Companions (19 page)

She concentrated on what was real and thought about the dreams. There'd been lots of dreams: good dreams, bad dreams, all of them real.

"Bastard."

It was the first word Istvan heard upon waking, and his first breath was a sigh. "Guns don't solve problems, you know."

"Neither does sex," she spat back.

"We didn't have sex. Not for lack of interest," he added. "But the time factor limited our options."

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"You made me drink your blood."

"Don't go calling it rape, sweetheart."

"But you drank mine first, didn't you? A lot." After a rather satisfied pause, Selena said, "You have a headache, too."

"You shouldn't have shot at me."

"I do not shoot
at
a target that close to me."

He smiled at her indignation. "You didn't actually hit me."

She gave a short, caustic laugh. "At point-blank range?"

Her skepticism was refreshing. "Remember the scene in
Matrix
where Neo dodges the bullets? I can move faster than that." Before she could protest, he said, "You have the headache because you
thought
you'd shot me."

"Yeah, right," came the muffled voice from beneath him. "And why do
you
have a headache?"

"Because you thought you shot me. We're connected. The guilt reaction nearly killed you. There's a lot of magic flowing between us. Disturbing it takes a toll. Magic depends on psychic talent, will, and
belief
among
all parties involved in the spell to really work."

"My aunt gave me magic lessons."

"Not vampire magic lessons. You don't know shit about vampires, sweetheart, no matter what you think you know."

"Whose fault is that?" She head-butted him on the shoulder. "And stop calling me sweetheart."

"Sorry."

"On which count?"

"Both."

"If magic requires belief, I'm going to stop believing in you right now."

"Good luck."

He didn't explain to her that because of the duration of their bond, a connection born of the strongest magic had been deeply disturbed by her actions. She'd already been in the throes of a massive coronary by the time he reached her. All he could do to save her life was strengthen the bond even more. If he'd been thinking clearly, been his usual pragmatic self, he would have seen that letting her die was the best thing he could do for her. But how could he have let her die? They were bonded. Besides, he liked her.

Maybe her actions went against everything the strigoi declared allowable about companion behavior, but she'd been pushed beyond reason last night. He didn't blame her a bit for taking the shot. It was the sort of thing he would have done.

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On a note that was at least a little pragmatic, her death would have sent him into shock. He didn't know how long it would have lasted, but Rosho would have eagerly taken advantage of it. No way he'd let Rosho win another round with him.

He vaguely wondered if Donavan would recover from his companion's death any time soon. Fool deserved a few months in a nightmare coma for what he'd let happen to the woman. Selena wouldn't appreciate hearing that he'd saved her life, not as furious as she was going to be over the woman's death as soon as the glow of greeting her awakened lover wore off. The sound of his voice wasn't enough to hold her for long.

Istvan considered rolling to the side of the bed, even getting up and leaving, but he enjoyed the feel of her too much to go yet. She was firm and warm against him, the perfect fit in every way. "The bond thing." It was an explanation for everything between them and a solution for nothing. That wasn't true, if he went against his own nature and decided to bring her to heel for the sake of the strigoi, then he could use the bond to make her his devoted property. With all the blood they'd shared last night, such enslavement would be relatively easy. "Can't do it," he muttered. Should, but couldn't. He didn't want a slave.

Maybe what I need is a wife.

Istvan sat bolt upright in shock. He didn't know where the thought came from, but he pushed it aside in sheer terror. And he didn't scare easy.

"It's the blood talking," he muttered.

"What is?"

He sat on the side of the bed and rubbed his face with his hands. "You don't want to know."

He heard her breath catch and felt the shift in her emotions.
Don't give in to this,
he thought, but he didn't stop Selena as she moved to kneel behind him. Her fingers began to massage the suddenly tense knots of his shoulders.

She said, "I don't need to know anything you don't want to tell me."

He put his hands on his knees and looked up, spotting the clock on the bedside table. "I've been awake a good ten minutes. Aren't you overdue to start yelling at me?"

She kissed his shoulder, then whispered in his ear, "Why would I want to yell at you?"

Her touch and seductive tone curdled his stomach, as well as sending a bolt of desire through him. He shifted his head to look at her. "Selena, snap out of it."

Selena looked into a pair of narrow blue eyes in a thin, long face, and for a moment she didn't recognize anything, not him, or herself, or the room where they were. Objectively, she was aware that the fantasy going on in her head had descended on her from one heartbeat to the next. She wanted, needed, desired, craved Istvan above all else, and whether it was false or real didn't matter. She didn't hurt when she gave in to it, not physically or psychically, and she didn't have to think or remember. It was lovely and soothing, this overlay of reality that consisted of the two of them closed within a perfumed paradise where they were meant to make love over and over and over and love was all —

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"You need. No, it isn't."

Selena blinked, reality rushed in, and she pushed herself from his shoulders, disgust propelling her all the way off the opposite side of the bed. She wasn't sure if she was more disgusted with him or with herself.

Istvan… she never thought of him as Istvan. She climbed unsteadily to her feet, shook hair out of her face, and said, "You're right; love isn't all you need."

He stood, and they looked at each other from across the bed. "It almost had you there for a minute, didn't it?"

"Shut up."

"I'd love to, but you won't let me."

He looked like he'd tasted something sour, and a touch embarrassed at having spoken. She opened her mouth to ask him what he meant but understood before the question was voiced. Damned bond. She realized that he hadn't let himself talk to anyone for five hundred years, but when he was with her, the words came so easily that he could hardly make himself stop. He was lonely. Never mind his taciturn, badass reputation; he wasn't really like that at all. The gangsta attitude was simply for street cred.

