Black Heart: Coeur de Sade (Black Heart Series) (22 page)

            "I can hear you," I said.  Didn't bother turning around.  "I can hear your heart beating and your blood rushing through your body.  You cannot sneak up on a vampire."

            "I-I don’t want you to die alone," he said quietly.  "Can I sit with you until...?"

            I considered a moment.  Nothing in my orders said I had to be alone.  So I shrugged.

            His footsteps in the thick grass were quiet, barely discernable even to my supernatural senses.  Most of the noise came from stepping on all of the dead, brittle leaves.  His blood, though, was thunderous.  He was highly excited.  His fear saturated the air.  Made me hungry, but I had no reason to feed.

            "You freed the vampire with the wings from that guy's magic, didn't you?" Kale said as he cautiously approached.

            "Yes.  Roger," I said, and smiled.  Roger was my friend.  Sort of.  I'm not sure he would consider me a friend, though.  "Couldn't let him kill my friend."

            "Good, the spell can be broken," Kale said, and stepped up behind me.

            Why was he behind me?  I frowned and started to turn my head, but he reached down.  His hand brushed my lips.  Looking down at his hand, I noticed he held a smelling salt.  That wouldn't do anything to me.  He couldn't stop me from greeting the sun with smelling salts.

            Kale snapped the capsule open and the odor filled my senses in a heartbeat.  My reaction was instantaneous.  Lungs shut down, muscles all went limp and blackness engulfed me.  I felt my body sliding out of the chair bonelessly just before the blackness consumed me completely.

CHAPTER 13

            I woke up in my coffin.  It was evening.  Another day passed, and no one staked me.  So far so good.  Then I remembered fighting with Fritz, but couldn't recall winning the fight.

            "Jesus," I said, sitting up.  The coffin was deep enough I could sit up inside it.  I found I wasn't alone.  So I reached over and clicked on the dim LED lighting, and was pleasantly surprised. "Kale?"

            We were both fully dressed.  Well, he did remove my boots and his shoes, but otherwise we were clothed, but my latex outfit was in tatters.  The leather corset seemed to be intact, thought.  It was the first time I'd ever awakened next to a man and not been naked.

            "Are you okay now?"

            He looked so worried.  It kinda scared me.

            "Why shouldn't I be?" I said.  My brain was still fuzzy.  Strange, since I usually woke up fully alert.  "What happened?"

            Kale gave me a quick run down from his perspective.  That brought back a flood of memories.  All of those unpleasant memories returned.  Fritz escaped.  The Giorgi sisters escaped, as well.  I had no doubt they'd all be hunting my sweet round ass now.  My heart was racing, feelings of doom and gloom threatening.

            My next thought was Desiree.  Was she all right?  What had Boney done to ensure her safety?  I had no doubt the Giorgi sisters would go after her if they learned she survived and was in the hospital.

            The Giorgi sisters had to die.  They went to the top of my list.

            "Thank you," I said.  I leaned over and kissed him.  He pushed into that kiss, starting to pant through his nose.  I didn't even need vamp magic or my pheromones to get him roused.  "You saved my life."

            "Oh, it was nothing," he said, acting all shy and embarrassed.  He was so cute.  I idly wondered if there was a newsletter out telling every man I was a sucker for shy displays.  "I just did what I could."

            My head was starting to clear, and I remembered everything that went down in that parking lot.  I knew the chance Kale took, and most of all I remembered what Fritz looked like.  And then I remembered how easily I fell under the talisman's spell, how eager I was to obey, to please.

            It scared the bejesus out of me.

            "I'll will
properly
thank you for saving my life," I said.  His ardor filled the confined space of the coffin instantly.  "But not right now.  This place isn't safe."

            "That guy knows you live here?"

            "No, but two equally insidious bitches do," I said.  "They could attack at any time.  We have to get out of here fast."

            I hit the button, and the coffin's hydraulics kicked in.  The lip opened slowly.  I took the opportunity to lean over and give Kale a deeper, lingering kiss filled with erotic promises of things to come.

