Stealing Time (15 page)

James was stiff beside me. “We were just leaving.” He gestured to me to precede him and I went wide round the two males—between my visceral reaction to them and James’s tension, wariness seemed appropriate.

The taller man glared and started to speak, but the other stilled him with a look. His lips drew back in a parody of a smile and I thought how much it resembled the rictus of a corpse. “Before you go, at least let us introduce ourselves. I am Caleb and he’s Nathaniel.”

James hesitated. “I am James and she is my Evelyn.”

“Just got into town, we did. And there we were, walking along, enjoying the sights, when what did we see but a beehive of activity. Slayer activity.” Nathaniel’s voice was soft as he drew the last two words out, sounding each syllable like it had a savory taste. “Between the sentries on that house yonder and you two up here, we couldn’t resist. Not often we get to spy on a nest of Rome’s finest.”

“A veritable beehive, it were,” Caleb said. There was something very
not right
about him, in a dark, chilling way that made my skin crawl.

I turned to go, keeping the males in my peripheral vision as James walked by my flank, placing himself between them and me.

“You’re a quiet thing, aren’t you, Evelyn?” Nathaniel called out suddenly.

Having no desire to get into a conversation with these creatures, I shrugged noncommittally and reached for the door knob to the stairs. That’s when I sensed them coming up, fast.

I spun a second slower than James, fangs shooting out and reflexively crouching.

Nathaniel stopped five feet away, grinning to expose his own extended canines. “We’ve a confession to make. We’re in New York on business. Family business, you might say.”

“You might say, indeed.” Caleb strolled over to stand beside his companion, a strange, anticipatory smile twisting his lips. “Your uncle asked us to relay his greetings.”

James went white. “There is nothing Philippe could say that I wish to hear. You may relay that to him when next you meet.”

He was turning toward me, gesturing me to go down the stairs, when Caleb’s arm lifted at vampire speed. In the fraction of a second it took me to realize he had a gun, I heard the crack as it fired. My mind shrieked
not James
and I shifted sideways to shield him, the thought and the action occurring on the same breath. He whirled at lightning speed and I felt a moment’s triumph knowing that he was safe.

The bullet hit me, the casing disintegrated on my skin, and something inside tore free to blast through my chest. My legs gave way and I felt James catch me as I fell, lowering me to the ground as he roared with grief and rage. My eyes were wide with shock and I foggily registered his terrified expression, his face pale and hard.

The pain hit me then, a great spiraling agony in my chest. There wasn’t enough air, no matter how my lungs labored, and a sound like the ocean filled my ears. Over the heavy, sluggish roar, I thought I heard the scuffling and crashing of extreme violence, but nothing was clear to me, nothing made sense. Was I lying flat on the cold roof, staring up at the distant, uncaring stars? Or was I standing with my back to a wall and the heavens were just beyond my fingertips?

Fighting my sluggish, nonsensical thoughts, terror for James bubbled to the surface and I screamed in my mind over him facing two vampires alone. Then the night sky lunged at me and everything went black. The next time anything registered, I was cradled against James’s chest and had the sensation that he was running.

When I next came round, he was gently positioning me on the sofa in the great room. I tried to tell him that everything hurt, but couldn’t get enough air.

He knelt beside me and, when he saw my eyes open, said in a strangled voice, “Evie, hold on, love. The bastard had a slayer’s gun. The bullets…”

I wanted to reach out to him, but my arms wouldn’t obey me. My heart stuttered before resuming its rhythmic pounding, only far slower than before.

James’s eyes went wild. “Don’t you leave me, dammit! I’m going to help you, just hold on.”

I couldn’t respond—my lungs were fluttering in my chest, not inflating as I ached for them to do. It felt like I was melting into the sofa’s cushions and keeping my eyes open was becoming impossible. Somehow, the cold night sky was in my head now and descending through my thoughts with all the implacable cruelty of the endless eons. I felt my body jostled as if from a distance and blinked through dimming eyes to see James tearing my shirt open. I heard a sound like tissue ripping, felt a remote tug at my chest…

My mind separated into two distinct selves then—the vampire coldly cataloging the severity of my injury, the uneven pounding of my injured heart, the amount of blood pouring from it. And the human wailing soundlessly at the looming darkness, knowing that it meant the end of my miraculous time with James.

