Her Devoted Vampire (5 page)

Bridget narrowed her eyes as she
raised her gaze to meet his again, her hands still holding the bedclothes up.

Safe for whom, you chocolate-eyed kidnapper?

“Normally
you take injured people, like those with stab wounds, to the hospital. Or at
least call the paramedics.” What was she doing in
Gloucester
in a richly decorated bedroom? Was
it
his
bedroom?

There are worse places to be
, a traitorous voice remarked.

“There
was no time, and I knew I could care for you as well or better than any
hospital,” Fredrick replied to her unasked questions.

Riiiiggghhhtt, that’s what all the sociopaths say to
their victims.

“I have to go.” She tried to sit
up again. She’d make it home come hell or high water. Goosebumps zinged along
her leg when it appeared out of the covers.

“Whoa!” She
jerked her legs back under the emerald sheets and stared incredulously at the
man sitting next to her bed. “Where are my clothes?”
And that sexy dress?

“I haven’t had time to get any from
your apartment.” His eyes never dropped from hers. “I’ll send someone
presently.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Presently?
Who uses words like ‘presently’? And how do you know where I live?” She groaned,
frowning. “You looked in my wallet from my coat.”

“That seemed to be the most
logical place to look for your name and home address.”

“That’s just great. A perfect
ending to a perfect day.” She sighed, slumping back in the bed. “Stabbed,
kidnapped, and naked in a stranger’s bed. It just doesn’t get much worse.”

“Except, perhaps, being kidnapped
by a vampire with a house full of werewolves,” he suggested, a half-smile
curling his kissable lips.

She snorted. “Thank God there’s
no such thing as vampires or werewolves.”

He stilled as if the life within
him bled away, leaving nothing but a quiet, waxen shell, and his face lost the
humor in it. Unease crept through her as she stared hard at him, clutching the
covers so tightly her knuckles turned white. The scent of spiced apples shifted
to a dirt smell, like moist earth or the desert after the rain, and her stomach
cramped with visceral fear.

“Thank you.” She cleared her
throat. “Thank you for whatever you did. I think I remember being stabbed. It
hurt like hell. How bad was the damage, and how long have I been here?”

Life seeped back into him as he
cocked his head to one side, his eyes narrowed in consideration. “You have only
been here a few hours. We didn’t do anything but look at your wound. You healed
all by yourself.”

“Yeah, I know I’m healing. I just
want to know what you did to close the wound and how many stitches I needed.”

“I told you. We didn’t do anything.
Your body healed on its own.”

“What are you talking about? What
do you mean, ‘healed’?” She lifted the bed sheets away from her body again to
get a better look at her left side. The skin appeared a little pink at her
waist, but nothing suggesting a stab wound. She looked back up at him, anger
coiling. “What did you do to me?”

Fredrick shook his head. “Nothing,
Ms. Shanahan. I would like to know how you managed to heal so quickly, but it
appears you didn’t know you could do that.”

“Of course I didn’t know I could
do that!” Bridget dropped the bed sheet to her waist. “No one can do that
except in science fiction novels.”

His gaze locked onto her chest,
and a predatory expression flooded his features. An odd combination of
exhilaration and lust zinged through her, which only pissed her off more. She
growled and jerked the sheets back up.

“Nice.”

He coughed and had the grace to
look chagrined. “Forgive me, but I’ve found it very difficult to turn down an
opportunity to view such beauty.”

“Focus, Mr. MacGregor. You
brought me here, and I wake up to find myself naked with a stranger asking me
how I can heal like…like—”

“Like
the Elder Races.”

Bridget
blinked. “Elder Races?”
Why does that
sound familiar?

“Yes,
like vampires and werewolves.”

Okay, this guy has completely lost his mind.

His lips
tightened, and he shook his head with a sigh before he rose and strode across
the room to a small bureau. She watched his ass the whole way, trying not to
appreciate how well his jeans fit. His legs weren’t bad, either.

She missed
what he’d picked up, but she caught sight of her pocketknife when he flipped
open the longest blade and held it against his palm. Before she could say
anything, he dragged the blade across the flesh of his hand.

“What
are you—?”

He
hissed in pain, but very little blood flowed from his palm; and the wound
zipped itself together like a Ziploc bag. Bridget stared hard at his hand,
wondering when she’d entered the
Twilight
Zone
. The old 50s show would have explained everything, but when he snapped
the pocketknife closed, her feelings of unease settled happily into her guts
along with reality. Who was this guy? Why did she feel this overwhelming
attraction for him? And why the hell didn’t he bleed when cut? No one’s skin
zipped itself together. If that was the case, there’d be thousands of doctors
out of work.

“Who are you?” She shrank from
him.

“I told you that before,” he said
as he causally put the pocketknife away. “My name is Fredrick MacGregor.”

“Okay, then, Mr. Obtuse, maybe a
better question should be,
what are you?!
”

“You’re right. That
is
a better question.” Fredrick offered
her a mischievous smile, but showed no teeth. “I’m a vampire. That’s obvious
enough. However, I would like to know what
you
are.”

“What I am is pissed off and
wondering where in God’s name are my clothes!”

His face scrunched up, and he dug
a finger into one ear at her shrill exclamation, but otherwise appeared unmoved.
That just pissed her off more, and she welcomed it. Being mad was preferable to
being scared, and right now, she was plenty scared with his admission of being
a vampire.

Why should I believe him? He’s delusional!

If her
clothes were gone, she’d just scrounge something at hand. Scanning the room
beyond his immobile visage, she didn’t see anything resembling her clothes, but
she’d just use the sheet until something better presented itself.