"It is not," he complained, with an almost boyish pout. "You only think that because you're as badass as I am."

She supposed he meant that as a compliment. She chose to take it that way. She almost thanked him.

He walked gingerly around the bed. She watched as he moved, all long-limbed, economic grace. He looked dangerous even as he pointed past her shoulder toward the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower." He held his hands up before him. "If you don't want to join me, at least try not to shoot me while waiting your turn."

Laughter bubbled up in Selena. "Okay, but I — "

Then memories of the events outside their personal soap opera rushed back in on her with the force of a hurricane, and fury blew away every shred of the affection the bond tried to make her feel for the monster. The headache that had been ignored but hadn't disappeared flared up to match the fury.

"You killed her." She couldn't take her gaze off his hands, big, graceful, long-fingered hands. She remembered how her body sang when those hands touched her. She remembered the casual gesture that had ended Sandy Schwimmer's life. "You fucking killed her."

"I can explain that."

He didn't have to explain anything to anyone. He was Istvan the
dhamphir.
It occurred to Istvan that he could be as imperious as he wanted, blow her off, order her to be silent. He should have been tempted to behave like that, and not even because he was a vampire. He'd been born in a time and place and culture where men got to boss women around, and the women took it and pretended to be grateful for what little they got.

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"I can explain," he said again.

"You took a life." He watched her angrily dash away a tear. "She didn't deserve to die like that."

"I notice you didn't say she didn't deserve to die."

"Don't you dare make light of it."

"I don't like killing mortals, Selena."

She laughed, and the sound plunged into him like a dagger. "I saw you do it. It was as easy as snapping a stalk of celery. She had reasons. You should have listened."

"I had no choice."

"You could have given her a trial. Weighed the evidence."

"I couldn't let her go free. I wasn't going to give her back to Rosho."

"You killed her because mortals are disposable, and killing is easier than finding solutions."

What she said had some truth in it, but it wasn't the only truth. "It was too late for her. If I tell you I did it to save her soul, would you understand? Could you, in this day and age?"

"You played God."

"I acted for God."

"Oh, please!"

He waved a hand at her. "Don't sound so righteous. You were the one putting bullets in vampires."

"I wasn't trying to kill them."

"You tried to kill me."

"That was different. You were resisting arrest."

"You were temporarily insane. I forgive you."

"I don't want your forgiveness. I was trying to get Sandy away from the hunters when I shot at them. We might have made it, if you hadn't shown up."

"You wouldn't have. Not with Rosho after you."

He sounded so certain, it sent a shiver of dread through Selena, along with a fresh jolt of pain to her head. As much as she hated the pain, awareness of it helped her to focus less on the indignant rage and more on the everyday world around her. Every-night world, she corrected. She balled her fists and closed her eyes and tried to get distance and perspective and professional detachment. About all she could summon up was a petulant thought that she'd never thought of herself as a night person.
You belong
to the night now,
she told herself.
Live with it.
The night included far more than she had ever imagined,
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and an urban cop who worked homicide could imagine quite a lot of unpleasant things, having seen many of them.

Inever wanted to belong to the night.

Steve's thought came to her softly, sadly, full of such open hurt and regret it brought the sting of tears behind her closed lids. She sensed the things he didn't want to think about, to remember, places he didn't want to go. But she felt the wounds, and how could she help but want to soothe them? She told herself she had more important issues to deal with.

"I don't want your sympathy," he told her.

Before she could reply that she had no intention of giving it, he turned and walked out of the room.

Selena fumed for a moment that he'd walked out on a fight; then it occurred to her that he had
walked
when he could do any number of supernatural things to take the place of mere walking. Or could he? At least right now? Maybe he wanted to leave and couldn't summon the necessary energy. Maybe he wanted to leave but couldn't for emotional reasons. Maybe he didn't want to leave. And why did that set off little sparks of happiness all through her? How much blood had they shared? Maybe she should be the one to leave. The very thought set her heart racing with dread. Leave him? How? Besides, it was her place.

"Oh, dear." She hugged herself tight.

She heard the shower go on in the bathroom. The sound of running water reminded her that she was grimy, sweaty. Sore muscles began to make their presence felt as the ache in her head began to fade.

She glanced at the bed. It barely looked slept in, though she knew they'd shared it through the day. And before that? She had no idea how he'd gotten her home. Everything that wasn't vivid and sensual or vivid and painful was an utter blank. The world boiled down to her and Istvan the Enforcer. Mostly it boiled down to her wanting Istvan.

"Steve," she made herself say, and her imagination supplied an image of him in the shower, steam boiling around him, long-muscled skin slick and shiny with hot, soapy water. "Oh, for God's sake."

She considered her options, and decided that shooting at him wasn't one of them. Why repeat herself?

Maybe it was stupid of her to want explanations from him at this late date, but she did and he was hurting and she wanted and —

"Oh, hell," she said and decided she needed a shower as well.

"We're not having sex," she said when she climbed into the shower with him.

"Fine," Istvan answered and passed her the vanilla-scented shower gel. Her hand brushed against his thigh. His arm brushed against her breast. His senses were filled with the scent of soap on her skin a moment later.

She turned a little and had to lean back against him to tilt her face into the spray of water. "I mean it."

How could a man help but react when such a firm, round bottom made contact with his private parts?

"Fine." His arms came around her; they didn't really have anywhere else to go. It wasn't as if she was some delicate, dainty creature that hardly took up any space.