Kissed by Darkness (17 page)

I rolled my eyes, which was kind of hard to do while driving. “You’re an idiot.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

“Anyway, I already told him I know he’s got the amulet.”

“What did you do that for?” He sounded irritated.

I shrugged. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

I was no lady, but Jack’s language made even me blush. He eventually ran out of modern cuss words and switched to what sounded like French.

I pulled up in front of his house. “There you are. Front door service, sir.” My voice sounded a little over bright, even to me.

“Do you mind helping me in? I still feel a bit … delicate.”

Delicate? Jack? “Uh, sure.” I hopped out and ran around the side to help him out of the car. He was right. He was definitely a bit wobbly still and nearly brought me down right there on the pavement. Even with my extra strength, I could barely hold him up. “Sheesh, Jack,” I panted. “You weigh a ton.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound particularly sorry.

Between us, we managed to stagger to his front door and get him inside the house. He sagged down on the sofa. He seriously needed a shower; heck, I seriously needed a shower, but there was no way in hell I was going to get him up the stairs.

“Don’t worry; there’s a shower in the laundry room by the kitchen.”

“What? You’re reading my mind now?”

This time he did grin. “You’re thinking too hard.”

I scowled at him. “There is no way in hell I’m getting naked with you, Jack.”

His grin widened. “Well, now, that’s a pity. But I think I can manage to shower on my own.”

Yeah, right. The guy could barely stand on his own, let alone do anything as exciting as taking a shower. “Well, then.” I fiddled with my key ring. “Guess I’ll leave you to it.”

“Stay, Morgan. We have things we need to discuss.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. I glanced down at my filthy clothes. “We can talk later. I need a shower myself. Not to mention I think these clothes need burned.”

“Just wash them with some hydrogen peroxide. The blood will come out.”

I stared at him. What was this? Jackie Homemaker? I swore my life couldn’t get any more bizarre if it tried. “Sure. I’ll get right on that.”

“You can use the upstairs shower. It’s in my bedroom. You’ll find some sweats and T-shirts in the closet and there are some garbage bags under the sink in the kitchen for the bloody clothes.”

I shrugged. What the hell.

So, after I helped Jack into the laundry room for his shower and grabbed a plastic bag from under the sink, I headed upstairs to Jack’s room. His bedroom was what you’d expect. An enormous California king graced the middle of the room with matching nightstands on either side. The bedside lamps were sleek chrome things. It was all very modern and minimalist. Not my taste, but it sort of suited him. More so than the living room.

His closet, however, was pretty much a girl’s wet dream. Calling it a walk-in didn’t do it justice. It was huge, nearly as large as my entire bedroom. There were cubbyholes and shelves and hanging racks on every wall, crammed with more suits and shoes and ties and whatnot than I’d seen outside a clothing store.

There were four sets of bureaus standing back to back in the middle of the room. I pulled open one of the drawers. Socks. All black. Who in the world had an entire drawer of nothing but black socks?

The next drawer had white socks. Below that, boxer briefs in an assortment of colors. Now
that
was what I liked to see in a man’s drawers. No pun intended.

A few more drawers and I found T-shirts and sweat pants. I picked out a pair of black sweats and a green T-shirt with a peace sign on the front. Jack hadn’t struck me as a peace sign kind of guy. I guess you just never knew about people.

The bathroom was even better than the closet, if that were possible. It looked like he’d knocked a couple of smaller bedrooms together and converted them into something even the ancient Romans would have drooled over. I was pretty sure you could have fit an entire football team in the bathtub alone.

I’d have loved to try out that bathtub, but a shower would have to do. Not that his shower was anything to sneeze at. It was enormous and tiled in what looked like Italian marble or something equally expensive and a pain in the ass to clean. There were knobs and jets and things everywhere. I swear it took me twenty minutes just to figure out how to turn the thing on.

I felt immensely better after my shower. The therapeutic effects of a hot shower are highly underrated. The clothes left a lot to be desired, but at least they were clean. I was not a small woman, but Jack’s sweats required several rolls so as to avoid breaking a leg, and his T-shirt made me look like a five year old dressing up in dad’s clothes. Even worse, I was sans makeup and Jack didn’t appear to own a hair dryer, so my hair was all wet and slicked back. Not an attractive look.

