
“Live?” he asked with a wry grin. “I don’t actually ‘live’ anywhere, you know. Vampires are technically dead.” He swore under his breath, wishing he could recall his thoughtless words when he saw the look of horror on her face. “You must have known that?”
“Yes, of course, it’s just that . . .” Feeling a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the weather, Kadie scrubbed her hands up and down her arms. “I’ve just never heard it put quite so bluntly, and by a vampire, no less.”
She tilted her head to one side, her eyes narrowing as she studied him.
His body quickly responded to her perusal.
“Do you feel dead?” she asked candidly.
Saintcrow took a place in the chair across from her, long legs stretched out, his arms folded over his chest. “Quite the opposite. I feel more alive than I ever did when I was mortal.”
“Really? Hmm. Why is that, do you think?”
“I don’t know. Are you planning to write a thesis on the thoughts and feelings of the Undead?”
“No, just curious. You said dying was like drifting away, that it didn’t hurt.” She hoped that was true, for Kathy’s sake.
He shook his head, thinking that, in nine hundred years, he had never had a conversation quite as bizarre as this one. “It was like falling asleep, until I woke up, cold and alone, with no real knowledge of what had happened to me. It was terrifying at first. Everything was brighter, sharper, louder. Any kind of light hurt my eyes. When I fed the first time, I was horrified by what I was doing and yet . . .” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be telling you this.”
“Why not? It’s fascinating.”
“Fascinating?” He cocked one brow. “You’re the strangest female I’ve ever met.” And that was saying something, he thought, considering the length of his existence.
“Well, you know the old saying, know your enemy.”
“I’m not your enemy, Kadie.”
His voice poured over her like honey, warm and sweet.
She loved the way he said her name, drawing it out as if he liked the way it tasted on his tongue. She gazed into his eyes, those deep ebony eyes that seemed capable of looking past her defenses and uncovering the secrets buried in the nethermost parts of her heart and soul.
“If you weren’t my enemy, you’d let me go.” It was an effort to speak, and as she said the words, she knew that even if she was free to go, leaving him wouldn’t be easy.
From the slow smile that spread over his face, he knew it, too, damn him.
“Kadie, shall I tell you something?”
“If you want to.”
He leaned forward to take her hands in his. “I was asleep in the earth when you came here.”
“Asleep?” Her brows lifted in astonishment. “In the ground?”
“I had planned to rest there for another decade or two. And then you came here. You woke me, Kadie. Your scent, your spirit . . .” He shook his head. “Whatever it was, I felt it through eight feet of earth.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” His thumbs played back and forth over her hands. “You knew I was here earlier, didn’t you?”
She nodded, unable to deny it. She had felt his presence in the house before he materialized in front of her. How was that even possible?
“And you sensed me in the library the night Kiel accosted you. There’s something between us, Kadie, something I’ve never felt before with anyone else.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re just making that up so that I’ll . . .” She tugged her hands from his and sat back, her arms folded across her chest. “I don’t believe you.”
“You think I’m making it up to get you into bed? If that’s all I wanted, I could get you there with no trouble at all, and then make you forget it ever happened.”
“How?”
His gaze trapped hers. “Come here to me, Kadie. Sit on my lap, put your arms around me, and kiss me.”
His voice threaded through her mind, stealing her will, until all she wanted to do was please him. Rising, she crossed the short distance between them and did as he’d asked.
When he broke the kiss, she stared at him, startled to find herself in his lap, her arms around his neck.
She scrambled to her feet, then stared at him, her eyes wide. “What happened? What did you do?”
“A form of hypnotism,” he said quietly. “If I wanted you in my bed, Kadie, you would be there. Now do you believe me?”
She nodded, frightened right down to the ground.
“I told you before I wouldn’t take you by force. I haven’t changed my mind.” Rising, he drew her into his arms. “But I want you, Kadie, more than I’ve ever wanted another woman. And you want me. I can smell it on you, hear it in the beat of your heart. Do you deny it?”
“ No.”
“Then say yes, and I’ll give you anything you want.”
“You promise?”
“I do.”
“If we make love, will you let me go?”
He shook his head. “I’ll grant you anything but that.”
“It’s the only thing I want.”
The arms holding her grew taut. A muscle throbbed in his jaw. “I can wait,” he said, his voice harsh. “Like I told you before, I have all the time in the world.”
His hands grasped her arms, his fingers digging into her flesh, though not painfully. Lowering his head, he kissed her, slowly at first, then with building intensity, his lips moving evocatively over hers, his tongue tasting her, branding her, until the rest of the world fell away and there was only his mouth on hers, his hand on her back, drawing her body up against the hard length of his. Everything that was female within her responded to his kiss, to his caress. He was man and she was woman and they were meant to be together.
When he released her, she sank to her knees. Head spinning, she closed her eyes and expelled a deep shuddering breath.
When she looked up, he was gone.
Saintcrow stalked the dark streets, his need at war with his promise not to take her by force. Why had he made such a ridiculous promise in the first place? This was his town. She was his woman, his slave, no more than chattel if he wished it.
He passed each house, knowing which woman was alone and which was entertaining one of his kind. If he wished, he could hear their thoughts, though that was something he rarely did. Mortal thoughts held little interest for him, especially those in Morgan Creek.
He paused outside Leslie’s house. Quinn was inside, high on the woman’s blood. He had taken far more than he should. The woman was unconscious, barely breathing. The beat of her heart was almost undetectable.
Cursing softly, Saintcrow entered the house.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Quinn demanded, gaining his feet. “She’s mine for the night.”
“You damn fool, she’s almost dead!”
“So what? There’s more where she came from. I’m tired of being careful. Tired of this place ! I want to hunt. I want to kill something!”
“You want to kill something?” Saintcrow glanced at the woman on the sofa. “You just did. She’s dead.”
Quinn cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to kill her.” “Bury the body before you seek your rest.”
Quinn nodded.
“If this happens again . . .”
“It won’t,” Quinn said, his voice sullen.
“See that it doesn’t,” Saintcrow said.
Quinn nodded. There was no mistaking the blatant warning in Saintcrow’s voice, or the promise of destruction in his eyes.
Outside again, Saintcrow willed himself to the nearest town. He had long since stopped preying on those in Morgan Creek. He took the first woman he found. She was clean, her blood untainted by drugs or disease, but he found no satisfaction in it, no enjoyment, only an end to his hunger.
Kadie, damn her. She had spoiled his pleasure in anyone else.