“I…um…” I started to sit up and close my legs.
Michael seemed to sense my change of mood because he sat back and let me, withdrawing his fingers slowly from my pussy as I watched.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“Sure. Of course. I’m fine.” But the words came out sounding jerky and strange, even to me. I got up quickly, and pulled on my discarded panties as fast as I could. Then I smoothed down the skirt of the sundress and the oversized t-shirt. Really, I had to make getting some new clothes a priority. I couldn’t keep wandering around looking like a thrift-store reject. I was a slayer—I had principles.
Oh really? A slayer who lets a vampire go down on her has principles all of a sudden?
I shoved the guilty thought aside irritably.
“Does this mean you’re going to push me away again?” Michael asked.
“Push you away?” Somehow I found that I couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
“You know what I mean.” He rose smoothly and tried to put his arms around me but I stepped aside. He sighed. “Kate—”
“Can we please not do this right now?” I asked, hoping to cut him off before he really got going. “I’m really not in the mood to talk relationship crap when we’ve got so much on our plates.”
“Relationship crap, huh?” There was anger burning in his green eyes now, and hurt that I didn’t want to see.
“I mean, we have to find a way to get from here to Wales with no money, no passport—”
“I brought mine, actually. My passport, I mean,” Michael said mildly.
“You did? Why?”
He shrugged. “It was already packed in the bag I was taking. Remember I told you I had plans to visit relatives in Europe?”
“Oh, right. Well that takes care of you.” I sighed. “I suppose I can use my passport, although I really don’t want to. I mean, what if the Monsignor has it flagged somehow?”
Michael frowned. “Can he do that? Does he have that much influence—that much power?”
“I don’t know.” I paced back and forth, running my hands through my hair. “I don’t know anything about him—not really.” Which made me feel stupid all over again considering that I had been working for him for the past four years.
“Well, I think we can assume he’s pretty bad news considering even Wellesandra was afraid of him,” Michael said thoughtfully. “She doesn’t seem like someone who scares easily.”
I bit back a frustrated groan.
“And to think, she was who Uncle Harry sent me to for help! What was he thinking?” I ran a hand through my hair again. “When he said I could come here if I was in trouble and look in the family Bible, this wasn’t what I thought he meant.”
“What were you expecting to find?” Michael asked.
“I don’t know—something more substantial than an incomplete family tree and directions to the local snake-lady.”
He walked over to bookcase.
“Why don’t we look again?”
“Sure, if you want.” I shrugged. At least I was feeling stronger now and more in control of myself than I had since Michael had bitten me in snake-lady’s cave. I wondered if that had something to do with the way he’d tasted me. That which wounds can also heal…
“Hey, looks like we missed something.”
I turned to see Michael holding a fat envelope in one hand.
“What is it?” I took it from him. “Where did you find it? I swear I looked all through that damn Bible.”
“It wasn’t in the Bible—it was behind it, half hidden behind some of the other books. It must have fallen out.”
On the outside of the envelope, my name was written in Uncle Harry’s familiar handwriting. I tore it open with trembling hands and found a stack of hundreds, a passport with my picture and the name Cassandra Jakes and a credit card in the same name. The passport photo was of a younger me with longer hair, but I thought it shouldn’t be a problem.
“Wow,” Michael murmured—he was staring over my shoulder. “Uncle Harry comes through again.”
“In a big way.” I let out a breath that was shaky with relief. Until that moment, I don’t think I’d realized how very trapped and out of options I had felt.
“I wish I could have met him,” Michael said quietly. “I think I would have liked him.”
“He would have liked you to,” I said without thinking. “I mean except for…” I trailed off but Michael finished for me.
“Except for the whole me being a vampire thing?”
“Yeah, that.” I sighed and shut the envelope after making sure the credit card was still in date—it was. “Well, now all we have to do is get to Dulles International which I’m pretty sure is the nearest airport, and get ourselves to Wales. Maybe there we can get some answers.”
“Maybe,” Michael echoed and yawned. “But not tonight. It’s been a hell of a long day, Kate. Can’t we grab a shower and a few hours sleep? I’m beat.”
I opened my mouth to say that we could sleep on the plane…and then shut it again. I can never sleep on those damn international flights where you’re crowded into the plane like a bunch of sardines. Also, Dulles was a couple hours drive from where we were and even though I was feeling considerably perkier than I had been an hour ago, I still didn’t relish the idea of getting back in the car for another road trip.
“This is a safe house, right?” Michael asked, seeming to catch the drift of my thoughts. “We checked it out. Nobody knows we’re here. There’s nobody but you…and me.” As he spoke the last word, he cupped my cheek. “Kate,” he murmured. “I’d really like to hold you tonight.”
My heart stuttered in my chest.
“I…I don’t think—” I began.
“Just hold you—nothing else,” he said.
I knew I ought to tell him no, tell him we were going to get back in the car and head for Wales tonight to get some answers. But there was something about the feel of his big, warm hand on my cheek and the look of yearning in his glowing green eyes…something that made me say,
“All right. I guess…a shower and a couple of hours sleep can’t hurt.”
I had never been more wrong.
