Part 12 (1/2)
Are you criminals? Why doesn't anyone in authority know about this?”
Kyn never trusted humans with knowledge of their existence and their nature. Neither did the Brethren. Yet this girl had somehow stumbled into the middle of their war and released the helpless prisoners of it. He would not repay her with silence.
”Those who imprisoned me are fanatics,” he said. ”They believe my kind are evil and demonic, and must be destroyed. They torture us for information about others like us.”
She drew back. ”Are you? An evil demon, I mean?”
”Some think that we were cursed because we are evil creatures, but I believe it was something else. Something in our time that we do not yet understand.” Her silence made him add, ”We have lived for many centuries. We depend on humans for blood as vampires do, but we do not harm them. We try to live in peace with you.”
”So you don't have to kill someone to survive?”
”No.”
”I thought so. I mean, none of the others tried to kill me. Not that I exactly waited around for them to have a go.” Her voice changed, became softer. ”I'm glad.”
Gabriel bent his head, breathing in the delicious scent of her skin. He wanted to rub his hot face against her, feel the tender resilience of her flesh caressing him. He also knew he had no right to touch her, and that if he did the long denial of his captivity might very well end with her death and his enthrallment.
Command her before you are no longer able to send her away. ”If you are steady enough to ride your motorcycle, Nicola, you must leave me now.”
”Leave you? Here?”
The only protection she had against him was his own restraint. Others like him would not care... yet she implied that she had quickly left the others that she had released before him. She had not been bespelled; he could smell no trace of his kind on her skin-but any Kyn might have used l'attrait to command her to forget them.
”It is best.” His questions would have to go unanswered. ”I have been locked away and starved for a very long time. I do not trust myself.”
”I'm tougher than I look, and I've been tapped before this.” Her hand curled over his shoulder, gently guiding him down to her. ”Go ahead. Just leave me a pint or two, okay?”
She was offering him blood. Freely, agreeably, as if a gift between friends. It humbled him. That his kind had used such generosity outraged him. ”Not from you.”
She pushed his hair back, tucking it behind his ear. ”You know, you're the most polite vampire I've ever set free. Definitely the best-looking.” Her thumb whispered across his bottom lip, so fast and light Gabriel thought he imagined it. ”But your fangs are still out. You're wobbly. Take the blood.”
She would not be so willing unless she was fully succ.u.mbing to his scent. ”You have given enough.” He could not evade her touch or push it away. He had dreamed of holding her too many times to resist. ”Please move away from me now.”
”I'm not afraid.” She inched closer to him, brus.h.i.+ng her body against his. ”It doesn't upset me. I know you need blood to heal.”
She fit her hand to the back of his neck while she used the other to outline one of the scars on his chest. ”I can't believe what they did to you. If I could find the one who did it, I'd kick his a.s.s from here to next Tuesday.”
”There were many. You would break your foot.” Now she was seducing him with the enchantment of her voice, her presence, her compa.s.sion. He could not keep his hands from her. Was it possible in his current state to become enthralled? He needed to focus on something else. ”How did you come to find this place, and me?”
”A painting, local superst.i.tion, and a few other things.” She turned on her side to face him. ”Do you know anything about the Golden Madonna? Did the holy freaks talk about her?”
”No. I have never heard of such a thing.” She had mentioned her photography. ”Is this Madonna an icon?”
”No. Just something that used to belong to my family. It was stolen, and I'd like to find it again.” She sounded a little disappointed. ”How long have they had you down there?”
”Can you tell me the date?”
She touched the watch on her wrist. ”September fourteenth.”
That long. Time had escaped him; he had thought it only July. ”Six months.”
She drew in a quick breath, swore, and then just as suddenly stopped. ”Hey.” She sat up. ”Why are your eyes glowing like that?”
Gabriel turned his head. ”I am happy to be free.”
”Not that kind of glow. Like fire, if it were green. Very spooky. Wait.” She hunted in her pocket and pulled out something that she held in front of his face. ”Here, look.”
He caught her wrist out of reflex. ”I believe you, Nicola.”
”Can't you see when your eyes light up like this?”
”No matter what they do, I cannot see anything.” He closed his useless eyes. ”They blinded me.”
Nick forgot the pounding at the back of her head that felt as if Father Claudio were still whacking her. She dropped the little square mirror that she always kept in her pocket. She forgot that the man sitting beside her was a starved, scarred vampire. She forgot the world as she got on her knees and turned his face toward her.
The strange green glow radiating from his eyes had disguised the fact that they didn't move, but remained still in a fixed stare. Gabriel was blind.
”The holy freaks did this? Deliberately?” She didn't wait for an answer. ”What about the tattoos? Did they do that, too? To mark you or something?”
”These?” He touched the hard places on his skin. ”These are places where they burned me.”
Burn scars? Up close, the curious marks looked something like fern leaves. ”Why are they green? Are they infected? Is that why you're running a fever?”
”No. I am not ill, and I have caused trouble enough for you.” He stood. ”All that matters is that I am free. I thank you for everything you have done, Nicola.”
She didn't have to dump him, Nick thought as she got to her feet. He was more than happy to pat her on the head and send her on her way. It would have been fine with her-she'd left the others to cope on their own-but the others hadn't been blind.
Maybe he didn't want her sympathy, but there was no way she was ditching him, not blind and lost. The holy freaks would just scoop him up with a b.u.t.terfly net.
”I want to know more about you and the other vampires.” At least that much was true. ”You owe me, right? So you can fill me in.”
”We are not important.” He pulled her close, resting his cheek against the top of her head. His scent, like Christmas morning, comforted her as much as his embrace. ”Do not mistake my meaning. You saved my life, and I am grateful. But you must forget about me, and this place, and what you know about my kind. Go back to your home. Avoid us. Forget us. Be happy, Nicola.”
”That's a very sweet, brave farewell speech, your lords.h.i.+p, but I'm not going anywhere.” How could such a brave man- vampire-be so stupid? ”Think about it. You want me to leave you here, in the middle of the forest, where that crazy old man could find you and do worse? Besides, you're hurt and maybe sick.”
”I will heal.” A muscle in his jaw tightened.
”Not from blindness, you won't.” She pulled away, backing out of his arms. ”Are you mental? Jesus, I didn't bust you out of there so that you could get caught again.”
His scent changed, growing deeper and almost smoky, like an evergreen log tossed in a fireplace. ”I am dangerous to you.”
”To yourself, maybe. Let me worry about me.” She pulled away from him and went to the stream to splash her hot face with water. The moonlight showed her dark stains on one side of her T-s.h.i.+rt. ”Is this my blood?” She saw smears on his face and neck and absently touched the side of her throat, but felt no wounds. ”Did you bite me somewhere while I was out?”
”No. I only took Claudio.” He came to the water and began splas.h.i.+ng his face and chest with it, was.h.i.+ng away more blood.
Nick felt no sympathy for the old man, but she was responsible for what had happened to him. ”Did you kill him? The old guy?”
Gabriel shook his head.
He was shutting her out. She hadn't expected him to talk much-like she'd ever hung around to have a conversation with a vampire-but there was something different about him. He had the same n.o.ble, rather snotty manner of speaking, but he didn't scare her the way the others had. Sure, he had a scary stillness about him that made him seem as if he were partly disconnected from what was happening, but the guy had been locked up and tortured. He had a right.