The Black Rose Chronicles Read online

  Desperation filled Aidan, along with a certain fragile elation. The Brotherhood existed, and he would be given audience only on the approval—perhaps the whim—of these mysterious elders.

  Still, the fellowship might well possess the knowledge he needed, the secret that would set him free. He must bide his time and be patient. He started toward the doorway. “I will be back again tomorrow night to look in on Valerian,” he said in passing. “Thank you for a most interesting evening.”

  Down in the dungeon, Aidan was surprised to find Valerian sitting up and looking a bit more chipper. He was wearing a snow-white shirt, buttoned halfway up his chest, dark trousers, and boots.

  “I’ve decided to go back to Connecticut with you,” he announced.

  Aidan stopped cold, felt the smile freeze on his mouth, and let it fall away. “What?”

  “I’m bored with this place, and you plainly need a guiding hand, given your reckless ways.” He was rolling down his sleeves, fastening cuff links made from Roman coins. “Don’t worry, Aidan. I won’t corner your lovely mortal and bite her neck. I only want to help you.”

  Aidan sighed. “I suppose there is no persuading you to stay here?”

  Valerian smiled fondly. “It would be easier to make a bat love daylight,” he said.

  And so it was that when Aidan returned to his house outside of Bright River, Valerian was with him.

  Not surprisingly, considering the many recent upheavals in her life, Neely hadn’t been able to sleep. She had taken a long, hot bath in Aidan’s tile-lined tub, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt taken from the suitcase he’d recovered for her, and finished off what was left of the Chinese leftovers she’d stashed in the refrigerator. Then she’d meandered back to Aidan’s study, taken up the first volume of his journal again, and tumbled headfirst into the story.

  She’d read, spellbound, of Aidan’s early adventures as a vampire. Early on, he’d traveled to the north of England by night, intending to visit his twin sister in her convent school. He’d stopped at an inn along the way and there been approached by an imposing vampire who called himself Valerian—

  “His lucky night,” a masculine voice commented.

  Neely jumped in her chair and had to grab at the book to keep it from toppling to the floor. Before her stood the towering, graceful creature she’d met once before, the night the man driving the Blazer had chased her into the woods. The night she’d found the music box.

  “Yes,” he said drolly, with a slight bow. “It is I—Valerian—in person. So to speak.”

  Neely tried to melt into the chair cushions, her eyes rounded, her heart flailing with the purest sort of terror. “Stay away from me,” she whispered, holding out the rose medallion Aidan had given her, hoping it had some power to ward off intruders.

  Valerian laughed. “What? No garlic? Such is the shameful state of vampire lore in this modern and wholly unromantic age!”

  Just then, when she thought panic would surely consume her, Neely caught sight of Aidan. He smiled at her but spoke sharply to the intimidating Valerian.

  “I meant what I said. Leave her alone.”

  Valerian yawned. “Of course I will obey your every wish,” he said convivially. “It’s almost dawn, in case you haven’t noticed. What assurance can you offer that this delicious gamine will not drive stakes through our hearts as we slumber?”

  “None,” Aidan answered wearily, “except that the task would be a nasty one, and she’s probably not up to it. Stop your teasing and retire, Valerian. I want a word alone with Neely.”

  The great vampire sighed in a long-suffering way, raised his arms over his head, and disappeared without a trace.

  Neely stared at the space Valerian had just vacated, blinked, and then passed a hand slowly back and forth in the vacuum, certain her eyes had deceived her.

  Gently Aidan took the book from her and set it aside. Then he bent to kiss her forehead. “I know what you’re thinking, but you mustn’t tax yourself with conundrums about smoke and mirrors,” he advised. “What you just saw was neither a trick nor an illusion. Vanishing is elementary vampire stuff.”

  “Elementary vampire stuff,” Neely repeated. By that point she was almost completely overwhelmed, through no fault of her own, and that irritated her. She flushed and looked up at Aidan with defiance in her eyes. ‘Tell me, Aidan—what else can vampires do?”

