Vampire Lover (7 page)

Hayden nodded to the driver before climbing through the open door. Noting how few lights shone in the distance, he settled on the leather seat. After the illumination of Miami, with its circus-style neon and continuous noise, the utter darkness of the rural countryside, coupled with the total absence of sound, caused a pleasant ruffling of his senses.

He could hear himself think. His thoughts turned to
her,
as they had every waking moment for the past week. As the car started off into a nighttime landscape lit only by stars and the car’s headlights, Hayden envisioned Connor’s face and tried to reason with himself.

The dilemma was driving him mad. She couldn’t have been faking, he was almost sure. Connor’s arms and legs had wrapped around him. She’d been like nothing he’d ever encountered, but did she have an Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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ulterior motive for her behavior?

He lowered the window to cool off his face, and tried to think about something else. Home. Ireland. An ancient land ruled by ancient edicts and timeless grudges. No one had dared stand in the way of the Flynn-Connor feud in all the years it had been going on. No one had put a stop to it. The two remaining recipients of that deathly grudge were supposed to have been raised to hate each other, and trained to fight to the death. But from what had already transpired between them, neither he nor Connor appeared to have the heart for this war. Quite the opposite. She’d have him think she didn’t know what she was.

He remembered the night her mother had died, because he had lost his father at the same time. Each of them—his father, Connor’s mother—had died by the other’s hand.

Hayden closed his eyes, let his head fall back against the seat. Fifteen years ago, Kelsie Connor would have been a kid. By now, though, a staff member for the
Miami Tribune
with a Connor grandparent of long standing in the Irish community, would have to know the score.

She would have to know that his father had gone after her mother, and that her mother had taken his father with her to the grave. Still…would Kelsie Connor have invited Hayden close if she knew those things?

Inhaling the familiar green smells, he thought he could smell Connor’s sultriness in the cool, fresh air.

Connor, damn her beautiful hide, haunted him in ways 60

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no female had. He couldn’t wait until they met again.

Opposites, yet with so much in common.
Like himself, she had fled from a place that held too many memories. The land of her ancestors. It was ironic that he had stumbled upon her, thinking to go far out of his way to avoid that very thing.

Serendipity? Fate? Had those things played a part?

Was the feud to end here, either way? Death, or a second embrace?

Kelsie Connor had some kind of mysterious hold on him. She was a warm ray of sunlight on his face, though she wore a curse around her neck. She had called this meeting, dictated its terms, he reminded himself. For revenge? In order to own her birthright?

To get back at him for giving in as much as she had?

He should want those same things for himself, but didn’t. Never had. He’d thought to relegate the battles to the past. He had made a vow to leave the next Connor Slayer alone. That it turned out to be Katherine Connor’s daughter had been a shock. Now, anyway, their lives were impossibly intertwined.

What is that?

Memories scattered as Hayden jerked to attention.

He inhaled again, frowned, felt his fangs drop, and moved his lips in silent acknowledgment of what he’d found in the breeze.

Bloody hell and back.
Although he was the last of the Flynns, he wasn’t the last vampire on earth, or in Ireland. The stink of the undead cruised tonight’s wind with the fervor of an awakened banshee.

It was a sure bet those others would scent a Slayer in their midst. Quite possibly Connor’s safety was the Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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reason her grandmother had sent her away. If she truly hadn’t been aware of him, and therefore ready to destroy him, then she’d been telling the truth.

His Slayer was in more danger than she knew if she had just begun to find herself and her strength. If she hadn’t known what she was until he had gotten close, he was partly to blame for bringing her here.

He just couldn’t cut a break. All he wanted was…her. As well as whatever gross oversight Fate might offer up that would allow for past sins to be forgotten.

"Take care, Connor," Hayden said, with his head in his hands. "For me."

CHAPTER SEVEN

The wind on the cliffs was unrelenting as it whipped through Kelsie’s hair. The late evening sky was a deep charcoal-gray. Rain had retreated over the ocean.

