The Reluctant Vampire (17 page)

Like she was an old crone rather than the life mate he’d made love to seven times in the last twenty-four hours, she thought bitterly. It was a noticeable difference from the affectionate way he’d slid his arm around her waist and tucked her to his side as they’d made their way to the helicopter in Toronto. She could actually feel the ghost of Jenny Harper slipping between them, cold and clammy.

Infuriated by that fact, Drina searched her mind for something to say or do to stop what was happening, but in the end she simply slid her booted foot to the side, tripping him. She then allowed herself to fall with him when he went crashing toward the ice. Harper did what she expected and caught her to his chest, turning as they fell, so that he took the brunt of the impact.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! My foot slipped on the ice,” Drina lied, raising herself up on his chest and shifting “unintentionally” on his groin to peer into his stunned face. “Are you all right?”

Harper struggled briefly to regain the wind that had been knocked out of him, and then nodded. “I’ll live.”

“Oh, my poor Harper. Thank you for saving me from the worst of the fall,” she said, and kissed him. It was no, “my hero” peck. It was an “I-ain’t-wearing-these-bloody-painful-FM-boots-for-nothing-buddy,” devouring of his mouth.

Much to Drina’s satisfaction, Harper only managed to hold out for a moment before his arms closed around her, and he took the lead. She knew she’d won this round when he rolled her in the snow and began to yank at the buttons of her coat to get at what was underneath as he ground his hips against her.

“All right, you two, cut it out, or I’ll have to arrest the pair of you for lewd behavior. There are kids watching, you know.”

Harper tore his mouth from Drina’s and glanced around to stare blankly at the man crossing the schoolyard toward them. “Teddy.”

“It looked like you took a hell of a spill, and I rushed over to see if you two were all right, but it’s pretty obvious you recovered quickly enough,” Teddy muttered, pausing beside them and offering Harper a hand.

Sighing, Harper accepted the assistance. Once on his feet, he turned back to help Drina up. She glanced around as she rose, noting that, as had happened when they’d left, there were faces peering out of nearly every window of the surrounding houses, and several of them
were
children.

So, her plan hadn’t been the best, Drina thought with a shrug. At least it had worked. If nothing else, she was now pretty sure that she just had to keep hammering at Harper’s walls with sex. As her life mate, he would find it hard to fight their attraction. So, every time the ghost of Jenny Harper slipped between them, and he threw up a wall, she would use sex to tear it down, Drina decided. She could handle that.

“Good Lord, girl!”

Drina blinked her thoughts away at that exclamation and glanced to Teddy Brunswick to see him eyeing her boots with dismay.

“It’s no wonder you can’t stay on your feet. Those boots are for looking at, not walking,” the chief of police muttered. Shaking his head, he took her arm as if afraid she wouldn’t be able to stay upright long on the heels, and then he urged her forward.

“They’re fine,” Harper said quietly, slipping his arm around her waist and drawing her against his side. It was a possessive act and one that sent a stream of warmth through her, as well as the hope that they would overcome his guilt and work things out after all.

Teddy chuckled. “Well hell, Stoyan, I’m not surprised you like them. If those aren’t a pair of FMs most red-blooded men would like to lick, I don’t know what are.”

“You know about FMs?” Harper asked with surprise over Drina’s head.

“I may be old, but I’m not brainless,” Teddy said dryly, and then paused to glance both ways as they reached the road.

Drina bit her lip to keep back a chuckle at Harper’s disgruntled expression, and asked, “You were at the house, Teddy. Is everything all right?”

“Fine as far as I know,” Teddy assured her, urging them to cross the street. “I was just stopping by to check on things on my way home. I wanted to ask about Tiny’s turning too and had just pulled into the driveway when your helicopter showed up, so I waited to walk in with you.”

“Tiny’s turning tonight?” Harper asked tensely, and Drina didn’t need to read his mind to know he was thinking of Jenny’s turn. The ghost had returned, but with Teddy there, she couldn’t trip Harper and throw herself on him again. She would have to be patient.

“Not tonight, no,” Teddy said. “But I’m sure it will be soon. Anders brought the blood down for it, and Leonius isn’t in the area, so there’s no worry of his attacking while everyone is distracted . . .” He shrugged, and then added sensibly, “There’s no use in waiting. I’m sure it will be in the next day or two, and I want to be on hand when it happens in case they need extra help.”

