Blood and Sand (33 page)

You need me.
He found himself reaching across the car to take her hand.
More than you know.

She squeezed it as she continued talking. “If we think the first hunts happened around three months ago, it could be that the negative effects of the drug are just becoming known. According to Beatrice, her friend Lucien started feeling strange about three to four months after he had fed from a human who’d taken it. So if they didn’t know about it before, they’re going to start figuring it out now.” She sighed. “Why dgheto fouro I feel like a lot more innocent people are going to die, human and vampire, before this is over?”

Natalie fell silent again, but Baojia couldn’t stop thinking about her mother. It explained so much. She was reckless not because she was foolish, but because she’d experienced loss. He found humans—and vampires—who had lost those close to them tended to live either far more cautiously or with less regard for safety than ever. For Natalie, that meant taking chances. No wonder her father worried about her. One night ago, she’d witnessed a monstrous game that made humans into prey, and yet she still offered herself up to go back to the lion’s den and talk to the priest.

He had to keep her out of this. She was too fragile. She had no combat training. None. Training her satisfactorily would take years he didn’t have. The inevitable confrontation would happen well before she was ready. He wondered if Matt and Dez Kirby might be his best chance at keeping her out of the actual fight. He could knock her out with amnis and lock her up. He didn’t want to do it, but he might if it came down to it. She could hate him later—she probably would—but she’d be alive. He’d have time to ask forgiveness.

“What are you thinking?” Her voice jolted him out of his musings.

“What?”

Her suspicious eyes narrowed on him. “You’re trying to figure out a way to keep me out of this, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely.” And he wasn’t going to lie about it.

“Forget it. Not going to happen.” She crossed her arms and slumped a little. “I’m not a helpless little girl.”

“No. From a physical perspective, you’re a helpless grown woman. You have no natural defenses against these vampires, and you’re a target.”

Her jaw was clenched when she said, “Point taken, but you’re not leaving me out of it.”

Irritated at her willful disregard for her own safety, he gripped the wheel but kept his voice carefully even. “Tell me something, Natalie. When you did that drug-mule story, were the police involved?”

“Eventually.”

“And were there arrests made? Were they taken to your human jails?”

“Yes. What does that have to do—?”

His quiet voice rose. “And did you, the intrepid reporter, actually go along
with the police
when they made those arrests?” She was silent. Fuming. “Did you? Or did you let the police do their job after you had done yours?”

“It’s not the same!”

“It’s exactly the same!” he exploded, pulling the car over to the side of the road and turning to face her. “And these vampires are far more dangerous than human gangs. These vampires are the people that human gangs run away from!”

She pushed her car door open and walked outside, but he followed her.

“Natalie, don’t walk away. You need to think about—”

She spun. “It’s not the same! It might not seem logical to you, but I didn’t
know
those police. They weren’t my friends. And it’s my friends I’ve brought into this. It’s my friends who could be in danger because of something that I pulled them into. I can’t just stand by while you all—”

“You are not going into any vampire fight. I will not allow it.”

“What are you going to do? Knock me out? Lock me in a room while you go fight this?”

Yes. That was exactly what he had planned on doing. Perceptive human. He only crossed his arms and stared at her impasd at thisively.

She could read his expression. “Bad idea, Baojia! Bad. Idea. The jury’s still out on you, mister. I haven’t decided whether you’re safe or not, and shit like this is not helping!”

Baojia took a step back, unexpectedly stunned by her words. She didn’t know if he was safe? He allowed her—a human he had known for a matter of weeks—to lay by his side while he slept. Utterly trusting that she would do him no harm while he was at his most vulnerable. But she didn’t trust him?
 

It hurt, but that hurt quickly turned to anger.

“You can’t trust me?”

Her face fell. “That’s not what I meant.”

“You said you didn’t know if I was safe or not.” He stepped forward as she took a step back. It only angered him more. “What have I done to harm you, Natalie? How have I not protected you?”

The color drained from her face. “Baojia—”

“I have done—I would do anything to keep you safe!
Anything
. And yet you say—”

“I don’t know if it’s safe to fall in love with you!” she shouted, tears falling from her eyes. “And I am. I’m falling in love with you, and it scares me to death.”

He halted, standing stock-still as her words reached him.

I’m falling in love with you
.

In love. With him?

Her words reached him. Filled him. Soothed him. Excited him.

She was still talking. “And part of me still thinks this is nuts. It
is
nuts! And I have this tiny idea of what your world is, but mostly I feel blind. I’m stumbling into a life I can’t see the end of, but you’re the only thing that makes me feel the slightest bit sane. And
that’s
not sane. You’re not human. When you killed that vampire—you cut off his head! You. Cut. Off. His. Head. And you did it like you were taking out the trash. And part of me screamed, ‘That’s not normal!’ while the other part was just happy that it was him and not you. I was
relieved
!”

He stepped closer, put his hands on her shoulders, and drew her near.

“I would be giving up everything to love you,” she said under her breath. “I wanted a family. I wanted a normal life. I wanted what my parents had, no matter how it ended, but I’ve never—” She choked, and he pulled her closer. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone. I feel crazy, but nothing else makes sense.”

He kissed her forehead, holding her as if she was something fine. Breakable. She was.
 

“Natalie.”

“What?”

“No one, in my very long life, has ever told me they loved me.”

She sniffed again, and he cupped her cheeks, kissing the angry tears that had fallen.
 

“Do you realize…” she whispered. “Do you know what loving you would mean for me? For my life?”

“Yes.” He kissed her lips gently, then he whispered in her ear, “Love me anyway.”

