Dark Need

"You be careful. I know you're a cop, but you're on your own now."



She thought of Lucan, and some of her bones melted. She wasn't alone; that was the difference. She had him, and he would protect her. "I will."



Her next call was to Infusion, and was answered by Lucan's assistant, Burke.



"Mr. Burke, I understand you brought me home last night," Sam said.



"Yes, Detective Brown. Excuse me." The sound of a muffled sneeze came over the line. "The master thought it was best that you be returned to your home."



"Your master has never woken up alone in a strange bed."



And she'd give him some grief about it. Nerves made her wander over to the window and open the blinds. "Does he sleep all day, or can I speak with him?"



"Master Lucan is not available."



So he slept all day. Sam looked down at the parking lot to see if Burke had left her car in front of her building, which he had. Next to it someone had parked an unfamiliar blue sedan backward so that the windshield faced her building. She could see a man sitting behind the wheel and pointing a telephoto lens at the window of her apartment. "Can I leave him a message?"



"No, madam," Burke said. "The master does not wish to speak to you, and I have been instructed to inform you that you are no longer welcome here."



Sam thought she heard him wrong. "Could you repeat that, please?"



"The master regrets that you were caught up in Kyn business," Burke said, as if reading it from notes. "He is grateful for the assistance you provided, but no longer wishes your involvement. He wishes you good health and happiness."



I hope one day someone gives you what you really need, Samantha, and takes it away from you the minute you start enjoying it.



Keri wasn't getting her wish. "Put Master Lucan on the damn phone."



Burke smothered a cough. "I cannot, Detective. He does not wish to speak to you."



"What if I come down there and drag his ass out of his coffin?" Sam suggested. "Will he speak to me then?"



"The master does not sleep in a coffin," Burke told her. "If you come here, you will not be admitted to the premises."



Sam couldn't believe it. He was ditching her like a one-night stand? After everything they'd been through together? "Your master is still a suspect in two murders that I'm investigating."



"You are not on active duty, Detective, and those cases have been reassigned." Burke's voice went low and cautious. "The situation has become too dangerous for human involvement. It would be best for you if you forgot what happened last night."



"What situation?" Sam demanded. "Burke, what is going on?"



"I have no further information for you, madam. Good day." Burke hung up.



Sam stared at the phone, and then back at the man taking pictures of her. He had put down the camera and was pulling out of the parking space, and as he turned to leave the complex, she got a clear look at the side of his face. It seemed that Wesley Dwyer was stalking her again.



Cake, she thought dully. Iced.



Lucan walked into his office and overheard the last of what Burke said before he hung up the phone. "For whom do you have no further information?"



His tresora looked up at him. "That was Detective Brown, master."



He had showered twice to remove every trace of Samantha's scent from his skin, and yet hearing her name filled his head with her dark perfume again. After she had fallen asleep in his arms, he had summoned Burke to take her home. She had been so exhausted that she had not woken when he had put her in his tresora's arms.



"She is well?" he tried to ask casually, thinking of the windows.



"She seems fully recovered. I related your instructions and wishes to her." For the first time since coming to serve him, Burke didn't sound particularly afraid of him. "She was upset."



Samantha had given herself to him, and he had rejected her as harshly as he could. She had the right to be upset. "There is a change to the program for tomorrow night's concert. The performance artist will not be torturing herself for our patrons. Call Alisa and tell her I require her services for the show."



"Will she be replacing the artist, master?"



"No. Alexandra Keller will."



Lucan went out to the empty bar and sat down in front of the small stage upon which the club's Friday- and Saturday-night bands played. It was hardly large enough for his purposes—Carnegie Hall would be more fitting—but he would make do. He had only to create an illusion for his guests, one that would provoke the necessary response.



As he had with Samantha. As he had with Frances.



Lucan had left Frances in Rome with her dying lover, and gone back to his duties to Richard, and pretended to forget about her for the next forty years. For his own amusement—or so he told himself—he had her kept under close watch. She had never remarried or taken a lover, but devoted herself to raising her child. Toward the end of her life, when her son had left England to seek his fortune in America, she sold most of her belongings and retired alone to a tiny country cottage, where she grew flowers and walked the moors alone.



