This Man and Woman (9 page)

His frame altered then, the hardness all about him changing. The firmness diminishing. The rigid altering to flexibility. His body relaxed, easing them back to the tabletop. That’s when Takaiya slit an eye open to peek.

Masculine muscular perfection stretched before her, apparently spent. Weak. His chest and belly gleamed with a film of dark liquid. He lifted his head and smiled at her. Takaiya’s heart stopped. Restarted. She couldn’t gain breath. The room started rotating again without her permission. She hadn’t imagined anything.

He had fangs.

CHAPTER NINE

When she was a child, she’d been told the stories of the
Nukekubi
. The creature of the night said to be capable of removing his head in order to fly about, feeding off humans as they slept.
Nukekubi
weren’t real, of course. They were mythical creatures meant to frighten. Entertain. Educate. Inspire.

Their counterpart in the Western world was known as a vampire. Their images were portrayed in any number of books and in hundreds of movies. Anywhere one looked, in almost any city of the world, they could be bombarded with images of them. Vampires were sexy. Invincible. Strong. They had super powers that only the legendary
Koka
-ninja possessed. She’d seen every documentary, almost every movie.

She’d longed to be one when she was a child, and fantasized about it when she became an adult. She’d do almost anything. There was one big problem, though.

Vampires did not exist.

Period.

That meant she couldn’t be here, locked in this maze of rooms with one. She didn’t just have the most amazing experience of her life with a vampire. An experience that had even broken through the cage of caution about her heart, setting it free. If only it was possible! Making love with Jean-Pierre had created such rapture her entire body hummed with satiation. The room felt moist and warm with the aftermath. The sound of heavy breathing was loud, even in the voluminous space. The man beside her on the table was flesh and blood and muscle. Massive muscle. He wasn’t pale, or wan, or anything portraying death. He was robust with good health and large from physical exercise. He couldn’t be a vampire. But what if he was…? Her heart beat a little faster. She rolled her head to the side and opened her eyes.

Something was seriously wrong here. She wasn’t atop a lace-bedecked table in a glass-walled circular room? Where had the time gone? She was in an immense bed, between satin sheets of an eggshell hue, cocooned in softness, luxury, and warmth. The sensation was more vivid than normal. She swore she could feel each thread used in manufacture against her skin. Her bare skin. That was odd. She filed it away for later, after she knew where she was and in what condition. She raised her head.

The coverlet atop her sheets not only matched the material and hue, it was embroidered all over with a pattern of fleur-de-lis in real gold thread. She didn’t question it. She automatically knew that, too, as if she’d been inculcated with history while she was unconscious. The magnificence of her bedding complemented the rest of the décor. She could see beyond the footboard a room larger than two of her apartments put together. The waste of space was shocking. The room probably echoed.

The bed frame was ash, carved with more French lily design, boasting huge posts that supported a canopy of see-through tulle. She immediately knew the materials, without any training on it. That was another interesting development…for later. Everything around her looked immensely expensive. Antique. The bed matched the rest of the furniture: an armoire, a couple of bureaus, a settee with a padded seat, and an arrangement of several chairs and tables in one far corner.

The room boasted two wide fireplaces on opposite walls, unlit. Their construction showcased a stonemason’s skill at continuing the fleur-de-lis design in white rock, while large paintings graced the walls above each mantel. The walls had been papered in more off-white silk, with gold stripes running in thin vertical lines. The effect drew her eyes toward a ceiling that was a masterpiece of plasterwork, framing all sorts of little round paintings. She didn’t have any trouble looking them over. She could almost tell the artist’s brushstrokes.
Find out why later, Takaiya. Later.
There was some sort of lighting recessed all along the ceiling edge, shedding a golden glow into the room. Gleaming torch sconces completed the look, also unlit.

The only thing the room appeared to lack was a door. But that was ridiculous.

Somewhere outside the room a clock chimed, stopping at five. Five. She heard it easily and distinctly.
Another thing for later.
Her every sense seemed to have been ratcheted up, making her sight clearer, her hearing sharper, while her sense of touch was elevated to an amazing degree.

Was it possible? Could Jean-Pierre really be a…vampire? And could these new senses be real, too?

