Blood of the Ancient

8

The next morning, Lachlain lay beside her, sleep barely shaken off, as content as he’d been in hundreds of years.

Of course, he’d been in hell for nearly two hundred of those, and now he was clean and fed. Toward morning, he’d slept like the dead, free of the grueling nightmares that had plagued the last week.

Emma had lain tense and still for most of the night, as if she suspected any movement on her part might make him want to come again. She’d have been right. Courtesy of her soft hand, he’d ejaculated hard, shockingly so. She’d eased the heavy ache in his balls, but he’d still wanted to be inside her.

All night, he’d squeezed her to him. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. He’d never slept the night with a female before. That experience was reserved for a mate, but apparently he liked it. A lot.

He recalled speaking to her, though not the words he’d said. He remembered her reaction, though. She’d looked hopeless, as if she’d finally realized her situation.

She’d attempted escape one last time, and again he’d enjoyed letting her think she was about to succeed before he dragged her back and tucked her into his side. She went limp, then passed out. He didn’t know if she’d fainted or not, and didn’t particularly care.

He supposed it could be worse. If he was going to possess a vampire, she might as well be a beautiful one. A hated foe, a blood drinker… but beautiful. He wondered if he could put meat on her bones. Was that possible for a vampire?

Drowsily, he reached forward to touch her hair. Last night, when it had dried, he’d found it curled wildly and lighter than he’d thought. Now, he marveled at the glossy locks shining in the sun, lovely, even for a vampire.

Sun.

Mother of Christ. He leapt from the bed, yanking the curtains closed, then rushed back to her, turning her in his arms.

She was scarcely breathing, unable to speak, pink tears of blood tracking from her dazed eyes. Her skin burned as though with fever. He rushed her into the bath, fiddling with the unfamiliar dial until the water streamed out icy cold, then put them both under it. After several minutes, she coughed, breathed deep, then went limp again. He gathered her closer to his chest with the crook of his arm, frowning. He didn’t care if she’d burned, he had burned. Because of her kindred. He merely wanted to keep her alive until he could determine with certainty that she wasn’t his mate.

The evidence that she wasn’t kept mounting. If she had truly been his, he never would have thought, Now you know how it feels. Not when his life’s purpose had always been to find her so he could protect her and keep her from harm. He was sick, his mind was playing tricks on him. It had to be…

He kept them in the water until she cooled, then plucked the sodden silk from her body to dry her tender skin. Before he returned her to the bed, he dressed the vampire in another gown, this one an even deeper red, as if he needed reminding of what she was.

He drew on his own battered clothes, then prowled the suite, wondering what in the hell he was going to do with her. It wasn’t long before her breathing returned to normal, her cheeks pinkening again. Typical vampire resilience. He’d always cursed it, and hated her anew for demonstrating it.

With disgust, he turned from her, his gaze landing on the television set. He studied it, trying to determine how to turn it on. He shook his head at the simplicity of modern devices, cleverly deducing how by selecting a button labeled “on.”

Over the past week, it had seemed that every inhabitant on the outskirts of Paris had convened in front of one of these boxes at the close of each day. With his keen sight and hearing, Lachlain had been able to watch from outside. He would drag stolen food up a tree, then lean back, stunned by the information on each one. And now he had his own to watch. After a few moments of button pressing, he found a static channel that reported only news, and it was in English. Her language, and one of his, though he was more than a century out of date with it.

As he rummaged through her things, he listened to the unfamiliar speech patterns and new vocabulary, learning them quickly. Lykae had that talent, the ability to blend, to pick up languages, dialects, and current words. A survival mechanism. The Instinct commanded: Blend. Learn everything. No detail to be missed. Or die.

He studied her belongings. Back to the silk drawer, of course. The underclothing of this time was smaller and therefore preferable to yore. He imagined her in each elaborate scrap of silk, imagining biting them off her, though a couple of pieces baffled him. When he realized where the string was supposed to go and pictured her thus, he groaned, nearly coming in his trews.

Then to the closet to examine her strange clothes, so many reds, so many lacking coverage. The vampire would not be leaving this room in some of them.

He emptied the satchel she’d had with her last night onto the floor, noticing the leather was ruined. In the wet pile was a silver contraption with numbers like those on the, he frowned, telephone. He shook it, water sloshed out, and he tossed it over his shoulder.

A smaller leather case contained a hardened card: a “Louisiana Driver’s License.”

Vampires in Louisiana? Unheard of.

The card had her name: Emmaline Troy. He paused, thinking back to all the years he’d prayed for just a name, a mere hint of how to find his mate. He frowned, trying to recall if he’d told the vampire his own name the crazed night before…

Her height was listed as five foot four, weight one hundred and five pounds, not even sopping wet could she achieve that, and her eyes were blue. Blue was too tame a word for their color.

There was a small likeness of her smiling shyly, her hair braided to cover her ears. The likeness itself was amazing, but puzzling. It was like a daguerreotype, but this one had color. He had so bloody much to learn.

Her birth date was listed as 1982, which he knew was false. Physiologically, she wasn’t older than her early twenties, frozen forever at her peak. Chronologically, she would be older. Most vampires had existed for centuries.

And why in the hell would the leeches be in Louisiana? Had they taken over more than just Europe? If so, what had happened to his clan?

The thought of his clan made him glance up at the vampire, still sleeping as if dead. If she was supposed to be his mate, she would be his queen, ruling over Lachlain’s kind. Impossible. The clan would rip her to shreds at the first opportunity. Lykae and vampires were natural-born enemies, blood adversaries.

That’s why he was impatiently returning his attention to her things, to study an enemy. Not because he was itching with curiosity about the female.

He opened a thin blue passport book and found another likeness, another smile, then a “medic alert” card listing her condition as “sun allergy and extreme photosensitivity.”

As he pondered whether the card was a jest, he pulled out a credit card. He’d seen advertisements for these on television, he’d probably learned as much from the ads as from the grim person who divulged news, and he knew they purchased everything.

Lachlain needed everything. He was starting over, but his most pressing needs were clothing and transportation away from here. As weak as he was, he didn’t want to remain in a place where the vampires knew she stayed. Until he could sort through everything, he would be forced to take the creature with him. He supposed he needed to figure out how to keep it alive during their travels.

Knowing she would most likely sleep until sunset, and couldn’t escape during the day anyway, he left her to make his way downstairs.

The questioning glances he was sure to receive would be met with an arrogant glare. If he showed ignorance of the times, he would cover it with a gaze so direct that most people would think they’d misunderstood him. Humans always cowered under that look.

Audacity made kings. And it was time to reclaim his crown.