The Lady Is a Vamp (3 page)

“No,” she said dully, turning her head away from the food he presented.

Paul hesitated, but then said gently, “Sweetie, you have to eat to keep your strength up so you can get healthy again.”

“Mrs. Stuart said I wasn’t going to get healthy again. That God was . . .” Livy frowned as if trying to recall the exact wording and then said, “calling me home to be with Him. She said if I was very good and He liked me, maybe I’d get to see Mommy. But she doubted He would ’cause I was naughty and crying. Do you think God will like me even though I was crying?”

Paul simply stood frozen. All the blood seemed to have slid from his head and down his body to pool in his feet, leaving him empty and weak. His brain was having trouble processing what she had said. And then the blood came pounding back, rushing up through his body and slamming into his brain, bringing a burning rage with it.

He didn’t say a word; he didn’t dare. The expletives roaring through his head were not for a child’s ears. After a moment of struggle, Paul managed to bark one word, “Yes.” Then he turned stiffly and simply walked out of the room, straight downstairs and back into the kitchen. His movements were jerky and automatic as he scraped the food off the plate into the garbage pail. He then walked to the sink, but rather than rinse it under the tap as intended, Paul suddenly found himself smashing the empty plate across the top of it. He didn’t even realize he was going to do it, and hardly noticed let alone cared that bits of shattered glass flew up to spike his face and neck.

The stupid vicious, nasty old cow. He never should have had Mrs. Stuart watch Livy. He’d known she wouldn’t be able to keep her Bible-thumping to herself, but he’d had no choice. Mrs. Stuart used to be a nurse before retiring, and there was no one else he’d trusted to know what to do if there had been a problem. But he’d never let the old bitch near her again. If she was good, God might like her? But he probably wouldn’t because she’d cried? The child was dying of cancer, being eaten alive, wasting away and suffering a pain that he couldn’t even comprehend, and couldn’t prevent. They had given him a prescription for pain meds for Livy, and the strongest dosage they could, but they did little for the girl. The only other option was to keep her sedated in hospital until she died and he refused to do that. He wouldn’t simply watch her die. He wanted her cured, but until then, nothing seemed to ease the pain she was suffering and for Mrs. Stuart to suggest that her crying because of that excruciating pain might make God not like her so she wouldn’t see her mother—

“Daddy?”

Stiffening, Paul sucked in a breath to calm himself and then turned to peer blankly at the five-year-old girl standing in the kitchen doorway. In the next moment, he was rushing forward to scoop her up. “What are you doing out of bed, baby? You shouldn’t be up.”

“I’m tired of staying in bed,” Livy said unhappily and then reached up to touch his chin. “You’re bleeding. Did you cut yourself?”

“No. Yes. Daddy’s fine,” Paul assured her grimly, carrying her back to the stairs and up. She was all bones and pale skin and his heart ached as he held her. The child was precious, the most precious thing in his life. Paul lived for her, and he’d die for her too if he had to. But for now, he’d put her back to bed and then catch a couple hours of sleep himself. He’d stayed awake all night and needed to be alert and on the ball when he talked to Jeanne Louise Argeneau. He needed to be clear and persuasive. He needed to convince her to make his child one of her kind. He’d give her anything she wanted to get her to do that, including his own life, just so long as she turned her and taught her to survive as a vampire. He’d give anything and everything to know she lived on. He’d failed her mother, his wife, Jerri. But he wouldn’t fail Livy. He had to convince Jeanne Louise to save her life. She was his only hope.

Two

J
eanne Louise woke to the awareness that she wasn’t alone. It wasn’t instinct. It was the hum of a mortal’s thoughts playing on the periphery of her mind. They buzzed there like a bee by her ear, soft and, at first, not entirely intelligible as she slid back to consciousness, and then she opened her eyes and turned her head.

She wasn’t surprised to find a child standing at her bedside rather than the man who had left her there. It was something about the thoughts, their tempo and lightness, she supposed. The thoughts she’d awakened to had been soft, questing, curious like a child’s rather than heavy and defensive and even fearful like an adult mortal’s usually were.

