Vacation with a Vampire & Other Immortals (12 page)

Flames snapped and hissed in the hearth; somewhere in the house a grandfather clock bonged out the hour, and outside in the city the world rolled on. While Emma listened, Bain talked. He told her everything. Told her about life in the eleventh century. How he’d died at the hands of a Campbell who’d sold out their cause against the British for a handful of gold coins and a new castle.

She saw it all; the past was alive and vivid, as if she, too, had lived in the world he described. As if a part of her had always been with him.

Then he told her that at the moment of his death he’d met a being called Michael and was given a choice. His soul could continue on to whatever awaited it, or he could live as an immortal and battle evil through the centuries. Bain had accepted the challenge and made a home in the Highlands where he’d lived off and on for hundreds of years. This house, where they stayed in Edinburgh, belonged to another Guardian, Karras, who was off now on business of his own.

That was the only reason Bain was in the city. He was watching over the portals until Karras returned. Then Bain would go back to his home in the Highlands.

By the time he finished speaking, Emma’s head was spinning. She heard every word, watched his face, the shifting emotions flashing across his features as he told her of the passage of time. How he’d lived, alone, in a castle near his ancestral clan.

The Highlanders there didn’t ask questions of a man. Didn’t wonder why he never aged. The people there still believed in magic and the world of the Fae. They understood that not all of life was simple black and white and that there were no answers to some questions—so they didn’t ask them.

“And you live alone,” she said, feeling a tear in her heart at the thought of him existing in solitude for eons. Everything in her wanted to reach out to him. To somehow ease the loneliness that must be clawing at him. Surprised by the strength of her reaction to him, Emma tried to rein in her own feelings as he answered her question.

“Yes, I live alone. I’ve never felt a hunger to change that.” He turned his head again, to look at her now. “Until you.”

“Me?” Her heart shivered, but still she shook her head. “You don’t even like me. I’m a Campbell, remember?”

“Not something I’m going to forget, lass. But the heart of it is, you call to me and I know you feel the same.”

“I do, yes,” she said, scooting back on the couch as he shifted to lean toward her. “But it doesn’t make sense, Bain. We just met.” Love at first sight only happened in the movies, she thought. Or in books. It wasn’t real life, and even if it was, it wouldn’t happen to
her.
“I don’t know what I feel,” she hedged, her heartbeat quickening as he reached for her hand.

The instant his fingers touched hers, the moment his palm slid against hers, heat slammed through her. It was so much more than desire, though. This felt like her entire body was awakening all at once. As if she hadn’t even really been
alive
until this moment. There was something inevitable about it. As if she’d been made for him. As if her body had only been waiting for him to show up so it could welcome him.

How could she fight something so elemental?

“Do you feel that?” he asked, his deep voice a raw hush of sound. “The fire between us? The flash of lightning?”

Instantly, heat spilled from him, slid into her and sped through her veins like flames dancing atop a river of gasoline. She burned. She ached. She felt a connection to him she’d never known before. And when she looked into his eyes again, she knew he felt it, too. What was the point in denying it? “I do. What is it? What does it mean?”

“If it means what I think it does, you’ll not be leaving me. Ever.”

“Hold on here, Bain,” she said, needing to put the brakes on, for her own sanity’s sake if not for anything else. “There’s no way I can just stay here forever. I hardly know you. I have a life. Parents. A brother and—”

He kissed her.

Emma’s brain shut down and her body took over. Its needs supplanted everything else. Words died. Thoughts splintered. The touch of his mouth on hers dissolved everything but the very sensations it created. One corner of Emma’s mind fought to hide what she was feeling, but Bain wouldn’t allow that. He gave her more, demanded more. His mouth, his tongue, his breath, all worked together to drown her in more soul-shaking sensations than she’d ever known before.

Wrapping his hard, muscular arms around her, he leaned back on the sofa and drew her with him until she was wrapped across the top of him. She felt every square inch of his huge, amazing body and that only fed the flames already licking at her insides. His hands slid down her back to her behind and pressed her to him until she felt the rock-hard length of him and she knew exactly how much he wanted her.

She groaned as his tongue tangled with hers. Sighed as he lifted his hips into hers and she wiggled atop him as if trying desperately to get even closer to him. That tiny, logical voice in the back of her mind shrieked even louder, demanding that Emma stop. Think.

But she wasn’t the one who called a halt to what was the most sensuous experience of her life.

Bain pulled back from her, breaking the kiss even as warning bells sounded in his mind. There was more here than simple lust. More even than the slender threads of connection he’d felt ever since first laying eyes on the woman. This was deeper, richer, unlike anything he’d ever experienced with any of the countless women he’d been with during the centuries of his life.

