The Last of the Red-Hot Vampires (14 page)

Hunger roared through him with such intensity it made me gasp. He started toward me, his eyes black as onyx, one hand undoing his belt. “Intrigued, yes. Impassioned, definitely. Aroused…” He glanced down at himself. “I don't believe that is in question. But wrapped around your little finger? I am not so easily manipulated.”

“How about in love?” I asked, suddenly breathless as he knelt on the bed and started crawling up my legs.

He stopped, his face impassive, but inside him a great well of pain existed. “I have loved women before, Portia. I don't think I could have lasted as long as I have without occasionally being in love, caring for someone, and receiving love in return.”

A knife twisted in my heart. It was unreasonable for me to expect that Theo could live the thousand plus years he had lived without falling in love, but my heart refused to recognize reason.

“What I feel for you is…different.”

Different could be good. Different could be…oh, who was I fooling? Different was horrible. I didn't want to be different—I wanted Theo to love me just as much as he loved the other women in his life. I wanted the same place in his affections, to mean something to him other than a means to an end. I wanted him to love me as much as I was coming to love him!

“I see.” My throat ached with unshed tears of self-pity. “These women you loved…were they immortal?”

“No. I knew when I began with them that the relationship was finite. I knew they would grow old, and there would come a time when they would die, and I would be left alone again.” He sat back on his heels and unbuttoned his shirt, tossing it onto a nearby chair. With a look in his eye that warmed me despite the pain, he continued up the length of my body. “You, as I said, are different. Whether by Joining as my Beloved, or by acceptance into the Court, you will be immortal.”

“Which means that when you grow tired of me, you won't be able to count on attrition to get rid of me.”

His breath feathered against my mouth as he settled onto my body. “I have never grown tired of any of the women whom I loved. I mourned their passings, and felt myself diminished for a time.”

“And then you got over it and fell in love again.” The pain hurt so deeply in me that I wondered if there would ever be an end to it.

“Yes. But now there is you, and you, as I said, are different.”

His lips brushed mine as he spoke. I wanted so badly to kiss him, to taste him, to merge myself with him that my body shook. But the pain at his confession was too much, too much for me to live with. I couldn't do it.

“I need you, Portia.”

Hot tears leaked out of my eyes as I closed them tightly, turning my head to the side to avoid the torturous lure of his mouth. Oh, yes, he needed me. He needed me for sustenance. He needed me to help him achieve his greatest wish—salvation. He needed me not in the way a man needs a woman, but as a partner, someone sharing an adventure, bonded by circumstances into a symbiotic relationship.

You, my love, will be with me forever. You will be mine to love, mine to share the joys of life, mine to explore all the possibilities that lie before us.

I looked at him through eyes made blurry with tears. I wanted so much to believe him, but the pain was too deep to be erased with a few easily spoken words.

You complete me, Portia, don't you feel that?
His eyes were filled with fire, but it wasn't just the head of passion that burned within him.
It is true I have loved in the past, but I know now that I was only biding my time until you would come into my life. You are life to me, my love. I could not exist without you.

I burst into uncharacteristic tears at such beautiful words. I didn't need to look into Theo's face to know that he meant them—his emotions surrounded me, merging with my own until it was impossible to tell which were his and which mine.

His kiss burned more than just my lips; it scorched my soul with its intensity. I gave myself up to him, relinquished every last bit of me, but I wasn't in the least bit diminished. My heart sang as I drank in the sweetness of his mouth, filling me with such joy that I seriously thought for a moment that I would burst with happiness. I wanted to tell him how I felt, what he meant to me, how the warm kernel of love was growing into a feeling that lit up the corners of my soul, but the words would not come. Instead, I poured into him every emotion I possessed.

You don't have to say it, sweetling. Just as you know what I feel for you, so I can read your emotions.

Good, because it's a bit embarrassing falling in love so quickly with a man who I wanted to see in jail just a few days ago.

Theo chuckled in my mind as his tongue continued a lazy exploration of my mouth.
Kismet, perhaps? We were meant to be together.

Do we have time for this?
I asked as his mouth moved to my neck, kissing a hot trail down to my collarbone.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it, but if someone is bringing us food, and you said you thought there was a person whom we could talk to about the murders before the hearing, will we have time for…er…

Wild, unbridled lovemaking?

Exactly.

He froze for a moment, his head lifted and slightly tipped to the side, as if he was listening.

“We will in a moment,” he said, sighing a little as he climbed off me.

Someone knocked on the door. I leaped off the bed and straightened my shirt, hoping I didn't look like we were about to do what we were about to do.

