Dead Perfect

She waited for Ronan to lock the door and switch on the lights. “Do you still want me to live here, with you?” she asked.

“Yes. Why? You haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

“No.”

Murmuring her name, he drew her into his arms. The plane crash had reminded him anew of how fragile human life was, how quickly it could be snuffed out. He wanted to spend every moment possible with the woman in his arms. He wanted her with him forever.

Shannah leaned against him, her head pillowed on his chest, her eyes closed. The sound of his heartbeat soothed her. His arms were strong around her, protective, comforting. She was safe here, with him. Nothing could hurt her while he was there…

Trust me, love, there’s nothing to fear. I won’t let anything hurt you.

The words echoed so loudly in her mind she looked up to see if he had spoken.

“Did you say something?”

“No, why?”

“I thought…never mind. It’s late,” she said, smothering a yawn. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

“All right.”

“Will you sit with me until I fall asleep?”

“If you wish.”

“Give me a few minutes, okay?”

Nodding, he watched her climb the stairs until she was out of sight, and then he began to pace the floor. Had he made a mistake in asking her to move in? It would be harder to keep his secret, harder to explain his continued absences during the day. And yet he could not abide the thought of letting her go. She was too fragile to live alone. He needed to have her nearby, where he could keep watch over her, where he could come to her aid should she need it. He was not entirely helpless during the day. If she needed him when he was at rest, he could, with a great deal of effort, rise to meet her needs, so long as she was inside the house.

He waited fifteen minutes and then he went up the stairs to her bedroom. She was already in bed, her hair spread around her shoulders in waves of black silk. She looked up at him through eyes shadowed with remorse and he wondered how long it would take her to get over feeling guilty because she had survived, and be grateful that she was still alive. He knew he could wipe the guilt from her memory, but he was reluctant to mess with her mind too often.

Wordlessly, he drew her into his arms, one hand stroking her back. “I’m glad you survived,” he murmured. “My existence wouldn’t be the same without you.”

“Your existence?”

“My life,” he amended easily.

“Do I really mean that much to you?”

“That much and more,” he said fervently. “Until you came into my life, I was lost and I didn’t even know it.”

“I think that’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“I want to make you happy, love. If there’s anything you want, you have only to name it. Do whatever you want in the house, buy whatever you wish, whatever you need.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“Not really. I’m just being selfish.”

“It doesn’t sound selfish to me.”

“Ah, but it is, don’t you see? Making you happy makes me happy.”

She smiled up at him. “Maybe that’s why I was spared,” she remarked. “To spend my last few days making you happy.”

“Perhaps. Let’s not question fate, let’s just enjoy the time we have.”

“I love you, Ronan.”

“Shannah!”

“Do you love me?”

“More than you can imagine.”

With a sigh, she snuggled against him, her arms around his waist.

He held her until she fell asleep, held her until the hunger gnawing at his insides could no longer be ignored.

Brushing a kiss across her brow, he settled her under the covers, and then he went out into the night to search the drifting shadows for prey.

Chapter Seventeen

After five hundred and thirteen years as a vampire, it didn’t take Ronan long to find that which he sought, that which he needed. He fed quickly, neatly, and went on his way.

Five hundred and thirteen years. It didn’t seem possible that so many centuries had passed, or that he had changed in so many ways and yet remained ever the same.

He had been born in the summer of 1459 in a small town off the English coast, a town that no longer existed. He had grown up on a farm, the youngest child in a family of four girls and five boys. His brothers and sisters had all married and left home by the time he was seventeen and he alone had remained to help his father work the farm. At the age of twenty-four, he had married the girl on the neighboring farm. It hadn’t been a love match, though Verity had been a sweet girl, biddable and kind-hearted. Though he had married her to please his parents, he hadn’t been completely unhappy with his bride. She had been a pretty thing, with expressive brown eyes and a shy smile. Their marriage had been amicable if not exciting. In time, Verity had grown to love him and he had learned to care and appreciate her for the good woman she was. They had been married eight years and had long since given up any hope of having children when Verity told him she was pregnant. Seven months later, she had died in childbirth and the babe with her. He had mourned her death and the loss of his child, mourned the fact that he had never loved her.

He had immersed himself in work after the death of his wife and child. His mother and father had assured him that the grief would pass, that he would marry again. He never knew if they were right or wrong. Three years after Verity’s death, Rosalyn had come to town and changed his life forever.

She had been a wild, wanton woman, the perfect antidote for the lethargy that had plagued him. She had teased and flirted shamelessly, and one night under a dark moon she had taken him into the shadows beyond the town and seduced him. When he had offered to marry her, she laughed in his face.

“You are so young,” she had exclaimed. “And so tasty.” She had kissed him again, arousing him to fever pitch once more, and then she sank her fangs into his throat.

Though he was taller and broader and outweighed her by a good sixty pounds, he had been helpless to resist her. He had felt himself growing weak, weaker, knew he was on the brink of death. When she lifted her head and looked down at him, her lips had been stained with his blood.

“Why?” he asked, his voice little more than a whisper.

She shrugged, and then, to his astonishment, she slit her wrist with a fingernail. Drops of dark red bubbled from the wound. He recoiled when she offered him her arm.