As Twilight Falls (11 page)

“Why?”

“I don’t trust any of them not to betray this place.”

“Why would they?”

“There is a rather large bounty on my head.”

Kadie’s eyes grew wide. “Really? Why?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps because I’m the most powerful vampire in the country.”

“You are?”

“Impressed?”

“I don’t know. Should I be?”

He laughed, amused by her bravado.

“How much are you worth?”

“Last I heard, they were offering a cool five million for my head.”

Kadie’s brows shot up. “Wow!”

“Thinking of trying to claim it for yourself ?”

“Of course not!” She didn’t think any amount of money would persuade her to do such a thing. “So, who wants you dead so badly?”

He looked at her askance. “You don’t know?” Was it possible she really had no idea?

“Well, since you’re a vampire, I suppose a lot of people want you dead,” she replied candidly.

He laughed again. “True, enough, but there are others—hunters—who are more persistent, more knowledgeable about my kind, who have sworn to wipe us from the face of the earth.”

Kadie’s brows drew together. “But you leave town.”

He shrugged. “I’m a master vampire. I can do whatever I wish.”

In a voice dripping with sarcasm, she said, “Must be nice.”

He nodded again. Then, reaching for her hand, he drew her to her feet and walked her up the stairs. “Shall I tuck you in?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Too bad.” His gaze swept over her from head to foot. “Good night, Kadie,” he said quietly. “Sweet dreams.”

She closed the door, then stood there, his scent all around her, her thoughts muddled. How was it possible to hate him so much and still burn for his kisses?

Sunday morning, Kadie returned to the cemetery. She studied the two newest graves, but there was no way to distinguish one from the other. She told herself again it didn’t matter. Mona and Leslie were beyond caring. Tears stung her eyes as she carved Mona’s name on one of the crosses, and Leslie’s name on the other. She thought about Saintcrow. He had taken more of her blood than he should have the other night. Had he taken too much, she might be buried here, another casualty in an unmarked grave.

Blinking back her tears, Kadie bowed her head and prayed for the courage to endure what could not be changed, prayed that Saintcrow would relent and set her and all the others free, prayed that her parents would be comforted and not give up hope. Her father had become distant ever since Kathy took sick. More and more, he’d been away from home, and when he was there, he was always preoccupied. Men in dark suits came and went at odd hours of the day and night. They rarely stayed long, thank goodness. Her father never spoke of them. She knew little more than their names, but there was something about them that Kadie found disturbing.

Unable to hold back her tears, Kadie dropped to her knees and prayed for Kathy, pleading for a cure to be found before it was too late, praying that Kathy would hang on until Kadie got home. She had never mentioned her sister to Saintcrow, but maybe she should. Surely, if there was the slightest bit of compassion in his soul, he would relent and let her go home.

Driving back to Saintcrow’s house, she found herself thinking about vampire hunters. Until she came here, she had never believed vampires existed. Now it seemed that not only were they real, but there were people dedicated to destroying them. She could almost sympathize with Saintcrow and the others. It would be awful to be hunted, to have a price on your head. Still, the vampires could hardly blame people for hating them when they preyed upon humans. Maybe if the vampires could drink animal blood, people wouldn’t hate them so much.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew she was being naïve. After all, how could you expect someone to give up what they needed to survive? Still, she couldn’t help wondering if they’d ever thought of it? Tried it? Vampires did it in the movies all the time.

It was still on her mind later that night when Saintcrow appeared. Without thinking, she blurted, “Can you live on animal blood?”

“Excuse me?”

“I was thinking about what you said, about being hunted. Maybe if your kind stopped preying on my kind, we could all live together without killing each other.”

“All live together?” He laughed, his dark eyes filled with amusement.

Kadie stared at him a moment, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, before turning on her heel and running up the stairs to her room.

He was right behind her, his hand closing over her shoulder, stopping her flight before she reached the door.

“Let me go! No wonder people hate you! You’re despicable!”

“Kadie.” He turned her to face him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed at you, but . . .” He shook his head. “You’re so young, so innocent.”

“I am not!”

“A leopard can’t change its spots, and vampires can’t stop being vampires. It’s possible for us to survive on animal blood for a time, but sooner or later, we have to have human blood. There’s no way around it.”

“Do you like it? Human blood, I mean. Isn’t it . . . gross?”

“No. Some is sweeter than others.” He drew her slowly into his arms. “Yours, for instance, is remarkable. Warm, sweet, pure.”

“Blood is blood. How can mine be any different from anyone else’s?”

