Knight Predator (14 page)

She took my cold hands into her gentle, warm ones. “Who was she?”

The silence stretched out as memory of my youth, both good and bad, teased me. “Rose Carter McDonald. She was my best friend when I was a child and we became lovers just before and then after this happened to me.”

“I thought that might have been your mother or something.”

I gave a rueful snort of laugher. If only it were that simple. “No, that most certainly wasn’t my mother.”

“How often do you go and see her?”

“As often as I can.” I was silent for a moment, collecting my thoughts. I was still buffeted by my memories of Rose and made a solid effort to push the yammering voices back so Bronwyn and I could seriously talk. “All the nurses think it’s hilarious that she talks to me like I’m her best friend. They don’t know that I really am, and I’m the only one she still recognizes. Her family doesn’t bother visiting much anymore because she’s not at all what she once was.

She’s pretty much incapable of functioning as they want her to. I take care of her.”

I had known her children but had distanced myself from all of them, partially because Rose had wanted me to, partially because I didn’t want to attract any of their unwanted attention. We had not gotten on for quite some time, and they had abandoned her a long time ago. I paid all the bills for the home she was in, and they didn’t know it. They had all but forgotten about her, content to leave her as a whispered rumor of a crazy, great grandmother. There was no big inheritance for them, and she had lost more than one of her marbles.

“That’s horrible.” Bronwyn’s eyes showed her empathy for my beloved Rose and her disgust at Rose’s family.

I squeezed her hands. “Yes, it is. Do you want to know how old she is?”

“Let me guess. About eighty?” Bronwyn sounded distracted.

I gave a small, bitter smile. “No, try ninety-eight years old. She’s just a bit older than me.”

Bronwyn stared at me, gobsmacked. “Huh?”

“That’s right, Bronnie, she’s fifteen years older than me. That’s what I really look like. That’s what you think you’re in love with.” I drew a deep breath. “As I’ve been telling you all along, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. I have been a vampire for more than sixty years. I am now at the time when all my human friends are dying of old age.”

Bronwyn said nothing, just stared at me, realization flooding her eyes. “Is that why you took me to meet her?”

“I am a vampire and I will not age,” I said. “There are so few things that can kill me—and no, a stake through the heart won’t do it—that I’m virtually immortal. I will never change. I do not have a human body, and not breathing is only where the fun begins. Let’s just say that I did love you.” That was the hardest thing I ever forced from my lips, and it was a struggle to continue. “Let’s also say that we became lovers. Do you really want to watch me stay the same while you grow old? Do you really want to see me dying inside every moment knowing that you are but an eye blink in my life? If you really loved me, would you want me to take up the same death watch with you as I’m doing with Rose? Do you want me to show up at your death bed with a new lover?”

She tried to look away, tears beginning, but I cupped her face so she was forced to meet my blazing eyes. “Can’t handle it, can you, kid?”

Bronwyn snarled and pushed me savagely back, her hands on my chest. Then she grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me forward so I had to face her furious green eyes. “Then make me one of you!”

With the speed born of fury and my vampire’s reflexes, I pinned her against the wall, my white knuckled hand grasping the lapels of her shirt, my body holding her in place. “Have you learnt nothing, mortal? We are unchanging in a changing world. We are emotional creatures. Of necessity we live a solitary life. You know why that is?

It’s because a relationship between vampires is truly forever, much longer than any mortal marriage. Okay, so you want to be a vampire because you love me. Fine. But what happens in fifty years time when you decide you’re sick of me? Everyone you knew and loved will be either dead or dying. You can’t form any other relationships with mortals because they are just that—mortals. You’ve met a bunch of other vampires and after such a long association they make you sick as well. What are you going to do? Make more vampires? I hate to tell you this, but we tend to keep clear of one another because we fight and kill each other. Think human with an endless life span. It’s a ruthless and lonely life, Bronwyn Hunter.”

