Claimed by the Immortal tc-4 Read online

  “All right.”

  “So anyway, I consider myself reasonably smart, street-savvy and not easy to delude. Yet apparently I’ve been living a delusion all my life.”

  “Mmm.”

  That was totally noncommittal, she noticed. It didn’t assuage her any. “And I don’t even have the excuse of not having been told all my life that there was a world invisible to most of us.” She paused gloomily. “Of course, before I became a cop there were other worlds that were invisible to me.” The night streets, the gangs, the drug runners, the prostitutes...a whole lot that hadn’t crossed her path in the neat little middle-class neighborhood her grandmother had raised her in.

  Becoming a cop had been like a bath of cold water, pulling blinders from her eyes as she faced the real sleaziness of the world. She’d dealt with that. Surely she could deal with this.

  After she remained silent for a while, he spoke quietly. “Has it occurred to you that that world you just discovered was careful not to reveal itself to you?”

  “I suppose.”

  They pulled into an alley not far from the warehouse district, the kind of place that put her on immediate alert for trouble. Her hand went immediately to the butt of her gun.

  “I’m only here for a short time,” Damien said. “I had to take what I could find.”

  “If you keep reading my mind, we’re not going to get along well.”

  “I’m reading your scents. I can’t read your mind.”

  “Neither can I,” she muttered, half wondering what her little rant had been about exactly, and mostly paying attention to all the shadows that could hide threats.

  But nothing stirred. He turned a corner off the alley into a small parking area and switched off the car. “We can still go to Jude’s,” he said.

  For the first time it struck her that he might be as nervous about her as she was about him. The big, tough vampire who had made a bold pass at her wanted to take her to Jude.

  The thought actually made her smile. She’d thought she knew who had the upper hand. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

  “No,” she said, turning that smile his way. “Let’s get this settled.”

  * * *

  That smile wasn’t comforting. Nor were the words Let’s get this settled. Not that Damien had any deep need to feel comfortable, but he didn’t like not knowing what she meant.

  He already had the sense that Caro Hamilton could be a formidable adversary. Not only had she been toughened by being a cop, but she was a nascent mage who might at any moment discover the powers she’d been keeping buried in favor of the popular concept of reality. Now that he and that formless energy that pursued her had shattered her concept, something else was going to emerge.

  From long experience, he knew he didn’t want to get into it with another mage unless he absolutely had to. And the most dangerous mage of all was one whose powers were uncontrolled and unfamiliar.

  He grimaced as he led the way to the steel loading doors that provided his protection from the nosy. The building in which he had settled had been abandoned nearly a decade ago, left to rats and insects and rot.

  Nothing like his comfortable place on the outskirts of Köln, even though he’d wasted a little time and money to fix it up. Not much, though, since most of the hours he spent here were in the sleep of death. He had gotten rid of the rats and bugs.

  It wasn’t much, and he watched her look around, taking in the mattress on the floor with a quilt covering it, a rickety table with two chairs, and a couple of oil lamps.

  “It’s cold,” she remarked, keeping her coat on.

  “I don’t feel the temperature.”

  She eyed him. “Not at all?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry it’s uncomfortable for you here. Let’s go somewhere else.” How careless of him to have even suggested they come here. He should have remembered she needed warmth. In fact, he rarely overlooked such things, and the oversight was so uncharacteristic that he knew a moment of uneasiness.

  He had stayed here too long simply because he was enjoying the company of another of his own kind for the first time in too many centuries. But in staying, he had been reminded that he could no longer run on automatic.

  “This is sad,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “That you live like this.”

  “Trust me, I don’t live like this all the time. I have a home I’m sure you would find quite comfortable. This,” he said with a wave of his hand, “was intended to be only for a few weeks. I simply lingered longer.”

  She faced him, standing with her feet apart, firmly planted as if ready for anything, and her question was almost a challenge. “Why?”

  Why? Why what? Why had he stayed, or was the question something deeper? It seemed entirely too truculent to be simple curiosity.

  Then he smelled it, ambrosia in the air. Her sexual scents overpowered everything else, at least for him. He could no longer smell the dankness of the room, or the lingering odor of burned oil from the lamps. He listened to the throb of her heart, its rhythm of need unmistakable. He could hear the soft swoosh of the blood slipping through her veins, but more important, he smelled the desire in her.

  The scent was growing. When she had parted her legs to challenge him, she had freed it, signaling him as surely as if she had spoken.

  He hesitated only briefly, aware of what had happened the last time he had approached her. Now he knew what she wanted to settle. She hoped by giving in to the hunger they both felt, she could dispel it.

  And maybe she could. There was only one way to find out.

  He walked toward her, taking care not to approach faster than she could see. She took one step back until she leaned against the brick wall. Her gaze, though, remained steady, and she evinced no desire to move away.

  He preferred better ambience for this, more grace and foreplay, more time to enjoy and savor. That could not happen in this cold, nearly empty room, yet she was choosing here and now.

  So she wanted it to be as bald and unadorned as it could get.

