A Bloody London Sunset (Sunset Vampire Series, Book 2) (2 page)

They’re amazing, breathtaking, and terrible all at the same time, nature’s perfect predator, although their favorite prey is humans.

She gazed at him with a curious expression. “Welcome home, my love. It’s getting late, and I was growing concerned that something might have happened to you. Is everything okay?”

“Sorry, Kat. I got distracted doing things at the office. I would’ve called if something happened.”

During the weeks of recovery from his December injuries, she had behaved more protectively around him. However, in recent days, he sensed an added sense of attentiveness from her.
Not that I’m complaining, of course.
Who wouldn’t want to be the center of attention to a loving vampire mate?

He walked around the car to her and glanced down to realize that, despite the cold concrete floor, she was barefoot. “Let’s get those cold feet back inside.”

She giggled in a charming fashion. “Silly boy, I’m nearly immune to extreme temperatures.”

“My vampire superhero,” he quipped. Being a couple inches shorter than she, he tilted his head up to kiss her soft lips warmly.

“Are you hungry?” she asked as they made their way through the garage and into the house.

He noted a sly smile on her face. “Actually, yeah,” he replied as the scent of fresh-cooked food wafted from the kitchen. It smelled like sausage, eggs, and hash browns.
That’s strange
, he thought.
I’m the only person in the house who eats food
. Not that vampires couldn’t consume human food, of course. They merely didn’t need anything except blood for sustenance to survive. As he walked into the kitchen from the small hallway leading from the garage, he saw those very items on the stovetop.

“You cooked those?” he asked as Katrina appeared at the stove in a blur and began serving up everything onto a large plate.

She pulled a tray of biscuits from the oven, slipped two onto the plate, and placed the food on the kitchen counter before one of the barstools.

“Guess what?” she asked in a giddy manner that was completely out of character for her. “I’ve been watching some cable cooking shows over and over on the DVR, and I think I’ve managed to make breakfast!”

He dropped his book bag to the floor with a thump and alternated stares between the plate and Katrina in amazement as she retrieved a glass of ice water for him and placed it next to his plate.

Katrina cooking
, he mused.
Is this the
Twilight Zone
or the apocalypse?
“Wow,” he said.

She continued smiling and ushered him to the counter to sit down. “Go ahead,” she urged excitedly. “Give it a try and tell me what you think. I know it’s evening and supper time, but I couldn’t wait for you to try everything.”

As he picked up the fork lying next to the plate, he glanced up at her with a smirk and teased, “What have you done with my normally somber vampire?”

Her smile faded, and she adopted a predatory expression. “Eat, my love, while you still can,” she offered grimly.

His smirk transformed into an evil grin. “Now that’s my lethal lover.”

Caleb tried each of the items and was astounded by the taste.
Truth be told, she nailed these perfectly
.

“These are terrific, Kat. Honestly, this is wonderful. I appreciate it, and not just because I’m hungry.”

Her former smile returned, and she propped her chin on one hand while leaning on the counter next to him. “Thank you,” she cheerfully replied. “I wanted to do something nice for you. Cooking is a little offering of myself that I can give to you. I haven’t cooked in centuries.”

His eyebrows rose. “You never tried cooking for your previous mates?”

“Nope. You’re the first since my human husband, Samuel,” she replied with an endeared expression.

Caleb beamed with pride at that, given how important Samuel had been in her life.
She hasn’t cooked since the early 1500s then
, he realized.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed an overly stuffed large plastic trash bag sitting on the floor. He frowned, recalling that he had taken the trash out that morning before heading to work.

“So,” he carefully ventured, “did you have to practice much?”

Katrina’s eyes darted to the trash bag still sitting nearby and innocently looked back at him. “Not so much, I suppose,” she said. “Although I might have made a couple of orders to the grocery store on more than one occasion.”

Thanks to online grocers
, he mused. Last December when she had sequestered him in the house to protect him from Chimalma, she had located an Atlanta-based grocery chain that offered online ordering and delivery.

