Tears of Blood (The Blood Chronicles) (21 page)

“You were asleep when I left.” She commented irritably. “I don’t know how you made it here, but you can explain later.”

“Why did you leave, Meghan?” He asked in a voice that warmed her to the core, every syllable an erotic caress.

She colored hotly, each word hinting at their shared passion, and of the husky words that flowed from his lips during the night. She wanted to pull at her hair, as her body throbbed anew with a freshly reawakening ardor. Instead, her hands balled into fists and a dull ache started in the pit of her womb, soundlessly pleading for his touch.

“I…” she gulped, words sticking in her throat. Trusting her senses, Meghan suspected Amado was keeping something from her. There were too many unexplained issues concerning him, teasing little quirks she couldn’t quite interpret in her present state of mind. She needed time away from him, and from his overwhelming presence, so she could rationalize her disturbing thoughts.

Her face flamed. She suspected she looked a wreck, her make-up smeared, and the kohl having formed dark rings beneath her eyes. After a night in Amado’s embrace, she assumed her lips lacked any semblance of color, and her once immaculately coiffed hair was a tousled mess.

The poor cabdriver!
She thought, burning with shame. If she looked as bad as she imagined, it was obvious she’d spent a very passionate night with an extremely virile man.

“You have to understand.” Nervously, she ran her hands down the side of her body, teasing little flashes of the night bursting into her thoughts.

“What do I need to understand,
preziosa
?” He asked with more patience than he felt.

“It’s not like me to do what I did.” She stammered. “Normally, I don’t go off on a wild hair and forget who I am, how I was brought up, and fall into bed with just any man.”

The air became tense with emotion.

“
Mi scusi
, Meghan, but I’m not a man you barely know.”

Each word he spoke was slow and unhurriedly pronounced. Unrest radiated from him and she shivered slightly, struggling to find the right words. She hadn’t experienced any sort of sexual interlude since her divorce from Kevin. Now, with the rising sun beating on her face, she wondered if the previous night’s exhilaration got the better of her. It
wasn’t
like her to fall slip into bed with any man, especially after the damage Kevin inflected on her heart and self-esteem. The latter, she was fixing, but the initial item was new and frightening.

Amado was different, though. While most men turned from her, disgusted with her attitude, repulsed by the cold shoulder she so often presented, he remained. As Chesca would remind her, he broke the shell, climbed the battlements, and took her prisoner before she’d time to plan a line of defense.

All the same, it wasn’t like her to jump into any man’s bed, no matter how sexy his voice. However, the sultry night in his arms was something she wasn’t ever likely to forget, thoughts of his singeing kiss and ardent lovemaking causing her body to tremble anew with need.

“Common sense doesn’t have anything to do with what we shared.” He responded tightly. Amado remained positioned on the sidewalk just beyond the flight of steps leading to her door. “Meghan, you didn’t have to run off the moment the sun rose.”

Amado’s statement was low, calm, and held more patience than she believed possible. Petulantly, she kicked at the stoop with the toe of her shoe.

“I had to leave. It’s against everything I’m made up of to do what I did!” Her cheeks pinkened and she turned from him.

“Yet, we shared a night filled with everything I dreamed of, Meghan.” His tone was caressingly soft.

Despite the flutter blossoming in her heart, she couldn’t surrender to his charm any more than she already had. He was too smooth, too elegant, and she suspected she wasn’t his only conquest. An insecure part wondered how many women had fallen victim to his sophistication and his loving touch.

“I’m not going to become just another feather in your cap, Amado!” She declared hotly, before grinding her teeth together.

“
Cosa significa
?” He sounded utterly confused. “I don’t understand this
feather in my cap
.”

“I’m not a woman you can laugh about with your friends, telling them how you managed to get me to let down my guard and fall into bed with you!”