            While Kale showered, I called the hospital.  They gave me Desiree's room number and phone number, then transferred me.  Desiree answered, but she couldn't talk.  The police were there questioning her about her injuries.  But she sounded strong and feisty, so relief flooded through me.

            "They're keeping me one more day for observations," she said, sounding highly annoyed.  Then she shouted, not so much to me but away from the phone, "I don't have health insurance!"  Then she whispered into the phone, "Do you think I can get away with not paying them anything?"

            "You don't have anything to pay them with," I said.  "And you can't come back here.  You'll have to sell the house."

            "I know," she said.  "Call my boss."

            And she hung up.  I assume it was because the police were there and she didn't want to say too much.  I hoped that was why she was so abrupt with me.  So I called Boney.

            "Sable, are you all right?" Boney said.

            "Barely," I said.  "I just called Desiree, but I think the police are there."

            "They are.  I'm in the parking lot, waiting for them to leave," he said.  "Whatever you do, don't go back to the house.  I've convinced Desiree to sell."

            "I spent the day here," I said.  "I know it wasn't safe, but there were extenuating circumstances.  No time to go into that now.  I just want to make sure Desiree is okay, and you're taking care of her."

            "I am," he said.

            "She'll be moving back in with you tomorrow?"

            "No, she made other arrangements," he said, sounding miffed.  "She's still pissed at me for helping Antoinette against you."

            "As am I," I said.

            "I had no choice!  You know the kind of power she has over me," he said.  I'd never heard him sound so desperate, so beseeching.  "I've been sick ever since.  I don't want to lose you as a friend."

            Ditto.  But he scared me now.  Antoinette could be forcing him to lure me in again.  I didn't want another session with her and Angelique.  There was no doubt in my mind that Antoinette could break me, and she would add me to her "family."  I suspected that would entail me getting paid for sex.

            "I'm working through it," I said.  "I need time."

            "I understand."

            "I have to go," I said.  "There's a vampire killing werewolf out there, and I'm closing in on him.  Problem is I have competition.  Wish me luck."

            "Good luck," Boney said.  "Bye."

            Kale finished his shower and came out all wet and sexy and barely wrapped in a towel.  I had to remind myself I didn't have time for that.  But I wanted that time.  Oh yeah.

            While he dressed, it was my turn in the bathroom.  I just transformed into a wolf, and back into human to clean up.  No time for a shower, which was a shame since I so loved the whole process of showering.  By the time I put on my face Kale was clanking around upstairs in the kitchen.

            "I like my eggs over easy!" I yelled up the stairs, grinning.  Yeah, I expected him to cook breakfast.

            After the previous night I felt it time to vamp out.  It was war, on two fronts for me.  I put on a pair of black latex "Capri" pants.  They were low-riders, skin-tight and ended just above my knee.  They came with a wide leather belt that had a large silvery circle of a belt buckle.  I liked them a lot.  I put on a pair of black patient thigh boots, with three buckled straps that kept it tight around my thigh.  I found a latex top, that only came down three inches below my breasts and showed a shameful amount of cleavage.  The top was held closed by three straps with silver buckles.  Yeah, the boots and top were a matched set.  My outfit was in your face, leaving little to the imagination.

            Kale just stared at me slack jawed a long moment when I walked into the kitchen.  Just the effect I was going for.  I had no jewelry to put on.  The Giorgi Sisters stole it all.  They even took my small collection of dog collars, the bitches.

            Worse yet, they stole all of my weapons.  I had some hidden, but Lorelei's magic made me painfully honest.  And I really wanted a gun.  I wanted to pop a cap in Lolita's head and heart, to make her suffer for what she did to Desiree.  Feel the burn of sanctified silver, baby.

            She looked like a good candidate for staking, too.

            "Those eggs ready yet?"

            "Huh?  Oh, yeah," Kale said, turning back to the stove.  "I was waiting for you to come up before I put them in the pan."

            He'd already set the table.  He had a stack of toast next to the butter dish, salt and pepper on the table.  Two slices each of bacon was already on our plates next to the stove.  No hash browns.  He quickly fried up four eggs, over easy.

