Cara Mia - Book One of the Immortyl Revolution (26 page)

Months went by before I saw another. From time to time I caught sight of the shadowy figures that seemed as wary of me as I was of them. They didn’t seem to mean me harm, and I was tempted to call out to them out of sheer loneliness, but they’d always quickly slip out of sight.

Then I started to encounter what I came to term my “suitors”. A cast-off is fair game to the old ones and their alphas. Manhattan is neutral territory, and they’re just as attracted to its opportunities as mortals. Not that they came specifically in search of me, but if they chanced upon me they availed themselves of the convenience. A few even offered to take me in. I once had the unparalleled privilege of entertaining Kalidasa, the huge, quivering mound of lard that was the chief elder. Disgusting. These suitors were no more welcome a sight to me than to Penelope but they didn’t hurt me, well, not enough to kill me, just enough to make it fun for them. They compensated me well for my trouble. It helped pay the bills.

Spring passed, summer arrived again, the second on my own. It turned hot and unbearably humid. Air so thick you could cut it with a knife. Mortals spilled out of buildings like blood. Luckier ones had air-conditioning or escaped to summer homes by the sea. Even I wasn’t invulnerable to the sweltering greenhouse. I went to the movies to deal with the heat and boredom and tried to hunt closer to home, where there was less chance of meeting other vampires. On sultry nights mortals lingered along the waterfront, seeking sex, drugs, or both.

One of these early mornings, I made a quick kill of a junkie on the piers then dumped the body in the Hudson, amusing myself by thinking up a fitting epitaph for the deceased as he slipped below the oily brown water. A television jingle I’d heard years before popped into my head.

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz. Oh, what a relief it is
.

Breeze kicked up, cooling the sluggish air. I ran my fingers through my hair and shivered. The wind felt like a tongue on the exposed parts of my body. I toyed with the idea of picking up a mortal, but they’re generally disappointing sexually. I sighed, resigning myself to relieving my tension manually at home, when a footstep soft as a cat’s paw fell on the pavement. Turning around, I sniffed but there was no scent. Whatever it was it was upwind. A heartbeat, a little faster than a mortal at rest came toward me, closer and closer. Now I scented him, one of us, male and very close, possibly a
sewer rat
. I took off running, but he called my name in sweet voice.

“Mee-ya?”

I stopped, heart pounding, and turned around slowly as a slight figure emerged from the shadows into the streetlight— so close I felt his breath on my face— an arm’s length away. Dressed in a blue button-down shirt, jeans and sneakers, he looked like a student. Breeze ruffled his honey-colored hair as the streetlight caught his remarkable eyes, sending another, deeper shiver down around my pelvis.

“Kurt?” I whispered, believing him a hallucination brought on by narcotics in my victim’s blood.

He smiled, the nerve of him. I snapped out of my reverie. “What took you so fucking long?”

“Forgive me. I’d have come sooner… ”

“But Brovik wouldn’t let you, and you always do what he says like a good little
boy
.”

I stomped away, but his plaintive voice stopped me, “I fought hard to come here.”

I whirled on him. “He needs me to give some politician a blowjob? Or do you handle that exclusively now?”

If my insult hurt he didn’t flinch. He was much more concerned with other matters. He glanced around nervously. “Can we go somewhere private to talk?”

“I’ve nothing to say to you.”

Kurt displayed the characteristic stillness of our race, a carefully honed ability to disguise emotion. He’d had the best tutor and reflected his master’s indomitable calm. But I sensed turbulence swirling under the surface. He lowered his head for a moment then looked me straight in the face with those eyes
. Zap!
“I know what you think. Hear me out. I’m offering assistance.”

“Don’t need it.” I broke away toward my apartment.

Kurt caught my arm. “Gaius has dogs kenneled here. It’s only a matter of time before Dirk crosses your path.”

I turned to face him. “I can handle him.”

He gave me this sad puppy dog look. “
Please
Mee-ya, I’ve come such a long way.” I hesitated. “I’ve been very stubborn about you.” He held up his slender fingers. “I threatened to leave, and I hold Brovik’s empire in these hands.”

“And he holds your life in his.”

