There is no love, Inner Tempest said sadly. Lots of lust, sure, and some pretty impressive bow-chica-bow time, but no love.
“Well, this is just the limit,” I told the dog, slumping down on the steps, everything about me crestfallen, from my heart right down to my posture. “Cousin Carlo is most likely a bad guy and ran away from me. Merrick abandoned me. Criminy beans, how can he not realize that we’re supposed to be together? Everything says we are. What an annoying vampire. Nowhere in C. J. Dante’s books does he mention how downright annoying they are.”
The dog licked my hand in obvious agreement.
“Now what are we supposed to do?”
A car pulled into the drive and came to a screeching stop in front of me before I could do more than wonder how much of a distance our mental link would work across.
“Get in,” Merrick said, leaning over to open the passenger door.
I stared at him for a couple of seconds. “You’re annoying. You are stubborn. You don’t know a good thing when you see it. I’m not sure I want to go anywhere with you.”
“And you’re too cheerful, see the good in everything, and believe what you read in those damned books of Christian’s. Get in.”
I sniffed, thought about telling him to take a flying leap, but instead rose with infinite dignity, and let the dog into the backseat. “All right, but I want it understood that you hurt my feelings by leaving me more than my cousin did.”
“I came back for you.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve only been gone four minutes.”
“Doesn’t matter. You left me, your almost-Beloved, behind. With a dog.”
He looked like he very much wanted to roll his eyes, but instead got out and took my suitcases, tossing them into the trunk of the car. “I’m sure that thought will haunt me for years, but I will strive to overcome it and focus on the job of ridding the world of monsters like Victor.”
“Hrmph,” I said, and slid into the passenger seat.
Silence reigned for about ten minutes as we retraced the route that headed south.
You can’t live without me.
He glanced my way. I can do so quite easily, as a matter of fact.
I read the books, Merrick. I know that once you find your Beloved, you can’t distance yourself.
That’s not true.
C. J. Dante says it is. Is that why you came back? Because you missed me? Or was it because you were hungry?
“Christian has a lot to answer for,” he muttered under his breath, then said louder, “We aren’t Joined, Tempest. Until then, I am not irrevocably bound to you.”
“That’s right, there are more steps. Let’s see ... we must be up to step four or so by now. More than halfway through them,” I said with particular significance that he ignored.
“I doubt if we’ve done more than two steps,” he said, his eyes moving between the rearview mirror and the road in front of us.
“There’s the mind thing—that’s marking, according to the books.” I turned around as best I could with the seat belt on, and patted the dog, taking the opportunity to look out behind us. There were a few cars on the road at this hour, but not a whole lot of traffic. I wondered if Merrick saw something I didn’t. “Then the kissing, which I have to say is pretty spectacular. How many lovers have you had?”
The look he sent my way was one of disbelief. “Why do you want to know?”
“Well, I was technically a virgin before we got together, although I ... you know ... have toys. I mean, I didn’t have them before my father died, but once he was gone, I kind of ran amok in a sex toy shop. If you’re ever in the market for a vibrator, I’m your girl.”
“I will keep that in mind,” he said without the slightest twitching of his lips, but I felt his amusement, and relaxed a little. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with a man who didn’t have a sense of humor.
“So it will be nice to know that one of us can bring lots of experience to the sexual table.” I patted him on his thigh. “We can both contribute. I’ll be the source of info as to which vibe carries the biggest bang for the buck, and you can demonstrate lots of positions and interesting sexual additions like blindfolds.”
“Into bondage, are you?” Now he did look amused, although the expression faded almost immediately.
“No.” I looked out of the window, noting absently the streetlights of cross streets blurring past us.
“You surprise me.”
I said nothing, still watching the lights.
Have I said something to offend you?
Why would you think that?
Because I can feel your distress. Is it because I am not interested in your sexual toy reviews?
“Goodness, no. I’ll give you those whether or not you want them, because I think you’re closed to new experiences until you see how fabulous they are. You know, how you are with me.”
“Then why are you upset?”
I picked through my words carefully. “One of the promises I made to myself when I was younger was that I wasn’t going to be a victim. I wasn’t going to dwell on what happened in the past. I was going to put it all behind me, and move forward.”
“And that has something to do with sex?”
“No. It has something to do with being tied up as punishment.” I kept my eyes on the lights, refusing to let the darkness that those memories brought with them fill me. I’d worked too hard to expunge the dark from my soul to let it back now. “Bondage isn’t a fun thing for me. It’s something to endure.”
“I see.” Anger burst through the car, a sort of red haze of anger that seeped into every pore. A spurt of adrenaline accompanied my brain’s being filled with images of vengeance against nameless men.
Wait ... nameless men? Is this you getting so furious again? I told you when you got mad about the beatings that it was in the past. I’ve made my peace with it. I just don’t happen to like being hit or tied up.
Merrick snarled into my head something quite rude.