  He sat down on the hassock, next to her feet, and folded his graceful hands. He looked forlornly amused as he regarded her. “They can travel through time—back to the point of their own death as a human being, though not forward past the present. The future is as much a mystery to them—us—as it is to you. They are able to communicate mentally with other creatures like themselves, across great distances, and move so rapidly that they cannot be seen.” Neely eased past Aidan and stood, her hands on her hips, her mind filled with dangerous puzzles. “Can they—can you—reproduce?”

  Aidan sighed and rose to his feet. “Not the way mortals do. But rest assured, vampires are quite capable of making love.”

  Neely felt the familiar heat, along with a measure of fear and a storm of loneliness that rushed through her spirit like a wailing wind. “I know,” she said, remembering.

  He reached out and touched the base of her throat with the tip of a cool index finger. “You know far less than you think you do,” he said, not unkindly. “We’re greedy, violent creatures, quite fond of pleasure—which explains the typical penchant for immortality.”

  “Vampires marry, then?”

  “They sometimes mate, though it’s rare,” Aidan clarified, and although one corner of his mouth was raised in the slightest smile, he looked sad. “For the most part, Neely, we nightwalkers tend to keep to ourselves. We mistrust even our own kind, and especially other sorts of fiends.” He glanced uneasily toward the window, where dawn was beginning to thin the darkness.

  Neely took hold of his arm when he would have turned from her. “You—you mean there are other things”—she paused to blush—“monsters—walking around among regular people?”

  “Yes,” Aidan answered, sounding mildly impatient now. “There are werewolves and ghosts, angels and fairies—lots of ‘things.’ And then there are the other dimensions, overlaying this one. Were you truly so vain as to believe that humanity has the universe all to itself?”

  The question required no reply.

  “I don’t want you to leave me,” Neely blurted out when he moved to pull away. “Please, Aidan—I want to go wherever you’re going.”

  He laid his hands lightly on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. “I cannot allow that,” he said gently. “Go upstairs and try to rest. I will come to you through your dreams if I can.”

  She had to be content with that, for it was almost morning; any minute the sun would spill over the horizon and flood the world with light.

  Aidan traced the outline of her jaw with one finger, then raised his arms and disappeared.

  Neely lingered for a time, trying once again, and wholly in vain, to make sense of what she had just experienced. Her insomnia left her, she was infinitely weary all of a sudden, and felt as if she could sleep for a century.

  After returning the first volume of Aidan’s journal to the shelf, she slowly climbed the stairs, entered the bed chamber, took off everything but her T-shirt, and tumbled into bed.

  Soon after she closed her eyes, Neely found herself floating serenely on the dark inner waters of her mind. She allowed her consciousness to drift, too weary to anchor it in reality.

  Aidan was in his lair, at least physically, crouching against the wall as he always did, but that day he left the husk of himself behind and sought Neely. He was inexperienced at such travel, unlike Valerian; he could not feel the sunshine or the wind, and he could see only dimly. With practice, he knew, his senses would sharpen.

  He found Neely easily, saw her as the dimmest of shadows, sprawled in the middle of the large bed he had never actually slept in, her arms and legs askew
.

  He thought her name, and she stirred, uttering a soft, despairing sound that made him yearn to console her. All the while, Aidan was aware that he should not be testing the limits of his powers in this way, without first taking instruction from Valerian or Maeve. He was in danger because of his wandering, but there was a much greater peril to be considered now—Neely’s. As fiercely as he wanted to protect her, she was at risk, for Lisette and perhaps even Valerian would not hesitate to use her, should the opportunity arise.

  Valerian was given to dalliances; he would drink from her, toy with her for a time, as cats do with rubber balls and cloth mice, and then toss her aside when his fickle interest waned.

  Lisette, and a few others who had reason to hate Aidan, would delight in destroying Neely or, worse yet, turning her into a fiend.

