His Dark Embrace

“Waiting for me?” he asked with a wicked grin.

“No. Desmarais was just here.”

“What?” Lifting his head, Thorne took a deep breath. He had been so eager to see Sky, he hadn’t paid much attention to anything else.

“He couldn’t get in,” Sky said. “It was almost funny, watching him try.”

“Well, if he’d had a gun, you wouldn’t be laughing.”

That sobered her mighty quick. “I never thought of that,” Sky said, stepping aside so he could enter. “But why would he come here? I mean ...” She shivered. “If he’d gotten inside ...” She swallowed hard. She had no doubt he would have killed her on the spot.

“Exactly,” Thorne said. “You need to make sure who’s outside before you open the door.”

“Shouldn’t he have known he couldn’t get in without an invitation? I mean, you said he used to be a hunter.”

Thorne shrugged. “Sometimes fledglings, especially cocky ones, forget the rules. And sometimes they have to test the laws just to see if they really work.”

Like children always pushing the envelope, she thought, eager to see what they could get away with. Girard Desmarais was an old man in mortal years, but he was just a baby as a vampire.

Thorne followed Skylynn into the living room, the lingering odors of fried chicken and mashed potatoes tickling his nostrils. He was already forgetting how much he had enjoyed the taste of mortal food, how pleasurable it had been to savor the many tastes and textures, to drink something besides blood.

Skylynn sat on the sofa, her hands folded in her lap to stop their trembling. She couldn’t stop thinking about what might have happened if she had hollered “come in” instead of going to open the door. She pushed the troubling thought aside. It hadn’t happened and there was no point in dwelling on it.

She took a deep breath. There was something she needed to know, the sooner the better.

Thorne sat beside Skylynn, his thigh brushing hers. One look at her face and he knew something was bothering her, something besides the close call with Desmarais. For a moment, he was tempted to read her mind, but he had promised not to, and so he waited.

“Kaiden ...” Pausing, she licked her lips. “What if ...” She took a deep breath, and said it all in a rush. “What if I’m pregnant? Will the baby be a vampire?”

He should have seen this coming, he thought, but it had been so long since he’d had to worry about fathering a child, it had never occurred to him to mention it.

She looked at him, her beautiful blue eyes filled with worry. “Would it have to have blood to survive? Would I have to keep it indoors during the day?”

“Skylynn ...” He scrubbed his palms up and down his thighs. “I can’t father a child.”

She stared at him, the worry in her eyes turning to pity. “Maybe a fertility clinic ... ?”

“It isn’t that.” Might as well get it out in the open, say it so she’d understand. Give her a chance to back out. “Vampires can’t reproduce,” he said flatly. “The dead can’t create life.”

The dead can’t create life.

She reeled back as though he had slapped her. Did he have to put it quite so bluntly? Was he deliberately trying to drive her away? Her gaze searched his and she realized what he was doing. He was giving her an out, a valid reason to change her mind before things went any further between them.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t know... . Did you have children, before?”

“No. I was too busy being a rakehell to think about getting married, let alone having children.” It was something he regretted, now that it was eternally too late to do anything about it. “If you want children, I’ll understand,” he said quietly. “I only want what’s best for you.”

“You’re what’s best for me. Don’t you know that?” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “I don’t need anyone but you. Just you. Only you.”

“Sky.” Humbled by her love, he laid his cheek against her breast. What kind of selfish monster was he, to expect her to give up one of life’s greatest blessings just to be with him? And yet, after so many centuries alone, didn’t he deserve a few years of happiness? She was young. She would soon tire of sharing his bizarre lifestyle and when that happened, he would let her go. It would destroy him, but she would still be young enough to marry and have children, to watch those children grow up and have children of their own.

And perhaps, on quiet moonlit nights when she lay safe in her future husband’s arms, she would think back and fondly remember the monster who had loved her.

Chapter 27

As the miles slid past, the fever took over. He drifted in and out of consciousness, his fevered dreams filled with disjointed images of planes and tanks and roadside bombs, of buddies being blown to bits, of women sobbing and frightened children, of being afraid to close his eyes. Sometimes a woman was there, her hair and face covered, her bright blue eyes wide with terror as she ran and ran from a nameless, faceless enemy. And sometimes a tall, dark-haired man was there sporting realistic plastic fangs and red contacts that blazed like twin coals plucked from the bowels of an unforgiving hell.

He saw those eyes now, boring into him, penetrating his heart, piercing his very soul, heard a voice whispering in his ear.

“Wake up, soldier. You’re safe now. Wake up.”

He came awake with a harsh cry, the sound of his own heartbeat echoing like thunder in his ears.

“It’s all right, son.”

He blinked at the man bending over him. “Who are you? Where am I?”

“You’re in a hospital, here in the States.”

“I’m American?” He glanced around. The room was filled with beds. He saw several nurses moving from one patient to another, checking blood pressure here, taking a temperature there.

The man nodded. “I’m Dr. Wharton.” The doctor picked up a clipboard and pulled a pen from his coat pocket. “How are you feeling, Sam?”

“Sam?”

The doctor paused in the act of looking over the chart on his clipboard. “Your dog tags were missing when they found you, but according to the fingerprints on file, you’re Samuel Patrick McNamara.”

“If you say so.” He repeated the name in his mind but it had no meaning.

“You listed your sister, Skylynn O’Brien, as your next of kin. We tried to notify her, but the number listed in Chicago has been disconnected and there’s no new listing.”