Dangerous Love (2 page)

“
Sage Loveren,” she whispered back softly. A light blush graced her cheeks as she gazed up into Vayna’s blue eyes. Every rational part of her mind said she shouldn’t be this close to the other woman. She should be pulling away, standing at a respectable distance, but her body wouldn’t respond. It felt strangely nice to be in her arms, and she was reluctant to leave them. She licked her dry lips as she asked, “And yours?”

“Valkyrie
Chronos,” she said as she slowly removed her arms from around Sage. She didn’t want to, because it felt so nice to hold the young human in her arms, but if she held her any longer… she might do something she wasn’t so sure Sage would appreciate. Sure, she leaned into her touch, but that didn’t mean she’d appreciate the older vampire kissing her, or worse, biting her neck.

Vayna
was
hungry and she could hear perfectly the fast beat of the human’s heart. She could feel her fangs itch to descend and pierce the soft skin of Sage’s neck. Her eyes trailed over the light colored skin and she took a step back. She didn’t know the human and she was way too tempting to the ancient vampire, something she thought was completely impossible up until that point.

“Valkyrie
Chronos…” Sage murmured softly to herself. The woman in front of her was very beautiful. She had dark black hair that flowed down her back, and her skin was amazingly pale. The combination of both made her blue eyes stand out in a way she never noticed on a person before. She was disappointed when Vayna took a step back, but it quickly vanished when a strange emotion flashed through the raven haired beauty’s eyes.

Her breath caught in her throat and she felt herself become aroused. Va
lkyrie, the strange woman that just saved her life, had a hungry look in her eyes and was looking at her like she was her next meal. She blushed bright red when she felt her arousal spike and she held her hands to her chest. She wasn’t afraid of Valkyrie, strangely, but she wasn’t all entirely sure if she wanted to be on the receiving end of such a look.

Vayna sniffed the air subtly and her eyes widened at the rush of arousal the wind brought. The
scent was coming from the human in front of her! She swallowed thickly as she took another step back. She could feel her own arousal stir at the smell and she licked her suddenly dry lips. Shaking her head to clear the scent from her nose, and her rising lust from her brain, she asked hoarsely, “What were you doing trying to climb that tree like that?”

Sage
frowned in confusion for a moment when Vayna suddenly shook her head and took a step back. It was almost as if she could tell that Sage was aroused… but that was impossible, right? That sort of thing wasn’t able to be sensed without some kind of major giveaway, and she didn’t think she was giving off any strange body signal that would tell everyone in the area that she was aroused by the female in front of her… She tried to not focus on the feeling and instead on what Vayna was asking her. She stuttered after a moment as she said, “I-I-I don’t know. I don’t remember anything besides wanting to climb that tree.”

“What do you mean, you don’t remember anything?” Vayna asked as she frowned. How could she not remember why she was climbing the tree? They both did collapse onto the ground when she fell, but they didn’t hit that hard. Surely it didn’t wipe her memory that much… did it?

“I woke up on a park bench over that way about an hour ago,” she said as she pointed off to the left of Vayna. The vampire turned around and looked out towards where she was pointing to. Her eyes caught sight of the bench and she nodded her head as Sage continued speaking, “I don’t remember anything before waking up there. Just my name and this tree. I don’t know where I live, or who I live with, if I live with anyone at all. I thought that maybe climbing this tree might help me remember.”

“And did it?” Vayna asked as she turned her head back around and looked at
Sage. A sudden thought came to her mind and she frowned lightly as she subtly sniffed the air again, fighting to ignore the arousal that was coming off the girl as she tried to see if she could smell any blood. She could smell a faint scent, but it was old. Likely from an injury that the young human received days before. She didn’t smell any fresh blood, so that was a good sign. It meant that she wasn’t about to die on Vayna anytime soon.

“Not really,” she replied as she turned towards the tree and placed her hands on her hips. Her eyes traveled up the length of the tree. She climbed up there earlier in the day to see if it would jog her memory, but it did nothing. She thought that perhaps if she climbed it when it was getting darker, it might help. But instead, she slipped and fell into the arms of this beautiful woman standing next to her.
She froze for a moment when she realized what she just thought. Mentally shaking it from her head, she said, “I didn’t remember a single thing.”

“Hmm…” Vayna replied thoughtfully as she too turned to look at the tree. It was a tall
, very old maple tree. She figured it was probably there when this area of the state was still nothing more than a forest. She felt a kinship with places and things that were old like that. Glancing out of the corner of her eye at Sage, she said, “Well, you don’t seem to be hurt, aside from your memory, so that’s something to be thankful for, I suppose.”

“Yes, indeed,”
Sage nodded as she turned towards Vayna. She ducked her head shyly for a moment before taking a step towards the other woman and saying, “Thank you, by the way, for catching me. I would’ve definitely been hurt from a fall like that.”

Vayna nodded stiffly, unused to the praise.
She didn’t really save Sage from the fall for any particular reason, other than the fact that she was human. While some vampires argued with her over it, she still retained a soft spot for the humans. It was the main reason why she never fully killed her meals. Not only was it cruel, but when your food volunteered to feed you, it was very bad manners to kill them.

And Vayna didn’t like to kill people anyway. Despite being a
vampire, she was very humane in that aspect. The wind stirred her hair again as she placed one hand on her hip and replied, “You’re welcome. So, you really don’t remember anything besides your name and this tree?”

“Afraid so,”
Sage said with a nod. She tried all afternoon since she woke up on the bench to remember who she was and why she was in the park, but she just couldn’t remember anything. Hell, she couldn’t even remember why she couldn’t remember.
That
was frustrating.

