And then she saw him, a tall man standing at the foot of the Sphinx, a sketch pad in his hand. He was hatless in the sun; his shaggy brown hair was highlighted with streaks of gold. He was tall, with the body of an athlete. His hand was quick and confident as it moved over the paper.
Curious, she floated down to the ground, jarring his shoulder ever so slightly as she materialized beside him with a murmured, “Sorry.”
Kyle Bowden turned toward the woman who had jostled his arm, whatever words he had been about to say forgotten as he gazed into the greenest eyes he had ever seen. Feeling like a fool, he could only stare at the vision before him, his hand itching to get her image on canvas. Would she sit for him if he asked? Did he dare?
He needed to say something, he thought frantically, something witty to make her smile, something mysterious to pique her curiosity, something cool and worldly wise to impress her—but what? He had no gift for small talk. His talent was in his art.
“Good Lord, but you’re beautiful.” The words spilled out of his mouth. Mortified, he bit down on his tongue, but she only laughed, the sound deep and rich like ancient temple bells on a summer day. It reached into his very depths, filling a void he hadn’t known existed.
“I’m Mara,” she said, offering him her hand.
“Kyle.” In spite of the heat of the day, her skin was cool against his.
She glanced at the sketch pad in his hand. “May I?”
“What? Oh, of course.”
Accepting the tablet, she thumbed through the pages, admiring the sketches he had done of the Pyramids of Menkaure, Khafre, and Khufe, otherwise known as the Great Pyramid of Giza. There were several drawings of the solar barge of King Khufu, which had been sealed into a pit at the foot of the Great Pyramid sometime in 2500 BC, and drawings of the Great Sphinx, as well.
She returned to his sketches of the solar barge. She hadn’t seen the ship in years, but the boat in his drawings looked exactly as she remembered. “These are wonderful,” she said enthusiastically.
“Thank you. I intend to paint it when I get back home.” He shook his head. “It’s amazing to think that something so old and so exquisite has survived so long.”
“Yes,” Mara murmured. “Amazing.” No one living knew why the ship had been buried. Even Mara didn’t know. Some historians postulated that it might have been used as a funeral barge to carry the embalmed body of King Khufu from Memphis to Giza. Others speculated that it had been buried with the king in case he had need of it in the afterlife. Whatever the reason, it had been a remarkable find.
She turned her attention to the other sketches in the book—a child playing with a puppy, an old woman selling spices, the El-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, an old man nodding in the shade of a tree, the statue outside the Temple of Karnak in Luxor.
His work was exquisite. A few strokes of his pen and he had captured the elegance of the Colossi of Ramses II that stood in front of the Sun Temple, the lumbering gait of a camel crossing the desert sand, the whimsical sight of a hot-air balloon hovering over the Nile, the sparkle in the eyes of a little girl as she chased a ball, the hopelessness on the face of a street beggar.
She handed him the sketchbook. When her fingertips brushed his, she was startled by the little current of electricity that arced between them. Odd, she had never felt anything like that before. She took a deep breath. He was neither Vampire nor Werewolf nor shape-shifter, so what had caused that peculiar preternatural spark?
She knew, by the sudden widening of his eyes, that he had felt it, too.
“Do you also paint portraits?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, his gaze probing hers. “I do.”
“Would you consider doing mine?”
“I’d be honored.”
She smiled, charmed by his eagerness and his obvious adoration. He was a handsome man, tall and slender, his skin bronzed by the sun. But it was his eyes that beguiled her. Clear gray eyes, open and honest, with nothing to hide. A good man, she thought with some amusement. A truly good man in an increasingly wicked world. That, in itself, intrigued her.
“So,” she said, lifting a hand to the heart-shaped ruby pendant nestled in the hollow of her throat, “when can we begin?”
“Whenever you wish,” he said. “Now, if you wish.”
With the setting of the sun, she had intended to find a place to rest, to bury herself in the Valley of the Nile for a year or two, perhaps ten, but the idea no longer held any appeal. Suddenly, the world didn’t seem like such a dreary place; the lethargy that had plagued her had disappeared. She wanted to see the world anew through his eyes, to discover what had caused that odd sensation when they touched.
“Come,” she said, linking her arm with his, “let us begin.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
For Savanah, the next few days passed like something out of a fairy tale. She was the princess, and Rane was the wizard, the big bad wolf, and the handsome prince, all rolled into one.
