“She’s my intended,” Milo said, unable to hold it in any longer. “My soul mate. I…” He paused, then finished. “I tasted it in her.”
“You sound as if you aren’t happy about that.”
“You sound as if you already knew.”
“I thought as much when you told me about the dreams, even though you thought she didn’t exist.”
Milo glanced back out at Jane and said nothing for a long moment.
“You’re not happy with the idea?”
Milo never took his gaze from Jane. “You have to take her away from me.”
“What?”
“Bart will kill her or use her to kill me. She’d be safer without me.”
“Bart would have killed her last night, given the chance. You weren’t even in the picture yet.”
“It doesn’t matter. Now that he knows she’s with me, she’s in more danger than ever. I want you to hide her someplace safe. Someplace even I don’t know where she is.”
Graham touched his arm and drew his attention. “It doesn’t matter how far away I take her, or how well I hide her. You’ve tasted her blood. So has Bart. Both of you will always know where she is. But there’s more you aren’t telling me.”
Milo looked away, ashamed to meet Graham’s gaze. “He cursed me,” he whispered.
“Who? Bart?”
“Yes, Bart. Who else?” he forced out through a clenched jaw.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve always thought that he killed my wife, Rose, then turned me, haven’t you?” Milo glanced back at Jane.
“That’s the way it happened, isn’t it?” Graham’s quiet words struck a nerve.
Milo shook his head, still watching Jane, feeling her pull like an invisible rope tied around him. “He turned me first. She wasn’t there. I remember the horrific pain everywhere, and hunger that gripped my gut. Bart grabbed me and whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t you smell her? She has what you need. Take it. Take it all. Enjoy her. It will be the only love you’ll know. Love will always die at your hands and by your teeth.’ Rose came into the stable then. All I remember is needing to taste her. Then I was. It was so sweet it was like drinking ambrosia. I drank her dry, and she was dead in my arms. My eyes were opened, and I saw the monster I’d become.”
“And when I got there moments later, looking for Bart and the bastard who turned him, Donatello, I found Rose dead and you’d tried to hang yourself. And now you think you’re cursed.”
Milo tore his gaze from Jane and met Graham’s. “I know I’m cursed. When Jane brushed against me two years ago, not only did she see what I was, but she saw a vision of me coming at her with my fangs out.”
“Your bite marks her throat, so I’d think you already lived that one.”
“She’d still be safer,” Milo argued, remembering his loss of control.
Graham took a deep breath and let it out. “And how would you feel if I took her away, and Bart managed to get his hands on her?”
“You wouldn’t let that happen.”
“Well, I’d hope it wouldn’t, but I also didn’t think Bart would ever get this close to us, and yet he’s managed to. Do you really expect taking her away will keep her safe?”
“If you don’t, I’m afraid I’ll lose control and hurt her. If you do, maybe Bart will concentrate on me and leave her alone.” His words were loud enough that Jane turned and looked back at him. Milo quieted his voice. “I want you to keep her safe. I’m as dangerous to her as Bart.”
Graham glanced out at Jane too, before meeting Milo’s hard gaze. “If what you say about her being your soul mate is true, your heart beats with hers. You can’t deny it.”
“I have to deny it. I can’t let Bart use us against each other. When Bart spoke through her, he said he’d let me watch while he took her. If Bart gets his hands on her, it will be worse than with Rose, since he reminded me my love will always die by my hands. I can’t bear that. If she isn’t here, it can’t happen.”
“As your true mate, no other—whether it be man or vampire—can touch her without bringing her great pain.”
“I understand. I still want her safely away from me.”
“I’ll consider it.”
* * * *
A short time later, Graham—working to tuck away his apprehension at the vision Milo had shared with him—entered his own suite to find Ella on the sofa, a cup of green tea in her hand.
He met Ella’s deep gaze. Raven hair and even darker eyes, her beauty captured him as always. Like the wine he so enjoyed, he couldn’t drink her in enough. He couldn’t help but smile as he sat down beside her and took her hand. “I would have thought you’d have been in bed hours ago.”