“I see,” he said with a smirk as he continued eating.

“I’m just going to take the trash out, and I’ll be back,” she said.

“I thought I took the trash out this morning?” he asked after swallowing a forkful of eggs.

“Oh, hush,” she mildly chastised as she walked out to the garage.

He smiled while continuing to eat.

She returned in seconds and washed her hands at the kitchen sink. “Alton called today,” she mentioned as she dried her hands on a towel. “He invited us to London when you go on spring break in March.”

“Yeah, he called me earlier about that, as well,” Caleb admitted. “It sounds like fun.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Really? Did he mention anything else?”

“Not so much,” he replied elusively. “Except to ask how I was recovering. He wanted to make sure I’d been rehabbing well from my injuries.”

She nodded, though her gaze was penetrating as she observed his reply.

Caleb knew why. Vampires had an uncanny ability to sense lying and deception in the human condition by monitoring heartbeat, pulse, eye reaction, and muscle tension. They were amazing lie detectors in an eerie way. Fortunately, everything he said was true.
I wouldn’t try to lie overtly about anything important
. Trust was vital in a relationship, more so when your mate was a powerful vampire.

“You’ve been exercising quite a bit recently,” she observed. “Your dedication is impressive, and your muscle tone is better now than before your injuries.”

His eyebrows rose slightly as he realized very little got past her. “You noticed?”

She confirmed in a seductive manner, “You’re always a subject of focused study for me, my love.”

He shivered slightly, and his eyes darted fleetingly to her as he chewed his food. Katrina had a way of unnerving him slightly when she wanted to, but always in a manner that he found both mysterious and pleasurable.
It’s a remarkable quality
, he conceded.

She walked behind him to caress her fingernails playfully down the back of his neck. A tingling sensation rippled across his skin, and she kissed him softly on the back of the neck. Then she silently exited the kitchen and walked deeper into the house.

“I’ll be in the sublevel room, my love,” she said. “I’ll start making our travel arrangements for the trip to England.”

“You mean you’re going to the lair?” he teased.

He had playfully coined the phrase to describe the large room that was at one time an oversized basement, but had since been converted into a mini-apartment. There were no windows, and Katrina had added a full bathroom and walk-in closet. Other additions included a wet bar, a wall-mounted LCD television with a surround sound system set before a large couch, two desks, a king-sized bed, and other bedroom furnishings. The centerpiece arrangement was an oversized computer hutch containing her vast array of computer equipment and the controller for the estate’s security system. If Katrina had been a superhero, the sublevel room would be her secret hideout. It did have an obscure entrance in the form of a hidden panel door leading from the main hallway, appearing as nothing more than a section of the wood paneling lining the hall.

Katrina stopped in the hallway and turned to stare at him. “Maybe we should start calling it our chamber,” she suggested with an edge to her voice.

“That works, if you prefer,” he said agreeably before lifting a forkful of food to his mouth. For reasons beyond his understanding, she didn’t care for the nickname he had selected.

“When you’re finished, please change into something casual,” she advised. “We’re going out tonight.”

“Will do,” he acknowledged.

After he finished eating, he cleaned up the kitchen and washed the few dirty dishes and pans. He proceeded to their chamber and changed into a pair of khakis, but kept his blue dress shirt on. He appreciated how gracious Katrina had been to allocate space in a chest of drawers and the walk-in closet for his clothes and belongings when he had moved in with her. Fortunately, his former apartment had been small, so there were relatively few clothes and belongings he needed to move into her estate. And though he still had trouble considering it his home, he enjoyed living there with her.

Maybe if she’d let me pay part of the bills, I’d feel better about it
, he mused while brushing his teeth.

Katrina appeared behind him, which startled him, much to her amusement. He shook his head and rolled his eyes to the ceiling as he finished brushing.

“Surprise,” she offered with a smirk.

He admired her reflection in the mirror. She had changed into black slacks and a turquoise turtleneck cashmere sweater. Her hair was tied back in a single ponytail, accented with a sterling silver clasp.

