Obey Me (8 page)

A deep breath and he collected himself. “Elizabeth was so damaged by Octavius’s relentless pursuit, she took a knife and cut…and cut off his testicles. She told him if he ever dared follow her again, she’d leave him with nothing to prove himself male.”

“Ouch. Holy smokes, Alex, I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what the two of you must’ve endured.”

He didn’t look at me. He just kept talking. “Elizabeth was never the same after that. We never saw Octavius again, but I think when she cut him, she cut out a piece of her soul as well.”

No doubt. The creep had made her as crazy as him. “Wait. Octavius said he found you after Elizabeth passed away. He said you wouldn’t see him.”

Alex shook his head, perplexed. “No. I never heard from him again after that night.”

Another lie or a half-truth? Hard to know with Octavius. “How long did you and she have with each other before she died?”

“Twenty years. And she didn’t just die, she was killed—murdered. We spent the next twenty years in each other’s company but we were never the same, never truly together the way we’d been before.” The tall female bartender from earlier appeared at our table suddenly, replacing our drinks. Apparently someone always had their eye on the boss.

Alex cupped his hands around the fresh glass on the table, aimlessly caressing the sides with his thumbs. He took a quick drink. “It was my fault. I didn’t know how to help her, how to bring her back from the darkness in her mind. I let the distance between us grow, let myself become careless. I knew they were hunting our kind. We’d already lost a few friends who’d joined us in the years after we’d escaped Octavius. I only left her for an hour. Long enough to book passage on a ship bound for the Americas. I had to get us out of Europe, away from the vampire hunters sweeping the continent. I thought she was safe. I was wrong. Good Lord, I was so wrong.”

“Vampire hunters. They staked her through the heart.” I knew now that part of Octavius’s story was true.

Alex nodded, his gaze downcast, his chin quivering again. “I left Europe that night. Never returned. And until you mentioned his name, I believed I’d left Octavius there as well.”

“Maybe you did, but he’s here now, and he’s brought friends. Or made them.”

Alex’s gaze snapped to mine, all evidence of tears gone. “What do you mean?”

“His restaurant, Sinners, it’s full of vamps and they’ve all got the same tattoo. Matches his ring.”

“Tattoo? Where?”

“On the inside of their wrists.” I pointed to the same spot on my own unmarked wrist to show him.

“His fledglings. It’s his mark, unique to his venom.” He leaned forward to rest his arms on the table. “The ring is from another time. Used long ago when our kind kept human servants.”

“Used it how?”

A wince flashed across his face. “We used the rings to mark those who we claimed as ours. There’s a button on the side that releases a sharp edge along the design of the ring. We’d dip the ring in venom and press it to the human’s wrist, hard enough to pierce the skin. It worked much like a tattoo with just enough venom trapped under the skin to pull blood to the wound. The mark was quick and permanent. Even if the person was turned later on, the mark never faded.”

“Where’s your ring?”

“Gone,” he said. “There came a point I wanted nothing to do with the past, with the life I’d led. But a ring like that, something so uniquely connected to me, I couldn’t simply toss it in a river or down a canyon, and trust it would never be found. So I donated it to be sealed in a time capsule nearly seventy years ago. When the capsule is opened, I’ll place it in another. Safely hidden and out of reach in plain sight.”

I could tell by the way his chest puffed and his chin lifted he thought himself oh-so-clever. The idea was good, unless things went wrong.

“You sure? I mean, if someone got hold of your ring and some vamp venom, they could fake your mark.” I could see him making the same connections I had. “Make it look like you’d drained a few of your customers and left them for dead.”

He shook his head. “No. The mark of the murder would still show at the wound sight. Their venom would pull it to the surface. Besides, the ring is sealed beneath concrete. I watched them pour it.”

“You have another explanation for how your mark got on the necks of those women?”

After a few seconds of contemplation he said, “No. But that doesn’t make yours any more possible.”

“Whatever. There should be some kind of record of that sort of thing. A list of items, names of donators. I can check. Make sure your ring’s listed. What building was it?”

“The Cathedral of Learning.”

“Seriously?” The Cathedral of Learning is one of Pittsburgh’s most famous buildings, the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh campus.

