Night Huntress 03.5 - Devil to Pay (5 page)

He was lathering his hair for a second time when Elise stepped into the shower. Blake froze so completely that he didn’t even wipe his eyes when the suds trickled down to them.

She was naked, her body slender and sleek and so unbelievably beautiful that Blake wondered for a moment if he were hallucinating. Elise took the shampoo off the alcove in a nonchalant fashion, pausing to let her gaze sweep over him.

“Without all that dirt, you’re younger than I thought you were,” she said, sounding faintly surprised. Her hand swiped his face, brushing the soap from his eyes and flicking his sudsy hair back. “You look completely different.”

I could say the same thing about you,
Blake thought, unable to tear his eyes away from her pale skin, long legs, petite round breasts, and tight cluster of hair between her thighs. His cock noticed, too, waking up and stretching as if to get a better look.

Blake spun around. Despite everything he’d been through, it looked like embarrassment wasn’t beyond him after all.

“Uh, Elise, I don’t think you should be showering with me,” Blake managed.

He heard the water hit her as she moved closer. God, the thought of how Elise would look with rivers of water streaking down her skin made him harder. All at once, the shower stall felt far too small.

“Why not?
I have to keep watch over you, and I needed to shower. I left you alone to relieve your bodily functions, but it’s more efficient for us to shower together.”

She sounded utterly clinical, as if discussing carpooling versus taking a bus. Obviously, being naked in the shower with him meant nothing to Elise. Was it the demon in him that made her consider him as less than a man? Or was it the fact that he was human, and she was a vampire?

Either way, Elise’s complete dismissal made anger flare in Blake. He turned around, his erection jutting out and almost hitting her in the stomach.

“As you can see,” Blake began, “there’s a problem with your
efficiency
strategy.”

Startled, her gaze traveled over Blake in an entirely different manner than it had before, pausing at his chest and stomach before moving lower. With her mouth half-open and the water clinging to her just as sensuously as Blake had imagined, his cock jumped, like it was begging for her touch.

She turned and walked out of the shower without another word. Blake closed his eyes and let out a slow sigh. Then he began to attack his hair with the shampoo again.

Elise was shaken by her reaction to Blake in the shower. Seeing a naked man
shouldn’t
have had any effect on her. Becoming a vampire tended to kill modesty along with a heartbeat, so the sight of bare flesh didn’t hold the same provocative taboo that it did for humans. Plus, she was used to showering in front of strangers, considering she took the majority of her showers at the fitness club.

So the wave of need that hit Elise when she saw Blake naked was a complete surprise. Blake was long-limbed and muscular, his thinness making his body look chiseled instead of gaunt. The dark, crisp hair that covered Blake’s chest narrowed when it reached his stomach,
then
led in a trail to his groin before lightly dusting his thighs. Looking at Blake, Elise had been overwhelmed by an urge to touch him. She’d stroked his face and flicked her fingers through his hair before she could even stop herself.

It never occurred to Elise that Blake would want her. She was a vampire, he was human. Plus, she was participating in his death, a fact Blake was well aware of. For all his agreement over why he had to die, still, Elise’s position as one of his executioners would hardly warrant affectionate feelings.

Of course, maybe that desire was Blake’s natural reaction to a naked woman—any woman, even her, cold lifeless thing that she was. The thought relieved and saddened Elise.
Just stop,
she told herself.
It was one thing when you were forcing yourself to care about Blake to keep from killing him. Now you’re caring too much. Why can’t you feel things like a normal person, instead of it constantly being all or nothing?

Blake’s coming out of the bathroom interrupted her mental chastisement. He had a towel around his hips, his black hair touching his shoulders and curling from moisture.

“Sorry,” he said, blue eyes steady. “Maybe group showers are just what vampires do, but they’re more than I can handle.”

Elise had to look away. Blake’s earnestness made her heart give an odd lurch, like something was yanking at it.

“I’m the one who’s sorry,” she replied, fighting to keep her voice cool. “It won’t happen again.”

Blake cleared his throat like he was about to say something,
then
stopped. Elise glanced up, waiting, but his mouth was set in a tight line. Whatever it was he’d been about to say, he’d decided against it.

“Here.” Elise indicated the chair across from her. “Sit. I’ll shave you.”

Mencheres had dropped off those essentials along with some clothes for Blake, since they were close to the same size. Blake didn’t argue about shaving himself. He just sat in the chair and tilted his head back.

Elise approached, her gaze fastened on the long line of Blake’s throat where his pulse throbbed so temptingly. She licked her lips. What would it be like to taste him?

Stop it,
she rebuked herself at once.
He needs your help, not your selfishness.

She lathered Blake’s neck, working quickly with the razor so she didn’t have to be so near to him. Blake’s scent was a mixture of nervousness, weariness, and something else. Something spicy Elise couldn’t name since she hadn’t been able to determine Blake’s natural scent underneath the camouflaging odors of blood and death before. His pulse increased every time she made a stroke with the razor. Was he worried about a vampire holding a sharp object to his throat? Wondering whether she’d be overcome with bloodlust if she accidentally nicked his skin?

“You’re in no danger of my feeding from you,” Elise told him after he twitched when she leaned in close to shave under his jaw. Even with the dabs of shaving cream clinging to his face, without his former shaggy beard, he was more handsome than Elise first realized.

“Do I still smell too bad?” he teased.

No. You smell wonderful, and I’d like to bury my fangs in your throat and hear you moan while I suck your blood.

“I’m not, ah, hungry,” Elise stuttered. Where had her icy aloofness gone? Why was he affecting her so much?

She finished with a last upward stroke of the razor, jumping back to gesture to the clothes on the bed.

