Microsoft Word - The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance.doc (39 page)

He didn’t even notice  that someone was noticing her.

Wanting her.

Asking her to come with him.

She found herself doing something completely insane. She left the sticky, rickety chair she’d been sitting in, moved hesitantly away from the safety of the unbalanced table and

reached to take the hand of . . .

“Nikolai.”

320

He said his name, answering her unspoken question just as her hand touched his. He then brought her hand to his lips and brushed her knuckles with (what could only be described as) a reverential kiss.

Why couldn’t she seem to hear anything in the room other

than his voice?

Why couldn’t she look at anything but his eyes?

Without another word he cradled her left hand in his andeffortlessly moved around behind her, his right arm encircling her waist as he guided  them both out of the dark bar and up the stairs out of the vampire lair.

“Do you hunger?” he asked once they were on the street. A

soft, low sound in her ear.

Oh, God, his voice! It was all Katrina could do not to melt

right there.

That was one damn sexy accent.

Of course, this was Europe. All the men here had sexy accents of one kind or another. That’s one thing America really didn’t have much of  –  sexy accents. Texans were kind of cute though, with their Southern drawl, and OK boyfriends if you liked  Budweiser, pickup trucks and line dancing.

Nikolai didn’t look Texan. Nor did he sound in any way  American. Or English. His question alone: Do you hunger?  English obviously wasn’t his first language.

What a question.

Yes, she hungered, but not for anything on a menu

anywhere in Soho.

321

She hungered for something she couldn’t name.

A shake of her head was all she could manage.

Nikolai laughed richly. “You have permission to speak . . .”

His words trailed off in a prompt for her name.

Not that he didn’t already know it. Even he, who wasn’t as adept at reading human thought as some of his soulless kindred were, had learned her name almost as easily as he knew his own.

“Katrina,” she supplied without stammering, hardly even  remembering that she should be protesting against his  condescending offer of ‘permission’.

“Katrina,” he repeated, his tone turning her name into a

caressing accusation.

His arm tightened around her waist.

Panic settled over her, but only for a moment. She closed her eyes and breathed  as deeply as she could, which wasn’t very deep at all. A series of disturbing thoughts raced through her mind.

What was she doing? What if he was a rapist? A murderer?

A psycho serial killer?

A vampire?

“You’re not a vampire, are you?” she found herself  asking

aloud.

Nikolai released her enough that he could look at her

sternly. Then he smiled at her.

Her eyes widened as she took in his fangs.

322

Then she laughed. The Lair. He must be an actor, playing a role.
 
Miami Vice
, remember? A Don Johnson wannabe,  though mercifully shaven and with neatly trimmed, if a little  Renaissance-ish hair.

“The lady laughs,” Nikolai said, seemingly crushed. He

sighed deeply.

Katrina rolled her eyes at him. “There’s no such thing as

vampires,” Katrina informed him, smiling  back.

“Try telling that to my family. Now, let us escape this vile  place and those individuals back in the bar,” Nikolai said as he  moved her down the street.

“So, are you going to take me down one of these narrow  alleys, drain me of my life’s blood and  leave ne to die?” She  asked, somewhat teasingly, even as she snuggled further into his  arm. It wasn’t cold, exactly, but the summer night’s breeze was  brisker than she was used to.

“I prefer hiding in plain sight,” Nikolai answered. “Besides,  do you know  how hard blood is to get out of white clothing? I  am rather fond of this suit.”

“It looks sinful on you,” Katrina said, blurting out what

she’d been thinking since she’d first laid eyes on him.

“Well, my soul already dwells in hell, so I have no fear that  wearing this will do it further harm,” Nikolai answered, hardly  thinking that he’d just voiced a truth he’d never spoken aloud  before.

And he’d said it so effortlessly, without even realizing that

he was speaking to her as if she weren’t human.

323

She just laughed.

Nikolai breathed a silent sigh of relief and chastised himself inwardly for his slip. Why? What did he intend to do with her?  They were just walking along a street in Soho, like . . . like normal people. Well, like he
 
was
 
a man. They weren’t walking along like predator and prey. Hunter and hunted. They were just walking along like a man and a woman. And she laughed at him, and told him she didn’t believe in vampires.

Perhaps she didn’t believe in Heaven or Hell either. Most humans didn’t these  days. Or if they did, they did so in a completely incorrect, awkward and befuddling manner.

His centuries of anguish and torment, his greatest shame,

laughed off like it didn’t happen. Like it wasn’t even possible.

And it didn’t matter to him. Her laughter made it . . . laughable.
 
Bearable
.   He supposed that when the truth was spoken nakedly it
 
was
 
rather laughable.

He was a lost soul. Literally. Well, that’s what they called it, anyways. His soul, along with those of others of his kind, wasn’t exactly ‘lost’. He knew  exactly where it was. It was in hell, with  Lucifer.

He was quite literally, damned.

Only in his particular case, his soul had been willingly given in exchange for immortality. Damned by his own hand. That truly was the ironic kick in the groin.

Others  –  most notably Kail the Betrayer  –  still thought of themselves as victims even though they had clearly earned (even asked for) the forfeit of their soul. However, Kail was unique.  Kail wanted his soul back and had dedicated the whole of his

immortal existence to finding a way to get it.

