A couple of hours ago, they’d left Georgetown, stopping at a small house in Foggy Bottom that, for a change, had been occupied. Lukas had bought a small loaf of freshly baked bread and . . . of all things . . . a cold can of root beer from the owner. Then he’d given the man a hefty amount of cash to deliver a message.
Afterward, they’d headed back toward Georgetown, this time riding down to the Potomac, where they’d dismounted and wandered around the fascinating ruins of the nineteenth-century waterfront while she devoured the bread and washed it down with the root beer. Mounting again, they’d headed into the woods just north of Georgetown, where they’d been watching . . . and waiting . . . ever since.
Arturo was apparently a friend of Micah’s, the vampire Lukas trusted to help her. Unfortunately, Arturo lived somewhere Lukas couldn’t take her. And without cell phones, hand-carried messages were the only form of communication, as unreliable as they might be. Arturo might never show up. For all she knew, they might have to wait for him for days.
“Do you hear that?” Lukas asked.
The sound of a vehicle, a Jeep, if she wasn’t mistaken, carried faintly on the breeze. “Is that him?”
“I hope so.” He lifted her onto the horse and mounted behind her but stayed within the questionable shelter of the trees.
Down one of the streets, Elizabeth caught a glimpse of what looked like a Jeep Wrangler. Moments later, it came fully into view. Yellow, she thought, though it was impossible to tell for sure with so little light.
As the Jeep came to a stop, Lukas urged the horse forward.
The driver cut the engine and alighted, walking toward them with long, confident strides. He had the look of the Mediterranean—his hair and eyes dark. With a name like Arturo, he was certainly Italian.
“Lukas,” he said.
“Arturo. Thanks for coming.”
Arturo dipped his head. “You claimed it was urgent?”
Lukas tensed slightly. “I need to get a message to Micah. I’m in need of his assistance.”
Arturo looked at him for a long moment, then began to smile. “What is this about?”
“Forgive me, Arturo, but you are one of Cristoff Gonzaga’s most trusted. The favor I would ask of Micah is a task I can only entrust to one I’ve worked with many, many times.”
Arturo watched him for several moments more, then dipped his head, as if conceding the point. “What do you want Micah to know?”
“I need him to meet me at the Boundary Circle. As soon as possible.”
Arturo’s gaze flicked to her, his eyes narrowing in speculation. “I see.” Slowly, he nodded. “Be at the Rock Creek entrance at midnight. Micah will be there.”
“Thank you.” With that, Lukas turned the horse and headed back into the dead woods.
“He’s Gonzaga,” Elizabeth said with disbelief. “And you trust him?”
“Not really, no. But I do trust Micah, who is also Gonzaga. Arturo’s the only one who might be able to get word to him.”
“So this could all go south.”
“It could, yes. But Micah’s our one chance.”
And if Arturo didn’t come through? What if he betrayed Lukas and sent more Gonzaga vampires to kill him, instead?
“I don’t like this plan,” she whispered.
Lukas kissed her hair. “It’ll work. It has to work.”
Elizabeth sighed. The thought of going with any vampire who wasn’t Lukas made her queasy. But apparently only a vampire could set her free. And Micah was the one Lukas trusted.
Her bigger fear was that in his determination to see her safe, Lukas was risking his own life. And that scared her most of all.
Chapter Eleven
“IT’S GETTING DARKER.” Elizabeth peered into the woods around her, barely able to see the shapes any longer. “Either that, or my eyesight’s going.”
“Night is upon us.”
“Then I’ll really be in the dark.”
Lukas pressed a kiss to her hair, his arm around her as they rode the horse. “Once the moon rises, you’ll be able to see. For now, though, I’m taking you someplace where I can get you a decent meal and a soft, warm bed with clean linens. You need some sleep.”
“With you?”
“Of course.”
“Then you just described Heaven. And where is this miraculous place?”
