29

John arrived back at Scanguards a little over half an hour later. Savannah was waiting for him in his office. When he reached the door, he stopped for a moment and took a deep breath. The news he had for her wasn’t what they’d both hoped for. On top of it, he knew it was time to come clean, because the solution he and his colleagues had come up with in order to get to Vladivostok and save the girls before they were scattered all over Russia, was one that involved supernatural powers.

He felt his heart thundering in his chest. The moment of truth was here. And he had no idea how Savannah would react.

He knocked to announce himself, then opened the door and entered. Savannah spun around. She’d been looking out of the window where day was turning to night. Just like in his own home, the windows at Scanguards were coated with a special UV-impenetrable film that made it possible for a vampire to stand in front of it without being burned.

Still dressed in his Kevlar suit, he placed his helmet and gloves on the desk.

“You’re back. Where is she?” Savannah looked past him. “Where is Buffy?”

He let the door snap shut behind him and walked toward her. “I’m sorry, Savannah, the girls weren’t at the docks anymore. They’ve already been transported away.”

Tears shot into Savannah’s eyes and a sob tore from her throat. “Noooooo!”

He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. “Shhhh! Don’t cry. Not all is lost. We got the two guys who kidnapped them, and they talked. We know where they are. We know where Buffy is.”

She lifted her head and looked at him with eyes filled with fear and just a smidgen of hope. “Where? Where’s my baby?”

“On a ship headed for a Russian port.”

“Oh God!”

He could see in her eyes what was going through her mind: the ordeal her daughter was going through, the despair she must be feeling, thinking that nobody was coming to rescue her. The loneliness, the hopelessness.

“We know which ship they’re on, and we know when they’re arriving, and where. We’ll be waiting for them.” He hesitated.

She studied his face now. “Something else is wrong, isn’t it?”

He wasn’t surprised anymore that she could read him so easily. Maybe it would help in the end. Help her understand that he wouldn’t hurt her, help her understand that he wasn’t a monster, despite what he had to tell her now.

“There’s something you need to know.”

“Oh God, they touched her, didn’t they? They touched my baby!”

He quickly shook his head and gripped Savannah’s shoulders. “No, they didn’t. It’s not that. But there is something.” He paused, not knowing how to start.

“You’re scaring me, John. Please, what is it?”

“The ship Buffy and the other girls are on will dock in Vladivostok in three hours.”

“Three hours?” As the words left her lips, an expression of horror and despair darkened her face. “No, no, no!”

“Listen to me. There is a way for me and my team to get there in time.”

She let out a shrill laugh. “How? It must take what, eight hours, ten hours to fly there? You’ll be too late.”

“No. We’ll be waiting for the ship to dock. We’ll be there before them. Because we have something they don’t. We have allies who can take us there. They’ll transport us.”

“What?” She looked at him, confused.

“Savannah, our allies, the people who’ll help us save Buffy and the other girls, they’re not human.” He swallowed hard. “And neither am I.”

She pulled free of him and took a step back. He let it happen. “That’s crazy.”

“It might sound crazy. But it’s real. I’m real. My friends are called Stealth Guardians. They’re an ancient race able to teleport to anywhere in the world via their portals. They can get us to Russia in a few minutes.”

She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. In her shoes, he would have thought the same, because mankind’s age-old dream of teleportation was just that, a dream scientists hadn’t yet been able to turn into reality.

“They are a benevolent race who’s made it their mission to protect the innocent. Just like we have, my colleagues and I here at Scanguards. We’re not just simple bodyguards and security guys. We’re not human, though we once were.” He watched her intently now. “We were human before we were turned.” He waited. Saw her contemplating his words, noticed her shake her head, witnessed the glimmer of emerging knowledge in her eyes. “I’m a vampire, Savannah.”

~ ~ ~

At first, she thought she’d heard wrong. Vampire. She associated the word with fiction, with movies, TV shows, with the female TV heroine she’d named Buffy after. It wasn’t real, she knew that, had never once believed that there was any truth to the centuries-old lore about creatures of the night who lived on the blood of humans. But John wouldn’t joke about something like that, wouldn’t choose this moment of all moments, where she was losing hope of ever seeing Buffy again, to dish up a lie. Not after all they’d been through together. Not after the things they’d told each other, the promise they’d made to each other that they’d be there to support each other, to be there for one another.

She looked at him. John stood there in utter silence, motionless and rigid. As if waiting for the axe to fall. And in that silence, every moment they’d spent in each other’s company came rushing back to her. Details suddenly emerged that she’d dismissed: the fact that he hadn’t eaten when she had, the lack of a mirror in his home, the claim that he’d run out of coffee, the blood on his chin.

But there were other things that contradicted his claim that he was a vampire. She glanced at the window. The sun was setting now, but earlier, during daylight, John had been in this office, with the sun shining into the room. And he’d driven his car during daylight, moved around his house freely as if the sun didn’t bother him.

Slowly, Savannah shook her head. “But the sun… it didn’t burn you. We were outside together. You can’t be what you say you are.” She couldn’t say the word, though she was surprised at herself that she was so calm. Maybe nothing could scare or upset her anymore. Because the worst thing that could happen had already happened to her: Buffy was gone, and her hope of getting her back was fading fast.