  Imagining Neely as a vampire made Aidan cry out softly, in anguished despair. He had to let her go, he thought, to walk away and not look back, to forget her and pray that she would go unnoticed by his enemies.

  But could he do that? Did he have the strength, needing the woman as he did? The comfort and affection and love she gave him were as necessary to him as the blood he was condemned to drink, and her whispered gasps of passion engendered in him an ecstasy he had never felt before.

  Yes, he admitted to himself, at last, he loved Neely Wallace, fully and completely, as he had never loved anyone else before, in all his two centuries of existence, but he had no right to such tender sentiments. No right on earth, or in heaven.

  It was torture, the wanting, the needing and, worst of all, the knowing.

  Aidan caused the covers to slide slowly downward, to the foot of the bed, and Neely groped for the pillow next to her and sighed his name.

  With that simple, innocent sound the last vestige of Aidan’s already tenuous self-control faded. Easily, using only the mental power at which all vampires are adept, he arranged her on her back and removed the T-shirt, drawing it off over her head.

  Neely didn’t open her eyes, but she was aware of his presence, and she welcomed him, crooning softly and arching her wondrous, supple body once, as if to entice him.

  Still, Aidan cherished this fragile, independent creature too much to press his advantage. May I touch you, Neely? he asked, exerting no other power now beyond being mentally present in that room. May I give you pleasure?

  A fine sheen of perspiration glistened on her skin, and the tips of her lush breasts shaped themselves into buds. “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”

  “…yes…”

  Neely had never had a more sensual, more downright delicious dream. It seemed that Aidan was lying with her in that huge bed, naked and warm and gloriously passionate.

  She felt his hands stroking her, moving over the length of her, learning the curves and hollows of her body, taking their time. When it seemed that her every pore was open to him, he narrowed his caresses to her breasts, weighing them in his palms, fondling them with a gentle reverence that made her want to weep, chafing their nipples with the sides of his thumbs.

  She wanted this to be real, this tender, fiery loving. Oh, please, she wished in silence, let all the rest of it, the vampires and the men who want to murder me, let those things be the dream.

  Neely cried out in nearly unbearable pleasure when Aidan moistened one nipple with his tongue, then began to suckle. She tried to put her arms around him, but there was nothing to hold, for he was a phantom lover.

  Neither waking nor sleeping, Neely responded without restraint as Aidan pressed her breasts together and somehow teased and tasted the straining tips of both. Her body began to undulate, and she felt her hair clinging to her face in moist tendrils. Again she reached for Aidan, again she failed to find him, though he was undeniably there, loving her more fully than she’d ever been loved.

  She clawed and clutched at the bedclothes as he continued to worship her, rose high off the mattress with a cry of primitive surrender when he burrowed through the silken delta between her legs and nibbled greedily at the very core of her femininity. At the same time he continued to enjoy not one breast, but both, and then—then he added the final element to her conquering. He thrust inside her, hard and hot, while still subjecting her to all the other sensations, too.

  Neely was not inexperienced—she’d been deeply in love once before, after all—but she’d never felt anything like this before Aidan. He, and only he, was touching her, and yet all her erogenous zones were being attended at once. She thought the pleasure would surely kill her, and didn’t care one whit if she died, if only she could have the promised satisfaction first.

  Her release was savage in its intensity, seeming to draw her up onto her elbows, the rounding of her heels, the crown of her head, where she hung suspended, uttering one ragged shout of ecstasy after another. Aidan plied her senses mercilessly, the whole time refusing to allow her to fall after scaling only one peak. No, he took her to another pinnacle, and then another, still higher, and when he finally allowed her to rest, she was mute with exhaustion. She curled up in a corner of her own heart and slept a fathomless sleep.

  When she awakened, it was late afternoon. Somewhere deep inside her a chord still resonated with the last sweet music of Aidan’s caresses. Neely smiled, stretched, reached for him…

  And remembered.

