Blood Possession (13 page)

“Are you ready?” he asked, gently removing her hands from her eyes, still surprised she had allowed him to lead her into the canyon without her sight.

“As ready as I’m going to be.” She blinked several times, slowly raising her head, and then she drew in a crisp breath of air and her mouth fell open.

Napolean smiled, pleased at her reaction. “It’s beautiful, no?”

Brooke spared him a glance over her shoulder and then turned back to gaze at the magnificent two-hundred-foot waterfall cascading out of a deep crevice of a red cliff. The water fell in rushing waves, each spray surging harmoniously, one after the other, in a hypnotic rhythm as it splashed brilliantly into a deep pond at the base of the cliff. “It’s…amazing,” she answered, absently taking a step forward as if drawn by the enthralling sound.

Napolean kept his distance. “This canyon”—he gestured toward the jutting rocks all around them—“is my own private sanctuary of sorts.” He leaned back against a large, smooth stone and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “There’s a ward around it—”

“A ward?” Brooke asked, staring up at the looming mountaintops, completely unaware that she was beginning to freely ask him questions.

“Yes,” Napolean answered. “A protective spell—a very subtle but powerful boundary that warns others away.”

Brooke turned toward him then, her deep sapphire eyes cloudy with consternation. “Do you mean the...
Dark Ones
?”

Napolean shrugged. “Well, yes, but not just them. I mean the house of Jadon as well. The ward keeps all explorers away. Until now, no one has seen this particular ravine but me. It’s my private stronghold.”

Brooke swallowed hard, and Napolean could hear her throat work alongside the steady pulse beating at her neck. He steadied his breathing. “I wanted you to see a…softer…side of my world.”

Brooke frowned. “Softer? Sacrifices … Dark Ones … curses … hmm.” She turned around and took several steps toward the waterfall, planting both hands inside her blue-jean pockets. Her soft, silky hair sashayed as she moved, swaying high above the graceful arc of her back. She was truly beautiful, and Napolean watched her with growing appreciation. Staring out at the water, she cleared her throat. “So, it’s okay then…now that we’re here…for me to ask you some questions?”

Napolean didn’t move.

Not one muscle.

He was too afraid of frightening her…or dissuading her. He had told her he was taking her someplace peaceful so they could talk—someplace where she could ask all the questions she wanted—and it appeared as if the setting was encouraging just that. Between the roar of the waterfall, the ample distance between them, which allowed her to keep her back protectively turned to him, and the innate serenity of a warm autumn evening in one of the Rocky Mountain’s most beautiful valleys, there was nothing imposing about the environment: In fact, it offered both power and peace to the observer.

If Brooke was willing to take advantage of the moment—whether because she felt less trapped and was running out of time, or perhaps because she knew this was as good as it was going to get—Napolean would eagerly welcome their first, truly open conversation. “Yes.” The word was but a whisper.

“Okay,” she responded, removing her hands from her jeans and tightly folding her arms against her waist. “What I—I don’t really understand…” Her words trailed off, and she shivered as if her courage was already waning.

“You don’t understand what, Brooke?” His voice was gentle yet encouraging.

“I don’t understand
how
…how did you manage it? I mean, my coworkers? Tiffany? Aren’t they going to miss me? Come looking for me?” There was a note of hope in her voice, and although Napolean regretted her loss, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. No one would come to her rescue. Besides, he couldn’t bear to lose her now.

He kicked a small pine cone that lay at his feet and rested further against the rock, surveying the uneven rows of evergreens and quaking aspens that littered the ravine, the wild rye grass growing around the circular pond. “Ramsey implanted memories in Tiffany’s head so that she would alert your colleagues at PRIMAR.” He made the explanation short and sweet. “As far as they are concerned, you stayed an extra few weeks at the lodge to…
de-stress
…enjoy the spa, take in some horseback riding, perhaps recharge your batteries before returning to the day-to-day grind.”

