Caleb (9 page)

He
had a wife now to protect, to answer to. A mate. A flicker of movement brought
his gaze to her face just in time to catch the nervous pass of her tongue over
her lips. A very scared and confused mate who needed his care. Beneath the
translucent skin of her throat her pulse throbbed, a too-fast contradiction to
the sass in her attitude. A sass he completely enjoyed. In his day, they’d have
called Allie high-spirited. Forward. Hot-blooded. His eyes narrowed,
concentrating on the pulse point, following the rich flow of blood as it raced
along the artery. Very hot-blooded. A woman like her drew men like flies, many
for the wrong reasons. A woman like her fed a man’s sense of adventure,
challenged his preconceptions, made him think, made him feel. A woman like her
definitely needed a protector, because women like her were rare.

“You
can let go of me.”

He
barely felt the tug on his grip. Another thing he’d forgotten in the last
couple centuries: how much more delicate a human woman’s strength was than a
man’s. He lifted his gaze to find her staring at him with wide eyes and parted
lips, her expression a mixture of fear and fascination. As if she, too, were
caught up in the chemistry between them. As if what was there was more than
could be seen or felt. More than could be ignored.

“Am I
making you nervous?”

“Yes.”

He
hadn’t expected the truth. “It’s a habit of mine.”

“Staring?”

“How
do you know I’m staring?”

“I
can feel it.”

“Ah.”

Her
tongue flicked over her lips again, leaving them glistening, revealing the
uncertainty that didn’t show in her voice. “So, do you think you could give it
a rest tonight?”

“Your
dream not going the way you planned?”

“If
I’d planed it, we’d be having a lot more fun.”

“Hmm,
I bet we would.”

“I
can’t be a vampire.” Her free hand slid under his, rubbing at her stomach.

“It’s
not that bad.”

“Vampires
don’t exist.”

“Uh-huh.”
At least she was trying to absorb a little, even if she was approaching reality
from the outskirts and working in. He squeezed her fingers. “You’re going to
need help with this, Allie. At least, initially.”

“And
here I thought it was all just going to come naturally.”

He
ignored the sarcasm. “Some of it will.” Especially the need to feed. Primitive
and violent. When it came upon her the first time, it would consume all of the
humanity she clung to so hard. He pushed the bangs off her forehead. “Some of
it, you’ll have to work at.”

“Like
what?”

Regaining
her humanity after that first feed, retaining it from there on, but he didn’t
say so. There was time enough for her to figure that out on her own. “Learning
to sleep during the day, for one.”

She
didn’t smile. Her hands pressed into her stomach. “I don’t feel well.”

Damn,
he’d thought he had her nausea suppressed. He worked his palm between the sheet
and her skull. Supporting her head, he turned her to her side. “Are you going
to be sick?”

“It’s
not that kind of unwell.”

“Then
what?”

The
eyes that strained to see him over her shoulder were wide, fearful, and oddly determined.
“I just realized if this isn’t a dream, I’m dead.”

HER
terror clawed at him, her cry for help unconsciously reaching along their
connection. Help he didn’t want to deny. It wasn’t right that she hurt because
of him, because of anything. Caleb followed the terror down the mental path,
back to the seat of her fear and covered it with calm, sliding a tendril of
energy out, feeding her shaky belief that this was a dream. Solidifying it.
Adding a verbal push to his mental one as she rolled onto her back. “You’re not
dead. This is a dream, remember?”

It
was wrong, but he wanted her to have the comfort of that illusion for as long
as possible. Her nails sank into his forearm with the desperation lacking from
her carefully modulated, “You’re sure?”

“Baby,
I’d notice if you needed to be put under.”

Her
big eyes narrowed with suspicion, “How?”

“I’d
be the one digging the grave.”

She
blinked at that. “If I’m not dead, but I’m a vampire, how will I explain?”

“You
won’t.”

“But
I’ll have to tell my family something.”

Shit.
This was the hard part. “Anybody looking for you will think you’re dead.”

The
shock of that hit her like a blow. She jerked and then went absolutely still.
The rapid blink of her eyes kept back the tears he could see shining there.
“Why would they think that?”

He
tucked her hair behind her ear, rubbing his knuckles on her cheek. Guilt flayed
him with the deep cut of a whip as Allie lay there, looking into the darkness,
trying to see his face, dreading what he was going to tell her, willing it to
be different than what she suspected. “Probably because you disappeared and
your car is in the river. When it’s found, everyone will assume you drowned.”

The
truth burned like acid on his tongue, but he owed it to her.

“Damn
you.” Her fist slammed into his cheekbone, one knuckle wedging against his
eyeball snapping his head back. “I have a family!”

He
grabbed her hand, pressing it down into the mattress, blinking to clear his
watering eye. She had a hell of a quick jab. Her body jerked as she snapped up
her knee. He trapped it between his thighs, grunting when it grazed his balls.
She bucked beneath him. She was no match for his strength. Within seconds he
had her pinned. “I’m sorry. There wasn’t any choice.”

“You
had a choice. Probably a hundred of them. All better than that.” Allie turned
her head and sank those small white teeth into his wrist. The bite burned
through him like fire, a combination of heaven and hell. Blood scented the air.
His vampire rose to the call. He threaded his free fingers into the soft silk
of her hair and yanked her off.

“God
damn it, Allie, think.” A shake punctuated the statement. “There’s no
explaining the unexplainable.”

The
starkness of his night vision turned the glitter of her tears to a silver sheen.

“You
don’t know my family.”

“Are
they the open-minded type that can accept the thought of their daughter sucking
their blood?”

