Eternal Kiss of Darkness

"Not just then." Mencheres met her gaze, waiting for it to cloud with revulsion at his next words. "Many times. More than I can remember."

"How many of those times had to do with protecting yourself or your people?" she asked, no change in her expression.

His brows drew together. She'd surprised him yet again. "Does it matter?"

"Yes," she replied with emphasis. "Your world operates by very different rules. I might not have seen much of it, but that part's clear. You're calling yourself a hardened killer, Mencheres, but I've seen you protect or save lives that shouldn't matter to you if you were such a cold person. I should know. Mine was one of those lives you saved, and at the time, you didn't even know me."

"I set my wife up to be killed. I watched her die and did nothing to stop it." His voice was flat.

Kira touched his face. "Cat told me she tried to kill you and everyone else close to you.

So you had no choice. Neither did I when I turned Pete in."

He set her hands from him. It was too difficult to say this next part with her touching him, but she needed to know exactly who it was she thought she loved.

"I killed Patra long before that day. You asked me if I ever took a life outside of protecting myself or my people. The answer is yes. Before Patra married me, she loved someone else. I slew her lover, and it was not in defense. I was a vampire, and he was merely human."

The memory of that murder rose within him, as it had done so often in the past several years while Patra edged ever closer to her fate. Intef's broken body on the floor, his blood soaking into the pale clay, and the stunned faces of Mencheres's guards as they looked at him.

"I told Patra her lover was murdered by Romans. We married a few years later, but eventually, one of the witnesses spilled my secret. I tried to explain the circumstances behind his death, but she didn't care. What I did caused Patra to hate me, and that hatred is what led her to attempt to destroy me and my people. All her actions can be laid at my feet."

"You killed him out of jealousy?" Kira asked, her voice raspier.

His eyes closed. "That day, the humans were warring. Soldiers injured Patra enough that I had to change her over instead of merely healing her. Then I went to fetch her lover as I'd promised. I felt no real jealousy toward Intef. He was one of many amusements Patra had indulged in during her unpleasant marriage, though he had a stronger hold over her because she did want him changed into a vampire, too."

"Weren't you worried that changing him over would ruin things for you? You must have cared for her by then, or were you two not, ah, involved yet?"

Mencheres opened his eyes to give Kira a pointed look. "We weren't lovers yet.

Patient I would be, share I would not. I cared for Patra then, but I wasn't blind to her nature. She was attracted to power and riches. I had both, Intef had neither. I knew she would soon choose me over him."

"So if it wasn't jealousy . . . ?" Her voice trailed off.

"The power to move things with my mind can be influenced by my emotions. That is why it requires absolute control, which is also why my sire knew Radje would have been a poor choice for it. I hadn't met Intef before that day, but when I went to fetch him, I heard his thoughts. He'd been using Patra to curry power, selling her secrets to her enemies.

He was the one who'd sent the Roman soldiers to kill her, the same ones who'd injured her so badly I had to turn her. I heard all that, and my rage let loose my power." Mencheres's mouth tightened into a grim line. "He was dead before any of my people could speak to stop me."

Pink glistened in Kira's eyes. "You were wrong to kill him," she said softy. "But you know that, and you've served a nine-hundred-year sentence of guilt under it. I think that's punishment enough - and you are not responsible for what Patra did. If that's the excuse she used for all the misery she caused, especially considering he tried to have her killed, then I call bullshit. That man's death is on your hands, but everything she did is on hers." Once again, Mencheres found himself in the rare position of being speechless.

People just did not love him if they knew him. They respected him, were loyal to him, feared him, hated him, envied him, lusted for him, needed things from him, or felt a combination of several of those things. But no one simply loved him - most especially, no one like Kira.

She slid her hands along his arms, moving closer to him.

"For all your experience, I'm guessing this is one thing you're not very familiar with, so let me help you out," she murmured. "For starters, it doesn't require weeks or months to know what you feel is love. For another, this is something that even with all your power, you can't control. You don't have to echo my feelings, Mencheres, but you can't talk me out of them, either. I love you." Her smile was wry. "Deal with it." She pulled his head down to her then, her mouth moving over his with such gentleness, he could have been a human she was trying not to bruise. He still couldn't summon the words to respond to her incredible statements, but this . . . this required no words.

He kissed her with everything in him that he could not form into speech, pulling down the barrier that prevented Kira from sensing his emotions. Her arms tightened, her fangs lengthened, and her body molded to his. A powerful need rose in him, stronger than lust, deeper than possessiveness. He let Kira feel all of it as he rolled on top of her, pulling away the blanket that was the only barrier between them.

Chapter 25

The black limousine waited ahead of them at the street Mencheres said it would be. Kira heaved a mental sigh of relief. They were late. Thank God his friend had waited for them.

She smoothed down the front of her makeshift toga, imagining that she looked as confident as Mencheres did in his matching outfit. However, while he seemed able to wear anything, even a bedsheet, while affecting an elegant air, Kira was pretty certain she looked like a frat-party reject.

If they'd thought to put their sea-soaked clothes through the washer and dryer, they would've had something else to wear. But Mencheres had proven to be insatiable, and so, to Kira's mild astonishment, had she. She wasn't sure if this was due to her new stamina as a vampire, or because Mencheres made love like he'd invented the act. If she wasn't already dead, the number of climaxes he'd brought her to might have killed her. And feeling his pleasure at the same time? She shivered. Good thing Mencheres finally remembered about the meeting. She wouldn't have.

Of course, that meant they'd had to rush out the door and the house, while furnished, didn't have any additional clothes in it. Kira was about to put on her wet, seaweed-stained clothes when Mencheres yanked a clean sheet from another bed and fashioned a sarong for her out of it, making one for himself out of another sheet. Thankfully, there were few people out on the streets now, less than an hour before dawn.