He nodded then took a sip of his tomato juice. “I donated the ring in the name of the Edmunston family.”

“Which was you,” I said, to be clear.

“Yes, but at the time I thought it best to remain indistinguishable given the fact I planned to still be around when they opened the time capsule.”

“Right. Good thinking.”

Alex took another sip of his juice and I did the same, my gaze drifting over the club goers. Unintentionally I found myself staring at the couple in the near lower table, Todd and his date. They were huddled close now, she whispering in his ear, her hand on his lap beneath the table, he with his arm around her back holding her close…to his neck. She was feeding. Now I understood how Todd had snagged such a pretty woman. My gaze slid to her arm and lower to where the tablecloth moved with her strokes. Todd rocked his hips, shifting closer.

Octavius’s venom stirred to life through my veins, warming muscles low in my womb. I swallowed hard, tried to ignore the sensation. “Octavius said that vampires equate feeding with sex and vice versa.”

I saw Alex follow my gaze from the corner of my eye. By now Todd had all but given up on modesty, rocking his hips so hard the table shook from the effort.

“There’s a…connection. Yes.”

The lower, rough tone of his voice made me look his way. His eyes seemed darker, more intense, and the way he stared at my mouth made my chest tight. “Connected, how…exactly?”

He licked his lips, glancing at the couple and back again. “We can feed without having sex, but the desire’s always there.”

“Can you have sex without feeding?” Just asking the question sent a delicious pulse through my sex muscles, my mind flashing on thoughts of his penis growing hard, filled with my blood.

“Yes,” he said. “Though it’s not as…satisfying. It’s easier for a woman. The infusion of blood aids the nerve endings, heightens sensation. But for a man the fresh blood makes things…firmer. Feeding is a pleasurable sensation for both vampire and donor. That pleasure translates easily to sex.”

I scooted to the edge of my chair, leaning on my forearms across the table. “So are you, uh, feeding on anyone…exclusively?”

His cheeks flushed and a smile swept across his lips. “No. I’m not. And on that note, I think I should get you home before Octavius’s venom has us both doing something we might regret.”

I glanced at the couple again, my mouth dry, my palms moist. Yeah, I knew a lot of what I was feeling was the effect of vamp venom. But the connection I felt with Alex, like we’d known each other for years, was a chemical reaction all my own and no amount of sobering up would diminish it.

“Right. And when this stuff wears off I’ll make me a quick snack for you. Uh, I mean, I’ll make you a quick snack.” Subtle is sooo
not
my middle name.

Chapter Six

A faint tingle still tickled along my lips and down the center of my tongue, like I’d rubbed a finger of Bengay over the sensitive flesh—only minus the nasty taste. My finger and toe tips were the same way as well as the most intimate parts of my body. The last is what had me staring at Alex like a nympho at a porn star.

“Thanks for the lift,” I said. “Not sure I had enough money in this stupid little purse to afford another cab ride.”

He lifted his chin in a half nod, eyes on the road, then glanced at me and back again. “No problem. Besides, the purse matches the dress, right? Uh, nice dress by the way.” He glanced at me again just as the cab of his pickup lit with a passing streetlight, a quick flash, enough that I could see the male appreciation on his face before it went dark again.

I kept watching the handsome lines of his face by the green glow of the dashboard, my body warm and tingly with need.

“You said Cook Road?”

I nodded then realized he couldn’t hear a nod. “Yeah. That’s it up there on the left. Third house. The one with the wide steps. Don’t you remember? I mean, you just broke into the place the other night.”

I lived in a big brownstone that’d been divvied up into four apartments with a common hall and front door. Pretty nice actually, if not small and overpriced.

I think he blushed, a smile sweeping across his face as he looked at me sideways. “Yeah. I wasn’t really paying attention. I was pissed ’cause I thought you were the one setting me up. Kinda just went on instinct. Followed my nose.”

“You smelled your way here? I smell?” Ugh, not good.

“No. Well, yes. But no.” He pulled the truck into an open spot a few up from my apartment door, bumped the gearshift into park and turned off the engine. “I followed
my
scent on you. Remember, I licked my thumb to try and rub that mark off your neck?”

