Before Dawn (2 page)

“My apologies for startling you,” continued the smooth, rich voice that rivaled aged brandy, stirring something in her memories. “Mercy Jansen.”

Hearing her name spoken by that voice jolted her from her paralysis. She stumbled back, as graceless as a newborn colt testing its legs for the first time. All too soon the edge of her desk hit her backside. With great effort she dropped her gaze, cutting the eye-to-eye contact, and the mist that hovered in her brain lifted.

Why was she acting like a nitwit bimbo from a teenage slasher flick? He was just another attendee.

Who’d followed her to a secluded part of the museum, well away from the crowd.

Get a grip, Jansen.

Mercy straightened away from the desk and pushed back the tangled fall of hair from her face, wishing she’d opted for the old schoolmarm costume. But
no-o-o
, she’d just had to indulge that whim to be girly.

She glanced up, deliberating skirting the eyes, and could not stop herself from staring rudely. Count Dracula, the young and romantic version, stood before her. He wasn’t tall, perhaps a few inches under average, but what he lacked in stature he made up for with drama. Midnight curls gleamed with blue highlights and fell to shoulders draped in a black satin cape with a high, stiff collar that ended in dangerous-looking points. The floor-length garment was open, revealing the brilliant gleam of the crimson inner lining. Startlingly white lace spilled from his throat and tight cuffs, hiding all but long, elegant fingers that were paler and better manicured than her own. A touch of modernity was in the shiny leather pants encasing slim legs. Mercy blinked and felt her eyebrows inch up. She had the absurd urge to ask if he’d had to be stitched into the pants, they were so tight.

Bracing herself for the impact, her eyes traveled back up. The beauty of his face was dazzling, if a touch too feminine for her taste. He looked like he should be the front man of a Japanese boy band. Full lips, aquiline nose, high cheekbones, arching eyebrows, and sweeping lashes long enough to make her envious. And he looked like she had a decade on him.

That final observation, more than anything else, allowed Mercy to gather her wits.

“I’m sorry, but guests are not allowed in this area.”

He moved deeper into the office. “You sound a little hoarse,” he said, ignoring her statement, and held out a full champagne flute. “Take this.”

Mercy automatically accepted the offering. “Thank you, Mr.—?”

“Edmond,” he said, a hint of an accent flavoring the name. It sounded French, which suited the name and his Gallic coloring.

“Thank you, Mr. Edmond.”

He shook his head but his hair barely moved. “Just Edmond.”

Like just Madonna?
she wanted to ask but refrained from doing so.

He lifted his own flute, tipping it toward her. Feeling awkward, she touched her flute to his, very aware of his eyes following her every movement. Not wanting to insult a man who’d forked over three hundred dollars for a ticket to the fundraiser and a potential donor, Mercy took a sip, enough to coat her mouth and her esophagus.

And squeezed her eyes shut as her head swam and her hand faltered, tilting the flute dangerously. She really should’ve eaten something beyond the banana and carton of cherry yogurt at lunch.

A hand caught hers. She had the impression of icy coldness a heartbeat before warmth washed over her like rain. The champagne flute was rescued from her unsteady fingers. Despite the voluntary darkness, her head continued to bob. Her hand reached back and found the solid surface of her desk.

“Mercy?”

That compelling voice filled her head, dampening the waves. She exhaled, unaware she’d been holding her breath until that moment. A heavy, artificial scent filled her nostrils, and she turned her head away. Satin brushed the naked skin of her legs, cool and slick. His cape. Fingertips skimmed the curve of her cheek, the line of her throat, the slope of her exposed shoulder. She couldn’t protest, couldn’t stir herself from the lassitude that trapped her in its silken grip. Not even long enough to lift her lashes, let alone break away.

The exploration continued, soft and gentle and warm…and somehow familiar.

There was nothing to fear from him. That thought whispered through her mind like a tendril of smoke.

Mercy let herself drift, let the sensual pleasure of his touch lull her.

