Bloody Kisses (12 page)

B
ig Bad Billionaire

The Werewolf Tycoon’s Secret Baby

Princess of the Pack

The Ardennes Curse

D
esperate Housewives
of Olympus

Desperate Housewives of Avalon

Desperate Housewives of Olympus: ARES

H
ow To Lose
A Demon in 10 Days

How To Marry A Warlock in 10 Days

How To Seduce An Angel in 10 Days

T
his is for Saranna
, because she gave me the chance to write my gothic vampire.

T
he rain splattered
across the pavement, making the flick-a-flack sound Essence Welch had known her entire life. But the sound was the only thing familiar to her at that moment. She stopped running and gave up on the idea of trying to stay dry at all. Her umbrella snapped inside out the second the winds picked up to what she had to believe was near hurricane force. Or maybe not. If they were really that hard or fast, she’d have blown clear back to New York City by now.

Gee, wouldn’t that be a sight.
Five foot nothing Essence Welch and her drenched self, floating all the way from DuBois, nowheresville upstate New York—so far north she was practically in Canada—to Manhattan. Like Mary Poppins. Only, she’d be Essence the flying paralegal.

She steeled her back. The bosses wanted her to find some very rich man who lived in the middle of nowhere and personally get him to sign his estate documents because he didn’t have email. And she’d do anything to have the legal secretaries stop calling her the stupid ballerina. She’d tried and failed to be one for years—but she’d also put herself through school and become a paralegal. What was the matter with that?

Wiping the hair out of her eyes, she tried not to be annoyed. Wet, tired, and dripping she might be, but she was employed and optimistic. Life could be a lot worse.

She might even get to show off her cat costume at the Halloween party she’d rsvp’d she’d go to before she left the city. The cute bartender who worked near her building had invited her, and she was considering it her reward for a job well done… if she could get this job done.

Her instructions had been to bring him the documents, wait while he signed them, get back on the last train and return home to return the documents to the office the next morning. No mail would do. He didn’t have email or a fax machine. She had to hand deliver them to him. That was the way business had always been done with his family, from back when his great-great grandfather employed the original partners in Janeway, Bonnett, Tipitinia, and Rogers to present.

She didn’t own a car.
Who did in the city?
The train had gotten her—if her mapping app was to be believed—less than half-a-mile from her destination. Like so much of upstate New York, DuBois had once been a thriving, small city that long ago fell on hard times. So many other locations had come back—or so she’d read, when she googled the place—but not DuBois. She didn’t know why. Politics and geo-cultural issues had never interested her very much.

When she searched the internet for more information on the man she was going to see—Alec Amanar, sixth in the long line of Amanar men with the same name—she’d found nothing at all. A rich guy living off family money who didn’t do much, it would seem.

Heat in the form of mist pushed off the pavement where the rain hit it, creating a fog-like effect that would be great for a scary movie. She looked up at the buildings around her. They were all closed for the night already, and it was barely past eight. A solitary light burned in the distance, covered mostly by a shade. The red brick building housing the lone light appeared dilapidated. She wondered if someone should condemn it, or if there was anyone left around to do such a thing since the town really looked abandoned.

Why would Alec Amanar, with all of his money, choose to live here?

She eventually rounded the corner to the place—unless the GPS on her phone lied—where she should find the man. Essence came up short, staring. In the middle of the deserted town stood an ornate building straight out of a creepy novel. Architecture was actually something she’d studied in college, briefly. Someone had clearly renovated the building to modernize it at some point—old ones hardly ever had satellite dishes or what looked like a phone and internet hookups on the side.

So, why didn’t he email?

She shook her head. Not her business to speculate about the client.

Other than the small visible updates, the building had everything a dark novel would have contained, from the pointed arches on the top of it, a ribbed vault, a flying buttress and two gargoyles affixed on the building itself above the front door.

