Luscious Craving (13 page)

And there he was. His always slightly too long hair sweeping low across his forehead, but not quite low enough to conceal his starlit eyes.
Eyes that had won me with their very first look.

Ash.
The vampire I both hated and loved with all my heart.

He came to me
, I thought. Just the way he had in my dream.
Gone back on his promise to make me come to him, to make me crawl.
And then I realized what he was holding in his hands, sliding it through his fingers as if he were shaping it with his touch: a black silk scarf.
Bibi’s
scarf.

I was across the casino as if fired from a gun.

“You bastard,” I said. “What have you done?”

His eyes kindled with emotion then, something I couldn’t quite identify. “Lovely to see you, too,” Ash said, and I felt the way his voice seemed to skim along every inch of my body, stroking it to life, and hated myself.

“Thanks for the benefit of the doubt. For your information, I am your friend’s savior, not her persecutor.” He passed the scarf from one hand to the other once again. “The situation could still be considered fluid, of course.”

“Stop playing games, Ash,” I said. “Just tell me if she’s all right.”

“Your friend
Bibi
,” Ash said, as the scarf played through his fingers, “is just fine. No thanks to you, I might add. A true friend would never have taken her to a place like Taste at all.”

Precisely what I had just been telling myself.
Which didn’t make hearing it from him one bit easier.

“I tried,” I said, but even I could hear how pathetic I sounded. “I tried.”

“Try harder next time,” Ash suggested, and his voice had steel inside it now. “If it hadn’t been for me,
Bibi
would be dead.”

I felt the world swoop. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, Ash’s own were on me, his expression utterly unreadable now.

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “And now I owe you one.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, you do,” he said. “A simple
thank-you
might have sufficed, but I think we’ve gone beyond that now. You clearly expect me to extract some sort of payment in order for me to return her to you, safe and sound.
Very well.
I’m happy to oblige.”

“I hate you,” I said.

“No. You don’t. You want me, Candace, just as I want you. Your friend
Bibi
has provided us with an opportunity to address that fact, that’s all.”

“What sort of opportunity?” I asked, though I thought I knew.

“An exchange,” Ash said, calmly.
“Your friend, for your time.
Give me a night with you, Candace. Give us a night together. I’ll return your friend the following morning.”

This cannot be happening
, I thought. I had dreamed of Ash coming back to me, of one night together with no strings, and no holds barred. And now he was here, proposing the very thing I had imagined.

“What happened to making me crawl?” I taunted, and saw him smile.

“Perhaps you will, before our night is out.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“So we have a deal then?” Ash asked.

There was really only one answer, and we both knew it.

“I want
Bibi
returned right now,” I said. “Or we don’t deal at all.”

“Done,” Ash said at once. Without another word, he turned and walked toward the
Sher’s
entrance and out onto the street. I trailed behind.

An enormous white stretch limo was pulled up beneath the awning that covered the drive. Ash stepped to the back door, opened it,
held
out a hand. At once, a slender arm reached out. The fingers grasped his, and Ash gently drew forth the occupant of the car. It was
Bibi
.
Her eyes, unfocused and wide.
She swayed on her feet, and I rushed forward to enfold her in a tight embrace.

“
Bibi
!
Thank God.”

“Candace?”
Bibi’s
voice was shaky, but other than that, she seemed all right. Appearances could be deceiving, however. I knew that well enough.

“You should go on inside,” I instructed. “Go back to the coffee bar, have Denise pull you an espresso. I’ll be there just as soon as I can.” I took her face between my hands, gazed down into her dazzled eyes. “You stay there until I get there,
Bibi
. You hear me?”

She blinked, and her eyes began to clear. “Of course I do,” she said. “There’s no need to treat me like a child.” She moved inside the
Sher
without looking back. I don’t think she realized Ash was there at all.

His doing
, I realized suddenly.
For my benefit, as much as
Bibi’s
own.
He knows how much she hates him.

“Our bargain,” Ash said quietly. “Tomorrow night. I’ll send the car.”

I should have known
, I thought, even as I battled back surprise. Ash wouldn’t want to cash in right away. He would want to make me wait, to wonder and to suffer as I had made him suffer.
Anticipation.
It was the oldest aphrodisiac in the book.

“We’ll see who crawls first,” I said.

Ash smiled. “Yes, we will. Won’t we?”

Bibi
had no memory of the past twelve hours, for which I was profoundly grateful, and for which I owed Ash, no doubt. Just as I had no doubt he would seek to extract his own form of payment when we met the following night.

