Lucas (37 page)

“Do you need my blood?” she asked urgently.

He grinned, his teeth flashing white despite the desperate circumstances. “I shall remember this moment forever, Katie mine.” He coughed harshly,
then
said, “A bit of blood would be most welcome.”

“How do
we .
 . . I mean—”

“Your wrist will do quite well.”

“Oh.
Right.
Of course.”
Kathryn propped her flashlight in the dirt, angling it to provide light without blinding either one of them. She was wearing both a jacket and long-sleeved blouse. Both were torn and dirty, but remarkably the cuffs were intact. She pushed the left sleeve of her jacket up to her forearm and unbuttoned the cuff of her blouse, folding it up over the jacket to bare her wrist.

“Do I—”

Lucas took her arm with his free hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the soft skin of her wrist gently.
“So soft,
a
cuisle
.
So fragile.”

“Fragile,” she repeated. “There’s a word not too many people would use to describe me.”

“That’s because they don’t know you like I do.”

Her words of protest died unsaid as his warm tongue swiped once, twice over the pulse point of her wrist. Her heart started hammering when he kissed her wrist. She knew the pleasure of his bite, and so did her body. Her breasts seemed suddenly too tight in the confining bra she’d put on beneath her sensible cotton blouse this evening.

“This will hurt, Kathryn,” he whispered, his breath blowing gently over her damp wrist. “I’d rather be between your legs, my cock buried in your oh so wet pussy—”

“Lucas,” she warned him, her face heating. “This isn’t—”

He struck without warning, his fangs sinking into the veins buried deep in her forearm. And he was right. It hurt much worse than when he bit her neck, but only for the few seconds it took for the euphoric in his bite to make it up to her brain. After
that .
 . .

She let her head fall forward, fighting the wave of sexual ecstasy careening through her system. If her breasts had seemed sensitive before, they were sheer torment now, her bra scraping her engorged nipples as if it were the roughest lace instead of fine cotton. Heat built between her thighs, waves of sensation storming up into her womb, her abdomen.

A cry escaped her lips, her body shuddering as the climax hit her. Kathryn buried her face against her upper arm, thankful for the darkness. They were trapped in a basement, three stories of dirt, rock and metal on top of them, and she was having a damn orgasm.

Lucas lifted his mouth from her wrist, his fangs sliding painlessly from her vein. He licked the wounds and deposited another kiss on her wrist, but he didn’t let go of her hand.

“Thank you, Kathryn,” he said solemnly.

She nodded.
But couldn’t look at him.
She was too embarrassed.

“Katie mine.”

“What?”

“Look at me.”

She lifted just her eyes in a glance, then back down.

“That wasn’t a look. Stop it, Kathryn. This is biology.
It’s
how we survived the centuries before humans moved beyond superstition and into discos.”

She smiled despite herself.
“Discos?”

“A boon for the vampire community,
a
ghrá
.
But the true revolution was birth control. All of those beautiful women suddenly free and eager to indulge the sexuality men had enjoyed so liberally for centuries.”

Kathryn rolled her eyes. “I’m sure you were very popular.”

“Were? I’m wounded. I’ll have you know I still am.”

“Right.
I know what you’re doing,” she added, meeting his steady gaze at last.

“Besides lying here under this pile of rubble, you mean?”

“How badly are you injured, Lucas?
The truth.”

“Ah, that. I’m afraid I’ve a few broken bones under all of this. And may I say, never having broken a bone
before .
 . . it hurts like hell. No, no,” he added quickly, hearing Kathryn’s involuntary gasp of dismay, “I can handle it. Although I will expect some expressions of sympathy and admiration once this is all over with. Maybe you can stroke my forehead and say things like, ‘Poor baby. You were so strong.’
That sort of thing.”
The strain in his voice belied his easy words, his voice thin and strangled as if he was struggling to find enough oxygen to speak.

“If we get out of here, I’ll stroke more than your forehead,” Kathryn promised.

“I find myself motivated, apart from your delicious blood donation, which will speed things up tremendously. Unfortunately, bones take time to heal, even for a vampire.” His jaw clenched suddenly, his eyes closing as his face tightened in obvious pain.

“Lucas?” He grunted in response, so she continued. “Why would Alex do that? Try to kill us like that, and kill
himself
, too.”

“Compulsion,” Lucas
said,
his voice low with effort. “His master and I are enemies. He used Alex to go after me. Alex had no choice in what he did. He wasn’t a bad guy.”

Kathryn wasn’t sure she agreed with that, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. “I think Nick and the guys are trying to get down here,” she said quickly, wanting to distract him. She lifted her chin to indicate the almost constant noise now coming from above.

“Nicholas has begun a rescue effort,” he confirmed in a strained whisper. “But that will take time.” His voice eased, his expression lightening, as if the pain had ebbed, at least temporarily. “We’ll be stuck here for hours yet. So, while the very special thing in my blood which makes me Vampire does its best to mend my broken bones, you can distract me by talking.”

“What should I say?”

