Immortal Obsession (9 page)

“I never heard a vampire described as cute, Peter—”

“Well, apparently he has dimples and quite the smile.”

“Maybe I can speak to this Willy character myself?” Christian thought he could push into his mind and get more information, though the picture was starting to become clear.

“He’s dead, Christian. In fact, a lot of them are dead now. Thomas killed them all.” He stamped out his second cigarette.

“Thomas?”

Peter shrugged and pulled another cigarette out of his pack, then shoved the pack back into his coat pocket.

“That’s what he called himself.”

Christian made Peter promise that if the stranger showed up again he would contact either Christian or Michel at the Grey Wolf.

He also gave him their cell phone numbers just in case. Christian had just stepped off the rugged bridge, replaying their conversation in his head when something Peter had said suddenly hit him.

He caught up with the other vampire just on the other side of the loch.

“This Thomas character, did you ever run across him here in the park?”

“Well actually, I’ve never met him myself.”

Peter had a deer in the headlights look on his youthful face.

“Peter, you said something back there. Something about his eyes looking black and empty, even in the sunlight?”

“That’s just it, Christian. It was broad daylight when Willy met up with Thomas.”

The look on Christian’s face confirmed the fear in Peter’s eyes.

“That’s right, my friend. This one’s both a night and a day walker.”

PART THREE

Chapter Twelve

A
MANDA TRIED NOT
to appear annoyed when Thomas’s cell phone vibrated again. He tried to ignore it and concentrate on their conversation but Amanda knew he was distracted. Zero Hour was a far cry from the Grey Wolf. A huge Maplewood bar took up the center of the room and three of the four walls were mirrored, giving the impression the club was much larger than it appeared. Low lighting and jazz music gave it a romantic feel and Amanda felt more comfortable in a black turtleneck, black trousers, and little jewelry.

After the disaster at the Grey Wolf, she thought she might have better luck with Thomas, and besides, she could not spend another Saturday night at home. She had put up a strong front for Bethany, but as she lay in bed she cried at the thought that Christian had rejected her, promising never to talk to her again. At least that’s how it felt to her. So, at the last minute she had decided to take a chance on Thomas.

“Amanda, you have to excuse me a moment.” He leaned in close. “I have to take this call.”

She sensed the caller was a woman; someone far away with dark hair and eyes, wearing a beautiful long black dress with unusual high heels. She had just assumed he was single, but maybe he had a wife or a steady girlfriend back in Paris. She realized that she knew very little about him. Their relationship was framed by their work at the museum and their love of eighteenth-century France. Outside of that, they were strangers. Amanda glanced around the room and sipped her wine. She wondered if coming here had been a good idea.

Being here was an admission of feelings for him, something she had been surer of before meeting Christian last night.

Boy I blew that one
.
I finally meet the one man I have been dreaming about for the last six months and I manage to get thrown out of his club, all in the space of about ten minutes.
Amanda had replayed their brief conversation on and off all day, especially the part where he described seducing someone to drink their blood.
The effect is like being pulled into a dark chasm that has no return yet you go willingly.

Though she was having trouble believing he was a vampire
or
a rare book dealer, she understood what he was saying about being seduced by something that was potentially dangerous or life-threatening. In a strange way, her brother’s murder had taken control of her life. It was as horrific as it was beguiling, and now she had met one of the cast of characters: Christian. Although he seemed staid and polite, he was dark and alluring as well. She felt drawn to him like a magnet.

Something made her turn around as if Christian were nearby. She scanned the crowd but saw only Thomas approaching her.

“Sorry about that.” He appeared sheepish as he sat down.

“So, she wants to know when you’re coming home, huh?”

He could not make eye contact with her.

“Thomas, you aren’t married, are you? I don’t—”

He smiled at her and she suddenly noticed how beautiful he was in the dim light of the bar.

“Would that make a difference?” He pulled her closer.

“The woman who has been calling you …?”

He shrugged and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “A girlfriend from back home. She misses me terribly.”

Amanda searched his eyes, not sure if he was telling the truth.

Amanda smiled. “And do you miss her?”

