Her Secret (25 page)

“What are you not saying?”

Devlin leaned up on one arm, and I rolled
onto my back, looking up at him. “You can still be drained if I
take too much, Sar. That will still kill you.”

“How do you know all this?” I said in
consternation. “You aren’t just guessing.”

Sadness drowned his eyes again. “Annabelle
was like you.”

Anna was the woman who’d been Devlin’s that
Danial had seduced away from him, beginning their long feud. “You
loved her a long time ago.”

“Yes,” he said, old pain in each word. “I
loved her very much.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Anna and I were together for years. She got
to a point, and never progressed further than that. No matter how
much I was with her, loved her, her body refused to turn. It was
then that we thought we might try having a child.”

Anna had died in miscarriage. I’d deduced
that was because Devlin had not waited for the potion to work
completely. “What happened?”

“I knew of the potion. She was afraid, but
she wanted to try it. It took us a year of trying before it worked.
The day she told me that she was pregnant was the happiest day of
my life.”

“I’m sorry,” I said awkwardly.

“She tasted of spring, Sar,” he said,
haunted. “It’s been two hundred years she has been gone from me,
and I can still remember it clearly.”

Worried at his sudden encompassing
melancholy, I tried to bring him back to the present. “How did you
discover she was resistant? Did she behave like I did?”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “After
we’d been together a year, her body changed. We didn’t know it
until I had to be away for a month on business. When I got back,
she was as you were earlier today. She slept a lot, her body was
cold, and she had difficulty moving. She thought it was depression,
from missing me. Yet she went wild when I returned, provoking me to
bite her. After I spent that night with her, she began to feel
better. In a few days, she was fine again. But I never left her
alone again for more than a week after that.”

He shook his head as if shaking off the
fetters of the past, and took another deep breath, letting it out
slowly. He tilted my chin up to look at him. “You’ll have to
monitor your blood virus levels from now on, and make sure they
never drop under a certain threshold. I can help with that, if you
permit me to. There is also a benefit, Sar, a substantial one.” He
kissed me softly, then drew back. “You won’t age as fast, if at
all. You won’t ever have to die, unless you want to. Yet you won’t
be vampire, you will still be able to walk in the sun.”

I stared at him, aghast.

“You don’t seem as pleased by that as I
thought you might be,” Devlin said, searching my eyes with his own.
“Danial said that was the reason you wouldn’t give him your Oath:
you would not stay young and he would. Now there is no reason for
you not to be with him, as you both want to be. In fact, you must
be his blood lover again, if you are not with me.”

Hearing his words, my life changed again
utterly.
I could be with Danial. We could have a life together
now. But the flip side was that Theo and I were finished for
good.

“You’re distressed,” Devlin said curiously.
“You can’t seriously still be thinking of Theo?”

Theo had wanted me to go back to Danial, had
pushed us together at Elle’s recital. He’d probably be happy this
tied me up as a loose end.
But Elle...she would age and so would
my parents...I might live to see them die...maybe Theoron,
too
...Panic and fear coursed through me.

“Sar,” Devlin murmured. “Breathe.”

I took a deep breath and put his supposition
out of my mind. I had the here and now. I’d worry about the future
when I had to, when we knew for sure he was right.

“And again,” he encouraged. “You have many
questions, I’m sure. I can give you answers to—”

“Blood lover?” I said disdainfully.

“There’s no need to be offended,” Devlin said
wickedly. “It merely means a lover who agrees to donate blood to a
vampire, nothing more.”

I rolled my eyes. “All the same, I’d prefer
you never refer to me that way, ever.”

“If you wish.”

“I do have one more question for you,
Dev.”

“Ask it,” he said softly, kissing my neck,
his fangs pricking gently.

I took another deep breath. “What were you
planning for me that night you came for me?”

He drew back, startled. “You don’t want to
know.”

“You’re right, I don’t. I need to know. Tell
me the truth. Whatever it is, my imagination will do worse. But if
I know the truth, I can let it go. And so can you.”

Devlin moved away from me, and looked at the
wall. “Don’t ask me this.”