Lucas didn’t open his eyes, but his mouth curled into a lopsided smile. “Tell me you love me,” he murmured.

Her heart twisted in her chest, but she couldn’t say the words. Not even jokingly. They were too close to a truth she didn’t want to acknowledge. “Please don’t die,” she whispered instead.

“I’m not going to die,
a
cuisle
,” he said, letting his Irish lilt roll through the words. “I’ve still got to get you unbuttoned.”

“But how can you heal broken bones like this without—”

His golden eyes opened again, and she could read the pain in them, even as he spoke clearly. “You need to understand, Kathryn. The vampire
symbiote
doesn’t care that my legs are trapped under a huge, fucking pile of rocks. It just wants them working again, and it’s taking all of the healing power my body and blood possess to focus on that one task.”

“What does that mean?”

“Give me enough time, and I’ll move this damned pile of trash off my legs. But then the bones will want to start healing all over again, because they’re still under pressure right now, and not even the
symbiote
can make them straight and sound.”

“Oh, God.
Lucas,” she breathed.

“Hold my hand,” he said, his eyes closing once more. “Distract me. Tell me what happened after your parents died.”

Kathryn stared at him in the dim glow of her small flashlight, searching his face for any sign that he was manipulating her, using their dire predicament to get her to open up to him, to tell him something personal.

But his face was pale, even for him, and there were lines of pain creasing the corners of his closed eyes. His breathing was strained, and she thought about how hard it must be for him to breathe, how painful to lie there, feeling his own bones healing, and all the while knowing he’d have to go through it all over again once he was freed.

“What makes you think my parents are dead?” she asked, to get him thinking about something,
anything
else.

“It’s the way you relate to your brother, the way you talk about him. It’s more like a parent than a sibling. Plus all this time we’ve been looking for him, you’ve never once mentioned a mother or father. I’m guessing you were very young when they died. Maybe someone stepped in, a grandparent, an aunt or uncle, but you were older than your brother, and you felt responsible for him anyway.”

He didn’t open his eyes, didn’t look at her, but she could feel him waiting for her response. Her stomach roiled at the thought of baring her most painful moments, her private history. But he’d told her his story, a life much harder than her own had been, despite her losses.

“My mother died when Daniel was two,” she began. “I was six. My father is still alive.”

“Ah. But neither of you are close to him.”

“He raised us alone. My grandparents—the ones with the ranch—offered to have us live with them, and my father could come out every weekend and be with us. He said no. We were his kids, and he wanted us with him. But he still had to work, of course. We had babysitters, but I’d already been taking care of my brother almost since he was born. My mom was diagnosed with cancer just before she gave birth, and she started treatments right after.

My earliest memory is my father telling me the day my brother was born that I had to help my mom with the new baby because she was sick. They came home with Daniel, and I remember looking at him and thinking he was my responsibility now. When I was four years old, I already knew how to put a bottle together for my brother, how to heat it in the microwave before putting the cap on. I changed his diaper, although probably not well, and I rocked him to sleep. I was the one he wanted when he cried, not one of our parents. When he was a year old, I came home from my first day of kindergarten, and he was so happy to see me he took his very first steps.
To me.”

“And how did your father take all of this?”

“It was hard on him. My mom was sick for two years before she died, and I think it was actually easier for him after that. He loved us, but his job was an escape from everything. I can’t blame him for that. He did the best he could, and I’m grateful. He could have walked away when my grandmother offered, or pawned us off on my mom’s sister, but he didn’t.”

“But he’s still alive. So where is he now?”

“He remarried a few years ago. His new wife is younger, and they have a couple of kids.”

“More siblings for you.
How lovely.”

“I guess. I barely know them. They live in
Arizona
, and the kids are so much younger.”

“And you really don’t want any more siblings.”

“I don’t need any. I have Daniel.”

“Hmm.”
He lapsed into silence, long enough that Kathryn felt a spike of fear.

“Lucas?”

Her heart jumped in alarm when he didn’t answer, and she scooted closer, pressing her face to his and listening for his breath, waiting for the brush of warm air on her cheek.

“Kathryn,” he breathed, soft enough that she wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t been so close. “Have I told you I love you?”

She kissed his closed eyes and then his mouth. “Hush,” she whispered. “Save your strength for the important stuff.”

“Love
is
important,
a
cuisle
. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

He was quiet after that, resting she supposed. But as long as he was still breathing, she figured the
symbiote
, as he called it, was still working on him, still trying to heal the devastating damage to this body. Kathryn lowered her face into the crook of her arm, still holding on to his hand. She was achingly tired, and she wondered how long they’d have to wait down here.

She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until a loud banging noise woke her. She startled awake, eyes wide. Her first thought was that something had given way overhead, some crucial piece of metal framework that had been holding everything else at bay, and now they were doomed.

“That’s just Nicholas,” Lucas said, his voice much stronger than it had been.

She stared at him. He looked tired beneath the dirt and grime, but his eyes were open and gleaming gold with power.

“You ready to get out of here?” he asked.

“Get out?” she repeated, confused.