  He smiled faintly, knowing she was going to get more than she anticipated was possible under these circumstances. With the experience of centuries behind him, he could enter any woman’s mood, play any woman’s game and delight her in whatever way she demanded.

  She was trying, though, to make it as difficult for him as possible. Ah, but for him nothing was too difficult.

  When he stood just inches from her, she tilted her head a little to look into his eyes. He read defiance and determination in her face and posture, along with passion.

  She wanted a cure. That was one thing he wasn’t going to give her.

  “No blood,” she said throatily.

  “No,” he agreed. Her game, her limits. To a point.

  Then, utterly without warning, he slipped his palm between her legs, drawing it upward until he nearly lifted her from the floor. It was a bold, demanding, controlling gesture, and he half expected her to resist. Instead, all that happened was that a delightful groan escaped her and her eyelids fluttered. Her thighs clamped around his hand, but his strength was such that he could still move his fingers and palm, pressing, stroking, titillating. He used the seam of her jeans to taunt her more.

  Even through her jeans, he could feel her damp heat, a pleasure of the greatest kind for him now that the only warmth he could feel came from a human touch. He reveled in it, savoring it, letting her heat flow from his hand, up his arm, encouraging more and more of it with the dance of his fingers.

  He could finish her this way. He knew he could. But why hurry things needlessly? She had other delights he wanted to enjoy, delights she would enjoy, as well.

  He pulled open her jacket, pulled down the neck of her sweater and pressed his mouth to the pulse in her throat. He licked her, feeling new shivers run through her with every movement of his tongue. He had promised not to drink but suddenly realized that was going to be a difficult promise to keep. This close to the throbbing vein
in her throat, he could smell the perfume of her blood. It filled his nostrils and lungs, and his Hunger grew until it seemed to hold him in steel bands of need.

  Just as he thought he might lose control, he snapped his head back. While his one hand continued to torment her below, squeezing, pressing, kneading, he slipped his other up inside her sweater and found her breast.

  Her nipple had already engorged for him, feeling huge and hard in his palm. When he squeezed, she gasped, and finally she brought her arms up to grab his shoulders. Now she was participating, at last, holding him so he wouldn’t pull away.

  He had no intention of doing so. He might be denied his ultimate prize, but her powerful sexual reaction was the next best thing. His own body hardened in response, throbbing and demanding, but he ignored it for now. Instead, he accepted her silent invitation to lower his head and suck and nip at her breast.

  The shudders that gripped her as he nipped at her told him she wasn’t as far removed from his world as she might like to think. A little pain could amplify pleasure for some, and she was apparently one of them.

  Satisfaction penetrated his heat-filled, Hunger-filled mind, and he bit just a little harder. Her response was instantaneous as she groaned and arched into him, and that response felt almost like his own.

  It would have been better only if he had drunk from her.

  He felt the moment when she crested, and he crested in response, like a snapping bowstring. Dimly, and with no little pleasure, he suspected that nothing she had wanted to settle had been settled at all.

  Chapter 5

  Nothing was settled. The thought floated vaguely into Caro’s mind as the spasms of her climax ripped through her in powerful waves long after she had passed the peak. Nothing.

  Because pressed to a cold brick wall, with a vampire’s hand between her legs, holding her as hard as a vise, with her breast still aching from his ministrations, she knew she had just gone somewhere she had never gone before. Never had she experienced such a powerful orgasm, and she would certainly never have expected to experience one like this under these conditions. She still wore her clothes, even her gun and badge. And it was not a bed that sustained her as her legs weakened and wanted to give way, but a hand, a single hand, that had elicited pleasure she hadn’t even guessed she was capable of.

  It appalled her to realize that she’d been settling all her adult life, never dreaming there was so much more to be had.

  And it angered her that it had come from a vampire. She had wanted to put an end to this, to clear the air, and instead all she had done was discover something that could only lead to ultimate disappointment when she could no longer experience it again.

  She was still trying to catch her breath when he removed his hand and steadied her against the wall by leaning gently against her. Her hands still gripped his shoulders, an unmistakable sign of her weakness, but as much as she wanted to pull them away, she didn’t seem able to yet.

  He had left her as weak as a kitten. She didn’t like that at all.

  Yet, whispered some honest corner of her mind, she wouldn’t have missed it for anything, although it left major problems in its wake. Now she would forever wonder what delights he could give her if she removed her limitations.

  But anger returned her strength, and at last she pushed him away. He slipped back two steps immediately.

  “Damn it,” she said.

  “Did I disappoint you?” But his eyes, not quite golden, not quite black right now, said he knew he had not.

  “Shut up, Damien. Let’s get over to Jude’s and look at the freaking books.”

  He didn’t say another word, merely accompanied her back to the car meekly. Meek? Hah! Nothing about that vampire was meek and she had deluded herself right into a peck of trouble.

  Well, see if she would let that happen again. She had learned her lesson: no more vampire sex. Ever.

  * * *

  Damien let her be. He’d made his point about how much she wanted him, though why he had he was now unsure. He should have just disappointed her and let her go her way. After all, he had a life to return to in Germany, and he had no intention of hanging around here for long.

