B00528UTDS EBOK (24 page)

Sarah felt her heart race as she anticipated what type of playing he wanted to do. Darrien had made himself scarce since their arrival in New Orleans. She’d seen him only once since that night, and even that was only for a short moment at her bedroom window. There had been only time enough for a quick kiss, before they’d heard someone coming.

Darrien was aware of Donavan’s feelings about his relationship with Sarah, but she hoped that her father’s disapproval would not matter. It shouldn’t matter. Not after he’d been absent for most of her life.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” she told him, blowing Darrien a kiss before leaving the window.

Sarah turned from the window and froze. Gina blocked the door. The ghastly vision sent shards of fear into Sarah’s heart. Weeds clung to her wet hair. Her face was swollen and gray - just as it had been on the day they had pulled her body from the water.

“Go away Gina!” Sarah closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them again, the ghost would be gone.

When Sarah looked again, Gina was still there.

“What do you want?” Sarah asked, angry that her friend would not let her be. All of these years she had not heard so much as a whisper from her friend, and now Gina was haunting her - popping up around every corner.

“Death is painful … but the pain does go away.”

Sarah heard Gina’s voice in her head, but before she had time to contemplate the meaning of her words, she vanished.

Baffled, Sarah left the room. Tonight she needed the solace of Darrien’s arms more than ever. She found him waiting for her in the garden, and she all but flew into his embrace.

“Well now you will.” Darrien wrapped his arms around her waist and they rose up into the darkness. A moment later Sarah could see the glistening black water of the Mississippi below them.

Slowly they descended from the sky. Darrien gently laid her back in the tall grass of the riverbank. His eyes were alight with his hunger for her, but that hunger was softened by love and something else … sadness. Sarah saw sadness in his eyes.

She opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong, but before she could say a word, Darrien silenced her with a deep kiss. His tongue danced with hers - caressing the inside of her mouth, while his hands stroked the inside of her thighs.

Darrien pulled away and whispered in her ear. “Going two nights without you has been torture.”

“Hmm … I know what you mean,” she told him as her fingers sought out the button of his pants. With deft movement, Sarah released his stiff flesh from the confines of his pants, and wrapped her hand around him.

“You move so quickly,” he panted.

Sarah giggled. “I can’t help myself. You’ve neglected me too long,” she told him as she gently pulled on his erection. She loved the way his body trembled as his hunger for her grew.

“You would never be able to do that with me again,” he told her, his voice cracking with emotion and the need that was overwhelming him.

“I don’t care,” she told him, lifting her head so that she could kiss his lips.

Darrien lost it then. His mouth devoured hers in a hungry - demanding kiss. His hands lifted her nightgown so that he could get to her panties. Slowly he slid them off and when she was free of them, his hand went between her thighs to gently spread her legs.

Sarah felt her legs grow weak, and she began to shake as she anticipated the moment he would enter her.

“I want you to bite me while we are making love,” she gasped, fighting to get her breathing under control.

Darrien growled and she felt his fangs pierce her neck. In that same instant, she felt his hard flesh penetrating her. The moist heat between her legs erupted into a raging blaze of passion. The feeling of him feeding on her, as he moved within her, was so erotic that she was almost instantly pulled into an earth-shattering orgasm.

Sarah howled with delight as she savored the feeling of him thrusting into her frantically, consumed by his mind-numbing need. As she felt him spill his seed within her, she wrapped her legs around him, and let him bring her to that place of unbelievable pleasure, once again.

She felt some pain when he withdrew his fangs from her flesh, but she was soothed by the feeling of his tongue licking away the droplets of blood that still flowed from the wound.

“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.

“Not as much as I love you.” Sarah smiled, content with life for the first time that she could remember. It wasn’t perfect, but with Darrien by her side, it was as close to perfect as it had ever been.

Sarah stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes fixed on the purple bruising around the bite marks on her neck. She cursed the heat that prevented her from wearing a turtleneck sweater that would help to hide the marks.

There was nothing she could do but position her long hair around her neck so that it would hide the bite. It wasn’t so much that she was afraid of Donavan, at least not for herself. She just wasn’t sure what might happen to Darrien if her father saw the marks on her.

Sarah glanced at the red numbers displayed on the digital alarm clock on her bedside table. It was nearly time to go downstairs. Ethan had called a meeting for 10:00 PM and he’d asked that they all be there.

Though she was still getting to know everyone, she found them all likable in different ways. Ethan was amusing because he tried too hard to be mortal. Dash was fun to be with. No matter how down you were feeling, he could always find some way to make you smile. Then there was Nicole. Her sister was everything she’d ever imagined that she would be, and more. Sarah almost didn’t know how to react to having a big sister around.

From the murmur of voices she could hear as she descended the stairs, it sounded as if everyone had arrived. When Sarah stepped into the parlor, her eyes scanned the room looking for Darrien. She saw Dash, Alec, her sister and the priest. Aunt Jeanie was even there. It appeared everyone was present but him.

