Sleeping With the Entity (24 page)

“How can you be so calm about all this? Someone just blew up your car!”

“Which is unfortunate. We have some vamps on the police force, but none in the fire department.”

“That’s understandable,” she said. “Fire and vampires do not mix.”

“True. But now we know why Miles is so intent on taking you. Because of the legend.”

“So now I’m not only dealing with a bunch of vampires and the fact that I may have weird druid blood, but there’s also a legend wrapped around the entire thing? Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you’re a soothsayer.”

“Don’t start with me,” she warned.

“Mating with you would increase a vampire’s powers. That’s why Miles wants you,” Nick said.

“And here I thought it was because of my sexy smile and sweet disposition,” she retorted.

“No, that’s why
I
want you,” he said with a slow grin. “I care about you.”

“You care about getting me in bed,” she said. “So this is all my fault.”

“Me wanting you? Okay, I’ll go along with that. It is all your fault.”

“I meant this war between you and Miles. Your car going up in flames. It was a Jaguar.”

“I can get another one.”

“You realize how this once again points out the differences between us. Not only are you a vampire and I’m supposedly some kind of druid hybrid, but you drive a Jaguar and I drive a Vespa. I didn’t even know you owned a car.”

“I fail to see what our vehicles have to do with anything.”

“We are total opposites. From different worlds.”

“And different vehicle dealerships. So what?”

“So what? So people are blowing things up because of me.”

“Not people.”

“
Vampires
are blowing things up because of me. Maybe this proves that vampires and druids don’t mix.”

“No, it proves that Miles would do anything to get you.”

“I’m just so glad that no one was hurt. No one was in the car, right?”

“No, no one was hurt.”

“It’s Halloween. What if people had been out on the street? Innocent bystanders just taking a walk could have been injured—or worse, killed by that explosion. I don’t think I can do this,” she said raggedly.

“Do what?”

“Any of this.”

“There is a way to end it.”

“Tell me what it is.”

“Have sex with me.”

*   *   *

Nick welcomed the fact that a loud pounding on the door prevented Daniella from replying to his comment. He could easily read the shock on her face, however. And perhaps a bit of interest as well? Or was that wishful thinking on his part?

The pounding continued.

“It’s Pat,” Nick said.

“How can you tell?” Daniella asked.

“His scent.” Nick went to open the door.

“You’re needed elsewhere,” Pat curtly told Nick.

“I can’t leave Daniella.”

“You can’t bring her with you,” Pat said. “I’ll watch over her until you return.”

“Where are you going?” she asked Nick.

“It’s better you don’t know,” Pat said. “We’re at Code Red,” he told Nick.

Nick nodded, but kept his eyes focused on Daniella as she answered a phone call from her father, no doubt wanting to make sure that she was okay. He watched the play of emotions race across her face: concern for her family, relief that they were fine, worry about the explosion.

Worry wasn’t an emotion that Nick had experienced very often since he’d been turned. It took a great deal to worry him. He’d displayed no emotion upon seeing his Jaguar in flames, other than relief that he had Daniella safe in his arms.

Normally an explosion of that magnitude would have blown out the windows on the block, but they’d had special windows put in during the last flare-up of hostilities with the Gold Coast clan. Unbeknownst to Daniella, they’d had the same specialty glass installed in her windows as well.

She completed her call with her father and turned to Nick. “What about my shop? I need to go downstairs and check it out.”

“No way.” Nick firmly took her by the shoulders and looked her right in the eye. “Your shop is fine.” Nick held up his smartphone and showed her a feed from the surveillance camera of the front of her shop. “You need to stay here with Pat.”

“You can’t compel me,” she reminded him.

“I’m trying to appeal to your common sense.”

“If I’m such a damn good soothsayer, then why didn’t I see that explosion coming?”

“Your skills aren’t as strong when it comes to vampires.”

“Great. That’s just great. What’s the point in having visions of the future if you can’t do anything about it? That sucks.”

“Soothsaying is not a perfect art.” Nick said.

