Cronin's Key (18 page)

Alec could listen to him tell stories all night long. “How many brothers did you have?”

“Two. I was the youngest. They were both bigger than I, strong with black hair. Then there was me, just a wee lad with my mother’s fair skin and red hair.”

Alec grinned at his use of such Scottish dialect. It rolled so beautifully off his tongue. “Hence the name Cronin, I take it. It means red, doesn’t it?”

Alec could see Cronin’s smile, even in the darkened night. “Yes. I don’t recall a great many things from my human years. I do remember my mother would weave baskets. And I remember a town feast, I was very young, but I remember the music and dancing, people drinking and eating, laughing. I don’t recall the cause of such celebration, but I remember that.”

“I can’t even imagine it,” Alec said. “What did you wear? I mean, what was the fashion of the eighth-century Scotland?”

“What did I wear?”

“Yes!”

“Fabrics were coarse, woven wool or hemp, some were dyed, some were not,” Cronin said. “We were not wealthy enough to have finery.”

“And your shoes?”

“Leather boots,” Cronin said. “Just a very basic form of what you wear today, bound with leather strapping.”

“I am intrigued by it all,” Alec said, squeezing Cronin’s hand again. “It helps me see who you are.”

“I have not told anyone these stories,” Cronin said quietly. “Of my brothers, of my mother.”

Cronin stopped walking and let go of Alec’s hand. He was quiet, seemingly lost in his memories. He turned in a circle, letting the tall grass skim his fingertips. “I’ve not been here for a very long time.”

The mist seemed to float above them, and as Cronin had said it would be, the air was a fraction warmer than it was on the hill. Alec’s eyes had adjusted a little and he could see that yes, they were in a field. There was a dark line about a hundred yards to the west that Alec presumed were trees. There was absolutely nothing there, yet Cronin had stopped in this particular spot for a reason.

“Why did you really bring me here?”

Cronin looked at Alec then, and he swallowed hard. “Because this is where I died.”

Alec blinked.

Because this is where I died…

Alec blinked again and shook his head. What the hell could he possibly say to that? “Oh my God.”

“I haven’t been here for a long time,” Cronin said, his voice a distracted whisper as he looked around the field. “This was a battlefield. There were hundreds of men who died here… boys, really. I was twenty-six. Much older than most. Some were fathers, grandfathers, though most were just boys. My brothers died here, my father died here. I don’t know what became of my mother…”

Alec couldn’t help himself. He had to touch him. He put his hand to Cronin’s face. “I can’t even imagine.”

“It was a very long time ago.”

Time had passed, yes. Almost thirteen hundred years, to be exact. But it was obvious to Alec that there were wounds time would never heal.

Cronin leaned his face into Alec’s hand, and Alec found himself leaning in toward him. He lifted his other hand to cup Cronin’s face, which made him finally look up at Alec. His dark eyes were vulnerable, searching, and Alec was overcome with an unprecedented urge to comfort him.

He pulled Cronin against him and held him. It wasn’t like an embrace when they leapt, this was different. This was comfort and consoling, a need to protect and reassure.

And the vampire allowed himself to be held.

Alec couldn’t fathom how long Cronin had gone without the comfort of touch and without allowing himself the human need of being held. He pulled away but didn’t let Cronin get too far. He gently touched Cronin’s face one more time. “Thank you for bringing me here. Thank you for showing me this part of who you are.”

The corner of Cronin’s lips pulled up in a small half smile, but his eyes were still cast down. “Alec, since we met everything has been so crazy. You must feel like your head is spinning. I wanted to show you this, to take just a moment in all the mayhem, so you may see there is more to this than just your purpose. I am now inexplicably linked to you, and this fated thing is as new to me as it is to you. I know you don’t exactly like being drawn to me. I don’t blame you for that. You feel as though your choice has been removed, and that is not easy.”

Alec pulled Cronin’s face upward and with his eyes open—looking for any signs of fear or hesitation—he slowly, so slowly, pressed his lips to Cronin’s.

It was soft, warm, and very sweet.

Cronin’s eyes fluttered closed, and every cell in Alec’s body tinged with bliss, but he pulled his lips away before he could deepen the kiss.

“That wasn’t fate,” Alec whispered, “me kissing you right now. That was my will, my decision.”