What she needed was more time to think, and didn’t have it. She had seen the family book, and in it the long list of Connor and Flynn destruction dating back to the Middle Ages, the names meticulously penned by enemies keeping track of each other.

All those Irishwomen, Murphys, Connelleys, Malloys and more, brought into the family to do their duty and protect their land from an invading species.

Like Darwin’s noted laws, Slayer abilities might have been developed over time to deal with vampirism.

In Gran’s book Kelsey had found her vampire.

Hayden, a lyrical, melodious name, so like him. A derivative of Aidan, after Aodh, the Celtic god of sun and fire. Funny, Kelsie thought, that a creature who couldn’t exist long in sunlight carried the name of a sun god.

Gran, when pressed, had explained things about the Flynns, though not everything, and not to Kelsie’s satisfaction. Suspiciously missing were the main points, like in most old arguments. Not even Gran knew the origins of Slayer mysticism, nor the secrets and rituals of dealing with a vampire rival.

Gran’s daughter had been born with this gene. A Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

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boon for the Connors, who didn’t have to go looking for it, and also an anomaly, since Slayer “Sense”

didn’t usually run in families. And now, seemingly, another anomaly had appeared: Katherine Connor had passed this Sense along to her own daughter.

Surprise!

Yet Kelsie now understood it to be true. A kernel of internal memory had been awakened by her acknowledgment of the existence of vampires. This newness was as weighty a burden as it was mysterious.

She waited anxiously for the full impact to make itself known, realizing that in order for old feuds to dissolve, the bad blood between families had to end here, on these cliffs. It was up to her to see that it did.

Was it reasonable to think you could discuss things sensibly with a vampire? Point out the negatives of this ridiculous relationship? See Hayden Flynn without wanting to end up in his arms?

It wasn’t helpful to surmise why he had attracted her instead of killing her outright, or why their moments of intimacy had birthed a Slayer—even though those questions plagued her.

The biggest question of all: Why had she liked it?

Liked him?

As for actually being a Slayer…could she refuse the title? Shun it? She didn’t plan on hunting anyone, not even a gorgeous vampire from a family who hated Connor guts. Not even for a promotion. Hayden Flynn had said that he didn’t want to harm her, but could a vampire be trusted to tell the truth or keep his word?

As an insurance policy, she carried in her skirt pocket a sharpened stake that she’d discovered in her 64

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mother’s trunk. If Hayden Flynn came after her, she’d try to defend herself, yet she hoped it wouldn’t come down to kill or be killed. If Hayden Flynn wasn’t prone to violence, maybe it was possible for them to call a truce.

When Kelsie looked up again, it was to see that night had fallen with the quietness of fine snow, and that the walls and broken towers of the castle ruins opposite the cliffs had been lit by a single torch.

She hesitated. She wasn’t ready to see him again, might never be ready. But she was, in spite of everything, her mother’s daughter. She had set this date.

It took her only two more steps toward the castle to realize she was indeed in the presence of a vampire.

Vamp scent was everywhere.

But it was the wrong scent.

The wrong vampire.

Hayden saw the glint of light on the cliffs as he moved along the path after Connor, keeping her in view, as he had for the past few days. He sniffed the air, whispered

"No!" The reek of the undead filled his lungs. Without a Connor present to protect his land and hold the chaos at bay for all these years, Hayden’s worst nightmare had come to ground on his own damn soil.

Trespassers.

Rage filled him. Power surged through his muscles, fueled by the thought of losing Kelsie before he’d had the chance to know her. Before he’d had a chance to explain about himself.

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He ran for all he was worth toward the castle, utilizing a speed mortal eyes couldn’t have perceived.

The savageness of his anger crackled the air as he reached the keep. He heard her voice as he entered.

Not too late!

Relief flowed through him. But an extraneous thought nagged as his boots hit stone. The old dilemma resurfaced. Had Connor been faking her naivete?

Covering what she was? He could find the truth now, if he was careful. She would face another creature here, and he would know about her for sure—if he could hold off that long, when she was in danger.