“Your meal,” an elderly woman said, giving Theo a tray of covered plates. He thanked her as she left, setting down the tray on the table and lifting the lids off the plates. The scent of roasted meat and garlic filled the room.

He sighed again. “Roast beef. One of my favorites. I miss it already.”

“You can't eat
any
normal food anymore?”

“I can, but Christian cautioned against it until I became more comfortable with the vampirism. Evidently it takes some doing to digest food, and is not recommended for new…erm…inductees.”

Guilt pinged sharply. “I'm sorry—”

“Don't,” he interrupted, and pulled me into an embrace. His eyes were shining with a warmth that heated me to my toenails. “I insist that you stop feeling guilty about it.”

“Well, the least you can do is let me feed you,” I said, tipping my head so my neck was presented to him. “Soup's on!”

“No, you eat first.” He pulled away and waved me to a chair in front of the table.

“You're hungry. We'll take care of you, then I'll eat.”

“You're hungry as well. You first.”

The stubborn look on his face made me smile. I waggled my eyebrows at him, and summoned up my best leer. “Ah, but I'm hungry for more than just roast beef.”

A speculative glint dawned in his eyes. He looked down at the tray of food. I looked as well. The tray bore two plates of roast beef, potatoes, and assorted steamed vegetables. There was also bread, and something blobby that I remembered from a previous dinner at the pub was Yorkshire pudding. To the side sat a plate with two pieces of cake, lavishly frosted.

“You wouldn't be one of those people who eats her dessert first?” Theo asked as I smiled and picked up the plate of cake.

“Not normally, but I'm willing to break the rules now and again.” I carried the cake to the nightstand, dipping my finger in the frosting before popping it in my mouth and licking it off with exaggerated laps of my tongue. “Mmm. Cream cheese frosting, my favorite.” I raised my eyebrows, and waited to see if Theo wanted to play.

He looked at the bed, looked at the cake, then at me. Before you could say “frosted nephilim,” he was naked, lying on the bed, his arms open for me.

“You're sure we have time?” I asked, glancing at the clock.

“For this? Oh, yes. And if we don't, we'll make time.”

I laughed as I started removing my clothing, my heart swelling with love. How could life be so topsy-turvy, such a mess of confusion, and yet so wonderful?

Go with the flow, my brain reminded me. Just go with the flow.

“Still with me, sweetling?”

“Barely. It was a close thing there when you turned the frosting on me.”

Theo, lying on his back, a sated and very smug look on his face, waggled his eyebrows and hummed a happy little song about frosting-covered nether parts. “You certainly did seem to enjoy it.”

“That, my adorable fanged one, is the understatement of the year. Are you sure you're full? You seemed to spend more time in action, to be euphemistic, rather than dining.”

“I am full. I am well-pleasured. I am physically exhausted,” Theo said, waving a languid hand. His eyes were closed, his face relaxed as he lay next to me on the bed, delightfully naked. I trailed a finger down one of his biceps, making him smile a drowsy smile.

“You take a nap then, handsome. You certainly worked hard enough.”

“I did indeed, although it was a labor of love. And, I will admit, you helped a little.” He yawned.

“A little, huh?” I pinched his nipple. He pretended to snore.

The many pleasant after-tingles that were zinging around my body were one more reminder of the powerful emotions our lovemaking created. I gently traced the planes of his face, my finger stroking the length of his long, arched eyebrows, down to his high cheekbones and aristocratic nose. His lips curled slightly as I brushed them with the tips of my fingers, leaving me to marvel again at how something so mundane as a mouth could give so much pleasure.

“Sleepy,” he said, his voice thick with sleep and satisfaction.

“You go ahead and take a nap.” I glanced at the clock and sighed as I got off the bed. “I'd best go wash off the frosting and other…er…residue before we have to show up at the hearing.”

“A shower?” Theo's eyes snapped open. “Where you're naked and wet and soapy?”

“That's generally how a shower works,” I said, pausing at the bathroom door to bat my eyelashes at him. To my surprise (and no little amazement), he showed signs of arousal. I stared at his penis, watching as it stirred, thickening before my eyes. “You can't possibly be serious. You can do that again so soon?”

“Given the proper encouragement and inspiration, yes.” Theo slid off the bed and started toward me, a familiar glint in his eye. “I must admit to having a fantasy or two about taking you in the shower, your flesh satin-smooth, slick with soap and warm water.”

The images that filled my head left me stunned for a second, for a fraction of a second, really, and then I was running for the shower, intent on fulfilling the erotic images that danced before my mind.

The shower wasn't very large, one of those stall types with just enough room for the two of us to squeeze into it. But I was soaped up and ready for Theo by the time he joined me, fully aroused and filled with a hunger that seemed to echo inside me.