I was pretty sure Jack didn’t mind. If I hadn’t caught the look in his eye when I rejoined him in the living room, I wouldn’t have thought he noticed. It was the barest flicker of heat, but it was there. Then he did the blank thing again.

Yeah, he didn’t think I looked so bad. Then again it might have been because I was braless. But only because mine had been ruined and it wasn’t something Jack had hanging around in his closet.

His eyes flicked to my chest as I curled up in the armchair across from him. Yeah, it was definitely the braless thing. There was no way on earth a woman with D cups could possibly go around braless without someone noticing. Particularly a male someone.

“OK, Jack. Let’s talk. How about we start with Sunwalkers?”

He gave me a long look. “All right, what do you want to know?”

“What are they? You, I mean. How are you different from vampires? That sort of thing.”

He leaned back, wincing a little as his newly healed muscles contracted. “Your dreams, the ones you’ve been having about the priest?”

I nodded, urging him to continue. I was finally going to find out about those damn dreams.

He seemed to search for words. “They are real. What you saw really happened thousands of years ago, as near as I can tell.”

“You’ve had the dreams, too?”

He nodded. “It’s the amulet’s way of communicating with its Guardian. It sends me dreams, mostly. And the one about the priest were the first ones I had.” He paused for a moment. “You can’t tell anyone about my connection to the amulet.”

“Why? I mean, it’s kind of weird, the whole connection thing, being the Guardian, whatever that means, but why would anyone care?”

“Trust me; there are people who would care. Powerful people. People like Brent Darroch.” His voice was cold and hard. There was definitely some history there.

“All right, fine. I won’t tell. Continue the story.” I’d promise just about anything if he’d tell me the truth.

“The details are sketchy, but it appears that there really was a city of Atlantis which was destroyed thousands of years ago. From what I’ve seen in the visions, there was a sickness they brought with them from,” he frowned before continuing, “their homeland. I’m not sure exactly where this homeland was, but the sickness is part of what drove them out. They left in order to escape it. They thought they’d cured it, but there was a new outbreak. It made them crazy, bloodthirsty.”

I nodded. I’d known that much. I even knew where, or what, this homeland was, as well as the fact that it wasn’t just the sickness that drove them out, but a dying sun. I thought I’d keep that little tidbit to myself for the time being. An ancient race from a dying world? Yeah, that’d go over well. “But they weren’t vampires?”

He shook his head. “No. They weren’t human, I don’t think, but they weren’t vampires, either. I think the sickness had a similar effect to vampirism, but not entirely. It seems that when they attacked humans, the disease mutated and the human survivors became the first vampires.”

“Shit.” My dream was starting to make a lot of sense now.

He smiled a little at that. “Before all this happened, humans and the people of Atlantis had already begun intermarrying. There were many people who were of mixed blood and they alone were immune.”

“How is that possible?”

“No idea. But something about the mix of human and Atlantean genetics was resistant to the disease. The last High Priest discovered this and decided to use it to his advantage to save what he called the Treasure of Atlantis. So he created the Key.”

“The amulet,” I said.

“Yes. His original plan was to entrust the Key to his son who was half-human and a trained Warrior. Unfortunately … “

“They got trapped in the cave and he ate his son for lunch,” I finished for him. Jack just gave me a dirty look. Could I help it if I had a sick sense of humor?

“Something like that, yes. From what I can tell, though, he had a backup plan. Anyone bearing the genetic code of one of his son Varan’s elite squad of half-human warriors who came into contact with the Key would become its next Guardian. I was that person.”

“You are a descendent of one of Varan’s warriors?”

“So, it seems.”

“But how did you manage not to turn into a vampire when the priest attacked you? Or were you immune?” This was getting weirder by the minute. Good thing I was starting to get used to weird.

“The Priest carried the original strain of the disease, not the mutated form which is vampirism. That’s part of it, I imagine, but the biggest part is that humans who carry Atlantean DNA are still partially immune to the disease which creates vampires. If we are bitten we don’t turn into vampires. We become Sunwalkers.”

