Part 7 (1/2)

”Oh, h.e.l.l.” She planted her hands on her hips. ”How did you know?”

”I saw photos of him on the wall, in the dream.”

”Yeah, well, that spoils my big surprise. Seems after Mengele fled Europe to avoid prosecution for war crimes, he set up this place and spent years conducting experiments on the locals. According to the records they found, he took in mostly poor pregnant women. He was trying to genetically alter their unborn children. Only one baby survived. A little girl.” ”Cristal. Patient six-one-two-seven.”

”That's her.” Samantha took Daniela's hand in hers. ”There are some weird bits we can't explain. Like the fact that Cristal's records indicate she was born on February seventh, nineteen sixty-one.” She gazed down at the young, unlined face. ”You know, if this is her, she looks pretty d.a.m.n good for a forty-five year old woman.”

”Impossible. The records must belong to someone else.”

”She remembers Mengele, and he died in nineteen seventy-nine, Rafael. That alone would put her in her mid-to-late thirties.” Samantha looked thoughtful. ”Anyway, I'll leave you two alone. You might try the Sleeping Beauty cure. It's how Lucan brought me back to the land of the living.”

He couldn't concentrate enough to decipher her meaning. ”Sleeping Beauty cure?”

”Tell her you love her and kiss her, you dumb a.s.s.” Samantha grinned at him and left.

Rafael moved to sit next to Daniela on the bed. ”Is that all it would take? To tell you that I love you? I hardly know you.” He bent close, and breathed in the scent of her skin.

”But if you will come back to me, Daniela, I will love you. I know that in my heart now.

We only need time together.”

She did not stir.

”Daniela, please. I cannot love a dream. I need you.” He lifted her up into his arms.

”Come back to me now. Give me some hope.” He put his mouth to hers, and kissed her, and felt the pulse of her heart under his lips.

Rafael held her for a long time, willing her to wake, but she remained in her dream world. He made her comfortable, turning her on her side so that bed sores wouldn't form on her back, and went to stand at the window to watch another sunrise alone.

He had responsibilities to Lucan, and to the humans he protected as a cop. He couldn't ignore them forever. If he put her in the care of the women of the convent, he could still visit her every day. He wouldn't give up on her. She had saved him from an eternity of suffering. He would never abandon her.

His face felt wet. It couldn't be. He had not wept in six hundred years.

”Rafael.” A soft hand slipped into his, and Daniela was there, standing beside him, alive, awake, a dream come true.

He had to touch her to be sure. ”Sleeping Beauty.” He caressed her cheek.

”I dreamed I was hiding in the jungle. Someone wanted to catch me, but he couldn't, and then I think he finally went away.” She yawned, as if she had done nothing more than wake from a long nap. ”Are you all right?”

”I am now,” he said, and pulled her into his arms.

An Exclusive Excerpt from Night Lost by Lynn Viehl Published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library To be released May 1, 2007 Nicola Jefferson is very good at finding things even when that thing turns out to be a starving vampire bricked up in the cellar of an abandoned French chateau. Gabriel Seran has spent years being tortured and abused at the hands of his human captors and may not be quite sane... can Nick really trust him not to take his vengeance out on her?

”Is this my blood?” Nick 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.” Gabriel 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.

That he wanted to wash muted the last of her doubts. If he had meant to try and drain her dry, he'd have gone after her first and cleaned up later.

”Here.” She pulled off her T-s.h.i.+rt, soaked it and handed it to him. He handled it gingerly. ”It's my s.h.i.+rt. I forgot to pack a washcloth.”

”Thank you.”

She finished was.h.i.+ng up as best she could and sat on the bank to watch him. He didn't act prissy but scrubbed at himself slowly and thoroughly. The grime and dirt on his skin washed away, but the moonlight made his burn scars appear almost black. When he tried to reach his back, he staggered a little, but he didn't ask for help.

He wouldn't. She'd bet good money that he'd been alone too long to ask for anything.

Pride is all you can rely on.

”Let me.” She went to him, took the s.h.i.+rt and nudged him around. The fiery tinge to his scent had vanished, but the cool water didn't seem to affect the heat of his skin. The scars felt cooler, but were hard; almost scaly. Two huge, healed gouges just below his shoulder blades caught her attention. There were others, not as deep, further down at his waist. ”Do you know that you've got some pits in your back, the size of my fist?”

”They hung me from hooks for several weeks.” He said it with no emotion in his voice. ”When they tried to take me down, they found that my flesh healed, so they had to tear them free.”

”a.s.sholes.” Nick's throat tightened as she gently washed the acc.u.mulated grime out of the deep depressions. ”You're a lot braver than I am.”

”I am...” His shoulders tensed. ”You need not do this.”

She didn't want to do it, not when every wipe revealed more green burns and healed- over gouges. How could he have survived such things?

He's a vampire. They survive anything.

He reached for the cloth, but Nick b.u.mped his hand away. ”Nope. You can't see how dirty you are. I can. Soap would be a huge help, but I didn't exactly plan on you and me taking a bath.” She stepped around to see his front, and he promptly moved away from her. Pity and compa.s.sion made her eyes sting. ”Gabriel, if I wanted to hurt you, I'd have done it in the bas.e.m.e.nt.”

”Pain comes in many forms.”

In that instant, Nick knew precisely what he was thinking and feeling. Afraid to be touched, wanting to be touched. Hating hunger as much as the fear. What they'd done had changed him inside, damaged him in place where the scars didn't show. Imagining what he'd gone through plowed into her, a fast, hard right hook to the belly.

The moonlight softened, adding new shadows to Gabriel's face, and suddenly Nick knew why he had seemed so familiar. She'd seen him a hundred times. She'd drawn his profile on napkins in cafes and in the sand with a stick of driftwood and in fine, indelible lines of love in the hidden places of her heart.

My green man. My dream man.

”I won't hurt you,” she said, a little shaken to be standing face-to-face with what had been until ten seconds ago a figment of her imagination. ”I swear I'm not like them.”

”You are human.”

He might be ent.i.tled to some bitterness, but she wasn't taking this snide s.h.i.+t from him. Even if he was her fantasy forest lover. ”I'm the human who cut you loose, vampire.”