A knock came from somewhere, booming in the emptiness of the vast room. Takaiya sat back against a mass of headboard, taking the covers with her.

“Come in.”

She’d been wrong. Sound didn’t echo. It didn’t have to. To her elevated hearing, if she’d yelled, it would’ve shattered glass. A shaft of light speared the space over by the tables, coming from beyond the curve of wall. It was followed by two women in Japanese dress. Both women had buns, wore light kimonos called
houmongi
closed with
obi
sashes, and clacked with each step due to the wooden
geta
on their feet. One was burdened with a large silver tray. The other carried a garment fashioned of meticulously loomed silk, dyed with an elaborate design of peacock blues and greens on yellow. Takaiya identified it easily even at this distance, while her sense of smell tagged the tray contents. They’d brought her steamed rice,
miso
soup, a rolled omelet called a
tamajoyaki
, and a small portion of broiled fish. Takaiya rarely ate like this anymore. Although the ambassador served a traditional Japanese breakfast every Sunday, she much preferred dry cereal. Toast. Or fruit. Yogurt, maybe.

Her belly growled. Her heart sank. Her eyes rolled.
Damn it
. She’d known it wasn’t impossible, but it was still deflating. Jean-Pierre wasn’t a vampire, after all. And he hadn’t changed her into one. Because if he was - and he had - she wouldn’t need food.
Damn, again
.

The tray was placed on the table; then both women bowed toward her, removed their sandals, and approached. She hadn’t noted the bed was elevated on a platform until they neared, their heads barely clearing the top of the mattress. Once at the footboard, they both bowed again before one of them spoke. And then they alternated answering her.

“Greetings, Honorable Miss Silva. The master has sent us to serve you.”

“Master?”

“Yes. Our employer. The Comte de Margolis.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” Takaiya replied.

“No. No. We have specific instruction.”

“Really?”

“Yes. We are to see you dressed, fed, and made comfortable.”

“What if that means I want to leave?”

“I do not think we can allow that.”

“What good are you then?”

Their faces went pained for the barest moment before going blank. Takaiya felt like she’d slapped them.

“Pray forgive us, but if we do not give satisfactory service to you, we will be dishonored. We may even be sent back.”

“Back?”

“The Master just hired us, Honorable Miss. Last night.”

One turned and whispered to the other. Takaiya heard it easily. She’d worry about that later, as well.

It was the prior evening. We gained a day.

“From where, please?” She asked, gaining their attention again.

“Tokyo.”

“He flew you in from Tokyo?”

“Yes.”

“Just to serve me?”

“Yes.”

Jean-Pierre was obviously very sure of himself and his charms. Such arrogance, egotism, and conceit needed to be addressed. Somebody should have delivered a massive set-down to him well before this. But…why? It was obvious he deserved every bit of the homage he took as his due. And…if she didn’t stop thinking of him—

She was too late.

The man was magnificent. His well-developed and toned form. Naked and glorious. Matched to hers in an aura of bliss. She quivered over the complete fulfillment he’d brought her to, even now, hours from it. Or was it? For all she knew, she could’ve lost a day. That duel, and the resulting lovemaking had given her a very good idea of why he was so arrogant. Confident. Hauteur. He had every right to be. The man was more lover than she’d imagined, and more male than knew existed. It took effort to stifle the images flooding her mind and robbing her senses, even more to hide them away. She was afraid it showed, too.

No guesswork there. It had. Both of her new servant women were looking down, a blush darkening their cheeks.

“Very well, ladies. Let’s begin.”

Takaiya shoved from the bed, allowed them to dress her in her own
houmongi
complete with her own bright red
obi,
and put split toe socks called
tabi
on her feet
.
And then she followed them to her repast.

CHAPTER TEN

It was time for the truth.

Jean-Pierre wasn’t a
Nukekibu,
nor was he a Westernized vampire. He was real flesh and blood. Everything about the man she’d cleaved to atop that table was alive. Nothing dead would’ve felt like he had. He wasn’t a mythical creature. They didn’t exist. And she was just going to have to find him and face it.

If she could just find him.