“Tell me, Dev,” I said firmly. “Or it will
always be something unspoken between us. You and I have that
history. We always will. If you’d gotten your way then, really
gotten it, I’d have gone home with you. What was waiting for me,
besides Lash?”

He sighed. “You know what I’m capable of. Why
do you have to ask me this, now?”

“Because you haven’t changed, just your
feelings for me have. You want me to trust you, tell me this and
don’t lie.”

He stared at me, incredulous. “I don’t see
how admitting my evil to you helps me gain your trust.”

“I need to know I can trust you to tell me
the truth. And if there was anything you’d want to lie about, it
would be this.”

He gave a faint smile. “You’re right. But you
won’t forgive me if I tell you.”

I gave him merciless eyes. “Tell me or get on
your bike and leave.”

He took a deep breath. “I didn’t know what I
would do if Danial relinquished you. I was so sure he wouldn’t that
I didn’t plan anything for that reason alone. But there were a lot
of things that I thought about doing to you.” He closed his
eyes.

“Such as?”

“I thought about draining you with Danial, as
we almost did before Terian and Theo rode to the rescue. Your blood
reminded me of Annabelle’s blood, even then. I was angry that you
were Danial’s and not mine. I was breathtaking
and
the most
powerful and you still wanted him and not me—”

“Did Annabelle care about your power?”

“I knew her before I was a Ruler. I was more
Danial’s level, when you first met him. I hadn’t any power then,
save the power of an ordinary vampire, as compared with a
human—”

“Devlin, you are talking around the question.
Yes or no?”

“No, she didn’t care if I was powerful, so
long as I could protect her.”

“Why would I be any different?”

He looked away from me, and shrugged.

“Go on.”

“Danial refused to share you with me. You
didn’t want me to have any part of you either.” He abruptly cut
off, and started again. “Angelica was not the only woman we drained
over the centuries,” he said, emotionless. “It’s a common
punishment for Oathbreaking and vampire murdering, and often, it
falls to the Ruler of a territory to mete out—”

I’d guessed that after Danial had threatened
to do it to Monica. “I know all this. Go to—”

“No,” he said sinisterly. “You want to know
it all, I’ll tell it my way. I was fully prepared to drink you down
with him that night, to make sure that he could not have what I had
been denied. It wasn’t everything I wanted from you, but at least
then I’d have gotten part of what I desired. I’d have finished you
off that night, if Terian hadn’t interfered.” He gazed at me and
swallowed. “I’m so glad he did, I’d have made the biggest mistake
of my life—”

“Say you’d gotten Danial to relinquish me,” I
replied coolly. “What then?”

“I wanted to bring you to my home and have
you every way I could think of. To take you by force if not by
seduction, to drink in your fear along with your blood for as long
as it lasted, as long as I could draw it out. After I’d possessed
you in all ways, I was going to keep you for a while. I loved your
hair even then, and wanted it to grow out to the length it had been
when I first saw you. By the time it had, I would be ready to sire
a child on you, Sar. And I was going to, whether you wanted one or
not. No matter how long it took, or what I had to do—”

“I Oathed you. Why have a child with me?”

“I knew you’d gotten pregnant amazingly fast.
Your blood was so similar to Anna’s. Together, that was enough to
make me want to try. You don’t look like she did, but that didn’t
matter. I was determined to mold you into the woman she was. To
recreate her, so to speak.” His eyes found mine and held. “I’d have
destroyed you in the process.”

I drew in a long shuddering breath. “Do you
still want to do any of that to me?”

“No!” he said vehemently. “I dislike even
admitting to thinking it in the past. But you wanted to know, so I
was honest.”

“I can’t be her, ever,” I said quietly. “I
can only be myself.”

“I know that,” Devlin said, hurt. “I don’t
want her back. I want you, Sar.”

“You’re sure?”

“Until you, the memory of her stood in the
path of any living woman. Since we were together, all my fantasies
have been of you,” he said, reaching out hesitantly to clasp my
hand. “Of us happy together, loving each other. I’m sure.”

The moment he touched me, my resistance
crumbled. I moved closer to him, and hugged him. He looked down at
me, surprise still on his face. “If I were standing, I’d get down
on my knees and beg your forgiveness,” he said seriously, drawing
back from me. “Can you ever forgive me?”

