The Vampire King (10 page)

He took a step toward her, his polished shoe echoing slightly on the stone tile floor. “Do you understand?” he asked. His tone was gentle but insistent, as if he were speaking to an injured child.

Evie wasn’t stupid. She knew very well that serial killers and psychopaths had very strange ideas about what constituted harm to another individual. She knew that it was insane to trust him. But the world
was
insane just then – and as she stared up into his incredible eyes and felt his voice wrap around her, she couldn’t deny that she wanted to believe him. Very much so.

She nodded. It was all she could manage.

The man took a slow, deep breath and said, “My name is Roman. This is my home.” He paused and glanced at the doorway and walls for a second. “One of them, anyway.” He turned back to her. “I’ve brought you here to protect you.”

“F-from what?” she asked automatically.

From the horses
, her mind laughed. It wasn’t a reassuring laugh.
No
, she told it sternly, like a school teacher hushing a giggling student.
From whatever was outside
…. Her memories solidified, slowing down in time. She looked inward, as if stepping into a movie that played in her head. She saw the danger – felt it just outside the coffee shop windows. She looked at the windows,
through
them, and saw figures crouched, dark, and waiting. It was there for her. Death.
No
, not for her.

For Roman.

“They are called Hunters,” he told her. “And now that they’ve seen you with me, they’ll be hunting you as well.”

Evie blinked. She swallowed, or tried to, but her throat caught on the dry lump that had formed there. Tears sprung to her eyes with the effort, blurring her vision again. She ran her shaking hands down her jeans, looked down, and realized she was still fully dressed clear down to her thick wool socks. All that had been removed were her boots.

It was something reassuring.

Still looking down, as she found that it was easier to think when she wasn’t looking into Roman’s eyes, Evie said, “How did you get me here?”

“I transported with you. It’s a very simple spell for one such as myself.”

A spell….

The world darkened a little, and Evie felt that muddy slope beneath her once more. She thought of the parking lot and the horse-drawn carriage. She could even hear a crashing sound as the image became more real. “And the first time?” she asked, her voice having dropped into little more than a whisper. “With the horses?”

Roman didn’t understand why it was happening, but as Evie had slept off the effects of his trance, her memory fought the influence of his wiping spell, each past event surfacing with fierce stubbornness. Little by little, her subconscious won the battle for control of her mind, and within a few short hours, Roman was no longer able to decide what she remembered about the last two days. The images were there, clear as day, for her to re-assemble and witness.

There was nothing for it now but to tell her the truth. Roman was the most powerful vampire on the planet. He’d walked the Earth’s surface since before most cultures had recorded history. There was not supposed to be a human soul alive who could withstand his power.

But Evie could. She was remembering things now – and that wasn’t all. Little by little, her aura became stronger, blocking his waves of influence like a shield. Who the hell was she that she could do this? And why….
Why
did it have to be
her
? Why now? When she needed his help the most?

Fear churned her stomach; he could feel her discomfort as if it were his own. He didn’t know how this was possible when he’d already pulled out of her mind and she’d shaken off his influence without even trying to do so. But he could nonetheless. It was making her sick inside, this chaos of confusion, and because she was withstanding him, he could do nothing about it.

Not unless she wanted him to. Not unless she let him in and dropped her shields.

Her suffering was eating him up inside just as surely as if it were his own. It was draining him like nothing else had in a long time. It had been a while since he’d fed. He’d been busy with issues regarding hunters and werewolves and meetings – and then he’d spent every possible moment he could with Evie. Even as his angst for Evie’s discomfort grew, so did his hunger for her. It was an extremely volatile situation.

And now he could feel her anxiety ratchet up a notch. He could almost hear the tight twang of her rope of sanity as it pulled taut and threatened to break. She was a level-headed girl, and everything he was presenting her with made no sense, not in her world. Not according to everything she had learned for the last thirty years.

Suddenly, Evie ran a hand through her hair and he noted that the hand was shaking badly. She cocked her head to one side, broke eye contact, and took a rather stiff step to her right. She looked down at the ground.

“Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “Absolutely unbefuckinglievable.” She began to pace then, and Roman was tempted to push as hard as he could to get past her newly developed defenses so that he would know exactly what was going on inside her head. He felt helpless and that was brand new for him. It was like being behind the wheel of a very large vehicle with no brakes.

“My whole life, I fantasized about people like you, you know that?” Her voice was pitched a touch higher than normal as she turned and began pacing quickly in the opposite direction. “I wrote about you, dreamed about you, and believe you me, I wished and wished and fucking wished that you were real. It would have been
so
nice to know that there was magic in the world and that I wasn’t holding out for nothing.” She shook her head again, put her hands on her hips, and turned around once more, pacing a fast line back and forth.

She laughed harshly. “My mother told me I was too picky, my brother called me a shrew, and half of my high school class was positive I was gay because I just couldn’t be bothered to get into the boys around me.” She threw up her hands, spun, and paced again. “They were so damned
human
!” She laughed, louder this time. “And me, in my idiotic hold-out for something more, was bored
stupid
by humans!”

She turned on him then, her brown-gold eyes flashing into a striking amber with her anger. “Why do you think I write?” she asked, as if she were actually expecting him to answer – which she wasn’t. “Why do you think I nearly flunked out of high school because all I could do was write story after story about people who were
more
than human?”

She spun away from him, making a loud sound of stark frustration. “God!” she said. “I begged the world to send me something different so many times! I lamented the fact that there was nothing better to life than reality!”