Jeanne Louise stared at the girl for a moment, taking in the pallor to her skin and thinness of her body. The child looked like a stiff wind would take her away, and one inhalation told her the child wasn’t well. She caught a strong whiff of the sickly sweet stench of illness coming from her. The child was dying, Jeanne Louise realized, and found the thought troubling. Mortals died much younger than immortals, but rarely this young. This was a tragedy. All that hope and promise snuffed out before it had been allowed to bear fruit. It was an abomination.

“Hi,” Jeanne Louise whispered, the word coming out almost a croak. She should have drunk more of the water her captor had offered earlier, she supposed. As he’d promised, it apparently hadn’t been drugged, and it might have eased her condition. Without it, she was now parched either from the tranquilizer dart he’d shot her with or from the nanos’ efforts to remove it from her body as quickly as possible.

Jeanne Louise took a moment to work her tongue in her mouth, building up saliva and swallowing to try to ease the dryness, and then tried again, “Hello. Who are you?”

“I’m Olivia Jean Jones,” the little girl said solemnly, one hand rising to fuss nervously with a strand of her long, lank blond hair. “But everyone calls me Livy.”

Jeanne Louise nodded solemnly. She hadn’t really needed the child to tell her her name. She had already plucked it from her mind along with the name of her father, who was also the man who had kidnapped and chained up Jeanne Louise. Paul Jones.

Leaving that bit of information for now, she quickly rifled through the girl’s mind to see if she would be of any use in getting her free. But the child didn’t seem to even know there was a key to the chains, let alone where it might be. Disappointed but not terribly surprised by the knowledge, she said, “Hello Livy. My name is Jeanne Louise Argeneau.”

Olivia’s eyes widened. “You’re Jean like me.”

“Close,” Jeanne Louise said with a smile.

Livy didn’t question that, but announced, “I’m five.”

When Jeanne Louise merely nodded, she added earnestly, “And I am always polite to my elders, and I’m nice to everyone, and—” She paused and frowned. “Well, except Jimmy down the road, but he’s always mean to me first,” she added defensively before rushing on. “And I don’t cry much, except sometimes my head hurts real bad and I can’t help it. But I try not to, and I try not to lie either because that’s a sin, and I like flowers and puppies and . . .” Livy paused and bit her lip and then asked, “Do you think God will like me?”

Jeanne Louise stilled in the bed at the question and the worry behind it, and then slipped into the girl’s thoughts, sifting for the source of it. Her mouth tightened as she touched on the memory of a tired and cranky older woman warning this small waiflike child that she wouldn’t get to see her mom in heaven if God didn’t like her and He didn’t abide crybabies. Jeanne Louise didn’t even hesitate, but quickly eased the child’s fears, fading them in her mind even as she said, “I think He will love you, Livy.”

“Oh.” The girl smiled widely, the worry dropping away under her influence. “I hope so. Then I can see Mommy.”

Jeanne Louise hesitated, unsure how to respond to that, but finally said, “I’m sure your mommy would like that.” She then asked, “So your mother is in heaven?”

Livy nodded and moved closer to the bed. “I don’t remember her much. I was little when she went to the angels. But we have pictures. She was beautiful and she used to sing to me to make me sleep. I don’t remember that but Daddy said she did.”

Jeanne Louise nodded. “Did she have blond hair like you?”

“Yes.” The girl beamed happily. “And she had pretty blue eyes, and Daddy said I got her smile and it’s the prettiest smile in the world.”

“No doubt,” Jeanne Louise said solemnly. “You’re very pretty.”

“You’re pretty too,” Livy said kindly, and then suddenly seemed to become aware of Jeanne Louise’s state. “Why do you have all that chain on you?”

“We’re playing a game.”

Jeanne Louise glanced sharply to the man who had spoken: her captor, Paul Jones. Better known as Daddy in Livy’s mind, she read even as the girl smiled at the man.

“You’re awake,” Livy said simply.

“Yes. But you shouldn’t be out of bed,” the man said solemnly, moving to scoop up the child.

“I went to see you when I woke up, but you were snoring, so I came down to find the picture books,” Livy explained.

“I moved my office upstairs,” the father said quietly. “And you don’t need the photo albums.”

“Yes, I do, Daddy. I forget what Mommy looks like and I need to remember so I can recognize her when I get to heaven,” Livy said worriedly.