They spent their nights cuddling on the sofa, swimming in the pool, or stretched out under the stars, sharing bits and pieces of their pasts. They went to bed just before dawn. Some nights they made love, some nights, overcome by severe bouts of grief, Savanah cried herself to sleep in Rane’s arms, only to wake late in the afternoon, alone. Several times, she had been tempted to peek into Mara’s lair, but so far she had restrained her curiosity.
While Rane rested, she passed the time reading, working crossword puzzles, or playing computer games. It was a strange life. Sometimes it seemed as if they were the only two people on Earth; sometimes she felt like she was in limbo, caught between two worlds; sometimes it all seemed like some sort of fever dream from which she would eventually awake, and she would find her father waiting for her at home, a cup of coffee in his hand, a smile of welcome on his face as he asked about her day.
She thought of him often. At those times, the need to avenge his death burned hot and bright within her, along with a knife-edged sense of guilt for spending her days and nights with Rane when she should be out hunting for her father’s killer.
After ten days and nights in the cabin, Savanah thought she might go stir-crazy if she had to spend one more day cooped up.
She confronted Rane when he appeared the following evening. “I have to get out of here. I need to go out to dinner or a movie, something. I need to see other people. I’m beginning to feel like we’re the last two living souls on the planet.”
Watching her pace the floor, Rane couldn’t help muttering, “Only one of us is living.”
She whirled around to face him. “You had to say that, didn’t you? As if I could forget.”
He regarded her thoughtfully for a moment. “I thought you had come to terms with that.”
“I have.”
“You just don’t like to be reminded?”
“Well, if you must know, it doesn’t thrill me.”
“You’d rather I was mortal?”
“Well, of course.”
“I guess I can’t blame you,” he replied, “since I’d rather you were Nosferatu.”
Savanah stared at him, somewhat taken aback by what he had said. It had never occurred to her that he wished she was anything but what she was. Thinking about it now, it seemed perfectly logical. She recalled telling Rane that her parents had been happy together even though they were nothing alike. But the differences between herself and Rane were more than differing points of view on religion or politics or where to spend their vacation. She was a mortal female, subject to sickness and death; he was a Vampire, ageless and virtually immortal. She lived by day, he lived by night. She existed on food and water; he survived on the blood of others. Could they ever really find any common ground, other than the fierce physical attraction they shared? Could that be enough?
“Would you like to go into town?” he asked.
“What?”
“I asked if you’d like to go into town.”
“Oh, yes! Yes, I would.” She had a sudden, desperate need to be around other people. Normal people who didn’t drink blood, sleep in coffins, or read minds. “Just let me change my clothes.”
They left the house fifteen minutes later. Rane was unusually quiet as they drove down the narrow, winding road. Savanah glanced at him from time to time, thinking he was a feast for feminine eyes. As the silence stretched between them, she wondered what he was thinking. If only she could read his mind as easily as he read hers.
“Are you having second thoughts?” he asked.
“About what?”
“About us.”
She met his gaze, her eyes filled with accusation. “You promised not to read my mind!”
“I didn’t.”
“Then why…?”
“You looked surprised when I said I wished you were a Vampire. And you obviously don’t like being reminded that that’s what I am.”
“I just…” She shook her head. “I guess it takes more getting used to than I thought, that’s all. I mean, I never expected to meet a Vampire, let alone fall in love with one. In the last few weeks, my whole world has turned upside-down. Can’t you understand that? I mean, my life will never be the same again.”
“Who better to understand something like that than I? You think your life has changed?” He snorted softly. “One night I went to bed a perfectly normal teenager and when I woke the next night, I was a Vampire. That’s life-changing.”
“I suppose so.” Savanah blew out a sigh. There was always someone worse off than you were.
Life-changing, Rane thought as he negotiated a sharp curve in the road. One taste of mortal blood and the world as he had known it had ceased to exist. He saw colors with crystal clarity, even in the darkness that had become his day. Each stitch in clothing, hairline cracks in buildings, individual brush strokes in a painting—no detail was too small to go unnoticed. It had been disconcerting at first. Supernatural hearing had taken some getting used to, as well. Without trying, he could hear voices across the room or across the street. He had listened to music as if hearing it for the first time, each note separate and distinct from the other. His sense of taste and touch and smell had been amplified; his physical strength was nothing short of phenomenal, and he had reveled in it, pitying the mere mortals who had become his prey. In the beginning, drunk with power, he had done things for which he was now ashamed. Oh, yeah, he knew about life-changing events.