Master for Tonight (11 page)

“Promise?”

“Yes, Kate. I promise. I mean every word I
say, pertaining to you. I’m going to stay here with you until you
fall asleep, and then go.”

He released Kate, got out of the bed, and
knelt beside it. “I may be leaving you tonight, beauty, but I will
be back soon to court you properly. Right now, I need to get my
clothes off your lawn.”

He smirked at her as he stood, at the
recollection of the crazy misunderstanding. Julian still had some
work to do on Kate’s self-image, but that was fine. He had all the
time in the world, and she would, too, if she accepted his
proposition.

“Okay.” She moved to the place in the bed
where he had lain, smelling his scent in the pillow case. “One day
I’ll figure out what you are,” she said, sleep in her voice.

“What I am? British. Didn’t you catch the
accent? My dad was British, and my mum, Italian. Blue eyes, a quirk
of DNA.” He winked and left Kate shaking her head, giggling
again.

As Kate snuggled deeper into the bed, pulled
the blanket up over her, and wrapped her arms around Julian’s
pillow, she felt how exhausted she was. She let her eyes drift
closed as he walked back into the steamy bathroom. Although she
didn’t want to, Kate fell asleep in seconds, comforted at knowing
he would return to her side to hold her close and keep her
safe.

After starting the linens in the wash,
Julian walked out the back door to gather his wet pants and shirt
with a beaming smile on his face. His love was inside, waiting for
him to crawl back into bed with her and hold her throughout what
was left of the night, just as he had dreamed of doing so many
nights in the past. He could barely contain his joy.

“Don’t you just look the picture, now?” a
perfume-laden voice inquired, shattering the silence of the night,
and shaking Julian to his core. His Maker was standing, angry eyes
blazing, under Kate’s window. She held his wrinkled, wet clothes
out from her on her fingertips, taunting him to come closer to her
to get them.

After wiping his expression clean and trying
to appear much calmer than his quaking insides felt, he placed his
hands on his hips. Affecting a bored sound, he replied, “What are
you doing here, Evangeline?” He hoped like hell she kept her voice
down, so Kate wouldn’t hear them.

“What am I doing here,
Julian? What an odd question,” she said, looking at his nakedness.
“What are
you
doing here with that human woman? What have you been doing,
exactly?”

“Go home, Evangeline. I’ll be there in a few
minutes. This is nothing. Just a fuck, and a lousy one, at that.
You and I never said we were monogamous. I know for certain, you
aren’t, not like I care.” He grabbed his clothes and threw them
on.

He did not want her eyes on him, getting
some ideas about fucking him. Evangeline looked at him, her brain
in a red whirl, thinking over his words and what he was saying, and
also what he wasn’t.

“A boring fuck, huh? Interesting. We’re not
done. Not by a long shot, lover.”

She looked him up and down with a smile. She
moved closer to Julian until they were nose to nose, and when she
spoke, her tone was poisonous, as she ran her red-tipped finger
over his bottom lip. “You think your little secret is safe, but she
isn’t, Julian. I’m not stupid.”

Desperate to get away from her, yet standing
resolute, not showing any emotion other than disgust, he spat his
words out at her, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just go
and take your delusions with you.”

He hoped that his dismissing tone would prod
her into leaving. She could take out her anger on him once he was
away from Kate.

Julian knew Evangeline would be merciless at
what she would see as his betrayal of her, although he had never
professed any emotions towards her other than revulsion. She could
do whatever she pleased to him. He didn’t care. But she would not
harm Kate. Julian would protect and defend Kate with his entire
being, not caring if he met his ultimate demise in the process.

Evangeline glared at him. “I saw and heard
everything, Julian. Everything. Finish up whatever you’re doing
here and come home to me.” She pressed her lips against his in a
kiss that was not returned.

After wrapping her arms around his neck, she
leaned her head against his chest, “Do you want to know why I’m
leaving so easily, lover? I’ll tell you. You know what I want from
you, Julian, and you’ve just given me the ultimate bargaining chip
to make it happen. You can’t run from me anymore.”

