A Vampire's Honor (5 page)

“Anasztaizia, I'm not some teenager straight out of high school having her first love affair. I know Gabriel has had other women, and for all I know, they welcomed this type of possessiveness, expected it even. Maybe they were happy at not having to make decisions for themselves. But I'm not one of those women, and I don't want Gabriel thinking he can just make decisions for me. Please don't misunderstand me,” I said, quickly seeing the alarmed look on her face. “I love his attentiveness, but it's easy to blur the line between consideration and obsession.”

“Perhaps the problem is not just his,” Anasztaizia said, looking thoughtful. “Perhaps the problem is with you also.”

“What do you mean?”

“You're not just another woman to him, Rowan.” I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up her hand. “Please let me explain. Vampires are not by design solitary creatures. They live a solitary existence for the most part because it is in their own best interest to do so, but there is always a part of them that craves connection with another human being. And yes, being able to feed freely is a big part of it, but that isn't all a vampire wants from a human. If they are able to form a bond, then it is as if a huge weight has been lifted, and they have the freedom to be exactly who, and what, they are with that one person.” She paused, and this time her smile looked sad.

“Can you imagine how it must feel to spend every waking moment always in fear of discovery?” she continued. “Making sure every move, every word, every gesture does not betray you? For a vampire to know the need for blood will not be refused is nothing compared to being able to talk openly and frankly about his life. How the world has changed, lovers that have died, discoveries they have witnessed.” She gave a little laugh. “And of course being able to drop their fangs without making anyone scream is quite wonderful—or so I am told!”

Now I knew why Aleksei had been so pleased when I didn't keel over the first time he showed me his fangs—and why he continued to do so every time he saw me.

“But in the back of their mind is the knowledge that this will not last forever. A human life span is so short, and that fact alone is responsible for how their possessive instinct manifests itself. I can't tell you that all vampires fall in love with their human companions, but a very real affection does exist. They do what they think is necessary to protect their human companion, and also to show their appreciation for what is being given, even if it is sometimes a little overwhelming.” Putting her hand on my arm, Anasztaizia squeezed gently. “I understand completely why you feel the way you do, but I don't believe it was Gabriel's intention to deliberately belittle or objectify you in any way. He just wants to give you . . . everything.”

“But I've never asked him for anything—”

“It doesn't matter. To him this is no less than you deserve.”

“Well, I'm not sure how high heels and kinky underwear fit into that category.”

She shrugged. “He's male—what can I say?”

I sighed and carried my dirty mug and plate to the large sink. “This is going to happen again, isn't it? Oh, I don't mean replacing my underwear,” I quickly clarified. “I mean Gabriel doing stupid things.”

“Probably,” Anasztaizia agreed, “but it's up to you to make him listen whenever he does something you don't like. This may not be your first love affair, Rowan, but in many ways it is Gabriel's.” It was every bit as much my first love affair too, but I didn't tell her that. “If it makes you feel any better,” she continued, “Aleksei's stupid moment was to fill my closet with fur coats.”

“What?”

The lovely Magyar nodded. “Yes. More than twenty full-length coats. Mink, fox, rabbit, chinchilla, wolf. I burst into tears when I saw the leopard skin.”

“What did you do?” I asked, shuddering at the number of lives lost to make so many coats.

“I threw him out, which was a little embarrassing because he was naked at the time, and we were staying at the Hotel Imperial in Vienna.” That I would have liked to have seen—or maybe not. “He thought I might want to thank him for his generosity by making love on them.”

“Oh Jeez,” I muttered under my breath.

“Exactly. It took him two days to realize I wasn't going to speak to him again until he got rid of them all.”

“I'm surprised it took him that long,” I blurted out.

“So was I, but thankfully he did. And then he explained that this was how he had pampered the last woman he had been with—”

“The last one?” Despite what she'd just told me, I'd assumed Anasztaizia was the only woman in the big guy's life. The only one with any meaning at least.

“Aleksei is over three hundred years old,” she said softly, patiently. “He had other women before me. This particular one was a dancer at the Moulin Rouge. I think she might have been painted by Lautrec, or maybe he wanted to paint her. In any case, Aleksei became jealous, and they almost broke up.”

“And you're okay with this?”

“Rowan, dahlink, she was a can-can dancer who's been dead for over a century. What can she do to hurt me?”

I sat back down and looked at her. She was lovely and wonderful and had fully accepted that however much time she was going to have with Aleksei, she would make the most of it.

