The Merzetti Effect (A Vampire Romance) (27 page)

Delano turned back to Eli. “We are blood-bonded.”

“Blood-bonded? Holy hell, Del, do you mean to say you‌—”

“No.” Delano held up a hand to stop Eli. “I’ll grant you that after that appalling display just now, you have every reason to think me mad, but I assure you I am not. I took no blood.”

“Then how the devil did you get blood-bonded?”

“It’s a mystery to me. I wasn’t even sure I believed in blood-bonding, to begin with. I thought it merely another of the myths that have grown up around my kind, like warding off vampires with garlic, holy water or crucifixes, or vampires casting no reflection in a mirror.”

“But you believe it now?”

He inclined his head. “I am obliged to re-evaluate my position.”

“But still, I don’t get how you wind up with a blood-bond without the blood-taking part. Unless‌—” Eli’s gaze strayed to Ainsley.

Blushing fiercely, Ainsley busied herself putting her shirt back on.

“Indeed,” Delano said.

“I see.”

She felt her blush rise all the way to her hairline, which was patently stupid. They were all adults here.

“But even so,” Delano continued, “it should have been quite impossible. Ostensibly, a blood-bond is possible only between vampires.”

“I don’t know.” Eli’s eyes narrowed. “When you think about it, maybe the two of you aren’t really all that different. Maybe it’s a two-sides-of-the-same-coin sorta thing.”

Ainsley’s gaze collided with Delano’s and her fingers stilled on the buttons of her shirt. “Or two sides of the same mutation.”

“Exactly.” Eli massaged his neck. “Now, can someone tell me what this means?”

Ainsley returned her attention to fastening the last two buttons, but her mind strained toward Delano, waiting for his answer.

“It is purported to be a rare union between vampires, a union involving a bonding of the two on a physical, mental and spiritual planes.”

“Hence the triangle?”

“Supposedly.”

“The triumvirate.” Eli grimaced. “Sounds a lot like marriage to me.”

“Except I would challenge you to show me a marriage where one partner can’t let the other walk out the door,” Delano rasped.

Ainsley glanced at Delano again to see that his expression matched the tone of his voice‌—‌grim. Her heart squeezed painfully in her chest. He resented being bonded to her. He didn’t want this link.
Oh, Ainsley, what have you done?

You didn’t trap me, little one. I’m just angry with myself that I lack the strength to put you away from me, even for your own protection.

I need no protection but yours. I want nothing but to guard your back as you guard mine.

“Can it be undone?”

Delano blinked at Eli. “Sorry?”

“Can the blood-bond be undone?” Eli repeated.

Ainsley caught the slight lift of an eyebrow, which for Del bespoke profound surprise.

“I really don’t know. In all my years, I’ve encountered only one couple who were purported to be blood-bonded, and I lost track of them long ago.”

Ainsley wet her lips. “What does legend say on the subject?”

Something flashed deep in his eyes, but he quickly lowered his lids. She reached out to his mind to try to catch the thought, but he’d veiled it as thoroughly as he’d veiled his eyes. When he lifted his lids again a second later, his expression was matter-of-fact, his thoughts unreadable.

“According to the legends, it’s forever. The blood-bonded stay together as long as they live, which as you will appreciate can be a very long time. And when one of the partners dies, the other is said to follow.”

“Like old married folk, you mean?” Eli coughed again, a reminder of the recent trauma to his throat. “You see it all the time. One goes and the other declines rapidly over the next months or years.”

“This is more like the next day. Specifically, the next morning.”

“Omigod!” Ainsley clapped a hand over her mouth.

Eli looked from one to the other of them. “Omigod what?”

“The sun,” she said from behind her fingers.

“It’s only legend,” Delano said softly.

Stifling a cry, she spun and raced from the room.

“
W
HAT WAS THAT
about?”

Delano shot Eli an exasperated look. “For a man of above-average intelligence, you can certainly ask some asinine questions.”

“Oh, shit. Of course. She has the life expectancy of a fruit fly, compared to yours, which makes her a bad bet for this blood-bond thingy.”

“Eloquently put.”

“Okay, how ’bout this for eloquent: if legend proves true, then we can hypothesize that your own life expectancy will be severely truncated.”

“Much better.”

“Thank you. Now what the hell are we gonna do about this?”

“We’re not going to
do
anything about it. Ainsley will obviously stay here. I will continue to work on a vaccine. You will continue to keep us safe.”

Eli snapped his fingers as though remembering something important. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Before he could protest, Eli was gone, returning a moment later with a small paper bag bearing a local drug store’s logo. “Here.”

Delano took the proffered bag and peered into it, though he hardly needed to. The odor of latex was clearly discernable to his sensitive olfactory system. “Condoms?”

“Hey, you said it yourself‌—‌my responsibility is to keep both of you safe. I’m just trying to do my job. Now, if we’re through here, I have a team to transport to Cuernavaca.”

“That’s a very thoughtful gesture, Eli, but I won’t be needing them.” He held the bag out for Eli to take back, but the other man ignored it.

“You know, for a man of above-average intelligence, you sure can say some asinine things.”

Ainsley sat up in bed before the knock sounded on her door, swiping at her cheeks. “Go away, Del. I’m tired.”

The door opened. He stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind him. “I’m sorry, I can’t oblige. We need to talk.”

Why?
She lifted her chin.
Why not just do this?

“Because it takes a lot more energy to project a thought than it does to just say it, especially when you’re just learning.” He crossed the carpeted floor to stand by her bed. “Although I must say, you demonstrate an extraordinary raw talent for it, both projecting and receiving.”

“That’s me. A veritable walking transistor.”

He sighed. “We could talk about why that analogy is woefully inadequate, or we could talk about us.”

