Into the Spotlight (11 page)

Her desolate gaze shifted from him as she twisted and paced away, then back. The tug of war with her inner thoughts played out in her barefooted steps, three across, two back. He allowed himself to watch her, thoughts leaping from conclusion to conclusion.

Jeannie had been lured to the Arcana Royale. She’d been herded by a series of misfortunate events. The bus broke down. Her luggage stolen. Her money lifted. She’d been guided down the strip.

Even in the 1950s, numerous casinos and hotels lined the main street of Las Vegas’s oasis. Other casinos where she would have been welcomed and safer. Located near the center, she would have passed four or five from either direction before entering the Royale.

She’d been pushed. Nudged. Guided. The Sphinx in the lobby was the goal. The test. If she could break free of his secret keeping, her bloodline would be proven. But to what end?

“How long after you were engaged in the lounge did you take the lead?”

“I earned it in my first year. I drew the eye of the crowd. I stood out. Heidi told me that I was who they were coming to see.”

“What happened to the other lead?” No, Jeannie hadn’t been given the lead. She’d taken it. A nymph’s sexuality was a living, breathing extension of her essence. No eye that found her would have been satisfied with the pale imitations around her.

“They said Fairuk paid her debt. That she was free to go.” Jeannie hugged herself around her middle. The statuesque beauty quieted under the slumped shoulders. Denial ripened the air between them.

“Are you sure it was paid?”

“I don’t—I think so. It’s what they told me.”

Malcolm took a step forward, sliding his hands over her shoulders. The cold of her bare arms burned his fingers, but he tugged her closer. Without her heels, her slight frame stood nearly a head below his. He ducked his head, finding her gaze and holding it. He wanted her to see the truth in his eyes.

“Fairuk may have paid her debt. But you were the lead from the moment you took that stage. No one would have been able to dispute it.”

“There were auditions, Malcolm. Heidi closed the show for a week while we were all tested.”

“And all the other girls?”

“They tried out too.”

“Didn’t they resent you, the new girl? Taking their spotlight?” Malcolm pushed. The denial in her expression wavered, assaulted by both his nearness and his conviction. He held compulsion in check by his fingertips. He could drive her to the destination, but she’d been lured, baited and entrapped to the point of servitude. She needed to wade out of the deeper water on her own.

“If they did…” Her voice quivered, her gaze searching his for the right answer. It killed him, but Malcolm kept his expression neutral. “…I never saw it. Heidi said I was one of the top three. We were all given the same routine to perform when the show opened again. We all performed it. The audience chose the lead.”

“How?”

“Through applause.”

“Applause.” Malcolm sighed. The poor sweetheart had no idea.

“What?” Jeannie canted her head. Her refusal to accept the obvious was almost adorable. “What aren’t you saying?”

“Sweetheart—” He considered his next words carefully. She deserved the truth. But could she handle it? He discarded that thought the moment it sparked to life in his brain. Of course she could handle it. Hadn’t she just spent the last fifty years handling it? “The Arcana Royale is warded. You are a nymph, not completely human. You need to understand that. You may not be a full-blooded nymph, in fact, I know you’re not.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“Because I tasted your blood.”

Was drunk on it. Stupid from the pleasure of it. Desperate to taste you again.
Malcolm shoved the trio of lecherous thoughts away. His fingers stroked her arms, teased at the ends of her hair where it spilled down over the length of her neck. The choker she wore disguised the marks he’d left when he bit her, but he knew they were there.

He loved that he’d marked her. Passion thickened within, but he had to nudge those thoughts aside. She needed his mind, his comfort, not his lust.

“I tasted your blood. It’s powerful and intoxicating, definitely more than human, but you’re not a full-blooded nymph.”

“So you’ve tasted one before?” Jealousy turtled out of her tone, snapping at him.

She didn’t want him tasting anyone else? A fission of pleasure spasmed along his spine. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. “A long time ago, my sweet, and never again.” The last three words startled him, but he knew it was true.

He didn’t want to sample any others. The finest Bordeaux in the world flowed in her veins. If he could never nip from that cask again, he would not desire a pale imitation.

Jeannie frowned. “I shouldn’t ask you those kind of questions. I’m sorry…”

“No. You should.” Malcolm slid his fingers up to cup her face, tilting her head back to gaze into her eyes. He dipped his own head to taste her lips. Long seconds passed. Her heart thudded once and her fingers crept up his arms to wrap around his neck. Malcolm pressed closer, probing her mouth with his tongue.

A groan slipped free when her tongue tangled with his. His fingers stroked her cheeks, urging her mouth wider. He could spend hours kissing her. The little gasps for air softened the hard ball of anger in his gut. Her body molded to his, soft and curvy where he was hard and long.

The twin scents of bitter and sour citrus evaporated. Sweet, rich cream, vanilla and scotch filled his senses. She tasted of the wine, the hints of chocolate and oak scorching his palate.

When his fangs extended, he pulled back, careful not to bite at her delicate flesh. Eyes drowsy with passion regarded him. Her pulse hip-hopped under his fingers. His body hungered for more.

Breath whooshed out of him. “You are so damn beautiful.”

“So are you.”

Malcolm laughed. The amusement rumbled up from his chest, effectively puncturing through the tension. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me beautiful until you.”

“Well, then they didn’t know what they were looking at. Your eyes are amazing.”

“Only when they look at you.” He pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. His fangs retreated. “My darling Jeannie, you told me you wanted my help.”

“Yes?”

Malcolm drifted back a few inches, dropping back to one knee and taking both of her hands in his. “Will you allow me to serve as your champion, my lady?” The old language rolled off his tongue, a half-forgotten memory of more chivalrous times. He was a warrior at heart, a warrior armed with the weapons of law and justice, shielded with the desire to protect. He was an attorney now, but that was a new role. The warrior suited him far more. He wanted to do more than just help Jeannie.

