hours tossing his fellow vamps to a demon lord. Why shouldn't I think I'm going to be dinner?'
He tossed the root onto the dirt floor where it sputtered as the last few inches continued to burn. 'I told you I wanted you to help me. I don't make a practice of eating people I need.'
'Yeah? That would be a whole lot more convincing if you weren't licking your fangs while you said it.' The light from the burning root dimmed. I pressed against one of the stone walls and wrapped my arms around myself. I hate the dark. I hate being closed into small places. Ever since that night ten years ago…
An odd sort of martyred expression came over his face, all hard planes and harsh lines in the dying light. 'I wasn't licking my fangs. I never lick my fangs. I'm sorry they bother you, but there's nothing I can do about them.'
'What,' I asked, nervously watching the flame on the root go from blue to yellow to red as it consumed the last bit of fuel, 'your fangs are stuck in landing-gear-down mode?'
He sighed. I don't know why, just the thought of a vampire having anything to sigh over struck me as funny. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the room was making me delirious. 'Something like that, yes. Why are you trying to climb the wall?'
'Don't you think you should build a fire before that bit of wood goes out entirely?' Behind me, the damp chill of the rough stone sank through my jacket and settled into my bones.
'A fire?' He looked at the almost dead root, then back to me. 'You are afraid of the dark.'
'Yeah. So a nice big bonfire would be really good right about now. Er. That root is dying. You should do something about it.'
'What is your name?'
'What?' I moved forward cautiously, keeping one eye on him as I crept toward the barely burning root. 'Is it some sort of vamp rule that you have to know the name of the person you're about to kill?'
I squatted next to the root and blew on it, trying to keep it burning while I found something else dry to feed it. Kindling, that's what I needed, something small and thin.
'It's not a rule, no, but I find it's always nice to know what to put on the headstone.'
I scrambled around in the dirt and found a couple of slivers of wood which I tossed onto the root, blowing on it to keep the flame alive. It was almost completely black in the room, so dark I couldn't see Adrian anymore, but I could feel him. I could feel him and the darkness and the weight of the massive stone castle over our heads pressing down into me. 'Nell,' I gasped as the root glowed red, then faded. As the light died, panic, true panic, was born within me. 'My name is Nell.'
'Nell.' His voice, as rough as the stone that imprisoned us, rubbed along my skin as if he were touching me. 'That is a strangely old-fashioned name for such a modern woman.'
I stood up, disoriented by the dark, panicked, my breath coming short because there wasn't enough air. It had been sucked away, and trapped as we were in this tomb of stone and earth, I had no way to get more.
His voice came from another direction, as if he were circling me. 'Nell, why are you afraid of the dark?'
I spun around, my eyes blind, trying to see something… anything. 'I'm not so afraid of the dark as afraid of who I'm trapped with. Stand still, will you?'
'You are afraid of the dark,' he whispered behind me. 'Your heart is beating so fast I can almost taste your fear.'
I jumped and turned to face the direction the voice had come. 'Stop doing that and let me have your lighter!'
'Why do you want my lighter? Do you intend to set me on fire?'
'That wasn't on my list, but I'll be happy to add it,' I said grimly, reaching into the darkness for him. 'I want a fire, OK? It's cold in here.'
'If it's warmth you seek, I will be happy to oblige,' he growled into my right ear. I shivered at the heat of his breath as it whispered along my skin.
'A fire would be better,' I said, clearing my throat to try to ease the hoarseness. 'I like fires.'
'A fire would kill you.' His voice came from in front of me now. I waved my hand in that direction, brushing against something warm and hard that melted away into the blackness. 'There is no ventilation hole in this chamber. The smoke would asphyxiate you.'
'So what?' I sobbed, the panic I'd been struggling to contain washing over me. I crumpled to the ground a pathetic blob of humanity, shaking with cowardice and fear as I panted, trying to ease the pressure that bore down from the weight of the stone above. 'I'll be dead once you're done doing this cat-and-mouse thing with me anyway. Why not die where at least I can see my murderer? Are you breathing all the air? There's no air in here! I can't… there's not enough air to breathe!'
'Nell.' Hands warm and strong pulled me to my feet. For a moment I thought of fighting him, fighting what I knew he was going to do, but the instinctual need to cling to another human being overwhelmed me. Adrian grunted as I threw myself on him, clutching him, wrapping my arms around him. He was warm and solid, and somehow with my face pressed into his neck, I could breathe easier. It was as if he alone kept the weight of the stone around us from crushing me into an insignificant little pulp. The panic that had washed over me began to ebb. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I did not know you were claustrophobic. I would have found alternate shelter had I known.'
'You have a heartbeat,' I said against his neck, my lips having been pressed against his pulse point. Beneath my arms wrapped around him, his chest rose and fell in a slow, regular pattern. 'You're breathing. I thought vampires were supposed to be the undead. You don't feel dead. You're not cold and clammy at all.'
'We prefer the term Dark One,' he answered, his voice starting deep in his chest. 'It has less of the Count Dracula connotation to it.'
'So you're not dead?' I asked, relaxing slightly as his hands came around me in a gentle embrace.
'No. I live as you do, but with a few differences.'
'Like the fact that you're immortal, and you drink blood, and you burn up in the sunlight, and garlic repels you.' I had half expected him to sink fangs in me, but instead he seemed content to allow me to cling to him, finding a shelter in his arms that I had never in my wildest dreams expected.
I felt him shrug, his hands skimming up my back in a manner that had me shivering—but not with cold. 'I live until I am destroyed, yes. I need blood to survive, that is true. Sunlight is not especially healthy for me, although it will not burn me to ash as popular movies show.'
'What about garlic?' I asked, perversely enjoying the discussion. Smooshed up against him as I was, I couldn't help but breathe in his scent, a masculine combination of man and something else, something woodsy and elemental, something that started a little thrum inside me that I didn't seem to be able to stop.
Nor was I sure I wanted to.
'Garlic doesn't bother me, although I admit to finding it a bit offensive when it's used too heavily in my food.'
How sick was it that I was getting pleasure out of clinging to a man—no, not a man, a vampire—who thought nothing of betraying his own people?
'Your food?' I gasped, trying to pretend his voice hadn't brushed my mind. 'You mean people? That was a joke? You're talking about people with garlic breath?'
'Yes, it was a joke. If your panic has eased, I will get my lighter. I cannot light a fire, you understand, but if you will allow me to move over to that pile of wood, I will place my lighter there so you might have light as long as the fluid lasts.'
I peeled myself off him with an effort, lured away from his warmth and solidness by the promise of light. He flicked his lighter a couple of times, cupping a hand around the flame to protect it as he walked over to a pile of discarded barrel bits. He cleared a small patch, setting the lighter down carefully, lowering the level of the flame. The light from it didn't penetrate the darkness beyond a few feet, but it was better than nothing. I hurried toward it, drawn like a moth to the light that flickered and danced in the draft.
'Better?' he asked. I nodded, rubbing my arms against the chill of the room. Odd how I hadn't noticed how cold it was when I had been snuggled up to him. He kicked aside more wood, clearing a path to a wall a few feet away.
'Ryan,' I said, watching as he sat down, his back against the wall.
'Adrian,' he corrected, leaning back, his arms crossed, his eyes closed.