He shrugged, a small smile warming his face, a very different kind of smile than thirty-four years before. “How much work can he get out of me dead? We’ll go somewhere to talk, yes?”

“We’ve got two hours till dawn.” I started across the street. “This way… ”

He fell in beside me, unhurried, contemplative, his head slightly bent, as if counting cracks in the sidewalk. He glanced over.
Zowie!
Those eyes got me every time. “Brovik and Ethan had a huge quarrel. Ethan dumped Leisha on us and disappeared.”

“And now she works with you?”

He touched my arm. “Hush,” his voice fell to a whisper, “listen, scent the air. Anything?”

I shook my head. He frowned. We walked the remaining block to my apartment in silence. I was still trying to figure out if he could be trusted.

“This is it,” I said, as we stood before my building. His bewildered eyes took in the battered, industrial exterior. “Come on.” I unlocked the door and pressed the button for the elevator.

As I unlocked my apartment door and switched on the lights, a couple of roaches skittered across the wall, disappearing under a baseboard. Kurt blinked at the glare, giving the apartment a dubious glance as I sat on the futon, kicking off my boots. I glanced up to catch Kurt staring. He turned abruptly to the window, pulling back the drape.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Gaius’s dogs.” He scanned the street below. “They followed me earlier tonight. I believe I’ve finally lost them. Have you been bothered at all?”

“Two rats accosted me in the park.”

He faced me, stricken. “Were you hurt?”

“If being raped is hurt, yeah, I guess so.”

“I’ll make it stop.”

“You can do that?”

“I have connections. Brovik’s made me
responsible
for you.”

My hackles rose. “I’m your
concubine
in other words?”

“According to the code, I cannot take one.”

“He’s giving
me
as a toy to keep you playing contentedly at his side.”

“His intention, not mine.” He looked away, somewhat embarrassed. “Should you choose however— that would be entirely different.”

“Now you’re being truthful.”

He turned his eyes on me. I could swim in them forever. “I never lied to you.”

“You kept things back.”

“In my position it’s expedient.” He turned away to examine a picture on the wall, the flat’s owner, a West Indian dancer. “Who’s this?”

“Beautiful, isn’t she?”

“It’s dangerous to take mortal lovers.”

I decided to have a little fun with him, dropping my voice into a smoky register, “Sometimes love is worth the danger.”

Kurt turned wide-eyed, disconcertingly teenaged. “You could be found out.”

“She’s on tour.”

“On tour… ” he mused.

“She’s not my lover,” I finally confessed. “It’s a six-month sublet.”

Relieved, he took in the tiny apartment. “You should have a decent flat. I’ll set up an account for your upkeep.”

“I don’t want Brovik’s money.”

Male ego took over. “It’s
my
money.”

“
No one
puts a leash on me.”

“Ethan left you penniless.”

“My suitors pay well.”

He winced. “There’s no need to— prostitute yourself.” Frowning, he tilted his head slightly to the side. “It’s wrong, that they use you so. You’re not a bird of prey,
Mee-ya,
but a woman in a very strange set of circumstances.”

He lightly brushed my cheek with his fingers. Tenderness was a lash and he laid it on hard, not out of cruelty, but it had the same effect. I pulled away.

“Don’t.”

His expression fell with his hand, distraught and sincere. “Forgive me. I want only to help.”

“No barter between friends, Kurt.”

His eyes, if possible, became wider. I treated myself to a good long look.
Zing!

A shadow of a smile escaped him. “Friends then?”

“Sure could use one.”

I tentatively stepped toward him. He turned away, examining the piano in the corner. Opening it, he ran his left hand over the keys. His face relaxed subtly, as he struck a chord. “You play?”

“No, it came with the apartment.”

He tried another chord. “I could teach you. You are musical. Philip says you have a lovely singing voice.”

“I’d be far too intimidated. You played great concert halls.”

“A world ago… ” he muttered, turning his attention back to the keys, tinkling, fooling. He longed to play but was too modest to show off.

“I’d love to hear you play.”

His face curved into a bittersweet smile. “Sometime perhaps… ”

“It would mean so much to me.”

He looked up, a kaleidoscope of emotion playing in his eyes. “Truly?”

“Truly.”

