Eternal Seduction (2 page)

He caught her just as she landed, strong fingers closing tight around her elbow. “Look at me.” He didn’t leave her much choice when he whipped her around to face him.

She tipped her head back and stared up into his piercing blue eyes. Had it been a much earlier time in her life, she might have thought him handsome and those eyes incredibly beautiful, but a decade on the street had done strange things to her perception of beauty.

Had it been a few months ago, she’d have also spit in his face and kneed him in a very special place until he let her go. But after what he’d done to the guys in the alley, she thought better of it. If he could kill other vampires so easily, she could only imagine the mess he’d make of a human.

She momentarily considered the distinct slope of his cheekbones and chiseled cut of his jaw before returning to his eyes. “Happy?”

His firm, full lips drew tight after what felt like an hour of intense scrutiny. “No.”

She wrenched her arm free and started across the street towards a rundown convenience store on the corner. Casting a glance back over her shoulder, she smiled when he moved to follow. “That makes two of us.”

Kerestyan Nelek stared through the dingy windows of the convenience store, watching intently as the street waif pointed at something on the wall behind the clerk. Unusually tall and thin to the brink of emaciation, she nodded before tossing a few crumpled dollars on the counter.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk less than a minute later, a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. Shards of short black hair hung in her green eyes, rain still dripping from the jagged ends even as she stood beneath the tattered green awning.

It wasn’t until she’d opened the pack, discarded the wrapping in a rusty trashcan and lit a cigarette that she finally acknowledged his presence. “Why are you following me?”

He considered her for another long moment. Thus far, she appeared to have little concern for how dire her situation was. Perhaps she didn’t understand. “You’ve seen something you shouldn’t have.”

She laughed. It was a light, feminine sound and far more carefree than he’d anticipated. “Buddy, I’ve seen a lot of things I probably shouldn’t have, and done even more.”

He narrowed his eyes at her dismissal. “My name is not Buddy, and what you’ve seen doesn’t bode well for your survival.”

Again, her melodic laughter filled the air. “Look, Vlad, I’ve lived on the street for a long time. A lot of things don’t and never did bode well for my survival. But at the end of the day, you know what?”

Internally, he grinned at the Dracula reference. It was amazing what modern media had done to his kind. Outwardly, he showed no hint of amusement. “What?”

She drew in a deep breath and blew out a cloud of white smoke. “I’m still here. So spare me the threats and get on with whatever it is you’re going to do.”

Whatever it was he was going to do, had been decided the moment he’d learned of her presence in the alley. Even more unfortunate for her was the lethal edge the decision gained when he’d stared into her eyes and found she possessed several months’ worth of memories involving vampires. However, her apparent and decided lack of concern for not only his very existence, but her own, caused a long forgotten emotion to spark in his mind.

He stepped forward to join her under the awning. “What’s your name?”

She turned and, much to his surprise, motioned for him to follow as she began walking down the sidewalk. “Logan. You?” Taking another drag from her cigarette, her words puffed out past a smile, “Unless it really is Vlad?”

“No, my name isn’t Vlad. It’s Kerestyan.”

“Sounds old.” She tucked the bottle of water into a large pocket on the side of her ragged coat, which was easily three sizes too big and made for a man. “So, Kerestyan, what brings you out into the city on a beautiful night like this?”

The sarcasm dripping from her words wasn’t lost on him. He returned it. “I was watching the Children.”

She coughed out a laugh. “Are you a babysitter?”

“I’m the Lord.”

Another smile spanned her colorless lips, lingering somewhere between playful and devious. “Had I known God was so easy on the eyes, I might have thought twice about giving up on Him.”

He ignored her appraisal of his physical body and focused on her admission. When he chose to engage with human women, they often commented on his pleasing appearance, but very rarely did they bother to share their beliefs with him. “You don’t believe in God?”

She shook her head, lips pursed as she inhaled another mouthful of acrid smoke. “Oh, I believe in Him. I just don’t think He believes in me anymore.”

