Jared (7 page)

“Only because he gave her his.”

It was just so sweet. When she was human, she would
have given her eye teeth for a man to think that much of her. Heck, as a
vampire she still would, but vampire men were possessive and unemotional, more
interested in dominating than treating a woman with tenderness. Tears misted
her eyes.

Jared shook his head and looked down that long blade
of his nose at her. “You get too close to your meals.”

She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes.
“They’re human, like we were once.”

“But we’re not anymore.” His hand in the middle of her
back pushed her forward. “So all this emotionalism is for nothing.”

Maybe to him. She hopped to the side and faced him,
holding her hand up to keep him from coming after her. “I won’t do it. This
weekend is all they could scrounge, and I’m not ruining it for them by taking
their blood and leaving them weak.”

“Dammit!”

Raisa folded her arms across her chest. His curses had
no effect on her. Her stubbornness apparently had none on him. He grabbed the
young man by the back of the neck, hauling him toward him, the exasperation he
felt with her evident in the quick movement. Obviously he thought if he drained
the male, she’d see things his way.

“And you’re not drinking from him, either,” she
pointed out quickly as Jared angled his head for the bite, his fangs gleaming
in the moonlight. His eyebrow went up, but he did stop.

“I’m not?”

She licked her lips and played her hunch. “No, you’re
not. You don’t need the blood. The only reason you’re doing this is because
you’re trying to force my hand, but even if you suck him so dry he’s useless in
bed for a week, I’m not drinking from her, so your plan is completely
illogical.” She waited a second for him to absorb that before adding, “And you
are not an illogical man.”

He slowly straightened, his eyes glittering with
sparks of frustration. “I’m not?”

She held her ground as his energy whipped around her,
seething with the frustration she could see in his face. “No.”

“And you’re seriously so concerned about these two
having the perfect honeymoon that you’re willing to put yourself at risk?”

She waved the last aside with a quick flick of her
wrist. “I told you, drinking from either of those two isn’t going to change
anything. If you weren’t so stubborn, you’d accept that.”

“I would?”

“Yes.” She leapt over the warning in his voice,
rushing for the win. He was weakening. She just knew it. “As for their
honeymoon, weren’t you married in your before life? Or at least engaged?” A
snowflake fell and then another as she searched his face for some softening.
“Don’t you remember the anticipation of the wedding, the endless excitement of
knowing at last you were going to be together?”

Another growl rumbled. “You’ve got your centuries
mixed up. These two have been screwing like rabbits for years.”

The snowflakes, shining almost silver with her night
vision, gathered and fell in loose spirals of brilliant clustered beauty. “But
there will only be one first time after they’ve promised themselves to each
other,” she said softly, Jared’s face fading out of focus, remembering back to
her own before life. “Only one first night of the rest of their lives . . .”

She blinked as the wind gusted around them, whipping
the snowflakes into stinging projectiles. Where had that come from? As quickly
as the storm started, it stopped.

“You’re a Goddamn romantic.”

He made it sound so bad. “So?”

“Life is not romantic.”

“Mine is.”

He stepped back from the young man. She didn’t release
her breath until his hand fell to his side. “That’s why you’re a fucking
vampire.”

“I’ll thank you to watch your language.”

To her surprise, his eyelid twitched. With what?
Shame? “Sorry,” he amended. “That’s why you’re a darn vampire.”

She chose to ignore the sarcasm and concentrated on
the concession couched within. In her day, a man watched his language around a
woman and from the clues in Jared’s speech, he came from a similar time.
“Apology accepted.”

The muscle in his jaw ticked. She took the two steps
necessary to get to his side. The man had made major concessions for her, she
could make one for him. She placed her hand on his sleeve, the skin of his
forearm blessedly hot. “Thank you for not ruining their honeymoon.”

He glanced down at her hand on his arm, and then at
the enthralled couple. He shook his head again and sighed, “I must be losing my
mind.”

“You’re just a good man.”

“I’m neither a man nor good, I’m a f—” He cut her
another glare. “A darn vampire.”

She patted his sleeve. “I know.” Picking up her
backpack, she asked, “Shall we go?”

She made it halfway across the clearing, far enough
away that the roar of the stream over the rocks was a melodic backdrop to the
softly falling snow by the time Jared caught up. Two tugs and he had her pack
off her shoulder and onto his. She grabbed for the blanket, which slid off her
shoulders, catching a glimpse of the couple out of the corner of her eye as she
did, and stopped dead. Despite the cold, despite the perfectly good tent just a
few feet from them, they were tearing at each other’s clothes, their desire for
each other so rich, she blushed. As she drew the blanket over her shoulder,
Jared came back to her side, reeking with impatience. The couple had been embracing
when they’d come upon them, but it hadn’t been anything like this. There had
been more hesitation, insecurity. “What did you do?” Jared shrugged and hitched
the blanket up, scowling at her as if her need for it was her fault, which in
his eyes, it probably was.

“You wanted them to have a memorable honeymoon; I
insured it.”

“By giving them a false level of desire?” That wasn’t
any more right than taking the blood of innocents. Unless a vampire was
incredibly strong mentally, mind influence only lasted so long and when the
falsely induced lust faded, the couple would spend their life wondering where
it had gone.

He grabbed her hand and turned her away. “No. I just
improved his technique.”

Raisa planted her feet. Jared stopped, exasperation
the predominant emotion under his scowl as he faced her. “Now what?”

“What do you mean, you improved his technique?”

For the first time Jared didn’t met her gaze. “There’s
too much back-assward information out there for a kid these days.”

“As compared to my day when there was none?”