“Search your memory, and you’ll remember that I was never outside. Always in a room, or the car, my house, this building. Never outside while the sun was up.”

“But the sun comes through the windows.”

“Special UV-coating. We use it everywhere in this building, in our homes, our cars. So we can move freely during daylight hours. Because the sun does burn us, kill us if we’re exposed for too long.”

She accepted the explanation, but did that mean he was telling the truth? Could she take his word at face value? “I want to believe you, John. I want to believe that everything you’re saying is the truth, that the guardians you speak of are real and that teleportation is real. That there is a way to get Buffy back. I want to believe it, but I… I don’t know how. I have no hope left. And I fear that what you’re telling me is in my imagination, that this conversation isn’t even taking place, it’s just in my mind, because I so desperately want to save Buffy.”

“You need proof.”

Savannah nodded.

“I can show you who I really am. I just want you to be prepared for what you’ll see. Most people are frightened when a vampire shows his true face. But I want you to remember that I would never hurt you. I may have piercing fangs and sharp claws, red eyes and the strength of a hundred men, but you have nothing to fear from me. I will always protect you. And Buffy. Will you believe me?”

“I will,” she said, without hesitation. She knew with certainty that John didn’t mean her any harm. She’d always felt that, felt it from the first moment she’d met him. That belief had grown stronger over the last few days.

“Then look at me,” he demanded softly.

He lifted his arms and drew her gaze upon them. His beautiful strong hands suddenly changed, his fingers growing long sharp barbs where his fingernails were. Savannah drew in a quick breath and lifted her eyes to his face, while her heart started beating frantically.

“Don’t be afraid,” John begged. His lips parted and slowly two teeth started to lengthen, one to each side of his incisors, until they were fully formed piercing sharp fangs where his canines had been.

“Oh my God.”

She pressed her hand to her chest, willing her heart to slow, when she noticed John’s eyes change color. First, the chocolate brown irises turned golden, then red. She’d seen the golden color before, had noticed it when they’d made love and thought that it had been a play of light. Now she knew. She’d seen a part of his vampire side, a part that had slipped through in the throes of passion.

There was no doubt now. He was a vampire. A creature who fed on the blood of humans.

She reached her hand out to him, took a step or two toward him.

“Don’t,” he demanded. “Please, Savannah, don’t touch me now.”

Her breath hitched. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.” Or had that been a lie?

“I won’t.” He swallowed. “But when I’m in my vampire form, I’m not as civilized as usual. I have a harder time controlling my desire for you. If you touch me in my current form, I’ll try to kiss you, and you won’t be able to stop me.”

A sigh of relief worked its way up her throat and rolled over her lips. “What makes you think that I would stop you from kissing me? We made love last night.”

“Before you knew what I was. I don’t expect you to still want me, now that you know what I am. What I hid from you.”

She slowly nodded. “I should be mad at you for not telling me.”

“Yes. I took advantage of you. Of your vulnerability.”

“You did what was best at the time. I wasn’t ready to see the truth. Now I am. Because the truth is my only hope now. The truth about you and your allies, because only a miracle can save Buffy now. And you’re that miracle. You and your friends. So I’m not gonna refuse to see what’s right in front of me. I’m not gonna question what I can see with my own eyes.” She took another step toward him and ran her index finger over his lips. “Or what I can feel beneath my touch.”

She moved her finger, intent on touching his fang.

A firm hand wrapped around her wrist so fast she hadn’t seen it coming.

She sucked in a breath, but she wasn’t scared, only surprised. “Let me touch them.”

A shaky breath burst from John’s mouth. “Savannah, a vampire’s fangs are very sensitive.”

“I won’t hurt you,” she promised.

He chuckled unexpectedly. “That’s not what I meant. If you touch my fangs, it’ll feel like an orgasm to me.”

“Oh!” She hadn’t expected that, but now that she knew, the temptation to touch him was even greater. “Let go of my wrist, please.”

He immediately released her hand, proving to her that he was still in control of himself, even in his vampire form. He was still the Southern gentleman he’d always been.

“I need to do this,” she said, “so I know that I’m not dreaming.”

“Savannah, darlin’, I hope you know what you’re doing.” Despite his words, John didn’t protest any further and let her proceed.

Slowly, she slid her finger onto his teeth and rubbed over his incisors backward to one of his fangs. When she touched the razor-sharp canine, a jolt went through John, and suddenly the color of his eyes changed again.

“Your eyes shimmer golden,” she murmured.

“Because I’m aroused.” Both his hands were on her shoulders now, but she didn’t feel any barbs on his fingers any longer. She felt him draw her closer to his body, pressing her to him. “I need to kiss you. I need to feel you.”

Under her finger, his fang suddenly receded back into its socket and turned into a normal tooth again. She met his eyes and slid her hand to his nape, pulling his head closer to hers.

“Yes,” she murmured.

His lips were on her before the word was even out of her mouth, and he kissed her with a passion she understood now. The passion of a man who carried a powerful beast inside him. A beast she could embrace, because she knew that it was her daughter’s salvation. And her own too. A beast she knew she could love without reservations.