Cloak of Deceit: An Alex Moore Novel (18 page)

“Which I should have done sooner.”

“But you stayed friends?”

“Yes.”

“She still loves you, you know.”

He shifted on the pillows, angling his body towards me, and rested his head on the cushion just above my shoulder. “Yes.”

“And do you…” the rest of the words caught in my throat. Did I really want to know?

Julian sighed. “It’s hard to explain. You’ve taken blood now, what do you think?”

That was the answer I had been afraid of. What I felt for Carl was already complicated, and we’d just met. “It gets stronger over time?”

“If you take more blood, it will grow, yes. That’s why I want you to be careful. The pull to a donor is strong, especially when you’re so new. It will be difficult for him too.” Julian slid closer and eased his arm across my shoulders.

“Then why did you let it happen?” I stiffened in his embrace. If he knew he was setting me up to have these confusing urges towards someone else, why would he allow it?

“I didn’t have much choice. I didn’t know how long it would take to secure a supply of blood for us. It was either give you blood, or lock you away to suffer without it. I couldn’t do that.”

I stared into his eyes and decided I liked the idea of Julian being willing to bend rules, or even break them. He always seemed to have good reasons. If he had followed the rules, I would probably be dead for real.

“Okay then, why Carl?” Why a charming virgin who would obviously get the hots for me?

“It was one of Monique’s conditions — it had to be a volunteer. He was the only one who wanted to do it. If I’d had my choice, it would have been someone else. A girl, maybe.”

On the surface Julian seemed as composed as ever, but deep in his eyes was a flicker of something close to anger.

My cheeks warmed. “Hold the phone. You’re
jealous
?”

“A little.” He smiled and pulled me to him. “I think I’ve answered enough questions for one night.”

I relaxed against his smooth, warm body and tucked my face into his neck for a deep breath of Julian’s leathery scent. It was like a calming tonic — my safe haven in the new world I’d been catapulted into. He wrapped his arms around me and rubbed my back. I hummed, thankful that he was more forgiving and level-headed than me. One of us had to be.

“Jules?” I said a minute later.

“Hm?”

“What about Andreas?” I sat up so I could look at him. “I mean, what will they do with him now that you’ve gone against their orders?”
For me
.

“I haven’t figured that part out yet.” He cupped my face and leaned forward until he was too close for me to stay focused. I closed my eyes. “But I will. Until then, we’ll lay low here. I promised I’d keep you safe.”

He kissed one side of my mouth, the barest of touches. He kissed the other side. I tilted my head back in invitation, feeling the heat of his skin only millimeters away.

“I keep my word.”

He pressed his lips to mine with a gentle pressure at first, a question. I answered by leaning into the kiss, wanting to show him how much his reassurance and his sacrifice meant to me. When he pulled back, I pressed forward and kissed him again. I climbed into his lap twining my arms around his neck.

His tongue sought passage between my lips. I opened to him, and he let out a muffled groan, squeezing me close. I raked one hand down his bare chest and stomach and into the edge of his jeans.

Julian broke the kiss. “Wait.”

“Jules.” I nibbled his neck. “I think we’ve waited long enough.”

“Stop. We have to stop.” He grabbed both of my hands and held them still. “Your powers.”

Julian squeezed my wrists to the point of pain until I stopped struggling. I ran my finger under the edge of my crystal decoder collar and said, in my sexiest bedroom voice, “We took care of that, remember?”

I leaned forward to capture his lips again.

“But, Monique—”

I yanked my hands out of his grasp, rolled out of his lap, and jumped to my feet in one smooth motion. Every time we got close, something shoved us apart. I was so confused by all of Julian’s mixed signals. He was willing to put everything on the line for me, attracted to me, but wouldn’t seal the deal when I was right there, willing. What was wrong with me? Or was it just him?

“Monique?” My voice quivered with frustration. He opened his mouth and I held up a hand to stop him. “You know what, Julian? I really don’t want to hear anymore. I think you should get your own room.”

I snatched my book from beside him and hugged it to my chest.

He sighed and rubbed his hands over his face, but made no move to get up. “Alex, don’t.”

“Fine, I’ll go somewhere else then.” I crossed to the door.

“Where? Back to Carl’s room?” he snapped. For the first time since that night in the alley, Julian’s voice carried an undercurrent of anger. It gave me pause, but not enough to hold my barbed tongue in check.

“So what if I did?” I hadn’t actually thought about that, but it seemed as good a reply as any. I wanted to hurt him, like he had just hurt me. After everything we’d been through, everything he’d just shared, he was worried about Monique.
Monique!
I was fuming. If I had blood pressure, it would have been through the roof. “What does it matter to you?”

“I don’t want you to.” Julian’s voice was low with warning. He stood and faced off with me.

“Yeah, and you don’t want me to call my friends or family, or to use my powers, or to make any decisions for myself, either. Why is it what you want me to do seems to be all I’m doing lately? What about what
I
want?”

He stared at me as if I’d sprouted a second head, but I didn’t back down. My hand was on the door handle.

“You don’t want Carl.” He sounded way too confident.

I whirled on him. “Really? And how do you know?”

Julian answered through gritted teeth. “He’s just a boy. You want a man.”

“He’s not
just
a boy,” I snapped. He was the only person who had been completely straight with me since my initiation into the world of supernatural hoop-la. Even if his intentions were less than noble, at least they weren’t hidden from me. “He’s a lot wiser than you give him credit for.”

“He’s a child.” Julian stepped forward. His tone carried an underlying threat, but I was beyond reason.

I snorted. “He’s barely younger than I am. And he understands me a lot better than you do.”

A long silence stretched out between us, building distance one second at a time. I wanted to take my words back already, to apologize. But it was the temptation to throw myself in Julian’s arms, at his mercy, that kept me from doing it. I was finally learning not to listen to that weakness. To stand on my own.

