Cunningham, Pat - Legacy [Sequel to Belonging] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (19 page)

Abruptly he started pacing again. His outline fuzzed with his speed. His eyes burned blood-red in the light of Annie’s table lamps. Colleen’s head throbbed with his rage, and his drowning sensation of helplessness.

They’d taken her. She knew that for fact before he said it. Took her to breed and provide them with blood. They’d considered Wallace so inconsequential they hadn’t even bothered to kill him.

And their son?

She saw the answer in Wallace’s scarlet eyes and his punishing tread on the carpet. Females only, that was the vampires’ plan.

She was watching the progression of his life play out before her eyes, from carefree youngster to anguished lover to the merciless, heartless slayer. His words only hinted at what had gone on. Her psychic prickle picked up everything.

“I need air,” Wallace suddenly announced. One second he stood in front of them, the next he’d disappeared. Across the room, the door to the patio thumped shut. The list of names fluttered to the floor.

Gus stared toward the door. “Wally had a girlfriend?”

“At one point,” Annie said. “Long before we met him. He talked to me about her once. Well, not so directly. He kind of danced around it. He was dancing around Del at the time, too, trying to make up his mind. You know Wally.”

“Not as well as I thought I did. When did all this happen?”

“Way back when. I’m surprised you didn’t notice. Of course, back then you were too intent on trying to get into my pants.”

“You got that right, missy. Those were some damn fine pants.” Gus’s fond gaze went from Annie back to the door and became concerned again. “So Wally had a girlfriend, and the vampires took her. That explains why he hates them so much.”

“He probably thought they’d killed her,” Annie said. “Even in a blood bank she wouldn’t have lasted long.” She shot a stricken look at Jeremy. “Shoot. He better not run off and do something really stupid. That’s his trademark.”

“Where would he go?” Like Gus, Jeremy had focused on the patio door. “We don’t know where they are.”

“He hasn’t left the yard,” Colleen said with certainty. “I’ll know if he changes his mind.” They all stared at her, even Jeremy. She tapped her temple. “I’ve got this psychic thing. I hear undead people.”

Gus raised an eyebrow. “Really? Maybe that’s why the vampires wanted these particular women. Were the other girls psychic? How about their moms?”

Colleen shook her head. “Nobody was all that different that I ever noticed. If the moms had psychic powers, nobody ever talked about it.”

“There has to be something. The names prove these women weren’t taken at random. Maybe there was something special about their blood. Something that made them particularly appetizing.”

Again they all looked to Colleen, as if they were compass needles and she magnetic north. She shrank against Jeremy’s side. She didn’t want to be anybody’s magnetic north, least of all a vampire’s. “I don’t know. I don’t, I swear.”

“Okay, okay. We believe you. I doubt if a vampire would have revealed any master plans to an eight-year-old anyway. If we’re lucky, one of the surviving mothers might know. If we’re even luckier, we’ll track one down.” Gus stared at the pile of files, shook his head and sighed. “Looks like we’re in for another archaeological dig. I wish Allen had learned how to type.”

“Old school,” Annie explained with a rueful smile for Colleen and Jeremy. “The man was a bear for pen and ink. He never trusted computers.”

“He could have trusted typewriters,” Gus growled. “Typewriters never hurt anybody. Who’s up for a round of eye strain?” He held up a dozen dog-eared sheets.

As time dragged Colleen couldn’t help wondering, What about Wallace? The flow of bitter thoughts had stopped, but she sensed he was still in the yard. That could change in a heartbeat, and none of them were quick enough to stop him.

Someone would have to go out there.

Thought and action merged into a step toward the patio door. She bumped into Jeremy. He’d had the same thought. They both stopped and looked at each other. The mental connection she’d developed with Wallace didn’t seem to extend to humans. She found it didn’t matter. In one glance they held a full conversation. Jeremy smiled, nodded fractionally to her, then turned toward Gus and asked to see one of the files. Colleen slipped over to the door and onto the patio. It always helped to have the boyfriend’s permission.

She didn’t see Wallace at first. Thirty years as a nocturnal predator had made him adept at blending with shadows. She softly called his name before she sensed movement at her back. Wallace appeared at her shoulder with absolutely no sound. This time, she didn’t jump. Maybe she was getting used to it.

“I’m fine,” he said. “Thanks for asking. You?”

“I’m getting there.” She swallowed. “I wanted to apologize.”

“Nothing you can do. Then or now.”

“Not about that. I’ve been bullheaded and in serious denial. I wouldn’t accept you as a vampire. I didn’t want to believe you were real. That would mean my childhood was real, and I couldn’t deal with that. Well, I’m dealing now. I believe in you, and I need your help.” She reached out to him but stopped just short of contact. “Please come back inside.”

He looked beyond her, toward the house. “Scarecrow sent you out here, didn’t he?”

“He okayed it,” she admitted, “but it was my idea.” Even though the people inside couldn’t possibly hear them, she dropped her voice anyway. “I didn’t know her, Wallace. I don’t remember anyone named Elisa Rios. None of my friends was a Rios. Maybe she was gone by the time I was born. Maybe she escaped. Maybe—”

“Maybe she died quick? Yeah, that’s a real comfort.” His eyes flashed scarlet. The rage wasn’t aimed at her, she knew, but it scared her nonetheless. She held herself in place, determined not to back away.

He was seconds from bolting out of the yard. Somehow she had to stop him. It occurred to her suddenly that although she’d spoken with him, snapped at him, heard his voice inside her head, and worn his tatty bathrobe, she’d tried to hold back from actually touching him. That hunt for his nonexistent pulse in his bedroom had been more than enough contact for her taste. Just the thought of a vampire’s skin against hers made her stomach twist. Steeling herself against her ingrained revulsion, she made herself take his hand.