His heart thundering in his chest, Bain sat up, gently easing Emma off his chest and away from the aching erection that was demanding he get closer to her, not farther away. But he’d be damned if he allowed his cock to be making his decisions for him at his age.

It wasn’t just lust pounding through him, Bain told himself as he fought to keep from reaching for her again. His gaze locked on her, he noted her swollen lips, her disarranged clothing and her quick, uneven breath.

He groaned inwardly as he silently admitted that he’d been right in his suspicions about the attraction he felt for Emma. From the very first moment he’d set eyes on her, he’d felt it. The
bond
that had leaped to life the moment she was near him. Now, Guardian legends raced through his brain—tales of Destined Mates. The one woman meant to be with a certain Guardian. How his body would know hers. His soul would recognize hers. How their connection would strengthen a Guardian’s powers even while tying him more closely to the human world he protected.

Bain had to acknowledge that he hadn’t put much faith in the legends. After all, a man living centuries alone could make himself insane, waiting and searching for a Mate that would never appear. Instead, Bain had put the legends from his mind and focused his energies and his great strength on the task given to him. Fighting demons.

Now his world had changed in the fast blink of an eye. She was here. In front of him. A woman from modern times that called to the ancient warrior within him. Was Emma the one? Was this woman his promised Mate?

There was only one real way to know for sure. According to legend, only his Destined Mate would be able to hear a Guardian’s thoughts. He looked into her eyes and sent her a mental command.

Take off your clothes.

She laughed shortly and straightened her shirt before pushing one hand through her tousled hair. “In your dreams.”

Bleeding, buggering hell.

The Fates were ever trifling with a man. But this was too much. To send him a Destined Mate after centuries of solitary life would seem a gift to some. But the fact that she was a Campbell proved that those very Fates had a most perverse sense of humor.

“Do you realize, lass,” he said on a sigh, “that I didn’t say that out loud?”

A moment passed, then two. And finally, her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open and she stared up at him. “But I heard—”

“Aye, you heard my thoughts. And that can only mean one thing. You’re mine, lass.”

S
he was his
.

Three days later, Bain’s words were still circling in Emma’s mind and she was no closer to being able to accept them. How could she? How was she supposed to believe that she was Bain’s Destined Mate? The one woman in the world meant to be with him?

“Not that you’d know it from the way he’s treating me,” she muttered to no one. Three days she’d been locked away in the Edinburgh mansion with the one man in the world who was supposed to be destined for her and had he made one solitary move since that amazing kiss?

No, he hadn’t.

She wasn’t disappointed, though. It wasn’t as if she
wanted
to jump into bed with a virtual stranger—well, okay, maybe she did. But if he was right, then he wasn’t really a stranger, either, was he?

And if she
was
this legendary Destined Mate, how could it possibly work out for them? He was an immortal. She wasn’t. So was she supposed to stay with him until she was old and wrinkly and then what? He moves on, looking for another “mate” while she checks into the Old Mates’ Home?

She sighed a little and walked into the garden of Bain’s elegant mansion. Beyond the gray brick wall surrounding the back garden lay Edinburgh, the city she’d dreamed of visiting. The city she’d always felt drawn to. Now she had to wonder if her longing for Scotland had been her own subconscious trying to get her close to Bain. Was it possible that she once had been a woman in love with Bain, and was now reborn to get another shot at a happily ever after?

“God. It sounds like a bad plot in a sappy movie.” But what other explanation was there? How did she know so much about him? How had she seen glimpses of his life? How had she read his thoughts? Why did she feel a “bond” with him?

Had she somehow known that coming here, to Scotland, would give her the opportunity to find the one man in the world she belonged with? And if so,
why?
To torture herself? Even if she was his Destined Mate, nothing could come of it. He was immortal and she was mortal. And that was just the beginning of their problems.

She was also an American with a family back home waiting for her. She couldn’t just settle down with a Scotsman they’d never even met! And what was she supposed to do about school? She hadn’t finished her degree yet and no way was she going to stop before she had.

Already because of this bizarre situation, she’d missed a couple of classes she couldn’t afford to skip. But every time she thought about going back to the university, she pictured Derek the Troll showing up and trying to drink her blood or something even more disgusting.

Emma sighed, tried to push those thoughts out of her mind and focused instead on everything that had been happening lately. She’d called her parents to check in, not that she could mention anything about the weirdness of her life at the moment. What was she supposed to say about that, anyway?
Mom, Dad, I’ve met an immortal and we’re supposed to be together forever.
Oh, yeah, that’d go over well. They’d have her on the first plane home, and from there to a lovely rubber room.