“It’s in the Cleveland Park area. Though in V.C., it’s still country. The house is owned by a couple of vampire friends of mine, neither of whom are likely home. Their Slavas will feed us and give us a room where we can pass the evening.”
“You trust them?”
“I do. Both vampires and Slavas. Unfortunately, they’re all as stuck in this place as I am.”
Through the trees, Elizabeth thought she saw lights. Soon, a house became visible through the night’s shadows, an old-style two-story farmhouse with a wide, wraparound porch. The flicker of candlelight or hearth flames were visible through several of the windows.
Pulling up in front, Lukas dismounted and tied up the horse, then he swung Elizabeth down and led her up the steps to the shadowy porch. He rapped on the front door, and, several moments later, a woman appeared.
“Lukas, welcome!” An attractive woman of perhaps forty stepped back and let them in. “The masters are out. What can I do for you?” Her hair, while blond, glowed with that same shimmery shine that Ricky’s had.
Lukas smiled at the woman fondly even as he curled his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Cyn, this is Elizabeth. She’s newly arrived to V.C., human, hungry, and in need of a soft bed for a few hours.”
“Hi, Elizabeth.” Cyn’s expression turned sad and sympathetic. “I’m sorry you got caught here.” Her gaze swung back to Lukas. “Would you like her to eat with me, or shall I bring a tray to her room?” Her knowing look said she knew exactly what Lukas was about.
“A tray to her room would be preferable.”
Cyn smiled. “I’ll give you the back room to the left of the stairs. It’s the only one ready for company.”
Elizabeth looked around with interest. The house was actually very nicely furnished if a bit old-fashioned—150 years old-fashioned. The living room sported a wide, blazing hearth with a beautifully carved mantel, a velvet sofa, and a couple of chairs. A writing desk sat against one wall, and against the other . . .
Elizabeth laughed. “A foosball table?”
Lukas snorted. “You haven’t time-traveled, woman though it might feel that way.”
Cyn chuckled. “I don’t know about that. The majority of the vamps in this city haven’t left in decades. Some not since 1870. There aren’t that many of you who feel comfortable in the twenty-first century, Lukas.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“Go on upstairs,” Cyn said cheerily. “I’ll bring your tray. One meal or two, Lukas?”
“Just one.”
Cyn’s smile turned knowing again, and she turned away.
As Lukas led her up the stairs, Elizabeth eyed him curiously. “I didn’t think to offer you some of my bread earlier. But you eat food, don’t you? Of course you do. When we were dating, I was always feeding you, or you were taking me out to dinner.” She looked at him with confusion. “I thought vampires only drank blood.”
“I don’t need food to survive, but I’ve always enjoyed it.”
“You’re not hungry?”
He took the hand he held, lifting her wrist to his mouth and slid his tongue along the veins there. “Not for food,” he said huskily.
Elizabeth shivered. And not from fear.
“But you’ll eat first,” he murmured, placing a kiss on her sensitive wrist before lowering her hand. “Then we’ll see to . . . my appetites.”
“I’m beginning to realize just how much I don’t know about you.”
As they reached the top of the stairs, he turned left toward an open doorway. “What would you like to know?”
A hundred things. A thousand. “Where are you from? When were you turned?”
He ushered her into a small, if neatly furnished, room that looked as if it could have been modeled after one in her great-grandmother’s house. A double-spindled bed sat in the middle of the room covered in a colorful, patchwork quilt. Small throw rugs lay scattered across the hardwood floors, while calico valances hung atop windows that appeared . . .
“Are the windows painted?” she asked in surprise.
“They are. Many have taken to painting the windows black or boarding them up in case a sunbeam breaks through outside.”
She sat on the bed. “So?”
He lifted a brow, a smile hovering at the corners of his mouth as he sat beside her. “So . . . what?”
She broke into a full smile. “Are you avoiding telling me how old you are?” The funny look he gave her made her laugh, and she nudged him with her shoulder. “Give it up, old man. No secrets, remember?”
