Raised in Fire (Page 20)

He put his hand up to stop me. Fangs elongated. “Please stop,” he said softly. “Please.”

“How about this. Don’t jerk me around, and I won’t mention the long nights I spent with his mouth trailing up the inside of my—” I stopped again as he flinched and then bristled. I laughed. “Look, I’ll be an adult about this if you will. I made a promise, and I’ll stick to that promise if you rein in the teasing sex crap. I swore to myself I’d never repeat the vampire situation, and I would like to keep that promise.”

He took a deep breath, and I could see him fight for control over his primal, predatory side. The man had power in spades, and the more time I spent with him, the more I could see it.

He stuck out his hand. “I really have no choice, but it would be a shame to hold back on one of the most enjoyable parts of feeding.”

“Ew.” I didn’t have to pretend to grimace this time, but I shook his hand anyway. “Don’t say feeding. The idea of me being food is not pleasant.”

“Would you like to sleep in my bed?”

I paused in my shake and yanked my hand back, my mouth open and my eyes wide. “Really? You couldn’t even wait until after we finished shaking hands to start that up?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” He held up his hands in surrender. “For warmth and companionship. I am offering closeness.”

“That wasn’t even a good save.” I pushed him back into his room. “Hopefully, we’ll make it back before you need blood.”

“If that’s what you wish.”

“I wish that, yes. You know, I’m not sure I get this new Darius. A soft spot on you is about as comforting as a brown spot on white carpet. I don’t know how it got there, I don’t know exactly what it is, but I’m expecting the worst.”

He took a few steps back, giving me that danged teasing smile as he stepped from my room into his. This was a cat-and-mouse game, and I was way too stupid to play. It was a humbling situation.

“Good night. Or…good day, I guess. G’day. Mate.” My Australian accent was the pits. “Anyway. See ya.” I waved and moved to shut the door.

“Please engage the enhanced protections against the sun in your room,” he said before I had the door completely closed. “As a special favor to me. If you are in danger for any reason, I don’t want to fight the sun when joining the battle.”

“Fair enough, but don’t be creepy. Don’t sneak in here, stand at the foot of my bed, and stare at me. I will firebomb you so fast you won’t have time to dodge.”

“Noted. And Reagan?”

I sighed, keeping the door open a crack. “Yup?”

“I apologize in advance.”

“For what?” I asked, knowing there were eight hundred things he should probably apologize in advance for, and they all centered around that blood draw.

“I will find out who that vampire was, and kill him. I will not be able to live with the knowledge that another of my kind has consumed your blood.”

I blinked a few times. “I’m not sure what to say. Please don’t? That’s insane? You have lost it, my friend, and need professional help?”

“If it makes you feel any better, I will blame it on the shifters so it does not come back to you or me.”

“That does not make me feel better, no. Don’t do either of those things. That’s lunacy, Darius. Seriously, you’ve gone off the deep end, and it isn’t good news.” He winked at me and moved to close the door from his side. “Don’t you dare! We need to talk about this—”

I surged forward, and got a door shut in my face. The deadbolt clicked over.

“Are you serious?” I wiggled the handle on basic principle. I thought about forcing the issue, but I was tired, and it wouldn’t do much good anyway. Still, he should probably know what he was up against. “In the event that you don’t have a personality change, another personality change, I should say, I will most likely kick down this door before this case is resolved,” I yelled. “Know that.”

I paused, listening. There was a random buzzing noise from something electronic across the room, but that was it. He didn’t plan on yelling back at me through the door. I would say he was taking the high road, but he’d just informed me that he planned on killing a stranger just because one time, a while ago, I’d had a fling. Like…what?

He had definitely gone insane. That couldn’t be good.

I headed to the bathroom and took a shower. I needed some sleep, and then tomorrow, I needed to find a mage without alerting his demon friend to my presence in the Pacific Northwest. I’d certainly had worse ideas than taking this case, but at that moment I couldn’t think of one.

“A little late, Reagan,” I muttered to myself.

Chapter Thirteen

My boots squeaked on the floor of the police station. The large space was quiet, those with regular office shifts having likely gone home. A check-in desk spread out in front of Darius and me, and the woman sitting there had her eyes downcast at her work.

I’d decided Callie and Dizzy hadn’t needed to come along since I wasn’t sure what, if anything, I’d find on this first leg. This gave them time to accost that poor, untrained mage we’d found after the last battle a couple months before. That mage lived in a small town somewhere outside of Seattle, and little though she knew it, she would soon get two bullies on her doorstep. Dizzy might seem nice, but that was because he was the good cop.

Full night had fallen before we’d left the hotel. I’d had a long sleep, a large meal—charged to the room—and enough time to slip out of the blackout shades in order to sit on the small balcony and watch the setting sun. The weather was sublime, cool and moist without being humid, and the gentle lap of the water on the support beams under my section of the hotel had helped me relax.

Not long after sundown, Darius had engaged the mechanical mechanism to open the shades before stepping out to join me. Without a word, he’d sat down in the chair opposite me and looked out over the blackened waters, allowing me to enjoy the moment unmolested. Or maybe just enjoying it with me.

“Do you wish you could see the world in the sunlight again?” I’d asked quietly, letting my voice melt into the moment.

“That desire has reawakened for me recently. A new vampire misses the sun keenly. That sentiment goes away, however. In time. I do not have an explanation for the return of that desire, just as I do not have an explanation for how my primal side is reacting to your presence. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“How is your primal side reacting? Or is it just the constant desire for my blood?”

He gave me a sideways glance. Silence took up real estate between us, and I started to think he wouldn’t answer. I was probably better off not knowing. But a moment later, he did.

“For some reason I can’t identify, I feel an overwhelming need to protect you. The primal side of me views you as mine, solely. I cannot pinpoint when this need took hold, just that it continues to grow stronger. I crave you constantly. I dream of you when I haven’t dreamed in over five hundred years. I take blood from others, but nothing quenches my insufferable thirst. We are not tied through blood, and even if we were, the bond shouldn’t be this consuming. Yet I am powerless to absolve my desire for you. In addition—”

“Oh good, there’s more. I was worried the crazy was about to end.”

“—you are incredibly valuable to me. Your abilities and lineage ensure it. There has never been anything as precious to me as you, be it as my beloved or as a bartering chip. My primal side wishes to claim you, but worse, my logical side realizes I must do that as a man claims a woman, as a husband claims a wife, in order to sustain your happiness. It is absolutely unheard of, not to mention absurd, for an elder to feel this way, yet…”

“I can see that this is sitting with you about as well as it is sitting with me.”

He looked away. “Something is causing this, but I have no idea what. I would like to undo it, but I need to find the root. A vampire in my position needs to think strategically. Without emotion. You are making that impossible.”

“Well. As is often the case with you, I’m sorry I asked.” I stared out over the blackened waters.

“I wonder if it has something to do with what you are. I want to ask Vlad, since he has been around longer than most of us, but I fear it will give away your true identity.”

I nodded and let the silence fall between us, until a new thought occurred to me. “He’s been around longer than most of you? You mean, there are vampires older than Vlad?”

“Yes. A few. They don’t engage much in political maneuverings, choosing instead to stay quiet, mostly in the Brink, letting time pass. They’ve let their minds go to sleep, it seems. They are content to live within the flow of humans.”

“And you can’t ask them?”

“I could. And they might know—one of them, at least—but they are unpredictable. It is not rare for a vampire to take a hundred years off, but then come back with drive and ambition. I don’t want to create that problem. Vlad is bad enough.”