Part 19 (2/2)
”It wasn't unpleasant.” She realized he was still holding her against him, and she was still holding him. ”Do you feel... better?”
He smiled. There was no trace of fangs. ”Yes. My Companion is stronger. Thank you.”
”It was nothing,” she lied. ”Tell me more about your Companion. It seems more to you than just a parasite.”
”It makes us who we are. We have a symbiotic relations.h.i.+p. It gives us strength, and more acute senses, and allows us to draw on its power.”
”It makes you hum like that?”
He nodded, but he looked surprised. ”I've never met anyone who could sense our vibrations. They experience them as an attraction, or a feeling that we are very alive.”
”Vibrant in fact?” She had to .smile.
”My Companion wants survival. Enough to rebuild its host constantly.”
”That's why you live so long and heal so well.”
He nodded.
”It gives you red eyes?”
”The red eyes are a symptom of the Companion's power coming up.” It all sounded so reasonable in that sensual rumble.
”Bringing the power up enough causes that black vortex you saw around Eltya and her friends, and when the field of energy grows so intense it collapses in on itself, we pop out of where we are and into another s.p.a.ce. With practice we can direct where we reappear. We call it translocation.”
She couldn't think what to say. She had seen it herself a number of times at this point, and yet in some ways it was the most astounding trait of all. That and the healing, and the age, the blood and the energy, the strength.”Quite convenient, really,” he remarked.
That was one way to put it. And he made it sound so... prosaic. ”And... and what else is there?” She steeled herself to know it all.
He pulled back a little and smiled at her, those green eyes crinkling. G.o.d, but she loved that smile. ”Most of the rest is myth. I didn't lie about that. Garlic doesn't repel us. Or crosses, as you know. I was once a cardinal, and cardinals really spend an inordinate amount of time around crosses. I happen to like garlic on my pasta. The only time we cast no reflection in mirrors is when we are about to translocate. Then even light does not escape the field of power our Companion creates.”
”What... what do you call yourselves?” There must be some other name besides the one she knew. Perhaps using it would be some sort of slur.
”Vampire.”
She sucked in a breath. The word was ugly. There was no getting around it. And maybe she was vampire now too. ”Am I now like you?”
He shook his head and held her close to him. The faint cinnamon and man scent rose from his chest. He breathed the words into her hair. ”No, Kate. That's another myth. Vampires can be made, Lord knows. But my blood would have to infect yours... Oh, G.o.d.” He held her away from him abruptly. ”Do you have any sc.r.a.pes or cuts? I've been bleeding.” He took her hands frantically and examined them.
She too felt panicked as he turned them first one way then another. ”I... I don't think so.” Then he swept his gaze over her face, her neck and breast. ”No...” He began to breathe again and so did she. ”No, you're fine.” He clutched her to him. ”I thought for a moment...”
”That was close.” She had very nearly been made a monster, if Gian was a monster.
He held her away again. ”You must never touch me if you are bleeding. Even from the tiniest scratch. Do you understand?” His voice was fierce with either anger or... or pain.
”I understand,” she snapped. What he was stood between them.
He squeezed his eyes shut. She hadn't meant to give him pain. Her hand reached out and caressed his jawline of its own accord.
That made his eyes open, at least.
”I'm sorry to have dragged you into all of this.” He took her hand and kissed her palm. That sent s.h.i.+vers down her body to the place between her legs.
”I stole the emerald.” She sighed. ”I got myself into it.” She realized that through all this conversation, she had been lying in his arms, that he was naked. She must distract herself from the feel of his lips on her palm. ”I... I am glad your... your Companion is better.”
He ran his hand up her ami to where the sleeves of her traveling dress left the inside of her elbow bare. His thumb moved over the pulse there. Dear Lord. ”The Companion loves living more than anything,” he murmured, bending to kiss the place he had been rubbing. ”The truest affirmation of life is...”-here his tiny smile appeared-”the s.e.xual act.”
”You can't be thinking of s.e.x right now when you're injured and you've been... abused by Elyta, and we're locked up waiting for her to kill us, or worse?” Her outrage was dutiful, if not wholehearted.
He looked half apologetic, half wicked. ”A Companion is always eager to affirm life. It gives vampires a heightened s.e.xuality.”
He sobered. ”It might be the last time.”She didn't want to think about that. ”I can't make love to an injured man. It isn't right.”
He lifted a curl of hair from her shoulder and smoothed it back behind her ear. ”Sweet Kate. There are many kinds of healing. I need to feel good and true right now, as well as stronger. Not... defiled. Not a victim. And only you can make me feel that way, after... her.”
Oh, he was good. How could one resist the expression in his eyes, the soft caring in his voice? He had probably practiced that expression. But she didn't care. ”Let me see if your wounds are healing now that you've had a 'restorative.' ” The cuts on his chest were now no more than pink lines of new skin. The circular burns had disappeared entirely.
He pulled her in to him again. He was decidedly wanner now. Hot even. ”You see? I'm fine.” He leaned in to her, and this time his lips just brushed hers.
Their touch made her s.h.i.+ver. Arrogance be d.a.m.ned. Monster? She didn't care. The fact that they were essentially two different species? That was going to bring tragedy, since she had lost her heart to him so thoroughly. Perhaps Elyta would bring tragedy first. So all they had was this moment. And she knew what she wanted to do with it. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. She mustn't let him see into her heart right now. ”Does that mean I needn't feel guilty about taking advantage of you?”
She felt his smile as he kissed his way down her jawline. ”Yes.” The word was a caress.
She lifted her chin once more, wondering if he would take her blood again, and not unwilling for him to do so. But he only made his way down her throat. The feel of his kisses was so delightful she hardly realized he was untying and unb.u.t.toning, and soon he was pulling at the bodice of her dress until her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were revealed. She became so intent upon what his mouth was doing to each nipple in turn she lost track of exactly how she became naked.
”Kate,” he murmured as he changed nipples. ”Kate.”
She ran her hands over the muscles in his back and down over those lovely b.u.t.tocks she had first seen in the piazza in Firenze.
Really, Michelangelo was an incredible sculptor. Women had been wors.h.i.+pping that statue for three hundred years, and she, Kate, had the real, live version here, its warm, living flesh pressed against her. She giggled.
He drew back, affronted. ”What?”
”I was just wondering what would have happened if Michelangelo had sculpted you erect. I expect there would have been female riots in the piazza.”
His expression softened. ”That would have been bad.”
”Yes. And it would have gotten worse, because all the men who weren't so well endowed would have gotten together with chisels to remove the comparison.”
”Ouch.” He kissed her mouth. ”As long as you like it, I am satisfied.”
”I like it.” She wanted to say she liked him. Actually, she half wanted to say she loved him. But that would be useless.
He had said himself his s.e.xual appet.i.tes were more than any human because of his Companion. She was just another in a long line of women whom he used to satisfy those appet.i.tes. So she said only, ”And I would like to know it more intimately now, if yon please.” She scooted onto her back.
”Happy to oblige.” He hung over her, braced on one elbow.
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