“Baojia,” she groaned, trying to pull away. He wouldn’t let her. He wanted it—he wanted her—with a desperate kind of longing he’d never allowed before.

“Be afraid,” he pressed her. “Be angry. Love me anyway. I promise you won’t regret it.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“But I will.” He held her as she stood motionless in his arms. “I will, Natalie.”
 

He was afraid to breathe until her eyes lifted to his, defiant again. “Then I do.”

Baojia backed her up against the black car. “Tell me.”

“I love you.”

She said nothing else, because he kissed her with a lifetime’s worth of longing. She was his. However she might protest, however they might fight. She was his from that point until the end of her days. His mouth ravaged hers. His fangs fell, cutting the edge of her tongue, but he only sucked it into his mouth, tasting the blood that flowed from the cut. Natalie grabbed his hair, yanking him closer as he lifted her to sit on the edge of the car so they were face-to-face.

“I’m still angry with you,” she panted. “Even though I love you.”

“I can deal with angry.” He yanked her hips to his and she wrapped her legs around him. “I want to bite you. And not because I’m hungry.”

“Why—?”

“Do you crave it yet?” He licked up the side of her neck until he could bite the lobe of her ear. “Do you crave my bite like I crave your taste, Natalie?”

Her only answer was a breathy moan. Her head fell to the side, exposing her throat to him. He grabbed the nape of her neck and forced her eyes back to his.
 

“If you were a vampire, I would take your blood every night. I would give you mine.” He grabbed the edge of her shirt, yanking it up and over her head so he could feel the heat of her skin on his. “I would feel your teeth pierce my neck. I would live in your body as you live in mine.”

Just then, she leaned over, sinking her dull teeth into the skin of his neck, biting down possessively as her lips sucked.

Baojia roared, his hand slamming into the hood of the car as her mouth pulled. She hadn’t broken the skin, but her teeth held him. A thousand nights flashed in his mind. A thousand years of her love. He had to have it. He had been empty until she filled him. With a snarl, he ripped her mouth away, baring his teeth at the drop of blood that lingered at the corner of her lips.
 

Her eyes held a kind of madness that mirrored his own. She fumbled with his pants, so he quickly shoved them down, then tossed
up the skirt she had borrowed. His fingers slid up the heat of her thighs. Hot. She was burning for him, like a fire in the black desert night. The moon shone down on her pale skin as she lay back on the hood of his car, the metal still holding the warmth of the engine. The only sound around them was the whistle of the wind rustling the brush. She glowed. The single bright spot of light in the blackness that surrounded them. No light, except the moon and the stars that dotted the blackness like the spray of freckles along her pale skin.

Suddenly gentle, he trailed his fingers lightly over her delicate collarbone, over the curves of her breasts, the dip of her waist. “You are lovely beyond words,” he whispered in Chinese. “For no words deserve you.”

She only breathed out, “Please.”

Baojia hooked her leg up and slid inside. Her heat surrounded him as he leaned over her body, pressing his mouth to her navel. The ripple of her ribs and the freckles that marked the swell of her breasts. He lifted her arm, drawing it over her head to anchor her as he moved faster.
 

“Yes,” she moaned.

“Yes, what?” One hand locked around her wrist as the other shoved her leg higher, changing the angle as her body bowed up.
 

“I want it. Your bite.” She swallowed hard, the tears teasing the coreasth awaners of her eyes.

“Then say it.” He bit back on his control, slowing down deliberately when he felt her pleasure mounting.

“Bite me, Baojia.” Her body arched, trying to move closer to him as he held her down.

“Not that.” He pulled her closer to the edge. “That’s not what I want to hear.”

She blinked in confusion until her eyes met his, then the blue softened as they glittered in the low light of the moon.

Natalie whispered, “I love you.”

He let out a harsh breath, leaned down, and bit.

Baojia thought they probably looked like refugees from some post-apocalyptic zombie film when they pulled up to the house in Pasadena. He looked over at Natalie with her torn shirt and dusty skirt. His pants were already ripped at the pockets from having to draw his swords the night before. His shirt was history, and his hair was almost as tangled as hers. They had not been gentle with each other out in the desert, and the dent on the hood of the car… Well, that had been worth it.

He cocked his head, frowning at her. “You know, once upon a time, I would have taken you out and charmed you. There would have been nice dinners and theater tickets. Maybe the opera.”

“Do you like the opera?”

He nodded. “I do, actually.”

“Then we should go to the opera sometime.” She glanced down. “We might want to change clothes.”

“San Francisco has an excellent opera.”

Her smile was shy, but not forced. “I’ve heard.”

“Just a thought.” He got out of the car and zipped around to her door before she could open it.

“My knight in dusty armor,” she said, brushing at the tatters of his clothes. Then she glanced at the rather large, hand-shaped dent in the hood of the Camaro. “I almost feel sorry about that.”

“Don’t. It was dented for a worthy cause.” He caught her glancing at the spot on his neck that had already healed, and she blushed. He was about to give the neighbors another show when he heard the motorcycle coming up the street. Baojia turned, recognizing the old amnis of the immortal riding it. The priest had arrived.

The gates swung open as someone spotted him from the house, and the motorcycle pulled up beside Baojia’s car. The giant of a vampire set a foot down and the earth trembled a little. He felt Natalie step closer to him and his guard went up, even though he knew the other immortal was an ally. The man pulled off his black helmet to reveal a shock of unruly red hair and a hard face. He swung his leg over the bike and stalked toward them.

Natalie blinked. “Carwyn?”