He climbed the western tower wall quickly, hand over hand, until he stood on a decimated landing above what once had been the great hall. Looking down, he saw her and nearly shouted her name.

A big sucker had Connor cornered—an old thing, tall, gaunt to the point of emaciation, hungry as any depraved, ravenous beast. Against the threat, Connor stood rigidly upright, fear etched onto her features, her green eyes open wide.

Hayden’s heart pummeled him mercilessly. Every muscle in his body seized with the need to move, to help, but he waited, barely able to keep himself back.

"You don’t belong here," he heard Connor declare bravely.

The creature beside her didn’t respond. Hell, Hayden realized, maybe it couldn’t. Maybe it was so far beyond hungry as to be completely mindless.

Careful, Connor, my love!

Love. The emotion swirled around him as fiercely as the wind.

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Three feet of distance separated the Slayer from her viable target. Hayden had been that close to her, once.

Closer. They’d been glued together, mouths and hips and everything in between. It had been sublime.

"I don’t want to hurt you," she told the beast. "God knows you’ve been through enough already. Still, I will defend myself."

The vampire lurched forward. Equally as quickly, Connor’s hand rose, with a speed her expression registered as a complete surprise. Then the monster blocked Hayden’s view.

Wait,
Hayden told himself, his boots edging the gap in the floor above her, his muscles tense with strain.

Hold tight. Wait and see.

"Connor,"
he wanted to shout,
"what are you doing
to me?"

Kelsie’s senses reeled with input that was sudden and overwhelming. As if she’d jumped into a fire pit, feet first, her skin exploded with heat. Nerves blazed.

She knew this reaction, and also knew what it meant. Something that didn’t belong in this world faced her. A thing apart, independent from the reality most people saw.

The torch, its flame flapping furiously and smelling of oil, gave the area beneath the castle’s moss-covered arch an otherworldly aura. In the dim light, the monster edged closer.

She recognized the difference between this creature and Hayden Flynn immediately—not only in looks, but at a deeper, more intrinsic level. This one felt Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

67

wrong.
It stank of rotting flesh. Its white face shone like a clown’s. Its eyes were empty black sockets.

The creature made no sound when it moved. It didn’t appear to use its limbs, more or less floating on its own evil stench. Kelsie’s heartbeat tapped out a fast staccato. With the monster right in front of her, she almost went down, the horror was so great. Her fingers held tightly to the weapon in her hand, the smooth wood foreign to her touch and not nearly as comforting as a revolver loaded with silver bullets would have been.

No time to be sick!

The monster’s fangs were as black as its glaring eyes. It came on like a slippery darkness, fast as a blink. Like a spider. Two hands, cold as granite, tore at her sweater, tugging her toward its tattered chest. Its mouth gaped open.

Adrenaline kicked Kelsie into gear. She jumped sideways, landing on both feet with her hands still raised. The sharpened stake she clutched gleamed in the torchlight, catching the bloodsucker’s attention.

Angry at this show of resistance, it attacked.

Swinging to the right, ducking quickly, Kelsie hit the wall hard with one shoulder. Pain crashed down, hot, terrible, but she straightened in time to ward off another blow. Ducking again, she came up behind the vampire before remembering that the place where its heart was supposed to reside was on the opposite side.

The fangs side.

The monster whirled before she finished the thought, and had her by the throat. The momentum of its attack sent them both stumbling into another wall.

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A rain of stones hurled down on them as Kelsie stabbed at the gaunt, sunken chest with all her might, without penetrating the flesh.

The vampire tumbled back, flailed its arms, hit dirt and bounded back up as if its backside were made of springs. Kelsie shuffled forward with another shallow breath, but her attention was derailed by the sense of another intruder.

Had this bloodsucker brought a friend?

No. This scent is familiar.

As fast as her fleeting thought, a secondary dark figure appeared between herself and the gaunt bloodsucker. Tall, dressed in black, with his blond hair shining against the backdrop of cold gray stone, Hayden Flynn glanced at her briefly, grabbed hold of her sweater and carried her out of the keep.