He arched his brow, all his arrogance back. “Speak for
yourself.” “I am.” She touched his arm. “So you educated him?”

“Just righted a few wrong notions.”

“And her?”

“Just removed a few ludicrous inhibitions.”

She was going to ask what, and then decided she didn’t
want to know. She had more than her share of inhibitions, and if she blushed at
the wrong time during Jared’s explanation, he would have something to torment
her with for days. “That was just so incredibly sweet.”

“Just a means to an end.” With a jerk of his chin he
asked, “Can we move on now?”

Whether Jared wanted her to believe it or not, he was
a nice man. If he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have listened to her argument, and
certainly wouldn’t have helped the young couple the way he had. There were so
few nice men left in the world. A good one should always be rewarded. She
looked up the incline, her heart sinking at the steepness. She hated “up,” but
as his reward for his accommodating her wishes, she wouldn’t utter a word of
complaint the whole way up the darn mountain. “Of course.”

THE woman did not know how to shut up. Jared gritted
his teeth as another “Why does the way he wants to go have to be up?” filtered
past his shields.

It was part of the endless litany he’d been forced to
endure since the first hint of an incline. No matter how he tried to block
Raisa out, her energy seemed to find a way, probing at his until her thoughts
intruded on his. He’d tell her to knock it off if it weren’t for the fact that
she seemed totally oblivious that she was projecting.

And that she’d been amusing herself for the last mile
coming up with all the adjectives she could think of to describe his butt. He’d
never known women admired men’s butts, but Raisa had elevated her appreciation
of his to an art from. And that appreciation was about the only thing keeping
him from snapping at her for the non-stop complaining of the last hour.

He sighed as the footsteps behind him stopped. He
turned. Raisa was poised at the other side of a log, eyeing it as if were a
snake coiled to strike. Snowflakes glittered in her tawny hair like a fairy
crown as he heard, I’m gelding him. One more log like this in the path,
and—snip, snip—his frolicking days are over.

Despite the gravity of the threat his lips twitched. “Is
there a problem?”

Just another monster log to lift my aching legs over,
you sadistic monster.

In contrast to the viciousness of her thoughts, her
smile was toothachingly sweet. “Not at all.”

Aching? He touched his mind to hers, slipping through
the path of her forward projection. Her legs weren’t merely aching, they were
knotted and trembling from exhaustion. And she hadn’t said a word. Not a damn
word. She’d hid her emotions, her pain, her utter weariness and instead filled
his head with the unimportant chatter about his butt and her hatred of the
direction up.

“Son of a bitch!”

He was at her side before the curse finished, catching
the wash of exhausted tears in her eyes before she blinked them away and her
chin came up. And that sweet, totally beguiling, totally misleading, smile
curved her lips.

“Give it up.” He could shake her for being so foolish.
Grabbing her arm, he forced her to sit on the log. “Why in hell didn’t you tell
me you were hurting?”

“Because I didn’t want a lecture.”

“Well, brace yourself. You’re in for a he—a heck of
one.”

He lifted her right leg, anger, mostly at himself,
putting too much force behind the maneuver. She tipped back. He caught her arm
and tugged her forward. She didn’t stop when she got upright, just kept on
coming until her forearm rested on his shoulder as he massaged and worked the
slender muscles around her right knee. Hell, there wasn’t anything to her—no
substance, no strength, just a crazy sense of humor and a smile that could melt
polar icecaps. He found a knot and dug his thumbs in. Her moan shivered past
his ear. “Oh, that feels good.”

About a million other ways to make her feel good
crowded his head, none of them appropriate, and certainly nothing a man did
with a woman who expected him to watch his language around her. Her hand slid
over his shoulder and her forehead fell to his collarbone, giving him more of
her weight. He shifted his feet to accept it more easily. She was more than
exhausted. She was played out. He switched his attention to her other leg,
finding the same trembling, same knots, same feminine delicacy. And beyond
bitching about having to climb, she’d given no indication of the distress she
was in. Either she was the most stubborn, self-sacrificing woman in the world
or this was normal for her. He went back over all she’d told him, the last
lingering in his mind.

Actually, I’m fine for a few more weeks.

A vampire was strongest after feeding, the results
holding for a week or two and then fading over the next few. “Have you been
trying to tell me that this is you at your strongest?”

She didn’t lift her head. “Finally, the man catches a
clue.”

The muscle in his hand spasmed, and she sucked in a
whistling breath. That didn’t make sense. He massaged the cramp. “Are you newly
turned?”

Her “What makes you say that?” was a vibrating moan.

He controlled the surge of lust the shuddering
betrayal inspired, keeping his drawl even, with effort. “My sister-in-law had
trouble at first.”

“Your brother is married?” He turned his head, and her
hair blew across his face. He inhaled the lingering scent of honeysuckle. “You
sound shocked.”

She pushed her hair back. This close he could see the
black and taupe flecks adding dimension to her brown eyes. He’d always been
partial to brown eyes.

“I’ve never met a settling-down vampire.”

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right vamps.” He
caught a few strands of hair stuck to her lips and eased them off. Her skin was
very smooth but chilled. “And that doesn’t answer my question.”

She sighed and sat up straight. He missed the warmth
of her body, the responsibility of taking her weight. “Yes. It has always been
this way.”

“And how long has that been?”

“One hundred nine thousand, five hundred four days.”

He chuckled at the bright way she announced it. “Not
that you’ve been counting.”

“My life took a downward turn after that.” She
shrugged. “How about you?”

“Slightly less time as a vampire. And being turned
definitely changed my life.”