            I put a large mug of blood in the microwave and set the timer.  Desiree had taught me how to get the temperature perfect, based on the container I used to heat it up inside.

            "Wow, good looking and a regular domestic God, too," I said, accepting my plate.  "You want milk?  Coffee?  Orange juice?"

            "Water," Kale said.

            We ate quickly.  I was feeling the need to leave.  Every sound made me think either the Giorgi Girls were back, or vampire hunters they'd tipped off were charging in.

            "Will you get in trouble for missing work?" I asked.

            "No.  I'm the boss," Kale said.  He smiled and shrugged.  "I'm a framing contractor."

            "Framing?  You frame pictures?"

            Why did he need a truck full of tools for that?  They did it at Michaels for you, for Christ's sake.  I could frame a picture.

            "Houses," he said, laughing.  "I'm the contractor that builds the frames for houses."

            "Oh," I said, feeling embarrassed.  I didn't know anything about carpentry or building stuff.

            After that, he gave me a piece of paper with all of his phone numbers.  There were five, each with notations of exactly what they were for — two pagers, two cells, house phone.  Sounded like he liked to stay in touch with people.  I mean, please, who uses pagers anymore?

            "My master bedroom, at least, is light tight," he said.  "It's in the center of the house.  No windows.  And I've made
improvements
, suitable for a vampire."

            "Improvements?"

            "You'll have to come over if you want to find out what they are," he said, grinning mischievously.

            "I may take you up on that," I said.

            "I'll be disappointed if you don't."

            "You know you're playing with fire," I said.  It wasn't a question.  A fact.  Vampires were dangerous.  I included myself in that, too.  "Things trigger instinctive responses, and bad things can happen."

            "I know.  I was with a vampire once, before I got married," he said.  "I'm not going into this blind.  I know the pitfalls and the dangers.  I also know the erotic heights to which a vampire can take me."  He stood up and leaned over the table and kissed me.  "And the danger is part of the appeal."

            "Well, babe, you're knee deep in danger right now," I said.  "Speaking of which, never come back here again.  I know I won't be back after I get my stuff moved out."

            "What do you need moved?"

            "Just my clothes," I said.

            "I'll move them to my place," he said.  "Right now."

            "No," I said.  Desiree might think I was deserting her if I made that move.  I never intended to move in with Desiree permanently.  Temporary housing.  She understood that, but she knew I intended to get my own place.  Moving in with Kale would be a slap in the face.  "I've already made other arrangements.  But thanks for the offer."

            We rinsed off the dishes, and put them in the dishwasher.  It was nearly full, so I started it and ushered Kale out of the house.  I grabbed my purse, stuffed it into my black nylon book bag and headed out to the garage.

            My mighty steed, the Ninja, awaited me.

            "Hello, big boy, wanna go for a ride?"

            One minute later I passed Kale in his pickup.  I was going sixty on that residential street, speed limit thirty.  I hit my horn as I zipped past him.

            I planned to check out the scene of the big fight the night before.  I doubted I would find anything, but you never knew.  It was all I had, and maybe one of the people at the super market would recognize him as a regular.  But first I needed some firepower to back me up.

            Using my vampiric senses I found Gabe, Dane, and Desiree.  Desiree had a link because she was my fang whore.  My link with her was two-way.  My links with Dane and Gabe were one way.  I didn't trust them that much.  They were the two top vampire killers in Dallas, not counting me.

            Gabe was at home.  Of course, he was convalescing.  Dane was having sex.  Yeah, I can tell.  Kinda irritated me, but who was I to judge.  I had sex at the drop of a hat, sometimes with total strangers.  In fact, I kinda liked doing it with strangers.  No attachments.

            Gabe had lots of ordnance, but not at his house.  I was close to his little private armory, but I didn't have a key.  He would not appreciate me breaking in.  Dane was a lot closer.  Just a mile or two, in fact.  I didn't know the address, but I was getting good at judging separation distances, not just direction.