Shadows of Eternity

Chapter Nine

I n the morning, Leia woke still wondering what had happened the night before. One minute everything had seemed fine and the next … She still didn’t know what had gone wrong. But there was no time to worry about it now. Tomorrow was the last day of school, always a busy time as she cleaned her room and packed up everything she couldn’t leave over the summer. She was going to miss her kids when school ended, she thought again as she showered and dressed and ate a quick breakfast. There had been a few classes she’d been glad to see the last of, but this wasn’t one of them. The boys and girls had all been well-behaved, bright-eyed and eager to learn, bubbling over with questions.

She arrived in her classroom half an hour early to get ready for the day. But always, in the back of her mind, was Rohan.

After school, she met Janae for lunch at their favorite pizza place where they ordered a ham and pineapple pizza, hot wings, and soda.

“So, one more day and you’re free,” Janae said, with a grin. “Got any plans for the summer?”

“Not really. My mother’s working on a new movie, and you know my dad, he’s always working.”

“How’s Luke?”

“He’s in Italy shooting a movie and having the time of his life.”

“I’ll never understand how Hollywood didn’t get you, too.”

“No talent,” Leia said with a laugh.

“Are you still seeing Mr. Sexy?”

“I don’t know.”

Janae paused in the act of taking a bite of pizza. “How can you not know? You either are or you aren’t.”

“Well, things ended strangely last night. I thought we were going out, but we didn’t.” Leia shook her head. “He gave me a kiss in the parking lot that threatened to melt my bones and then, abruptly, he pulled away and drove me home. When we got there, I asked him to come in and he refused. He gave me a quick kiss and left.”

“Maybe he had another date,” Janae said, with a shrug. “Or had to hurry home to the little woman.”

“Be serious.” She refused to believe Rohan had a wife, children. But what if Janae was right?

“I am serious. He doesn’t strike me as a one-woman man.”

“Well, his biography says he’s single,” Leia said, but her voice lacked conviction.

“Maybe it’s better for him, professionally, if women think he’s available.”

“Enough!” Leia exclaimed.

“I’m sorry, but I know that man is hiding something. And if it’s not a wife, what could it be?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll ask him the next time I see him. If there is a next time.”

Leia fretted about Rohan the rest of the day and when she wasn’t wondering if he was married, she wondered if she would see him later that night. Naturally, since she was waiting for one particular call, she got several. None of them from him.

She baked chocolate chip cookies—her kids’ favorite—and a pan of chocolate fudge brownies.

She had about given up on hearing from Rohan when, at nine o’clock, he called. She let it ring several times before she picked up. “Hello.”

“Hi. How are you?”

“Fine, thanks,” she replied, her voice cool. “Are you married?”

“What?”

“I think you heard me.”

“What brought that up?”

“It’s a simple question. Yes or no?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t be dating you if I was. What’s going on?”

She blew out a sigh. “I don’t know. You acted so strange last night. And then Janae … never mind.”

“What about Janae?”

“She’s psychic, or thinks she is, and she’s sure you’re hiding something from me.”

“Oh?” Shit! Her best friend was psychic . Just what he needed.

“Are you? Hiding something?”

Damn . How was he supposed to answer that? Nothing serious. I’m just a vampire.

“Are you?”

“Yes. But it isn’t something we can talk about over the phone.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Can I come over?” No answer. “Leia?”

“I guess so.”

“I’ll be there in five.”

After ending the call, she sat there, staring at the floor. What could be so bad that he couldn’t tell her over the phone?

Rohan stood outside Leia’s front door, wondering what the hell to say. Maybe he should just go home and forget it. There was no easy way to say, “Hey, I’m a vampire.”

Either she wouldn’t believe him, or she’d freak out. He could always tell her, and then wipe the memory from her mind … Dammit! He’d never told anyone what he was, and he wouldn’t be telling Leia if he didn’t care about her so damn much. But he did, and she had a right to know the truth.

He was a powerful creature, yet he stood there like some tongue-tied teenager on his first date, not knowing what to say or how to say it. In over three hundred years, he had never revealed the truth of what he was to another living soul.

Muttering an oath, he rang the bell, listened to her footsteps as she walked toward the door, the click of the lock as she opened it. They stared at each other for several seconds before she stepped back and invited him in. Hearing the pounding of her heart, smelling the faint scent of fear dancing over her skin, he said, “Do you want me to leave?”

“N … no. Please, sit down. Can I get you something to drink?”

His gaze moved to her throat as he settled on the sofa. “No, thank you.”

She took the chair across from him, her hands tightly folded in her lap. “What did you want to tell me?”

“I don’t want to tell you,” he said, “but you have a right to know before things go any further between us.”

Oh, Lord, she thought. He is married.

“Leia, I’m not married.”

She stared at him. How had he known what she was thinking? But then, why wouldn’t he? Hadn’t she already asked him that?

“There’s no easy way to say this. Just promise me you won’t freak out.”

It must be worse than she thought. “I can’t promise that when I don’t know what it is.”

Tired of living a lie, he took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. “Years ago I got into a fight with a man who killed my best friend. It was a battle to the death. I stabbed the murderer with a knife … ” He paused at the look of revulsion on her face, wondering if she could handle the rest.

Leia pressed a hand to her heart. He’d been in a knife fight. He could have been killed. Obviously, he hadn’t been. The other man, what had happened to him? Taking a deep breath, she said, “Don’t stop now.”

“The man should have died,” Rohan said, his voice devoid of emotion. “Instead, he laughed at me. And then he grabbed my arm and sank his fangs into my neck.”