“It’s only you and me tonight.” Something about the way he said it made her heart speed up, and suddenly she was kissing him. Never one for public displays of affection, she melted as he pulled her closer.

His breath felt warm against her ear. “Let me prove it to you Amanda.”

She searched his eyes and found only desire there.

“Let me go to the bathroom, okay?” She smiled and grabbed her purse. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll get a cab.” He gestured towards the door. “Meet me out front.”

She followed a group of women heading down the black carpeted steps to the bathrooms. At the bottom of the stairs, Amanda noticed private rooms off the hallway leading toward the bathrooms. Conscious of someone waiting for her, she made record time in the spacious ladies’ room. She was headed back down the hallway when her cell phone buzzed.

Still unsure of whether she should go home with Thomas, she paused to read a text message from Bethany, who was sitting in a movie theatre with her boyfriend, Jeff. He had dragged her to a horror film that she hated, so she had decided to check in on her best friend. Amanda followed the flow of traffic while she texted Bethany back and explained that she was leaving the club with Thomas.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, walking right into someone as she continued to text.

“Amanda?”

She looked up into a pair of familiar dark eyes surrounded by flowing blond hair. He wore a ripped and tattered long-sleeved white shirt, and a pair of black jeans. Amanda felt her heart skip a beat. The woman beside him was almost as tall, with long, flowing dark hair that she had parted on the side; her black strapless dress contrasted against her white skin perfectly.

She tried not to stare at the beautiful woman as she forced a smile and dropped her phone in her purse.

“What a surprise. Hello Christian.”

She could feel herself blushing. The woman wrapped her arm in his as if to say, “He’s mine,” and Amanda guessed that they were lovers. She was as beautiful as he was handsome.

Christian kept his gaze on Amanda, and she wished she had just left the bar with Thomas.
Oh, shit, Thomas.

“Eve, this is Amanda.”

Amanda nodded, faking a smile while Eve looked through her. She had to get away.

“Someone is waiting out front for me. I’d better run.”

Before he could utter another word, she had rushed past them into the crowd.

She made her way upstairs, fighting tears and wondering if indeed he had been upstairs in the bar and it had not been her imagination.

Thomas was standing against the building when she emerged. He had been on the phone, but closed it when she approached.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” she lied, feeling like a fool for thinking that Christian might be single.

How could a man like that not be taken? As they rode back to her place in the cab, she told herself it was for the best.
Everything happens for a reason.

Eve opened her apartment door and let Christian in ahead of her. It had been months since he had been here. She gestured him into the modern living room of her twentieth-floor apartment overlooking Battery Park. Christian went to the wall of glass windows and stared out at the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. He felt her cold arms wrap around his waist.

“I’m not sure which is more upsetting,” she whispered, grinding up against him. “Seeing how you looked at that little mortal, or the sense I get that you would rather be anywhere else than here with me.”

Her voice still held traces of a southern drawl she had never lost. The widow of a Confederate general, Eve Beaumont had come to New York after the Civil War, looking for another husband but she had met another fate.

Christian had met her shortly after coming to New York, and although outwardly genteel, she was tough and Christian could use all the allies he could get right now. Still, Eve was right. He was just going through the motions with her. He had followed Amanda to Zero Hour and now she was with her boyfriend, somewhere out of reach.

“Come to bed with me,” she whispered into his hair. “Let me take your mind off her, at least for a few hours.”

Amanda’s breath rose softly as she slept, her face illuminated by the incoming street light. It had been so long since he had made love to a mortal woman. The experience reminded him of being with Josette, and the brief happiness he had shared with her before Christian had stolen her away. Her bedroom smelled of sex and sweat, cocooning them both. He had about four hours until the sun rose as the effects of Ryan’s blood were slowly beginning to wear off.

