Vacation with a Vampire & Other Immortals (9 page)

H
e spent a couple of hours working on what was now his only means of transportation, all the while working through things in his mind. He was trying to make sense of everything bit by bit, and he was still certain she was in the wrong. She was forcing him to do what he didn’t want to do, and she’d had no right. It was his life, his island, his boat.

But she seemed to feel she had every right, just because she only had a few weeks left to live. The thing was, that wasn’t true. She could live forever if she wanted to. She just didn’t know that. Because he hadn’t told her.

Why not? he wondered.

He knew the answer. He feared her reaction would be the same as Cassandra’s had been. She would accept his offer, declaring her utter delight that they could stay together, after all. And then he would transform her. And then she would leave him.

But, finally, the distant knowledge that had been waiting patiently beyond the doorway of his subconscious managed to slip inside.

Why would that bother you? You’ve been trying to get her to leave, after all. Why not change her and let her go?

“Because I don’t want to be used again, taken advantage of again, lied to again.”

Or is it because you don’t want to be proven right about her? That you want to believe in her?

He shook his head. “No. No, it’s not that at all. I want her out of here before I can fall in love with her, then have my heart broken again. That’s all.”

But don’t you see, Diego? It’s already too late for that.

He blinked in stunned surprise at the revelation he’d been denying, closing his eyes to, refusing to see. He already loved her.

He already loved her.

So if she left, either by her own volition or by his order, he was doomed to suffer that heartache again, anyway. There was no way around it.

He had been dreading rejection by yet another beautiful woman to whom he’d offered all he had to offer. He’d been living his entire life in an elaborate design to prevent that very thing from ever happening.

And yet Anna had found him. She’d found his haven, despite all his precautions. And she’d found a way into his heart, despite all his fortifications. Maybe there was something here that deserved a deeper look. Maybe she’d been nothing more than honest with him the entire time.

What about that?

He pondered and nodded, understanding her anger a bit more. From her point of view, he could see how unreasonable he must seem to deny her dying wish. It was only a few weeks, from her perspective. It must seem very selfish to her for him to say no, and so adamantly, too. Especially after last night.

Yes, that must really have added fuel to her fire, he thought, seeing again his burning boat in his mind’s eye. No wonder she’d done what she had. She must feel just as rejected as…as he’d been fearing he would feel if he gave her the Gift, and his heart along with it, and she walked away.

Exactly like that, he realized. She’d given him her blood. Her body. Her heart, perhaps. She’d saved his life. And he’d thrown her precious gift back in her face, rejected her. He’d done to her, he realized in dawning horror, exactly what Cassandra had done to him.

The revelation made him stop sanding and rise to his feet. Damn, that was it. He needed to apologize. Maybe even offer an explanation, if she were still willing to listen. And he needed to tell her the truth about her nature, her condition, what it all meant.

He tuned in to her, though he’d been tuning her out for the past two hours. Her essence was very weak, he realized with a frisson of fear. Almost as if she were unconscious or…

Alarm rippled up his spine, and he headed out of the shop and back toward the house, only to find her lying on the ground a few feet away from the tree where she’d apparently been hanging her clothes to dry.

“Anna!” He knelt beside her, shook her a little, but there was no response. His stomach convulsed as he bent closer to listen to her breath. He was relieved to realize she
was
still breathing, but only once every few seconds. And her heartbeat was weak and erratic.

She was dying. God, no.

He scooped her up into his arms and straightened, then paused as he noticed the words she’d written in the sand after she’d fallen.

I’ve loved you all my life. And I’m sorry.

It felt as if something inside Diego broke open then, like a dam giving way to the floodwaters it had been holding back. His emotions rolled over him like a tidal wave, and tears blurred his vision. He carried her into the house, laid her on the sofa and then, reluctantly, left her there to check on the strange smell coming from the kitchen.

There was a book in the oven, baking slowly on the center rack. He grabbed a potholder and rescued it, dropping it face-up on the counter. The pages where it had been lying open felt slightly crisp, but for the most part, he thought the book unharmed. Warped by having been soaked in seawater and then oven-dried, but aside from that, it was in surprisingly good shape.

He leaned over it, peering at the handwriting on the pages, knowing it was Anna’s. It held her essence. Her energy. Her personality was reflected in the shape of the letters just as it was in the shape of her face.

Later, he told himself. He would look at it later. Right now he had to see about the woman herself. He shut off the oven, then poured a glass of cold water from the pitcher in the fridge. He dampened a clean towel with more of the icy water, then hurried back into the living room, where she lay—so helpless, so fragile—on the sofa.

Leaning closer, he laid the folded dish towel on her forehead, cooling her face, then moved it to cool her neck. As he worked, he spoke to her with his mind, willing her to have the strength to wake, just one last time, before sinking into the sleep from which there was no awakening. Not to this life, at least.

Hear my voice and hold fast to it, Anna. Hear my voice and abide by my will. Gather every bit of strength in you and open your eyes. Talk to me, Anna, just one more time. I command it. Open your eyes. One last time, Anna.

Eventually she stirred, moving her head a little, moaning softly.

“There, that’s it. Come on, wake up.”

She blinked her eyes open, then stared up at him sleepily. “What happened?”

“You’re weaker than either of us realized, Anna.”

She nodded slowly, spotting the water and starting to sit up, reaching for it.

“Let me,” he said, and he got the glass for her, holding it to her lips and supporting her head.

She drank deeply, then leaned back again and said, “I’m not going to last much longer, am I?”

He thinned his lips, saying nothing.

“I’m dying. You don’t have to put up with me for a few weeks, after all. Maybe not even for the rest of tonight.”

“Stop it. Stop saying that.”

