Kissed by Darkness (16 page)

Jack turned his head slightly and snarled at the young couple who still sat paralyzed on their picnic blanket. “Leave.” His voice was deep and rough and made things down low tighten with arousal. Well, wasn’t this just a nice turn of events?

The kids snatched up their blanket and ran for the parking lot without as much as a backward glance or a word of thanks. Can’t say as I blamed them; I’d have been freaked out, too. It wasn’t every night you nearly got eaten by vampires. Jack never even looked in their direction.

He stalked toward me, slowly, a predator hypnotizing his prey. Except this prey wasn’t scared and she wasn’t even close to hypnotized. OK, maybe a little hypnotized.

I stood my ground and looked him full in the eye. Probably stupid, but what can I say? My libido was seriously running out of control and I no longer cared what sort of weird magic mojo Sunwalker powers he had.

“Jack.” My voice was embarrassingly breathy. “Why are you here, Jack?”

He flashed his fangs at me. They were shorter than a true vampire’s fangs, more elongated canines than actual fangs. “I heard you.” His voice was rough and oh, so sexy.

I frowned. “Heard me? What do you mean, heard me?”

He snarled, obviously annoyed. “In my head. You were in trouble. You called me. I came.”

He was closer now. Close enough to touch. I frowned. “I didn’t call you.” I’d barely had time to think. There certainly hadn’t been time to pull out my cell phone and have a chat with my friendly neighborhood Sunwalker. “Wait, what did you say? You heard me in your head?”

“Enough talk,” he snapped, his ocean eyes swimming with hunger and deeper, darker things. He grabbed me around the waist and hauled me up against him so tight I could feel the hard length of him pressing against my belly. “Enough talk,” he growled against my mouth, his voice barely audible.

So I stopped talking and did what any sensible woman would do in my situation. I kissed him. It was like falling into a deep, warm well. He tasted like chocolate, and sunshine, and sex, and his lips and tongue were soft as velvet. Somebody made a little moaning sound and I wasn’t sure if it was him or me.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my hands in his silky hair. His hands were on my backside, pulling me in tight against him so I could feel every solid bit of him. He was happy. Oh, man, was he happy. I rubbed myself right up against Mr. Happy and couldn’t help but grin a little at Jack’s growl.

I’d forgotten all about the bite on my neck and the blood all over my shirt until Jack dipped his head and started kissing my collarbone, nibbling the tender skin behind my ear while carefully avoiding my wound. It was unbelievably erotic and I swear I’d have purred if it were humanly possible. I was completely lost in the sensation of his mouth and his tongue and his touch.

And then all of a sudden Jack went still. He froze, then he lifted his head and as our eyes met I realized the Hunger was gone. Instead was a look of horror. “Jack? Jack, what’s wrong?” His hands dropped limply from my backside and he slid through my arms to the ground, lifeless.

That’s when I saw the dagger sticking out of the left side of his back, angled toward his heart, and Kabita standing behind him a look of determination on her face.

Horror slid through me. She couldn’t have. “What the fuck did you do?” I meant to yell, but it came out a lot quieter than that. Shock must have paralyzed my vocal cords or something.

This couldn’t be happening. Jack couldn’t be dead. I dropped to my knees, my hands on his face, at his throat. Did a Sunwalker have a pulse? I couldn’t feel a pulse. Shit, I couldn’t feel a pulse.

“Morgan,” Kabita’s voice snapped me out of the haze. “We were
hired
to execute him. He was about to kill you.”

“He wasn’t killing me, he was
kissing
me, you idiot.” I grabbed the hilt of the knife. You’re not supposed to pull out objects when people get impaled, but Jack wasn’t human. Jack was something else. I yanked the dagger out of his back. Nothing. “Jack? Jack.” Nothing.

His blood was everywhere, black pools in the moonlight. The thick coppery scent hit my nose and sent my stomach heaving. I tried to stop the bleeding, but there was too much of it.

I didn’t care that we’d been hired to kill him. Killing him had long since ceased to be an option. Apparently Kabita hadn’t got the message. And I was evidently in a lot more shock than I realized.

I felt Kabita tug at me, trying to pull me away from his body, but I didn’t budge. I just held on tighter to the shell that had once been Jack. He’d lived for over 900 years and tonight I’d gotten him killed.

