Demon Moon (29 page)

“Savitri…” His throat closed. What could he say? And her shields were too high for him to put her to sleep. He held out his hand, gave a charming smile. “Allow me to assist you.”

“You've helped me enough. Lesson learned,” she said, her voice harsh. A denial rose to his lips, but it died when his gaze fell to her fingers, clasped against her throat; she was shaking, shivering with cold. And fear. She shut her eyes. “If you'll excuse me, I feel the desperate need to bathe.”

Without looking at him, she turned and swam toward the center of the fountain. She laid her cheek against the base of the obelisk, presenting her back to him
.

He couldn't breathe. His stomach burned, the acrid flavor of shame stiffened his tongue. Her shirt clung to her shoulder blades; each vertebra in her spine was clearly outlined by the thin linen. Bloody hell, but she was so slender, frail. Defenseless
.

The sickly odor of rot filling him, overwhelming her sweet psychic scent.

But he didn't dare remain with her, not when he couldn't protect her from himself. Better she feared him, would stay away from him
.

He couldn't trust himself to do the same
.

Slowly, he backed away. He could watch from a distance, make certain she left the frigid pool. He'd not hit her vein; she'd bleed a little, but it wouldn't be life-threatening. And when she fell asleep that evening, she'd wake up with only the vaguest remembrance…

Running. The frantic whines of the wyrmwolf. Too bloody tired to fight it.

Colin shook his head, trying to rid himself of the dangerous memory. The putrid scent faded, moving off to the southwest. The sun began to burn, and he glanced up at the crimson sky
.

The grass was warm beneath his bare feet
.

Wake up.

Colin opened his eyes and immediately squinted against the sun. He stood outside, on a lawn—the UCSF campus. A mile from his home.

His heart was pounding; perspiration poured from his brow. Dazzling, intense sunlight danced like fire across his exposed skin. Bewildered, he looked down. Sir Pup tugged at his trouser leg, a questioning edge to his high-pitched whines.

Odd…he'd dreamt the sound had been coming from a—

Oh, Christ. He broke into a sprint before it fully registered. Sir Pup cantered along beside him.

A wyrmwolf…heading southwest.

“Savi,” he said hoarsely. “It's after Savi.
Run
.”

Sir Pup streaked ahead. There was no contest between a vampire and a hellhound.

Even a vampire like Colin. Already at Sunset, he leapt across the wide avenue, soared over the speeding cars. Not fast enough. He was going to be the loser in a futile race; the wyrmwolf was too far ahead.

His feet hit pavement again as terror flared through her psychic scent. No. God
please
no. He stumbled; it took everything in him to stay upright.

Then her fragrance vanished, and it didn't matter anymore.

He fell.

After witnessing her family's murders, Savi had thought it would be on par with a feat of Hercules for her to shoot a living thing—but unloading ten rounds into the wyrmwolf's head and chest took no more effort than calculating a tip.

Enhanced speed had certainly helped; Savi wouldn't have been able to track the wyrmwolf's movements without it. Nor would she have had time to retrieve the gun and silencer from her towel drawer after spotting it through her kitchen window. The few extra moments she'd gained had allowed her to get as far from her front door as possible, crouch down behind her sofa, and wait for it to break through.

Then, remembering how confused the wyrmwolf in the alley had been when she'd raised her shields, she'd done it again.

Because hard upon the realization that a wyrmwolf was outside the window had been the knowledge that none of them had been after Colin. The first had come when she'd been out of her mind with fever; the second attack when she'd been out of her mind with lust; and this one when she'd been in her mind—but with it completely open.

They were apparently attracted to her psychic scent, so she'd hidden it. The semiautomatic pistol and ten lead bullets had done the rest. Thank god Lilith had placed her weapons all over the house. Savi planned to kiss her senseless—as soon as she could stand. Her knees were no more solid than water.

She had to get up soon, though. The thing lay in the middle of her living room…but it wasn't dead. Rarely did bullets fatally damage a halfling, demon, or nosferatu—only cutting off the head, bisecting the heart, or draining the body of blood killed them.

It seemed the same was true of wyrmwolves. No wonder Colin had used his swords to fight them.

Her legs shook as she rose to her feet. How fast would it heal? She could see the holes in its fur and skull slowly closing. It whimpered and twitched.

At most, only minutes before it could attack her again—and it was suffering now.

Her vision blurred, but she kept the gun trained on its forehead as she skirted the living room. Her sword was in the umbrella stand by the front door—knocked over when the wyrmwolf had burst through the wooden door frame.

