Redemption (The Penton Vampire Legacy) (17 page)

Forget the closet—she couldn’t hide there. The bed was high, but crawling underneath it was out of the question. She’d seen too many movies where people hid under beds and were dragged out by their hair. It never ended well. She wanted her back against something solid.

Which left the bathroom and its doorknob with the standard push-and-twist lock. Krys closed the door behind her, locked it, and crouched in the corner walk-in shower. If Aidan broke in, he would scan the room in front of him before looking to his left, and that would give her a few seconds’ advantage. A few seconds to do what, she wasn’t sure. He’d already shown her how strong he was.
Strong like a vampire.

After she’d been pressed against the shower wall for what seemed like an eternity, her stomach growled. Ten p.m. Aidan usually visited her early—he’d never come this late. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Maybe Mirren (
the vampire
) had killed him.

But I haven’t ever seen Aidan during the daytime, either. Even the job interview had to be at night. His eyes change color like Mirren’s do. Whatever Mirren is, Aidan is one too.

Her stomach growled again, louder this time. Scrambling out of the shower, she quickly slipped back into the bedroom, grabbed some clean clothes, and snagged a sandwich off the dinner tray, leaving the salad.

Then she spied the fork. She’d had spoons with her meals, but never forks or knives. You could stab a person with a fork. Finally someone had screwed up. She grabbed it and retreated to the bathroom, locking the door again. She ate, changed quickly, shoved her dirty clothes underneath the vanity, and crouched back in the shower, weapon in hand.

She stayed like that forever, seemed like, till her thighs cramped and she had to alternate standing and kneeling. She knew he’d come; the only question was when.
Before dawn.

The sound of the knob turning, the door shaking, almost startled the fork out of her hand. She hadn’t heard anyone open the door from the hallway. Had she dozed off? Her watch read two a.m. She’d definitely dozed.

“Krystal. Open up.” Aidan’s smooth baritone sounded calm, not angry like last night.

She stayed silent but for the pounding of her heart. It was so loud he could probably hear it.
Especially if he’s a vampire.

“Don’t make me break through the door, Krys. At least say something and let me know you’re OK.”

She backed as far into the corner of the shower as she could, pressed against the cold tile, fork tight in her grip, teeth clenched. She couldn’t stop a high-pitched squeak from escaping at the sound of splintering wood.

The door flew open, sending a spray of wood fragments from the mangled door facing in its wake. Aidan walked in slowly and, as she’d anticipated, was looking straight ahead.

This was her only chance. Taking a deep breath, she willed her feet to move, rushing at him before he saw her. She’d decided to go for his neck—not quite as vulnerable as the eyes but easier to reach. And a fork in the neck would hurt, by God.

But she hadn’t taken his lightning reflexes into account. By the time her fork got near his neck, he’d thrown up his left arm. The tines stabbed deep into the meaty part of his palm and hung there a moment before he slung it away, its clatter against the shower tiles echoing through the bathroom. She took advantage of the seconds he took to examine his hand and punched at his Adam’s apple with her fist, which earned her a satisfying cough.

“What the hell are you?” She scratched his cheeks with her nails, drawing blood again, and kicked at his shins, hoping he would move away from the door so she could run. He didn’t say anything, just planted a hand on each of her shoulders and watched impassively while she fought and scratched.

Finally, when she thrust a knee into his crotch as hard as she could, he reacted, grunting and twirling her around till her back was pressed against him. He had one arm clenched around her waist and the other across her shoulders as she continued to fight. “It’s OK,” he said. “Fight it out. You’ve earned it.”

Insufferable, condescending bastard. She kicked backward at him, which dislodged him a fraction, but not enough to make him release her.

She couldn’t do it. No matter how hard she struggled, his grip remained tight. Finally she accepted that her struggle was futile. He’d won. Her shoulders slumped in defeat, her breath as ragged as if she’d run a marathon. Her fight drained away and the tears started. Damn it—she did not want to give him the satisfaction of making her cry.

He continued to hold her against him, lowering his head to tuck his cheek against her hair, swaying slightly and talking softly in a language she didn’t recognize except in its tone—the one used to soothe a child. It shouldn’t have calmed her, but her heartbeat slowed.