It wasn’t easy talking to people you loved and lying to them. She felt terrible about it, but she honestly couldn’t think of a way around the situation, either. Then, after calling home, she’d contacted the university to let them know that she would be missing a few classes. God knew how many, of course, but that was something she didn’t want to think about yet.

Just as she didn’t want to think about the whole Destined Mate thing.

The way Bain had explained it to her, once Mates made love, they were each of them strengthened. His powers as a Guardian would be enhanced and whatever innate strengths she possessed would also be made stronger. There would be a physical and mental connection between them. She could already hear his thoughts as he could hers—which was uncomfortable, but if they were to have sex, that psychic bond would become stronger, too.

That was probably why he was making such a concerted effort to avoid her. She already felt more connected to him than she ever had to anyone else in her life. She couldn’t sleep at night without dreaming about him. She woke up every morning aching for his touch.

Scrubbing her hands up and down her arms to dispel the chill racing along her skin, she wondered how she would ever be able to live without Bain if they ever did make love. Wouldn’t she miss him for the rest of her life? Wouldn’t she ache for him and pine for him and in general lead a long, miserable life all alone? And when she died a, hopefully, old woman, he would still be as he was today. Young. Strong.

Gorgeous.

And alone, she added, letting her gaze sweep across the tidy gardens and neatly clipped hedges. She knew Bain wouldn’t be able to find another Mate. She was it for him. So when she died, he would be left to just keep going and going, continuing on through eternity, so alone. So solitary. So separate from the very world he fought so hard to defend.

Her heart ached for him, as if she were already feeling the pain that he would be forced to live with. But nowhere in his description of the Mate thing had he said anything about
love.
So what did that really make her? Bain’s own personal battery charger? Not only would he get sex, but he’d become stronger. Was that why he wanted her here? Was it really not about protecting her, but strengthening Bain? And how would she ever know for sure?

“How’m I supposed to deal with this?” she wondered aloud, tipping her head back to stare up at the heavy gray clouds.

“You think it’s easy for me, then?”

Emma whirled around and watched as Bain stepped out of the house and walked with long strides across the patio. He wore his black jeans, a black shirt, and as his long black coat flapped around his knees, she caught glimpses of the sword still strapped to his side. She knew instinctively that he’d been out in the city, demon hunting.

And how weird was it that she was getting used to that phrase?

A cold, damp wind lifted his black hair off his shoulders. His pale blue eyes shone with fierce determination and his mouth was a firm, straight line. Just looking at him made everything inside her burn with a need that was nearly overwhelming. She wanted him. More than she’d ever wanted anything. Was she supposed to ignore that? Ignore the tug of something so fundamental?

God, she wished she knew what to do.

“I didn’t ask for this, either,” he said, his voice as soft and warm as the wind was cold. He stopped beside her and looked down into her eyes. “I’d long ago accepted that I would not have a Mate. Centuries since I’ve allowed a faint thought of finding the one woman meant for me to haunt me. To torment my dreams and fill too many solitary hours. But at last, I decided it was no way for a Guardian to live. How could I keep my mind on my duties if indulging in thoughts of a selfish need?

“No, I put the very idea of you aside, Emma, long ago. Now, when the notion of a Mate no longer even crosses my mind, you appear. A Campbell, no less.” He laughed shortly and the sound tore at her. “Fate, I’ve learned, is at times, a vicious bitch.”

“Well, that was flattering,” she muttered, whipping her wind-driven hair back from her face. “Thanks very much.”

“You feel the same and you know it, Emma.” He shook his head. “Will you not admit at least that the Fates have played you as strange a hand as they have me?”

Reluctantly, she had to smile. “Okay, yes, I can admit that. I came here to take a few classes. To see Scotland. Demons and Guardians weren’t exactly in the brochure.”

“It’s odd for you, I know. But,” he added, “you’ve accepted it far better than most mortals would. It’s the Scots blood in your veins. Makes you more open to the possibilities.”

“It’s Campbell blood,” she reminded him.

He winced. “Aye, I know. But still Scots.”

She smiled inwardly at the discomfort on his face. He really didn’t like the Campbells. That would make his meeting her mother really entertaining. But, she told herself, that wasn’t likely to happen, was it?

Shaking her head, Emma asked, “Bain, what does all of this mean for us?”

“It means we’re meant.”

He said it so easily, yet Emma knew he, too, was torn about this. She felt it in him. There was doubt in his mind and heart. There was concern for her—with the threat of Derek the Demon hanging over her head. And there was hesitation in him about changing the way he’d always lived his life. His duty to defend humans from demons was a huge part of him and she knew that he was wondering if he could do it as well as he always had if he allowed himself to care for her.