Bridget gathered her strength to
move, but checked herself when someone else came into the room. The woman was
tall and had black hair, but her eyes glittered in the most unusual color of
gold in the overhead light. Her movements had the liquid grace of a predator,
but when she saw Bridget looking, she smiled gently as she carried a tray laden
with a soup bowl, mug, and bread. Bridget’s stomach growled with appreciation,
but she didn’t want to eat here. She needed to get home.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” the
black haired woman said with satisfaction. “I hope you have rested well. Fredrick
has been a gentleman, right?” She seemed amused as if at some inner joke. “I
brought you something to eat because it never occurs to him to feed his
guests.” She grinned as she set the tray down on the table next to the bed and shot
a glance at the man sitting on the bed. “Have you asked her yet, Fredrick?”

“Asked me what?” Bridget raised her eyebrow. “And where are my
clothes?”

“We had to cut them off you to get to your wound.” The dark-haired gave
her contrite look. “We’ll get more for you soon. Until then, you should just
rest.”

“So you
did
do something
to make my wound heal.” Bridget crossed her arms over her chest and dropped her
chin.

“No, we didn’t do anything to you.” The woman’s face showed
surprise. “Your body took care of itself. Didn’t he tell you? Fredrick, what
have you been doing up here all this time if not talking to her?”

“I
have
been talking to
her. She doesn’t believe in vampires
or
werewolves, so I was showing her that we do exist.” He mirrored Bridget’s pose,
crossing his arms.

“You have to admit, to the uninitiated it would come across as
rather fantastic.”

“Everyone knows about werewolves and vampires.”

“And they think we’re myths, Fredrick. We’re safer because of it.”

“You don’t think I know that?”

It was evidently an old argument, well worn and comfortable to the
combatants, but they appeared to have forgotten she was even there.
This could work to your advantage
. She
tried to think of what she could do without any clothes. The answer came back
as “not much”.

“I’m sorry to interrupt this fascinating discussion, but before I
start sharing your delusion, might I have something to eat?” Bridget gestured
for the tray.

Fredrick gave her a dry look, but
the woman smiled brightly. “Yes, of course. I’m Cynthia Wolfwright, Fredrick’s
head of security.”

“Oh?” Bridget blinked innocently.
“Does he have problems with break-ins?”

“Not while I’m around,” Cynthia said
easily. “He tends to sleep during the day, so he has a few of us to watch out
for him.”

Bridget picked up the spoon. “Even
when you turn furry?”

“Especially then.” Cynthia grinned
widely, and Bridget counted far too many teeth to belong to a human. Bridget
lost her smile as unease skittered up her spine again, but Cynthia turned her
face toward their host. “I’m sure Fredrick will take care of anything you need
tonight, but I’ll be around in the morning to check in on you. And if he threatens
to bite you, just throw cilantro at him.”

“Cilantro?”

“Yes. He
hates
the smell of cilantro. Have a
good night.” Cynthia trotted out the door with a knowing smile.

“Have a good night?” Bridget coughed
through her soup. “What is she talking about? I have to get home! I can’t stay
here.” She shoved the tray off her lap with a clatter of dishes and sloshing
soup. Pain flickered in her side, but its intensity resembled overexertion
rather than invasive injury.

“You are in need of rest.” Fredrick
grabbed her arms and held her steady in the bed. His hands were gentle, but she
felt as if she fought against iron bands. “You experienced a traumatic event, and
while your body heals quickly, it is still healing. Rest is the necessary
component of that.”

“‘Necessary component’?” she
repeated with disbelief. “Are you hearing yourself? Look, buddy, I don’t know
you.”
Except when we danced.
“You’ve kidnapped
me to
Gloucester
,
stripped me naked, and claim to be a vampire. My next thought, if your delusion
keeps up, is you’re considering using me as a meal. In which case, I’m hoping
there’s a lot of garlic in this soup.” She eyed him a moment. “Or cilantro.”

Fredrick smiled without showing
his teeth, amused. The corners of his mouth curled upwards, and his eyes
crinkled at their edges, making her heart flutter.

Damn, why is that so sexy?

“I did consider using you as a
meal without your consent, but I find you far too intriguing to feast off of
you without so much as a by-your-leave.” He lowered her back into the pillows
and rescued the bread from the tray, offering it to her. “Here, keep eating. It
will help you heal along with resting your body.”

Okay, that wasn’t so sexy. How am I going to get out of here?

She took the bread as she
considered her next move. Maybe she didn’t need the sheet after all. Of course,
once she got out of the house and down the road, she might have a tough time
explaining her nakedness, but at least she’d be free. Better to be arrested for
indecent exposure than to stay with a madman. There was the small problem of
freezing in the cold autumn weather, but she’d worry about that later. She made
a show of relaxing and pretended complacency, waiting for an opportunity to bolt.

He has to sleep sometime
. She watched
him covertly, her eyes roaming over the parts of his body she could see.
What would it be like to sleep
with
him
?

Shut up!

Something about him made him
beautiful in a non-traditional way. She liked his
eyes the most, with their warm chocolate depths full of secrets, but the dark
brows and neatly trimmed black goatee defined his features in a striking way. Her
hands ached to stroke the heavy drape of hair falling down his broad, muscular
back, and they twitched, almost crushing the bread to crumbs. Attraction flared
as she took in his rounded pectoral muscles that bunched when he crossed his
arms over his chest. With him sitting so close, his natural scent filled her
nose, and it reminded her of chocolate truffles with a hint of sea salt. The
sweet saltiness had always appealed to her, and she found herself delighting in
the scent even while she was held hostage.

At least he’s tall enough. It would suck if he was any shorter.
Whoa! What the fuck? I’m
not
interested
!