She laughed. “Oh, that’s rich.
You
wanting to talk about
us
. Or about anything personal, for that matter.”

“I’d say touché, but then you’d accuse me of being stuck in a seventies romance novel or something.”

“Which seventies?”

“Good one.”

She lifted both hands and raked them through her hair. “I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch.”

“Which still leaves you miles ahead of me.” His eyes grew bleak. “I behaved like an animal out there. Like the very creatures I’ve been working so hard to curb.”

She shook her head emphatically. “Never that. But you did scare me.”

“Not nearly as much as I scared myself.”

He turned to examine the top of her night table, and she wondered what he’d make of the loose change, well-thumbed paperback and Hershey’s chocolate sitting there, within easy reach.

“Eli is the closest thing to a brother I’ve ever had.”

Ainsley made no reply.

He picked up the paperback and turned it over to examine its back, but she had the distinct impression he wasn’t really seeing it.

“He’s tough as boot leather, as talented at taking life as he is at saving it.” Delano replaced the book on her night table and turned to face her again. “He’s been my closest friend in over a century, and I love him dearly. But I almost killed him tonight. If you hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t intervened…”

“Delano, if I hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “True.”

“Oh, Del, what are we going to do? Is this real? Or could it be as you suggested, a psychosomatic thing?”

“Push over.”

It took her a moment to process that he wanted to sit on the edge of the bed. She scrambled back, making a space for him.

He sat, angling his body toward her where she sat propped against the headboard with her knees drawn up to her chin. “To answer your question, no.”

She dragged her gaze from his thighs, encased as always in those civilized worsted wool trousers that utterly failed to disguise the powerful musculature beneath, and wondered what her question had been. “No?”

“I’m not suggestible.”

Ah, the psychosomatic thing. “Well, aren’t we feeling superior.”

He sent her an admonishing look.

“Sorry.” She grimaced. “There’s that bitchy thing again.”

“I’m not saying my mind‌—‌
the vampire mind
‌—‌is stronger than yours, or better, it’s just … differently organized. The interaction of mind, brain, body and social context, while still present, is not precisely the same. In a stressful situation, for instance, we do not produce cortisol to the same extent as would an unmutated‌—”

“You can skip the vamp biology lesson for now,” she interjected. “I believe you.”

“Good.”

She worried the cuticle of her thumb with her teeth for a moment. “So this can’t be in our heads?”

“It seems doubtful.” He dropped his gaze to her mouth.

Whoops.
She dropped her hand to her lap again, feeling as self-conscious as a kid. “Then I guess we’d better figure out how to undo it, huh?”

A pause.

“Did I say I wanted to undo it?”

Her pulse leapt, as much from the husky note in his voice as from the content of his words. “But it’s tantamount to a death sentence for you!”

His lips curved in a wry smile. “Maybe I wasn’t clear. If the legend is true, the same applies for you. If I should die, you may very well be driven to seek your own end. Though obviously not by sunlight.”

“But compared to you, I’m so … fragile.” She twisted her hands together in her lap. “I’m subject to illness, disease, decrepitude, death. These things don’t even have to enter your vocabulary.”

He took her hand in his, the same one she’d gnawed on a moment ago. “You think your mortality frightens me?”

“I’ll grow old! Wrinkles and gravity and post-menopausal weight gain‌—”

“Ah, yes. The aging process. Ainsley, have you forgotten that I’ve been there before? I cherished every minute of every day I had with Margitta, and she was never anything but beautiful to me. Never. I can assure you that the prospect of your aging holds no terrors for me.”

“But it does for me!” she wailed.

He turned her hand over and stroked the incredibly sensitive flesh of her palm, the pad of his finger moving in a slow, seductive circular motion. “Then I shall have to do as I did for Gitta, proving every day how lovely she was in my eyes.”

Ainsley’s breath caught, partly at the sensations he was arousing from the brush of his fingers against her palm, but mostly at the idea of his making love to her like that, as though she were the most beautiful woman in the world. It took an effort of will to force her mind back to what she wanted to say.

“In your wife’s case, I have no doubt that you succeeded. One look at that photo you keep in your bedroom and anyone would know she felt beautiful.”

He’d adjusted his grip on her hand and his caress moved to the inside of her wrist. Her pulse, already hammering frantically, kicked up a gear. God, he must be able to feel it. Hell, he could probably hear it.

Concentrate, Ainsley.

“But if that relationship was so wonderful, why have you been alone so long?”

His fingers stilled. “I believe I related the experience with Reina, did I not?”

She pulled her hand away from his clasp. “I’m not buying it.”

His eyebrows soared. “You doubt my veracity?”

“Of course not. I don’t doubt your story for a moment. But clearly it was the result of an unfortunate set of circumstances. A long period of celibacy after your wife’s death, followed by a purely carnal encounter with a vampire groupie.”

“Ainsley…”

“Okay, okay.” She held up a defensive hand. “Negative characterization withdrawn. But the fact remains that you didn’t love Reina and she didn’t love you. You obviously had no such control problems with your wife.”

“Perhaps it had something to do with the fact I was enjoying regular conjugal relations with my wife?” he suggested dryly.

“What about us? You were able to stop with me,” she pointed out. “And your period of celibacy was much longer this time, correct?”

A muscle in his jaw leapt. “Correct.”

Her triumph at scoring the point sputtered, as the obvious occurred to her. “Unless‌—”

“Unless what?”

Oh, Lord, how pitiful was she? Ainsley lifted one shoulder in a stiff shrug. “Nothing.”

He laughed softly, knowingly.

No fair!
Her chin came up. “Dammit, Delano, I thought we were going to stay out of each other’s heads.”

He lifted a hand to cup her cheek. “I can state unequivocally that I did not find Reina remotely
hotter
than you, to use your own vernacular.”