Beautiful Death (19 page)

He wasn’t sure why, but he found himself sitting on the edge of the bed next to her. That cold burning tingle flared the moment he pressed his hip to hers. If he had to, he could say he was worried about her. But really, he knew he just wanted to look at her just a little longer. She was just so beautiful, and kind, he was starting to realize. He was her enemy and yet, she took him in. Offered him sanctuary. And hope. He found hope was in short supply since he lost his parents.

The careful braid she left the house with was a wild, scraggly mess now from the tumble she took. Without really thinking about what he was doing he reached under her and pulled out the end of her braid. A quick tug at the band on the end and he freed her hair of the binding. It was so soft, so silken that he only had to run his fingers through the middle to loosen the braid and then it was perfect again, like she never had helmet hair. Like she never fell off her bike. And that was Ash, wasn’t it? She was deeply broken inside and yet, perfect on the outside. She went on like everything was fine. And what did he do? What was Tristan’s answer to his deep pain? Lash out? Drink himself stupid and push his friends away? There was so much he could learn from her. He didn’t believe in fate, but maybe, just maybe they were meant to meet. Was that so weird to think?

Tristan froze. He was staring down into pale purple eyes. He realized in that moment where he was. Not some fantasy in his head, but in reality where he was inches from the woman who saved him from death more than once. A vampire who he’d started to have feelings for and was now leaning over her like some lecherous pervert that took advantage of passed out women.

Yep.

“Uh—Hey… yeah, it’s not what it looks like...”

Ash slipped a cold palm across his cheek. He put his own over hers to keep it there. “You saved me.” She made it sound more like a statement than a question.

Tristan licked his lips. “It was nothing.”

She cracked a tiny smile that never reached her eyes. She was so very tired. “Still… I appreciate you helping me, no matter the size of burden.”

“I’ll do anything for you.”

The words shocked them both. He knew he felt it, but until he was actually speaking his thoughts, he hadn’t really noticed. Yes, he would do anything for Ash.

“Tristan…,” she whispered, eyes wide in shock. “You do not owe me a thing.”

“I owe you everything,” he answered.

“But—”

They were pressed mouth to mouth. He couldn’t remember making the conscience decision to kiss her, but his body decided for him, had been denied too long to hold back anymore. He felt like he'd known her for years, longed for and wanted her. Needed her. Her lips were as soft and delicate as he had imagined they would be.

He pulled back and licked his lips. She tasted faintly like copper. If he thought too clearly on it he’d realize that the last thing she consumed was the red liquid in the glass that Sibylle had given her and that that red liquid was blood. He licked his lips again. Tasted of copper… and
mint
?

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re absolutely stunning?” he whispered, running the back of his fingers along her cheekbone. “You are a remarkable woman.”

She let out a content sigh, pushing into the pillows behind her, eyes heavy with an emotion he knew well. She wanted him too. He smiled and leaned into her again. The need to lose control and give himself over to her completely was crushing. Every fiber of his body wanted her in a way he never felt with any other woman. He wanted to consume her entirely.

The thought made him jerk back. Was that Tristan Blum, the human, who wanted to consume her or Tristan Uruwashi, the monster?

Ash frowned. “Tristan…”

“What am I?”

She took his face into his hands. “You are what you choose to be.”

He raised an eyebrow at her and then smiled warmly. “Yeah, well, I want to be yours.”

She let out a long surprised breath and almost didn’t stop Tristan soon enough when he tried to kiss her again.

He frowned down at her. “What’s wrong? Don’t you—”

“We cannot,” she said sharply. Her tone was harsh, but her eyes, they begged to have him. She wanted him more than he knew.

“O-K…,” he said as he sat up. What was it that he didn’t understand? They both wanted each other, what more was there to it than that?

“Want has nothing to do with ability.”

“Uh…” Unease tingled down his body at her tone.

Ash let out a long sigh. “Some part of me must have remembered, keeping me from—There is much about me you do not understand.”

He gave her a soft smile and leaned in so that he was close enough to kiss, if she would let him. “I’m willing to learn.”

“There is much about
us
, vampire, you do not understand.”

“Again, willing…”

Ash sat up, moving away on the bed. “Tristan,” she started out in a firm tone. “If I were to so much as lick you wrong, I might kill you.”

He jerked back, fingers unconsciously touching his lips, lips he used to kiss her once already. “What?”

“Our saliva, some sort of enzyme in it, is what makes humans like us. Just a drop of vampiric saliva could be enough to turn you. I cannot abide by your death, vampiric or otherwise.”

Tristan turned to sit on the edge of the bed, putting his face into his hands. “Shit,” he hissed through his fingers. The bed shifted behind him seconds before a small hand enclosed his shoulder. “So… you’re telling me, something as simple as a kiss could make me a vampire?”

“Or kill you.”

He jerked around to look at her. “Kill?”

“Not all who are bitten are strong enough to handle the transformation.” She gave him a weak smile. “I suspect however, you have nothing to worry about. Your will is very strong.”

Somehow, that didn’t make him feel better. All he wanted was to live and to be closer to Ash.

She sighed and leaned into Tristan, resting against his back. She was so relieved that the barrier they’d been maintaining finally broke. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could deny something that was as instinctual as breathing. But of course, that meant further pain. She felt that she could be free around him to do and say as she pleased, so long as it didn’t include the swapping of bodily fluids.

Right then, that’s all either of them could think about.

“Well, shit,” Tristan sighed. “I… I don’t even know what to say.”

“I know, I am disappointed too.”

“Stop reading my mind,” he said jokingly. 

Ash only sighed at him as he fell into deep thought, his mind racing with ideas. It was then, that it finally occurred to him, why Ash didn’t feed from live humans.

