Her Warrior for Eternity (3 page)

“I’ll take my chances.”

“I won’t.” And with a tiny push of magic, he
charmed
her to sleep.

Zach arrived at full speed, not even a little out of breath after his sprint. “Where’s the fucker?”

“I got rid of him.” It occurred to him only then that he was supposed to capture the bastard alive for questioning, but it was too late now.

Zach didn’t mind. “Already? Is she a witness?”

“Yes, and there might be others in the pub.”

Zach disappeared inside without a word to take care of the matter. Jeremy bent down and lifted the woman in his arms. She was tall, but slender, and didn’t weigh much, even unconscious.

“All’s good inside,” Zach said. Then he noticed his burden. “What are you doing with her?”

“We can’t leave her here.”

“We can’t take her with us either.”

“I’ll give her a lift home.”

“Fine. But you’ll clear her mind afterwards.”

“Of course.” He was a vampire, after all. Clearing up human minds was daily bread to him. Literally.

As he walked towards his car, he pressed her closer to his chest. “You’re safe now.”

Chapter Three

The woman woke up faster than Jeremy had thought possible. He had barely got her in the car and the vehicle moving, when she jolted awake. One moment she was placid on the front seat, the next she was screaming at the top of her lungs. He almost crashed the car at the sudden sound.

“What the fuck are you about? Stop shouting.” She didn’t listen and instead made to open her door. Instantly worried, he locked all the doors, even though she was wearing a seatbelt and wouldn’t have fallen.

“Let me out, let me out!” the woman screamed.

“Relax. I’m taking you home.”

It had no effect. Abandoning the door, she turned to him and began to pound him with her fists, the punches accurate and surprisingly strong.

“Ouch. Will you quit that. You’ve nothing to fear here.” He glanced at her and saw pure panic in her eyes.
Shit
.

A tiny pulse of magic calmed her instantly, but only on the surface. He had never met a human who could resist vampire
charm
that effectively.

He pulled over and killed the engine to better be able to calm her down. “You fainted. What was I supposed to do, leave you there?”

“You’re a murderer,” the woman spat.

Ah, yes. She had witnessed that. “Don’t worry. He wasn’t human.” Renegades were the Circle’s secret. Not even other vampires knew about them, but he didn’t mind telling her. He would wipe her memory afterwards.

“Neither are you. You’re a vampire, aren’t you?” It was an accusation.

He had no idea how she had figured it out. Humans as a race were unable to tell the difference between one and two-natureds, but he nodded. “Trust me, compared to renegades I’m human. I’m just an improved model.”

His attempt at humour had no effect. “You’re going to kill me too, aren’t you?” He could smell her fear and it aggravated him.

“For fuck’s sake, will you quit with that already. I’m not going to kill you. I’m taking you home.”

“You don’t even know where I live.”

“I’m a vampire, remember.” He tapped his forehead with his finger, indicating that he could read minds. He hadn’t actually done it, as she had to be conscious for it. He had simply checked her bag for the address, a UCL hall on Gover Street.

She wasn’t assuaged. “And it’s supposed to make me feel better that you’ve violated my mind instead of my body?”

“Yes.” He had long forgotten what it was like to have complete privacy of his mind. When a bunch of people had the ability to communicate with you in your mind, you tended to lose certain inhibitions.

“That’s illegal, you know.”

“I’ll clear your mind. You won’t remember it.” It wasn’t the right thing to say either.

“So I won’t know if you rape me?”

Her accusation stunned him. “I’m not going to rape you. Why would you think that?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because I’m locked in a car with a vampire I just witnessed kill a man!”

“He wasn’t a man.” He was beginning to lose patience.

“Says you.”

Jeremy rubbed his face to clear his mind. He needed a shave, but that would have to wait. “Look, we got off to a bad start. Hi, I’m Jeremy Grayson, vampire warrior of the Crimson Circle, and I spend my nights hunting the creatures I killed so they won’t kill vampires and hapless human women. Who might you be?”