This didn’t surprise her too much. His interest in the Light Seekers was limited to her. He didn’t really believe that they would ever be successful. He never said this to her, but she could feel it coming from him whenever she spoke of the Place of Light, or the secrets that the ancients were hiding. He just didn’t believe.

When everyone had found a place to sit, Ethan stood up and faced them. “We have a few different things that we need to discuss tonight.”

Sarah felt a twinge of alarm when Ethan scanned the crowd, but his eyes quickly skipped over her. He seemed different somehow. Ethan’s face actually had some color to it. He was nowhere near as pale as usual.

“First … I am sure everyone is aware that Omar and his vamps are gone. It appears as if they have disappeared off of the face of the earth, but don’t be fooled. This doesn’t mean that he has hightailed it. What it means is that something very serious is getting ready to go down … so we better be ready for it.

“I know this is basically a vampire problem and not everyone here is a vampire, but we all have something in common. We are all targets of these renegade vamps.”

“How are we suppose to be ready for something, if we don’t know what that something is?” Jeanie spoke up.

Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know. Just keep an eye open at all times.”

“What else is going on?” Nicole asked. “I know you Ethan. You wouldn’t call everyone together just to tell us about something that you know we have already guessed.”

She was sitting on the couch next to Alec. Nicole’s dislocated shoulder was in a sling to keep her arm stationary. She had a blanket wrapped around her. Even in the stifling heat of the day, Nicole complained of being cold. Sarah still feared that there was a chance that her sister might turn.

“Dash and I have been talking, and we decided that it was time that we tried to cross into the Place of Light,” he told them.

“How are you going to do this when you don’t even know how to get to this place?” Alec scoffed at the idea.

“I have been doing a lot of research on the subject, and I think I have a general idea of where the gateways are,” Ethan told them. “What I’ve found matches closely to what Dash experienced. I think that maybe we could send someone over there. They could check it out.”

“Who is going to do this?” Nicole asked.

Dash stood up and smiled. “That would be me. I would be an ambassador of sorts. You know … I would kind of just slip over there and have a bit of a talk with whoever’s in charge.”

Nicole shook her head. “No … no way.”

Father Rovati cleared his throat to get their attention. “To tell you the truth, I can’t even believe that I am sitting here listening to all of this. I have spent my life hunting vampires, and now I am at some kind of a vampire meeting. To top that off … I am listening to some strange idea about going to a place that very likely doesn’t exist, except for in legends.”

“It does exist,” Donavan interceded. “But it is foolish to think that any of us would go there and live to return. It is the realm of the wolves.”

“I don’t know. The wolves don’t seem like such a bad sort,” Dash said, cocking his head to one side.

Donavan’s smile was chilling. “Need I remind you that we are not talking about a lone vampire going into a den of wolves … but an entire kingdom of wolves? We are talking about a species that has been our enemy since the dawn of time.”

“As do I.” Nicole pushed the blanket from her shoulders and got to her feet. At first she swayed a little, but Alec was there to steady her.

“It would be foolish for you to go there. Lex told me that only one vampire has ever gone to this place and survived. I don’t want you to go Dash … not alone,” Nicole added.

“It doesn’t make sense for everyone to risk their lives,” Dash told her. “And besides … I am so tired of the darkness it doesn’t really matter to me anymore.”

Nicole searched the faces of the people that were gathered. “Where is Lex? Why isn’t he here? He would tell you how foolish this is.”

“Lex had some urgent business to attend to. He sends his regards, and regrets that he could not stay,” Ethan told them.

Sarah didn’t miss the frown on Aunt Jeanie’s face at the news that Lex was gone. If she didn’t know better, she would think that her aunt was actually falling for the wolf man.

“So if there are no more objections … we will make plans to leave for Wyoming within the next couple of weeks. We should leave as soon as Nicole is ready to travel,” Ethan told them.

Nicole turned away, saying no more.

Sarah’s stomach knotted up when Ethan’s eyes came to rest on her. Her sixth sense had known from the moment she’d walked into the room that something was wrong - something was terribly wrong.

Donavan jumped in, before Ethan could say anything. “Sarah, will you come out to the garden so that we may speak with you in private?”

A lumped was forming in her throat. All of the sudden she didn’t want to know. As long as she didn’t know, she could pretend everything was okay. She wanted to scream at them to leave her alone - to keep whatever they wanted to say to themselves. But instead she nodded, following her father and Ethan into the garden.

Sarah did as he asked, but her eyes never left his face. She tried to read his expression, but he was too good at hiding his feelings.

Everything went black. For a fraction of a moment Sarah could see or hear nothing. She felt someone’s hands on her, holding her up.

“Sarah!” Donavan called her name, pulling her back from the dark tunnel that she was falling into. Finally her father’s face came into focus.

“No! I don’t believe it. He just came to me last night,” she cried.

“I’m sorry. I know he was someone that you cared about deeply,” Donavan tried to comfort her.

Sarah shook her head frantically. “You did something to him,” she accused. “You didn’t want us together so you had him destroyed!”