Cronin ducked his head and smiled, and Alec thought he saw fangs. He put his hand to Cronin’s mouth, swiping his thumb across the bottom lip. It was a little hard to see with only moonlight, but yes, there were definitely fangs.

“I’m sorry,” Cronin whispered, embarrassed. “I can’t help it. It’s an involuntary reaction to you.”

Alec moaned softly. Knowing Cronin was affected by him was a heady feeling. Intoxicating. “Don’t apologize,” he whispered. “I’d like to kiss you again.”

Cronin stared at him, his dark eyes like onyx. “You are very forthright.”

“I can’t help it,” Alec admitted. He repeated Cronin’s own words back to him. “It’s an involuntary reaction to you.”

It made Cronin laugh, and Alec’s heart soared at the sound, and he kissed him again. Alec opened his mouth just a little, enough to taste the sweetness of Cronin’s breath. He pulled Cronin’s bottom lip between his for just a moment, and the rumbly noise coming from Cronin sounded a mix of purr and growl.

Alec smiled as he ended the kiss. He ran the pad of his thumb across Cronin’s jaw before letting his hand fall away. “While we’re talking forthright, can I ask you something?”

Cronin looked a little kiss-drunk, but he answered anyway. “Yes.”

“Your teeth… how dangerous is it for me to kiss you?”

“You mean, is it dangerous for a human to kiss a vampire?”

Alec chuckled. “Well, when you put it like that. But seriously, if my tongue were to touch your teeth, your fangs, and it cut me—”

Cronin took a small step back, but he was smiling. “Making me think of your blood in my mouth probably isn’t very wise.”

“I take it that it wouldn’t be good for me,” Alec prompted. “Would it… change me?”

Something flickered across Cronin’s face that Alec couldn’t quite catch. “I would need to pierce your skin with both teeth.”

“So you can’t just taste for fun. It’s either to kill or to change?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever changed anyone?”

“No.”

Alec smiled. It pleased him to know this. “Will you change me? Is that what happens?”

Cronin took a moment to answer, and looked out across the field. “Eiji has said so. Though he also once told me the one I was fated to was a warrior with a shield, so his ‘readings’ aren’t exact.”

“A shield? You mean my police badge?”

Cronin chuckled now. “It would seem so, yes. Though in my time, I would have believed it to be a literal representation.”

Alec snorted. “You must have been disappointed when I was not some brave warrior on horseback with a dirk and taber.”

Cronin laughed loudly at that and shook his head. “Oh, I am far from disappointed.”

Alec found himself smiling, his chest warmed through at the compliment. He reached out and took Cronin’s hand, and they stared at each other. “Thank you for being honest with me, and thank you for bringing me here. We’ll come back here, yes? I’d love to see it in spring, just before the sunrise.”

Cronin nodded. His voice was just a whisper. “I would like that. Very much.”

By Cronin’s reaction to his offer of returning here, Alex realized that must have meant a lot to him. “I’d like that too.”

“As much as I wish it otherwise, we should be going back now,” Cronin said.

Alec wished he could stay there as well, in the long grass of the field, despite the cold. He saw a side to Cronin that was profound and wonderful and… human. Alec wanted to stay in that moment forever, but he knew they couldn’t. “Where will we go?”

“My apartment,” Cronin answered. “Jodis and Eiji will have secured it by now.”

Alec nodded. “Okay, I guess we have a lot to organize. If this is all happening sooner than we thought, we’re running out of time.”

Cronin squeezed his hand. “Are you ready?”

“Yes. And don’t think I’ve forgotten your little fib about having to put my arm around you to leap.”

Cronin chuckled. “It was not fair of me, but I just could not help myself. Again, I apologize.”

Alec faked a grumble and slid his arm around Cronin. “Well, it’s not all bad.” Then he ran his nose along Cronin’s jaw to his ear. “I wouldn’t get to do this if I just held your hand.”

Cronin shuddered. “You might not want to distract me when we leap, or there’s no saying where we’ll end up.”

Alec laughed at that and when Cronin put his arm around him, he held him a little tighter. And they were gone.

Cronin’s apartment was well-lit and a lot warmer than where they’d just left. It was also a lot busier. Eiji and Jodis were there having some kind of confab, phones pressed to their ears, laptops on the coffee table, and screens filled with tabs. But there were others too. Eleanor was there, as were two other Egyptian-looking vampires who were with Bes showing some other vampire something onscreen. Johan was there too, staring at Alec, trying not to look too hurt by the way Cronin kept him close.

