Chapter Twenty-Two
Tessa woke with a smile as she recalled the dream she’d had last night. A wonderful dream. In it, Andrei had made slow, sweet love to her, his voice husky with desire as he whispered love words in her ear, his hands masterful as he caressed her, arousing her to heights she had never imagined. And then he had slept beside her all night long. It had been so real, she could still feel the urgency of his kisses....
Turning her head, she stared at the pillow beside hers, her eyes widening when she noticed there was a slight indentation, as if someone had been there recently.
Had her dream been more than a dream?
Slipping out of bed, she showered and dressed, then went into the kitchen.
Bailey was at the stove, frying bacon.
“You’re going to spoil me,” Tessa remarked as she poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Well, it’s the least I can do since I can’t pay for my room and board.”
Tessa pulled a loaf of bread from the cupboard. “You don’t owe me anything. Would you like some toast?”
“Yes, please.”
Someone had taught the girl manners, Tessa mused. And how to cook and clean. “What are you going to do today?” she asked as she popped four slices of bread into the toaster.
“I don’t know.” Bailey turned the bacon. “Is there anything I can do around here? Change the sheets? Wash the windows? Scrub the floors?” Earlier, she had picked up the tattered remnants of her nightgown and robe. Next time she shifted, she had to remember to undress first. She frowned, wondering why Andrei’s clothes shifted with him and hers didn’t.
“Did your foster parents expect you to do all that?” Tessa asked.
“All that and more.” Bailey cracked four eggs in a bowl, stirred them with a whisk. “Mow the yard. Wash the car. Take out the trash.” She dumped the eggs in a frying pan. “They never did anything.”
“Didn’t they give you any free time to spend with your friends?” Tessa buttered the toast, then put two slices on each of the saucers Bailey had taken from the cupboard.
“I didn’t really have any friends. I wasn’t allowed to stay after school or go out on dates or anything.” She dished up the bacon and eggs and carried both plates to the table.
“That’s terrible.” Tessa shook her head. “What are you going to do about school?”
“I don’t know. I can’t go back. They’ll find me if I do.”
That was probably true, Tessa thought. They ate in silence for several minutes. More than once, she caught Bailey watching her as if she wanted to say something but each time, the girl seemed to change her mind.
Tessa glanced at the clock. “I’ve got to get ready to go.”
“Are you sure you should?”
“What do you mean?”
Bailey’s gaze slid away from hers. “Last night . . .”
“Go on.”
“Andrei took me hunting.”
“Hunting? Whatever for?”
“Not people,” Bailey said with a lopsided grin. “He helped me shift and asked if I wanted to go out. And I did. And it was wonderful.” Her eyes sparkled with the memory. “It was only the second time I’ve shifted. The first time was scary, but this time . . . with Andrei, it was amazing.” Her smile faded. “That awful woman followed us.”
“Katerina?”
Bailey nodded. “She wanted Andrei to go away with her, but he refused. I think she means to hurt you. As soon as she was gone, we came right back here. He didn’t leave until early this morning.”
So, he had spent the night.
What else had he done? Maybe that dream hadn’t been a dream after all. But that was impossible. Surely she would know if it had been real.
“Thanks for telling me,” Tessa said, carrying her dish to the sink. “I’ll be careful. Luke and Jilly are coming by to drive me to work in a few minutes. You be careful too. Don’t open the door for anyone except Andrei.”
“He’s really hot, isn’t he?” Bailey murmured, a dreamy expression in her eyes.
Tessa shook her head. First an ancient vampire. Now a teenage shape-shifter. What next?
* * *
In her office, Tessa found it almost impossible to concentrate on the business at hand. Time and again, she found herself staring out the window, her thoughts chaotic. Andrei had spent the night in her bed. Katerina was a constant threat. Bailey seemed to be developing a crush on Andrei. But then, who could blame her? He was gorgeous and sexy as hell.
At lunch, she listened halfheartedly as Jilly went on and on about her growing relationship with Luke Moran and how much she loved him.
Tessa looked up when Jileen reached across the table and shook her arm. “You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?”
“Of course I have.”
“What did I just say?”
Tessa stared at her blankly.
“I knew it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was asking about your plans for Thanksgiving. It’s next week, you know.”
“Is it?”
“All right, ’fess up,” Jilly said, her brow furrowing with concern. “What’s bothering you? I mean, besides the obvious, of course.”
Shoulders sagging, Tessa said, “I feel like I’m going quietly insane. I’m in love with a . . . you know . . . who’s being stalked by his wife. My roommate is not entirely normal. I can’t even drive to work alone because monsters are trying to get me. And now I think . . . never mind.”
“Hey, you can’t stop now!”
“Andrei spent the night in my bed. He was gone this morning, but . . .”