“Ah!” Amado’s attitude hardened perceptibly as he finally understood her meaning. “You believe I’m a
bastardo
,
si
?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You implied, Meghan.” Purposely schooled, his words didn't reveal the extent of his anger.

“Hell!” She shouted before squeezing her eyelids shut and inhaling a deep breath. “I don’t know what I mean. I just couldn’t stay any longer…”

“You left because you have a guilty conscience? Because you succumbed to a side of yourself that allows you to experience passion, the heat of a man, and
amore
?” He struggled to remain calm.

Amore
was one word she did understand. “You can’t possibly love me!”

“Why?” He persisted, stilling the urge to roll his eyes. “Do you not think you’re worthy of love?”

“I…”

“Meghan, let go of your anger and mistrust.” his voice softened with the softly posed demand. “
Ti voglio bene
.”

She threw her hands up, frustration etched on every line of her face.

“I don’t understand what you said, nor do I care. I had to leave, despite whatever amorous little declarations you made!”

“
Bella
, allow me to speak, to tell you what I feel…”

Meghan could almost imagine him touching his fingertips to his heart, and his dark eyes filling with an appeal that would make most women melt. Her body warmed as she listened to him speak, the very essence of her soul longing to collapse into his arms and allow him full access to her love. Stubborn to a fault, Meghan didn’t, and folded her arms across her chest.

“I’m not talking about last night again,” she muttered tightly. “As far as I’m concerned, this conversation is over, and didn’t happen.”

“Oh, it happened, Meghan.” He retorted smoothly. “I’m not the sort of ….man to forget the feel of your body, or the soft whispers of passion that escaped your lovely throat. You ask the impossible, for I can’t erase a night that will linger with me for all eternity.”

His words caused a fresh flush of heat to rush over her and she became more flustered by the moment. He wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t forget the night they shared, but she’d be damned if he’d continue using it to make her a melting mass of flesh.

“Stop!” She ordered firmly. Even though her face glowed with a brilliance that echoed the red tints of the rising sun, she wasn’t going to give into his charm. “I had to leave, and that’s it. I’m not open to any more discussion concerning last night.”

Amado remained stoically silent. Faintly, she heard him sigh, and echoed his response with one of her own.

“Why don’t you tell me how you managed to reach my home before me?”

“
Bella
, I have ways.” He admitted tightly, wondering at the thoughts flashing across her expressive face. Meghan, unaware of his curse, didn’t realize He knew the moment she left his side, the sultry promise of her flesh taunting him as she made her way through his apartment.

Despite the sleep of the dead, the warmth of her body leaving his bed had left him bereft and the caressing kiss she placed on his lips made him weak. Seconds after the taxi sped away, he followed her, puzzled by her behavior. Denied feeding, the effort to scale the rooftops of Bentham as silently and swiftly as he wished was nearly impossible while keeping her cab clearly in view.

“I used a taxi…” flustered, Meghan nervously smoothed her hands over her dress, wiping the sticky substance from the tips. Abruptly, she heard him growl, the sound disturbing, and threatening.

She huffed angrily and a frown developed between her brows. Shaking her head, she glared in his direction. “That’s the problem with men! You think you can just boss women around like you own them…”

“For once,
bella
, listen to me!” He remained a dark shadow outlined by the rays of the morning sun. “I’m not like any man you’ve met in your life.”

Amado
was
unique in every sense and she was afraid of the unfamiliar pull he had on her.

“Tell me what you want!” Meghan shouted, her attention whirling in a million different directions. She felt confused, lost in a sea of emotions she hadn’t experienced before, not even when she’d been with Kevin. For the most part, she didn’t want to fall victim to a man she suspected amassed women’s hearts with the ease of a stamp collector. “I don’t understand what you want!”

“Yes, Gianni,” a melodiously accented voice interrupted her tired from behind the vampire. “Do tell us precisely what you intend with the young lady.”