She regarded him suspiciously. She had a nice face, pretty even though she was frowning. A strong, stubborn face. “Can’t you get it out of my mind?”

“I can, yes, but I’d rather not.”

“Suppose I give you a fake name, then?”

“Suppose you do. I’m sure you have a name you give to annoying guys at bars all the time.”

A ghost of a smile tugged the corner of her mouth, suggesting that she indeed had a fake name ready. It softened her features, transforming her from pretty to beautiful as her large, moss-green eyes lit up. Her light brown hair was pulled back tightly, but wisps had escaped and were framing her face nicely. Her sharp nose and dark straight eyebrows didn’t look so severe anymore either.

He reached for the inside light and switched it on. His eyes adjusted instantly, but her human eyes were slower to react. “I just realised you probably don’t see me as well in the dark as I see you,” he explained. The light might make her feel more comfortable too.

She nodded. She was studying him as curiously as he had her earlier, and he waited patiently. Anything to make her calm down. It was beginning to dawn on him that the situation might seem somewhat different to her than it did him. No wonder she was frightened.

“My name is Corynn Sparks,” she eventually said. “Spelt with a ‘y’ and two ‘n’s and no ‘e’ at the end.” He got a notion that it was her actual name, and it delighted him.

“I knew a girl named that once.”

“What, spelt the same way?”

She sounded so affronted that he smiled. “I have no idea. People weren’t fussy about spelling those days and, anyway, I couldn’t read.”

She stared at him. “The way you said it makes it sound like it was a long time ago.”

“I am a vampire, remember.”

She was truly curious now. “So how long ago was it?”

“You can’t expect me to spill all my secrets at once,” he teased her, and was rewarded with a smile that had almost no fear in it.

“Why not? You already told me you’re going to erase my memory.”

That was true. “Well, I was born in 1663.” He watched her take that in.

“Wow. That’s … you’re really old.”

He didn’t feel old. Never had. He looked about the same age he had been when his
promise
was
fulfilled
, twenty-six, and if he didn’t feel quite as young as modern men of that age, it was because he had been older than that already before he was twenty. Life had been harder when he was still human, and people matured fast.

He shrugged. “I’m young for a vampire.”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“A veritable baby.”

“Hey!” But he just smiled and started the engine again.

“Come, let’s get you home.”

Corynn watched fascinated as the vampire drove the car in an assured, calm manner. No, she watched the man. That he was a vampire too was mere seasoning, a sprinkle of otherworldliness that made him more exciting.

The specimen of masculinity next to her didn’t match her idea of a vampire anyway: a pale, effeminate creature reclining languidly on a bed full of pillows. He called himself a warrior and she didn’t doubt him. On some other man the title would have been self-aggrandising, but on him it was self-evident. It wasn’t just about his obvious, overpowering strength, or his muscled body that was clad in a black leather jerkin and trousers in the style of warriors past. It was everything about him.

He was taller than her by a few inches – she was almost five nine without the horrible heels – but at least twice her width. She was leanly built, with the long muscles of an endurance runner. He had wide, muscled shoulders that made him seem even bigger than he was.

But his size was more than mere physical appearance. He had a presence, an energy, which she could sense. It pushed towards her, making her want to lean against the door to give him more room.

She had an affinity for two-natured energy, which she had discovered only after moving to London and befriending a leopard-shifter, Toby. He had amused himself by making her spot the different energies various people had, from the non-existent energies of humans to the vibrant and warm of shifters and cool and calm energies of vampires.

She had become good at spotting even the vampires, whose energy was by far the most difficult to discern, as they tended to hide it. But she had never felt anything like the energy of this man. It was as if he was strong in spirit as well as body. And that’s what made him a warrior.

He had the strong face of a warrior too, angular with a prominent nose and a square jaw, and a surprisingly sensual mouth. Her eyes fixed on it and he smiled even though he was facing the street and couldn’t possibly see her watching him. He knew exactly what he could do to a woman with his mouth.