Kerestyan absorbed the irony of her statement and followed when she turned down another alley. Ambient light from faded billboards and storefronts cast a pale blue glow down the corridor. Refuse containers lined the crumbling brick walls, their contents spilling over the edges, littering the broken pavement in a rainbow of decaying colors. The stench of rotten food, wet animals and old blood hung heavy in the air, reminding him of London a thousand years previous.

He ground his teeth together, a habit he’d adopted well before his earliest memories of London. Vampires were long rumored to be the most depraved, debased species, yet what humanity allowed itself to be surrounded by never ceased to amaze him. He knew few vampires who didn’t surround themselves with luxury at every turn, and even fewer who wouldn’t be enraged if caught in a place like this.

A few feet behind her, Kerestyan watched as rats scurried under windblown tents of damp, yellowed newspapers, squeaking and screaming near Logan’s feet. She appeared to pay them little mind as she moved forward, her long legs allowing her to cover almost as much ground with one step as he could.

He stared at the back of her dark brown coat, which his heightened perception told him had once been a light caramel color. The woman moved with a confidence, a certainty that belied her familiarity with the territory, as if she knew nothing else – no other home.

Although he knew many humans did, Kerestyan had never understood how one could call a stretch of concrete their home. A lush swath of land one fought for and protected, yes. But not a cold, vapid maze of pavement that lent no comforting qualities.

He cast another glance over the dark alley. A home was a place for family, where safety was felt as easily as warmth and comfort. Even in death he knew what it was to have family, what it meant to have a home.

Did Logan have such a place, or was this truly all she knew?

He closed the distance between them in a single stride and tilted his head towards her. “Where are we going?”

“To see Larry.”

“Who is Larry?”

“A drug dealer.”

Kerestyan felt his lips curl. He only knew one dealer in the city who went by the name of Larry, and he’d never been overly fond of the man. “Why are we going to see a drug dealer?”

She brushed the glowing end of her cigarette against the wall, pinched the end then dropped it into her pocket before offering yet another smile. “So we can buy drugs. What else would we do with a drug dealer?”

He could think of hundreds of things to do with a drug dealer, none of which ended in the dealer’s favor. Unfortunately, he’d quickly learned upon assuming the throne of New York that drugs were an integral part of human society here. And like it or not, a handful of vampires, some of whom were far older than Kerestyan, had their fingers firmly dug into the profits from the trade.

He smiled internally. His systematic eradication plan hadn’t exactly gone over well with those vampires. Then again, it hadn’t gone over well with the humans, either. In the end, too much investigation which brought the wrong kind of human authorities far too close to members of the vampiric race, forced him to accept that drugs always had, and would forever be a part of New York City.

Kerestyan gazed down at Logan, noting for the first time the slightly sunken state of her eyes. “How long have you been engaging with Larry?”

She wrinkled her nose as she pulled the bottle of water and a small plastic case from her pocket. “You make it sound like I’m getting down and dirty with him.” Her body stiffened and her shoulders trembled a second before she stuck out her tongue. “Oh, it makes me want to gag just thinking about it. Yuck. Trust me when I tell you, it’s a cash
only
transaction.”

Although her reaction brought him great pleasure, and conjured a rather undesirable image of Larry, Kerestyan chose to focus on the matter at hand. “You do understand that whatever your chosen drug is, your life would be substantially better without it. Yes?”

She jerked open the white case, flipped one end over and jammed it into the other, revealing an unexpected but well used toothbrush. “Great. My very own vampire moral compass.” Bright blue paste bubbled up from the bristles as she squeezed the end. She slid it in her mouth and held it against the inside of her cheek. “Should those words even be in the same sentence?”

He couldn’t help but smile. Truthfully, those words should have never been in the same thought, let alone a spoken sentence. But he wasn’t about to openly admit that to her. “Am I to infer that you believe vampires are morally corrupt?”

“Bankrupt,” she said, though the word was garbled by the back and forth movement of the brush against her teeth.

Kerestyan stopped walking and crossed his arms over his chest when she turned around to face him. He’d been many things through the course of his existence, but in no way or form was he, or had he ever been, bankrupt. He gave her a hard look. “Bankrupt?”