Chapter Twenty-four
“Child…” The thin, whispery voice invaded my dreams, making me turn uneasily in my sleep. “Child, it is I. Listen to me…”
I turned again, trying to get comfortable, pressing my back and behind against Michael’s warm side. I wanted to snuggle against him and feel safe and comforted as I had earlier that night.
Though he’d said we would just hold each other, in the darkness it had seemed easier to do more than just that. Somehow I had found my oversized t-shirt pushed up and his big hands and hot mouth all over my body. I told myself I shouldn’t let him but I couldn’t seem to help myself. It was as though something inside me had been woken up when he bit me on my slayer mark—some deep need or hunger refused to go back to sleep.
Michael had ended up between my thighs again, going down on me for the second time and then I returned the favor, savoring the feel of his long, hard shaft so silky and hot in my palm and so salty and delicious against my tongue.
“God, Kate,” he moaned as I made him come, relishing the salty taste of his seed in my mouth. “God, I want you so much. I’ll never stop wanting you!”
I had the feeling that he’d wanted to say something other than “want” but had pulled himself back at the last minute, maybe from fear that I wouldn’t return his sentiment. It was probably a good assumption although who knew what I might or might not have said there in the comforting darkness of the safe house? I was changing somehow, it seemed—changing into someone my old, hard, sarcastic self might not even recognize. Or anyway, it felt like that in the secret quiet of the night.
The only thing we hadn’t done—the place I’d drawn the line—was actually making love. I told myself that changed or not, I couldn’t let myself go that far—couldn’t make love with a vampire.
Even if that vamp
ire happened to be Michael.
Michael didn’t complain. He seemed happy to just be with me, to have free access to my body and my mouth. He kissed me over and over, giving me the taste of my own secret flavor, making me crazy as he stroked and rubbed and caressed everywhere his seeking, hungry hands could reach.
“God, Michael,” I gasped at one point. “You’re making me crazy.”
“That’s the idea,” he growled in my ear. “Making you as crazy for me as I have been for you from the beginning, baby. Making you need me like I need you.”
God, I loved when he called me that. Uncle Harry had always called me “kitten” and my Dad had called me “princess” but after those two were out of my life, all the tenderness and sweet nicknames had gone with them. Michael seemed intent on bringing back the tenderness and sweetness I had been missing, even though I hadn’t known I missed it.
We ended the night by curling up in each other’s arms to sleep. My t-shirt was pushed up and my bare breasts and belly were pressed against his side as Michael pressed a drowsy kiss to my forehead.
“Sweet dreams, Kate,” he’d said and then we both drifted off.
I was pretty sure the dream I was having of the Monsignor wasn’t what he’d had in mind when he whispered that in my ear.
Or was it a dream?
I opened my eyes and saw glowing red eyes staring at me. Slitted eyes—snake’s eyes. The eyes of the man I had served for the past four years—if he was even a man, which I doubted.
“You—” I began as I started to scramble up in a rush. “How did you—?”
“Hush.” He caught my hand and brought it to his lips as though to kiss it. “You will see, child,” he said in that thin, whispery voice. “You will know me in time.”
I saw a flash of white and felt a bright, piercing pain.
With a shriek, I sat up and twisted away, yanking my hand from his grasp but it was too late—there was a burning in my palm, just where my thumb met my wrist and a sense of dread filled me.
“What? What is it?” Michael was up in a moment, his own eyes glowing green. “What happened Kate?”
“He bit me!”
“Who? Who bit you?” He looked around.
“I…he…the Monsignor. The Monsignor is here and he bit me!” I already had my Glock out, its grip cool in my sweating hand.
“Where?” Michael’s eyes had taken on the glow of fury and his voice was a deep, protective growl. “Where is he? I’ll kill him.”
I would have killed him myself if I could have found him but he was gone…if he had even been there in the first place, which I was beginning to doubt. I flipped on the lights and, Glock in hand, searched the room thoroughly. Michael went out and searched the rest of the cabin. The place was sealed up tight with no signs that anyone had tried to get in. There was no one outside either.
What the hell was happening?
“I guess it was just a dream,” I said uneasily as he came back into the room and reported it was all clear.
“Was it? You said he bit you,” he reminded me. “Where did he bite?”
“Here.” I held out my right hand—the one that still had stitches in it—and pointed to the base of my thumb. But if there was a bite there—vampire or otherwise—it was almost impossible to tell. The black stitches obscured the area and there was no fresh blood welling from any wounds I could see.
Michael frowned. “I don’t see anything.”
“I don’t either,” I said. “Maybe…” I sighed and ran my left hand through my hair. “Maybe it’s just my subconscious bringing up the past.”
“Maybe.” Michael sounded doubtful. “I don’t like it though.”
“I don’t either,” I said. I looked out the window where the first pale threads of dawn were beginning to break. “Look—the sun is coming up. It must have been a dream—if the Monsignor’s a vampire he wouldn’t risk being out this close to dawn.”
“I hope you’re right.” Michael still looked troubled.
“It’ll be okay,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “Look, it’s time we got going anyway. The longer we sit in any one place, the more likely it is we’ll be found.”