She blinked at his sudden outburst. “Why? It’s true. I’m at the end. I can feel it. And then you can toss my body on a pyre and burn me to ash, or haul me out to sea and dump me over the side to feed the fish and be rid of me at last. It’s not as if I’ll have anything to say in the matter.”

“You have everything to say in the matter.”

“Do I?”

He nodded. “More than you know. Including…” He bit his lower lip. “Including whether or not to die at all.”

His words had clearly reached her. She blinked, hope appearing in her eyes for the first time. “What do you mean, not to die at all?”

He licked his lips, rising from his spot beside the sofa to pace away from her. “I wasn’t going to tell you this until…well, until closer to your time. But it seems your time is nearer than we thought.”

“How were you planning to tell me anything closer to my time if you sent me away?”

He turned to look back at her. She was watching him, her big blue eyes wider than before, more alert, as if the hope he’d just given her had provided a rush of new strength, as well. “I would have found you. And I would have known when your time was close. I would have felt it, just as I’m feeling it right now.”

She blinked rapidly, averting her face and trying to prevent the tears that she could not hope to hide from him. “I’m feeling that, too.”

“You know what I am, Anna. You’ve seen—”

“Yes. You’re a vampire.” Her eyelids seemed to grow heavy again. They fell slowly closed.

He hurried closer, shook her gently. “Stay with me, Anna. This is important.” When she forced her eyes open again, he hurried on. “I’m a vampire, yes. But do you know what that means?”

She shrugged. “You have to drink blood to survive.” She was whispering now, leaving long spaces between her words, as if just speaking left her out of breath. “You can’t go out in the daylight. And you’re…immortal.”

“For the most part. We can die. There are ways. We can bleed out. We can go up in a blaze quite easily, either due to the sun or accidental exposure to an open flame. We feel everything intensely. Our senses just grow sharper the longer we live, so that they become extremely acute, from the moment we are changed over, increasing exponentially with each passing year. That means we feel pain more acutely, too. It can debilitate or even kill us. But pleasure…pleasure is…amazing.”

She nodded weakly, eyes dropping closed, opening once again. “Why…are you telling me…all this?”

“As a human being, Anna, I had the Belladonna antigen. Just as you do.”

Her brows knitted tight as her head tipped sideways. “The same thing that’s killing me?”

“Yes. Every vampire had it. It’s rare. But it means more than just that you bleed easily and die young. It also means that you can become…what I am. A vampire.”

He watched her face, wondering if he would see relief and surprise, or the smug look of triumph he’d chosen to ignore in Cassandra, all those years ago.

But she showed neither of those things. She was still waiting to hear more, as if that was not the revelation that mattered to her. Not at all.

“And then what?” she asked softly.

His brows rose. He was puzzled by both the question and her lack of reaction. “And then you’d be strong, immediately strong, vital, alive. You’d be able to hear every birdsong for a hundred miles, if you wanted. Identify every living thing by its scent from miles away. You could read minds, communicate mentally. You’d run faster than a gazelle, jump higher than anything alive. But you’d never see another sunrise. Never age another day. Never eat another morsel of food, or drink wine or water or anything else. These are heavy prices to pay, Anna.”

“I don’t imagine I’d be eating or drinking much if I were dead, either,” she said very softly. “And all the rest sounds very appealing, Diego, but that’s not what I was asking you.”

He frowned at her. “Then…what?”

She frowned, staring at him as if she could see inside his mind the way he saw inside hers. “There was another woman, just like me, here with you once, wasn’t there? This same situation? I can see it. Who was she?”

“There’s no time, Anna,” he began.

She swallowed hard. “Then talk fast.”

Sighing, he nodded. “Her name was Cassandra. She had the antigen, the syndrome was killing her. She found me here somehow. I think she may have followed me from one of my trips to the mainland. She pretended not to know what I was, what her options were.”

“Did you fall in love with her?” Anna asked softly.

“Yes. And she pretended to love me, too, but only until I transformed her. It was all she’d wanted all along, you see. But if she’d simply asked…”

Anna lifted a hand to his cheek and turned him to face her. “You’ve been shutting me out. Keeping me at arm’s length. All because of her. A woman who used you and then threw you away without even knowing what a treasure she had found in you. But I’m not her, Diego. I know how special you are. Somehow, I’ve always known.”

He lifted his brows, hope springing to life in his heart. “I didn’t want to let you get close. I was afraid you would hurt me in the end.”

“I won’t.”

That was all she said. Those two little words. And just like that, what remained of the granite wall he’d erected around his heart shattered into a million glittering bits. He believed her. He actually believed her.

“I don’t want to die, Diego,” she told him. “I want to live. I never did before, but now…now that I’ve seen how good life can truly be—now that I’ve finally figured out how to live—I want to live. But only if I can live here—with you. I think this place…this is paradise. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.
You’re
all I’ve ever wanted, Diego.”

He blinked away hot moisture from his eyes and realized it was tears. He hadn’t shed tears since Cassandra. This time he shed them in sheer joy.

“I want to share eternity with you, Diego,” she told him. “Tell me that’s okay with you.”

“It’s more than okay. I…I love you, Anna. I realized it out in the workshop. I realized I was trying to prevent something that I had no choice about. It was already too late. I love you.”

Her smile was wide, and so bright it was contagious. “I love you, too.”

“Then…then you’re ready?”

“I’ve been ready for this my entire life,” she whispered.

Diego bent closer, pressing his lips to her mouth, kissing her deeply, passionately, and then slowly, he traced a hungry path around her jaw, down over her neck, to her jugular.

She pressed her palms to the back of his head, and closed her eyes as his teeth broke the skin.
“Now,”
she whispered, “I’m in heaven.”