Business for Richard brought him to that part of the world once, and Lucan had made the mistake of going to see her.



She had recognized him as soon as she unlatched the door. "My lord darkness." She did not seem at all surprised to see him. Instead of inviting him in, she stepped outside. "Let us take a turn through my gardens."



Frances had always been able to coax the most amazing things from the dark earth, but as he strolled with her down the narrow aisles of grass between her flower beds, he looked down at her. She had aged, her hair silver and wrinkles marring the fine skin around her eyes, but she was still as slender and straight as the fierce young woman he had left with her dying lover in Rome.



"Why have you never come for me?" she asked. "I expected you to. I would not have resisted long, I think."



Lucan had a thousand scalding retorts prepared. He heard himself tell her the truth instead. "The boy. He deserved a mother to care for him."



She paused and looked up at him. "As yours never cared for you."



"Yes."



Frances nodded. "I will thank you for my son, then, sir."



He forced himself to apologize for the one wrong that still haunted him. "I regret that I left you in Rome. You should not have had to watch him die alone. I should have arranged a companion for you."



"It happened a few days after you left, while I was out at market buying more candles. By the time I returned, they had already removed his body." She walked a little farther, then slowed and sighed. "You do well to avoid old age. My rheumatism keeps me on a short leash."



Lucan had escorted her back to her cottage, but refused her invitation to tea. "I must go. Is there anything you need? Funds, a housemaid, better lodgings? You have only to say." He looked around the tiny house with disdain. "I would be delighted to arrange it for you."



Frances smiled and shook her head. "Your last gift to me was all that I could ever wish."



"My last gift?"



"You let me go, my lord." She folded her hands in front of her like a young girl. "My life may not seem grand to you, but it has been a good one. I have been happy. I have been loved. I have watched my son grow to be a fine man. And soon I will be with his father again."



"I could have given you so much more, if only you had come with me," he heard himself say. He reached out to touch her cheek with his gloved hand. "You are the only woman I have ever loved, Frances."



"I know. That is why your gift was so precious to me. Goodbye, my lord." Gently she closed the door in his face.



Lucan had stood there, one hand against the wooden barrier that separated him from Frances, for what seemed like forever. She never came to the window to look out. She never opened the door again.



The next day, after he had executed ah inquisitor responsible for the deaths of five Kyn in Canterbury, he received word that Frances had hanged herself in her pretty little cottage the same night he had gone to see her. He waited until she had been buried before he sought out her grave. He placed a single white lily atop it, along with what was left of his heart, and walked away from her for the last time.



The sound of Rafael's voice interrupted his reverie, and he looked over to see that his seneschal and a small group of humans had gathered at the front of the club.



Rafael was issuing orders to the guards to station themselves at various points around the building and the entire block. When the men dispersed, Lucan called him over.



Rafael came to him. "My lord."



"I assume you were successful."



"We were, my lord. I took the liberty of installing Dr. Keller in the safe room." He set down the case he was carrying and checked his watch. "The last dose of sedative I gave her should be wearing off now. Should I use more to keep her unconscious?"



"I will wake our Sleeping Beauty." Lucan turned on his heel. "Arrange a Kyn nurse for our guest. She will need to be fed by IV."



"She will be more compliant if you starve her."



Lucan glanced back and saw the contempt on his seneschal's face. "If you wish to be released from my service, Rafael, you have but to say, and I will set you free. You have made your place among humans. I would not deprive you of the joys of serving them."



"My place is at your side. My duty is to advise you." He removed one of the copper daggers he carried and placed it on a table. "She is blameless in this thing between you and Cyprien. If you mean to kill her, do not cause her to suffer first. Give her the dignity of a clean and merciful death. You can say whatever you wish to him; he will never know how she died."



"She carves the very heart from your chest with those eyes, doesn't she?" Lucan smiled as his seneschal flinched. "Don't be offended. I nearly stole her from him in New Orleans, just so I could keep her for myself and wallow in her light. Get the nurse."