“If it's important to you, Rowan, then it's important to Gabriel.” She reached over and patted my hand. “But remember, he's a vampire, not a mind reader, and while he may be incredibly intuitive, even he needs to have things spelled out for him every now and then.”

She was right, and I knew it. Anasztaizia made me see my problem with Gabriel from a different perspective. One that was going to let me put down some ground rules without being confrontational. “You really are the best!” I said, giving her a hug.

“I'm happy to help,” she replied, handing me the rest of the Esterházy torte, which she'd boxed up.

I had parked the Charger close to the brick wall at the far end of the alley behind the restaurant, only now I was blocked in. A black delivery van was parked behind me, and so close I had zero maneuvering room. Freaking moron! Clutching my car keys, I opened the restaurant's back door and called Anasztaizia's name. “You know whose van this is?” I asked as she came down the hallway, her pointy-toed Manolo Blahnik pumps clicking on the tiled floor.

She frowned as she looked at the van and then shook her head. “Sorry, dahlink, I've never seen it before.”

“You think someone's getting a delivery?”

“On a Sunday?” Her face told me that was a big no. “It's probably someone having lunch.”

“But why park here? It's kind of out of the way.”

“Perhaps that's reason enough. Why don't you take my car?”

“Oh, I can't do that,” I said, turning down her generosity.

“Why not? I'm going to be here for at least another two hours. By that time the van will probably be gone and I can drive your car home. If not, I can get a ride with one of my guys.” One of her guys meant any of the kitchen staff who would be working in a few hours.

“You sure you don't mind?”

She grinned. “Didn't you already tell me I was the best? Let me get you the keys.”

A
nasztaizia drove a red Mazda MX-5 Miata with a retractable hard top that I would have loved to have put down, but an unfamiliar car always makes me nervous. Especially when it's someone else's pride and joy. I thought perhaps I might indulge myself when I returned the car to her later, but right now I needed to familiarize myself with the dashboard. Leaving the hard top up was probably the reason my injuries weren't more extensive, because I never saw the truck that hit me.

The green light said I had the right-of-way, which meant the truck that crossed the intersection at the same time I did obviously ran a red light. Who does that at 2:00 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon? One minute I'd been having a lively dialogue with my inner bitch about the art of compromise—
tell him the thongs have got to go, but you'll keep the bras and the Lady Gaga number—
and the next my world was a cacophony of screaming metal, screeching tires, and crunching glass.

I ricocheted forward and hit my head on the steering wheel, realizing, in a moment of absolute clarity, that the Miata's air bag had failed to deploy. Thankfully the seat belt kept its part of the deal, and stopped me from taking a header out the windshield. The strap, cutting across my chest, was agonizing, but it was, all in all, a fair exchange.

Anasztaizia's sexy little sports car came to a stop in the middle of the intersection, and, from what I could tell in a dazed glance out the driver's window, it was now facing the wrong way. The force of the impact had popped the hood open, obscuring my view through the windshield, telling me I owed the seat belt more than I realized. The smell of gasoline and burnt rubber filled the car along with the faint aroma of something citrus that had to be the air freshener plugged into the air vent.

The passenger side of the Miata had taken the brunt of the collision, which resulted in the door buckling to create a noticeable gap. I figured the only way it was going to open was with some help from the jaws of life or some similar device. A soft plopping sound startled me as a big dollop of cake fell from the ceiling to the floor. Apparently Esterházy torte didn't survive a violent impact too well.

I needed to get out of the car. The smell of gasoline was getting stronger, and I didn't want to wait around to see if anything was going to blow. The driver's-side door appeared to be intact, a detail that was confirmed a moment later when it was wrenched open. A hand reached toward me, and I gave an involuntary shriek as the blade of a very large knife was waved in front of my face.

The idea that the accident was anything but what it seemed was preposterous, and I can only blame the absurdity of my thought process on the blow to my head. At least I was spared the embarrassment of voicing my accusation, but only because my tongue seemed to be bigger than normal. In that same second I tasted blood and realized I'd bitten it. The knife danced in the air before slicing through my seat belt in a single, easy swipe. And then it magically changed into a syringe. I turned my head and forced myself to focus on the figure squatting next to the open door. Dressed in jeans, boots, and a wife-beater, he didn't strike me as being qualified to give me a shot of anything. At least nothing that was legal.

“Call . . . nine . . . one . . . one . . .” I mumbled awkwardly through lips that were swollen and a tongue that was getting decidedly thicker.