“You are wrong,” she said quickly and he turned to face her. “That has nothing to do with it.”

“Then what? I mean, if every person you bite gets turned into a vamp, I get it. You don’t want hundreds of ‘em running around.” He certainly didn’t.

“Yes, if every person we bit did turn…”

“Wait… Just me?”

Ash sighed, dropping her shoulders and looking down to her lap. “Yes.”

“An Uruwashi thing, huh?”

“To make a vampire, it requires several bites from the same host over many days with an exchange of blood on the final day. The enzyme kills and our blood then in turn helps the mind survive the death of the body. There is extended time in a coffin thereafter and other details unimportant right now. However, the Uruwashi had bred themselves to be more susceptible to being turned. By only requiring a single bite, a drop of vampiric enzyme and nothing more, the hunter would be one themselves by the following night.”

Tristan furrowed his brow at her in disbelief. Under that skepticism there was fear. He couldn’t admit it to her, but to himself, he was damn worried.

She met his eyes. “Think of it, a normal human gets in a fight with a vampire, vampire bites human, human lives to fight another day as human. But say you are of the Uruwashi? You get bitten that one time and you become a deadly tool against the vampires. No blood exchange is needed, no time buried in a dark coffin. You suddenly have all of the deadly gifts of a vampire at your disposal and more. It is a great advantage to the Uruwashi to force a vampire to bite and not kill, if they can manage it. Any vampire that would knowingly turn a clan member would surely be hunted by their brethren and slaughtered.”

“For someone who had all of her memories taken from her, you sure know an awful lot…” He wasn’t trying to accuse her of lying, but there were still some lingering doubts on the fullness of her truths.

“Yukihime told me before we left.”

“Uh, I was there. I think I would have remembered.”

Ash gave him a small smile that said he was being naïve. He hated that. “When a vampire bites another, they can see into the other’s blood, just as with humans. But if the biter is as powerful as Yukihime is, they can also speak directly to the bitee.”

He wasn’t sure how much of what Yuki had said was really true. He didn’t trust her and couldn’t understand Ash’s faith in her. But, if everything she did say was true and that if all it took was one tiny fang knick and a drop of saliva… “Fuck.”

Ash gave an approving hum.

“No wonder Malik is so afraid of me. I could be turned into… whatever it is I am and would never have known it until it happened.”

“It is hard to say if you will be turned at all.”

His attention snapped up from the carpet to her. “What?”

“Yukihime believes that you may be only half Uruwashi.”

He let out a long breath as he processed that. Only half monster… there was hope. “Why?”

Ash shrugged? “She would not say. But it stands to reason. You do not look a bit Japanese except for the slightest slant of your eyes. But they are blue and you are very tall. Your facial structure is unquestionably European. The Uruwashi were strictly Japanese in origin, there was no off shoot breeding with other human races, at least not for the purpose of making more Uruwashi.”

Yeah, he’d already decided his Father was not Japanese too, but hearing Ash say the same made him feel better. He wasn’t a complete loss.

“No,” Ash said leaning into him. “You are not a loss. I have hope for you yet.”

He touched the side of her neck to guide her in for a kiss, but then stopped. “Dammit, you have no idea who much I want you...”

Ash frowned and leaned back, away from his touch. She did know and that’s what made her next words all the much harder to speak. “Perhaps you should leave.”

Tristan was on his feet before she’d finished speaking. “What?”

“I—I do not mean to abandon you to your death. I will ask Desmond to watch you until I can dispatch of Malik. But you and I, we cannot…”

“Absolutely not. That fucking prick? God, how can you trust any of them? For all I know, they want me dead too. Hell or to become a real Uruwashi. I don’t think I’m ready for that…” That wasn’t even all of it. He didn’t care so much that she offered to pair him up with that asshole. And yes, it scared him to think he was anything but human. But the real thing that scared and pissed him off the most was the thought that he’d never get to see her again. Touch her, talk to her, just be with her. God, he wanted her so badly.

Ash looked away. “Do you know why Yukihime bit me and took so much?”

“What?”

She met his eyes again. “She understood the moment she saw me that I felt… She wanted to coerce me into biting you and making you a true Uruwashi.”

“That’s…” He started and fell into thought. Ash felt something for him. She all but said it. So why was she trying so hard to deny it. “If she wants me to be a real Uruwashi, why didn’t she just do it herself? I don’t think anyone could have stopped her.”

“Quite right. I would not have a chance of stopping her. But Yukihime,” Ash sighed looking suddenly exhausted. And she was. Yuki took enough to put her nearly out for the night. She stopped just short of Ash passing out on purpose. As if she knew Ash would crash and Tristan would come to her rescue and then the ensuing kiss when she woke to him looming over her, and then a frenzied coupling of body and blood. That was Yukihime’s plan at least. “Yukihime is ever scheming. Everything she does is for a reason, even if I cannot see that reason.”

“I don’t like it.”

Ash shrugged. “Yukihime has heard of Lilith’s telling. She may understand it more than anyone for all I know. She wants you to become the hunter of legend and awaken your powers, whatever they may be. There is purpose to that.”

“But what if it changes me? I mean in more than human/not human. What if—” He couldn’t even put the rest into words. What if it turned something dark and primal on and he was compelled to kill all vampire? Or humans? By what he understood from Yuki, the Uruwashi and vampire were enemies. Period. He didn’t want to kill anyone. Least of all Ash. And he didn’t want to lose the way he felt for her because something in his blood told him she had to die.

When he met Ash’s eyes again, she looked worried. He hated seeing fear in her eyes. It squashed that little spark of hope in him to nothing but a cold ember. “Ash, I, I don’t know what to do.”

She climbed off the bed and went to him. “Neither do I.”