Night's Pleasure (Children of The Night 4)

“I think so.”

“But why?” Savanah frowned. The possibility that the killer was a woman put a whole new spin on things. Had her father been having an affair she didn’t know about? Had the two of them had a quarrel that turned violent? She dismissed the thought out of hand. She was grabbing at straws, hoping to explain away what she knew was the truth. In her heart, she knew a Vampire had killed her father, just as Rane had said. “Why?” It was a question she couldn’t seem to stop asking.

“I don’t know,” Rane said, “but I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

She stared up at him, her eyes welling with tears. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said, sniffling. “Why would anyone want to kill him? He was old and crippled and…”

“Shh.” Rane moved toward her, wondering if she would accept comfort from him.

She didn’t move when he wrapped his arms around her. Ramrod stiff, she stood in his embrace while tears ran down her cheeks and then, with a sob, she collapsed against him, warm and soft and vulnerable.

He held her a moment, then lifted her into his arms and carried her to the sofa. Taking a seat, he cradled her to his chest.

“I should be trying to kill you,” she said, sniffling.

“I give you leave to try later.”

She laughed through her tears. He took that for a good sign.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Savanah, I swear it.”

“I don’t think I care.”

He chuckled softly. “Hey, talk like that’s going to give Vampire hunters a bad name.”

“I don’t care,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I just want my dad back.”

“I know.” He stroked her hair, gentling her to his touch. She was vulnerable now, ripe for the taking, but as he held her, he came to the grim realization that he had been caught in his own trap, and that in the midst of seducing her, he had lost his own heart instead. Anyone who tried to harm Savanah would have to go through him first.

Rane swore softly. Since the night of his first kill, he had punished himself for what he was, for the lives he had taken. He had adhered to the mores of traditional Vampires. For years, he had spent the daylight hours resting inside a coffin, refusing to stir until sundown, even though there was no need. Like his brother, he could function during the day, undoubtedly a benefit of having a mortal woman for a mother, and a father who had been turned by the world’s oldest Vampire. But even though he could be awake and active, he didn’t have the power to walk in the sun’s light. Years ago, Mara had offered to share her blood with him. Had he taken it, power straight from the source, so to speak, he would now be able to withstand the sun’s light, at least for short periods of time, but he had refused her.

“Why?” she had asked. “Why would you deny yourself so great a gift?”

“Because,” he had replied succinctly. “I don’t deserve it.”

“What foolishness is that?”

“I’m a Vampire, a creature of the night. I belong in the darkness, and that’s where I’ll stay.”

Mara hadn’t tried to change his mind. He was sorry now that she hadn’t persuaded him, and even sorrier that she was currently somewhere in Egypt, no doubt resting in the earth of her homeland, leaving him no way to get in touch with her. Damn.

With a last sniff, Savanah sat up, putting some space between herself and Rane. Her gaze rested on the shriveled skin on the side of his face and neck. She had done that to him in a moment of anger and frustration.

“Does it still hurt?” she asked, surprised that his cheek wasn’t still raw and red.

“Oh, yeah.”

“I’m sorry, really I am. Will it leave a scar?” It would be a shame to mar that handsome profile.

“No.” He lifted a hand to his cheek. “I’m a fast healer. By tomorrow night, the worst of the pain will have subsided. In a few days, the burns will be gone.”

Remarkable, she thought. If her skin had been burned like that, it would have taken weeks to heal. “How long have you been a Vampire?”

“Almost ninety years.”

He didn’t look that old, of course, but then Vampires didn’t age once they were turned.

“How is it possible for both of your parents to be Vampires?” The brown book had stated quite clearly that Vampires couldn’t reproduce, but Rane’s existence seemed to contradict that. She placed one hand over her stomach. She had been certain she couldn’t be pregnant, but what if she was wrong?

“How do you know about my parents?” he asked.

“It’s in one of the books.”

Ah, yes, the books, Rane thought. Aloud, he said, “My father turned my mother after I was grown.”

“Is Raphael Cordova your brother?”

Rane nodded, more certain than ever that the Vampire who had killed William Gentry had been looking for those accursed volumes.

“Did your father turn you, too?”

“No, being a Vampire was in my blood, and Rafe’s, from the day we were born.”

“How can that be?”

“My father had only been a Vampire a short time when he married my mother. It was his opinion that he had somehow retained enough of his humanity to father a child. Two, actually. Rafe and I are twins.”

“Oh.” Since Rane had been a Vampire for ninety years, it was doubtful he could have gotten her pregnant. “Why would a Vampire kill my father?”

“I should think that would be obvious,” Rane said dryly. “Your father was a hunter.” Even as he said the words, he wondered if that was the reason, or if Gentry had been killed because he refused to disclose the whereabouts of the books now resting under the sofa.

“But the war ended eighteen years ago. Why would anyone want to kill him now?”

“Eighteen years isn’t long to a Vampire,” Rane said.

Of course it wasn’t, Savanah thought. She didn’t know how long Vampires lived, but according to the black book, the Vampire, Mara, had lived for thousands of years with no end in sight.

Savanah tried to imagine what it would be like to live that long, but it was beyond her comprehension. These days, humans in good health could expect to live a hundred years or more, but to live for thousands of years…She wondered if Vampires ever got tired of living, of forever staying the same while the rest of the world evolved and grew older.

Curious, she put the question to Rane.