Essence had taken a step toward the building when she was jerked backwards. A man grabbed her arm and she shrieked, nearly falling over while she struggled to get him off her. Terror flooded her soul. Why hadn’t she taken precautions? Why had she thought this practically deserted place would be safe? She didn’t make mistakes in Manhattan. She knew how to protect herself, how to take precautions.

The man cried out as she got in a good kick. “No, no miss. I don’t mean you any harm.”

His words calmed her a bit but didn’t slow her beating heart from slamming against her ribs. “Let go of me.”

He jumped back, his hands in the air. “I am trying to protect you. Don’t go in that building. A monster lives there.”

She pointed at him as though her finger was a weapon. “I don’t know anything about monsters, but
you
grabbed me. Don’t you ever put your hands on me. Am I clear?”

The stranger who grabbed her nodded vigorously. The darkness made it hard for her to see much about him, but he seemed to be an older man. “I was trying to protect you.”

“Get away before I call the police.” What Essence really wanted to do was throw up. She turned on her heel and ran her wet self straight for the overdone mess ahead. Whatever monster resided inside there was better than the grabber where she was.

Essence took the steps two at a time before she rang the doorbell hard. It actually gonged, which she might have found odd if she hadn’t kept turning around to see if crazy on the street was rushing toward her. So far, he hadn’t moved.

The door swung open, and she pushed her way inside, not glancing at the man who stood in front of it. She was rude, for sure. But she needed to get away from the old man on the street. He’d grabbed her, and she could still feel where her arm had been rubbed in the process.

“Yes?” The man who answered the door was tall, with black hair pulled into a bun on the top of his head. His were the darkest eyes she’d ever seen. As if to complete the look, he dressed in an all-black suit, down to his tie.

“Oh,” her hand went to her throat. “I’m so sorry for just rushing inside. There was a man on the street, and he grabbed me, so I just sort of pushed my way in. Totally rude, but I was scared. I’m Essence Welch, from your lawyers’ office.” She held up her briefcase. “I need you to sign some papers.”

Tall, dark, and handsome took a deep breath in through his nose. “I forgot it was the twenty-ninth of the year. Yes. Yes.” His accented voice hid none of the annoyance this particular date seemed to cause him. “You’re afraid.” His eyes travelled up and down her body. “And you’re wet, dripping on my floor.”

She sucked in her breath. He was right. She had made a huge mess of a puddle in his front hall. Goodness, the partners would not be happy that she burst through the door and upset the client.

“Please accept my apologies.” She really should wait on the porch while he signed, only it had to be notarized and, since she was also a notary, she had to be present to sign off on what he did.

“Well, this really will not do.” He sighed loudly. “And the timing couldn’t be worse.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. He extended his hand. “You can’t stand there and drip. Follow me.”

“Are you Mr. Amanar?” she asked, even as she obeyed his command, following him down the hall. “I’m terribly sorry.” That had to be the third time she’d apologized, at least. He had yet to respond.

The inside of his home was lit, but not from bright white or even yellow light. Instead, the bulbs around them gave off an amber hue, making everything look slightly orange. The furniture was old, antique, and probably very expensive. She didn’t see a place she could sit easily and wouldn’t want to get any of it wet anyway.

When they rounded the corner and took the stairs, she stopped, finally coming to her senses. “Why are we going upstairs?”

He turned slowly to face her and still didn’t speak, so she took a step back. He hadn’t answered her and it seemed he didn’t mean to.
Power
. She didn’t know that she’d ever really felt it radiate from someone before. Her family had kicked her out when she was sixteen, and she was still alive. Trusting her gut got her through a lot of bad times. Right then, she wanted to run.

And then she saw his eyes.

Haunted, my love?
A voice moved through her mind, and she shook her head to clear the sensation. A woman had spoken the words that didn’t seem to have been uttered at all. What in the heck was going on?

Maybe the rain had washed away her brain cells. As she stared at the man she’d come to see standing two steps ahead of her on the stairs, he did look haunted. Sad, even.