Vayna stood there for a moment gazing at the tree before she turned back towards
Sage. The young human’s brown hair moved back and forth on the wind lazily and she resisted the urge to reach out and run her fingers through it. Instead, she said, “Would you like to come back to my place? You can use my phone and see if anyone’s reported someone missing by your name. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find someone who knows you and they can come pick you up.”

The thought made Vayna’s heart twinge for some reason, but she ignored it. She just met the young human, and she was just concerned about her, that was it.
Sage turned towards Vayna with a wary look on her face and asked, “You’re not a serial killer, are you? If I go back with you, you’re not going to chop me up in little pieces and keep my eye balls for trophies, are you?”

Vayna looked at her for a moment before laughing.
She met a lot of interesting humans over the course of her undead life, but that was the first time she had been asked something like that! Given her nature, she couldn’t help but laugh hard at that. Serial killer? She couldn’t deny that when she was a young vampire, she killed lots of humans, but that was centuries ago. She hadn’t killed anyone in at least 1,000 years, and she wasn’t about to start again now. Shaking her head as she subtly wiped tears the color of blood from her eyes before Sage could notice and said, “Thank you for that. I needed to laugh tonight. You want the honest truth?”

“Yes, please,”
Sage said as she smiled. For all she knew, the other woman could simply be a nice person offering to help out, but she felt the need to ask anyway. She may feel comfortable around Vayna, but that didn’t mean she was just going to walk off to who knew where with her without asking questions.

Vayna took a deep breath to ca
lm her laughter down. How long had it been since she laughed that hard? She really couldn’t remember. She was serious when she asked the young woman that question and it deserved a serious answer. She knew the human wouldn’t believe her, but she decided to tell the truth anyway. Knowing her luck, Sage
would
believe her. Looking the young human in the eye, she replied, “I’m a 3,000 year old vampire who’s killed lots of people, but you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to kill you. I only want to drink your blood.”

Sage
gazed at her and blinked. Twice. Then a snort of laughter escaped her and she doubled over as she laughed hard. A smile twitched on Vayna’s face as she watched the human laugh. Looks like Sage didn’t believe her… oh well. She tried. She waited patiently for her to calm down and stand back up. Sage sighed with a soft giggle as she said, “That was very amusing. It’s nice to know you have a sense of humor. Sure, I’ll go with you. If you think it’ll help.”

Vayna smiled and turned to go back the way she originally was coming from. It looked like she wasn’t going to make it to that club after all, but she didn’t mind. The young human she literally just caught made up for that greatly.
Besides, there was very little chance that she’d find anyone quite as interesting as this human, loss of memory and all. Jerking her head slightly, she said, “It’s not far from here.”

“Thank you, Miss
Chronos, for all the help you’re giving me,” Sage said as she fell into step next to the vampire. She kept her eyes on the ground as she spoke, “I’m grateful. I mean, I know I must be troubling you and I’m glad you’re willing to help me try to find out who I am.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Vayna said as she stuck her hands in her coat pockets. It was better than trying to grab
Sage’s hand in hers. She really couldn’t explain why, but she really wanted to touch the young human. That was definitely going to be troublesome, “And please, call me Vayna instead, Miss Loveren. It’s my nickname, you could say.”

“Only if you call me
Sage,” she replied immediately. Being called Miss Loveren made her feel strange, like the name wasn’t really hers. She couldn’t explain it, but she felt much happier being called Sage than Miss Loveren. With a shy smile, she looked up at the vampire as she said softly, “Vayna…”

Said
vampire felt her undead heart jump in her chest as she gazed down at the young human. Her blue eyes were wide with emotions she hadn’t felt in quite a few years. Over the centuries, she heard her name spoken many ways, but
never
quite like that. She wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good thing either…

The walk back to Vayna’s
apartment was very short. The ancient vampire was surprised that the human could keep up with her gate so easily. The young woman looked so fragile that Vayna was sure she was going to break at any moment. The vampire mentally asked herself what she was doing. She could’ve left Sage there to fend for herself, figure out who she was on her own. There was no need to do what she was doing. She left her apartment to get away from the thoughts that were floating around in her head.

And now she was going back there with a human that didn’t know who she was or
how she lost her memory. It was enough to give her a headache and she was definitely starting to feel one creep up on her. She vaguely thought that it was unfair that for all her advanced healing even vampirism couldn’t cure the common headache. The key clicked in the lock as she opened the door of her apartment and stepped inside, flicking the light on.

H
er apartment door opened up right into her living room. It was fortunate for her that she owned a condo on the top floor of one of the best apartment buildings in New York. The room felt like something out of the Victorian era. Across from the door was a fairly large fireplace that was carved with little vines and flowers. There were 2 high backed chairs sitting across from each other in front of the fireplace, a small table in between them. On the walls were paintings from various artists, all reflecting the type of woman Vayna was.

Right above the mantle to the fireplace was a very old painting of her in a Victorian dress. To any human, they would’ve thought that it was merely a painting done to look old, but she knew the truth. It was done during a trip she took to Europe one year
during the late 1800’s. She spent time among the artist district in London and encountered a female artist there. They were rare back in that time, and the woman went under a pseudonym so everyone thought she was a male.

Vayna enjoyed
things back then. She and the female artist were lovers and it was one of the few times she was able to be herself completely. Her true vampire self, not the human version of herself she presented to the world. Her lover knew of her kind and didn’t mind feeding her every now and then. It was one of the easier eras in all the years that she lived.

Her mind drifted back to that time and she didn’t notice when
Sage slid past her into the apartment. She would’ve stayed like that, lost in the past, if it hadn’t been for Sage murmuring that she had a lovely apartment. She shook her head and closed the door behind her, effectively pulling herself from the past. Shrugging her coat off and tossing it onto one of the chairs, she said, “Would you like something to drink? I don’t have much. Some green tea, cocoa, and coffee are about it.”