Chapter Thirteen

I’m not sure how long I sat there with Jack’s blood seeping into my shirt, but after a while I started noticing things. Kabita was talking quietly to someone on the phone, her voice a low murmur against the other night noises that had finally returned. My butt ached from the cold ground, but my chest was warm, almost hot, from the blood. Jack’s blood.

I pressed my cheek against the top of his head, feeling the silk of his hair tickle my chin. I honestly didn’t know what to feel. One minute we’d been kissing and the next he was dead. I was used to death. Heck, I was usually the one dealing it, but this was just a little too much.

Kabita put a tentative hand on my shoulder. “Morgan?”

“How could you do it?” My voice felt stuck in my chest. I sounded broken, not angry. “How could you kill him? You knew he wasn’t one of the monsters. I told you. He wasn’t hurting me.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry, but he was biting your neck. What was I supposed to think?”

I shook my head a little. “He wasn’t biting me. One of the vamps we dusted bit me. He was just … we were just …necking.” It sounded so ridiculous.

“You barely know him.” My vision was kind of watery, but I’m pretty sure she looked exasperated. Frankly, I didn’t give a damn if she thought I was an idiot. Probably in my saner moments I’d think I was an idiot, too. Sanity seemed a rare commodity lately, especially where Jack was concerned.

I brushed a lock of hair back from Jack’s eyes. Pupils dilated and fixed. They were always saying that on those crime scene shows. I used to love those shows before life changed. Now they seemed rather trite.

Definitely dead. I struggled to hold back what felt suspiciously like a sob as I pressed my lips against his forehead, then I laid him gently back on the ground before closing his eyes.

They used to say the soul escaped to heaven through the eyes when a person died. I wondered if Jack had a soul to escape. I couldn’t imagine him sitting around strumming a harp on a cloud somewhere, but I hoped his soul was at peace anyway. I just didn’t know what I was going to do now that he was gone. I couldn’t believe he was really and truly dead. There were still too many questions left unanswered.

Something niggled at the back of my mind. Something not quite right.

“Kabita, Jack didn’t dust.”

She shrugged. “Probably has something to do with the whole Sunwalker thing. Maybe they don’t dust like normal vamps. Don’t worry about it. I’ve called Inigo. He’ll help.”

With the body. She didn’t say it, but I knew she meant he’d help us get rid of the body. Couldn’t very well have the cops around asking questions. They weren’t exactly in on the whole supernatural secret and the Feds liked it that way. Having to explain why my best friend had just stabbed someone was not something any of us wanted to do.

I could tell I was still in shock. I was thinking way too clearly not to be. My mind was also going on really weird tangents which meant I was probably going to cry myself to sleep later and then not eat for days on end. That’s how I dealt with grief, which was kind of weird because I barely knew Jack.

Kabita was pulling me away from Jack’s body, whispering words that weren’t quite making sense. Either I was in worse shape than I thought, which I doubted, or it was a spell.

“Don’t you pull that voodoo shit with me,” I snapped at her. Anger surged up to take the place of shock.

“It’s not voodoo and you know it,” she snapped right back. “It’s just a spell to make you feel better.”

“I don’t care what it is; I don’t
want
to feel better.” God I was being such a child. I knew very well the difference between vodun and witchcraft; I just wanted to piss Kabita off. Nothing pisses off a witch more than calling her spells voodoo. I was actually OK with pissing Kabita off right then.

She sighed and there was a lot of sadness behind it. “I’m sorry, Morgan. I’m really sorry. I honestly thought he was going to kill you. If I’d realized … I’m sorry.” Moonlight turned her into shadow, but I felt her sorrow just the same. Sorrow for me, not for Jack.

I closed my eyes. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. “Yeah, I know.” I pulled my arm out of her grasp and knelt back down on the grass next to Jack’s body. The moonlight shimmered on his skin and turned his hair black. I ran my fingers through the heavy silkiness of it, cool in the night air. I leaned down to press my lips against his one last time and nearly had a heart attack.

His eyes flew open. His mouth moved, like he was trying to talk and then his body arched off the ground as he drew in a gasping breath, lungs heaving. Coughs wracked his body as he struggled to breathe.

