Blood Ecstasy (Blood Curse Series Book 8) (9 page)

Julien knew that Rebecca was terrified, and of course, he knew where she was hiding: beneath the slender wooden
trestle in the third-story hall. He was a seasoned, instinctive tracker, with incredible intuition and skills. Finding Rebecca in his own familiar home had been no more challenging than taking candy from a baby. Her scent, her blood, her heartbeat—everything gave her away—including his own familiar imprint on the throw blanket she had donned.
 

He closed his eyes and tried to chill, taking a moment to think.
 

Nachari Silivasi’s memories, the time he had spent in the Abyss, had been sobering at the least; terrifying, without apology; and a major gut-check of the highest order. Julien didn’t know what he was doing, and he didn’t know what he wanted, going forward. But one thing was crystal clear: He didn’t want to end up there, in the Valley of Death and Shadows, not if he didn’t have to. Beyond that, he knew himself, at least peripherally: He knew why he took the H, he knew why he needed to be alone, and he knew that he could not function, or think, or reason when he was flying high. He was nothing but bare savage instincts, then—all his demons running loose—despite the fact that he was too zoned out to meet them.
 

But this?
 

Having his
destiny
here, hiding like a lost little lamb trying to avoid the slaughter, naked and afraid in his home? Running from the beast inside him?
 

Ah hell, this was beyond the pale.
 

Despite the fact that he was standing at a fork in the road—he could go left, he could go right, or he could just stand still—he needed to pull it together, if only for Rebecca, and show the female some warmth. Well,
warmth
was too strong of a word. He was still Julien Lacusta, after all. But he could at least show her some courtesy, let her know he wasn’t always a beast—he wasn’t always high—and offer her some basic consideration, perhaps a modicum of respect. More than that, he could at least try to get to know her, see what makes her tick. Maybe there was something she wanted, needed…desired…something he could give to her that she’d be willing to exchange for her required role in the Curse.
 

And didn’t that just sound effed up, any way you turned it?
 

He sighed.
Ah hell, it was what it was
.
 

He opened his eyes and scrubbed his hand over his face—damn, was this really happening,
now
?
 

Yeah, it was.

It really, freakin’ was.

And he needed to mend some fences.
 

Pronto.
 

He paused about five feet from his
destiny’s
perch and tried mightily to gentle his voice: “Becca, come out from underneath the table, baby. We need to talk.”

She jerked,
inhaled a harsh,
shallow breath, and then she grew inhumanly still.
 

He took a couple of steps forward and squatted down to place a soft white terrycloth robe on the floor, and then he added a bottle of Perrier water and a tray filled with cheese and crackers to the mix—
hell, it was the only food he kept in the house—
he didn’t have that many human visitors. “Angel, I know you’ve got to be cold, and you haven’t had anything to eat or drink since you got here—you’re probably hungry.” And didn’t that just make him the
ass
of the year. He sighed in exasperation. “Look, I know exactly where you are, beneath the table, so there’s no point in continuing to hide. Why don’t you just come out, put on the robe, and have something to eat. At least have a drink of water, and I’ll back up, have a seat at the top of the stairs. Nothing confrontational, baby. Just you and me…talking.”
 

He backed away from the olive branch, such as it was, and waited.
 

When she still didn’t come out, he made his way to the top of the staircase and sat down with his back flush against the wall, his legs sprawled out in front of him, and his feet crossed at the ankles. “C’mon, baby,” he implored her again. “I am not going to hurt you, and I am not going to mess with your mind. I promise.”
 

Rebecca looked like an adorable little turtle, slowly peeking her head out from beneath the heavy table, and for the first time, Julien became aware of just how beautiful she truly was: Her golden brown hair was filled with soft,
silky
S-curls that framed her gently rounded chin on the way to her slender shoulders. Her gorgeous, hooded eyes were nearly topaz in color, a rich smoky blue. And her naturally curved, arched brows were perfect in shape and fullness, accentuating her elegant features. She could have been a model if she chose, perhaps if she were a couple of inches taller, but either way, she had the kind of raw, organic beauty that turned heads in casual passing and probably stopped traffic on a daily basis.

And she didn’t carry herself as if she knew it.
 