Vampires seldom needed sleep. Only when they were dehydrated or deprived of blood for a long period of time, or when they were wounded, did they require rest to recuperate. But here at the Moonlight Resort and the surrounding area, they slept to maintain pretenses in order to live among humans without question. Yet, after careful study of Ella, he thought she required rest. There were dark circles beneath her beautiful eyes. Her smile was hesitant.
“I was waiting for you. How’s Jane?”
Because Graham shared everything with her, she was well aware of Jane’s circumstances. “She’s all right, just needs some rest and lots of fluids.”
“Good. When do I get to meet the woman who saved me from Bart?”
“Tomorrow should be soon enough.” He looked at his watch and corrected himself. “Later today. Perhaps the two of you could have lunch or something.”
“I could fix dinner for her and Milo. How is he?”
“He thinks she’s in danger because of him. He feels Bart cursed him, and he wants me to take her away and hide her to keep her safe.”
“Sounds like Milo. Always stubborn, always having to learn the hard way. You aren’t going to do it, are you?”
“No. She’s his soul mate, and living apart can be as detrimental as dealing with Bart. Besides, it would be a waste of time and manpower. Milo also says he killed Rose, not Bart as we thought.”
Ella’s brows rose. “Really? I was always certain it was Bart.”
Graham shared Milo’s story.
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe Bart’s powerful. Not only could Bart convince Milo he did so, but by not sharing the fact that drinking too much can drain a human body… Add in the confusion that Milo and Jane suffer with discovering they’re soul mates and Jane’s visions, and I think it can be a deadly combination. I also think the confusion has hit them so hard because they’ve shared their wonderful dreams for so long together. They have a hard time recognizing what’s real.”
“Maybe it won’t last long for them. It didn’t for us, remember?”
He reached out and tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear. “Yes. I also remember our first touch, and first kiss, even the first time I held your hand. So are you going to tell me what’s going on with you, or will I have to resort to water torture?” He tried to keep his question light, even though he was dying to know.
She turned away.
He kept hold of her hand and didn’t let her go far.
“Why are you holding out on me?”
“Please, Graham.”
“I know forever can feel like a long time. We’ve known each other for more than a hundred years, and we’ve been together as mates for how many of them? Ninety-eight? If you’re tired of it and want out or need a break, say so, but don’t sneak around behind my back.”
She turned back to face him, her eyes blazing. “Tired of it? You think I’m tired of this? And sneak around? You and I both know I couldn’t be with anyone else even if I wanted to.”
“What else should I think? You’re distracted all the time. You’re spending as little time as possible with me or here at the Moonlight, and you’re spending lots of time in places you don’t normally go, like planning to go to the bookstore last evening.”
“I wanted to get a book.”
“You’ve been to the bookstore three times this week and haven’t come home with a single magazine. And you went to Patty’s Gifts and Gadgets another two times and came home with nothing. Oh, and let’s not forget about the three times you went downtown and walked the sidewalks, not going into a single shop.”
She stared at him. “You’ve had me followed,” she whispered.
Graham didn’t care about her anger or about her need for privacy. He cared about her. “Talk to me. Let me in. We’ve never been this distant.”
“I hate that calm voice of yours!”
Graham blinked at her sudden outburst.
“You drive me crazy sometimes!” She raked her fingers through the dark waves of her hair.
He fought the urge to reach out and straighten her hair. “I’d be glad to yell at you if I knew what to yell at you about,” he put in. “How’s this? I’ve had enough of walking on eggshells around you. I’m tired of thinking you’re sneaking off to meet someone. Even if Bart can’t touch you, he can still spend time with you. What the hell is going on with you? You’ve never been anything less than honest with me, so please be honest with me now, damn it!” He paused and took a breath, still holding her hand, as he lowered his voice several decibels. “Is that better?”
She stared at him; then she laughed.
Graham smiled with her until he saw tears stream down her cheeks. The sight of her crying tugged at his heart. Had someone hurt her, threatened her in some way he couldn’t conceive? Had Bart managed to approach her? After all, Bart and Ella shared a past. And yet, Graham was so in tune to her every emotion, he would know. Talk about confusion. He understood Milo’s confusion. “Hey, hey.” Without hesitation, he pulled her into his arms and held her close. She was his wife, the other half of his heart. He loved her more than his own life. That was why he would let her go rather than force her to stay if she wanted to leave. “Tell me what’s wrong. I can help you. And if I can’t, I know I’ll be able to find someone who can. But don’t shut me out.”