Clearly, the situation needed to be lightened a bit. I did what I could to downplay the events of the past. “Buzzing bumblebees, Merrick! Why are you so angry because my father was part of a whackadoodle cult, and the Elders clearly had issues with women? It couldn’t be in part because you know deep down I’m your Beloved, could it?”
“I dislike anyone being abused,” he said self-righteously. “It’s one of the things I have fought so long against, in case you missed that point of my repeated discussions of just what it is I do, and why I do not need or want a Beloved.”
“Well, lucky you, you got one anyway,” I said, and decided to put a little icing on the cake. I leaned over and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek.
The look of outrage he seared me with in response gave me immense satisfaction.
It wasn’t long after that we found a twenty-four-hour vet hospital. The tech there kindly scanned the white dog’s entire body for a microchip, but came up blank.
“The man says they can’t take the dog unless you are abandoning him, and then there will be a charge,” Merrick told me, translating for the tech. He reached for his wallet, and started pulling out cash.
“There’s no need for that,” I said loudly, glaring at him, and taking the thin emergency leash the vet hospital offered. “Kelso is coming with me.”
“Kelso?”
“I just named him, now that I know he’s not chipped. Here, give him my number, and tell them to call me if the dog’s owner comes looking for him.” I walked out without another word to Merrick.
You can’t keep a dog, he told me when I marched out to the car.
Why not?
Stranger in a strange place, remember?
Now I’m a stranger with a dog.
The next five hours aren’t worth recording, since they mostly consisted of me sleeping, with one break while Merrick got gas in the car, and I took the dog for a potty break before taking my own.
“Where are we going?” I asked at that point, rubbing my face as I
blinked at the bright neon lights of the gas station. Merrick shoved a bottle of water and a bag of chips at me before squatting down and pouring some water in a bowl for Kelso.
“To a small town you have most likely never heard of.”
“Really? What’s there?” Absently, I opened the chips and started munching on them, smiling to myself when Merrick offered Kelso a sandwich, which he happily wolfed down.
“My villa.” Merrick returned to the car and waited for the dog and me to get settled before returning to the road.
“Why are we going to your house? And wait, aren’t you Irish? Why do you live in Italy?”
He gave a mock sigh. Do you always ask so many questions?
Only when I want answers.
I was born in Ireland, but moved to Italy a few centuries ago.
Oh. Why?
Because I liked it!
Sheesh, I just asked. Silence filled the car for about five minutes. Why are we going to your house?
It’s the only place where I can ensure your safety.
“My safety?” I shook my head, feeling like my brain wasn’t functioning so well after the nap I’d just taken. “Why on earth do you keep imagining that Cousin Carlo wants to hurt me? He knew who I was before you kidnapped me.”
“He didn’t know your connection to me,” he pointed out.
I rubbed my face again. I had a serious wrinkle from where my face had been pressed against the door. “That’s right. He did have that picture of us together frozen on the monitor. I don’t see that he’d want to hurt me, though. Not because I let myself be kidnapped.”
“If he is Victor, then he would not hesitate to destroy you in order to get to me.” There was something more to his sentence, but he must have been hiding his thoughts from me, because all I got was an echoing sensation in my head.
I went back to sleep not long after that conversation. By the time we reached Merrick’s villa, the sun was coming up, my back was cramping from being in the car for six hours, and I had to pee again.
“What are we doing here?” I asked when Merrick woke me up. We were stopped in a small square parking area, lined on either side by gray stone walls. Ahead of us was a silver metal doorway apparently cut into a vertical rock face.
“This is my home.” He got out of the car, and went to the trunk to get my luggage.
I got out slowly. “You live in a cave?”
“No, I live in a house eighty meters up. That’s an elevator.”
“Eighty meters ... that’s like two hundred and fifty feet. Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who had an elevator set into a cliff just to get to their house. Come on, Kelso. I bet you’re going to be happy to have a yard to run around in. Wait, you do have a yard? A fenced one?”
“There’s no fence, but there is no way in or out of the gardens from the outside.” Merrick cast a sour glance at the dog when we followed him into a small elevator. “Please confine him to the lowest garden. I don’t need him soiling the other areas.”
“Just how many gardens are there?” I asked, more impressed than I wanted to admit.
“Four. What is your birth date?”
“August eleventh. Why?”
He punched something into the panel on the elevator wall. “I’ve just set the code to zero eight one one. You will have to enter that to use the elevator.”
“Nifty,” I said.
The doors opened and I gasped at the sight that met my eyes. Floodlights shone up on the long front of a house painted the color of goldenrod, dotted with white shutters and French doors down the length, and bisected with a long narrow balcony that that was heavily covered in some sort of green vines. In front of the house, a lush green lawn spread out toward the sea, visible even though the sun was just starting to lighten the sky. “Criminy noodles! This is some sort of gorgeous. I bet the view is breathtaking in daylight.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Merrick said drily, and unlocked a door. I released Kelso, who happily trotted off, his nose to the ground, the white plume of his tail waving gently in the darkness.