I got
Bibi
home, put her to bed,
then
sat by her bedside until I knew she was well and truly asleep. Much as I hated the thought of vampire
mojo
messing with her brain, I sincerely hoped she never regained her memory of last night. Never knew how close she had come to disaster.

Never knew how close I had let her come.

When I had watched her quiet breathing for almost half an hour, I got up and let myself out of the house. It was only when I went to drive away that I realized her silk scarf was still on the front seat of my car. I reached for it, and Ash’s scent rose up. Unable to help myself, I pressed the silk to my face, inhaled deeply.

He wants me
, I thought.
Enough to use any means at his disposal just to have me for one night.
I was
so
accustomed to thinking of Ash as the one with all the power, the control. But in spite of the way he had trapped me within it, I wasn’t the one who had been compelled to drive this devil’s bargain. Perhaps he was more vulnerable than he appeared. In which case, I would have to be stronger.

I folded the scarf and tucked it into the glove compartment. Starting now, I was not going to spend the next twenty-four hours brooding over Ash. He could wait until tomorrow.

Eight

San Francisco
, two years earlier
Ash

The moon was a silver disc, floating in a cloudless sky. When I looked up, I could see it through the skylight in the study of my house. In just a few moments the Board would summon me to the
Nigredo
, the test of the dark. And on this night, as I had one month ago, I would triumph.

There could be no other option.

I had not been idle in the month since the meeting with the Board. As the Chairman himself had suggested, I had done my best to use my time well. And so, or so it seemed, had my competitor, my fellow supplicant, Sloane. The inquiries he had been making about me had reached my ears.
If he hoped I would feel threatened, he was doomed to disappointment
, I thought. If anything, I was flattered. I hadn’t bothered with Sloane. But the fact that he felt obliged to dig into my background confirmed what I already knew: I was the stronger.

Keep digging
, I thought. I have nothing to hide. I had even continued and deepened my relationship, with the human woman I had met on the same night as my first encounter with the Board. I delved into the history of the Board hoping to find any advantage that would help me triumph. And as I studied and thought about the Chairman, and his absolute authority and power, I began to feel that I belonged on the Board. My entire past, my fascination with antiquities, my long, isolated years as a vampire, and now my relationship with this woman—all had been building to this moment. Yes, the woman was somehow a part of it. The fact that she and the Board and I had all come together on the same night could not be coincidence.

I stood for a moment, gazing up at the moon.
What are you doing right now, my sweet
? I wondered. And then there was no more time for questions, no more time for reflection. I saw a single wisp of blood-red cloud move across the moon and knew the summons from the Board had come.

Moments later, I stood in the Board’s great chamber, clad in the simple linen garment I had worn before. Once more, Sloane was at my side.

“You are about to undergo the first of three trials,” the Chairman informed us. “Three, to correspond with the objects that comprise our great quest: the Emblems of
Thoth
. For centuries we have sought them. Only when the Emblems are once again united can the god’s curse upon us be undone.

“The first is already in our possession.
The second, very close.
The third remains to be discovered, but its time cannot be far off. Soon, the true spell for immortality will be spoken. Then we will no longer be merely undead, dependent upon the living blood of others. We will be immortal, invincible,
incapable
of being destroyed. All this will be bestowed by the third trial, the
Rubedo
, the test of blood.

“But the time for that has not yet come. First, we must reestablish the sacred number, the seven who are the Board. Tonight, we will begin to see which of you is worthiest to join our great quest, to earn our great reward.”

The Chairman paused, gazing at Sloane and me, each in turn.

“Tonight’s trial is the
Nigredo
. To pass it, you must surrender to the darkness. Think on this, and let the trial begin.”

He raised his hand, and darkness was precisely what engulfed us.

When my senses functioned once again, I was in a room out of time.
An ancient Egyptian burial chamber.
There were no windows, no source of light, only a faint glow that seemed to come from the very air itself. Every wall was covered with figures and symbols I recognized from my research on the Board. The gods of ancient
Egypt
: the jackal-headed
Anubis
; the falcon god
Horus
; the lion-headed war goddess
Sekhmet
;
Bastet
, with the body of a woman and head of a cat. And, of course, there was
Thoth
, himself.
Fitting imagery for vampires
, I suddenly thought. For we have human bodies but are human no longer. Alchemical symbols danced across the ceiling.
Planets, elements, processes
for turning base metals into gold.

I was chained to the wall.

I gave a slight tug to the manacles, testing their strength. As the metal made greater contact with my flesh, pain flashed along my arms. I strained upward to gaze at them more closely. They were lined with silver, the metal lethal to vampires.