Ignoring me, the man grabbed my arm and pulled it toward him. There came a sharp pinch, and then I was being lifted out of the driver's seat as the rest of the world turned black.

* * *

I came to with a violent, full-body spasm that banged my head and hands against something with a hard edge. Disoriented, I sucked in a breath and almost choked. There was some sort of covering over my head. A bag or hood that, judging from the scratchy feel against my skin, was made of a type of rough sacking. It smelled foul. A mix of stale sweat, dried vomit, and old blood. The smell of fear.

My mouth was dry. I was so thirsty I could easily drain one of those water cooler bottles and ask for a refill. It had to be a side effect of whatever shit I'd been injected with. My tongue had been replaced with 200-grit sandpaper. Panic began to rise, and I had to stomp it down before it could escalate and run wild. If that happened, I had no chance of getting out of whatever hell I was in.

Call me crazy, but I was pretty sure my departure from the Dark Realm was more a result of being thrown out by a demon than anything I'd done on my own. Still, it was kind of nice to know my inner bitch was still with me, even if her advice wasn't exactly helpful.

I decided to check for injuries from the car crash, but this was difficult because not only was I hooded, I was also handcuffed. And who knew handcuffs were so heavy?

Yeah, well, that isn't me.

Gabriel had definitely expanded my knowledge of sex with some experimentation that could qualify as borderline kinky, but we hadn't gotten around to using restraints. And it wasn't like anything we did required a pre-agreed “safe” word. Besides, my idea of kinky was probably everyone else's normal, but I made the decision right then that no matter how many orgasms Gabriel promised me, I was never going to wear handcuffs for him. Not even fur-lined ones.

From what I could discern, I was shackled to metal bars. Was I in some sort of cage? I stretched my fingers, and the distance between each bar seemed to confirm this. As did the fact my arms couldn't slide down past my shoulders. And the bars weren't round, but square-cut, which explained why it had hurt so much when I'd smacked my head against them.

Cautiously I moved my lower extremities. If the numbness in my butt was any indication, I was sitting on a concrete floor. Okay, that confirmed it. Concrete floor and bars spelled cage in my world. A careful flexing of joints and muscles told me nothing was broken, and other than feeling sore and bruised in places I expected to feel sore and bruised, I seemed to be okay.

My inner bitch . . . always looking for the silver lining.

The worst pain was in my chest, and had to be from the seat belt. I couldn't take a deep breath without it hurting, so I made myself take shallow ones. Kind of like one of those dogs with the squashed-in noses. I was more than a little miffed at the air bag's failure to deploy, and someone was going to get a really nasty letter from me about that, but I've also seen pictures of people punched black-and-blue from kissing one. It's not like being whacked in the face with your bed pillow.

Once I got past my catalog of aches, I was surprised to realize how clear-headed I was. This was unexpected, because I figured that whatever had been in the syringe hadn't been a round of antibiotics. If my chronic thirst was the only side effect, it was something I could deal with. The bastard who'd injected me had no idea my boyfriend could rip his head off—literally—and I wanted to be the one to tell him he'd just made the last mistake of his miserable life. All I had to do was stay calm and wait. Gabriel would come for me. He had told me the bond between us was a strong one, so I was confident he'd already plugged into my emotional grid.

Yeah, well, there was that. I had no idea what time it was, or how long I'd been unconscious. After my abrupt departure this morning, Gabriel had probably taken advantage of my absence to catch a few ZZZs of his own. As an Original Vampire, he could go quite a while without sleep, but even he needed to recharge every now and then. And it had been almost a week since he'd last done that.

I could only imagine how angry he was with my storming out this morning, and I know if I were he, I'd go crash and give myself time to cool off. He wouldn't sense anything until he awoke, so yeah . . . that might be a problem.

I guess so.

The sound of approaching footsteps made me hold my breath as I tried to make out how many sets there were. Definitely more than one person, but the footfalls were muffled, and it was difficult to know if they belonged to more than two people. I figured the confusion might have something to do with the bag over my head. Then came a voice, an unintelligible garble that made no sense. Maybe I wasn't as clearheaded as I thought.