“You're sticky,” I said in between kisses, my hands busy rubbing soap on his chest.

“It's the frosting you smeared all over me,” he growled, nipping my earlobe. His hands were busy as well, smoothing a soapy washcloth over my back and lower, to my backside, before sliding around my thighs and heading straight for my personal paradise. “I'm not as sticky as you are, though. You're a dirty, dirty girl.”

“Oh, yes,” I gasped as his fingers danced a soapy dance that had me squirming against him. “I'm very, very dirty.”

“It behooves me to clean you up, then,” he mumbled against my shoulder.

“Especially since it was you who made me so dirty. Oh, sweet mother, do that again!”

He did. His fingers sank into me, curling ever so slightly until the friction pushed me to the very edge of an orgasm. I teetered there, not wanting to fall alone.

My hands slid lower, lovingly cupping his testicles with one hand while slicking soap down the length of his penis.

His eyes crossed. A sharp, pointy canine nicked my shoulder. He lapped up the blood as my hands moved up and down, quickly finding a rhythm that had his breathing ragged, his hips jerking in time to the movement of my hands. I opened my mind to him, allowing him to feel what his skillful fingers were doing to me at the same time he shared his rising ecstasy. It was a startling feeling, experiencing not only my own passion, but his as well, and it pushed us both higher until we hung with tantalizing agony at the edge of completion.

Theo's fingers stilled inside me, my flesh quivering around them. My hands stopped moving, his penis pulsing with his rapid heartbeat. Our eyes met.

I love you,
I told him, pouring my love into him, chasing away the darkness that dwelled where his soul had lived.

You are everything to me,
he answered with an honesty so intense it humbled me.
I could not exist without you.

An exaggeration, but a sweet one…all rational thought left my mind at that moment. His teeth pierced the skin at the back of my neck, his fingers coming to life inside me. My hands tightened around his penis, and the world supernovaed around us, exploding into a million tiny, brilliant pieces.

It took a long, long time for us to come down from our shared high, but when I did, it was to find myself slumped against him, his hands holding me upright since my legs had failed me. We were both wet, no longer soapy, and as I looked into his somewhat glazed eyes, I made a vow to myself that I would move the earth itself in order to spend the rest of my life with him.

 

“The penalty for murder in the Court of Divine Blood is eternal, and irrevocable. Only intervention by the sovereign can change it, and that has never happened.”

“A death sentence?” I asked, my knuckles white. I relaxed my hands, trying to take in everything Terrin was saying to us. I didn't ask how Theo had found him. I was just grateful that someone was willing to talk to us.

Slowly, sweetling. I will not allow harm to come to you.

I don't think even you can stop the people here if they wanted to hurt me. Can you?

Theo didn't answer me, but his sadness was all too evident.

“Not a death sentence.” Terrin paused for a minute, looking from me to Theo. “That is, not in so many words. Your existence would not be destroyed, but you would be…incarcerated.”

“Incarcerated here? In the Court?”

I suppose there are worse things in the world than being held prisoner in heaven.

Don't count on it.

Terrin shook his head.

“The Akasha,” Theo said. For some reason, I shivered.

What's the Akasha?

It's another name for limbo. It's where banished demons go, a kind of holding cell of misery and eternal nightmare. You do not wish to visit it.

“Yes.” Terrin's gaze moved to me. It was frankly assessing, as if he was weighing whether or not I was worthy of his time. Oddly enough, I wasn't offended by this. The days when I would feel outraged over the idea that someone might not consider me an equal seemed like long years ago. I sat, humbly waiting to see what information Terrin was willing to share, well aware that Theo and I were in a particularly precarious position.

Terrin seemed to make up his mind, nodding to himself. “When I conducted your second trial, I questioned your fitness as a virtue. You seemed to possess none of the knowledge, none of the skills needed to achieve success in the Court. And yet, despite the fact that you are charged with the murder of one whom you succeeded, my instincts tell me that you are telling the truth. I have seldom had cause to doubt my instincts, and I am loathe to do so now just because the evidence is to the contrary. The tale you told is unlikely, but not, I believe, impossible.”

He believes us! That's a step in the right direction. I'm glad you picked him over the other seneschals.

I had little choice. He was the only one on the list of Court officials whom I recognized. I simply assumed that he must be privy to the situation regarding Hope.

“Can you help us?” I asked, trying my damnedest to look earnest and trustworthy.

“Not in any official way, no. But I can give you the information you seek.” He leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs and steepling his fingers. “You are aware that the virtue named Hope has been missing and is presumed dead, given the note she left behind.”