I blinked. So he did know why he hadn’t turned vampire. I really hated when people hid stuff from me. “It doesn’t make sense. I’m getting the dreams. How is that possible?”

“That’s most likely because you also carry Atlantean DNA. It would also explain why you’ve been getting the dreams. The Key recognizes you as one of its own. I imagine, you could even be a descendent of one of Varan’s original warriors just as I am.”

I was starting to get a really funny feeling about all this. “Jack, I was attacked three years ago by a vampire. I actually died, but they brought me back. I certainly didn’t become a vampire.” My heart thudded in my chest so hard it hurt. “I just got stronger, faster.” I didn’t mention my Spidey sense. Another thing to keep under wraps. For now.

“That’s because, Morgan Bailey, you became a Sunwalker.”

Chapter Fourteen

“That’s just crazy. I am so not a Sunwalker. I certainly don’t have any interest in sucking anyone’s blood.”

Jack laughed. “What do you think Sunwalkers are, Morgan?”

“Well, I don’t know. You won’t bloody tell me anything!” I winced at the distinct whine in my voice. I hated when my voice went all whiny.

That really set him off. By the time he was finished laughing he was holding his side in obvious pain. Good. He deserved a little pain. I glowered at him.

“Oh, Morgan, you are such a miracle.”

I didn’t know what on earth he meant by that so I just glared at him some more. I might’ve looked cute and innocent, but I had a good glare.

He managed to pull himself together. “We don’t drink blood, Morgan.”

“Then what are the fangs for?”

He ran his tongue over his canines. “These aren’t fangs. I was born this way.”

“What?” I wasn’t sure it was possible to be more confused, but I was.

“Morgan, some people are just born with longer canine teeth. It’s genetics. Like yours.”

“Mine aren’t long!”

“Nope, but they’re sharp.” His smile was just a little too smug, but he had a point. I did have unusually sharp canines.

“So no blood drinking? Then why were you nibbling on my neck?” I couldn’t help being just a little disappointed by the whole no blood-drinking thing.

“Because you’re tasty, that’s why.” His voice held just that edge of a growl that told me he had
really
liked sucking on my neck. Things down low clenched when he did that. Oh, boy. I licked my lips.

“Come here.” His voice was rough around the edges.

“Why?” I was pretty sure I knew why, but I wasn’t going to make it that easy for him.

“Come here.” Rougher now.

I got up. Jack’s body radiated heat as I curled up next to him. He wrapped a solid arm around me and pulled me in for a kiss. Hot and wet and completely erotic. It was a good thing I was sitting down.

Fortunately for my sanity, my phone rang right then.

“Leave it,” Jack ordered.

I ignored him. “It’s Kabita. I need to take this.” I really needed to get my head together. Kabita checking up on me was just the opportunity I needed. By the time I got off the phone, I pretty much had my hormones under control, but I figured a quick subject change wouldn’t hurt.

“The blood thing?” I prodded, scooting away from him just a little. I needed some space.

“We don’t need to drink blood to survive,” Jack continued, though there was an edge of what sounded like frustration in his voice. “We get our energy from the sun, not from blood. I need so much sunlight every day or I grow weak. The sun is as necessary to me as it is dangerous to vampires. That’s why we’re called Sunwalkers.”

“So you moved to Portland? How’s that working out for you?” Portland wasn’t exactly known for being the land of eternal sun.

He grinned as he reached over and tangled his fingers in my hair. “These days I use a sun lamp when there’s not enough natural sunlight. Makes my life a lot easier.”

“If I really am a Sunwalker, does that mean I’ll need more sun?” I wasn’t exactly a sun worshipper, so the thought didn’t thrill me.

“I would assume so, yes. Though you appear to be doing fine.”

That was a relief. “OK, so no blood, but you need sunlight. What else?”

He cuddled me a bit tighter against his side. I didn’t want to admit it, but it felt good. Really good. “As you noticed, I’m faster and stronger than any human and most vampires.”

Yeah, I got that. “But I’m not that strong. I’m stronger than humans, sure, but not as strong as a vampire.” Not strictly true. I was as strong as a new vampire and even many older ones, but not nearly as strong or fast as a truly ancient one and definitely not like Jack.