She
gasped and cringed into the mattress. “I would never touch them!”

“But
they would always wonder if you would, would always speculate if you could.”

“We’d
work it out.”

“About
all you’d work out is mass hysteria when people found out vampires really do
exist.”

“You
don’t know that.”

“Yes,
I do.” He let her struggle until exhaustion forced her to drop back against the
mattress.

“Damn
you.”

He
already was. “There’s no going back. Just forward.”

“Without
my family?”

“Yes.”

Waves
of grief radiated off her. Every shudder in her breath rubbed salt into the
open wound of his guilt. “I hate you.”

“I’m
sorry.”

She
took another breath, held it, and then her eyes narrowed and her chin came up.
“If this wasn’t a dream, I’d kill you for putting them through that hell.”

They
both knew this wasn’t a dream, but if enabling her to pretend for a bit longer
spared her pain, he wasn’t going to stop any sooner than he had to. The reality
was hard to take in small doses, let alone all at once. “Then I guess I’ll be
giving thanks to dreams.”

He
held her, absorbing her grief and tension as she wrestled with the loss. Silent
tears slid down her cheeks into her hair, dripping onto the inside of his arm
where they lay in a pool of hot accusation. Snippets of scenes with her
brothers and her father raced through her mind along with the love she had for
them. One by one, he muted the memories, creating a buffer to tuck the pain
behind. Gradually, Allie relaxed. Her fingers unclenched and spread over his
shoulders. Her chin came down and in a small, very un-Allie-like voice she
asked, “So, I’m really not dead?”

“Not
by a long shot.”

He
brushed his mind over hers again. He felt her hidden determination to reunite
with her family along with the bundle of tension behind her eyes that indicated
her headache worsening. He pushed it back out of her conscious reach and fed
her belief that this was a dream. It wasn’t as easy as it had been before. The
woman’s mind was going crazy muddling what had once been a clear path. He
braced himself as she took a breath. Allie on a tear could lead to anything.

“When
someone spots me drifting around at night, how are you going to explain that?
Call me a ghost?”

She
was still working on how to get past her immortality, using logic to make sense
of the illogical. “No.”

Her
nails dug into his forearms. “My brothers won’t stop looking for me.”

He
stroked her hair. He could understand that. He wouldn’t either. “They won’t
find you.”

“Why
not?”

“I
figured on changing your appearance.”

“With
plastic surgery?”

“No.
Illusion.”

“Welcome
to the witness protection program for vamps,” she muttered under her breath.

Her
resilience made him smile. “Pretty much, though it was easier in my day. More
space, less technology.” In the last seventy years, hiding in plain sight had
become more difficult; in the last twenty, almost impossible with people’s love
of cameras.

Her head
canted to the side as she considered his statement. “The Internet must really
screw with your lifestyle.”

“Slade
considers it his new best friend and digital cameras his mortal enemy.”

“I
can understand that. If you discount the Johnson hunk appeal, the man has geek
written all over him.”

His
vampire stirred with a growl. “I’m the only Johnson whose hunk appeal you need
to be noticing.”

She
waved his statement away like he was playing. He was glad she couldn’t see the
vampire’s snarl at the thought of her with another man. One peek and she’d be
running for cover. His desire to possess her completely was absolute.

“So
if I’m not dead, what am I?”

“Stuck
between a rock and a hard place.”

She
did not appreciate his sense of humor. That was clear. Her eyes narrowed and he
got the impression she was just short of slapping him. She let go of his arm,
depriving him of the sting of her claim, her hands bouncing off his shoulder,
fingers grazing his neck, sending chills down his spine. Chills that bunched in
his groin in pure anticipation as those same fingers wrapped in the hair just
above his ears and yanked down.

“Right
now, at this moment, what am I? Vampire or human?”

He
let her pull him to within six inches of her face and then countered her tug
with resistance. If he didn’t, one of them was going to end up with a broken
nose. “Human.”

“You’re
sure?” She shifted beneath him, her toes brushing his legs, her hips moving
against his. “You’ve checked?”

He
lifted his torso, giving her more room to maneuver, savoring the hot slide of
flesh on flesh. It didn’t matter if she were only trying to get away. His body,
so tuned to hers, took the rhythmic touching as an invitation and responded
with hard impatience. “Not in the last five minutes.”

“Check.”

“Is
that an order?” He did not take orders well, which was something she’d better
realize if they were going to spend eternity together.

Her
impatiently rapped out “Please” wasn’t much less of a demand but he could
follow it a hell of a lot easier. He placed his hand on her stomach. Her
insides were in turmoil. Gathering for the change, the invasion begun but not
completed. In a bit she would feel like hell, no matter what he did to block
her discomfort, but she still had time. “Human.”

“Good.”

He
didn’t like the sound of that. She was up to something. The hands in his hair
slid to his shoulders. “You’re not a bad guy, are you?”

He
was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a total goner. “I’m no saint.”

“Have
you ever killed anyone?”

“Not
that didn’t need it.”

Her
grip lessened and then, as if winning an inner argument, tightened again. “And
if your brothers hadn’t . . . influenced you, would you have attacked me?”

“No.”
But, he would have converted her eventually, he realized that now. Resisting
her was a futile battle, but he would have made the conversion a pleasure, not
pure hell. No way would she have described it, in the aftermath, as an attack.
He slid his hand under her head, curving his fingers around as if he could
protect her from the truth with a caress. “But now wouldn’t be any different.”

She
frowned, tilting her skull into the cup of his palm. “What do you mean?”