324

Nikolai wasn’t unique. He was exactly the same as all the others who attempted and succeeded in making a deal with the  Devil, not quite understanding what true immortality entailed.

Living off the blood of those you sought to outlive.

But Nikolai was willing to pay the price and willingly joined the most powerful of the vampire clans that wished to call him ‘brother’. Nikolai was one of the Destrati.

And the woman beside him had laughed.

Though she ceased when she saw the look on his face, and

studied him a moment as they walked.

“You really think you’re damned?” Katrina asked him

softly.

“Because of my actions, my soul dwells in Hell,” Nikolai

answered again being honest without thinking about what he

was  saying. “Is that not what ‘damned’ means?”

“You know. I don’t usually get into the deep philosophical  discussions until the second or third date,” Katrina replied with  a nervous laugh.

“I do not date,” Nikolai found himself answering calmly.  “My personal  life is complicated. My family does not allow  much time for . . . dating. I simply saw you tonight on the arm  of that mortal man who is not even remotely  interested in a thing  like you and . . .”

A thing like her? What, was she a television? Or a laptop?

Nikolai sighed. He had no idea what he was doing, with her

or with himself. She made him feel . . .

325

Feel? Was that it? He hadn’t really felt much of anything more than indifference for such a long time. His life was composed of endurance, duty, hatred and occasional envy (but that was brief, and usually only directed towards his own kind).

And
 
his
 
kind didn’t associate with
 
her
 
kind.

She was food. More than that, she was mortal and still had her immortal soul. She wasn’t just sustenance. She was an

enemy. The worst kind, as she was clearly undeclared territory

in the War Between The Sides.

She was undeclared and unclaimed, and he wanted her.

Some of his kind took brides, and he was both old enough and high enough in rank to be afforded that privilege.  He just never thought he would wish to take it. However, once the idea had occurred to him, he wanted it more than anything. Not ‘it’ more than anything, but her, as his bride, more than anything.

But she hadn’t been selected. And  that would prove a

problem.

“Excuse me a moment, miss,” a cultured voice came from  behind Nilolai. “May I borrow Nikolai for a moment? Please, if  you could wait in the café just there. A double mocha sounds  particularly good at the moment, does it not?”

Katrina just nodded, barely questioning the suggestion in

her mind.

Nikolai growled through gritted fangs.

“Now, now, Nikolai. Not in front of the mortals.”

“What do you want, Betrayer?” Nikolai asked as low and as

dark as he could manage, given that he was held captive not

326

only by the hand on the back of his neck, but by a power far

greater than his own. Far, far greater.

“Such ill manners,” came the reply. “Still the Destrati

haven’t moved out of the Dark Ages.”

Nikolai was released, and allowed to face Kail.

The taller man in the dark suit held Nikolai’s piercing blue eyes with his own pale sea-green ones. Kail’s long, chestnut ponytail hung casually down his back, secured with a black strip of leather.

“Kail,” Nikolai said warningly.

“It’s Kyle now, actually,” the older presence said with a  smile. “I’d formally, and politely, introduce myself, but you  already seem to know me. As I already know you. And I must  say, Destrati, you were far too easy to sense.”

Kyle looked toward the café and back to Nikolai, his point

made  clearly.

Nikolai looked away scowling. “It is none of your

business,” Nikolai said grudgingly.

He looked back at Kyle. “And as Destrati I should kill you

where you stand.”

Kyle laughed richly. “Don’t think I don’t know your reason for being in London,  or that I an unaware of exactly how long you’ve been here searching,” said Kyle, very amused. “I abhor destroying anyone when there are other ways of settling things.  Besides what would pretty Katrina say if I destroyed you and left her alone? I believe the term these days for a woman who is deserted by a man while on a date is ‘stood up’. She would wonder for the rest of her short, mortal life where you’d

327

disappeared to and what she had done to cause you to leave. For  she would blame herself, you know. It  would quite probably  scar that pretty little soul of hers deeply. Such attachment in so  little a time. Dare I speak the forbidden? Could she be your  ” – Kyle stepped easily out of the way of Nikolai’s lunge “–  mate?”

He continued speaking as though nothing  had happened. “It is rather too bad that your soul has already been–” Kyle dodged another lunge, again without effort “–traded for immortality, isn’t it?”

“Nikolai? Are you coming?”

Katrina’s voice broke into Nikolai’s thoughts and immediately soothed him. He made to round on Kyle again, but the other vampire seemed to have vanished.

Oh, but he was still near. Nikolai was sure of it. But Katrina was waiting for him. How strange that felt. To have someone care where he was and if he was coming to join them.

Nikolai knew Kail/Kyle lived in London. It was why  Nikolai was here. He’d been here for months, trying to find the  Betrayer and bring him before the Council for justice.

The vampires  –  these lost souls  –  lived in virtual peace. Not,

however, with each other.

Each vampire clan had their own Council and their own

code.

Kyle was an outcast among them all.

To bring the Betrayer to justice would put him as second to the leader of the Destrati  –  not the largest of the vampire clans,

but the most powerful. The Sovereign’s second had been killed

328

in a duel a century ago by a rival and Sarina now sat at

Dominic’s left hand.

It was rumoured that they were lovers, but Sarina had won

the rank in a fair fight.