She punched me in the ribs, and the fight went out of me and I put her down. What an arsehole I was. I could have been much gentler with her. What made it all so much worse was that I finally admitted to myself that I was falling in love with her, against my better judgment.

She sat against the wall, knees pulled up to her chin, face cradled in her hands. “So that’s it—friends or strangers. Fine, I chose strangers.

I’ll leave you to wallow in your own loneliness after next week.
You
still don’t get it do you? Life is a dynamic thing and even though you don’t breathe like I do, and your blood is cold, you are
still alive
. The very emotions that make you a vampire also make you a human being.

Things
can
and
do
work
if you at least try
.” She studied me with cold, angry eyes. “By the way, I don’t
think
I love you, I
know
I love you.”

She waved a hand at me, a curt gesture. “I also know that you love me every bit as much as I love you, you stubborn fuck.”

She levered herself to her feet and stalked off, leaving me standing there, all alone, in my living room.

It didn’t matter that we felt the same types of emotions. It didn’t matter that we were probably quite passionately in love with each other. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend the idea of eternity and not dying. I couldn’t make her a vampire, because I knew what lay in store for her. Other vampires I had met were quite cavalier about adding numbers to our ranks. I was not one of them. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. That was why I didn’t even want to try.

If I allowed myself to love her that way, then I would be opening myself to heartbreak. She would move on from me in perhaps weeks, and I would be left mourning her loss. My life was complicated enough without adding that to it.

I had to hand it to myself, really. It was a wonderful justification.

I could sit behind the barriers of age and adult emotion, writing her off as a foolish, young woman. The problem was that it was pure bullshit. Bronwyn’s emotions were not so cut-and-dry and I could not really dismiss them out of hand. I was back at square one of confusion.

Okay. So why was she moving out next week and not sooner? Her final exams were done at the end of the week.

Oh. Her formal was next week, and I’d agreed to go to it as her partner. Besides, I was looking after her, and it was up to me to make sure she was okay, right? And her parents certainly weren’t going to make an appearance, given that they had severed ties with her, right?

Right.

Bugger.

I didn’t really want to go to the thing, but I’d promised her. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Despite my rationalizations, and my resolve not to let anything happen between us, my feelings for her were slipping from my grasp to invade my every thought and action. I simply could not get her out of my mind and my heart, no matter how hard I tried. I always listened for her soft footfalls, searched for the gentle smell of her perfume, longed for her light, teasing touch on my cold body.

I was alone for the rest of that night. Bronwyn stayed away from me and was still up when I was forced to go to ground.

She unnecessarily locked herself in her bedroom. She needn’t have bothered. I needed some time alone to think, partly because of our conversation, and partly because visits to Rose always took me down memory lane and put one of my feet into the land of depression.

That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the week. We didn’t talk at all, and we didn’t see one another, even canceling our standing Friday night horror movie date. I did my best to avoid her as each of us was locked in her own private hell of misery. It was a horrible experience, at least for me, because I had gotten used to her presence and I missed her a great deal.

I went out in the evenings, looking for trouble and drinking it all in.

I even went looking for Allenby just to beat the shit out of him and his accursed bike. As I did so, I could almost feel her worried green eyes boring into my back, waiting for me to come home, even though she had no idea what I was doing with myself. I could feel her almost sigh with relief when I walked through the front door unscathed. She went out drinking, and I would sit up waiting for her until dawn, wanting her to come home before the sun forced me to ground, but she never did. Every time she did it, I wondered if that evening would be the last evening, but it never was. She contented herself with torturing me, teasing me with her just out of reach presence.

She couldn’t leave me any more than I could leave her.

I had time to think. Lots of time. Did not telling someone you loved them mean you loved them any less? What would cause more pain, traveling through immortality aloof and alone, or opening myself up to Bronwyn and having what may be years of fun?

Finally, after one of the longest weeks of my life, the evening of the formal arrived.

Just after sundown, I waited at the bottom of the stairs for her to come down, aware that we were already late. We hadn’t been together since that night I’d taken her to the nursing home, and I wondered what we would say to each other.