He was wondering, too, if perhaps the Fates hadn’t made a big whopping mistake.

“You say that,” she said, “but I’m picking up enough stray thoughts from you to know that you’re not exactly thrilled with all of this.”

He scowled at her as if he didn’t like being reminded that she could read what he was thinking.

“Besides. We’re meant? For what, Bain? For a lifetime?” She threw her hands up and her voice hitched a little higher. “Whose? Mine? Yours? You’re immortal. I’m going to get old and die.”

He reached for her, laid his big hands on her shoulders and pulled her in close. In spite of everything, Emma felt the heat of him flow into her body, easing away the chill in her blood. The cold in her soul. She snuggled in close to him, resting her head on his broad chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart, and she felt…
right.
As if she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

“There must be a way for us,” he murmured, resting his chin on top of her head. “I will find it.”

Emma wrapped her arms around his waist, hung on and asked herself if she really wanted him to find a way for them. God knew it would be easier if she could simply walk away from Scotland and pick up her old life. But she’d never be able to do that. Not knowing that Bain existed. Nothing was ever going to be easy or simple again, she thought with a rueful smile.

Because, yes, she did want Bain to find a way through this mess. A way for them to be together. To claim whatever it was that linked them so intricately together. It made no sense, of course. But it was as if she’d known him forever. As if she’d been born with these feelings for him and had only been waiting for them to flower.

She knew his thoughts, how he felt. She saw what kind of man he was. Who he was. And she admired him. Wanted him. Cared for him.

But she couldn’t say if she completely trusted him.

He kept part of his mind closed to her. Pieces of himself he denied her. Once they made love—and she knew they would; it was inevitable—would she be able to see all of those hidden pockets inside him? Would she be able to unravel the mystery of an ancient Highlander? Or would he still find a way to keep himself separate from her?

And a part of her wondered if she would be this drawn to him if she were still living in the dorm room at the university. If she were still going about her everyday life, would she be as intrigued by Bain? How could she be totally sure of anything? He’d swept her away from everything familiar and settled her down in a palace. Protected, perhaps, but cut off, with only him to lean on. How could she really know her own mind until life returned to normal? Until she could take a step back and look at everything objectively?

But what if that never happened? What if he kept her here indefinitely? It’s not like she could escape him. Mr. Ancient Warrior was probably a pretty good tracker, too. He’d find her wherever she went. And so, undoubtedly, would the demon. So she was trapped here. Forced to trust Bain whether she was ready for that or not.

God, could her life get more confusing?

“Your mind is a jumble of thoughts,” he said softly, lifting one hand to push a handful of red curls off her forehead.

“You shouldn’t be peeking, anyway,” she snapped, and hoped he hadn’t been able to read any one thing in particular. People shouldn’t be able to read each other’s minds, she told herself. Thoughts were private and, sometimes, embarrassing. For example, the fantasies she’d been having the past couple of days all starred Bain Sinclair. Images raced through her mind, leaving her staggered even as he groaned.

“If you keep having thoughts like those, lass, I’ll not promise to not look at them.”

“Oh, great.” She closed her eyes, mortified. When she looked up at him, he was smiling. “Just because my thoughts get a little X-rated now and then doesn’t mean I’m ready to jump into the mating bed with you.”

“Fine, then.” He inclined his head with a regal nod. “The mating bed, as you call it, can wait. Tell me what troubles you.”

“God,” she said with a choked-off laugh. “Where to start? You said that finding your Destined Mate would make your strength, your powers, grow.”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you’re keeping me here? To use me?”

“No.”

She leaned back and looked up at him, but his face gave away nothing of what he was feeling. Emma tried to look into his mind, but he’d shuttered his thoughts from her. That told her one thing, at least. He didn’t completely trust her, any more than she did him.

“That’s it? Just
no?
”

He sighed and tossed his hair back from his face. “If my only reason for having you here was to use you, I’d have already bedded you, lass. Sex with you will give me increased strength. Whereas this constant torture of wanting and not having is only driving me around the bend.”

“Torture?”

“You doubt it?” He pulled her closer and Emma felt the hard, thick length of him pressing into her abdomen. “My body aches for yours. As yours does for mine. You think to hide it from me, but your need pulls at me. Your fantasies are all too clear. Would you lie now and pretend otherwise?”

Her eyes closed on a wave of something hot and delicious. Just having his hard body pressed to hers made her damp and more than ready for him. Every cell in her body wanted him and it took every ounce of her strength to not give in.