"It"s a new direction for me, that"s for certain." He smiled at her again, then turned to Lucian. "Is Renate all right?" he asked.
Lucian was quiet a minute. "I believe she"ll be fine tonight. There"s no reason for him to come back for Renate. She"s served Darian"s purpose."
"Which was?"
"To get Jade," Lucian said.
Jade sat between him and Rick at their bar table, watching both.
Strange, it was as if they had been best friends forever, instead of forced companions for less than forty-eight hours.
"b.l.o.o.d.y Mary?" Rick asked her.
"Rick-"
"I"m sorry. Really. Want wine?"
"A beer tonight, thanks."
"Seriously, why are you here, Jade?" Lucian demanded when the waiter had left. "I left strict orders that you were to stay-"
"You can"t leave orders for me, Lucian, I"m not your subject."
He inhaled patiently. "Jade, it was foolish and dangerous for you to come. I had Ragnor there watching out for you, knowing that Sophia and Darian would have to follow me to protect the talisman."
"But you don"t understand, Lucian. Renate looked up the talisman and there"s a whole long history to the creature on it. It"s the symbol of a cat G.o.ddess that received human-blood-sacrifices. The G.o.ddess was so terrible that her images were all destroyed; she was wiped away, no matter what the cost, what the labor. She was supposedly burned, but the talisman has her ashes, and it won"t do any good to simply take the talisman from Sophia. Sophia must be burned."
He watched her as she spoke, and when she finished he looked down at his drink. Whiskey, she thought. Good Scottish whiskey.
He looked up at her again. "You came here to make sure I was aware of that."
"Well, of course. I said that. Knowledge. It can work miracles."
"Thank you."
"My pleasure."
"You shouldn"t have, though. You really shouldn"t have."
"But she did," Jack said. "And we"re all here. And-"
"Tomorrow. Tomorrow, we"ll go back to the cemetery."
"Did you look for Sophia and the talisman tonight?" Jack asked.
"We started to. Something called us back," he said, looking at Jade.
"Someone."
"So you might have found the talisman if it hadn"t been for me," she said.
"I didn"t say that."
"You meant that."
"It wouldn"t have mattered that much if I found the talisman. It still belongs to Sophia, right? According to what you"re telling me."
"That"s the information Renate found on the Internet."
"So we start tomorrow," he said softly, his eyes on hers.
He suddenly tossed a key across the table to Jack. "We"ve a double on two. Jade and I will take one of your rooms."
"That leaves me ... that means I get ... Renate?" Shanna said. "Do you think she"s safe?" Jade murmured, worried about her sister.
"Renate is safe. She hasn"t turned, and she isn"t in Darian"s power.
He left her-deserted her. Besides, we"ll be in the next room.
Tomorrow we"ll have to figure out if we have to keep her with us for her safety, or if she"ll be just too great a danger to have with us. For tonight we"ll have a room with Renate and Shanna just down the hall, and Jack will be down the hall from Rick, and we should all be close enough if there were to be any... happenings. Tomorrow ..." he said softly, his voice trailing.
"Tomorrow. It is tomorrow, has been tomorrow," Shanna murmured.
"Halloween," Lucian said dryly. He lifted his gla.s.s. "Cheers, everyone."
They lifted their gla.s.ses grimly. "People will be out everywhere by nightfall," Jack said glumly.
"Children," Shanna added.
"Pranksters," Lucian murmured. "All Hallow"s Eve. It"s natural that tricksters will be out as well. Along with those who mean much worse harm."
He drained his drink. "Happy Halloween. One h.e.l.l of a night. We"ll need to be prepared for it, really prepared. It"s late. My human friends, frayed by jet lag already-you need some sleep."
He left a note of Scottish pounds on the table and turned away. Jade looked at her sister and shrugged. "He has just a bit of a problem with this arrogance thing," she murmured.
Lucian had turned back. "Coming?" he inquired.
They all trailed after him.
In the room, Renate remained asleep on the bed. She was pale, but her breathing was even.
"She isn"t going to turn into a monster in the middle of the night and bite my neck off?" Shanna asked in a worried whisper.
Lucian, studying her, shook his head. "She"s tainted, like Rick was tainted. But he has not entered into her veins badly enough to bring about death. There are two ways to feed-one is to chomp down, drain the body, kill the victim, rip him to pieces."
"Charming," Shanna said. "And the other?"
"Steal a little blood every night. Enter the body and soul of the victim. Hypnotize, seduce, control. That was his plan with Renate. Now he"s lost interest."
"Great," Shanna said.
"He"s abandoned her. I think she"ll be all right" He looked at Shanna. "Are you all right? We could get another room, but I"d rather have you near."
"Oh, I"m just thrilled to pieces here," Shanna said.