“Because you don’t smoke. And you don’t drink to excess. And you don’t do drugs. And you never have.”

“You can tell all that from my blood?”

Nodding, he drew her closer still, then lowered his head and brushed his lips across her throat.

And just like that, she wanted him. She knew it, and when his gaze met hers, she had no doubt that he knew it, too.

It was only a matter of time.

“Tonight, Kadie?” His voice, low and filled with the promise of sexual delights, made her stomach curl with anticipation.

Why not tonight? She wanted him. How much longer could she deny it? How much longer could she deny him?

“You want me.” His hands stroked her back, ever so lightly. “You know you do. Why fight it when it’s what we both want?” He pressed butterfly kisses to her cheeks, her eyelids. “You’re so beautiful. Say you’ll be mine tonight.”

She closed her eyes, on the brink of surrendering, when she heard Shirley’s voice in the back of her mind, predicting that, sooner or later, the monsters would kill them all. Quinn had killed Leslie. How could she have forgotten that?

With a low growl, Saintcrow released her. “I’m not Quinn,” he said, his voice tight. And then he was gone.

Kadie wrapped her arms around her waist. She told herself she should be glad he was gone. It was for the best, after all. So why did she feel so bad?

 

 

He stayed away from home for a week this time. Teaching her a lesson, she thought. Proving to her how much she would miss him. And miss him she did.

One night, she gathered her courage and drove to the tavern in town, hoping to find Vaughan. As luck would have it, she found him sitting at the bar, alone.

“Well, well,” he drawled. “Look who’s here. What happened ? You get tired of Saintcrow?”

“No,” she said, taking the stool beside him, “I just felt like a night out on my own. Anything wrong with that?” She glanced around. Besides Vaughan, there were four other vampires in the tavern, all sitting at separate tables.

The silent woman, Frankie, was tending bar. She looked at Kadie, one brow raised.

“I’d like a glass of root beer,” Kadie said in answer to her unspoken question.

“You didn’t come here for a glass of soda,” Vaughan remarked. “Why are you really here?”

Kadie nodded her thanks when Frankie brought her drink. Picking up the glass, Kadie gestured at the other vampires. “Don’t you guys like each other?”

“Not much.”

“Are there really hunters on the outside?”

He nodded.

“Is it true that you can’t leave here?”

“Yeah. Taking refuge here sounded like a good idea at the time. Safety in numbers. A secure location. A ready supply of . . . a ready supply. It was good for a while, but after forty-odd years, I’m ready to take my chances with the hunters.”

Forty years in this place? Kadie shuddered. “Why won’t Saintcrow let you go?” She knew what Saintcrow had told her, but she was curious to hear what Vaughan would say.

“He thinks he knows what’s best for everyone, just because he’s the oldest. Sure, we came here seeking a place to hide, but we didn’t know he was going to keep us here forever. I don’t know about the others, but I’ve had enough.”

Kadie sipped her drink. “So, we’re all in the same boat.”

“Yeah,” Vaughan agreed. “And it’s time for a mutiny.”

A mutiny was exactly what was on Lilith’s mind that night when she found a young couple who’d wandered across the bridge. They reeked of drugs and liquor, but she didn’t care.

With the speed of a striking snake, Lilith broke the woman’s neck, then carried the man up into the mountains.

He stared at her, his face white with shock. “You killed her.” He shook his head, obviously trying to clear his mind. “Why?”

“She was in the way.”

He blinked at her. “In the way?” He staggered back a step, tripped over a rock, and landed on his backside.

He let out a startled cry when Lilith flew across the distance between them and pinned him to the ground.

He shook his head again, fear penetrating the drug-induced haze that clouded his thoughts. “What are you?”

She grinned at him, displaying her fangs. “Just what you think I am.”

“No. No, it’s not possible.”

She grabbed a handful of his hair and jerked his head to the side. “Oh, it’s very possible,” she hissed, and buried her fangs in his throat.

He struggled, but he was no match for her supernatural strength. She drank until there was nothing left but a dry, shriveled husk. Wiping her mouth on his shirt, she retrieved the woman’s body, then returned to the mountain. It took only moments to dig a grave big enough for the two of them.

Throwing back her head, she gazed up at the sky. It had been years since she’d felt this good, this strong. This invincible.

And she liked it.

Kadie thought about what Vaughan had said as she left the tavern. A mutiny? Was he serious? What a bloodbath that would be, vampire killing vampire. Would any of them, human or vampire, survive?