“Right,” Harper muttered grimly.

“So how was your outing in Toronto?” Teddy asked, as they started up the driveway to the house. “Heard you got snowed in.”

“Yes, but it was still nice,” Drina said quietly when Harper remained silent. “In fact, I’m almost sorry we had to return.”

“Uh-huh.” Teddy nodded. “So you two are life mates?”

Drina turned on him sharply. “Did Stephanie and Mirabeau tell you—”

“They didn’t tell me a thing. You two just have that new-life-mate glow about you. I’ve seen five new life-mate couples now, not counting you two, and recognize the look.”

“Six,” Harper said tightly.

“What’s that?” Teddy asked.

“You’ve seen six new life-mate couples,” Harper explained.

“No, I don’t think so,” Teddy said with a frown and began to count them off. “Now, let’s see, there’s Victor and Elvi, DJ and Mabel, Alessandro and Leonora, Edward and Dawn, Mirabeau and Tiny . . . That’s five.”

“You forgot—”

“Oh wait, you’re right, I forgot Lucian and Leigh. They were still brand-spanking-new life mates when they came down here that first time,” Teddy said with a nod. “So it
is
six. And you two are seven.”

“I meant Jenny and I,” Harper said firmly, unable to leave the woman out.

“Hmm.” Teddy was silent as they traveled along the side of the garage toward the deck, but then said, “Well, here’s the thing. You two weren’t like the others.”

Harper looked startled by the words, and it was Drina who asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, sure enough Harper seemed eager, but Jenny was another kettle of fish. She treated Harper like she did poor old Bobby Jarrod when they were in high school. The boy was crazy for her,” he explained. “Over the moon, and they even dated for a while, but she kept him at arm’s length, treated him real cool.” He shook his head with distaste. “Everyone knew she was just using him for free tickets to the movies. He was an usher at the Cineplex in London,” he explained.

Drina glanced to Harper to see how he was taking this, but his head was bowed, and she couldn’t see his expression.

“The biggest favor she did for Bobby was tossing him over for that idiot Randy Matheson when he showed her some interest.” Teddy shook his head. “Now there was a troublemaker. She always went after troublemakers. And Randy’s name fit him to a T, let me tell you. Never seen a more randy teenager. I caught those two parking on back roads all around the county until she tossed him over for some London fellow with a rich daddy and an allowance big enough he could afford to rent himself a motel room rather than grope in cars. I wasn’t sorry about that at all. Chasing off bare-arsed teenagers just gets old pretty quick.”

They’d crossed the deck and reached the door of the house by then, and Teddy paused to turn back to Harper, saying, “I never would have told you all that had Jenny lived, and I didn’t say it when she died because I knew you were hurting, but now that you’re happily settled with Drina here, and enjoying that new-life-mate glow like the others, I have to tell you I think you made a lucky escape there. I don’t know all the ins and outs of this life-mate business, but while Jenny might have been a possible life mate for you and agreed to the turn, I don’t think her heart was in it. I kind of got the feeling she just saw you as another Bobby Jarrod.”

Turning away, Teddy opened the screen door and raised a hand to knock but paused as Mirabeau opened the door from inside.

“Beau,” Teddy greeted, stepping inside.

Mirabeau smiled, then glanced past Teddy to Drina and Harper and waved them in. “Come on you two. It’s cold out.”

Forcing a smile, Drina stepped inside, wishing she could drag Harper somewhere to talk and find out what he was thinking. But there didn’t appear to be much of a chance at the moment. She would have to figure out a way to get him alone and talk to him later.

“Decided to come out of hiding now that Drina and Stephanie have gone to bed, did you?”

Harper stiffened at that greeting from Anders as he stepped off the stairs and turned the corner into the dining room. The hunter sat at the table, a deck of cards spread out before him in what appeared to be a complicated version of solitaire. Harper frowned at the man, not appreciating that one of the few times the Russian chose to speak more than a word or two was to call him out on his behavior.

“I wasn’t hiding,” he lied, turning to walk along the L-shaped counter separating the kitchen from the dining room. Moving to the refrigerator, he opened it, his eyes sliding from the bags of blood to the available food inside.