“These are for you. I’ll leave while you change.”

Elise almost ran from the room, slamming the door and leaning against it while clutching the razor in her hand.

Chapter Nine

T
he largest salt flats in the United States were in
Utah
. Flying would have been the quickest way to get there, but even though Mencheres had a private plane, he didn’t choose that option. Maybe he was trying to give Blake a couple days to prepare for his death.

Driving was another possibility, but that came with its own set of difficulties, the least of which was comfort.
Stuffing Blake into a backseat for over two days while driving him to his execution was cruel.
Also, the demon had a greater chance of causing an accident and killing Blake—with plenty of people around to jump into—if they were all crammed into a car.

Therefore, Elise was relieved when Mencheres said they’d take a train. It would just be the three of them. Bones had muttered something about it being too soon since the last train he’d taken, whatever that meant, and since he still held a grudge against the demon for its hours of tormenting Cat, Elise was glad Bones and Cat weren’t going.

Mencheres booked two bedroom cabins for the journey. It would take them almost three days to get to the Bonneville Salt Flats in
Utah
. Once they boarded at Union Station, Mencheres closed himself in the cabin with Blake and ordered Elise to sleep in the other one. She’d stayed awake during the night and through the morning to watch over Blake. The demon hadn’t taken him again, however, and Blake had slept like he’d been drugged. It seemed with his fate sealed, he felt relieved, while Elise was the one struggling with anger and doubt.

Once alone in the cabin, Elise didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, but her body had different ideas. The rocking of the train felt comfortingly familiar, lulling her to sleep even though her mind kept whirling. When she woke up, the sky was turning dark shades of orange and blue.
Almost dusk.
She’d slept the rest of the day away.

Elise bolted out of the narrow pull-down bed, guilt filling her. There went six of the fifty-five hours remaining of Blake’s life, and she’d spent it slumbering while Blake had been shut in a cabin with a vampire he barely knew. True, he barely knew her, either, but compared to the time Blake had spent with Mencheres, Elise was an old friend.

She was on her feet and whipping the door open to the neighboring cabin in the next second. Blake looked up in surprise to see her in the doorframe, but Mencheres just raised a brow.

“With your haste, one might think you were afraid I’d lost him.”

Blake was staring rather fixedly at her midsection. Elise glanced down and felt a spurt of embarrassment, of all things. Not at the fact that she was shy over only wearing her shirt and underwear, but at how that revealed her anxiousness to see him as soon as she’d woken.

“I… thought I heard something,” Elise lied.

Her sire gave her a look that said he knew better, but Blake seemed to buy it. He dragged his gaze away from her and coughed.

“I was about to go to the dining cab and get dinner. Did you want to come with me?”

“Yes,” Elise said at once.

A smile spread across Blake’s mouth. It transformed his face into something dazzling, but it also looked so unfamiliar on him, Elise realized this might be the first time she’d seen him smile.

“You might want to put something else on.”

“Oh.” There went that flash of embarrassment again, as if the clock had magically rewound, and she was a girl with her first beau.
“Of course.
I’ll be back soon.”

Elise returned to her cabin, shaking her head at the strange way she was acting—and feeling.

Blake leaned back in the chair across from Mencheres. There was a pull-down table between them that doubled as a chessboard. They’d played seven games, and the vampire had beaten him every time.

“She likes you,” Mencheres said quietly once Elise left the cabin.

A snort escaped Blake.
I wish.
“She can hardly tolerate speaking to me for longer than five minutes, so you’ll excuse me if I disagree.”

“Youth,” Mencheres muttered.
“So blind.
Speaking of that, checkmate.”

Blake looked at the board.
How the hell?
“You tricky bastard,” he said, seeing the trap he’d fallen into.

Mencheres gave Blake a tolerant look. “I was alive before chess was even invented. If you could beat me, then I wouldn’t have learned much in my years, would I?”

And Blake knew Mencheres had been around for a
lot
of years. Over four thousand, the vampire had stated casually, as if that wasn’t a staggering number. He’d also told Blake about the history of vampires. How Cain had been the first after God cursed him with forever drinking blood as a reminder that he’d spilled his brother Abel’s. That they lived in structured societies ruled by a head
Master, and—contrary
to Hollywood’s frequent assertion—wood through the heart was ineffective in killing them. Blake didn’t ask why Mencheres was so free in divulging this information. Who was Blake going to tell? He’d be dead soon.

Elise came back. Her hair was wet, making it appear a darker blond. Her cabin must have had a shower in it like this one did. She wore drawstring cotton pants, which seemed to be her norm, but instead of a zip-up hoodie over her tank top, her arms and shoulders were bare. Blake’s gaze lingered over her pale, radiant skin, remembering what it looked like without clothes covering it.

Figures he’d meet a woman like Elise now, when he was at the lowest point of his soon-to-be-ended life. Blake wished he could have met her before the demon, when he’d be able to take Elise to a real dinner, not just a quick bite on the train’s dining car. Or to a Broadway play, or hell, to a swanky blood bank, if that’s what she liked. Elise had shown him more compassion than most of the humans he’d come across in the past several months. He only wished there was something he could do to thank her.

There wasn’t, of course. All he could do to show his appreciation was to make the last chapter of his life as easy on her as possible. So few things were still within his control, but he could meet his end like a man. No whining or any of that bullshit. Plenty of people died before their time. Because of the demon in him, Blake had been responsible for some of those untimely deaths, in fact. Fair didn’t count for a damn thing when it came to life—why should he cry about not getting fairness in death?

“I’m ready,” Elise said, holding open the sliding door.

Blake stood. “So am I.”
And I’ll prove that, Elise, when the time comes.