I pulled his head down to me and kissed him
slowly. “I will if you make love to me again.”

Devlin kissed me eagerly, then rolled his
body on top of mine, pushing me gently down into the sheets. He
spread my legs, moving into position. My desire came roaring back
and I writhed under him, again baring my throat. He slowly bore
down again with his hips, pushing his erection deeper as I strained
upwards to receive him. The feeling of being utterly filled washed
over me. At once, Devlin began sliding fast, each stroke
determined.

“Bite me,” I breathed.

The moment he sank his fangs into me I came
for him, arching up into him. Though he didn’t drink from me, my
climax was as powerful as if he had, each thrust bringing cry after
cry from my parted lips.

When I stopped shuddering, Devlin withdrew
his fangs, giving my neck gentle kisses. Abruptly, he quickened his
movements. With a sudden jerk, he climaxed, his satisfied moans
stirring as he clutched me.

“I love hearing you come,” I said languidly,
as he moved to my side.

“I’m glad to please you,” he said tenderly.
“I love you.” He settled back, moving me so my head rested on his
chest, and began to stroke my hair.

“I care for you, too,” I replied
affectionately, reaching up to stroke his face. It was rough under
my hands.

It had been years since I’d felt a man’s
stubble. Oddly, Theo had never had any that was noticeable, and
Danial never grew any, as he hadn’t had any when he’d been
turned.

Devlin smiled under my hand. “I should
shave,” he said, irritated. “This gets so old.”

“You don’t have to. I don’t mind. But I do
have to get up,” I said, turning to him. “Theo and Danial will be
calling after dusk, and I have a lot to do before then.”

“It’s already dark,” he said, throwing off
the blankets. “I’ll come with you.”

Naked, we went upstairs. It was close to
five, the house dark. After turning on the lights, and getting the
fire going strong, I put on some jeans and a sweater.

Devlin checked his clothes. “They’re still a
little wet.”

My dryer wasn’t going to be of help. I gave
him an apologetic look. “Do you have any others with you?”

“No,” he said ruefully. “I planned to be
inside when the storm hit.”

“Hold on,” I said, heading back downstairs.
“There are some of Danial’s old clothes beneath the guest bed.”
After locating two pair of jeans and a couple shirts, I went back
upstairs and handed them to him. “They should fit you.”

“Sure. We’re close enough,” he said, looking
them over. He slipped into a pair of the jeans and one of the
shirts, a black one. “Do they look okay? They’re a bit long.”

He looked to die for, but some of that was
his incredible inherent sexiness.
He’d probably be sexy in a
garbage bag.

“Sar?” he said, amused.

“You look great. I have some socks you can
borrow,” I said quickly, suddenly shy. I went into my bedroom,
rummaging through the sock drawer for a pair of Theo’s. No sooner
had I grabbed one then the whining, boisterous dogs knocked it from
my hands in their eagerness to walk.

“Hush!” I said, rounding on them. “I’m moving
as fast as I can—”

Right then, it hit me. I did feel better. I
had more energy than I’d had in months. My hands were steady, and I
wasn’t tired, despite I’d been awake all afternoon. Although the
bedroom was cold, I wasn’t shivering.

Devlin had been right.

Socks forgotten, I ran back to him, and
kissed him thoroughly, sliding my tongue into his mouth, pulling
him against me forcibly. He kissed me back for a moment, and then
drew back. “Do you need more already?” he whispered heatedly.

“I can feel it,” I said euphorically, looking
at him in wonder. “You were right. You saved me.”

“Yes,” he agreed happily.

I stepped back from him, then faced him and
stretched out my arms to him. “I am glad to come to you.”

He tilted his head, giving me a surprised
look.

“Your last poem,” I explained.

Devlin leaned down and kissed me. “I will be
making you very glad to come in a little while, Sar. Now please, I
need some socks.”

I got the socks, still blushing. As he pulled
them on, I looked out the windows. The storm was still howling, and
it looked as if I had at least a foot of snow out here. That meant
I’d need to plow. I began pulling on my coat, hat, and mittens.