  Not that that had ever been a problem in the past. The women he shared sex with were women who intended to move on every bit as much as he did. This time he might have made a mistake.

  But everything about Caro indicated anger, so that was probably good. If he tried to approach her again, she would probably shoot him, and while that wouldn’t kill him, it would certainly dampen his ardor.

  The thought managed to amuse him enough to ignore the power her scents seemed to hold over him. He had just slaked one of his needs adequately enough, as he had slaked hers, yet the throbbing Hunger had already returned. That was a different experience for him.

  He glanced her way and saw she stared straight ahead, her jaw tightened. Perhaps he hadn’t slaked anything for anyone. Maybe he’d just made it worse for both of them.

  He wasn’t used to that. In the past, when he was done he was done, whether or not he’d drunk from his lover. Never before had the urge returned so swiftly.

  Caro, he realized yet again, had quite an unusual effect on him. She had from the very start. His first slip just might have been an aberration, but what had just happened...that was no aberration. He could simply have ignored her scents and taken her out of there. He had not had to give in.

  What was it about her that was causing him to act so irrationally?

  There didn’t seem to be an answer, other than that something about her kept pushing him well past caution. Maybe he needed to worry about that a bit. In some way, this woman was dangerous to him.

  Worse, he was beginning to realize it wasn’t just his Hunger for her. He liked her strength, her determination, her sense of humor. Perhaps that was the greatest danger of all.

  * * *

  Never had Damien imagined when he’d departed for the bookstore just how happy he was going to be to get back to Jude’s office.

  Jude was alone, reading a stack of papers at his desk. He looked through the door of his office as the two of them entered. Damien saw his nostrils flare and realized the other vampire knew pretty much what had happened. Jude was suave enough not to mention it, though.

  “Blood?” he asked Damien.

  “Yes.” The need to drink had grown to an overpowering thirst since his encounter with Caro. Since those little nips he had given her had allowed him to taste a single droplet of her blood.

  No other blood had ever tasted so good to him.

  Making no effort to conceal what he was doing, he bit, fangs extended, into the bag of blood Jude gave him and drank. Let her see. Maybe that would throw up a barrier she would never let him cross again.

  Instead, Caro barely spared him a glance and revealed no surprise at all. Evidently she had figured out how he must feed if he wasn’t robbing his sustenance from unwilling humans. And evidently, as a cop, it took more to disgust her.

  Jude, once he ascertained what they had learned at the bookstore, announced he was going out for a while and taking the car. He didn’t say where, and no one asked. The tension in the room was enough to consume them.

  Damien tossed the bag into a biohazard container when he was done, then settled at Chloe’s desk to read the parchment manuscript Alika had entrusted to him. Caro settled as far away as she could get on the couch and resumed reading her grandmother’s journal.

  He could smell the anger around her still, along with the remnants of desire. He spared a moment to try to recall if ever in all his centuries he had relied on a human’s anger to protect him from his own loss of control.

  No. Never. He’d have been amused if it weren’t so troubling.

  He made up his mind then and there to return to Cologne the instant this matter was resolved. It had been a long time since he’d felt a need for self-preservation, but right now it looked like it might be necessary. The danger of a claiming hovered at the edge of his awareness,
a folly he had managed to avoid for millennia. The fact that such a thought even edged toward consciousness was warning enough.

  * * *

  Sometime later, Caro closed her grandmother’s book with a snap. “This is no help.”

  “Why not?” Damien asked.

  “Because my grandmother was all about using power for good. All she says about misusing it is a big warning to never do so.”

  “There’s often a price,” Damien agreed. “What people these days call blowback. Or, as they say, what goes around comes around.”

  “Yeah, that seemed to be Grandma’s view, too.” She cocked a brow at him. “Did you never misuse yours?”

  “I never called on dark powers. Ever. But I’ve known some who did.”

  She leaned forward a bit, sensing deflection. “Never?”

  He shook his head. “There are many ways to use power, Caro. Views of right and wrong change with culture. But this I can say with absolute certainty—I never called on dark powers. But this thing that is haunting you—I don’t feel it’s a dark power. It might have been summoned with a dark wish, but the power is neither good nor evil. It just is. I’m beginning to think it’s probably an elemental of some type.”

  “Elemental? As in just a force?”

  “Just a force. I feel as if I’ve encountered this particular one before, but I can’t place it. At any rate, there are plenty of these forces around us. They have no mind, they have no intent or thought. But they can be directed by a mage.”

  “The bokor that was mentioned. Except I’m having trouble with that. I was scanning a book on voodoo...well, actually vodoun is the preferred name now, and it didn’t strike me as being the kind of thing the movies show. It seemed mostly benign.”

  “It is. It’s a combination of animism with Christianity for the most part, and most practitioners intend no ill. But like any belief, it can be twisted and misused. Animistic religions have one advantage over the mainstream—they believe in elemental powers, and call on them. Variants of vodoun, from Santeria to hoodoo, call on elementals. And anyone, if they get angry enough or feel threatened enough, could turn to one of these elementals for protection. Even for murder.”