Eternal Seduction (3 page)

Kerestyan slowly nodded. “We’ve not yet begun to finish
our
business.”

Logan slid the baggie into her coat pocket then nodded at Larry, who smiled up at her, chipped teeth beaming rotten yellow. She rubbed the warm plastic between her fingers and felt her muscles relax, solely from knowing it was in her possession.

“Who’s your boyfriend?” Larry asked, motioning across the street behind her.

She turned and smiled as her eyes traced the length of Kerestyan’s body. He was, without question, a much better sight than the one audibly counting twenty one-dollar bills less than a foot away.

He looked out of place standing at the mouth of the alley, an image of irony with his wide shoulders and regal stance as the wind sent trash scraping across the concrete around him. His stature alone was an oddity in this section of town, but his black button down shirt, matching slacks and clean, knee length wool coat, were even more so.

Truthfully, he looked like a business man who’d made a wrong turn and ended up having to walk, because as destiny would have it, his Mercedes had broken down.

She waited until Larry reached twenty before she laughed. “He’s not my boyfriend. Not even close.”

Larry shoved the cash in his pocket. “Then what the hell’s he waitin’ for?”

After pushing her rain soaked hair away from her face , Logan shook the water from her hands. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

Larry looked her up and down from beneath a single raised brow, an appraisal that made her skin crawl. “He’s dressed a little too fancy to be standin’ out in the rain for nothin’. You start hookin’?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Larry. I started earlier tonight and already caught myself a millionaire. He says he gets off on skinny druggies with nice teeth.”

He shrugged, pulled a cell phone from his pocket and started punching numbers. “I’ve heard worse. Take care of yourself.” He raised the phone to his ear and flashed that disturbing smile again. “If you wanna work for someone, let me know. I know a couple a people who’d love to add a tall white girl to their stable.”

She turned her back to him and stepped into the street. “Thanks, Larry. I’ll keep that in mind.” She lowered her voice. “Keep it in mind in case all of the Dumpsters in New York suddenly become empty and it never rains again.”

When she heard Kerestyan laugh, she glared at him. Considering she was still a good fifteen feet away from where he stood, it was highly unlikely he’d heard her grumbled comment. “What are you laughing at?”

He didn’t say anything until she’d rejoined him in the alley. “The chances of that happening are remote at best.”

Well, apparently he did hear her. She started to ask for an explanation, but stopped and rerouted her thoughts. “I take it super bat hearing comes standard on all vampires?”

If she wasn’t mistaken, the glow behind his intense blue eyes was born of pure amusement. “Super bat hearing?”

“Yes.” She pulled the half cigarette from her pocket and lit it. “Don’t all the movies and whatnot compare vampire abilities to bats?”

He gave a sideways nod, which caused his long, wet hair to fall over one shoulder. “I suppose they do. However, I have to admit I know very few vampires who can turn into the fabled bat.”

“Really? No bats?” She let smoke roll across her tongue for a minute before blowing it out. “Well, what about turning into a wolf?”

“No. Vampires do not turn into wolves.” His tone was curt, and far more serious than she expected.

Interesting.
She took another drag from her cigarette and tipped her head to the side. “I remember seeing
Fright Night
when I was a kid. That guy turned into a wolf.”

He closed his eyes and exhaled a gusty breath. “I don’t care what modern media depicts. Vampires do not turn into wolves. That form is reserved for an entirely different species.”

Logan coughed and sputtered a few times before she could force the words out. “A different species? What species?”

With the way his lips thinned and tightened, it was clear he didn’t appreciate the questions or their delivery. But his displeasure became even more obvious when he stopped and spun her to face him, his strong fingers digging into her biceps. “You need to make a decision.”

She tried to jerk free of his hold, but this time it didn’t work. He squeezed tighter, sending shocks of pain down the backs of her arms. “Let me go. You said you wouldn’t kill me in the middle of a dirty alley.” She stumbled back and dropped her cigarette when he did as she asked. “What’s wrong? What the hell did I do?”