There was absolutely no satisfaction to having been right about fate’s violent tendencies and intervention.

Through sheer cussedness, I forced my eyes open, desperate to see James once more, but the effort drained me and I had nothing left to speak, no chance to say all that I needed to. In the moments before my eyes closed again, I saw him moving at top speed. One sleeve was rolled up and, as I fought to keep my eyes open, his lips pulled back to expose his extended fangs. He held his wrist to his mouth and slashed across the skin in a sudden motion, and blood poured from the wound.

His voice echoed through the darkness. “This will hurt. I’m so sorry, Evie.” And I felt pressure on my chest.

My eyes fell closed and I thought I heard James cry out. As the black winter’s night crept across my awareness, devoid now of even the stars’ fragile light, it sought to suffocate all sense of self, to erase me as if I’d never been. I had no illusions—I was dying.

I was suddenly angrier than I’d ever been.

This couldn’t be happening. Not when I had so much to live for. Not when I finally had a chance to do things
right
.

The two parts of my brain came together with an almost physical jolt, welded by one overriding determination—I refused to die. No
fucking
way. It flat-out was not going to happen. On the heels of this surety, a derisive laugh pealed through my mind…Mama’s cutting mirth, plucked straight from memory. But this time, I didn’t cringe or retreat. This time, the reflexive hurt spiraled into all-consuming rage, and I hammered both the sound and any remaining doubt into blessed silence.

I. Will. Live.

The darkness slowed and I fought all the harder, pushing and shoving to drive it away. Inch by inch, the night became less dense and I wanted to sing with joy when the stars re-appeared. Their delicate light filled me with hope, gave me the crucial strength to keep fighting. And as the stars grew brighter still, miraculously my heart responded, found a steadier rhythm, and air rushed in and out of my lungs. My mind seemed to clear and I got my eyes open.

James lay with his cheek against mine. His voice was raw and his words ran together as he spoke of all the things that we had yet to do together. “Please, Evie…please. Don’t leave me.”

I drew a tentative breath to speak…and suddenly it felt as if I had been shot again. Pain exploded inside me, searing through my chest, flowing along nerve endings, sucking the breath from my lungs. My heart gave a tremendous lurch, then increased in speed as it forced life-giving blood throughout my body.

Determined to speak, to make myself heard, I sucked in air and said, “
James.
” It was no more than a faint whisper, but he heard.

“Evie!” he cried. “
Ma mie,
I can feel how hard you’re fighting. The wound is healing, but I’m not sure it’s working fast enough. You’ve got to hang on, Evie. Give it time to heal. Stay with me, love.”

Pain seared through my chest and I could literally feel the tissues fusing themselves back together, my wounded heart’s frantic pounding shaking my body with each violent compression and surge of blood. It hurt…oh God, how it hurt. But with each excruciating, crashing thud, I felt more whole, more substantial. And even as the healing burned like hot brands through my chest, I willed it on faster.

The torture seemed to go on forever, growing and stretching until it filled my entire chest, spiraled out to my limbs. Flames twined themselves like vicious burning brands along my senses, filling my awareness as they raced out to my fingertips, down my legs to my toes, only to turn on themselves and blaze higher until it felt my body would melt from it.

And then it was over, so abrupt a cessation of the agony that all I could do was lie there, stunned, my lungs heaving as blessed air flowed in and out of a chest that no longer hurt, that no longer bled.

Blinking, I turned my head and saw James, kneeling by the sofa, his head bent, his white shirt painted red with our mingled blood.

“James?” I whispered.
He was so still.

He lifted his face slowly and my heart gave a hard thud to see the pallor and deep shadows circling his beautiful eyes. “Evie?”

I shifted off the sofa to kneel beside him. “I’m all right. I’m fine.” I could hear the wonder in my voice.

