He looks down and away and then back at me. “Something in your voice when you talk about him.”
I can’t help it. A snicker escapes my lips. “Does it matter if we are?”
His expression shifts, smoothes. “No. Sorry. It’s the nosy reporter side of my personality rearing its ugly head. Ignore me.”
Is it? Or do I feel his spark of jealousy? Do I like it?
“David and I are just friends. Good friends, but nothing more. He’s a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy.”
Stephen shows no reaction to the reply.
“What? You don’t believe me?”
Again, no reaction. Then he asks, “Were you a vampire then? Does David know what you are?”
A nice change of subject. “I wasn’t, and no, he doesn’t know. No human I’m close to does.”
Finally a change in his expression, a look that says he gets why I’d keep that secret. Since I know he was raised in a magical household himself, it makes sense. He motions for me to continue.
“David and I are good at what we do. I’ve never regretted taking that leap—except for one thing. It changed my relationship with my parents. There was nothing I could say to make them understand let alone accept the choice. To them it was foolhardy and irresponsible. I was taking unnecessary risks to satisfy some deluded need for adventure. Worse, I was selfish for disregarding their fears.”
I stop, suddenly overcome with the memories of how we fought. The two people who were my only family. The two people I loved most.
This time, Stephen doesn’t press for me to go on. He lets me take my time, recompose myself. Are my emotions really this close to the surface or is it this place? I shrug away the sadness, concentrate on what happened next.
“I’ve distanced myself from them since then,” I say.
“Because you know you’ll eventually have to disappear when they realize you’re not aging?”
His grasp of the situation startles me. “Are you an empath?”
He laughs. “Hardly. I just know a little about vampires. Eternal life has its drawbacks. Watching living relatives grow old and die would be a big one.”
My insides grow still. Stephen understands so much. I meet his eyes. Will he understand the rest?
“I was turned against my will. Raped and beaten by a monster who thought he’d killed me. He hadn’t. During the fight, I bit him. That was the exchange of blood. When I woke in the hospital, a doctor, a vampire, took me under his wing, explained what had happened. It took time, but eventually I came to accept it, to learn to control the hunger, to make loyal friends.”
“But you are not just a vampire, are you? What does it mean to be the Chosen One?”
I expected the question, but it’s not an easy one to answer. It took me a year to discover the ramifications of a title I neither sought nor wanted. How do I explain it in one hundred words or less? I guess without bullshit. And quickly.
“My fate is to lead the vampire world, to determine what the relationship between mortals and vampires is to be. I don’t know why I’m the one. I don’t know how it’s determined, and so far no one can tell me who’s behind the decision. I just know there is a faction in the vampire world that wants vampires to assume what they see as their rightful place in the world—masters of the human race. For now, I have the power to stop them. That could all change, though, if my leadership is challenged.”
“Or if you and I are not freed to return to Earth.” Stephen says it softly.
He releases a breath, comes over to stand beside my chair. He kneels down, takes my hands. “I grew up in a household where consorting with supernaturals was the norm. I can’t believe how well you’ve adjusted to life as a vampire when you had no similar background. Before today, I’d never met a vampire, but I knew they existed, which was more than you knew before you were turned. We’ll get out of here. After all you’ve been through, there’s no way a bunch of walking skeletons can hold you.”
I feel color flood my cheeks. I have to force my words through a throat clogged up with embarrassment. “Did I just make a complete ass of myself?”
He shakes his head, pulls me to my feet. “Are you kidding? Wait until we get home and I tell you the story of my life. You think growing up with normal parents was a challenge? Try being the youngest in a family of witches. I can’t tell you the number of times I was turned into a frog.”
“You are so full of shit,” I say. “But thank you, anyway.”
We’re standing close—too close. I’m tempted to say the hell with it and wrap my arms around his neck and pull him even closer. His expression says he’d like to do the same thing.
Then I’m struck with a thought. I drop his hand and make myself step back. “Whoa. Stephen. I think Samual may be doing this.”
He looks around. “Samual is doing what?”
“This.” I waggle a finger between us. “Making us feel like—”
“Samual is making me want to kiss you? How exactly would he be doing that?”
“I think he’s an incubus.”
“An incubus.” His eyebrows ratchet upward. “An incubus? Why would you think that?”
No way I’m going to answer that. At least I don’t have to explain what an incubus is to Stephen. “Look at us. We’ve known each other, what? A few hours? And there’s this attraction. It’s unnatural.”
He smiles. “Unnatural? Why would two people being attracted to each other be unnatural?”
“You have to ask that? Look at where we are.”
The voice of reason takes this moment to thump me on the side of my head. Strategy, idiot. You need to talk strategy.
I take another step back. “We need to talk strategy,” mimicking the little voice that pulled me back from a delicious opportunity to taste those lips.
Stephen frowns. Now he looks confused. And disappointed. “Strategy?”
“They’re going to call us back soon and we need a plan. I can’t help feeling we’re missing something.”
I start to pace, as much to distance myself from Stephen as to jump-start the brain cells. Stephen still stands in the same place, his expression puzzled, his brow furrowed. I think he’s trying to process the last few minutes and having trouble sorting it out.
I don’t blame him. But I don’t know how much time we have before we’re pulled back, either.
“Listen, Samual is making what happened between Belinda Burke and me personal. Why would that be? She was an evil bitch. Even if there is some sort of sanctuary agreement, a system that has laws must recognize her threats constituted danger to innocents. Unless they’re completely without conscience, that can’t be acceptable.”
Stephen’s eyes focus again, narrow. He’s back with me. “You’re right. Maybe Samual has more at stake in the outcome of the trial than we know. The trick is finding what it is. Let’s start at the beginning. When you got here the first time.”
I feel a flush of excitement “No. Let’s start before that. How did I manage to slip undetected into what is supposed to be a protected environment? Who fucked up and let the barriers down?”
Stephen and I look at each other and smile.
It had to be.
Samual.
TWELVE
I CAN’T BELIEVE I DIDN’T THINK OF THIS before. Is Samual pursuing me with such vigor because he’s the one being held accountable for my breaching sanctuary?
Stephen is standing close again. My body likes it, though I’m still self-conscious. I can’t believe I just told him the story of my life.
I can’t believe how easy he is to talk to . . . and that he didn’t react to my story by shrieking in horror or laughing at the idiocy. I’ve been tempted to do both myself.