  She had only dreamed that Aidan had made love to her.

  Tears blurred Neely’s vision as she turned onto her side and gazed toward the row of windows on the other side of the room. Winter would soon arrive in earnest, and the first faint shadows of twilight were already gathering. She lay there, watching the daylight fade, mourning for the dream world where she and Aidan had become one.

  An hour passed, and part of another. When the room was bruised with darkness, Aidan came to her. She saw him, felt him with her outstretched hand, and his weight pressed into the edge of the mattress, gloriously real.

  “Aidan.”

  “Yes, my love.”

  She reached up, smoothed the sleek, raven-dark hair at his temple with her palm. “I had the loveliest, most scandalous dream.”

  He smiled that sad, poignant, beautiful smile again, the one that never failed to pierce her heart. “Did you?”

  9

  As he sat beside Neely on the bed, looking down at her and remembering her responses to his purely mental lovemaking, Aidan again acknowledged the most difficult and treacherous reality of all. She was safe from human enemies while in his house, but in the gravest of danger from immortal predators. Valerian would see her as a plaything, Lisette, as a tool of revenge—even Maeve, in her reckless sisterly and somewhat possessive affection, represented a threat to Neely.

  Besides, whatever loyalty Maeve and Valerian might feel toward him, they were vampires, first and always, and as such they could not be trusted with a mortal.

  Aidan felt starved and enervated himself, for he had expended tremendous energy pleasuring Neely, and he knew better than anyone what a temptation she offered. Even though he was certain now that he could make love to her, with his body as well as his mind, without fear of doing her harm, he was still terrified for her.

  He stood, then retreated a pace. “I’ll return in a little while,” he said gruffly. “While I’m gone, I want you to remember—to go over every hour, every moment of your past—until you think of some place where you might hide from the senator and his friends until I can deal with them.”

  She sat up, regarded him with round eyes, unconsciously covering herself with the sheets. “You were really here, making love to me, weren’t you? It was some sort of—of vampire magic, like before—and like the night we danced.”

  Aidan could not look at her, could not bear to reply. He’d done a vile, damnable thing, tainting her delicate purity with his own foul passions. By loving her, he might well have condemned her to a fate that was quite literally worse than death.

  “Aidan,” she persisted.

  “Yes,” he admitted, fairly sobbing the word. “Damn it, yes, it wa
s real!”

  She left the bed, the top sheet wrapped around her slender figure and trailing behind her like a bride’s train, and came to him.

  “Are you still afraid?” she asked. Her voice was like balm to his tormented spirit, a drop of water on the tongue of a sinner suffering in hell.

  “Oh, yes,” Aidan ground out, visibly forcing himself to look at her. “Not of bedding you, my lass—I know now that the love I feel for you is far greater than any lust for blood—but there are other dangers.”

  She stood on tiptoe and kissed him with a tenderness that broke his heart.

  “Then let us have whatever time together that we can,” she said. “Come, Aidan, and lie with me.”

  He had never wanted anything so much, with the possible exception of his lost mortality, but he forced himself to draw back from her, knowing that every moment they spent together made her doom more likely.

  “There are things I must do,” Aidan said, leaving her alone again.

  Neely took a quick shower and donned yesterday’s jeans and one of Aidan’s sweaters, then dashed down the stairs. In a moment of panic, she considered bolting out the front door and running—just running—until she collapsed. The problem was, there was nowhere to run to, and there was certainly no place to hide.

  Anyway, she couldn’t tolerate the thought of being separated from Aidan—she would rather become a blood drinker herself than to lose him.

  She stood in the dark entryway, breathing deeply, until she’d calmed herself a little. Then she marched resolutely into the kitchen. A bowl of fresh fruit and a loaf of French bread had materialized on the counter; Neely wondered, with grim amusement, if Aidan had conjured the food for her.

  Vampire magic, she thought, gazing at the stuff, and doubted that she’d ever feel like eating again.