Her tears stopped, too, though her face and neck were wet from them.

His breath was warm in her ear. “Will you let me explain?” Vampire breath wouldn’t be warm, would it?

She nodded, and he released her. Swiping her palms across her wet cheeks, she edged past him out of the bathroom and folded herself into a corner of the sofa.

He followed, flipping the switch that controlled the gas-log fireplace. After adjusting the flames to a low blue-and-orange flicker, he sat on the opposite end of the sofa and shifted around to face her.

She stared at the flames. God, she was so tired of being angry and afraid. Seemed like she’d spent her whole life being one or the other, and she was sick of it. All she had left was numbness.

“Are you ready to talk? I’ll tell you everything now.”

She turned to look at him. Such a beautiful man, with his chestnut hair, pale eyes, high cheekbones. She flinched and clenched her fists in her lap as he moved closer and reached out to stroke a thumb along her cheek.

Cheek. Her heart woke from its stupor and began pounding as she stared at his face. She’d scratched him, but his face was smooth now. Her gaze shifted to his hand and he held it out for her to see, palm up. The tines of the fork had gone in deep; she’d seen the blood. Now his hand was unmarked.

“We heal quickly,” he said. “The only reason Mirren needed help last night was the poison on the buckshot. Otherwise, he’d have healed and the plugs would have worked their way out. Plus, it was almost dawn so we were running out of time.”

Krys stared at him. She wanted to slap him, or run from him, or just call him a big fat liar. Slapping wouldn’t hurt him and there was nowhere to run. That left talking.

“You’re trying to tell me you’re a vampire? Well, guess what? I don’t believe in vampires. I’m a scientist, remember? I believe in logic. I believe in things I can prove.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “You’ve seen the proof, whether it’s logical or not.”

Absurd. Krys went through a mental litany of pop culture vampire clichés, and wondered if any of them were true. Did he drink blood? Sleep in a coffin? Burn up if sunlight hit him? Avoid crosses and garlic?

Good Lord. “So, if I’d stabbed you with a silver fork instead of stainless steel, you’d be dead?”

Aidan grinned at her, and she saw the tips of fangs flash against his lower lip. She clutched a throw pillow to keep her hands from shaking. Had he ever smiled at her broadly enough for her to see that before? Hell, she’d never even noticed if the man had teeth—she’d been too busy ogling his eyes and the deep dimple that formed on the left side of his face when he smiled.

Her eyes remained riveted on his mouth as she waited for another glimpse. That mouth she had kissed with such abandon and thought about way too much.

“You’re thinking about werewolves,” he said, and she saw no evidence of fangs as he talked. He knew how to hide them. “Silver zaps our strength to human levels, but it won’t kill us. I also wouldn’t dry up or burst into flames if you threw a garlic clove at me, or touched me with a cross, or poured a gallon of holy water over my head. I’m not even sure I understand all the changes we go through when we’re turned, but Hollywood’s come up with its own nonsense.” His mouth quirked again. “Tearing out my heart would do the trick, although I probably shouldn’t be telling you how to kill me.”

Krys hugged the pillow more tightly and tried to think. He obviously didn’t intend to hurt her, so the question was, what
did
he want? What would get her out of here? “Just tell me the whole story.”

He stared at the fire a moment before talking. “The pandemic vaccine—you know it changed the blood chemistry of those who took it?”

Krys frowned. “Yes, but it was a minute change—no one had any side effects from it.”

Aidan chuckled. “Oh, there were side effects, all right. To vampires. We do feed from humans.” He paused when she gasped. “We don’t take much, and it doesn’t hurt anyone. But we learned quickly that the blood of anyone who’d had the vaccine was poison to us.”

He talked on. About forming his scathe in Atlanta and moving it here. About the humans who lived in Penton willingly with them, as familiars or feeders. It was clear he cared about the people here, vampire and human alike.

“What about this war you talked about? The attack on Mark?” If she set aside her gut-reaction disbelief, the whole story made a kind of warped sense.

“My brother, Owen, is behind the attacks.”

“Wait...your brother is a vampire? Don’t you have to be turned into one?” She hoped it wasn’t contagious.