“Right,” Anders said dryly. “You just like four-hour showers.”

Harper scowled into the refrigerator, and then grabbed both a bag of blood and a bowl of some sort of leftover. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he was hungry. He’d heat it up and see what it tasted like. The dinner he’d had with Drina was the first time he’d eaten in a while. He hadn’t a clue what he would like, so everything was an experiment just now.

“Your avoiding her hurt Drina,” Anders growled.

Harper set the bowl on the counter with a sigh and lowered his head. He shouldn’t be surprised that his fleeing the minute they’d got their coat and boots off, and then not returning downstairs would hurt her, he supposed, but he hadn’t been thinking of her. He’d been thinking of—

“A dead woman,” Anders said grimly, reminding him that his thoughts were easily read at the moment.

“She was my life mate,” Harper said quietly.

“Was
being the operative word. She died. Fate had other plans for you. Now you have Drina. It’s a damned lucky turn of events for you. Some never find a second life mate, and those who do usually have to wait centuries. And Drina’s already immortal, another bit of luck since you’ve already used your one allowed turn. It would be foolish to throw this good fortune away.”

Harper stared out the back window of the house, frustration coursing through him. Everything Anders said was true, but he couldn’t seem to rid himself of the clawing guilt. He’d managed to forget it for a while in Toronto, but the closer they’d gotten to Port Henry, the more he’d felt like a philandering husband returning from an elicit rendezvous with his secretary.

Harper closed his eyes. Jenny was dead and in the grave because she’d been willing to turn and be his life mate, and he was off laughing and playing with another woman. He felt like he was dancing on her grave.

But that wasn’t even the worst of it. The thing that really ate at him was that he couldn’t even remember what Jenny had looked like anymore. That wasn’t because of Drina’s arrival. He hadn’t been able to recall her face for a while now. Her image had faded from his mind almost before she’d been in the ground. It was wrong. Shameful. She’d died to be with him and deserved better than that.

“And what does Drina deserve?” Anders asked, obviously still in his thoughts.

Harper turned and scowled at the usually uncommunicative man. “What do you care?”

“I don’t,” Anders said with a shrug, moving cards around on the table. “If you want to throw away a good thing when fate is kind enough to give it to you, go for it.”

“Thank you,” Harper said dryly, turning back to the counter.

“But I’ll tell you this,” Anders said in a conversational tone. “If it had turned out that Drina could have been a life mate to either you or me . . . you’d be dead. I’d have killed to claim her. Most immortals would. So I’m thinking you’re either a fool or seriously fucked up. Either way, she’s better off without you.”

Harper whipped around to gape at him, but Anders didn’t even glance up from his cards and continued matter-of-factly playing his game as he added, “I’m doubting she’ll see it that way, though. This’ll eat at her, distract her from what she’s supposed to be doing, and a distracted hunter usually ends up a dead hunter.”

Anders paused to glance to Harper, and added, “That’s all right, though. You’ll have two life mates’ deaths on your hands and can completely submerge yourself in guilt and misery, right?”

“Gin,” Stephanie said triumphantly, laying her cards on the table.

Drina tore her gaze from the ceiling and reached for a card from the deck.

“Hello.
I said
gin,
” Stephanie said dryly, making Drina pause and blink at her in confusion. Heaving a heavy sigh, the teenager shook her head. “You aren’t even paying attention, Dree.”

“Sorry,” Drina muttered, and then a small smile tugged at her lips, and she set her cards down, saying, “Beth calls me that.”

“Dree?” Stephanie asked, collecting the cards and beginning to shuffle them again. “She’s your partner, right?”

Drina nodded, suddenly wishing Beth were there. She could use some advice at the moment.

“Harper’s avoiding you,” Stephanie murmured sadly as she began to deal cards.

“It would seem so,” Drina said on a sigh, her eyes sliding to the ceiling again. He’d been avoiding her ever since their return the night before. He’d escaped to his room to shower and change the moment they’d gotten their coats and boots off and hadn’t left it until she and Stephanie had retired for the night. She’d heard him come down from the third floor and descend the creaky stairs.

Now it was midmorning, and he was apparently still sleeping. Or hiding in his room. She didn’t know which but suspected it was the latter.