Always, a major plus.

“Do you think I’m a freakin’ mouse?” she murmured, gesturing toward the tray full of cheese, as well as the water, as she crawled out from beneath the bench. “Or just too stupid to recognize a mouse-trap when I see one?”

Julien chuckled deep in his throat.
Touché.
“No, love, I do not. I think you are human, and you need to stay hydrated. I think you need something to eat.”

She clutched the meager throw blanket as she reached out to snatch the robe. “If you give me back my phone, I’ll order a pizza,” she quipped. “Look away.”

Julien turned his head to the side and laughed again. “I can order you a pizza. Is that what you want?” He waited, listening for the fall of the blanket and tuning in to the brush of the robe, the sound of the terrycloth sash twisting into place as she tied it.
 

“I want to go home,” she said crossly. And just like that, the light-hearted banter had come to an end.
 

Julien met her serious gaze. “I know you do,” he whispered, “and I completely understand. But that is not a wish I can grant.” He inclined his head toward the tray. “Please, at least have something to drink.”

“Like you did?” she replied curtly. Despite her courageous demeanor and her obvious irritation, the words were followed by a spike of fear. It was in her eyes. It was in her scent.
 

“Becca,” Julien breathed, softly. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

Her expression betrayed her surprise. “For what?” Her tone was increasingly caustic. “For biting me in the throat or making me act like a whore?”

 
A low, feral growl escaped Julien’s throat. “In a thousand lifetimes, under a thousand compulsions, you would never be that, not to me. And that is not what happened in my room.”

She drew back, and then, seeming suddenly self-conscious, she took a reluctant seat on the floor and folded her legs in crisscross fashion as she leaned over the tray. She took a small piece of cheese and plopped it in her mouth, chewing like she had to force the effort, and then she twisted the cap off the bottled water and took a long, generous drink.
 

Julien exhaled slowly, feeling surprisingly relieved. “About what happened in the bedroom,” he began, knowing they needed to face it head-on, “you’ve gotta know, that’s not who I am, a male who takes advantage of women…just because he can. That’s not what happened, Rebecca.”

She placed another slice of cheese on a cracker and slowly brought it to her lips, hesitating before she bit into it. “Then what did happen, Julien?” Her words were clipped, yet tentative.
 

He sighed. “When you came at me, by the window, you…you pushed a couple buttons…triggered some real ugly shit from my past. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I didn’t want to hurt you—not that I would ever hurt a woman—but I just, I just wanted to change the scene. I made the wrong calculation. I made all the wrong moves.”

She nodded, slowly. “And the opium doesn’t help.”

He narrowed his gaze and looked right at her, sweeping his hand through his hair. “Actually, it does—and it’s not opium. But that’s my thing, baby, not yours. And it isn’t all the time.”

She ate the cracker, stacked another one, and then took a second drag of water. “Why do you get high?”

He jolted, just a little, a bit taken aback by her bluntness, but he supposed the question was fair. He shrugged a weighty shoulder and sighed. “It’s just…too loud, sometimes…the noise in my head. It gets dark…and heavy…and I just need a break.” He pursed his lips together in contemplation. “I’m a soldier of sorts, a tracker for my kind, the Vampyr, and I have a lot of serious duties—so my head is usually straight. And when I’m not working, I spend a lot of time alone—it’s just the way it is—and every now and again, I just need a break. A vacation from the noise.” He paused, considering his next words carefully. “You’ve seen me high more times in the last two days than I’ve been in the last few months. It’s just a thing, baby. I don’t know what else to say.”

She eyed him intensely, like she was trying to see his soul, and then she continued to work on the tray, saying nothing in reply.

He cleared his throat. “And what about you?”

She raised her eyebrows.

“When I glimpsed your mind, when I made contact with your thoughts, I saw all kinds of random images: a support group, a shit-load of locks on your apartment door, a recent request for a concealed-carry license. What’s up with that, baby?”

Rebecca visibly paled. “You saw all that? You read my mind?”

“Didn’t read it,” he replied. “Just walked through the room.”