The hand holding hers drew it upward until her palm met a chest that felt like marble under the layer of cloth. Soft lips grazed her jaw line. He whispered her name again. From the jumbled, hazy mess of her thoughts, one question emerged.

“What are you?” she breathed.

Lips brushed her earlobe. “The man of your dreams.”

* * * * *

She wasn’t here. Mercy Jansen wasn’t among the five hundred or so costumed attendees indulging in free-flowing alcohol and tiny hors d’oeuvres that would look ridiculous held between his fingers.

Ryan McGinnis knew she wasn’t there because after three months of surveillance he would’ve been able to locate her in a crowd by her scent alone.

Scanning the room even though he knew he wouldn’t find her, Ryan cursed the Council. What in his last damned report hadn’t been clear? And why question him tonight of all nights? Even after he’d bit out why leaving Mercy Jansen alone even for a minute tonight was an extremely bad idea, he hadn’t been allowed to leave. And that was when he’d studied each member of the Council and, with a new level of cynicism, judged them, weighed them.

Christ, where could she be? She was trying to raise funds for the museum, so shouldn’t she be milling about, making nice with all the moneyed people?

Joséphine and a man too thin and too tall to be a convincing Napoléon Bonaparte passed by in front of him. Ryan ignored the appraising looks the tipsy pair aimed in his direction. Frustration flared. The woman, who was usually as predictable as a Swiss timepiece, had to choose tonight of all nights to deviate from expected behavior.

* * * * *

The man of your dreams.

As the mouth suckled at a bared breast, her thoughts slowly—oh-so painfully slowly—wove themselves together, one fragile thread at a time because the electrical pulses between the neurons in her brain had slowed to one frame per second. The picture that emerged made her think she’d lost more than just her Catholic sense of inhibition.

The sense of déjà vu was nearly overwhelming. She’d felt this before. She’d done this before.

She’d dreamt this before.

Oh, God.

Her breath shuddered out of her lungs. As if they were trying to push through a wall of molasses, her hands came up and braced against his shoulders. She dug in the heels of her palms and pushed. He didn’t budge. If anything, those deceptively slim arms encircling her tightened further.

Fear quickened her pulse.

Then she felt them. The warning dual scrapes of dangerously sharp points on her skin. She struggled wildly. Or thought she did. She couldn’t be sure because her limbs felt heavy and clumsy, like she’d been dosed with Benadryl. A sound of frustration filled her head. Then it was too late as she cried out at the searing blaze of pain in her breast.

The wet sucking sounds were abnormally loud and filled her with revulsion and renewed strength. Tears stung her eyes as she fisted her hands in his hair and tried to yank his head back, but the locks of hair slid through her fingers like water. Something slammed against her head, and another cry escaped her. Lights burst behind her closed eyelids, then a piercing pain, as if a sharp object was trying to bore its way into her brain. Disjointed images flashed in her mind’s eye. Her hands came up to cradle her head, knead her temples to ease the pain, but nothing—

There was a loud crash, muffled as if it came from a distance, and suddenly, the pain was gone.

* * * * *

Ryan took in the scene between one panicked heartbeat and the next. Mercy Jansen, half-naked, eyes glittering with tears, skin as pale as the monster he’d just pulled off her—except for the ugly crimson smear staining one breast and the equally ugly, equally crimson rivulet trickling down her chest.

He didn’t think. He spun around and launched himself at the creature he’d bodily thrown out into the corridor. The element of surprise, however, was no longer his. A booted foot met his torso, sending him flying back onto the floor as the air was forcibly expelled from his lungs. He slid on his back until his head thumped against the desk. Momentarily stunned, it took him precious seconds to flip back onto his feet.

He heard a hiss and caught a glimpse of bare fangs as fingers closed around his neck like a steel manacle. Before the vampire could dig in his fingernails and rip out a much-needed larynx, Ryan struck the creature’s elbow with the heel of his palm, exerting enough force to break it had his opponent been human. As it was, it weakened his target enough for him to encircle the wrist and twist the captured arm into an arm bar. He let gravity take his weight to the ground and heard a
pop
.