“Are you all right?” Cronin asked Alec quietly.

Alec shook off the splintered feeling from leaping. “Yeah.”

“What do you need?” Cronin looked worried for him. “Anything, and I will get it for you.”

After being attacked and almost killed, after Cronin taking him to the open fields of Scotland and sharing his past—and sharing their first kiss—Alec had a renewed sense of purpose. He was ready now to focus on the war, as they’d called it, focus on the psycho-sociopathic vampire who was hell bent on using him to resurrect Osiris, the god of the dead.

The vampires in the room, all busy quietly gathering intel and strategizing plans, reminded him of his time as a cop. No, Alec didn’t have their vampire abilities, he wasn’t as fast as them, and he didn’t have their mental capabilities.

A vampire he was not. But Alec was two things: he was a good detective, and he was good with weird.

Alec looked at Cronin and smiled. “What I need is food, a few untraceable cell phones, and a shitload of cash.”

Cronin understood why Eiji and Jodis had organized the meeting at his place. It was secure, impenetrable—unless another leaper appeared—and Cronin knew it was the safest place for Alec to be. He just wished for privacy.

And suddenly, after more than twelve hundred years of wishing time would move faster—of wishing his fated one would hurry and arrive—he now wished for time to stop. He wanted to spend precious minutes with Alec untroubled by pending battles. He wanted to tell him more stories of the years he waited, he wanted to explore his body, he wanted to change him—as selfish as it was—so he would have him forever.

Yet when he watched him, he marveled at the humanness of him: how his blood would heat, how his heartbeat spiked and calmed, how he would absentmindedly scratch an itch, bite his lip when in thought, or run his hand through his hair. It was a truly beautiful thing.

Alec read up on some websites on Osiris as he ate, while Cronin answered questions from the others, discussing strategies, tactics and options. He never took his eyes off Alec, though, and had an unquenchable desire to be near him, to touch him. Their brief kisses in the fields at Dún Ad had been Cronin’s first kiss in a very long time, and had been perfect. And it most certainly sealed what he already knew: he wasn’t just fated to Alec. He was falling in love with him.

“What have you learned?” Cronin asked Alec. He sat beside him at the table, their chairs close together, their thighs touching.

“That from six different ‘expert’ documents, all facts—if that’s what you’d call them—vary. Which leads me to believe they’re all wrong.”

Cronin smiled. “There are the books in my study.”

“I might start on them next,” Alec said. “Did you get the phones? And the cash?” Alec cringed a little. “I hate asking for money like that.”

Cronin chuckled and nudged his knee to Alec’s. “Please, think nothing of it. I have more than enough and”—he smiled as he spoke—“what’s mine is yours.”

Alec smiled as well and it seemed only then did he realize how close their faces were. His pupils dilated, his breathing hitched a little, and his heart rate soared. He leaned in closer, and his tongue swept along his bottom lip. Cronin knew Alec was going to kiss him again, and he wanted it like nothing else on the planet.

Jodis cleared her throat, making the two of them pull back. “Uh, Cronin, my dear,” she said sweetly. “We talked about trying to tamp down the sexual tension, yes?”

Eiji shook his head and groaned. “You’re killing us over here.”

Alec blanched. “They can feel that?”

“You give off certain pheromones,” Cronin answered softly. “Apparently.”

Cronin thought Alec might recoil from embarrassment, but instead he laughed. He looked around the room at all the vampires watching him. “You’re welcome.”

Eiji and Eleanor laughed, and Jodis smiled and shook her head. Bes and his family smiled also, but Johan wasn’t too impressed.

Cronin knew that Johan wasn’t strictly pleased that he’d finally found Alec. Johan had long held hopes that, as two vampires with similar inclinations, they would find convenience and pleasure in each other’s company. Cronin had politely refused the offer, and Johan had never pushed the matter, though his affection for Cronin remained.

It also appeared Johan now harbored a distaste for Alec, which offended Cronin greatly. But with a well-placed hand on Alec’s back and a brief but well-aimed glare at Johan, Cronin didn’t need to say a word.

He put the cell phones Alec had requested on the table, and six bundles of hundred-dollar bills in ten-thousand-dollar lots. “Is this enough? There’s plenty more.”