She closed her mouth around the toothbrush, using her teeth to hold it in place while she twisted open the bottle of water. It was only after she took a large mouthful, swished it around for what felt like an unnecessary amount of time and then spit it out, that she finally returned her attention to him. “Yes, bankrupt. As in, totally depleted or ruined.”

He studied the frothy, blue and white marbled puddle less than two inches from his left boot. “I am not morally bankrupt.”

She took another drink of water then shoved the head of the brush in the bottle and shook it. “Oh no?” Wickedness spread across her face as she deconstructed the toothbrush then slipped it back into her pocket. “Then tell me, Great-Loving-and-Kind-Lord-Vampire,” she paused to toss the bottle in a trashcan, “why you’re stalking me.”

It wasn’t the evil smile draped across her lips he found so intriguing, but more the challenge flickering behind her emerald eyes. “I’m
following
you because I can’t allow you to return to your normal life, knowing what you’ve witnessed.”

Her eyes slowly traced the length of his frame before she stepped forward and tipped her head back. “Have you been in this situation before?”

He considered the thin strip of space separating them. Outside of feeding, he’d never had a human, male or female, approach him with such little hesitation. “This exact situation, no.”

“One similar?”

“Yes.”

She cocked her head. “Did whoever was in my shoes meet the same end as the guys back in the alley?”

“Sometimes.”

She chuckled before she turned and began walking away. “I may not be an expert, but something tells me murder probably strains the moral compass.”

“You should know all other avenues were exhausted first.”

She slowed and spun on her heel. “Like what?”

Don’t explain yourself to the human.
Part of him wanted to heed the voice in his mind, but the other side was curious about how she’d respond to the truth. As it was, she already knew far more than she should.

He moved forward, crowding her the way she’d done to him only moments before. “Mental manipulation, memory reconstruction, and in some instances, memory removal.”

She didn’t back away. Instead, she smiled again, only this time it was a wide grin revealing her perfect teeth. “I’m pretty sure death causes memory removal.”

He couldn’t resist any longer. “How is it you’re wearing a coat which looks to have been dragged behind a vehicle for fifty miles, your pants don’t appear to have fared much better, and I’d guess you haven’t eaten in days…but you have the teeth of what most would refer to as a supermodel?”

She stretched up to her toes and leaned in close, her warm, minty breath searing his ear. “Most supermodels haven’t eaten in days either.”

This time, it was his laugh filling the air around them. From look alone, he would’ve never expected such a quick and intelligent retort. He reached out and brushed away a few strands of wet hair that had fallen in her eyes. “Touché.”

Resting back on her feet, she eyed his hand as he withdrew it. “You know, for a bankrupt vampire who’s resigned me to death, you’re awfully interested in me.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call it interest.”

“No?”

“I’d term it more as temporary curiosity.”

“Why? I’m obviously not the first human who’s been in this predicament with you.” She tipped her head from side to side. “Okay, so maybe not this exact predicament if I believe what you said earlier. But still, why me?”

He stared down into her distant eyes. Much to his dismay, the reasons were growing by the minute, but he disclosed the most important. “You show little concern for your own safety, not to mention your complete dismissal of what I am.”

“I don’t dismiss what you are.” She shrugged and started walking again. “It’s just…what am I supposed to do about it?” She didn’t leave time for him to answer before she added, “About as much as I could do if you tried to kill me right here.”

He fell into step beside her. “I assure you, should I decide to end your life, I won’t do so in the middle of a vermin infested alleyway.”

She walked for a few minutes in silence, seemingly transfixed by the broken pavement at her feet. It wasn’t until they neared the end of the alley that she finally raised her head and nodded at Larry, who stood under a broken streetlight on the corner across from them, hands hidden in the pockets of his dirty grey trench coat.

She stepped into the street but turned, leaving him with a view of her thin profile. “Whatever you do to me, I’m sure it’ll be better than any way I’d die out here.” She stood quiet for another moment before inclining her head towards the corner opposite him. “I have some business with Larry. Should I expect you’ll be waiting for me?”