It seemed to take a moment for the words to translate in his mind and he stared, mute. An incredulous smile crossed his face and his eyes regained some of their sparkle. His hand reached out to touch the unblemished skin where the wound had been. “It worked.
Thank God.
”

He enfolded me in his arms and I clung to him. Memory struck and I gasped, “Your arm!”

“I am well,” he said, showing me where the wound had been.

I ran my fingertips over the perfect skin. Dried blood made a gruesome patina, but there was no sign that it had been his.

“But…what happened? My heart…”

“I cut my wrist open and forced the blood into your wound.” At my perplexed expression, he said, “A mature vampire’s blood is saturated with whatever it is that makes us immortal. Put enough of it on even the worst injury and the tissue will mend, so long as the heart continues to beat. Even when it is the heart itself that is injured.”

I gazed in awe at him. “You used your blood to heal me?”

He smiled and nodded, cupping my cheek with his hand.

I was struck silent, overwhelmed. Seeing again his pallor and exhaustion, his unsteady hands, I said, “But you look awful. Are you sure you’re all right?”

James snorted. “You should have seen yourself not that long ago if you think I look bad. I’ll be fine after I feed.”

I leaned against the comforting solidity of him and buried my face against his collarbone, filling my senses with him. When my thoughts grew calm enough to notice extraneous details, the gory way my clothes adhered to my skin made me squirm.

I stood and reached for James’s hand when he climbed shakily to his feet. Taking in the condition of our clothes and the ruined couch, I said, “It looks like an abattoir in here.”

“Smells like one too.”

“Do you want to clean up first or are you too hungry?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Clean up.”

James went into the pantry and I was anxious to see how carefully he moved. A moment passed and he reappeared with a large garbage bag. “For our clothes.”

I looked at him and down at myself. “We actually look like vampires now.”

He laughed out loud, reaching for my hand. We headed down the hall to the bedroom and, with infinite relief, threw our clothes into the garbage bag. The saturated fabric painted a ghastly red smear on the inside of the white plastic and I stared, sickened, at how
much
of it there was.

“We’ll have to incinerate all of this,” he said as he disappeared down the hall with the full bag. He wore just his briefs and the view was infinitely distracting.

I made myself focus on the conversation. “They certainly can’t go to the cleaners,” I said, imagining the reaction to the blood-soaked clothes. I had no idea what could be done to salvage the sofa, though, and wondered just how big the incinerator was.

I went into the bathroom and ran the shower at its hottest before climbing in. Standing under the water, I bent my head and let the spray pound me. Without warning, I began to tremble violently and had to brace against the tile walls to maintain my balance. My eyes burned with tears that would never come, no matter how badly I needed their release, and my entire body shook with the effort to keep control of myself. I never lost it, never, but the vise around my heart squeezed tighter and tighter. Sobs ripped free from deep within me and even both hands pressed over my mouth couldn’t quiet them.

It wasn’t having almost died—again—that had me hovering on the edge of this gaping, terrifying abyss. It was that I now had so much to live for. There was nothing like almost losing something so indescribably precious to bitch-slap you with emotions you didn’t even know you possessed.

The glass door opened and James’s strength blossomed within my awareness, even as his warm, strong hands pulled me against him. “It’s all right, I’m here, I’ve got you,” he murmured, his sweet voice filling my head.

Then it all came bubbling out, the words running over each other. “I blew it, James, my whole life, everything. When I had a chance to do it all over, to try and get things right this time, I followed the same freaking patterns. Letting fear control my decisions. Holding myself back from you. This second chance, I never could’ve imagined this, and…Oh God, James, how do I fix it? How do I stop making the same mistakes over and over?”

“Shh now,
ma mie,
” he whispered, holding me tight against him and letting his power extend and envelope me in its embrace. “You’ve ruined nothing, Evie. Be easy, everything is fine.”

I clung to him, opening my senses to his strength, marveling in how he gentled it for me. After a time, his murmured reassurances, the feel of him holding me, the soothing caress of his hand down my back, combined to work their magic and I was able to take my first deep breath in what felt like a century.

James rested his chin on the top of my head and his arms were comforting around me. “All better?” he asked softly.