Her body began to heat as she imagined his mouth on hers, on her body and throat. The image of him puncturing her throat with his fangs made her heart miss a beat, and she inhaled sharply to stifle the sensual sensation.

This would not do, no matter how attractive he was, or how unruly her imagination was getting. He was holding her against her will, even if he claimed to be helping. She would not forget that, no matter that her body did.

But it was impossible to ignore him. Flustered, she cleared her throat. “Did you really find out where I live from my mind?” More importantly, could he read her thoughts about him?

He shrugged, still smiling, which wasn’t reassuring. “You live at the UCL hall on Gower Street, right?”

She wasn’t really surprised. “Yes. Do you know how to get there?”

“I’ve had three centuries to roam London. I know it better than the cab drivers.”

She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the idea that he had lived so long. Were all two-natureds long-living? Was Toby older than he looked? It had never occurred to her to ask.

“I’m not very familiar with London. I’m from Bedford.”

“Me too! Whereabouts there?”

Baffled by the coincidence, she answered him, even though the sensible part of her insisted on holding her tongue. “Goldington.”

“Ah. It was fields and pasture back in my days. We had a small farm south of the river. Sheep.”

His words conjured a charming image of pastoral idyll. “Is it still there?”

“No. Our last human relative sold it in the late nineteenth century and moved to America. They’ve built a road over it.”

So much for that idyll. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. It was a ramshackle place by then.”

She tried to imagine what life had been like in his youth, but she had only a vague notion that people were malnourished and small. “You’ve grown big.”

He laughed. “It’s the vampire gene. Makes us larger. You should see some of the vampire-born.”

“What does that mean?”

He looked surprised, as if he had expected her to know. “Someone with two vampire parents, and most likely a long line of vampires in their ancestry too. I’m human-born. Both my parents were humans.”

“So how come you’re a vampire?” They were almost at her home, and as much as she had wanted to flee earlier, she wanted to continue the conversation now.

“The two-natured gene is recessive. Humans can carry it, but unless the child has the gene from both of them, it won’t do anything. Apparently both of mine had it and they passed it on to me and my brother. The leader of our organisation recognised it and made me and my brother vampires.”

“I didn’t know humans could be made vampires.” She had never given it a thought, actually.

“We all start as humans.”

She stared at him, amazed at the notion. He glanced at her and grinned. “Eye-opener, eh?”

“You can say that again.”

They were at her hall. The street was empty and dark, the streetlamps switched off already. Jeremy pulled the car over on the no parking zone in front of the main entrance and cut the engine. “I’ll see you in.” He didn’t add ‘to erase her memory’, but that’s what he meant.

Her stomach fell and she was slightly nauseous as she got out of the car. She didn’t want to have her memory of him taken from her. As scared as she had been of him, she now found him utterly fascinating. With stiff legs, she walked up the steps to the front door of the Edwardian brown brick. Her fingers shook a little as she put the key to a lock.

“Imagine, before I ran into that … man, I thought the worst thing to happen to me tonight was losing my job.” She was stalling, but she didn’t want the night to end just yet.

“You lost your job? Why?”

She smiled, mirthlessly. “I poured a bucket of ice on a customer at the club where I was waitressing.”

He laughed. “Why did you do that?”

“He was creepy.” Then a memory dawned. “In fact, he felt like the guy you killed.”

He stilled, instantly alert. “Where was it?”

“At the Nightingale Club.”

“I have to go.”

He turned around and was in his car before she had made it through the front door. She watched, baffled, how he drove away, too fast, speaking to his mobile. She must have said something important. That, or he didn’t want to have anything to do with her all of a sudden.

The thought made her sad.

She climbed to her room and collapsed on the bed. She stared at the ceiling for a long time, trying to commit him and everything he had told her to memory. Maybe he couldn’t wipe everything away.

She shot up, energised. He had forgotten to erase her mind!

She powered up her laptop and opened her diary, feeling giddy. She would write everything down before he returned. Because she had no doubt he would return. Men like him didn’t leave loose ends.

When he did return, she would have a memory of him he couldn’t easily erase.

Chapter Four