Not Quite Dead (A NightHunter Novel) (23 page)

Wearily, she touched his jaw, tracing her finger over his whiskers. "You're back."

"Yeah." He caught her hand in his and pressed his lips to her fingertips. "Thank you."

She smiled, idly watching him feather kisses on the tips of her fingers, one by one. "You're welcome. You're a little difficult to save, you know. Too stubborn and possessed, for starters."

"I'm not stubborn. I just didn't want you to risk yourself."

Her smile faded. "I figured that out. Do you want to tell me what that was all about?"

He kept kissing her fingers. "Not really."

She lightly punched his chest. "You lost the right to shut me out when you turned into some sort of ghostly specter thing and then bit me."

He sighed and finally raised his head from her hand. For a moment, he said nothing as he gently tucked her hair behind her ears, his dark eyes searching her face. All his little gestures were so intimate and tender, nothing like the arrogant sex-maniac he had always presented himself as. Was the true Eric finally allowing himself to be seen? "I don't know exactly what I am," he finally said, still smoothing her hair back instead of looking at her, almost like a little boy who was too shy to make eye contact.

Her heart tightened for this vulnerable side of him that he'd never shown her before. "Because you don't know your past?"

He nodded, then finally dropped his hand and looked at her. "There's something inside me that's pure evil," he said simply. "I've always been able to draw power from spirits, but the only ones that I can hear are the ones that are evil and dangerous. I bond with them, but it's always a battle not to let them take me. They give me power only if I let them in." He shrugged, and began tracing designs on her chest, just above her heart. Her shirt was still on, but that didn't keep her body from tingling in response to his touch. "In order to get through that steel door and take down Tristan, I had to go deep."

She snuggled more intimately against him. "Has that happened before?"

"Once." He splayed his fingers across her chest, as if he were palming her heart. "When we were teens, Tristan and I were messing around with some friends. We were showing off. Tristan resurrected my girlfriend's dog, and she thought he was so amazing. I got pissed that she was into him, instead of me. I wanted to impress her. I wanted to put on a big show, so I summoned as much magic as I could. Unfortunately, we were near a graveyard that had been used as an ancient burial ground for people accused of being demons." He suddenly released her, sliding his arm out from under her shoulders. He sat up, bracing his arms over his bent knees as he stared across the room. "They owned me," he said. "Completely."

"Demons?" Oh, God, she could only imagine. Jordyn sat up, shivering at the loss of contact with him. She glanced around the room, and saw that a deep crevice had been burned across the floor where the funnel cloud had been. Furniture was broken and upended. It looked like a battle had occurred here, which, of course, it had. "What happened?"

"I killed her." His shoulders were hunched. "I killed all our friends, except Tristan."

Jordyn stared at him, her heart breaking for what he must have endured. "Oh, Eric—"

"Tristan killed me to break the spirits' hold on me, and then he resurrected me. The resurrection was complicated, because I'd been claimed by the spirits. He had to give me a piece of his soul in order to save me, connecting us irrevocably. Part of his life force is in me, so if I die, he dies. Conversely, if he dies, then the light that's sustaining me dies with him, and I have nothing left."

Jordyn's heart tightened at the sacrifice. What would it feel like to be loved so deeply by someone that he would give his very life for her? She thought of Tristan, who had done that for his brother, and of Eric, who lived with the realization of his brother's sacrifice every day of his life. "Tristan is not a fool," she said quietly. "He would never have given you part of his life force if you didn't deserve it. You know that, don't you?"

"Nothing is worth his life, the damned fool," he muttered, shaking his head. "He got me back to the living world again, but those spirits are still in me. I'll never be free. I'm their chance to go corporeal in this world, and they'll never stop fighting." He managed a grim smile. "They're where my magic comes from. If it's easy magic, I'm in control, for the most part. But when I need something stronger, things change." He held out his hands, showing her his scarred knuckles. "See? Monster. Told you I wasn't human. I wasn't before that night when we were teens, but now? Shoot me now, babe, because I'm your worst nightmare." He gestured at the burned out crevice. "That's only the tip of the iceberg, sweetheart."