He straightened, dark eyes locked on her. His pale face was cold and expressionless, like it had been right before he’d done whatever resulted in the death of her once roadblocks. “The amount of information you currently possess calls for immediate execution. It benefits neither of us for me to add to your knowledge of the supernatural. Your choice is death, or temporary confinement while other avenues are explored. Make a decision.”

Logan couldn’t do anything for a moment but stare up at him. Had she known two simple questions would cause such an extreme mood shift, she wouldn’t have asked. But then, maybe it didn’t have anything to do with her questions. Maybe he just ran out of blood or something and it happened to coincide with the timing of her questions?

Maybe vampires suffered from some backwards version of PMS…

The deep, rumbling sound of him clearing his throat pulled her attention away from considering his potential blood related emotional problems. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, letting the cold rain splash against her face. “You want me to make the decision?”

“Yes.”

“Right here, right now?”

“Yes.” For the first time, the word rolled out as a growl.

She opened her eyes to see his thick arms folded over his chest, biceps straining the fabric of his coat. “Neither choice is very appealing.”

“Neither is this situation.”

She sighed. She wasn’t exactly thrilled with the situation either. It wasn’t like she crawled out of her grungy warehouse one day and went searching for vampires. Of all the times she’d stumbled across them, aside from her first encounter, only two instances ended in her having to run away. Once, they’d even run from her. But more often than not, they just continued attacking each other or sucking on a bum or prostitute, and paid her little mind.

She considered Kerestyan’s set jaw and narrowed eyes. Not one of those vampires looked like
him
. While he only appeared to be in his mid-thirties, there was something flickering behind his eyes, something dangerous about the way he held himself that said he hadn’t been thirty for a very, very long time.

She shook her head. With that realization, she definitely didn’t like her choices. “Why don’t you just make the decision, Lord Vampire?”

He gave a single, clipped nod. “From this moment forward, consider yourself remanded to my custody, duration unknown.”

She threw her hands out. “Wait! What happened to temporary?”

He lowered his arms and moved forward, which caused her to take small steps back until her shoulders were pressed against the slimy wall, palms flat against his hard chest. “You gave up negotiation rights when you refused to decide your own fate.”

It wasn’t until that moment, with her back to the wall, that she finally felt the odd tingles running the length of her spine. Fear had never been an emotion she particularly cared for, and feeling it now, in a situation she’d lost complete control over, only made her despise it more.

It also made her realize just how much smaller she was than him. At a little over six feet tall, most men were either at eye level or shorter than her. But the big, angry vampire in front of her, who still hadn’t backed off, was a head taller and easily twice as wide.

She leaned her head back against the wall and cast a glance down one side of the alley, then the other. Choice one: She could knee him in the junk and hope he doubled over long enough for her to race down the alley and find a place to hide. Pro: She had to know the nooks and crannies of this end of town better than he did. Con: If she didn’t, chances were he wouldn’t be pleased at all and it would probably lead to memory removal.

Choice two: She accepted that fate had dealt her a really fucked up hand and she’d become his prisoner – whether she liked it or not. Pro: Unless he started physically abusing her (which she didn’t get the sense was his style), even prison involved a bed and three meals a day, none of which were prepared in a trashcan. Con: See memory removal.

Logan searched Kerestyan’s stern face when the taut muscles under her fingertips flexed, taking on the texture of steel. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“No. You’ve had too much exposure to vampires to undergo mental manipulation or memory reconstruction, and your drug use only complicates the process.”

The tingles danced a frantic number at the top of her spine, but what he’d said was only half the reason…

He didn’t blink.

He didn’t breathe.

The entire time she’d stared at him, watching his eyes for any hint of emotion, not once had they closed. His chest didn’t rise and fall at a steady pace underneath her hands. The only air he inhaled was just before he spoke, the only air he exhaled was while he talked or as an expression of irritation when she’d asked about vampires turning into wolves.

