Highland Storm (21 page)

Eternity and a Year

Ranae Rose

Excerpt

Chapter One

Carrie clutched the lapels of her jacket tightly against the chill of the early autumn evening. It was unseasonably cool for October in
Charlotte
, North Carolina, as if the weather had decided to match the climate of her emotions. She walked slowly as she covered the distance between the small boutique where she worked and her apartment. There was no one waiting for her at home, no reason to hurry.

“
Huhh!”
she gasped sharply, the fabric of her jacket straining across her bust at the sudden expansion of her chest. She had seen it—there! A large shadow, darker than the nine o’ clock streets, darting quickly out of sight. Her heart hammered, hard and fast.
A mugger. A rapist. A murderer.
Each possible explanation her mind conjured up was worse than the last, but none of them—terrible as they were—prepared her for the shock of the truth.

“No.” The network of neurons and synapses in her brain might as well have snapped and been sparking like broken power lines for all the good her powers of reasoning were doing her. Her heart stepped up in their place and assumed control.
Yes,
it cried to her,
yes, God yes!

“Brendan,” she whispered, as the shadow revealed himself.

“Carrie.”

Carrie trembled and fell, swallowed by the blackness and quiet of unconsciousness before her body could even hit the sidewalk.

         
* * * *
        

The place where Carrie awoke was a little less dark and quiet than the nothingness that had filled her mind when she’d fainted, but not much. The ceiling above her was rough, wooden, its rafters barely visible in the dimness. The hardness beneath her indicated the floor was made from a similar material. She pressed a palm down by her hip, where a folded blanket protected her from the worst of the cold and stiffness that came from lying on an unheated, hardwood floor.

Where am I?
she wondered desperately. The only source of illumination was moonlight, which drifted in through a jagged hole, about two feet across and two feet high, in the brick wall.
That shadow…
So it was a rapist!
Why else would she be lying on her back on a blanket in an old, abandoned building?

She took a quick inventory of her clothing and found it was all still intact. And her body felt as closed and unvisited as it had on any other given day of the past year. Where was she, then, and why?

A face appeared above her, and the rest of the street-side events flooded back in a rush of wild emotion. “Brendan!” Carrie gasped.
       

It was really him, it had to be. She would have recognised the slightly coppery gleam in his dark locks anywhere—she had never seen hair quite like his. It had grown, though, so it brushed his shoulders. A year ago it had been cropped quite short. She had always wanted him to let it grow out. She’d even begged him once. And his eyes—there was no mistaking the shape or the fringe of dark lashes. But there was something off about the colour. Maybe it was just the dim lighting, but they appeared almost red in hue. His face, however, was just as it had always been, if a bit paler. She could have traced its every line and contour with her eyes closed and known who he was
—
and the same went for his body, which bulged beneath dark, simple clothing with a strength she had once known so well.

“Carrie,” he said.

His breath caressed her face, stirring a few stray wisps of her hair. His voice was thick with emotion, and his mouth, still full and soft, quivered somewhere between smiling and frowning.

“Am I dreaming?” Carrie reached out to brush the backs of her fingers against his cheek. His skin was surprisingly cool to the touch. Maybe it
was
just a dream.

“No,” Brendan replied. “You’re awake.”

The dust and coolness that surrounded her were real enough, and when she glanced out of the hole in the wall she could see the moon, almost full and mottled with blue craters. The only surreal thing about the situation was Brendan. “You’re not dead?” she asked, her voice cracking slightly.

Brendan hesitated for a moment before answering. “No,” he finally said, “I’m not dead.”

“Then where the hell have you been?” she demanded. She felt like an old glass bottle that was riddled with cracks, full to the point of bursting and in danger of exploding into a puddle of uncontained emotion at any second.

Brendan licked his lips—something he’d always done when he was nervous. A flash of tooth gleamed white in the moonlight for a moment. “I’ve been here. Right here.”

Carrie shook her head in confusion, and her nutmeg-coloured locks stirred on the blanket laid out beneath them. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Brendan paused and frowned as if deciding how to answer.

Carrie drew her hand away from his face in a flash of anger. “Well, if you don’t have an answer for that,” she said, “at least tell me why the hell you
left
in the first place.” Hot tears pricked her eyes, threatening to spill over.

Brendan’s heavy brow furrowed in a deep frown. “I’m so sorry, Carrie. I never meant…”

A tear slipped from Carrie’s eye and streamed down her cheek. Brendan reached out and wiped it away with a cool thumb. “I never meant to leave you, Carrie. I had to, and I… I’ve come back. I came back as soon as it was safe.”

“Safe?” she asked.

“Yeah. Safe.”

She opened her mouth to say something else, but Brendan’s eyes pleaded for her to listen. She couldn’t resist his eyes—she had never been able to.

“You know that night…the night we fought?” Brendan asked.

There was no need to be more specific. Carrie struggled to swallow a lump in her throat, and a few more tears slid out. She knew exactly which fight he meant. It had been
the
fight, both the worst and the last. She nodded.

“Something happened to me that night, Carrie.” His voice was serious, tense and sad, as if he were pausing on the verge of revealing something terrible.

Carrie stopped breathing and gave Brendan a barely perceptible nod, indicating he should continue.

Instead of speaking, he did something that surprised her. He tucked his fingers beneath the edge of his shirt and pulled it over his head in one swift movement, then let it flutter to the floor.