"So, you're a demon?" She studied him carefully. Demon? She shook her head. That didn't feel right. Even when he'd been almost taken, his humanity had still been present. "What about when you bit me? Demons don't have breakfast at people's arteries, do they?"

"No." He looked over at her. "I'm not a demon. They were accused of being demons, but they weren't demons. Not entirely."

Her heart tightened, and then she knew. "They were vampires? The spirits that claimed you werevampires, weren't they?"

"Yeah."

She sat up. "So you're a
vampire? A demon vampire?
" Because being the soul mate of a rogue Calydon wasn't enough, right? She had to complicate her life by getting off the celibacy train with a demon vampire.

"Not exactly, but kinda." He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair. "I don't know what the fuck I am, Jordyn. I don't know what I'm capable of. I don't know anything." He looked over at her. "All I know is that I've never bitten anyone until you, and I've never wanted to. But when that thing was taking us, I knew that's what I had to do." He ran his fingers over his teeth, which were flat and human again. "I've been changing since I've been here. The darkness is getting stronger. I don't know what's going to happen." He looked at her neck. "I
bit
you. What the fuck was that? I
bit
you?"

He shoved himself to his feet and strode across the room. He braced his hands on the wall and let his head drop toward the floor.

Slowly, Jordyn stood up. She was still shaky, but her balance was better now. Her neck was aching, but in a good way, like she'd just downed a gallon of the richest chocolate fudge ever. Instinctively, she ran her fingers over her neck again, drawn to the spot where the brothers had bitten her. "Eric? Why didn't you want me to connect with you? Why didn't you want to bite me?"

He didn't answer, but his body was rigid with tension.

"Eric?" She walked over to him and put her hand on his back. His muscles jumped beneath her touch and he spun around, stepping away from her.

"Why didn't I want to bite you? Maybe because it's psychotic and insane?"

She almost smiled at his reply. "If you're a vampire, like Tristan, it's not psychotic and insane. It's part of survival. Yes, maybe a little barbaric, and terrifying under certain circumstances, but it's actually sort of sexy, in a weird sort of way." She thought back to the vampire that had attacked him and grimaced. "I mean, not when you got your throat ripped out. That wasn't sexy. I just meant when you did it to me." Great. Now she sounded like a vampire groupie? "I mean, I knew you needed to do it to survive, so it was okay. Because I knew you weren't going to kill me." Yikes. What in heaven's name was she rambling about? "Nevermind. So, yeah, how are you feeling?"

His eyes darkened as he looked at her. "Sexy? You thought it was
sexy
when I bit you?"

She felt her cheeks heat up. Of course he'd focused on that one word. He might be part demon-vampire-spirit assassin dude, but he was also Eric, who was always very pleased when the topic of conversation turned to sex. She cleared her throat, and walked over to retrieve her jeans, which had landed near the stairs. "Well, I guess. Didn't you?" Had she been the only one to have her body turn into a boiling cauldron of pure sex when his teeth sank into her flesh? Fully mortified now, she grabbed her underwear and pants, and yanked them on, not looking at him.

He said nothing, and she felt his gaze on her, drifting over her nakedness with the same heat that he'd sent in her direction so many times in the past. This time, however, it felt different, because the sexual tension had been shattered, sliced through with the mind-blowing sex that was still making her legs tremble.

She glared at him. "Can we talk about something else? It was one moment of weakness. So, I thought it was kind of sexy when you bit me. That doesn't mean that I suddenly think
you're
sexy or that I want a repeat of that little lovemaking session. That was to save us both, nothing else. Right? Right. Of course, right? Men," she muttered under her breath as she finished zipping her pants. "They overdramatize everything."

Slowly, he shook his head once. "You thought it was sexy."

The rough edge to his voice made prickles slide down her spine, and her gaze snapped to his. His eyes were blazing, and his gaze was suddenly so hot she felt her skin began to burn.

She froze, staring at him. "Did you?"

He nodded slowly. "Yeah. I did. It was hot as hell."

The tension between them thickened, until her belly began to throb.

"You want to do it again?" he asked.