Michael sighed. “So much for sleeping in. Okay, I’m up. Let’s pack and get on the road to the airport.”
Which was exactly what we did. I said good-bye to the little safe house Uncle Harry had left me with a very un-slayer-like lump in my throat. But it wasn’t like I could have stayed, I told myself angrily as it faded in the Charger’s rearview mirror. What had I thought—that Michael and I could stay there—maybe set up house and have a couple of kids?
Give me a break.
I pushed the thought of what might have been away fiercely and concentrated on what was coming up in the near future.
It was the only way I knew how to survive.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Kate? Are you all right? Kate?” A hand on my arm woke me up and I realized I had been sleeping sitting up. Why in the world would I fall asleep in such an uncomfortable, cramped position?
A look around me answered my question—we were sitting at the end of a long aisle of seats in the belly of a British Airways 747. I blinked, remembering that we were on the way to Wales to hopefully get some answers. I wondered how in the world I had fallen asleep in the first place—I can never sleep on international flights yet this time I had felt my eyelids closing almost before we took off.
“Are we almost there?” I muttered to Michael who looked considerably more rested than I felt.
“Almost. You slept for most of the flight. The captain just announced we’re about to land.”
Great, I’d been sleeping for almost eight hours in the same cramped position and my muscles let me know it. I shifted in my seat and tugged at my cheap WalMart t-shirt which had gotten twisted around me somehow. At least we’d had time before we got to the airport to stop and do some much needed clothes shopping. Which meant I had finally been able to ditch the pink sundress and the Does Not Play Well With Others shirt.
The outfit I currently had on—black jeans with a black shirt and jacket—had cost me less than thirty dollars total but I wouldn’t have gone back to that damn sundress for a million.
“Okay, good,” I said, thinking that my brain still felt fuzzy. I’d been having weird dreams again about The Monsignor. Dreams where he told me he would see me soon… I shook my head, trying to clear it of the uneasy memory.
“You all right?” Michael asked me again. “You were, uh, making sounds like you were having a nightmare again. I’ve been trying to wake you up for the last twenty minutes.” His green eyes were filled with worry. “I was getting really concerned about you.”
“I’m fine,” I said and then realized that wasn’t strictly true. Besides my cramped and aching muscles, I had another pain I hadn’t noticed—maybe because it was just a low, dull throb. Looking down at my right hand, which I’d had tucked under my left arm, I flexed the fingers. They seemed stiff, especially my thumb.
I turned my palm over and had to bite back a gasp.
Radiating out from the base of my thumb, where the stitches were still in place, were long, black, crooked lines. It looked like someone had decided to replace the blood in my veins with dirty black ink and the lines were already almost to my elbow.
“Shit!” Michael took my hand gently in his, examining it with a worried look. “This is bad, Kate.”
“Crap.” I didn’t like the unsteady tone of my voice. The fear that bloomed in my chest made me angry and I pulled my hand away from him. “Stop staring at it like that!”
But instead of returning my anger with anger which, let’s be honest, was what I really wanted him to do, Michael got sweeter.
“Don’t pull away, baby,” he murmured. “I’m worried about you. That looks like some kind of blood poisoning. We need to get you right to the hospital and get you hooked up to IV antibiotics.”
“There’s no antibiotic in the world that will help with this,??
? I said, gesturing to the black lines marching in straggling, crooked lines up the inside of my arm. “It’s where the Monsignor bit me. Apparently it wasn’t just a dream that woke me up this morning.”
Or was it yesterday morning now? Crap, I hate how international travel messes with your sense of time. And how had the Monsignor gotten in and out of the safe house without leaving any sign? That was a really scary thought.
“What would help then?” Michael’s deep voice was anxious. “Because I have to tell you Kate, I’m pretty sure if those black lines reach your heart you’re going to be in big trouble.”
I sighed. “Holy water might help. Too bad I used up the last of my supply on your last bite.”
“We need to get some more,” Michael said. “Before we do anything else, we need to find a Catholic church and get you taken care of.”
“Yeah, we’ll have to see what we can do,” I muttered. “But you’re going to have to stay outside the church when we do find one unless you want to get blasted.”
“Blasted?” He frowned.
“Vamps can’t enter a holy space—not one that’s in active use,” I explained, thinking of the burned out ruin of a church where I had always met the Monsignor. “They can’t stand the, uh, holy vibe or whatever it is going on in there. It has the same effect that sunlight does on them.”
“Well, sunlight doesn’t affect me,” he pointed out. “So maybe a church won’t either.”
“I’d just as soon not take the chance that you might be blasted to dust if you step foot over a holy threshold,” I said dryly.
“Why, Kate…does this mean you’re beginning to care if I live or die?” His voice was softly mocking but his eyes were hopeful. I had to look away from the need in them—the need that called to my own desperate desire.
“Of course I don’t want you to die,” I mumbled, unable to come up with a sarcastic reply. “I don’t…don’t want anything to happen to you. At least not until we find out what the hell is going on.”
“Thank you.” He leaned over and brushed my cheek with his lips—they felt warm on my cool skin. “I know it’s hard to admit you care,” he whispered in my ear. “I want you to know that I care too—care a lot, Kate.”