Dark Needs at Night’s Edge (Immortals After Dark #5)(14)
Author: Kresley Cole

They hadn’t discovered that, for a time, Néomi had been one, too.

After her maman had succumbed to influenza when Néomi had just turned sixteen, she’d begun doing shows. Néomi had been well developed then, and with the right makeup and costumes, she’d passed for twenty. Times had been tough, and the money was good.

She’d had no inhibitions, no moral convictions against it. Everyone got what they needed, and no one was hurt by it. Though she’d never been ashamed of what she’d done, she’d kept it secret because she’d understood that others wouldn’t view it the same way she did.

After a year of saving up money, Néomi had quit. She’d always dreamed of being a ballerina and hadn’t wanted to waste all those lessons her mother had scrimped to afford – and all the work Néomi had done to justify the incredible sacrifice. And somehow, she’d made it… .

Then I died.

She wished Conrad could have seen her as the ballerina she’d once been – onstage in a luxurious costume, flushed with pride, inundated with lusty applause. Would he have found her pretty?

She sighed glumly. She would never know… .

What would tomorrow bring with Conrad, the vampire assassin with his powerful body and ailing mind? As she drifted off to reverie, she wondered, Can we save him when he doesn’t want to be saved?

We?

The ghost doesn’t return the entire night.

And he resents her for it.

It takes till late the next afternoon before he smells the scent of roses. The room is lit with afternoon sun, but he can still see her floating directly through the closed door. He knows what to look for now, how to look for her, like a hidden message in a visual puzzle.

She acts as if she’s never left, absently lying back across the mattress and stretching her slender arms above her head. Her long hair flows out over the sheet – shining black, stark against the white. Her pale br**sts are barely contained by her dress.

She’s forgiven.

If he isn’t blooded, then why does this view captivate him? Why does it make his fangs ache?

Chapter 5

He continues to debate the possibilities of fractured memory, hallucination, or ghost. As far as a fractured memory goes, she fits this place, this situation, too perfectly. And if she’s a figment of his imagination, why would he imagine a woman the opposite of what he is normally attracted to?

He thought he liked tall, Nordic women with fair hair and their skin sun-pinkened from the outdoor life. But this female’s tiny and pale, not much over five feet tall. Her hair is black as night.

During his harsh human life, he would’ve scarcely spared a pitying glance at her, predicting the delicate girl wouldn’t last though the next winter in their war-torn country.

And she hadn’t survived long. She appears to be no more than in her early twenties. If ghosts were born of violence, then how had she met her end so young?

She wouldn’t have if she’d had a strong protector. I was strong. He stifles a low growl. I’d have kept her safe if she’d been mine.

Maybe he wouldn’t have predicted her doom over the winter and turned away. Maybe he would’ve approached her. In his rough way, he could have attempted to garner the position as her protector. He was a skilled officer. He’d been born a nobleman – and at least before the Great War, that had meant something. Perhaps she would have accepted him.

My God, to have had such a woman in my keeping… to have taken her each night.

He can imagine what that would be like. During the day, his nightmares have been varied with strange new dreams of pinning her arms over her head and mounting her luscious little body.

There’s a line… there’s a line… 

Could this woman possibly be real? This would mean that not only is the ghost not imagined – it would mean he’s gone three days without a single hallucination. A hundred years have passed since that happened last.

Which would mean, he might be… healing.

Like a starburst between his eyes, he finally remembers what he’d regretted, what he’d coveted so badly –

Nikolai and Sebastian enter then, their expressions grim. Why is Nikolai holding a syringe? In a tone low with warning, he says, "What’s the goddamned shot for? I haven’t done anything."

"No, but we fear you will," Nikolai says. "We need to take you from the room – and this will keep you from getting hurt."

When Nikolai nears, he yells, "Get the f**king thing away from me, Nikolai!" He doesn’t want to be mindless, can’t have that happen again. "No!"

I don’t want her to see me like that.

"Damn you, I said no!"

9

Néomi was stunned anew at how viciously Conrad fought the two men, pounding his forehead against Sebastian’s and nearly taking off Nikolai’s hand with his fangs.

In the end, his resisting gained him no ground. They injected him once again. Just before it took hold, Conrad stared in her direction with his brows drawn and teeth gritted, and she found that so much harder to see now.

When did my curiosity turn to caring?

His brothers had treated him like an animal – because that was how he’d acted mere days ago. She understood the need to keep him contained, because he was so incredibly powerful and could be dangerous if freed.

But he’d been doing so much better. And they hadn’t even given him a chance… .

As Nikolai and Sebastian led him, docile and barefooted, into the oversize master bathroom, Conrad’s eyes were heavy-lidded, and he’d begun speaking in that low, unnerving voice. His wrists remained chained behind his back. They must be intent on washing him. Curious, she followed them in.

Néomi’s second dirty secret? As a ghost, she’d become quite the voyeur.

She’d watched men shower before, but she’d never been so intent to discover what a particular man’s body would look like as she was now.

While Sebastian adjusted the water temperature and opened a bar of soap, Nikolai ripped away the remains of Conrad’s tattered shirt.

From her spot halfway up the far wall, Néomi sighed, admiring Conrad’s powerful physique. She hadn’t appreciated exactly how tall he was because he’d been lying down for so long. He would tower over her if she stood near him.

He had a narrow waist and hips and broad shoulders that looked tailor-made for a woman to hold on to during sex. With his hands behind his back, the corded muscles of those shoulders and his chest were stretched taut, displayed so attractively.

He was all male hardness, with so many scars marring his flesh, like the narrow one slashing up his torso. But she’d begun to find the evidence of his formidable life attractive, had begun imagining a scenario for each battle wound.

She’d seen Conrad fight with a ferocity that astonished her. She could all too easily see him brandishing a sword three hundred years ago, a massive warlord fearlessly storming a battlefield… .