Memory warned her to expect cold, waxy flesh. The warmth of his skin shocked her. Had she not known better, she’d have assumed she touched a living man.

Until the shock wave hit.

The contact sparked a reaction that rocked them both. The impact of his physical presence blasted through her body as a rush of energy zapped between them, living to undead and back again. Her mind and body recognized a similar spirit, kind to matching kind. As Jeremy had first pulled her in physically, Wallace threatened to engulf her soul.

Wallace broke the contact with a mental slam of finality. Colleen was thrown back inside her own skull with a suddenness that staggered her. She found herself trapped in a brutal embrace. His blood-red eyes bored into hers, and his fangs hovered inches from her throat.

“You’re not human,” he rasped. “You can’t be. What the hell are you?”

“I don’t know.” She made no effort to pull free. She knew it would have been futile. “Maybe the vampires did something to me when I was a kid. I didn’t ask for it, and I don’t want it. I wouldn’t even be out here this close to you, except I need your help.” She sucked in a breath and composed herself as well as she could with the possibility of a throat-slashing less than a breath from her neck. “I’m trying to trust you. I really am. If you don’t want to trust me back, that’s fine.” She forced herself to look at his eyes, not his fangs. “I’m putting my life in your hands.”

The crimson in his eyes eased up just a little. “You’re saying that wasn’t deliberate? You expect me to believe you?”

“I’m saying I don’t know how or why I’m like this. Whatever it is, whatever I am, I’m not out to hurt you or Jeremy. I swear, if I can help it, I won’t do that again.”

“And you’re willing to trust me, even though I’m a vamp?” He growled at her raggedly. “Prove it.”

Fine, if he insisted on being such a bastard about it. Colleen summoned her courage, tamped down hard on her instinctive revulsion, leaned forward unexpectedly, and kissed him.

As warm as his hand had been, his lips surpassed it. He tasted of Jeremy, the same sweetness with an added tang that belonged to Wallace alone. She wondered if it might be blood but tried not to wonder long. He wasn’t like the monsters who had enslaved her mother. She could do this. She could trust him.

She let her mind open for him to explore as he would. His thoughts, like his body, held fire. There was nothing at all cold about him, not like those frightening others. She found herself relaxing, responding to his warmth.

Too soon, he broke away. His eyes had returned to green, with a glow in their depths that sent a shiver through her, not exactly fear. “Whoa,” he said. “When you make a promise, you don’t fuck around.”

“I’m human. I know I am. I swear.”

“Jury’s still out on that one. I know this much now. You’re honest. You don’t know what you are. And you mean what you say.” He flashed her an echo of his usual smirk. “You just said a helluva lot.”

“Can we do this, then? Will you trust me?”

“I don’t know about that. But if we’re going to work together, we need to seal the deal.”

He pulled her against him again and pressed his mouth to hers. She responded without stopping to think, driven by instincts as strong and confusing as her psychic powers.

His lips parted. Her tongue took a peek inside and encountered pointy teeth. She stiffened involuntarily. She felt him smirk as he paused to let her work through her misgivings and make up her mind for good. Encouraged by this little courtesy, she leaned into his kiss. His smirk widened. She’d had her chance to run and let it pass. Now he was determined to school her in the consequences.

How different they were, the human and the vampire. When it came to romance, soft-spoken, easygoing Jeremy had all the restraint of a famished wolf. His feverish lovemaking spurred her to quick, explosive heights of arousal like a crate of Roman candles all going off at once. In contrast, Wallace took his time, dragging or upping the pace as it suited him and teasing her to follow along. When she lagged, he hung back. When she hesitated, he waited. All the while his hand made comforting circles on her lower back and over the mounds of her ass. She found she had time to savor the sensations he awoke in her, unlike Jeremy’s hot, frenetic kisses. Who would have imagined foul-mouthed, hard-ass Wallace would turn out to be the tender one?

Her own hands crept over the rough skin of his forearms to the surprising smoothness of his face and into the half-inch of his buzz cut. She loved to smooth Jeremy’s thick, shaggy hair between her fingers. There’d be none of that with Wallace. Any relationship with him would be equally as prickly, stimulating but never smooth or easy. Her dangerous self, so often ignored, found this prospect intriguing.

Once he’d taken his fill he pulled back. Colleen clung to him for that last wisp of touch before she allowed him to release her. They stared into each other’s eyes.

“Signed, sealed, and delivered,” Wallace said. His voice had a rasp to it. “Okay. It’s you, me and Scarecrow, fuck the world.”

Guilt flooded her soul. “Jeremy.”

“He doesn’t mind. He’s the generous type. I may get that threesome yet.” He took her arm. “You ready to rejoin the party?”

Gus waved a file folder at Wallace and Colleen in lieu of a welcome back. “Don’t even bother. There’s too much to wade through. Allen must have kept tabs on every slayer case since Van Helsing hunted Dracula. It’ll take a week just to sort this out.” He let the folder drop onto the end table with a snort of disgust. “There goes my free time.”

As soon as Wallace entered the room Jeremy went to his side. He took Colleen’s hand even as she reached for his. “While you’re at it,” he said to Gus, “try this angle. No government agency would have let a bunch of women and little girls just camp in the woods like that. Vampires don’t want curious humans sniffing around their nests. That land the commune was on must have been privately owned. There could be deeds, property tax records, all sorts of paper trails. Maybe we can get a name. If they’re starting over again, they’ll need a secluded property, like you said. They’ll want to keep it legal to avoid questions. The same names might turn up.”