A clatter of claws on the outside stairwell had her heart leaping into her throat. Only five rounds left—but her shields were up. Perhaps it wouldn't get an immediate fix on her location in the room, giving her time to make the best shot.

A familiar bark sent relief crashing through her, and she finished her circle of the wyrmwolf as Sir Pup appeared on her porch, his black fur glossy in the winter sunlight.

“You can't eat it this time,” she said before he could get any ideas. Before
she
could get any ideas that would be too close to running, too close to avoiding responsibility.

She tried to wedge the door closed, but it remained open a couple of inches. Shivering, she abandoned it and retrieved her sword. Her silky crimson top with its spaghetti straps and her jeans had been sufficient for inside, but now she felt ridiculously bare. And cold—colder than the sixty-degree day warranted.

The handle of her sword was icy in her palm. It shouldn't be this hard. Only one stroke, to an unmoving object.

She'd have preferred self-defense. Apparently violence of that type came easily to her; she likely had Colin to thank for it. She was going to kiss him senseless, too—as soon as she could find the courage to cut off the wyrmwolf's head.

What if it healed enough to strike at her like a supposedly dead creature in a horror film, and she would be too close to get away? But to use the sword, she had to be near it. Within a foot or two. And she couldn't hold the gun on it and swing the sword at the same time; she wouldn't have enough strength to make it merciful if she used one hand.

Her fingers trembled. Both the gun and sword wavered. Oh, god, she was overthinking it, and taking too much time, and it would heal completely and kill her before—

A band of steel snagged around her waist, turned her, and yanked her up against a solid male chest. She buried her face in the warm curve between his shoulder and neck, squeezed her eyes closed. Cologne—citrus and sandalwood.

Colin. She didn't question why or how. It was enough that he was there.

“Let me do it, Savi.” His voice was rough, gritty. Nothing like his usual smooth baritone.

She tried to pull back to see him, but he held her fast, his hands splayed across the small of her back and between her shoulder blades. “Quickly, Colin. It's in pain.”

His arms tightened. “Then I shall wait a moment longer.”

She shouldn't laugh. “Please.”

His fingers slid down the length of her forearm, and he loosened her sword from her grip. “Don't look, Savi.”

She wouldn't anyway. God, she was such a wimp. The sword whistled through the air; though she faced away from it, she flinched and covered her eyes.

Taking another cowardly moment, she stepped forward and placed the gun on a table piled high with the guts of several CPUs. “Can Sir Pup put it in his hammerspace—his cache—to take to SI for analysis?” The pocket of space would keep it preserved until he reached the lab.

His voice was still rough, but darkly amused now. “Stow it away, Pup.” The hellhound gave a disappointed whine, until Colin added, “There will be a bloody mess for you to lick up—but be certain not to clean any of mine the same way.”

Of his—? Oh, god, he meant
bloody
literally.

She turned, and her heart dropped to her knees. Her watery, useless knees. She sank to the floor, saw the red footprints leading from the door. His red, burned skin. The red, raw scrapes on the side of his face and on his knees through the tears in his trousers.

“What did you do?”

He watched her with hooded eyes. “It will heal before I wake up again.”

He was in his undershirt. His feet were bare…bleeding.

“You came out of your daysleep? Did you
run
here? During the
day
?” Her chest felt hollow. Her heart was in her legs, somewhere. All she knew was that it was missing.

He nodded tightly, and his jaw clenched. The tendons in his neck stood out as he turned his face away from her. “I need to use your bed. Unless you prefer I sleep at Castleford's?”

“No.” She could barely get the denial past her throat. “Use mine.”

He walked toward her bedroom, his back stiff. He hesitated at the threshold. “Are there any mirrors?”

“No. Only in the bathroom.” She'd taken the rest out.

“Don't lower your shields, Savi.”

“I know,” she said, but he was already through the doorway. He'd probably heard her, though.

She lowered her face to her knees and silently began to cry.

It didn't have to mean anything. She knew better than anyone how uncontrollable it could be, the urge to run. Caused by an involuntary physical response, not free will. He probably hadn't known he was doing it—if he had, he'd have taken the precaution of a sword and a covering.

And shoes.

A long sliver of glass had embedded in the heel of his left foot. Savi carefully probed into the gash with a pair of tweezers, slid the shard out. It clinked into the pan she'd set on the floor, joining the other pieces of glass and metal and gravel—and blood.

She'd had to reopen several wounds to clean them out; Colin hadn't moved during the long process, just as he'd remained still when she'd smeared aloe over his skin, tended to the abrasions on his face and knees.

How he must hate knowing she'd seen him this way.