“We were turned at the same time, by the same vampire,” he said. “There’s...let’s just say there’s bad blood between us, and he’s trying to destroy me—destroy Penton. He killed our doctor; he attacked Mark; one of his people shot Mirren.”

Even with this explanation, Krys kept coming back to one question. “Why me, Aidan? How did you know I didn’t have the vaccine?”

He at least had the good grace to look sheepish. “Will’s a computer savant—he can hack into anything. Including medical records. What I told you earlier was true. I knew you didn’t have family you were close to, and hoped you might want to stay here if you took the job and got to know us.”

Goose bumps spread over Krys’s skin. They’d seen her medical records, which meant they probably knew the litany of broken bones she’d suffered at her father’s hands. She must have looked pathetic enough that they thought she’d welcome
living in a town full of vampires—or sociopaths. The jury was still out on that one.

An image of dark, somber eyes and oddly formal language came to her. “What about Hannah? How does that child fit into your vampire town?”

Aidan cocked his head, a half smile raising the side of his mouth and creating that way-too-sexy crease. “Hannah is one of us.”

Forget sexy; talk about sick. “You turned a little girl into a vampire?”

“God, no.” Krys flinched when Aidan reached for her, and he pulled his hand back. “I took her in a long time ago—she’d already been turned.”

Krys threw the pillow down and stood up, pacing behind the sofa, aware of Aidan watching her. Somehow, of all the things he’d told her, Hannah’s story rang true. She’d been wandering around at three a.m. without an adult. She’d moved crates around that storage area as though they’d weighed nothing. “She’s a psychic, isn’t she?”

Aidan laughed. “Definitely. She was the daughter of a powerful Creek medicine man—a witch. She has some native magic, but was turned so young she was never trained to use it.”

Krys nodded. Hannah had known things about Krys’s childhood that nothing other than psychic ability could explain.

Aidan’s voice grew hard. “I killed her maker. No one in Penton would ever be allowed to even feed from a child, much less turn one. Hannah’s true name is Hvresse—she chose her English name—and she lives with her adult familiars, who serve as parents.”

Krys thought of Hannah and her ancient eyes that seemed so at odds with her pink clothes. She wanted to cry for the little girl who would never get to grow up.

“That first night, did you feed from me?” She sat on the sofa again, facing the fire, not wanting to meet his eyes. “Did you do something to make me want to...” She ran out of words, or at least words that weren’t too humiliating to say.

He slid closer and caught her hand in his before she could move away. “You mean did I do something that made you want me?” His thumb soothed small, warm circles on her wrist. “I feel your pulse speed up when I touch you.”

Krys swallowed, trying to will her galloping heart to slow. “How do you know it’s not because I’m afraid of you?”

“Because I would be able to sense your fear. You aren’t afraid of me, even though you probably should be.” He unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt and drew her hand inside it. His chest was hard and warm, and she could feel his heart beating beneath her fingertips. “Feel that?”

She nodded and jerked her hand away, liking the feel of it way too much.

“That’s what you do to me.” He slid even closer, till his thigh touched hers, and her heart almost stopped. “I wanted you as much as you wanted me, and it didn’t have a damned thing to do with me enthralling you. All it did was give you the nerve to act on your feelings.”

He slid an arm around her shoulders and leaned in to graze his lips across her neck. Was he going to bite her? Was he going to kiss her? Was she going to let him? “I thought vampires were not really alive. You know,” she said, her voice shaky. “Undead.”

He kissed her neck and trailed his warm breath till his mouth hovered just above hers. “We don’t die, we evolve.” He kissed her softly. “Don’t I feel alive?”

Oh no. This wasn’t going to happen again. She shoved him away and stood up, putting a few feet between them. His eyes were lighter than before, and he watched her with a look she could only describe as feral. He suddenly didn’t seem human at all, just beautiful and
other
.

“Why do your eyes change color?”

He leaned back on the sofa, his look intense. “Our eyes lighten when we’re agitated, or hungry—or aroused.”

Krys paced the length of the room. She needed to stop thinking about Aidan as a man—well, a male—and start thinking of him as a kidnapper. “Why are you telling me all this? How do you know I won’t escape and tell everyone about you?”