“In that case it will be my pleasure.” He sat down, touching the keys lightly, getting a better feel for the instrument. I shivered, imagining those beautiful hands on me. Suddenly, Kurt was transported into another realm, where the pain and bloodshed of our world was left far behind, a place of infinite peace and beauty. Caught as I was in this nightmare, I marveled at how simply this act of sitting down at an instrument could take him so far out of himself. Or did it lead him back to his true self? Wherever it was, I longed to go with him.

“What would you like? Perhaps… ” He cocked his head slightly to the side.
“Chopin?”
He blissfully launched into a nocturne. “Yes, Chopin, I think.”

I closed my eyes. The nocturne washed over me, beyond gorgeous, liquid notes dancing in my veins like blood. I collapsed onto the futon and lay back with my eyes closed. It went on and on through every part of me. I sucked it inside, but it was too powerful and lovely. Only an angel could distill the essence of heaven and I was too far from a state of grace to receive it. I tried to hold on and wrestle it, but it eluded my grasp leaving me breathless. Was the victim’s blood that tainted with drugs? I opened my eyes again to see if I were hallucinating, but there he was as lovely as the dawn. “Amazing.”

He shrugged. “The instrument is only fair, for you I would do better.”

I rose to my feet, shaking. Surprisingly, I was able to place one foot in front of the other and cross the room to the piano. If I couldn’t hold the music, I
could
hold the musician. Despite the ethereal appearance,
he
was flesh and blood. I laid my hand on his arm. It was warm. I leaned my head against his and reached out to his face. His eyes closed as I caressed his eyelids and cheekbones, tracing the graceful line of his nose and lips down his throat, drinking him through my fingers.

“You’re beautiful, Kurt,” I whispered, like a prayer.

“So they tell me,” he muttered.

My lips touched the artery on his throat, pulsing warm against my mouth as the engine of his heart pumped the blood through his body. His breath came harder as my mouth explored.

He stopped playing. “You want this?”

“I’ve wanted you from the first night I saw you.”

He took my face in his hands. “I’m not like Ethan, or the others. I swear. I’ll never hurt you, Mia.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Our mouths found each other, long, deep, his slight frame blending perfectly into mine. Ethan once accused me of falling for a memory of my first love, and yes he did feel like the boy I loved as a girl. I slipped off his shirt and caressed him, sweet, smooth and slender, skin creamy rose petals touched with pink.”

Joe coughed, uncomfortably. “Mia. I really don’t need to hear this.”

“Jesus, what a prude. I will tell you this, I’ve been with hundreds of men and he’s by far the best lover. It was amazing to be made love to by someone who also depended on this skill for his survival. For once I wasn’t taken. I was
gifted
.

Afterward, he fell into a peaceful slumber, bittersweet smile on his lips. I just sat there looking at him for hours, Psyche gazing on her Eros. I’d never seen anything so lovely.

Notes on the piano, not in rhythm, no particular order. My eyes opened on Kurt, shirt thrown over his arm as if had been in the act of dressing, but had been distracted by the piano, idly tapping at the keys, slender muscles fluttering under smooth skin, eyes darting over the keys, lush lower lip bitten in concentration.
Oh my
.

I sat up, the sheet falling in loose folds around my body. “Hello.”

“Hello,” he answered, not looking up as his fingers picked out an unfamiliar bit of music.

“What’s that?”

“My own composition.”

“Beautiful.”

He scowled. “If I ever finish… ”

“Brovik’s made an accountant of a great artist.”

Kurt smiled slightly. “I’m much more than
that
. I thought perhaps I should go back to my hotel and not inconvenience you?”

“You kidding? I want you to inconvenience me,
again and again
. Do you have to go back soon?”

He fixed on that distant point where all the marble hardness of his features melted away, until he was vulnerable as the boy I once knew. He found the notes he was looking for and began to play softly as he spoke, “Brovik called before you woke. I told him I’ve— uh— found you. I’m free to stay awhile.”

“How long?”

He looked up, smiling impishly. “How does
eternity
sound?”

I was sucked too dry by Ethan to offer him much. It was too easy for him to fall victim and I drain him of all I lacked. “Kurt, I don’t like men very much.”

Amusement played over his face. “This is a warning?”