After getting into Saintcrow’s car, she sat there a minute, her fingers drumming on the steering wheel. She didn’t want to go back to Saintcrow’s empty house and listen to the silence. It was too early for bed.

Putting the car in gear, she drove down Main Street, then turned right on Oak and drove through the residential area. Now that she was acquainted with where everyone lived, she knew that even though most of the houses were vacant, the people trapped here kept them in good repair. She hadn’t gotten to know the few men in town very well, but she had seen Jeremy and Carl mowing the yards and trimming the bushes of the empty homes. It gave them something to do, like working in the market kept Marti occupied. She wondered briefly where Saintcrow had taken Carl Freeman, and what Carl was doing now.

When she reached the end of the residential area, Kadie turned right and drove until the paved road ended. She switched off the ignition, then sat there, staring at the mountain. She had lost track of how long she’d been in Morgan Creek. Three weeks? A month? With no contact with the outside world, no newspapers, no calendars, how did anyone even know what year it was, let alone the date? She supposed you could count the years by the number of summers passing. Maybe even make your own calendar to keep track of the days and years. But what was the point?

Where was Saintcrow? Had he left Morgan Creek? What if some hunter had found him and destroyed him? Would the vampire mojo that kept them all trapped in the town be broken if he died?

Would she care if he was dead?

The answer was a resounding yes. For some insane reason, she had grown fond of him. More than fond. Maybe she just had a case of Stockholm syndrome. She had read newspaper accounts of hostages who had developed empathy for their captors, seen it in movies, and thought it highly unrealistic in spite of evidence to the contrary. Maybe it wasn’t as improbable as she had always imagined.

With a sigh, Kadie opened the door and stepped out of the car. Hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, she walked toward the mountain. The night had turned cold. She gazed up at the sky, thinking about the vampires.

Vaughan had been here over forty years, but he still looked like a man in his prime. Saintcrow was over nine hundred years old and didn’t look a day over thirty. What was it like for Donna and Rosemary to have been here for so long, to watch themselves age while the supernatural creatures remained forever the same?

She couldn’t help wondering if the other men and women who had stumbled into this place had died of natural causes, or if they had been killed when they were no longer young, or when they got sick. Everyone she had met seemed healthy. She thought of Donna Stout. The woman was probably in her late sixties. It seemed obscene, somehow, for the vampires to feed on a woman old enough to be a grandmother. She thought again of Carl Freeman. He had been unable to endure living here any longer, had hoped to provoke Saintcrow into killing him. And it would have worked if Kadie hadn’t pleaded for his life. How many other people, desperate to escape this place, had provoked one of the vampires into killing them, or had taken their own lives?

She was thinking about going back to Saintcrow’s house when a subtle shift in the air warned her she was no longer alone. Hurrying toward the car, she reached for the door handle, only to have someone grab her from behind.

“So, what are you doing out here all alone?”

She cringed as she recognized Kiel’s voice.

“You’ve been driving me crazy.” His arm slid around her waist, holding her immobile while his free hand moved brazenly over her body, touching, squeezing, while his tongue licked the side of her neck.

Revulsion roiled in Kadie’s stomach. Frantic, she jabbed him with her elbow, stomped on his instep, but he quickly captured both her hands in his, then backed her up against the car, trapping her between the Corvette and his body.

“Saintcrow will kill you for this.” She was shaking so badly she was surprised she could speak.

“I’m willing to take my chances.”

“Don’t, please.”

“I’m tired of this stinking place. Tired of the others.”

She shrieked as his eyes went red, felt the bile rise in the back of her throat when his fangs scraped the skin of her neck, drawing blood.

“You taste even better than I thought you would.”

“No!” She struggled in his grasp, but it was futile. Helpless, she closed her eyes and tried to pray, but she didn’t know what to pray for. Rescue? Or death?

The decision was taken out of her hands when someone pulled Kiel away from her.

Afraid of what she might see, Kadie kept her eyes tightly closed.

She heard a terrible, high-pitched scream, a horrible sucking noise, and then silence.

“Kadie?”

“Saintcrow?” She opened her eyes, felt her knees go weak with relief when she saw him standing in front of her.

“Are you all right?”

“You lied!” She glared at him, her body trembling. “You told me no one would bother me. That they would smell you on me and I’d be safe.”

“He’ll never touch you again.”

She glanced past Saintcrow, but there was no sign of the other vampire.

She didn’t ask what had happened to her attacker.

She really didn’t want to know.

She was still shaking when Saintcrow took her home.