With an inhuman shout of pain and rage, the vampire tore his dislocated arm from Ryan’s grip, rolled away, and delivered a vicious kick that managed to break through Ryan’s block, stunning him for the second time tonight. The vampire flew to his feet and threw himself at the large window behind the desk. Glass shattered like an explosion had gone off, and even knowing the shards would be flying out the window, Ryan automatically whipped his head to the side to protect his face.

Cursing viciously, he ran to the window, hands braced on either side of the frame, and scanned the night sky from left to right. The moon was out, crisp and bone white, but the vampire was long gone. Despite knowing what he would find, he looked down. There were only the broken shards of glass reflecting the moonlight up at him. No body.

Vampires could fly. Ryan still needed a jet engine and wings.

A moan, faint and abruptly bitten off, drifted to him. He turned toward the sound and felt something inside him clench painfully. Mercy was huddled against a bookshelf in a corner, having dragged herself there while he’d been otherwise engaged. Her breathing was labored and shallow and her forehead lined with pain. One white-knuckled hand clung to a shelf just above her head, which she rested against the raised forearm. The other hand cradled a plump breast, the one marred by blood still trickling from two puncture wounds. Having been bitten himself, he knew her flesh would be throbbing with searing pain.

With a muttered curse, he crossed the room, whipping his leather jacket off before he reached her side. He went down on his haunches and draped the garment over her shoulders. She flinched, and her eyelids flew open, pinning Ryan with Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes. They stunned him, not the incredible shade of violet staring back at him, but the fear he could read underneath the drug-induced fog clouding her vision.

The French prick with the overgrown canines seemed to prefer his victims insensible.

Her lips parted, as if to protest his presence, but only a choked sound emerged as she shrank away from him.

Ryan quickly held out his hands, palms out, trying to look non-threatening and knowing he was probably failing miserably.

“Hey, I’m not going to hurt you,” he explained. The words were quiet but hoarse since the muscles in his throat, like the muscles in the rest of his body, ached with the suppressed need to make someone pay for the look in her eyes. As his fingers curled into fists, he lowered his hands to hide them from her gaze. “Let me help you, Mercy.”

Her eyes flared at the sound of her name. She started to shake her head as if to clear it and stopped mid-movement, the lines of pain etched on her face deepening. He reached for her, then thought better of it when she went rigid. His hands stopped an inch away from touching her. Frustration ripped through him. “Damn it, I have to get you away from here. It’s not safe.”

She’d either decided to trust him or could no longer fight the sedatives in her system. Either way, her eyes drifted shut and her body went limp. He caught her before she hit the floor.

After tugging his jacket more tightly around her, he rose with her in his arms, her head lolling against his shoulder and her hair streaming over his arm. She felt light, insubstantial, and he had to gather her more closely against him.

Her world was black and heavy with a silence that pressed on her chest. Everything felt soft and slow, like licking her way through a thick layer of honey. Except Mercy wasn’t doing any licking—she wasn’t doing anything. Her limbs felt too heavy to move, as if weights she couldn’t see lay atop them.

Lips, slick and damp, repeatedly brushed over hers. Her own parted on a sigh, as if inviting a deeper touch. The wet tip of a tongue answered, tracing the inside of her bottom lip. Sharp teeth nipped it, then moved on. Hands cupped her breasts, as if offering them for the mouth that enclosed one tip, then the other.

Mercy shifted her body against the slick fabric next to her skin. Despite the arousal leisurely working its way through her bloodstream, she couldn’t block out the tiny patch of discord squirming in the far corner of her mind, taunting her almost. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if that would help her concentrate. She reached for those elusive threads of memory, stretching as far as she could, but they remained infuriatingly beyond her touch. The harder she tried, the further they danced out of her reach.