“You’re right.” Julian crossed the room in two strides and bent to pick up his shirt from the bed. He left his book and tugged the shirt over his head roughly. He stalked to the door and paused in front of me. “You’re both children.”

“To a dinosaur like you, I guess we are.” The words dropped into my stomach and sizzled uncomfortably.

Julian swung the door open and glared at the wall over my shoulder, as if he was looking through me. “Monique isn’t sure the inhibitor will be sufficient protection. She thinks your Undead senses are a trigger and could send your psychic powers into overdrive. If you do anything to set them off, I can’t guarantee she won’t kick you out. You’ve been warned. I promised I would protect you until we get this figured out, and I will. But please consider it’s a lot easier to do from here than out there. There’s blood in the refrigerator.”

He turned his back on me and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

I jumped at the sharp sound. “Oh, hell!”

I wanted to scream then — not at Julian, or anyone in particular — screaming just sounded like a good idea. Instead, I collapsed onto the bed, feeling like a hormonally-fueled, relationship-challenged idiot. A child. I rolled onto my side, which put me nose to nose with the book Julian had been reading. The Code. A page was marked. I flipped it open:
Sponsorship Bylaws.

Way to go. I shoved the book away, curled into the pillows, and cried myself to sleep in yet another strange room. Alone.

Chapter Twelve

I
spent the first part of the following evening in my room. It might have been interpreted as pouting, but I was really sick of being clueless. Until I knew the rules of the game well enough to make moves on my own, I was just a pawn. I had a volume of information right there at my fingertips. It was time to put my cramming skills to good use.

The Code was a very dry read, like any law book. It had a tangle of cross-references and citations that made my eyes water, so I focused on the Undead manual.

According to
I’m Dead, Now What?
your Sponsor was normally the Undead who turned you, but not always. A Sponsor took full responsibility for their Dependant. They were only allowed to have one at a time. They guarded their safety, provided for them, guided them. They were even punished for their crimes. That part had me reeling. If I was reading it right, it meant Andreas was serving a sentence not only for himself, but for Julian too. No wonder Julian felt obligated to free him.

The act of becoming a Sponsor was simple enough. As Julian had said, you had to have a rank of three or higher. It involved a blood bond, like the one I had with Carl, only going both ways, which made it much stronger. Aside from that, the Cloak conducted a formal ritual and filed some official paperwork.

It sounded pretty simple, but one glance at the list of hoops the Cloak made you jump through to get a license to turn someone disillusioned me of that notion. It was a lot like adoption. The more I read, the more I felt like a total bitch for treating Julian like I had.

Without Jules to sponsor me, psychic powers aside, I would be the lowest of low — the bottom rung of Undead society. Pretty much stuck working for the Cloak as an indentured servant. I would have no life of my own, and could never make rank. It sucked. Without Julian, or someone else to sponsor me, I was totally screwed. Cody’s parting gift.

But I was also a psychic. There weren’t even any rules in the manual about me, except that I shouldn’t exist. Even before the Code, they’d been strictly taboo as a blood source, believed to be tainted.

If I couldn’t find a way to live under the Code, and I didn’t want to become part of the hive mind of the Grigori, that made me a Rogue Undead. I would have to find my own way, somehow staying undetected. A vision of spending the rest of my unnatural life wearing Monique’s collar polishing her wood floors popped into my head.

“Lovely.” I sighed and tossed the book aside.

I did a few laps of the room, and peeked into the mini-fridge twice before guzzling two jugs of the blood Julian had left for me. It was cold, but sustaining. Still, after tasting the real thing, it was like the difference between fresh-roasted gourmet coffee and Folgers instant.

The blood made me think of Carl. I could recall the fresh taste of him, the feel of his live body under mine, the pounding of his pulse resonating through my entire being. Just the thought made my fangs prickle, and other zones heat up.

There was a knock at the door and I shuddered, then opened my eyes and cleared my throat. I smoothed my hair, adjusted my T-shirt, and fixed a meek smile on my face, expecting to find Julian on the other side.

It was Carl.

“Crap.” I tried to wipe my vivid thoughts of him from my mind.

He lifted his golden eyebrows with a curious smile, then looked down either side of the hall before focusing back on me. “Not exactly the greeting I was hoping for.”

“Sorry.” I quickly squelched the strong urge to reach out and hug him. I recovered my composure and leaned my head against the door. “It’s not that I’m not glad to see you.”

“That’s a relief.” He flashed me his brilliant smile, needlessly straightening his crisp white button-down shirt.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Like a million bucks.” He ran one hand through his downy-blond locks in a practiced move. It worked as intended. I smiled.

“What are you all dressed up for?” I eyed his pressed khakis and smart loafers with mild amusement. If it was on my account, he had it backwards, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him. Plus, he looked good — even if clean cut wasn’t my thing. He’d left the top two buttons of his shirt open, the collar turned down, revealing the enticing “V” of his throat and showing off his pink-tinged love bite like a badge of honor.

“I thought I’d give you an official tour.”

I was a little distracted, with him all shiny and smelling like citrus and Sandalwood, so I jumped when Julian’s voice rumbled through the hall.

“Maybe later, Casanova. I need to talk to Alex.” He came to stand beside Carl like an apparition. How did he not make any noise when he moved? I swear he enjoyed throwing me off-guard.

Looking at the two of them side by side, they couldn’t be more opposite. Julian was all sultry lines and shadows, from the dark scruff outlining his jaw, to his worn-in black jeans. Carl looked fresh, polished, and alive. They were like night and day. If I hadn’t known it already, it was as plain as the mark on Carl’s neck which one I felt more drawn to. Even the pull of my first and only donor’s sweet, life-giving blood was eclipsed by Julian’s presence.