She swallowed. "No. I don't."

He smiled, a predatory smile that had all the attitude of the man who'd chased her through the jungle to save her from being incinerated by a madman. "You're not a very good liar."

She lifted her chin and set her hands on her hips, ignoring the trembling of her belly. "You're not a vampire, Eric," she said, redirecting the conversation. "We both know that. You've been running around during the day since we met, and this is the first time you've ever wanted to bite someone, right? So it was just because you were in so deep to those spirits that have some vampire background—"

"I was bitten two days ago, and then I got daggers for teeth, bit you, and fed off your blood." His expression had become grim and serious. "So, yeah, makes a guy think, doesn't it?"

His words settled around them, and she stopped, staring at him. His eyes were dark and brooding. "You don't think you're an actual vampire now? I mean, you can't be. You're standing here sane, right? Vampires aren't sane. Just look at Tristan."

He took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. "Tristan," he said softly, his pain evident in his voice. "The poor bastard."

Her heart softened at his evident anguish, and she nodded. "I know," she said. "He was my friend, too."

His gaze studied her. "You okay? What did he do to you?"

Instinctively, she touched her neck, and Eric's gaze followed her movement. His eyes narrowed. "He bit you exactly where I did?"

"Yes. He was dying. I could tell. He needed to feed." She turned away, suddenly embarrassed by how she'd responded to Tristan's bite. Yes, she'd been thinking of Eric, but there'd been no doubt about the sexual nature of her response to him, even as she'd been trying to get him to stop. She picked up one of the upturned chairs and righted it. "I could see he was present, but the vampire side of him was dominant." She bit her lip as she lifted another chair. "He wanted to kidnap me. He said I was his." She glanced over at Eric. "I was kind of scared," she admitted softly. "I couldn't stop him. You saved me. Thank you."

Eric was quiet, and she glanced over at him. He had a strange expression on his face, one that she couldn't quite interpret. Guilt? Horror? Shock? "Eric? Did you hear me?"

Slowly, he turned and grabbed his own jeans. He yanked them on, his muscles flexing as he did so. Was it her imagination, or was he more chiseled than he had been before? Once his jeans were on, he turned to face her, his hands fisting by his sides. "I'm not the good guy, Jordyn. Don't thank me." He ran his hand through his hair again, in a gesture she was beginning to recognize as indicative of his tension. "We both bit you? How fucked up is that?" He shook his head. "Don't thank me, Jordyn. I'm your worst nightmare. We both are, apparently."

She frowned at his refusal to acknowledge that he'd saved her life. "You went simpatico with some really bad spirits to save me. I think that makes you a good guy."

"No. Just as Tristan is, well, he's not right in the head anymore, I'm also messed up. I'm a monster, worse than he is. If I go over that line, there's no more of me left. Just the predator."

Jordyn bit her lip, thinking of how it felt to have that mist touching her. The unbearable cold, sucking life from her body. There had been nothing of Eric in that nightmare, even though it had been created and built by the very flesh from his body. So, yes, he did have the big, scary, bad guy thing going on, but at the same time, he was Eric. After seeing the love of her life go completely insane and turn into a rogue predator with no mercy, nothing could really scare her anymore, especially not a guy who'd managed to stay completely sane while his body was disintegrating into the funnel cloud of hell.

"Yes, I admit that your woo-woo side is sort of daunting." She gave a slight shrug. "But it didn't get us, so it's okay."

"Is it?" he challenged. "You really think so?"

She frowned. "Well, we're both standing here, so yes, I think we're okay at the moment."

"Well, we're not. Those spirits are all over my soul, eating away at it. What do you think's going to happen to you now? Didn't you feel how they came after you?" He walked over to her and caught her arm, pulling her close to him. "Your blood burns in my veins now. Our souls are interconnected. We're linked on so many levels." His voice softened. "Your goodness saved me, but now the poison that haunts me is a part of you." He ran his finger over her jaw so softly that her throat tightened.

He spoke of terrible things, and yet his touch was mesmerizingly tender. "I feel the same as I did before," she said stubbornly. "I'm not tainted."