The covering over my head was suddenly pulled off, and I gasped in a mouthful of air that was a lot cleaner than what I'd been breathing through the foul sack. I opened my eyes and then snapped them shut almost immediately. The single fluorescent bulb in the ceiling was strong enough to trigger a sudden unrelenting pounding in the back of my head—one that ice-picked its way down my neck, across my shoulders, and halfway down my back. Chronic thirst wasn't enough. Now I was a candidate for a possible seizure. Although I was grateful to no longer be forced to inhale the odors left in the burlap sacking, I was of two minds about having the hood removed. I've watched enough cop shows on TV to know the inability to identify an abductor goes a long way toward ensuring the release of a kidnap victim. I had three kidnappers, and they either didn't watch much TV or had already decided identification wasn't going to be a problem. I was hoping for the former.

I peered into the gloomy shadows beyond the metal bars, and determined I was underground. Possibly a parking garage or some similar structure. And yes, I was in a cage. Shaped like an octagon, it made me think of an MMA fighting ring. The only way in or out was through a door cut into one of the sections of bars, and that was secured by a heavy link chain and a big, shiny padlock. Considering the fact I was handcuffed to the cage bars, it seemed like overkill to me.

The man standing next to the cage door was the same asshole who'd injected me while I sat, dazed and disoriented, in Anasztaizia's crumpled car. I thought it seemed more than likely he was also responsible for the accident in the first place. His partner in crime stood next to him, watching me with beady little eyes. Half the size of his buddy, he had dirty, unkempt hair that fell over a thin face with a sharp nose and pointed chin. He bounced from foot to foot, his hands darting in and out of his jacket pockets, his upper torso rocking from side to side. If he was a rodent, he'd be scurrying all over the place, so of course I christened him Rat Boy.

But it was the last member of this happy little threesome that I needed to pay close attention to. Dressed in a suit that looked expensive, as did the pale shirt and dark silk tie he wore, he was obviously the one in charge. His dark hair was slicked back from a face with chiseled cheekbones, a long nose, and a thin-lipped mouth. He also had a moustache, but truthfully I've seen women with more hair on their upper lip than he had.

He was also a vampire.

There was nothing blatantly overt about his behavior. Nothing that said
regular infusion of blood required
or
deadly allergic reaction to sunlight,
but I knew he was a vampire nevertheless. I think it was his skin that gave him away. The tone was too uniform, and there was something about the way he moved. It was as if he had calculated how every gesture would look when observed through human eyes. It was freaky weird, but I was learning not to question my own intuition.

He gave me a long look, took a few steps forward, and then narrowed his eyes as he continued to stare at me. I got the oddest feeling that I had disappointed him, that I wasn't what he'd been expecting. Yeah? Well, disappointment was a two-way street, because I found him seriously lacking as a vampire. Maybe being around Gabriel and Aleksei had skewed my ideas on how a vampire should look. Still, there was no doubt in my mind that this guy had his own set of fangs. Only neither of his two companions knew that.

“Is this some sort of a joke?” he asked them in a voice that was a little nasal and held enough of an accent to tell me English was not his native tongue. Rat Boy and the big guy looked at each other and then at the vampire. From the expressions they wore, it was plain to see his question flummoxed them. The vampire waited for one of them to answer, and I got the feeling he didn't have much in the way of a funny bone. “Who is this?” he snapped irritably, pointing a finger at me.

Two sets of eyes looked at him, then at me, and then at each other. It was quite a pantomime, and under different circumstances I would have laughed my ass off. Both of them looked horribly, almost comically, dismayed. Someone had fucked up. Royally.

“That's her—the woman you told us to grab,” the big guy said, sounding puzzled. He hesitated a beat before adding, “Isn't it?”

“Which one of you did I give my instructions to?” A slight movement of Rat Boy's head indicated he was the lucky winner. “And were they not explicit enough?”

I didn't think
explicit
was in Rat Boy's vocabulary.

“I guess,” he mumbled with what had to be the slowest shoulder shrug in the history of mankind.

The vampire suddenly yanked him across the floor, pushing him to his knees before me, and bringing him close enough I could tell it had been a while since Rat Boy had acquainted himself with a bar of soap.

“Does her hair look blond to you?” he snarled menacingly. Blond? Had they actually meant to grab Anasztaizia? “Did I not say the woman you were to acquire had blond hair?”

Not waiting for a reply, the vampire jerked Rat Boy to his feet and backhanded him across the face. It's got to be humiliating for a guy to be bitch-slapped by another guy in front of his pal. I couldn't tell if the big guy had participated in the screwup, but he absolved himself of blame by giving Rat Boy a hard look and saying, “You didn't tell me she was blond.”