Theo inclined his head.

“Suicide?” I asked.

“No. Her note claimed she was the victim of a plan whereby her Gift would be stripped and given to a mortal—to you, Portia Harding.”

Why does everyone but you address me by my full name?
I asked Theo, momentarily sidetracked by something that had bothered me.

Names have power.

“One note is hardly evidence—” I started to say.

Terrin lifted his hand. “The note continues with a somewhat impassioned claim that several murder attempts have been made against her already, and that she feels the two acts are related.”

“That's absolutely groundless!” I said, outraged. “I did not murder her. I have never plotted to take her power from her. I didn't even know who or what she was when I inadvertently summoned her!”

“So you have said.” Terrin looked grim.

My heart sank at the circumstantial evidence that was being used to manufacture apparent guilt on my part. It was transparent and ridiculous, but I could see how people who didn't know me might imagine it could be true.

“It is only because no evidence of Hope's body has been discovered that you have been allowed to continue as you are, under supervision only rather than incarceration.”

I've been supervised? By who?

I have no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me.

“This is absolutely asinine. It doesn't make any sense! Why would I want to kill a woman I'd never met?”

Terrin's gaze dropped. “The speculation is that, at some point, Hope returned to reclaim her Gift from you, and you killed her after a heated exchange.” He raised his hands to forestall the objection that was on the tip of my tongue. “I am not the one you need to convince of your innocence, Portia Harding. I am simply telling you what is being said around the Court.”

A dim rumbling sound warned of things to come.

Portia, control your Gift.

It wasn't easy, but I bit back several hasty and borderline rude comments about the mental makeup of the Court, making a concentrated effort to dissipate the anger which had been transformed into thunder. “Does any of that speculation run to why I would do something so heinous?”

Terrin's gaze dropped to his fingers. “I have heard that you are bonded by blood to Theo North. It is not difficult to imagine that someone with such a tie would intend to grant him a pardon as soon as membership to the Court was approved.”

I shot a quick look to Theo. He sat impassive, looking mildly bored, as if nothing the seneschal said had anything to do with us. “Everyone thinks this? Everyone thinks that I tricked Hope into giving me her powers, then I murdered her, and all to get Theo his pardon?”

“Rather starkly put, but yes, that is the explanation being given for your actions.”

“I see.” My knuckles were still white with strain. I made another conscious effort to relax my hands as I stood up, my head held high. “Thank you for your time and cooperation, Terrin. I hope that associating with me in this manner will not cause any problems for you.”

He stood slowly, a smile warming his eyes. “I do not fear repercussion, if that is what you are concerned about.”

“Good. Thank you again.”

“It has been my pleasure,” he said, bowing over my hand. “I have no doubt that we will meet again…hopefully, under less exacting circumstances.”

“Why didn't Terrin worry about meeting with us?” I asked Theo a minute later, when we had emerged from the dark warren of offices that were housed in the grand apartments. The sun was hidden behind several dark-looking clouds. I shivered, but the cold seemed to come from within rather than from the dark skies.

“I'm not sure,” he answered, looking thoughtful as he adjusted his hat, pulling up the collar to his coat to shield the flesh on his neck. “I suspect there is more to him than appears on the surface.”

“You can say that about everyone here,” I pointed out, leaning into him when his arm slid around my waist. “What now?”

Theo sneaked a quick glance at the sky. “It's almost Nones. Now we gird our loins.”

I didn't like the concern I felt in him, deep and dark and destructive. “I'm an old loin girder from way back,” I lied, giving him a bright smile that I hoped hid the truth that I was worried to death about the hearing.

You needn't be worried, Portia. I told you that I would not allow anything to harm you. I have a few tricks up my sleeves yet.

What sort of tricks?
I asked as we headed to the area containing the Petitioner's Park.

You'll find out in due time.

The sight of seemingly everyone in the city streaming into the narrow alley that led into the park was enough to choke any further questioning I intended to pursue.

Courage, sweetling. I am here with you.

For which I'm grateful to the depths of my being,
I told him as we elbowed our way through the throng to the center of the park, where a ring of druidic stones had been arranged in a style reminiscent of Stonehenge. Stone benches dotted the inner perimeter of the ring. Four of the benches were filled with various people. The fifth was empty. In front of it stood an officious-looking man, who frowned when he spotted us.

“Portia Harding, stand forward,” the man said.

I stepped clear of the crowd, into the circle of stones, Theo next to me in the shadow cast by one of the tall stones. I wanted badly to take his hand, but wasn't comfortable with such a show of affection in front of so many hostile strangers.