Jilly’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. “What?”
Tessa nodded. “I’m wondering if he . . . if he took advantage of me while I was asleep.”
“Oh, my. What makes you think that?”
“I thought I dreamed it all, but it was so real. I mean, he wasn’t in bed with me when I fell asleep.”
“Did you ask him?”
Tessa shook her head. “I haven’t seen or talked to him since.”
“Well, if you’d been raped while you slept, there’d be some . . . well . . . evidence.”
“I know. There wasn’t any. But it was so real. Maybe vampires can do it without your even being aware it happened. I mean, he could have made me forget.”
“I’m sure it was just an erotic dream, no matter how vivid it was.”
“I guess so,” Tessa said. “But enough about me. When you called about meeting for lunch, you said you had news to share.”
Jilly leaned forward, her eyes bright with excitement. “I think Luke’s going to ask me to marry him.”
“Seriously?”
“I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I’m head-over-heels in love with the guy.”
“Have you thought it through? You know, what it would mean, being married to a hunter?”
“Lots of men have dangerous jobs. Cops. Those guys who go deep-sea fishing for a living. Firefighters.” Jilly shrugged. “I can’t let worrying about the future ruin the present.”
It was, Tessa thought, excellent advice.
* * *
Tessa sat in the backseat of Luke’s car. She was wondering how Bailey had spent the day when there was a thump on the roof, as if someone—or something—had landed on it. Her heart skipped a beat, then sank to the pit of her stomach as a fist smashed through the driver’s-side window and grabbed the wheel.
Everything that happened next seemed to happen in slow motion.
Luke swore when he lost control of the car.
Jilly let out a shriek as the vehicle skidded wildly across the roadway toward Tessa’s apartment building.
Tessa crossed her arms in front of her face as the car spun around and crashed into one of the trees that lined the parkway on the other side of the street.
She was going to die.
It was her last conscious thought before she pitched into a deep black void.
* * *
Pain.
Voices.
Sirens wailing in the distance.
As if from far away, she heard someone frantically calling her name, over and over again.
In spite of the pain that splintered through her, she fought her way through cobwebs of oblivion toward his voice, knowing if she remained in the peaceful darkness, she would never see him again.
“Tessa.”
She opened her eyes, blinking against the light. “Andrei?”
His hand grasped hers. “Stay with me, love.”
“Stay.” She tried to smile but it was beyond her.
* * *
Ignoring the medics who insisted he couldn’t ride to the hospital with Tessa, Andrei climbed into the ambulance, holding her hand all the while.
He knew immediately that being so close to her was a mistake. She was covered in blood from a multitude of cuts. She had hit her head against the window and sustained a nasty laceration when the car careened sideways into a tree. Blood leaked from the bandage swathed around her head.
“Jilly?” Tessa tugged on his hand. “Where’s Jilly?”
“She’s in the ambulance behind us,” Andrei said.
“Is she . . . ?”
“She’ll be fine. Luke, too.” They were both pretty banged up. Jileen had a sprained wrist and possibly a concussion from where her head had hit the passenger window. Luke had a number of bruises, a broken nose, and probably a fractured rib or two. They were lucky, he thought as the ambulance pulled into the hospital parking lot. It could have been a lot worse.
He stayed by Tessa’s side until they wheeled her into the examination room. Stepping into the hallway, he called Bailey and told her what had happened.
And then he returned to the scene of the accident.
Cloaking his presence from the police officers who were still on the scene, Andrei walked around the car. The scent of vampire was strong. He was about to track the man when Katerina strolled toward him.
Nostrils flared, she lifted her head and sniffed the air. “Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman. No,” she corrected with a throaty chuckle. “A fledgling.”
Andrei nodded curtly. “I was just about to go after him.”
“No need. He’s already dead.”
“You killed him?”
“Yes.” She ran her bright red fingernails down his chest. “But not before he told me something very interesting.”
Tension coiled like a serpent in Andrei’s gut. He knew what was coming.
“Very interesting, indeed,” she purred, her voice deepening to an angry growl as she curled her hand around his throat. “It seems one of the women who was in this car is the very female I’ve been searching for.” Her fingernails dug into his skin. “Can you guess which one?”
* * *
For Andrei, the world and everything in it fell away. There was only his sire—his very angry sire—staring into his eyes, her own blazing like the flames of an unforgiving Hell.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You know why.” He hissed the words, barely able to speak. She couldn’t choke the life out of him. He didn’t need to breathe. But, angry as she was, she could easily separate his head from his body.
“Indeed.” Her fury enveloped him, sizzling through the very fiber of his being. He had looked death in the face on several occasions, but never had it seemed more imminent than now, at the hands of his maker.