“You look great,” he observed after rinsing.

She grinned appreciatively. “Thank you. About ready?”

They made their way to the garage, and Katrina pulled the keys to the Audi from her small purse.

“May I drive?” he asked tentatively. “Please?” he added with a hopeful smile.

She cast an amused glance at him, knowing that he loved driving her car. Happy to indulge him, she tossed the keys to him. Ever the gentleman, he held the door for her and smirked on his way around to the driver’s side.

He drove contentedly to the nearby highway, but then realized that he didn’t know where they were going. Katrina interpreted his frown and curious sidelong glance.

“The chauffeur can proceed to the High Museum of Art, midtown just off of Peachtree Street,” she offered with a smirk.

He nodded and replied in his best mock-English accent, “Thank you, miss. We’re on our way.”

After a short time on the highway, something occurred to him.

“Hey, isn’t the museum normally closed on Mondays?”

She smiled. “Not tonight. They’re promoting a new exhibit that started last week. It’s a special traveling gallery of select eighteenth century artwork.”

He arched one eyebrow. “Sounds intriguing.”

After locating a downtown parking garage, they held hands on the walk to the museum. The High Museum of Art was actually a grouping of three primary buildings. As one of the premiere museums in the country, it was a key hub for special exhibits. There were over three hundred thousand square feet of space in the multi-storied buildings. Each was styled in an appealing mixture of angles and curves, while making excellent use of glass panes along portions of the exterior for a thoroughly twenty-first century appearance.

After they made their way into the main building, Caleb scanned the interior while paying for their entrance fees. The museum seemed well attended, but not overly crowded, for which he was thankful so as not to feel rushed while viewing the exhibits. The museum’s interior was bright and open, sporting multiple tiers of curved walkways bridging each floor.

They made their way leisurely to the newest exhibit area and browsed the collection. They stopped at a particularly striking landscape painting called “Gainsborough’s Forest,” also titled “Cornard Wood.” It was labeled circa 1748 and credited to the English landscape painter Thomas Gainsborough. It depicted people performing daily activities among a hilly and tree-strewn terrain accented by a nearby stream and pond. One worker gathered branches into a bundle, while two others appeared to be working beside a dirt road as another man observed them.

Caleb stared at the painting at length and then looked at Katrina, who was appreciating another work hanging a few feet away. He contemplated that she had been a vampire at the time of the painting, which seemed utterly surreal to him. Ever since the past December when she had revealed that her human birth was in 1506, he had struggled to wrap his mind around the idea that she had experienced over five hundred years of human history.
It’s astonishing,
he mused while staring at her.

Her eyes darted to look at him and noted his penetrating gaze. She smirked, moved to stand beside him, and snaked her left arm loosely around his waist. “You’re staring at me with that look again,” she whispered in his ear with amusement.

“What look?” he whispered, once again staring at the painting.

“You know what look,” she challenged while tightening her grip around his waist. “That faraway, doe-eyed expression that says, ’I can’t believe she’s that old.’”

He blushed over how well she had been able to read his expression. He had marveled at that alarmingly accurate ability since their initial courtship the past fall. “Well, maybe a little,” he conceded. “It’s just amazing, that’s all.”

She sighed and confessed, “I realize it’s a lot for a human mind to comprehend, given your limited life span.”

“Was it really like that in the 1700s?” he asked while staring at the painting.

She considered the painting silently. “Well, yes, actually. Everyday life for the average person was rather mundane, mixed with toil and struggle and interspersed with occasional moments of celebration or some personal noteworthy accomplishment.”

“Do you ever miss anything about those times?” he asked, looking around to ensure that nobody was close enough to overhear their conversation.

She considered his question at length. Finally, she replied, “For the most part, no. Technology makes things so much easier for vampires. However, I miss the formal gowns and dresses, as well as some of the lavish balls and parties. Everyone is so casual in this day and age. People rarely dress formally anymore.”