And perhaps she should have left him alone—but if he could feel her psychic scent during his daysleep, then he must the sunburn and injuries as well.

She pressed a clean towel against the last cut and waited for it to stop bleeding—it never took long. His body repaired itself with amazing speed. Already, the burns had faded to pink; his skin had taken a bronze cast in some of the less-affected areas. She looked up over his feet, down the length of him.

He lay sprawled across the honey-gold sheets on his stomach, his feet hanging over the edge, his face turned into her pillow and his mouth half-open, his blond hair sticking up in random disarray.

Only his fangs kept him from appearing too boyish. She'd had an instant when, spreading the gel over his cheeks and lips, she'd wondered if he'd unknowingly attack her in his sleep. But she'd been able to maneuver him from side to side without a change in his deep, regular breathing.

She'd not been similarly unaffected.

With a sigh, she removed the pan from the wooden flooring beneath his feet, slid a bowl of warm soapy water in its place. God, but she was sick, playing doctor and searching for signs of intimacy when he'd made it perfectly clear he didn't want her to see him.

But there was intimacy in this, if an unintentional one, and it was widening the hollow ache in her chest, leaving an unbearable pain in its place.

She began washing his feet.

Soap instead of milk, but it felt the same. A vow, a welcome. If her parents had been alive, they'd have washed the feet of her groom, showing their acceptance of him into the family. Perhaps Nani would do it; they'd never spoken of how traditional her wedding would be. Finding the groom came first.

But it hardly mattered who it would be now.

One sharp blow—that was all she needed. Not to stop her suffering but to make herself face reality, and one simple truth: she had a choice between her heart breaking once, marrying a suitable boy; or continuing on like this and having it broken every time Colin was with someone else.

Even if he tried, he couldn't be faithful to a human. It was a physical impossibility; the bloodlust didn't care, and one human couldn't supply all of his blood without endangering herself. He had to go elsewhere to feed—and his body would go elsewhere, too.

And that was assuming he'd try. He might have run through the city by instinct, not choice.

Her bedside phone rang, and the water sloshed in the bowl as she startled, leaping forward to answer it before it could disturb him.

As if her clambering across the mattress wouldn't. She sat on the edge of the bed, answering it breathlessly, then froze as Colin rolled over and his arm came around her hips.

“
Naatin?
Were you running?”

His chest pressed against her bottom and lower back. His eyes were closed; his lashes lay in thick, dark crescents across his cheeks, his chin tucked beside her hip.

“No.” She glanced at the clock: one thirty. What did she usually do on Saturday afternoons? “Just cleaning a few things around the house.”

Colin's lips curved into a tiny smile. They'd been chapped less than half an hour before. Now they were soft, smooth, as if the aloe had soaked into them. She clenched her fist to keep from tracing their shape. To keep from burying her fingers in his golden hair and kissing him while he was half-conscious.

“You should put away your clutter,
naatin
. You may have guests next weekend, if your meeting with that boy tonight is satisfactory. I spoke with Lakshmi Sivakumar today.”

“Oh?” She rubbed her eyelids with her forefinger and thumb, then dropped her hand to her lap, stared at the cut across her palm. “Did she know the family?”

“Oh, yes. A very good family. From what his parents described of him, you won't have any objections to the boy.”

Her stomach knotted. “You talked to them already?”

“That's how it should be done,
naatin
. But I won't protest if you decide to meet with him alone, and decide for yourself. He's to be your husband; it is your choice.”

“Okay,” she said. Then, because her voice sounded dull and Nani might think she was ungrateful, Savi forced a lighter note and added, “This is really good news then. It was a good idea to talk to Mrs. Sivakumar. And Manu's parents.”

A burgundy Persian rug lay on the wooden floor next to the bed. Savi began counting the saffron buds in the pattern as Nani related the conversation in an animated tone, including a list of Manu's accomplishments and connections within the community. It was several minutes before she hung up the phone.

Savi hadn't forgotten she was supposed to meet Manu that night, but it hadn't been important before…hadn't mattered if it went well. She'd considered calling and canceling—too much had happened in the past day to meet a prospective spouse with any equanimity—and had given herself until three o'clock that afternoon to make that decision.

Nani's call erased any choice. She couldn't stand him up now.

A soft, rhythmic pressure at her thigh made her look down again. Colin rubbed his jaw lightly against the side of her leg, like a cat nuzzling in. The denim of her jeans had to be rough on his skin.

His arm tensed when she tried to pull away.

He rolled again, took her with him. She laughed in surprise as her back hit the mattress, but he continued turning her until she lay on her side, spooned in front of him. His breath brushed hot and moist across her neck.