With a pained sigh, he took her hand and started playing with her fingers. “I was born in Sweden. The best I can figure, since we didn’t keep track of time the way people did in the Roman lands, it was around the tenth century.”
“A.D.?” she asked.
He scowled at her. “Yes, A.D. I’m not that old.”
She gaped at him. “You’re . . .” The breath escaped her lungs on a whoosh. “You’re a thousand years old. More.”
“A little more.”
“And here I thought you were close to my age. Were you a Viking? I’ve always thought you’d have made a wonderful Viking.”
He curled his arm around her neck and pulled her close. “Sorry, baby. I was only a hunter, my tribe nomadic.”
“Have you had many wives?” she asked quietly, not really wanting to know. Of course he had. A thousand years.
“A few. Not many. None in the past few centuries. Vampires make lousy wives—I’d never take one as my mate—and wedding a human is complicated and difficult, requiring tremendous amounts of subterfuge. And they die,” he added quietly, the pain in those last three words radiating out, sucking the laughter out of the room. He rested his cheek against her hair.
The impossibility of their sharing a future hit her fully for the first time. She would age, grow old, and die. And, assuming Vamp City was saved, he never would. They’d have two or three decades together before she started looking like his mother. Unless . . .
“You could turn me.” The words were out of her mouth before she even gave them any thought.
Lukas straightened, turning her to face him, his hands firm on her shoulders, his eyes suddenly deathly serious. “I love you, Elizabeth Bryant. More than I’ve ever loved another.” She heard the great big but hanging like a noose at the end of his words.
“Lukas . . .” she said miserably. “I wasn’t serious.” The last thing she wanted was to force him to try to explain that while he might have feelings for her now, they wouldn’t last.
He gripped her chin. “I’m serious, Lizzy. I have loved before, don’t get me wrong. Or I thought I had. But with you . . .” He shook his head. “With you, it’s different. It’s as if I’ve always known you. It’s as if you were made just for me. There is nothing I want more than to keep you close to me.”
“But . . . I heard the but, Lukas. You can say it.”
His mouth softened. “Sweetheart, there is no but concerning my love for you. The problem is, turning a human is extremely dangerous. Most don’t survive.”
“Oh.”
“And for some reason, the women who do survive often lose their souls in the process. Or they act like they have.” He gripped her face in both hands, tipping his forehead against hers. “If I were to try to turn you, I would lose you, Lizzy-mine. Either in death, or by turning you into a woman incapable of love. I would kill the you I love, either way, and I can’t do that to you, or to the people who love you. Or to me.”
He pulled back to where he could see her clearly, his hands still cupping her face. “I’d rather know that you’re living your life as you should be than to know I destroyed the most beautiful soul I’ve ever encountered.”
“Will you share my life with me? At least until I start to get too old?”
His expression turned pained, and yet unbearably tender. “I can’t give you children, Lizzy. I can’t go near sunlight, not even daylight. That means no picnics, no trips to the beach, no running errands together, or going out to lunch. You’ve seen the kind of life I have to give you. You lived it for eight months, seeing me only at night. That will never change and it will never be enough.”
She stared into those sad, beloved eyes. “Don’t you understand?” she asked softly. “Without you, my heart stops singing. My soul goes silent. My world is more colorless than Vamp City. I would rather live my days alone than my life alone, Lukas. I know I’ll turn old someday. Just give me the years you can, please?”
“If you truly want me, I will give you all the years of your life, Lizzy-mine. Without you, my life is meaningless.”
Cyn’s footsteps sounded on the wood stairs. Lukas kissed Elizabeth softly, then rose and met Cyn at the bedroom door, taking the tray from her.
Elizabeth joined him, and Cyn smiled at her. “If you’re still hungry when you’re done with this, I’m happy to fix you something else.”
“Thank you, Cyn.”
Lukas set the tray on the desk and pulled out the chair for Elizabeth. Cyn had prepared a large bowl of hot beef stew with carrots and potatoes, blueberry muffins, and a small pot of butter. A pitcher of cold water completed the meal.