Poking her claw-like nail into his chest,
she said, “Make sure she doesn’t remember you, Julian. If she does,
I will come back and kill her. You know I will, and I know you
don’t want that. Do you? You think you have feelings for her, but
you don’t. You have no feelings for her at all. Do you hear me? All
you did was have a bit of fun with the woman, but that’s all it
was, Julian. Do you understand me? Don’t forget who you belong to.
You belong to me. You always have and you always will.” She
seethed, leaving.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Julian thought, scrubbing his lips with the back
of his hand and spitting, for added measure.

He had covered his tracks. He knew he did.
He hadn’t taken any chances. He had made sure he was never
followed. How the hell did that blonde bitch find him? She knew
where Kate lived! Julian pulled at his hair violently with fisted
hands, horrified at what he had brought to Kate’s doorstep.

All options were ripped away from him the
instant Evangeline arrived. Her barely veiled threat was a potent
and real danger to the woman he loved. His Kate.

There was no other way. He had to obey
Evangeline and influence Kate with his vampire power, though the
thought was repugnant to him. Julian had to remove the entire night
as a reality in his true love’s mind. He fisted his hands and hit
the sides of his head as he cursed Evangeline, cursed the sky,
cursed the blood, and cursed his miserable fucking life.

Ruined!
Julian screamed inside his head.
She’s ruined my entire fucking never-ending life!
She’s taken everything from me! Goddamned bitch!

Trudging back into the house and back up the
stairs to Kate’s bedroom, he stood in the doorway, looking at her
buried under the covers. Her hair was splayed over the pillows with
curls in random bunches. She looked so peaceful, so happy, so full
of light and love. Julian wanted to scream out his tormented
anguish. The knife in his stomach twisted and turned, making him
double over.

He wanted nothing more than to pick Kate up
and steal them both away to someplace Evangeline would never find
them. Someplace they could love each other in peace. Just the two
of them, with no ax hanging over their heads. Anything, except
leave her there alone in that bed. She belonged with him.

Knowing he only had a few moments before
Evangeline’s patience ran out, and she returned with a murderous
vengeance, Julian steeled himself, swallowing the bile that had
come up his throat, telling himself that he had to do this for
Kate. She wouldn’t be safe if Evangeline thought she remembered
being with ‘her’ lover.

He hated it when she called him that. He
hated everything about Evangeline.

As he lay down on the bed beside her, Kate
turned to curl herself towards him, wrapping her arms around his
waist, throwing her leg over his, and snuggling close. “Name,” she
mumbled in her sleep, her mouth forming into a pout.

It's now or never.
His bleak thoughts goaded him into the detestable
act.

Setting the blaze in his eyes alight, he
tipped her head up to face him and spoke to her sleeping form,
“Kate, you are under my influence and will obey everything I say to
you. Remain asleep and open your eyes. Now,” he ordered. Kate’s
eyes fluttered open with trust and hope shining through them.

“Tonight did not happen. There was no man in
your house. When you close your eyes, you are going to sleep
through the day tomorrow. Do you understand me?” he demanded,
wanting to make sure that he was really getting through to her,
even though his heart wasn’t into it.

“Nothing happened,” her voice was small and
airy. “No man. Sleep.”

“That’s right. You had a
beautiful, sensual, crazy, fantastic dream. The type of dream that
only happens once or twice in your lifetime. The man in the dream
loves you completely. Will never get over you. Will never
not
be drawn to you. That
man is me. Julian. I’m yours and always will be. No one compares to
you. No one ever will. Know this, if you know nothing else in life.
I love you more than anything. Your man. Your dark lord. Your
Julian. I love you more than my life, and that’s why I have to go.
To protect you. She found me and I have to protect you, beauty. You
will not get hurt because of me. I love you.” He stuttered over the
words, choking them out of his mouth.

He kissed her tenderly and then ran his
fingers over her face, sliding them over her eyebrows, and down to
her lips. Julian kissed her one last time.

“Sleep now, my only love.”

Kate shook her head. Her always active mind
was on high alert, rejecting what he was saying. Tears poured down
her cheeks from her unblinking eyes. Her bottom lip trembled as she
denied the words he said and battled his influence into her
mind.