“Clearly it’s not.” She tried to make sense of it all. “Could every one of my visions come true? What if a dream is just a dream or a nightmare just a nightmare and not some indication of an event yet to come?”

“I’m not certain of the way all this works,” he said. “I wish I was.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Have you had any visions lately?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“So that’s a good thing, right?”

“Says the man whose Jaguar was just blown up.”

Nick valued the slight smile she gave him ten times more than he valued his luxury vehicle. And that was a problem.

“We’re at Code Red,” Pat reminded Nick.

“Understood.”

What Nick had yet to understand was exactly how he was going to convince Daniella that having sex with him was a good idea. He hadn’t wooed a woman since his Regency days.

Yes, they were definitely at Code Red here. Which meant Nick had better come up with a plan. And it had better be a damn good one for it to get Daniella into bed.

*   *   *

Daniella sat in her favorite chair and stroked the soft linen, proud to see that her fingers barely trembled at all. Nick had left her alone with Pat, which wasn’t a problem. Not really. After all, she’d been alone with Bruce and that had been fine. But that had also been in her shop and not her living room.

Not that Pat was intimidating. Okay, he was a little intimidating. “I assume you know about this legend business?” she said.

Pat nodded.

“Pretty weird, huh?” Now she was strumming her fingers nervously on the arm of the chair.

“My definition of
weird
is no doubt different from yours.”

“Probably. But even you have to admit that this druid thing is kind of out there.”

“The facts have been confirmed.”

“It’s a legend.”

“It
was
a legend,” Pat said. “Now it’s a fact.”

His certainty was giving her the willies. Time to change the subject. “I’m sick of talking about myself and this mess. Let’s talk about you instead. Nick told me a little about his background.”

“He did?”

“He’s a Regency vampire. What about you?”

“I go back farther than that,” Pat said.

“Care to share?”

“No.”

“What about when you first came to Chicago,” she asked. “Or is that off limits, too?”

“This car explosion tonight reminds me of my arrival in the city,” he admitted.

“It does? Why?”

“It was 1865. I was hanging out with the elite of the city. The Palmers, the Fields, the McCormicks. Those were exciting days. Or nights.”

“Were you able to go out in the sunshine as you can now?”

Pat shook his head. “My activities were restrained to the after-dark hours.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear about those activities. “Is this going to get icky?”

“Icky?”

“You know, bloody?”

“Not if you choose not to learn about those episodes.”

“I’d rather not if you don’t mind,” she said.

He gave her a very direct look. “You do understand that vampires drink blood, correct?”

“Of course I know that. And I know you’re getting it from my family’s funeral home.”

“That’s where we are currently getting it,” Pat said. “Obviously we didn’t get it from there when I first came to Chicago.” He paused and once again gave her a look, only this time it was tinged with disapproval. “I fear you have a romantic idea of what our life is like.”

“I do not have a romantic bone in my body where vampires are concerned,” she said. She did have plenty of lusty hormones where one particular vampire named Nick was concerned, however. Not that she had any intention of telling Pat that.

“Have you seen Nick feed?” Pat said bluntly.

She gulped. “No. Some things should remain private.”

“Hmm.” Pat stared at her so long she started to squirm. Was he eyeing her as a meal? Okay, she really needed to stop being so paranoid. But that was difficult to do when banker vampires were blowing up cars on her block.

Like that Jennifer Lopez song, Daniella considered herself to just be Dani on the Block. She didn’t appreciate all this attention, especially from pissed-off bloodsuckers. She just wanted to bake her cupcakes in peace and quiet.

Clearly that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Unless she had sex with Nick.

Yeah, right. Like that was going to simplify her life.
Not.

“Do you know the difference between feelings and emotions?” Pat asked.

She was too confused to come up with an answer for that one, so she just shook her head.

“Vampires feel hunger, lust, anger.”

She noted his use of
lust
and not
love.
“Are you saying vampires don’t have emotions? That they aren’t capable of love?”

“Love weakens us.”