“Ms. Welch, are you okay? Other than the obvious wetness, which is now assaulting my carpet, I mean. I understand you were scared. Please be assured that Newton will be dealt with. He is harmless, if slightly disturbing. I have…that is to say, my family has known his for a long time. I mean you no harm. Follow me. Now.”

She didn’t dare disobey. In fact, she hurried up to be even faster. The upstairs resembled the rest of the house. Everything was ornate and also slightly orange thanks to the light. He banged open a door, and she followed him inside. It was a bedroom. Inside a king sized bed dominated the space, covered with fluffy white bedding. Everything else in the room seemed to have been crafted from the same dark wood.

“This room temporarily belonged to a woman of my acquaintance. She lived here ten years ago. Briefly. I did not know her well. But, her son became…ill and injured her. She didn’t have much time left to live, so I took her in. When she died, I should have gotten rid of her stuff. Alas, I have little interest in the mundane. All of her clothes are here. You may fit in some of them, as you are roughly the same size. She weighed more than you. Never mind. You’ll make it work. You have no choice.” He pointed toward the closet and then stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him. “Don’t worry about giving them back. They belong to no one. Keep it.”

Essence tried to breathe. She had a lot of questions. Why had assumed someone named was the person who attacked her on the street? With no other choice, she bent over to put her head between her knees. The partners would never send her somewhere unsafe. This man was odd. That was all. It was an old building, and she read too many books. Her imagination was ridiculous.

He’d seen her outside. Maybe he even had a security system.
Okay, that makes sense
.

Then he’d shoved her in a dead woman’s room. “Well, clothes aren’t haunted, you silly woman.”

Sometimes talking to herself worked and sometimes it didn’t. Anxiety-ridden or not, she had a job to do, and if she didn’t hurry up, she was going to miss her train home. She flung open the closet. He was right. She had no choice. She’d make it work.

Somehow
.

* * *

C
onstantia
, why did you leave me?

He hadn’t seen his love in one hundred years. On this date, one hundred years earlier, he’d failed her. The hunters had killed his love, drove a stake through her heart, cut off her head then burned her for good measure. Alec closed his eyes. Of course, he’d shown those men what a monster really looked like. They’d seen his vampire eyes and the fangs that went with him.

Every year since, he signed papers that kept the trust—which he’d established years ago for her descendants wealthy—legal for another year. To keep the money tax-exempt, he had to keep re-upping the signatures. It drove him crazy to have to keep signing, year after year. Millions and millions of dollars…

Yet, this year he’d forgotten about it entirely.

Had he finally become the monster he’d always feared he would become?

This dark night—Constantia, I have failed you
.

Once again, he had a woman in his house who was not his love, and he would have to figure out what he’d do with her. As a rule, he never fed on women. Ever. Even in the days before he’d become blood-selective—a term he lived by, thanks to the strong intervention two centuries earlier by his mentor Benyamin, which ended him feasting and leaving bodies in his wake throughout Europe. He fed when and how he wanted to in a way no one noticed these days. If he did it correctly, no one died.

Unless he didn’t feel like being careful or if the monster rode him too hard.

A man could only take on so much when the nights were so long. So dark. So endless.

If he didn’t hurry her up, this Ms. Essence Welch would miss the train back to the city—she hadn’t pulled up in a car and was drenched enough to assume she’d walked from the train station. He would be stuck with her for the night. It wouldn’t do. He needed to feed, and it would seem Newton had volunteered by sticking his neck in Alec’s business once again

The man didn’t know when to leave well enough alone.

Ms. Essence Welch was a problem unto herself. She was beautiful, but he suspected she did not realize it. Lithe, graceful despite being soaked through, and lovely. She had blond hair, blue sparking eyes, and freckles over her nose. He usually preferred his women more voluptuous, or he had once. There had been no women since Constantia. His one true love. His only.