“Jack? Jack!” It was like his body was relearning to breathe. I grabbed him and rolled him on his side in the recovery position. Hooray for first aid training. He seemed to breathe a little easier.

He was dead. I’d seen him die. I’d bloody well held him in my arms while he died. Kabita had driven a stake through his heart, for fuck’s sake. Nobody came back from that.

I pulled out one of my knives and sliced open his shirt so I could see his back. Where there should have been a gaping hole was smooth, flawless skin marred only by a rough coat of dried blood. I ran my fingers over the warm silk of his back. He was perfect. Not even a scar to show where the stake had gone in. We were both still covered in blood; there’d been a lot of it, but no marks.

As his breathing eased, I helped him sit up, using my body to brace him. Kabita was staring at both of us with her mouth hanging open. I couldn’t blame her.

I brushed his hair out of his face and stared into his eyes. He stared back. Neither of us said a word, but I knew it was him. It was Jack. He’d been dead a minute ago, his soul, spirit, whatever gone. I didn’t doubt that for a second.

“Jack, what the hell just happened?” My voice was a little husky from all the crying.

“I died.”

“No shit. But you are very much alive now.”

“Yes.”

I glared at him. Honestly the man needed a good smack alongside the head. “Now would be a really good time to explain.”

He sighed and winced a little. I frowned. “Do you still hurt?”

“A little. It will pass.” He gave me one of those manly brave smiles that men gave you when they’re badly hurt but trying to be all macho. Men were so weird. They got a paper cut and acted like they were dying, but a true injury and they tried to play the big, brave hero.

“Uh, huh. I’m sure. I still want an explanation.” I almost didn’t care, I was so glad he was alive, but the Hunter in me needed to know.

“My fate is tied to the amulet. I am its Keeper, its Guardian, and I will remain so until the true owner of the amulet is found.”

I didn’t get it. This was all starting to sound a bit weird and mystical to me. “This has to do with that stupid amulet? What do you mean, ‘true owner’?”

“It’s a long story,” he shook his head. He pulled out of my arms and staggered to his feet. He swayed a moment then gathered himself together. He stretched a little, testing the skin and muscles as though to make sure they still held together.

I sighed. He obviously wasn’t ready to share, but we were beyond the point of secrets and half-truths. “Fine. I’m taking you home. But, Jack, when we get there, you are going to tell me everything. Understand? Everything.” I guess I must have looked pretty stubborn because he finally nodded in agreement.

***

If Inigo was disappointed he had no body to clean up, he didn’t show it. Though I did get the distinct feeling he wasn’t too fond of Jack. Oh, sure, he did his usual jovial thing, but there was a dark look in his eyes that in anyone else I would have called jealousy. I wasn’t sure whether to be pissed off or flattered. I decided not to think about it. I was still kind of creeped out by whatever did or didn’t happen with him the other night.

Jack didn’t have a car. He wouldn’t explain just how exactly he managed to get up the hill to Pittock Mansion without a car so fast, though I imagined it had something to do with his Sunwalker skill set. He was still pretty wobbly, so I offered him a ride home. There were some things I really wanted to get straight with old Jack. Of course, I would have also liked very much to go home to a hot shower and a change of clothes, but that could wait.

I gave Jack a sidelong look. His face had an eerie greenish glow from the dashboard lights. “So … ” I prodded. He didn’t respond. I was nothing if not persistent. “So, you can’t die, huh?”

“No.”

“At all?”

He threw me a look. “I am the Guardian of the Key. I am truly immortal. Unlike a vampire, I cannot die, even if you take my head. As long as the amulet exists, so do I.”

“Key?”

He sat in stubborn silence.

“Listen Jack, there is some seriously weird shit happening here and I think I deserve to know about it. In case you forgot, I’ve been hired to kill you, so I’d kinda like to know what exactly I’m supposed to tell my client.”

“Tell Brent Darroch to go to hell,” he said mildly.

I glared at him a second before turning my eyes back to the dark road in front of me. “Yeah, right. That would go down a treat. ‘Excuse me Mr. Darroch, but I just found that Jack the Sunwalker can’t really die. Not as long as the amulet you stole from him exists. So would you please fuck off?’”

I was pretty sure I saw his lips twitch. I didn’t think it was an actual smile, but it was close. “Not quite what I had in mind, but it works.”