"Shanna," Jade began worriedly.
"I"m all right. Seriously."
Lucian smiled at her. Jade thought her sister smiled back. She knew her sister"s thought processes. Go for it, guys; tonight might be the last night for any of us....
Shanna yawned. "Well, guys, good night."
Lucian kissed Shanna"s cheek. She kept her head lowered, hiding her grin as he took Jade"s hand, traversed the hall, and entered the second room.
He didn"t say anything to her. Nothing at all.
With his knuckle, he lifted her chin.
He kissed her lips.
His eyes met hers. He undid the b.u.t.tons on her sweater. His fingers slid around her nape and her collarbone, sliding the garment from her shoulders. His lips molded themselves to the flesh there. She felt the sweet burning. A sound escaped her; her arms were around his neck, and she was kissing him, holding him, tearing at the cashmere of his sweater, the tailored cotton of the shirt he wore beneath it. The bedclothes wound up on the floor, entangled with their own.
Her limbs were twined with his on the bed.
She craved the liquid fire of his kiss, his lips, so searing upon her flesh. She felt the power of his muscles, playing beneath her fingertips, moving so rhythmically against her. He rose in the night, his eyes on hers, an ebony blaze that burned into body and soul. Sleek, taut, the wolf in the night, the fierce protector, the force of the wind, rather than the predator of the darkness.
He is both, she tried to tell herself.
But it made no difference. She longed to make love, ached to make love. She burned for the feel of his nakedness against her, the slick pressure and friction of his flesh, the feel of him touching her, the sheer burn of him inside her, a fire that imploded and exploded, burned within her, and burned within the night....
"You fool," he said, at one point, looking down at her with his coal eyes unfathomable. "You shouldn"t have come. Why did you come?
Why did you come?" And he held her close, not seeking an answer, but she gave him one anyway.
"Because I love you," she said simply.
His arms tightened around her. She felt the deep heat and erotic tension of his lips against her flesh.
"Lucian?"
"Hm?"
"Maggie says that... there"s a way. If you love me, too, if you take my blood, drain me, to a point of death ... the chemistry can combine, the stars can collide ... something can happen that can ... that can ..."
He"d gone still. Dead still. He lay beside her then. "Something that can make me human again?" he inquired bitterly.
"Yes," she said softly.
He rolled, his fingers sliding against hers as he brought his weight atop her, his body and eyes pinioning her in the night. "And if she"s wrong? If the chemistry, the stars, the feeling ... the heart just isn"t there enough .. . What if I"m incapable of giving enough . . . What if you"re d.a.m.ned, and no more?"
She felt the power of his strength. His hold was almost painful. She didn"t know if he meant it to be so or not. She didn"t flinch. "I am willing to risk it."
He smiled slowly, then shook his head. "I cannot. I have been far too long d.a.m.ned, far too long a creature of the night. I know that you are suddenly the world, that I ache to be with you, long to be with you at all times, but is that love enough? I know that I would not do this to you, even to have you with me. And there is more. I can"t fall from what I am now; I can"t fail against my enemies. To let them loose upon the world with no restraints, no power strong enough to stop them, to allay them ... the world has changed. I am still what I am, and still with the mock tide, king of my kind, with the only strength to stop Sophia and Darian."
She touched his face. "I would do anything for you."
He arched a brow. "You know me now. You don"t know the man I"ve been in ages past. Or the creature, as it may be."
"I am supposedly so like Igrainia-" "But you have no vision of a past, no memories, no flashes of a life gone by."
"No. I am Jade, and no one else. But Lucian, I do love you!" she whispered softly, stroking his face, suddenly hungry for something far beyond the moment. A life. Together.
He caught her hand. "I have told you. I will not risk your life, or your death."
"Then what have we?" she whispered.
"The night," he told her.
"And it"s all you"ll offer me?"
"It"s all I can promise you."
"It isn"t enough."
"Then-"
"It will do!" she whispered, angry, hurt, loath to want him so badly, when he offered her so very little. And yet she understood.
And maybe he knew that when his ebony eyes touched her.
He made love to her until they were both sated, exhausted.
Then he held her, his chin atop her head, his body wrapped to hers.
She felt her exhaustion, and knew he lay awake. He would leave her, she thought.
"You"re going," she whispered.
"I need a different kind of peace," he told her. "When darkness falls again ... we"ll all need to be ready." He swung on her suddenly. "I will come tomorrow, before the darkness. Stay safe, stay ready. I will be back with you. You understand, Jade?"
"I"ll be fine. They"ll need to rest and be ready as well."
He was silent "You could take me with you," she reminded him.
His arms tightened. He did not accept her suggestion. She held him, almost trying not to sleep. She was not so much afraid of losing her life as she was afraid of losing him.