She leaned against him and held his shirt in her fists. “I’m scared.”
Her words shocked him. “I don’t believe that. What could you be scared of? You’re one of the strongest women I know, a hundred times stronger and faster than any mortal woman. And you can plan a party for five hundred people down to the tiniest detail without batting an eye.”
“I’m pregnant.”
Two simple words. And yet, they scared the hell out of him. He stared at her. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely?”
“The test was positive and everything.”
“How far?”
“Close to four months.”
Graham chuckled. “We’ve tried for so many years. Again and again. I recognized every time you ovulated. But it was never meant to happen. And just when we give up trying and stop paying attention…”
A baby. His baby.
A child. A child that was part of him and part of the woman he loved.
A child…
Bart was after a child…
Maybe Jane was wrong. After all, Ella would never sit in a corner tied up, crying. She was too strong for that.
What if Jane wasn’t wrong? Pregnancy changed things. Every vampire knew it did. Just as pregnancy changed a mortal woman, it changed a female vampire. The growing child took a great deal of energy from the mother, making her weaker, making her more mortal. Making her want to sleep all the time—a weakness for a vampire. This explained the dark circles under her eyes.
“Who else knows about the baby, Ella?”
“I mentioned to Lara that I wasn’t feeling well. It was her idea that I get a test and take it.”
“Does she know it’s positive?”
“I share a lot with my assistant, but no, I didn’t tell her that it was positive. I wanted you to be the first to know.”
That didn’t mean Lara couldn’t have suspected enough or even mentioned to someone else that Ella might be pregnant. The idea could have been passed along to the wrong person, who’d shared it with Bart.
Graham didn’t believe in coincidence.
There on the sofa, he kept her safe in his embrace as the night gave way to the gray of dawn. Trying to calm his fear, he concentrated on the slow, steady beat of his wife’s heart as he tried to determine how to stop Bart.
Maybe he should start with finding out who the mole was that hid under his roof.
* * * *
Milo slipped off his robe. He should stay away from Jane.
He couldn’t, though, any more than he could hold his breath until he died. He regretted asking Mr. M. to take her away. He couldn’t be apart from her for ten minutes. He felt in control. He could spend time with her and not hurt her. Besides, his hunger was satisfied for now.
“What are you doing?”
“Going for a dip in you—I mean with you,” he replied with a grin as he stepped into the hot tub. Hell, he must be crazy. He had told himself he shouldn’t be this close to her, much less naked and making teasing comments about being in her. And yet, he found no matter how hard he tried, her soul called to him. The teasing and the closeness felt so right, so perfect. When she said nothing, he prodded, “What? You’ve got no comeback for that?”
“I’ve been out here thinking, or at least trying to.”
He wanted to keep the conversation light and simple. Why did it always come back to sex? He watched her across the water, careful not to touch her but longing to with every ounce of his being, with every breath he took. “No doubt.” He let her take the course of the conversation. Perhaps that was the best way.
“This is all happening so fast.”
“I understand.”
She met his gaze. “Do you? Do you really?”
Caught in the sea of her eyes, he didn’t look away. “Yes. Yes, I do. The last time I met up with Bart, I woke up a vampire and my wife was dead.” He leaned his head back on the headrest and let the mist and the warmth soothe him. At least he tried to feel soothed. Jane was like an electric current in the water. He felt her heat. He knew where her feet were. He knew how far he could move without brushing her thigh.
He ached with the need to brush her thigh, to cup her sweet tits and tease her nipples with his tongue. His cock was ready and waiting to get close to her. He wanted to savor every inch of her body.
He met her gaze and saw her fear. He shouldn’t have reminded her of what he was. He shouldn’t have compared himself to Bart. Hell, he needed her to trust him.
“Can vampires hypnotize and alter one’s thinking?”