He wanted to spring Pandora from her box. He wanted to save her.

“Malcolm, I can’t ask you to do that. If this was a trap and they worked so hard to bring me in, what if they aren’t willing to let me go? The Overseers—they’re dangerous…”

“You already asked it of me, my darling. You must only accept my service and my pledge. I will be your champion. Let me slay this dragon for you.”

His gaze caressed the lines of her face, descending to rest on the perfect white teeth biting at her lower lip. He ached to slide his tongue along that lip, to taste all of her.

“Say yes, my lady.” In all his years of service, he’d never once considered begging for the privilege. But regardless of her answer, Malcolm would not leave her to this place, to that horrible fate. She would walk free in the sun again.

“Yes.”

Two hours later, Malcolm sat on the edge of the lounge. Lethargy stole through him, his body’s natural alarm to the sun’s imminent rise weighed heavily in his bones long before the shutters on the suite’s windows began to snap close. He held Jeannie’s hand in his, cradling the slender fingers and stroking the soft skin. As much as he’d ached to make love to her, he’d spent the last two hours interrogating every aspect of the story. He memorized the why behind her trip to Hollywood, the names of the people she’d told, her family lineage and who she could remember from the bus trip.

Malcolm devoured the details. The devil trapping her was in those details. He just needed to be able to pick it apart to figure out exactly who it was. She’d fallen asleep in the last few minutes, eyelids closed, and her cheeks relaxed. Inch by inch, the tension melted away.

He noticed the subtle change to her scent first, an almost plastic flavor. The silence of her heart followed. The pale golden sheen of her skin went waxy and white. But her eyes didn’t open. She wasn’t caught unaware by the dawn. With absolute care, he let her hand drift back down before the change turned the skin porcelain.

His angel slept.

Mouth set in a firm line, he rose and crossed to the door where Stan waited on the other side. Opening it, he pinned her handler with a long look. “How long have you known?”

“Since she was delivered to the Pit.” Stan shrugged. “No one could keep their eyes off of her. The longer she stayed, the more of her humanity drifted away, the more nymph she became.”

“Do you know who in her family line passed on the gene?”

“We suspect her grandmother. She told you about the silver in her shoes?”

“Silver.” Malcolm paused.
Silver in the shoes to keep her feet on the path.
“Silver would protect her from the glamour, it would dim her own glamour.”

“Yes.”

“When she took the quarters out…” He didn’t have to finish the statement or look for the other man’s nod. Taking the quarters out and trading them away, willingly, had surrendered her personal protections. She’d been bait for whomever hunted her then. Fifty years ago.

Malcolm had been in Paris bailing Frederick out of trouble. Fifty years later, more trouble for his cousin brought him to the Royale.

To Jeannie.

He may have to forgive Frederick after all.

“Why are you helping her?” Malcolm refocused his attention. Stan didn’t press forward or try to take Jeannie, he seemed more than willing to wait for Malcolm to surrender her. An improvement over the previous morning when Malcolm burst from the room to seize the man and demand what was wrong with the showgirl.

“Have you ever seen a shooting star?”

The innocuous question startled Malcolm. He frowned and nodded, waiting for the man to continue.

“The star burns the brightest when it collides with the atmosphere. It’s just a piece of rock. Cosmic debris. The world turns on such events, so fascinated with the sparkle and the shine. But after the atmosphere, what happens to that star?”

“It disintegrates or it crashes into the earth.”

“That is why I help. She’s burned for fifty years, Lord Markham.”

It didn’t surprise him that the man was aware of his title and his position.

“Thank you, Keeper.” Malcolm bowed his head, accepting the man’s unspoken charge. “I have given her my pledge. I will see it done.”

Relief scattered across the man’s features, leaving him somehow wizened, diminished.

“May I have your leave then, my lord, to return our lady to her chambers?” The old language sounded rusty to Malcolm, but he agreed with the sentiment.

Jeannie was indeed
their
lady.

Malcolm stood silent witness to Stan gathering up the lifeless doll. He could hardly think of the motionless, still figure as his Jeannie, but merely the embodiment of her prison. A prison he would snap the locks on no matter what he had to beg, borrow or steal.

Chapter Ten

It was late afternoon when Malcolm stepped inside the private health cubicle the casino arranged in Frederick’s cell. A nurse stood near the head of the bed. She hung a fresh blood bag and added notations to a clipboard.

“How is he doing?”

“As well as can be expected. We’ve loaded him with fifteen pints over the last twenty-four hours. I would like it to have been more, but he went into rejection this morning over two pints of the blood. We had to start over.”

He frowned. His cousin’s pallor nearly matched the white institutional sheets on the bed. Dark bruises marred the skin beneath his eyes, diminishing his youth in illness. “What type of damage did the rejection cause?”

“Fortunately, none. We’d already loaded him up on ten pints with a heavy dose of electrolytes to keep his system hydrated. We asked the prince for permission to induce the coma when his screams became too much.” The bland description did little to assuage his concern.

Vampires in a coma could be difficult to wake. The prince of Las Vegas or one of his most ancient advisors would have to be on hand when they awoke Frederick. The younger vampire’s foolish choices, facilitated by an overprotective family, coalesced into this latest tragedy.

“Don’t bother the prince. When it’s time to wake him I’ll take care of it.” His throat flexed around the words. Vampires waking from a coma could become violent and attack anything close until their higher reasoning functions kicked in.

Sometimes, though, higher reason didn’t return. A blood coma could essentially lobotomize the vampire and turn him into the monster the world loved to vilify in their films and books. When that happened, the vampire would need to be put down.