He really was a vampire, not that she’d doubted it. She knew they were real. She’d seen them enough to believe her own eyes, whether they were drug hazed at times or not. She’d just never had a conversation with one, never took the time to seriously consider the ramifications of their existence or the possible affect on her life.

Maybe she should have.

She stared between her fingers at the tiny crisscrosses of black fabric that made up his shirt. “What avenues does that leave then?”

His chest rose ever so slightly. “Not many.” It didn’t fall.

The damn tingles exploded across the skin at the nape of her neck and shot down her arms, chilling her fingers more than the cold air and rain combined.

He inched closer and pushed an arm between her lower back and the wall. “Do you have any personal items you’d like to collect?” His voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

She closed her eyes, knowing any opportunity to enact choice one had just slipped away. “No.”

“Is there anything else you need before we leave?”

She gave in to the shiver working its way through her body, focusing instead on how similar the feeling of complete resignation was to the moment she decided to leave home. How empty it felt then, how hard it was to feel now.

When she was little, her mother always told her everything happened for a reason. That life was a series of fragile moments strung together with diamond thread, and how she believed those threads led to a defining moment that forever changed a person’s life.

Everything seemed to go still as memories Logan wished could be removed flashed in her mind. Images blurred and twisted. Hazy pictures of happiness melted into crudely drawn nightmares, brought to life through a soundtrack of angry screams.

She shook her head, wanting nothing more than to drown it all out. She couldn’t help but wonder how many threads connected to this moment. How many glittering strands were woven around her now, while she stood in more than just the darkness of the alley?

“Logan? Do you need anything?”

Pushing her memories as far back into her mind as possible, she forced herself to smile. “How about a juicy steak and a bottle of vodka?”

A cool puff of air caressed her ear at the same moment his arm tightened around her, pulling her body tight against his. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, keep your eyes closed. Mystical travel tends to be easier on the human psyche if the subject doesn’t watch.”

Better for the human psyche it might have been, but his comment only made her very human curiosity peak. She squeezed her eyes hard, fighting the urge to open them as wide as possible. But when wind screamed down the alley, kicking up trash, dust, and if she wasn’t mistaken, a squeaking rat or two – she was more than convinced of the reason to keep them closed.

It was when the wind reached fevered pitch that she felt the pavement drop out from under her feet and a wave of nausea crash over her. Her stomach churned and tightened. The muscles of her abdomen cramped and twitched. Bile seared the back of her throat.

For fifteen seconds, she felt like she’d been sucked into icy oblivion.

But as quickly as the sense of dislocation came, it ended.

She wiggled her toes, relieved to feel solid ground against the soles of her shoes again. She had no idea where she was, though she knew they weren’t outside because she wasn’t getting wet. She had no clue what the hell had just happened, she only knew she never wanted to do it again.

“Who the hell is that?”

She slowly opened one eye when a deep, gravelly voice filled the room. A rather dark room she quickly realized, save a subtle blue light flickering against the white walls.

“Her name is Logan.” She heard Kerestyan’s voice a second before his arm left her waist and a lamp clicked on a few feet away. “She’s a guest.”

“Whose guest?”

Logan really couldn’t do anything but blink when the owner of the voice stood up from a comfortable looking couch across the room and stared right at her. She’d seen a lot of strange things on the streets of New York City, but this…this took the cake.

Armor. The guy was wearing armor as clothing. Thick, black leather covered his body, and attached at the forearms, chest, thighs and shins were molded metal plates. The chest piece had the head of a dragon carved into it, but aside from that one simple embellishment, every inch of it was blacker than coal.

Kerestyan waved a hand in Medieval Man’s general direction. “Sit down, Odin. She’s
my
guest.”

Odin, if that indeed was his real name, looked almost identical to Kerestyan in every way, except for their clothes, the faint scar marring his bottom lip, and the fact that his eyes were black. And not just his irises; his eyes were completely blacked out.