Brooke ran her hands up and down her arms as if it were cold, though it was blissfully warm. “Tiffany knows me better than that. She knows I wouldn’t stay here by myself…not that long…there was too much going on at work. She’ll wonder, and she’ll come looking. I know she—”

“Brooke…” Napolean had no intentions of playing games with this woman or misleading her. Her fate was with him, and he would never release her. He would not encourage her to maintain false hope. “Tiffany will believe whatever Ramsey suggested because that is the power we possess as Vampyr. I’m…sorry. She will not search for you—neither will anyone from work.” He sighed because the truth was not what she obviously wanted to hear, and he so desperately wanted to win her affection. “And you must know by now, there is not a human alive who could successfully take you from me.”

Brooke spun around then, her stunning eyes flashing with anger. “And you would take that from me, Napolean? My best friend? My job?
My career
. All that has been my life up until this moment?”

Napolean advanced forward, and Brooke took a startled step back, her eyes darting back and forth across the ravine as if searching for an escape route—a place to run.

“Do not,” Napolean instructed, holding out his hand. “I am not going to hurt you.”

Brooke held her thumbs up to the corners of her eyes in an effort to block her tears. “Damn you, I don’t want to cry anymore.”

“Then don’t,” he implored, stopping several feet in front of her so she would quit backing up. “It is my hope that you will keep your dearest friendships, especially Tiffany. I have seen your memories: I know what she means to you. Once you have stopped searching for a way out, accepted your fate—
our
fate—we will welcome her into our lives.”

Brooke laughed then, an insincere sound. “Oh yeah, I can really see that working. Hey Tiff, meet my new boyfriend…the vampire king. Wanna hang out on Friday? Maybe we could go to a blood-bank or something.” The moment the words left her mouth, her countenance changed. She grew tentative and afraid—like someone who had inadvertently opened the doors to a cage containing a dangerous tiger.

Napolean frowned and waited for her to see that he wasn’t a rabid animal…or even an unstable vampire. In her presence, he was just a helpless male, unable to make her understand how much he could give…if she would only let him. He felt his frown deepen along the corners of his mouth. “Boyfriend?” he scoffed. There was a hint of irritation in his voice.

“It was just a word,” she explained, sounding frustrated. She started to roll her eyes and gasped when he suddenly appeared at her side—facing her and close enough that their arms were touching. “What are you doing?”

He leaned in and lifted her chin. “Look at me, Brooke.”

She tried to meet his gaze, but she couldn’t hold it for more than a second. “What?”

“I am many things,” he murmured, “but I am not a boy.”

She shook her head as if to dismiss his words…her casual use of
that
word.

His hand tightened, though not enough to cause her pain. “I am centuries old. I have seen things you cannot conceive of and survived things you will never encounter. I carry a weight beyond your imagination, the lives of hundreds of men—families—in my care; their duties, fears, hopes…souls. I protect the humans of this valley from a power that could annihilate them at the mere whim of my warriors, and I seek a balance for this earth—for your kind—so that the extinction of your species does not become inevitable as a result of my own.” He brushed his hand softly along her cheek. “I have not yet earned your respect…or your love…but I am not a boy, nor is any of this a game.”

To his great surprise, she squared her shoulders and raised her chin, and then she stared him straight in the eyes and began to speak in her own, no-nonsense tone. “All right then,
milord
. Isn’t that what you’re called?”

Napolean winced, but he didn’t answer.
Gods, the woman was tough.

“Then let’s be completely honest with each other. If you are all these things…” She paused. “
Since
you are all these things, then what do you want with
me
? If I cannot imagine or fathom…or understand your world, then how can I fit into it?”

Napolean shook his head and briefly shut his eyes; when he opened them, he knew they were beginning to glow—though not with anger—with power. “The gods are never wrong; you fit me, Brooke. Of this fact, I have no doubt.”

“No!” She waved a desperate hand. “I don’t!” Her hands rested on her hips. “You lead warriors every day. I…I create marketing campaigns to sell…soap…and underwear…and…pizza! Hell, paper products sometimes! I know nothing about leadership and honor and fighting darkness.”

Napolean whistled low and smooth.

“What is that for?” she asked defiantly.