Fangs? She stared at him for stretched seconds before asking, “Is this a joke? If it is, it’s in very poor taste.”

“I wish it was.”

“But … ”

“The man was a vampire,” he said flatly. “And now I am, too.”

Leia shook her head. “There’s no such thing.”

“I’m afraid there is.”

“I don’t believe you.” It couldn’t be true. There was no such thing as vampires. Everybody knew that. She heard Janae’s voice in the back of her mind, telling her there was something off about Rohan. Lord, what if she’d been right all along?

“I can prove it, if you like.”

Her voice shaky, she said, “All right. Go ahead.”

Between one breath and the next, he let her see him as he really was. With his eyes blazing red and his fangs extended, he let his preternatural power wash over her.

Leia stared at him, shivering as the atmosphere in the room changed. She remembered the other night when she’d thought his eyes looked red. Good Lord, he really was a vampire. But that was impossible. Such things didn’t exist. She had to be dreaming again. Speechless, frozen with fear and disbelief, she could only sit there, mute and helpless, wondering if she was about to die.

Retracting his fangs and suppressing his preternatural power, except for letting a little of it tamp down her fear to ease her panic, he said, quietly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Leia wrapped her arms around her middle. She didn’t know what to say, what to think, what to do. Vampires were myths, legends. Yet she had no doubt he was exactly what he’d said he was. A vampire. She shuddered. He had held her in his arms, kissed her, and she had reveled in it. She knew she should run screaming from the room, but she couldn’t seem to move. Shocked didn’t begin to cover what she was feeling. Surprisingly, she was no longer afraid, which seemed odd. Still, he had never hurt her, she thought, and then she frowned. It explained so much—why she’d never seen him eat, never seen him drink anything but wine … but vampires existed on blood.

Eyes wide, she lifted a hand to her neck. “Have you … Did you ever … ?”

“Drink from you? Yes.”

“Why don’t I remember?”

“Because I wiped the memory from your mind.”

Good Lord, what else had he done to her that she couldn’t remember?

“Dammit, I never seduced you! I admit I took a little blood from time to time, but I never took advantage of you … that way.”

She wanted to believe him, but how could she? Their whole relationship had been built on a lie. “Vampire.” She swallowed the bubble of hysterical laughter that rose in her throat. She had been worried that he was married, but this was much, much worse.

“Leia.”

“I think you should leave now.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of seeing you again?”

“No,” she said tonelessly. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Rohan nodded. “You’re probably right.” Rising, he took a step toward her, only to stop abruptly when she flinched. “I enjoyed the time we spent together,” he said. “I wish … hell, it doesn’t matter now.”

Trapping her gaze with his, he spoke to her mind, easing her innate fear, assuring her that he had never hurt her, that there was no need to panic, no need to tell the world, or run into the night screaming for help. No one would believe her, anyway.

Leia sat there quietly for several minutes after Rohan left. Gradually, as her mind cleared a little, the meaning behind his words hit her with the force of a sledgehammer while a distant part of her mind wondered how she had stayed so calm until now.

Huddled in a corner of the sofa, she began to shake violently from head to foot. It can’t be true. It couldn’t be true. The words of denial played over and over again in her mind. There’s no such thing. There’s no such thing.

She tried to tell herself she had imagined the red glow in his eyes, the fangs, the strange power that had possessed her, that lingered still. She knew somehow that it had been that power that had kept her sitting quietly instead of going into hysterics while he spoke to her. The same power that held her immobile now.

She sat there a long time, her mind blank save for one word that repeated itself over and over again. Vampire. He’d been right about one thing, she mused. No one would ever believe her.

Later, lying sleepless in her bed, she remembered the nightmares she’d had of a dark, handsome vampire bending over the slender throat of some helpless woman clad in a flowing white nightgown. Had she known, on some deep, instinctive level, what he was even then?

She had the same dream that night, only this time, she was the woman in the nightgown.

Leia would have called in sick in the morning, but it was the last day of school. Feeling numb inside, she showered and dressed, combed her hair, brushed her teeth. She didn’t feel like eating. She carried the cookies and brownies out to her car, went back for her keys and her handbag, stopped on the way to school to pick up some milk and donuts.

Maybe she was losing her mind, having hallucinations. Or maybe it had all been a horrible nightmare. Of course, she thought. A nightmare. That had to be it.

She nodded to some of the other teachers as she walked to her classroom, hoping none of them would stop by later. She wasn’t in the mood for idle chit-chat. Didn’t have the energy to pretend everything was all right.

At the end of the day, standing by the door telling the last of her students goodbye, she couldn’t remember anything else she’d said or done.

She quickly gathered up her things and hurried out to the parking lot, grateful she didn’t see anyone on the way. She didn’t feel like going home. With no destination in mind, she slid behind the wheel and pulled onto the freeway.

Rohan was a vampire. She knew it. She accepted it. She loved a vampire, or thought she did. She tried not to think about him, about what he was, but it was hopeless. She loved everything about him, but it didn’t matter now. She was angry because he hadn’t told her the truth sooner, and angry because he’d told her at all. She’d been so happy when she didn’t know.

How could it be true? And yet she knew it was. He had done something to her to make her accept it so calmly. Feeling a headache coming on, she stopped at a fast-food place for a cup of coffee. And then another.

It was near dark, her gas tank dangerously close to empty, when she finally turned around and headed for home. Like the freeway, her life stretched before her. It took her a moment to realize she was crying. Tears blurred her vision and she pulled off the freeway onto a side road as her tears came harder and faster.

She didn’t see the low concrete wall until it was too late.

And then she saw nothing at all.