“Why not—oh! Vampire. Sunlight.” I eyed him as we entered the villa. “So that’s true? You burn up into little black blobs of nothing if you go out in the sun?”
“No, but it’s not particularly enjoyable to be in sunlight.”
“What happens to you?”
He set down my suitcases, and pulled out his phone. “We blister.”
“Is that all?” I glanced around the room, pleasantly surprised. I don’t know what I expected Merrick’s home to look like—something out of a German expressionist’s nightmare, all white and black and angles everywhere—but this room was Mediterranean cozy with pale acid-washed-jeans blue walls, darker blue sofa, love seat, and chairs, and, overhead, thick wooden beams that had been stained a honey oak color.
“It can be deadly if we are confined for a length of time in full sunlight, so, yes, that’s all.” He nodded toward a staircase. “You can use the room at the top of the stairs just on the left.”
“This place is breathtaking,” I said, noting a dining room beyond the living area. The house was clearly built to utilize the view, with lots of windows and French doors opening onto the lawn and the sight of the sea beyond. “How many rooms does it have?”
“Six.” He finished with whatever text message he was sending, and took both cases upstairs. I followed after him, counting three bookcases in the living room alone. I couldn’t wait to see what sort of reading taste he had. “There is a bathroom attached to your room.”
I entered the room he indicated. A large bed sat against the wall, facing a bank of windows, which Merrick opened after setting down my suitcases. “Pretty room.”
“I’m sure you are tired after being up all night.” He nodded toward a bed swathed with mosquito netting. It looked like something out of The Arabian Nights.
“Not with all the sleeping I did in the car.” I looked around. “This isn’t your bedroom, is it?”
“No. Mine is down the hall on the right. I’ll have some food brought in for you.” He pulled out his phone again when it made a burbling sound. “And food for the dog. There’s a key to the front door in the top left bureau drawer in the main room downstairs. If you like, I can have a rental car delivered for you to use.”
“Thank you,” I said, warmed by the thoughtfulness of his gestures. “That’s very kind of you, especially considering you didn’t want me to be around.”
“Here is my mobile number.” He pulled out a card and wrote a phone number on the back. “Although I would ask you not to call unless the situation is desperate.”
“Desperate,” I repeated, a suspicion slowly starting to dawn in my brain. “Situation?”
“If you hear from your cousin, tell me immediately.” Merrick glanced around the room, then turned and left.
I stood staring for a few minutes, the suspicion growing until it propelled me out the door and down the stairs. I caught up to him at the elevator. “Wait a minute—you’re leaving me here?”
“Yes.” He stepped into the elevator and punched a button.
“You can’t do that!” I objected.
“You need not fear for your safety. You will be safe here. You may have the run of the house and gardens. There’s a pool on the side. The town is small, with few tourists, but you might find it interesting.”
“You can’t just dump Kelso and me like this!” I stuck my arm out to block the elevator doors.
He made an annoyed noise, and tried to move my hand. “I just told you that you will be safe here.”
“Safety is not my issue with the situation. Where are you going?”
“I have a job to do.” His gaze was level, but I could feel the anger within him. It burned white, different from the red hunger, but no less potent.
“And I want to help you with it! Don’t give me that look—you’re not thinking things through properly.” I clutched the elevator doors tightly. “Who knows Carlo? I do. Who would recognize hi
m if she saw him in a crowd? I would. Who can help you find him? That’s right, me.”
“How?” he asked, his expression wary.
I waved my hands around in an attempt to distract him from the fact that I really hadn’t a clue what I was talking about. “He’s ... he’s family. That will help me find him.”
Merrick gave a disbelieving snort and pried one of my hands from the door.
Desperately, I grabbed at the first thing I could think of. “What about eating? If you’re going to be gone longer than a few hours, you’re going to need to eat, aren’t you? C. J. Dante says that now that we’ve hooked up, you can’t feed elsewhere.”
His eyes narrowed, and I could feel him thinking that through. I braced for him to deny again that we had a physical connection, but instead, he said, “There are other sources of food.”
“Such as?” I asked, a spike of jealousy zinging through me.
“Animals. We can feed from them if we have to.”
“Ew.” I wrinkled my nose. “That sounds unpleasant, and can I point out how insulting it is that you’d rather eat from some cow or horse or whatever you find to guzzle in order to avoid me?”
“It’s not ideal, but if it’s what has to be done, then so be it.” He pried my other hand off the door, but rather than pushing me out of the elevator, he wrapped both hands around me and pulled me up against his chest, his mouth on mine before I could even gasp in joy. Instantly, my body went into pure celebration mode, sending off little fireworks and starting up the brass band of welcome.
You sure do know how to kiss, I moaned into his mind at the same time I pulled his shirt out of his pants, running my hands all over the lovely planes of his back. I’d like to thank each and every one of those women who you’ve had relationships with over all the centuries, because the work they did has paid off.
Normally women are jealous of any past partners, he pointed out, a sense of amusement in the back of his head. Trust you to turn that upside down and want to thank them.