Paul flinched at the words, terror and pain stark on his face for one moment, and then determination replaced those emotions and he turned abruptly away to carry his daughter out of the room. “I will bring the albums to you after I put you back in bed.”

Jeanne Louise watched them go, her concentration on the back of Paul’s head as she tried to ignore the envy slipping through her. The bond between her kidnapper and his daughter was one she’d never gotten to enjoy with her own father. Her mother had died when she was just a baby, and circumstances had forced Armand Argeneau to place Jeanne Louise with her aunt Marguerite. It had been an effort to keep her safe, which she now understood and appreciated. But she hadn’t known to appreciate it as a child. All she’d known was that while her aunt had showered her with love and attention, and her brothers—both much older than her—had visited and treated her with caring and affection, she hadn’t had parents of her own to love her. That being the case it had been the one thing she’d most yearned for.

Pushing those thoughts away, Jeanne Louise closed her eyes and turned over what she’d learned. Livy was dying of cancer. The word had been in the child’s mind, a word she didn’t understand except that it meant sick and her head hurt. Jeanne Louise could only speculate that the child had some kind of brain cancer, a tumor or something, though whether that was the primary problem or the cancer had started elsewhere and metastasized to the brain she didn’t know. All she knew was that the girl was resigned to “going to heaven” and the father was not. From that she suspected Livy was the reason she was here. Paul Jones didn’t want her to turn him, he wanted her to turn and save his daughter.

That was just a guess. Jeanne Louise hadn’t read the thought from the father’s mind as he’d left. She hadn’t read anything. She’d tried though. She’d tried to slip into his thoughts not just to read him, but also to take control as she’d planned . . . and she hadn’t been able to. His mind was a blank wall to her.

Jeanne Louise wanted to think that it was the tranquilizer still affecting her, but she’d been able to read Livy’s mind easily enough even with possible brain cancer, which could often make doing so difficult. That being the case, she was pretty sure the drug she’d been given was no longer in her system. Which meant she simply couldn’t read Paul Jones. Which left her in one hell of a spot. And not just because she now couldn’t simply take control and make him release her. That was no longer even a concern in her mind. Not being able to read Paul meant that for her he was a possible life mate.

“Dear God,” she whispered, opening her eyes and staring at the ceiling as the term reverberated through her head. A life mate. Someone she couldn’t read or control and who couldn’t read or control her. Someone she could relax around and share her long life with; an oasis of peace and passion in this mad world. It was something every immortal wanted, but it was something Jeanne Louise had desperately yearned for most of her life.

By her teen years Jeanne Louise had given up on the dream of having loving parents of her own and had turned to fantasizing about someday having a life mate and her own children to shower with all the parental love she hadn’t had growing up. She had spent countless hours imagining who her life mate might be, wondering if he would have fair hair or dark. Would he be her height or taller or even shorter? Would he be handsome and strong, science minded like her or more artistic? Would he be mortal or immortal?

And now she knew, or believed she did. If she was right, Paul was her life mate. She certainly wasn’t disappointed when it came to his looks. The fact that he was obviously interested in science like herself was encouraging too . . . But the man had kidnapped her, which really wasn’t a good way to start a courtship when you thought about it.

Jeanne Louise pushed that matter aside for other considerations. The main issue was that if she was right about his motives for taking her . . . well . . . put quite simply it would be a problem. Each immortal was allowed to turn only one in their lifetime. It was generally used for that most precious of creature, a life mate. Him. Not his daughter.

Of course, Jeanne Louise could turn him and he could then use his one turn to save his daughter. Which would still give him what he wanted. But what if she did that and Paul decided that he wasn’t willing to be her life mate? While the fact that she couldn’t read him suggested he was a possible life mate, it didn’t guarantee he would be willing to be hers.

Paul would probably agree to anything right now to save his daughter, Jeanne Louise thought, even to spending an eternity with her. But she didn’t want him that way. She had to know he truly wanted to be her life mate, and that he wasn’t just agreeing out of desperation to save Livy. For that to happen, they needed to get to know each other. She needed to be sure they suited. She needed time, but Jeanne Louise very much suspected she wouldn’t get it. Paul would put his daughter back to bed, find her the photo album, and perhaps feed her or sit with her for a bit, but eventually he would come back down here and tell her that his little Livy was dying and he needed her to save the child.