Her voice shook, and Roman could sense that she was on the verge of tears. His chest felt tight and his fingers twitched. His fangs were fighting to erupt in his mouth.

“But nothing came! Nothing magical
ever
happened
!” She whirled on him again, the amber in her eyes now nearly yellow. Roman had the instant impression of heat, as if Evie were warming up, not just emotionally but magically. That otherworldliness about her that he’d sensed before was amplified. He felt it coming off of her in waves much like others could sense his own power. It was alarming.

Impressive
, but alarming. He feared an oncoming fight, a
real
one. And because he had no idea what it was he was up against, and because he could never bring himself to harm Evie Farrow, for the first time in his life the Vampire King wondered whether he would win.

“And that’s the worst tragedy of all,” she said next, spearing him with those powerful, golden eyes. “You filled me with hope and then dashed those hopes again and again.” Roman saw the moisture fall from beneath her left eye – one tiny but significant tear drop. “You let me believe against hopes. You may as well have just killed me.”

Never
, he thought.

She shook her head, and the speed of it gradually slowed. He could feel a change come over her then, as if reality were once more settling in and she was out of mental defenses to keep it at bay.

“What…
are
you, anyway?” she asked next, her voice once more very quiet. She hugged herself, and Roman knew it wasn’t because she was cold.

She stared up at him for the longest time and the silence between them stretched. Roman felt the world stop, the Earth’s heart stilling in its chest as it waited for him to reply.

A pulse of fate beat loud in his eardrums as he took a breath and said the words he had never before uttered to a human. “I’m a vampire.”

Chapter Nine

Roman had read all of her novels, so he knew well that the vampire was her favored literary character. As he’d read, the idea that she liked vampires had filled him with a mixture of pride and hope. It had been interesting, intriguing, and a little amusing. What he had completely missed and failed to consider was that there might be a
reason
for this fascination of hers.

Her descriptions of a vampire’s emotions, of his or her inner trials and tribulations, were amazingly astute. He’d chalked it up to the characteristics of a good author, but she seemed to understand things about vampires that a human shouldn’t – such as their hunger, their urges, and their ultimate loneliness.

Now, as he gazed down at her small, precious form and saw the desperation in her nearly glowing eyes, he had no choice but to believe there was something more to it. He felt odd about her and had since he’d first witnessed her in his dreams. He felt obsessed, painfully and desperately interested. And this was the way she’d felt about his kind for most of her life.

Desperately
interested.

There was a reason this was happening. There was a reason she was who she was and had done what she’d done with her life. There was a reason he literally couldn’t take her off of his mind for more than a second and didn’t want to leave her side for anything.

It was plainly evident, both in the way he now lacked control over her and in the growing supernatural qualities of her petite form. Evelynne Grace Farrow had lived the life of a human for thirty years. But she wasn’t a human. Not fully.

She seemed to stare up at him forever, and he had no idea what she was thinking. Finally, she repeated his words, and her tone was enigmatic. “A vampire.”

Roman could only nod, just once.

“Show me,” she said, and her gaze slipped to his lips. He knew what she was asking. It was what anyone would ask. A vampire’s fangs were quintessential. He allowed them to fully extend, and then bared them, all the while watching her reactions with hawk-like eyes – and fearing the worst.

Evie looked at his fangs, her expression still mysterious. He saw her swallow hard, normally an indication of fear. But she didn’t try to back up, and she offered no other evidence of a mounting sense of terror. Instead, she looked back up into his eyes and asked, “Are you going to kill me, Roman?”

“And I gotta tell you that it would totally ruin my image of you if you went all psycho on me and started ripping me limb from limb.” Her pitch of her voice had risen a little again, indicating that once-more rising fear he knew he had sensed.

It was now clear to Roman that she actually continued to talk because she was afraid of what he was going to say. She wanted to know if he was going to kill her – and she also really didn’t.

This time, he cut in before she could do so to him. “Not for anything would I hurt you, Evie. I thought I made that clear.”

Evie licked her lips, the act drawing his gaze to her mouth. It was a nervous gesture on her part, but it didn’t help to quell his growing hunger. She ran her hands over her jeans again, another nervous habit. And then she asked, “Can you read my mind?”

He almost laughed. At least he could be honest with her about that.

“No.”

It was another long moment before she spoke again. She seemed to be gauging everything he did and said, working something out in her head.

“What do you want with me?”

That was the question of the century. He had no idea what to tell her that wouldn’t scare the shit out of her. He wanted….

To lay you out on my bed.

“I want to help you,” he said. At least that was the truth, even if by far it wasn’t the whole truth.

Evie’s honey-colored gaze narrowed. She didn’t believe him. It had been a very long time since someone had not believed him. Though he couldn't blame her; he didn’t believe him either.

“You want to help me.” She straightened a little, still visibly trembling but somehow regaining her wits.

Roman knew she didn’t understand. How could she when he didn’t understand himself? He showed her his open hands in a gesture of well-meaning and said, “I don’t know why, but I’m drawn to you. It’s why I was able to save you, Evie.” He took another step forward, unable to help himself. The distance between them was just too far and it was driving him a little nuts. “I was there when danger struck because I couldn’t stand to be far from your side.” He paused when a look of panic floated across Evie’s beautiful face. “I think it has something to do with what you are,” he said softly.

Evie took a step back and Roman’s heart sank. “And what exactly would that be?” she asked, her tone still clearly frightened, despite her obvious strength of character. “Human?”