Carrie gasped. His body was a perfect expanse of smooth muscle. She’d seen it, held it and loved it a thousand times. But for the past year, she’d done none of those things save for in her dreams. His skin was a pale, opal white that shone in the moonlight. It had never been that pale before. Was that why he was so cold to the touch? Was something wrong with him—was he sick? Carrie’s heart jolted and beat furiously as she panicked at the thought of losing him again after his miraculous reappearance.

Brendan took Carrie’s hand in his and guided it towards his chest. He pressed it there firmly, and his left nipple peeked out, small and hard, from between two of her slender fingers.

She sighed. He was cold, but his body felt strong and solid beneath her touch. She had wished for this moment for so long, dreading it would never come.

Brendan stared at her expectantly.

“What is it?” Carrie asked. “Is something wrong?”

Brendan reached out and cradled her head between his palms. Carried sighed, relishing the feeling of his fingers in her hair. She had dreamt of this for a year. Could she really be dreaming still? She reached down and pinched her thigh through the fabric of her pants. It hurt. She was awake. She smiled.

Brendan pressed his fingers against the back of her skull and pulled her head to his chest, holding it against his cool skin. His nipple pressed into her cheek, small and hard.

“What’s wrong?” Carrie asked again after a moment. There was a tense stiffness about the way he held her there, unmoving, as if he were waiting for something.

“What do you hear?” he whispered.

“What? Nothing. I don’t hear anything,” Carrie replied. “Am I supposed to?”

He released her head and raised his hands to the collar of her jacket. One by one, he pushed the buttons through their holes, spreading the garment open to reveal the printed blouse she wore beneath. He lowered his head and pressed it against the soft swell of her breast. “I hear something,” he whispered.

Carrie smiled. So he wanted to play a game? That was fine with her. She had a hundred questions, a thousand accusations and even more tears welling up behind her eyes, but the sight and feel of Brendan shirtless in front of her had roused something that smothered all of those concerns—at least for now.

She pushed Brendan’s head away from her breast with some regret, pausing to relish the softness of his long, dark hair as she did so. When he had straightened, she leaned up to place her head to his chest again, pressing her ear against his cool, smooth flesh. “I hear—” she began, but did not finish.

She didn’t hear anything. She didn’t feel anything, either. Brendan’s chest was still and quiet. There was no heartbeat. Her mind objected to such an illogical notion, but his chest remained silent nonetheless. “Your heart!” Carrie exclaimed. “Why can’t I hear your heartbeat?”

“Because it’s not beating.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re here, and you’re talking to me. This isn’t a dream!” The tears broke free like floodwater from a dam as she sobbed. “This can’t be a dream!”

Brendan wrapped his arms around her and drew her close against his chest, stroking her hair with one hand while she cried. “It’s not a dream,” he affirmed. “I’m here.”

He held her that way for several minutes, repeating himself over and over. When her sobbing had nearly subsided, he released her.

Carrie scrubbed the moisture from her eyes with her jacket sleeve. “I don’t understand,” she said. “How is this possible?”

“I’m not the man I was,” he said.

Carrie stared at him, awaiting further explanation.

He opened his mouth and drew back his lips. She nearly jumped when his eye teeth caught the moonlight. They were long—twice as long as the rest of his teeth—and tapered to wickedly sharp points.

The sudden urge to both laugh and cry tore at Carrie. “Are you trying to tell me,” she began, “that you’re a—a vampire or something?”

Brendan turned away from her for the first time, apparently ashamed. “Yes.”

Carrie was silent for several moments, during which the urge to laugh faded, overshadowed by her increasing desire to break into sobs again. “That’s not possible,” she whispered.

“It is possible,” he said.

“I… Brendan, how can you expect me to believe that?”

The misery of his expression flickered briefly into anger. “There are some things I could do to convince you,” he said, his voice hard.

“Like what?” Carrie breathed, fascinated and incredulous at the same time. Maybe this was part of the game he had started.

Brendan seized her in a flash-of-lightning movement. Startled, Carrie didn’t even have time to cry out before he sank his teeth into the side of her neck. And she wanted to cry out, to scream, as he held her there, cradled fiercely against his body with his teeth anchored in the skin and muscle of her neck. His fangs had gone in deep, and he was drawing something out of her.
Blood
, she realised.
He’s drinking my blood.
She struggled feebly against his iron-hard body.

He released her suddenly, dropping her as if she were red-hot. For the briefest of moments, she craved his touch, despite the fact his bite had been painful. Then she hit the floor.

“
Oof!”
she cried as the air rushed from her lungs. Her neck ached and stung, and Brendan loomed above her, wild-eyed and bloody-faced like some sort of red and white demon.

“
God
!” he said as his mouth dripped crimson, “I’ve wanted to do that for a year!” The bloodlust that drove him lent an almost manic edge to his voice. His tongue, surprisingly long, shot out of his mouth as he licked every last drop of red from around his lips.

 
Carrie stared at him in horror. He focussed his gaze on her again, and a thrill of terror coursed through her veins, sending her heart into overdrive. Brendan lowered himself over her, his eyes gleaming.
They really are red,
she realised as the moonlight hit them—a dull burgundy red instead of the hazel they had once been.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice fearful as Brendan pulled off her coat and shoved his cold hands beneath her blouse. His gaze rested on her breasts, burning hot under his apparent lust. If she closed her eyes, she might be able to pretend his were still hazel and they were back in the apartment bedroom. But he had seldom—no, never—moved with such urgency back then.

He dipped his fingertips into the cups of her bra, pausing to brush her nipples. They hardened at once, and an electric shiver raced down her spine, succeeded by a surprisingly fierce stirring in her core. Her head swam.

“You know what I’m doing,” he said as he yanked her blouse over her head.