I hadn’t feasted due to our time constraints, as we had to get to the venue before she technically graduated.

I glanced at the grandfather clock. I was glad, for once, for its slow, measured ticking. We really were cutting it quite close.

I heard her footsteps at the top of the stairs and made the fatal mistake of looking up at her. She was dressed in a long, black evening gown, electing to leave her hair down because I think she knew I loved it that way. She wore only the slightest hint of makeup and for that I was grateful. Normally, when she went out, she tended to look a little like a raccoon, and that always annoyed the hell out of me. Why cover such natural, unconscious beauty with war paint?

The whole effect was designed to drive me wild, and it did. I made sure she didn’t know how wild. Unfortunately, I think the knowledge that I was a vampire and what it meant for us both overwhelmed the other, simple fact of my existence: I was a grown woman, young in body, and just because I sometimes didn’t follow through on my urges didn’t mean I didn’t have them and didn’t want to do something about them. On the other hand, she was probably banking on the fact that I would find her irresistible, simply to wear down my resolve. She sadly underestimated my self control.

“Bronnie, you look stunning.” I was quiet and awed and the easy familiarity slipped out past my defenses.

“Thanks, my dear angel. You look pretty hot yourself.” She smirked, and her eyes locked onto mine. Although she tried to hide it, she could not quell the spark in her eyes at seeing me, confirming she knew what she was doing to me, and what I was doing to her.

I looked down at my attire and snorted. “Well, at least it doesn’t show too much skin.”

She laughed and took my arm, and our bodies touched. “I don’t think it shows enough,” she whispered. “Well, let’s make this evening memorable since it’s probably going to be our last one.”

I struggled to hide the bolt of pain. “Mmmm, but I think yours does.” I made my intimate, leisurely study of her beautiful, young body last long enough for her to squirm. I waved a hand. “Okay, fine, let’s be on our way. But I have to stop for a quick bite before we get there.” I took a step toward the door.

She smiled up at me and pulled me to a halt. She traced my cheek-bone with her finger, and my flesh betrayed me as I swallowed. Every nerve ending sprang to attention, and my skin tingled in the wake of her electric touch. “Sure, gorgeous, whatever you say.”

I slipped an arm around the small of her back, pulled her in close, and nibbled her ear. I planted a small kiss, an intimate caress, on the soft skin under her jawbone. “I say.”

She trembled and wriggled out of my grasp, but not before she sank into me for a second or so. I struggled to hide my triumphant smirk.

It was nice to see a crusty old shit like me still had it in her.

I held out my hand, and she slipped her hand into mine, and our fingers tangled together. I gave her hand a gentle squeeze, and she moved closer to me. I escorted her to the doors, shortening my stride to match hers, and on the way out I scooped up my hat off the hall table with a flourish. She gave a gentle laugh, but didn’t comment, and she tried not to look at me.

She linked her arm through mine, and like the perfect companion, I led her out to the car.

I helped her into the sports car, getting a good dose of cleavage in the process. I averted my eyes, not wanting to start down the path of trouble that started there and led to her almost haunted eyes.

I chose a route that took us through the worst part of town so I could find what I was looking for. Bronwyn started when I pulled over next to an inner city park, populated with homeless people and young men wanting to do bad deeds to unsuspecting passers by.

I leapt out of the car and ran noiselessly to a shadowy figure. I crash tackled him almost soundlessly, with something less than my usual finesse. I had to feed quickly and was in no mood to be subtle about it.

“C’mon, Crowley, we don’t have all night.” Bronwyn leant by the side of the car and tapped her foot impatiently. She glanced at her watch. She was used to me feeding, having had plenty of time to adjust to it when we had gone romping in the city before I had confirmed her suspicion that I was a vampire.

“Okay, okay, I’m here.” I emerged from the bushes, giving myself a quick check to make sure I still looked all right.

“You look wonderful as always, sweetie. Now can we go please?”