Chapter Fifteen

Amado turned and cursed, his flesh crawling as he scowled at the man standing a few feet away. He recognized the individual as the person lurking in the shadows of
The Mage
, his penetrating eyes striking fear into the undead.

Even at this early hour, the sun barely cresting over the horizon, the stranger appeared refreshed and composed. His long golden hair glowed in the first rays, a startling contrast against his dark attire. His expression, as Amado noted, was so serious the vampire was grateful his heart no longer beat.

“What’s it to you?” Amado asked sharply, his eyes reflecting his mistrust.

“Her welfare is of my concern, since Meghan is Chesca’s friend.” Sebastien supplied with an enviable ease.

Although he didn’t move, Amado sensed a penetrating heat radiating from the towering figure. Every ripple invisibly washed over his chilled body, evoking a profound terror he didn’t wish to experience.

“I believe the matter we’re discussing is private, and doesn’t require an intervention from you.” He snapped irritably.

“
Au contraire
,” his tone was soft, his expression blank. “As I told you, Meghan is my friend, via Chesca. Whatever concerns Meghan, or affects her in any way, involves me.”

“She’s my concern, not yours.” Amado snarled, his eyes flashing.

“Is she?” Sebastien countered with a minute shrug, unconcerned by the threat he detected in the vampire’s stance. “Would that be the same concern a certain associate of yours displays for her?”

Amado understood the deliberate innuendo and an unaccustomed chill shot over his skin.

“You know of…
him
.”

Sebastien nodded and his lips twisted. He glanced over to the waiting woman, marveling how she could remain looking so ethereally innocent despite the obvious night she’d experienced. She remained on the doorsteps of her house, the sunlight illuminating the golden beads on her dress, and highlighting the deliciously sleepy expression she wore. He inhaled deeply, searching for the underlying scent on her skin that would betray the vampire’s guilt, that he had tasted the delicate flesh of the blind woman.

Thankfully, only the distinct aromas of unbridled passion greeted him.

“Declan is amusing.” He kept his tone intentionally schooled, aware Meghan was eavesdropping.

Amado’s mind spun, wondering how the co-owner of
The Mage
had managed to walk away from an encounter with Declan Balthazar. Very few humans ever came face to face with the accursed vampire and lived to tell about it.

“My…intentions don’t linger anywhere in the direction of those harbored by Declan.” He denied firmly.

“Good,” the man murmured gently, the single word a whisper. “I didn’t find your associate a pleasing member of any world.”

“What are you?” Amado managed to utter, another decidedly odd sensation skittering over his skin as the man neared him with a slow and deliberate ease. His steps were as silent as a vampire and the intent in his eyes sent rippling heat across his normally chill flesh. He couldn’t pinpoint the strangeness of the reaction assailing him, but realized it wasn't an impression he associated with any in all the years of his existence.

Dread uncoiled in the pit of his stomach, and he felt the sharp points of his fangs elongate, while the desire to gnash his teeth clawed at his tightly strung nerves. The man’s presence was unsettling, eerie, and every nerve in his body clamored with alarm.

“I could be your worst nightmare.” Sebastien provided with deadly ease.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Poor creature,” Sebastien’s remark echoed with an odd level of pity he found disconcerting. “Did your creator leave you lost and alone, out in the cold, failing to explain to you of the sorcerers hunting your sort?”

Amado’s confused expression was significant enough.

“What’s this about a maker?” Meghan interrupted, frowning as she attempted to decipher the exchange between the two.

“It’s nothing, Meghan.” Amado shook his head, before realizing the action was lost to her. “Your friend is curious about our relationship.”

“Why does it disturb you, Sebastien?” She asked haughtily, her chin lifting.

Smiling congenially, the man lifted his palms before him. Barely discernible in the morning sun, subtle and glowing rays radiated from his extended hand. The shards of light wavered, rotated, and then danced mystically in the air.

“You don’t notice us, child.” He whispered calmly. “Our words are lost to you and serenity will replace whatever you feel at this moment.”