It had been six months since he had arrived in New York—the blink of an eye for the vampire, but Solange had begun calling him lately, asking if the mortal were dead, whether he had seen her father, and when would he be coming home? Thomas had few answers for her, and even fewer for himself. He no longer cared for or missed her. She was a spoiled, self-centered child who he had only turned in seeking revenge against Christian. Gabrielle’s warning echoed in his head.
You turned her out of revenge and not love. No good will ever come of it.
What he had thought were the jealous ravings of a scorned woman had turned out to be a prophecy. He could no longer stomach the thought of Solange’s embrace.

Her beauty was intoxicating and her lovemaking beyond any man’s desires, but her narcissism diminished her power to captivate him.
Is spending so much time around these mortals influencing me?
He crawled back into bed beside Amanda and slowly ran his hand down her back. Her tan skin was warm to his touch. She mumbled something in her sleep and turned toward him. He instinctively pulled the covers around her to keep her warm. He was not sure when she had shifted from the unsuspecting pawn he met up with in the cafeteria to a mortal he cared about and did not want to harm, but it had happened and now he was unsure of himself.

Perhaps I can just forget about all of this and just go back to being Thomas, a night shift guard. But I cannot do it without the blood. I have almost none left. I could take just a little from her. She won’t even remember it in the morning. Just a taste.

Amanda rolled over and noticed flowers and a note on her night stand. She heard the shower water running. It was eleven o’clock already.

Was he really here last night? What day it?

Then she played back meeting him at the Zero Hour. She had never seen him out of uniform, and something about his tight black jeans and exotic shirt had made her blood boil. Their one drink had turned into two and before she knew it they were in a cab heading toward her place. It all seemed to happen so fast. He was a gentle yet experienced lover, with a touch that drove her mad, yet all the while she could not stop thinking about Christian and the beautiful woman with him.

The bouquet was something he had to have picked up at the corner market this morning. She stepped over her clothes strewn on the floor from the night before and grabbed a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt out of her dresser drawer.

Did I really spend the night with him?

Bethany’s bedroom door was open, her overnight bag tossed on her bed. Her usual MO after spending the night at Jeff’s place.

“Beth,” she yelled, knocking on the bathroom door. “Are you in there?”

“What’s up?” A muffled voice yelled back. “Come on in.” Amanda opened the door and was hit with steam and the smell of lavender. “What time did you get in?”

“About ten minutes ago, why?” Bethany yelled over the running water.

“I just thought maybe you had passed Thomas on your way in.”

Bethany poked her head out from behind the shower curtain. “Thomas was here? You spent the night with him?”

“Yeah.” She smiled hesitantly. “I even got flowers. I’ll make some coffee.”

She shut the door to Bethany’s hoots and hollers. Ever since the night she had come over to the museum to meet Amanda after work and had met Thomas Bretagne, Bethany had been enamored of him and wondered why her best friend was not dating him. After the fiasco at the Grey Wolf the night before, Bethany had been less sympathetic about Amanda’s interest in Christian. Zero Hour, she explained, was a normal upscale bar and Thomas seemed like a normal, likeable guy. Her advice to Amanda was clear; focus on Thomas and let Christian go.

Amanda opened the envelope with her name scrawled across the front, doubting her judgment and the vividness of her dream.

Amanda
,

Last night was magic. Had to run, see you tomorrow.

Thomas

She absentmindedly rubbed her neck and felt something. She needed a hot shower, a hotter cup of coffee, and time to sort through last night. She tossed her clothes into the hamper and straightened up her bed.
What the hell?

There was a dark stain on her pillow. She wet her finger and touched the stain, then licked her fingertips. The liquid tasted bitter and coppery.

Blood.

Christian left Eve’s apartment and headed home before dawn. The city was finally quiet, and he decided to walk uptown to clear his head. Eve had promised to keep an ear out for any foreign vampires in her part of the city, but the price was her possessiveness. As long as he was willing to make love to her and share blood, she would do whatever he asked. Eve was beautiful, like Gabrielle, but she had no desire for power. She was still an old fashioned woman who wanted wealth and a man to control both it and her.

She was sensual, but shallow, with a love of fine jewels and expensive clothing. He thought she and Michel would have made a perfect match, but ironically they could not stand each other. Christian attributed it to the phenomena of seeing the exact character traits you possess in someone else and hating them for it.