He measured his words carefully. “Do you think, by now, that I have not glimpsed your memories? Asked my men to provide me with information about your background and your life?”

Her eyes grew wide, and she looked offended.

He shook his head. “
Brooke
, you must come to understand—I am not just any male, and you are not just any female. The things we do must always be in the best interest of many. I am not afforded the time another warrior might be afforded to court you, to learn all about you. There is too much at stake with our…mating. Too much low-hanging fruit for my enemies. I will always protect you, and I always will protect the house of Jadon—at the expense of etiquette.”

Brooke stiffened and took another step back, her foot resting in a patch of soggy grass at the edge of the pond, only inches away from the swirling water. “I—”

“You are twenty-nine years old. You have been with your company for less than two years, yet you are the senior most account rep in PRIMAR. Over fifty percent of the company’s revenue within the past year has been earned on your accounts,
your
original ideas, and
your
innovative campaigns—for which the company has registered patents. You’ve carried your department and fostered the relationships that have kept PRIMAR’s clients satisfied—and still doing business with the company, I might add. You came to this conference already outperforming all of your competition in order to present a new, revolutionary concept in marketing—a simple but brilliant approach that would triple the corporation’s bottom line in less than five years.” He stepped back and tried to keep his voice even. “And all of this, you have done under the constant strain of sexual harassment and the ignorant—inexcusable—dismissal of your brilliance simply because you are female.” He growled low in his throat then, trying to contain his disgust. “Yet you stuck with it out of sheer determination, knowing that it would one day pay off.” His eyes drifted to her full bottom lip, the curious look of surprise on her face. “You know a great deal about leadership, Brooke.”

He turned away then, hoping to hide his anger from her view. “And you know a great deal about honor and fighting darkness.”

Brooke swallowed a lump in her throat, and he could sense a rise in her anxiety, as if she knew exactly where he was going next.

“How old were you, Brooke?” he asked her directly. The subject was too important to treat with any less significance. “When you fought that monster?”

“What monster?”

“You know what monster.”

She paled. “Don’t, Napolean.”

“Your stepfather. How old were you?”

Brooke shook her head. She started to step back, but there was nowhere to go. Stuck, she looked up at him and, for the first time, appeared helpless. “Please…don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he whispered, his voice as solemn as the subject demanded. “Don’t remind you that you were a six-year-old girl”—he gritted his teeth, grinded his molars—“locked in a cabin with a forty-two-year-old man, a monster as dark as the night and far more evil?” She tried to turn away, but he reached out and held her gaze with his hand resting beneath her chin. “You fought like a warrior, Brooke, and you outsmarted him; you outlasted him. You walked away
alive
.”

Tears began to stream down her face, and her narrow shoulders trembled.

“And honor?” he continued. “You knew your mother was not as strong as you. You knew she could not face the truth your testimony would expose in that courtroom, a mirror which would reflect her own weakness for all the world to see, yet you knew it was right. And you did it anyway. You sacrificed the security of family and the hope of reconciliation to do what was honorable, and you sat in a room full of leering adults and showed enormous courage through a six-day trial.” He stopped and sighed. “You were beyond brave, Brooke. You were
heroic
.”

Brooke could clearly take no more. Desperate to get away, she forgot her perch and stepped backward, falling off balance into the pool. Before a shriek could leave her throat, Napolean had her in his arms, the two of them floating just above the water, drifting ever so slowly back toward solid ground.

Involuntarily, Brooke grasped for his shoulders, and then let out a series of plaintive sobs. “How could you know that?” She averted her eyes and shook her head. “You invaded my most intimate memories?”

“No,” Napolean insisted. “The night we met in the cab…your fear…you were broadcasting your past, Brooke. You are my
destiny
. How could I not hear such anguish?”

Her chest shook beneath the weight of the recollection. Desperate, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and continued to cling to his shoulders, though they were now standing on solid ground.

“Courage and leadership,” Napolean said, “they are not about brute strength—or even being a superior species. They are about standing when everyone else is sitting. Facing adversity when others would choose to run away. Charging confidently into battle so those who come behind you believe victory is possible.”