 

 

A short time later, Saintcrow stood in the doorway of the living room, his arms folded over his chest. Regarding Kadie through hooded eyes, he asked, “What were you doing out there alone?”

“I was bored.”

She was sitting on the sofa, wrapped in a warm blanket, a cup of hot tea clasped in her hands. She couldn’t stop shaking.

With a wave of his hand, he dimmed the lamps, then ignited a fire in the hearth.

Kadie looked up at him. The light from the fire cast golden highlights in his thick black hair. It didn’t seem right for a vampire to be so outrageously handsome. He was a killer. No doubt he had killed the vampire who had accosted her, and probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of others, human and vampire alike.

“Thousands?” Saintcrow asked, his voice thick with amusement. “Really?”

“Too few?” she asked sweetly.

Saintcrow shook his head. “You really have a low opinion of me, don’t you?”

“In spite of your name, you’re no saint.”

“True, enough. But I’m hardly the monster you think I am, Kadie. If I was, you and all the others would be dead by now, drained of blood long ago.”

“Only a monster keeps people enslaved. Whether it’s for gold, glory, or blood, it really doesn’t matter to the people you’re keeping here. We’re still slaves. Worse than slaves. We’re like cattle to you, aren’t we?”

“I’m guessing you see the world in black and white, don’t you? Right and wrong. No middle ground. No shades of gray.”

“Pretty much.”

“Would you rather I had let Kiel feed on you against your will and then just let him go?”

“Of course not!”

“I warned him once. He knew what the penalty would be if he touched you again, and he paid it. I don’t have many laws here, but the ones I have are inviolable. If I’d let him get away with it, the others would see it as a sign of weakness. I can’t afford that.”

“Weak? You?”

“I can take them all, one at a time, or all together, but I’d prefer not to.”

“You let Carl go.”

He nodded, but said nothing.

“Where have you been?” She put her cup aside, then clasped her hands in her lap.

“Not far. Why? Did you miss me?”

She thought of lying, but what was the point when he could read her mind? Her gaze slid away from his. “You know I did,” she admitted, her voice little more than a whisper.

“I missed you, too.”

She looked up at him, everything else forgotten when his gaze met hers.

“What do you want from me, Kadie?” he asked quietly. “Besides your freedom?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” He closed the distance between them. Kneeling in front of her, he ran his hands up and down her arms.

His touch was light, yet it burned through her like fire. His gaze trapped hers and images rose in her mind, images of the two of them lying on his bed, their bodies entwined, their skin slick with perspiration as they writhed together. Even though his hands were now resting on her shoulders, she could feel them moving over her, caressing her. She tasted his lips on her own, felt the sweep of his tongue.

She swayed toward him, gazing at him through heavy-lidded eyes. “Kiss me,” she murmured.

He muttered something in the same foreign language he had spoken once before as he pulled her body to his. His kiss was bold, his tongue demanding as it dueled with hers in sweet, subtle seduction.

She leaned into him, her legs suddenly unsteady, her heart pounding a rapid tattoo in her chest.

Eyes blazing with desire, he said, “Tell me. Tell me what you want.”

“You know what I want.”

“Say it.”

“I want you to make love to me. Here, now.”

He growled low in his throat as he lowered her to the rug in front of the hearth. His hands made short work of getting rid of her clothing and then his own.

Soft sounds of delight rose in her throat as she ran her hands over him. In spite of the scars that marred his chest, he was beautiful, each muscle sharply defined as though sculpted by an artist’s hand. His skin was cool beneath her questing fingertips as she explored the width of his shoulders, his six-pack abs, the long, ridged scar that ran the length of his back.

Frissons of desire stirred deep within her every time she touched him. It was hard to believe he was a vampire when he lay quiescent beside her. His muscles quivered when she caressed him. It gave her a sense of power, knowing that her untutored hands could arouse such a magnificent creature. And he was definitely aroused.

He let her explore to her heart’s content and then he turned the tables on her, his calloused hands quickly learning the contours of her body, stroking the hills and valleys, whispering words of endearment in her ear as he aroused her until she cried out, begging for him to take her, demanding that he put an end to the exquisite torture. Mindless with need, she held him close, her fingers digging deep into his shoulders as she urged him on, certain she would die if he didn’t ease the yearning he had unleashed within her.

When she cried his name, he covered her mouth in a searing kiss as he rose over her, possessing her with one quick thrust.

She whimpered with mingled pain and pleasure as their bodies became one, heard him mutter something indistinguishable when he realized he was her first lover.