She furrowed her brow in consternation, and then she sat forward. “Well, as long as we’re being candid: When I was twenty-one years old, I met the wrong guy. I spent one year falling in love with him and another year trying to get away from him. He followed me from Nevada to New Mexico and everywhere between. He told me he was going to kill me, and I believe that he will try. So maybe that’s what you saw.”

Something dark, primal, and unexpected rose in Julien’s soul, and he clenched his hands into fists, trying to reroute
the energy into his fingers. “What’s the bastard’s name?”

Rebecca frowned and shook her head. “What difference does that make?”

Julien licked his lips in a lazy glide of his tongue, and then they both drew back into a snarl. “Dead men should have something to put on their headstones.”

She sputtered, spraying water from her mouth in surprise. “You’re kidding, right?”

He chuckled, but there wasn’t a humorous tone in the sound. “Let me make something exceedingly clear, baby girl. You might think you’ve wandered into the lion’s den—and it just might be true—but the fact of the matter is this: You are safer now—
with me
—than you have ever been in your life. You may not know it. You may not feel it. But it’s true, just the same. And while you don’t yet understand all the intricacies of the Curse, all the complexities of my kind, there is one thing that has never changed: My species is extremely
territorial. We are as possessive as we are loyal. And we don’t adhere to human laws. We are not bound by human conventions. That man”—he reached inside her mind to retrieve the stalker’s name—“
Trevor
: He was dead the day he met you. He was dead the day the gods chose you for me. And now? Now that I know what he has done to you…and your life…to your sense of safety, to your world? His death will not be swift or painless. Mark my words, sweet Rebecca; you no longer have a stalker.”
 

Rebecca gaped at him like he had just arrived from another planet.
 

She opened her mouth to respond and stuttered something incoherent, before instantly trying again. “And that somehow makes this okay? What you’ve done? What you’re doing…
to me
? Snatching me out of your driveway, and this whole crazy Curse?” Her voice rose in both angst and volume as she quoted him word for word.
“To put it in terms you understand: You are my wife, my mate, the woman who is about to give me a son…all of it is preordained. None of it is optional. And that is why you are here.
So, you’re gonna kill Trevor—my territorial vampire is going to murder my ex-boyfriend—and then I’m just going to…
to what
? Oh yeah, have your sons, have your twins, let you sacrifice the demonic one to…
to what
? And then, you and I, we just do, what? Live happily ever after?” She was borderline hysterical. “Julien Zechariah Lacusta, surely, even you can hear how insane that sounds. I have a life. I have a job. I have responsibilities! Hell, I run a support group for other desperate women, victims in the exact same shoes as mine. There are five women in my VOSU group, and they depend on me for help, for intervention, for their safety, if not their very lives. I’m not going to turn my back on them. And I’m not going to willingly disappear into some medieval fantasy that these gods—these celestial beings that I’ve never heard of—supposedly created for me.” She licked her bottom lip in a nervous gesture and then purposefully angled her jaw, looking him dead in the eyes for emphasis.
 

Julien relaxed his shoulders and tilted his head to the side in a matching gesture, growing firm with resolution. “You have an impeccable memory, Rebecca, and you don’t mince words. I like that, so let me have a try.
Murder
.” He echoed the word she had just used. “Is that what you think it is?” Before she could answer, he held up his hand to dissuade her. “Does a lion murder a gazelle? Does a human murder an ant?” He chuckled, and once again, there was nothing even remotely humorous in the sound. “I am Vampyr, Miss Johnston, I know nothing of this
murder
you speak of.” He leaned forward and held her gaze. “I only know that you are mine—
you belong to me
—and that which threatens you cannot exist in my world.” He lowered his hand, almost in a gesture of concession. “And no, you won’t…come around…overnight, but there is something in your soul, something in your blood, something woven into your very DNA that recognizes my own, that bends to my voice and yields to my touch. Do you think everything that happened on that bed was compulsion?” He shook his head before he could spark her anger. “Bad example—I get it—but you need to get this: You’re here. It
is
where you belong. And I will give you the space, the time, and the knowledge to slowly process all this new information, to adjust to this medieval fantasy, as you so poetically put it. I will answer all your questions. I will address all your fears. And I will explain all you need to know. And somehow, in the midst of this process, I will slowly show to you your own celestial heart. But for now, I have only one question, and I insist that you give me the truth.”