His eyes flamed brighter. “Obey me. You will
obey me in this. You will think this was a dream when you remember
it. A dream you had after reading and pleasuring yourself. Do you
understand? Answer me. Now.”

He cringed at how his voice sounded, hating
the tone he was forced to use on her.

A violent spasm went through her body as her
mind was forced to accept his command.

“Yes,” she whispered back to him with glassy
eyes.

“Sleep. Now.” His final order.

Kate closed her eyes, hot tears streaming
into her pillow, as she shook with silent sobs racking her body.
Her hands clutched at him, bunching his dirty and demolished shirt
into her fists. Her hold on him was like steel in her efforts to
keep him by her side. Her voice began a low wail, the tenor of
absolute devastation and grief.

Julian unclenched her fists from his shirt,
pushed her hands away from him, his misery immeasurable. He left
the bed and walked out of the bedroom, belonging to the only woman
he ever loved. He went down the stairs, and out her front door, to
return to his real home—Hell.

Kate’s swollen eyes opened painfully, and
she lay in the bed shivering, staring up at the ceiling, consumed
in a feeling of total desolation. The ceiling fan twirled above her
as tears again trailed out from her eyes, into the pillow that was
already soaked in her sorrow. Pulling the sheet up to her eyes and
clenching it in her fists, she cried in mourning, not knowing why
or for whom she grieved so deeply. She curled up into a fetal
position and wrapped her arms around her knees.

As her wails began to lessen, shudders
continued to run through her. The sinus drainage caught in her
throat and she coughed, jerking up to sitting, trying to stop the
choking as she hit her chest with her fist.

Kate’s stomach lurched with nausea, and she
pushed herself out of bed, stumbling and weaving, foot over foot,
to her bathroom. Her body slammed hard against the bathroom door as
she struggled to the toilet and clutched the rim with her hands.
Stomach heaving, she leaned over the bowl, retching repeatedly,
with nothing coming up her throat except putrid, burning acid that
she spat into the water.

“What is happening to me?” she screeched
out, distressed, grabbing toilet paper to wipe her tearing eyes and
watering mouth. Spitting one last time into the bowl, she wiped her
mouth again and flushed the soiled paper away.

Kate stood and braced herself with her hands
against the wall and closed her eyes for a few minutes, waiting for
the dizziness to pass. Shaking her head from side to side, she
tried to think of the last thing she remembered happening. Wine.
She remembered drinking some wine. Reading, that too, she
remembered. That was all. Her mind was blank beyond those two
things, while the soreness in her breasts and between her legs told
a vivid story she tried desperately to ignore.

Had she gone to bed feeling
ill from the wine?
No!
Her mind shrieked at her.

She walked to the mirror over the sink and
looked at herself hard, trying to make her mind dredge up more. She
turned the cold water to full blast, splashed her face, and rinsed
out her mouth. As she gargled some mouthwash, her eyes snapped to
the shower, and her breathing stopped as she felt a flicker of
hands pressed to her body.

Kate turned and fixed her
gaze into the shower, thinking hard. She remembered taking a shower
when she got home from the shelter.
That
isn’t it. That isn’t it!
Her mind screamed
inside, trying to recall anything. As she continued to stare, her
heart lurched again, feeling overwhelming loss, and she felt the
absence of lips against hers. Her body quickened at a memory she
couldn’t pull to her mind, but her body was telling her was
true.

She started to break down again,
heartbroken, and made herself stop when the backs of her eyes began
to sting.

“Stop it! Stop it! Right now! You have to
figure this out!” She shook her clenched fists at chest level.

She walked out of the bathroom to pace back
and forth in front of the footboard of her bed, her hand over her
mouth, eyebrows drawn together.

As she paced, she glanced out the bedroom
window at the twilight sky. Inhaling a panicked shriek, she gripped
the footboard with her hand as she saw the purples, blues, greys,
and yellows of the day moving into night, not the reaching yellow
light of a rising sun. An eerie sensation seeped through her skin,
down to her bones, as she realized how much time she was
missing.