Tessa. He had failed her. With his destruction, she would be at Katerina’s mercy. Her only other protection was Luke, but he was no match for Katerina. Sooner or later, she would catch Tessa alone.
Andrei? Where are you?
Tess?
What’s happening? You’re in pain. I can feel it.
Nothing for you to worry about. Be careful. She knows who you are.
Katerina stared at him, her eyes narrowed. “What are you doing?”
“Doing?” He grimaced. “Mostly choking.”
“Something’s different.” Her expression turned to one of curiosity, and then confusion.
Andrei felt it too, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He had the strangest feeling that he could easily free himself from her grasp. Before he could put that belief to the test, a deep-throated growl sounded from the shadows. A moment later, a black panther sprang into view, yellow eyes glowing, teeth bared in a feral snarl.
Katerina’s reaction was surprising and immediate. One minute her hand was wrapped around his throat. The next, she was gone in a shimmering cloud of blood-colored motes.
Andrei rubbed his throat as Bailey trotted up to him, her lips peeled back in a catlike grin. “You’ve got great timing, kid.” Turning his head to the side, he removed his long, black coat and held it out in front of him while she shifted to human form. “What are you doing here?”
“Tessa was worried about you,” she said, wrapping his coat around her nakedness.
“Is she okay?”
Bailey nodded. “Scared for you.”
“I was a little scared myself,” he admitted. “She’s afraid of you.”
“Katerina? Why?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never known her to be afraid of anything. But you worry her. Come on, let’s go see Tess.”
* * *
It was late when Andrei and Bailey arrived at the hospital. They had made a side trip to Tessa’s condo so Bailey could get dressed. Now, walking down the wide, puke-green corridor, Andrei’s nostrils filled with the tantalizing scent of blood—some contaminated, some freshly spilled. The stink of fear and death and hopelessness lingered in the air.
He paused outside Tessa’s room before opening the door and stepping inside. She was asleep, her face almost as pale as the pillow beneath her head, her breathing slow and shallow. But her heartbeat was steady and strong.
A nurse paused in the act of making notes on a chart when they entered the room.
“How is she?” Andrei asked.
“Are you family?”
“No. Is she going to be all right?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t give you that information,” the nurse said, hanging the chart on the foot of the bed.
“Yes, you can,” Andrei said, his gaze holding the woman’s.
“Doctor said she’s going to be fine. There’s no concussion, although the cut in her head required several stitches. She also has a couple of bruised ribs. If there are no complications, she should be able to go home in a day or two, although it will take six weeks or so for the bruising to heal.”
Andrei nodded. “Thank you, Nurse. You can go now.”
With a tentative smile, she blinked at him and left the room.
“What did you do to her?” Bailey asked.
“Just a little mind trick,” Andrei said, moving toward the bed. “Why don’t you wait for me in the hall?”
Bailey frowned at him. “Why? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to give Tessa some of my blood. It will speed the healing process. Now, go outside.”
“I want to watch.”
He regarded her a moment, then shrugged. Lifting his arm, he bit into his wrist, parted Tessa’s lips, and let a few drops of his blood fall onto her tongue.
When he judged she’d had enough, he sealed the wound in his arm.
“What now?” Bailey asked.
“She’ll wake in the morning feeling much better. Stay here and keep an eye on her,” he said, moving toward the door. “I need to find Luke and Jileen.”
* * *
Katerina stalked the dark streets, her fury as black as the night. Things were not going as planned. She had not expected Andrei to be happy to see her, at least not at first, but she had been confident of her ability to win his affection, if not his love. She had wooed and won him centuries ago. But he was no longer young and innocent.
No longer enamored of her beauty.
No longer weak. Or easily manipulated.
How could she have forgotten how it had been back then? Over time, he had gained in strength and power, until he was able to resist her compulsions completely. Until he was able to leave her, something she would never have thought possible.
She had never loved him.
She didn’t love him now.
But he was hers. And she intended to have him, one way or the other.
Only one thing stood in her way.
The other woman. Tessa. She was the one the fledglings talked about. Katerina had overheard them whispering about her in the local vampire hangout from time to time, though she had not known then that it was Tessa. There were, even now, half a dozen fledglings in the town, just waiting for a chance to get close to her, to taste her. The woman’s blood was purported to strengthen a fledgling’s supernatural power.
But it was only rumor, of course, started by some gypsy, because none who had gotten close to Tessa had survived to tell the tale.
She paused in her contemplation to feed from a homeless man who stumbled across her path.
After leaving the body behind a trash can, she continued on her way. There was something about the woman’s blood. Something extraordinary. Katerina knew that for a fact.
Because her bite should have destroyed Andrei. Instead, he was stronger than ever. Had the woman’s blood done that? What if the rumor was wrong? What if it wasn’t fledglings who got stronger, but ancients?