“So you don’t love Bruce? He sure seems to love you.”

“He wears his emotions on his sleeve,” Pat said. “The sleeve of his clown costume sometimes.”

“And what about your emotions?”

“I have been a vampire centuries longer than Nick. I have come to terms with my … emotions.”

Daniella frowned. “I don’t understand. Are you saying Nick isn’t old enough to experience love?”

“He hasn’t experienced it so far.”

“Maybe he just hasn’t met the right … um … partner,” she suggested.

“Perhaps. But such a partner would have to be able to handle his life as a vampire. That would take someone special.”

“Well, I’ve been told I’m special.”

“So I hear.”

She waved her hands in the air. “Let’s talk about something else. Can we get back to your early days in Chicago?”

“I assume you’ve heard of the Palmer House?”

“Of course. It’s one of the city’s oldest hotels.”

“I remember when they were laying out the plans to build it. Potter Palmer built it for his new wife, Bertha. It opened on September twenty-sixth in 1871. The hotel burned down thirteen days later in the Chicago Fire.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“I’m not telling you this as a simple history lesson. I’m telling you because a vampire’s life is not an easy one. Humans fear us, and when they fear something, they seek to destroy it. The fire was not caused by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow as is frequently reported.”

“I heard that story had recently been proven inaccurate,” Daniella said. “It was a way to blame the Irish, who were recent immigrants and therefore at the bottom of the pecking order.”

“It was a way to burn out the vampires.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Very much so.”

“You’re telling me that the Chicago Fire—”

“Was intended to get rid of vampires. But it got out of control and ended up burning down most of the city. Some vampires died, but some survived.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“Did the Palmers or the Fields leave? No. They rebuilt instead, even bigger and better than before. In fact, Potter Palmer built the world’s first fireproof hotel. He was a real mover and shaker, that man. His wife was even more successful. After his death, she doubled the fortune she’d been left.”

“Was this Miles vampire around in those days?”

“Yes. Miles the Mustache was the catalyst to the trouble leading up to the fire.”

“He didn’t start the fire, though, right?”

“No. Vampires are not fans of fire.”

“Yet Miles blew up Nick’s car tonight. He’s the one to blame for that explosion, right?”

Pat nodded.

“Maybe if I was a better person, I’d go see Miles and ask him to stop all this.”

“If you did that, you would be a very stupid person. And probably a dead person after he had sex with you.”

Her legs turned to jelly, and she started to shake. “Wow, you don’t pull your punches, do you?” she said unsteadily.

“It is best if I’m blunt about this situation.”

“I’m not just a person. I’m a druid hybrid, or so I’m told.”

“That would not help you survive Miles if he chose to end your life.”

“Okay, that’s good to know. Since you’re being blunt, I’ll do the same. What about Nick? Would I survive if he chose to end my life?”

“Probably not.”

She started to hyperventilate.

“The difference is that Nick would never choose to end your life. He’s not evil. Miles is. Nick takes no pleasure in killing. Miles does.”

“Wow. Okay. Uh, again, good to know.” She practically stumbled over the words.

“I’m not trying to frighten you.”

“You haven’t frightened me.
Frightened
is much too mild a term. So is
scared. Downright terrified
comes a little closer to how I feel right now.”

“Actually that could be a good thing,” Pat said.

“How do you figure that?”

“It could keep you alive.”

Chapter Nineteen

Nick was already in a bad mood when he entered the Vamp Cave. The news delivered from Bruce didn’t improve it any.

“We took a vote and we decided that you should have sex with Daniella the cupcake maker druid hybrid ASAP. Like tonight. Like in the next hour.”

Nick stared at the members of the Vamptown Council with flinty eyes. “So you decided this, have you?”

Bruce nodded. “We have. It was a unanimous vote. Except for Tanya, who abstained.”

“I only abstained from voting,” Tanya said. “Not from sex.” She came closer and ran her fingers down Nick’s T-shirt-covered chest. “When you’re done with the druid drone, you can come to me and I’ll show you—”