There wasn’t much of Jean-Pierre’s essence to his abode. None of his scent. Little of his aura. Nothing of his image. It took the use of her strange, newly developed ultra senses to find his hide-out, especially with her new servants at her heels the entire time. They’d taken to giggling and hugging each other as the time wore on, and Takaiya’s frustration grew. Her servants may be dogged chaperones, but they were useless at gathering information, a failure at picking locks or deciphering codes, and lacked any information whenever she asked something. The amount of menservants about the building wasn’t helpful, either. Whenever they chanced upon one of them, her servants exhibited even more girlish behavior.

The reason for it was obvious. They’d been raised and kept segregated from the opposite sex until now. They weren’t descendents of the Samurai class, neither had received warrior training, nor had they any grasp of intrigue and deception. They’d be useless in a fight. Actually…they’d be worse than useless. They’d be in the way.

Takaiya finally asked them to give her some time and space. They moved to one of the walls and watched her. It was the best they’d give her. Both girls went round-eyed as Takaiya hiked her skirt up, went cross-leg on the floor in the center of a large span of hall they’d reached, assumed the position of meditation, and then ignored everything as she searched for her
fudoshin
. And failed.

“Jean-Pierre.”

Her voice reached out soundlessly for him. The electric light in the hall flickered. Her new servants gasped in tandem. No answer. Takaiya concentrated and tried again.

“Jean-Pierre. I need you.”

“My darling!”

At his answer the lights all blew out. One after the other. Her servants were close to shrieking. If women raised in the Eastern tradition allowed such emotion. She could feel their fear, and had to discount it to continue. Strangely enough, in the dark, it was easier. His answers clearer. As if he sat beside her.

“Where are you?”

“Scriptorium.”

“Where?”

“Monastery.”

“Directions?”

“You’ll know.”

Takaiya growled, the sound audible enough to make her new servants flee. She heard the clack of their
geta
showing the speed of their escape. She hoped they remembered the way back to her suite. And then she took a deep breath and concentrated again.

“I need codes.”

His light chuckle lifted the wisps of hair at the nape of her neck, and with that touch she automatically had all the codes. She’d had them since he gave it to his driver, Elliot. They were all the same, although he moved the first number to the end at each progressive door. 1632.

Takaiya was on her feet and running, leaping full sets of stairs easily, crossing floors soundlessly, punching the code into every access panel she came to. He wasn’t hiding much longer. She’d see to it. He was in a section modeled after a monastery. It would probably be near his armory. In the recreated medieval section.

The walls changed to stone, the floor beneath her
tabi
going to the dull parquet finish. She found his armory and flew through it with less than four steps, each one taking her a significant length of space. Oh, how she hoped her newly acquired abilities were real! They might even surpass her fantasies.

She passed the glassed alcove room. She didn’t pause. She didn’t look. She ordered the trills running her frame from existence at the memory. It didn’t work, but she had them conquered before facing another flight of steps, these crafted in stone, worn slightly in the center as if they’d seen centuries of use. Down? She was going even deeper?

What did she know? If he was
Nukekubi,
he’d need to be deep within the bowels of the earth. All vampiric creatures had to rest during daylight hours atop earth from their graves, or something of that nature.

The steps ended at an ancient wooden door, carved with entwined symbols she instantly pegged as Celtic. Newfound immense knowledge. Unbelievable ability and skill. Stamina. Strength. Telepathic ability. All of these gifted from a lovemaking session with Jean-Pierre? What more could he bestow upon her?

Invincibility? Eternal life?

She touched the keypad, adding an additional 1 to the code without thought. Her brain was reeling with possibilities and hopes. The door clanked as if a chain was getting pulled, and then it slowly swung inward, revealing a haphazard series of wooden steps, descending once again, leveling off in a series of four landings. She could see the steps spiraled, and at the bottom were some tables, stools, and podiums. And on every wall surface were books. Ancient tomes. Some in scrolls tucked into cubby holes. Others placed side-by-side. No two alike. Large, hand-tooled leather bindings, cracking with age, while the pages within contained illuminated manuscripts she could visualize. Those books would be featured in university studies if the world knew they existed.