Yeah. I remembered. I remembered so well a quick shiver raced down my body like a blast of hot air.
Yum.
I bobbed my head in dimwitted affirmation.

“And everyone smells, err…I mean, has a scent. Yours is…” he inhaled through his nose, “…nice. Kind of flowery, with maybe a hint of shea nut, maybe vanilla too.”

“That’s my shampoo.”

“It’s nice.”

“Thanks.” Weird conversation. “You really thought I was the one killing those women?”

He looked away, his mouth opening and shutting twice before he finally said, “I…I thought you might’ve had something to do with it. Yeah.”

“What do you think now?”

“I think…I think you’re a great girl and that you should let me worry about it.” He pulled the key from the ignition. “Mind if I walk you all the way up? I’d feel better if I can check the place. Make sure you’re safe, before I take off.”

“No. I’d appreciate it. Thanks.” I pushed open the truck door and hopped out, ignoring the way my stomach wobbled at the thought of him in my apartment again. I came around the front of the truck and met him on the sidewalk. “I can help figure out who’s doing this, you know. I am an investigative journalist, after all. With, I might add, the power to suggest people, including vampires, do whatever I want. Could come in handy. Especially with the cops.”

“Could also make you a target, bring you to the notice of others like it did tonight.” He followed up the steps behind me, waiting while I unlocked the front door. We stepped inside, letting the door slam closed behind us. “Besides, I’m not all that concerned about the police. If they do connect me to the murders, I have my own skill set that’ll help me deal with them. My worry isn’t the police but the donors. If they get wind someone’s targeting Il Piccolo Morso’s human customers, they’ll stop coming.”

I winced at him over my shoulder, leading the way up the inside stairs to my apartment. “Oh. Yeah, I can see how that’d be bad for business.”

“Screw the business. You don’t get to my age without accumulating a comfortable retirement fund. No. It’s more than business. It’s about blood.” He held out his hand for the key when we reached my door. I gave it to him, and he unlocked the door, then gestured with a raised hand and a point that I should wait there while he checked the place. I did.

Minutes later he was back, holding open my door as I entered. “Nice parting line. But what’d you mean it’s about blood?”

He hung my keys on my kitty key holder and locked the door—all three locks—straightened the cross above the threshold and repositioned the string of garlic cloves so it hung over the door. Answered my question about garlic.

“My club and others like it over the centuries are the only things that have kept our races from wiping each other out. We need fresh infusions of blood, Sophie.” He followed me the two steps to the corner then on into my living room. I tossed the little red purse into the dress box still sitting on my coffee table while Alex went around and collapsed his muscled, wonderfully male body onto my couch.

His blond bangs flopped over his eyes with his bounce. “If vampires can’t get those infusions in a safe, mutually agreeable manner like my club, then they’ll get it however they can. My club allows humans who want to donate, for whatever reason”—I knew the reason—“to make themselves available to vampires. And avoids vampires taking blood from someone who prefers not to…share.”

I perched on the edge of the couch beside him, careful to keep the high hem of my skimpy dress from riding any higher. Knees together. “So you’re afraid this will start a panic that could spread to other clubs?”

“It’s happened before. Not here, but in other countries. During the vampire hunts in Europe. It won’t end well for either side.”

“You think it’s humans again?”

He shook his head, leaned forward bracing his forearms on his knees. “I don’t know. It could be someone with a personal grudge against me, I guess.”

“Like Octavius.”

“But I haven’t seen him in more than a hundred years. Why now? Why risk unmasking our entire race by draining the bodies the way he did?”

“Maybe he didn’t know where you were until now,” I said. “Didn’t you say a vampire can get lost in the fabric of time? Maybe it took him this long to find you and now he’s trying to call you out.”

“Maybe.” He swung his gaze to me and I was suddenly, acutely aware of how close we sat. “But how’s he doing it? He’d have difficulty draining a human once, let alone four times so close together. And how’s he leaving my mark on them? I mean, I never touched those girls. I haven’t touched anyone in that way since…”

I knew how his sentence would’ve ended if he’d finished.
Since Elizabeth
. I put my hand on his knee, wishing I could take away the pain of those memories. “If he has your ring…”