Shadows of Eternity

Chapter Thirty-Eight

T rent looked up as Rohan entered the kitchen. “What the devil’s going on?”

Rohan shrugged. “Leia’s trying to adjust to her new life. It’s not easy. Sooner or later, she’s going to be craving blood and she’ll be embarrassed and sickened by it. I’m a little surprised that feeding wasn’t the first thing on her mind.” He had listened to her conversation with her father, ready to intervene if she suddenly attacked him.

“Were you?” Trent asked, obviously curious about the whole vampire thing. “Embarrassed the first time?”

“Not really. But I came from another culture, a different time. Death and killing weren’t viewed in the same way back then as they are now. In ancient times, the Scythiansdrank the blood of their enemies.”

“Nice.”

Rohan shrugged. “It will be normal for Leia now. If she views it that way, it will be easier to accept. She’ll think it’s repugnant the first few times because she knows she’s supposed to feel that way. But after a while, she won’t think anything about it. So, have you seen any sign of Josiah?”

“No, but I could feel him lurking around outside, no doubt looking for a way in.”

“Yeah.” Rohan dragged a hand across his jaw. What the hell were they going to do about Josiah? He opened his preternatural senses. Leia’s parents had gone to their room. Leia was feeling restless. In a few minutes, she would start to feel discomfort and then pain. He expanded his senses, searching for Josiah, but found nothing.

Rohan?

He felt the onset of panic enhanced by her pain. “It’s started,” he told Trent. “I’m going to take her hunting for an hour or so. Stay here and look after the Winchesters.”

“Are you crazy?” Trent exclaimed. “You can’t go out there.”

“I’ll take her far away from here, don’t worry. You just stay alert and keep her parents safe while we’re gone.”

“Now I’m babysitting,” Trent muttered. “Be careful.”

“You, too.”

Leia let out a startled gasp when Rohan suddenly appeared beside her.

“Get dressed,” he said. “We’re going out.”

“Out? Are you crazy? Josiah is out there.”

“He won’t see us.”

Her hands shook as she pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater, tugged on a pair of low-heeled boots. “Where are we going?”

“Some place far away.”

Rohan wrapped his arm around her waist and the next thing she knew, they were in an alley that opened onto a busy city street.

Leia glanced around, blinked at the bank across the way. The name on the building read St. Louis National Bank.

Rohan reached for her hand and led her to the sidewalk. “You okay?”

She moaned softly. “I hurt all over. What’s wrong with me?”

“You need to feed.” He said it bluntly.

Her eyes grew wide. “You don’t mean … ”

“Exactly.”

“I can’t!” Just the thought of it was revolting. “I won’t, and you can’t make me!”

“You can and you will, or the pain will get worse and worse.”

Leia shook her head. She couldn’t bite someone’s neck like some rabid animal and drink their blood. She just couldn’t. Civilized people didn’t do that. But even as the thought crossed her mind, the pain grew sharper and more intense. She bit down on her lower lip to keep from crying out.

“Most female vampires prefer to drink from men,” Rohan said matter-of-factly. “Do you have a preference?”

She looked up at him, her face pale and twisted with pain. “Help me.”

Shit. Pulling her behind a tree, he bit into his wrist and held it out to her. “Drink.”

She didn’t argue. With a wordless cry, she suckled the dark-red blood oozing from the twin punctures in his arm. And the pain magically went away. She had expected to feel repelled but she would gladly have taken it all. And that troubled her greatly.

She let out a little growl of protest when he pulled his arm away.

“Vampires only drink from another vampire in an emergency,” he said, licking the tiny wounds in his wrist to seal then. “You need human blood to survive. Come on.”

Taking her hand again, Rohan led her down the sidewalk until he saw a young man striding toward them. He captured the man’s gaze and compelled him to follow them down a side street, out of sight of passersby.

Leia looked at the man. He was probably in his twenties, with brown hair and gray eyes. And he smelled so good, her mouth watered.

Rohan grinned. He had worried about his little fledgling for nothing. She was a natural. He bit into the man’s neck, then stood back and let Leia’s vampire nature take over. When he judged she’d taken enough, he spoke to her mind, telling her to stop. He was somewhat surprised when she did. “You okay?”

She licked her lips. “I should be ashamed, repulsed, disgusted. Why aren’t I?”

He shrugged. “Some people are born to be vampires. I think you’re one of them.”

She tilted her head to the side, curious to know how it had been for him. “Were you?”

“Maybe. I never gave it any thought.” Becoming a vampire had been easy for him once the initial craving for blood had passed. He had hated Josiah for centuries, he mused, when he should have been thanking him. But that had changed when his sire bit Leia. Taking her hand in his, he said, “Come on, let’s go home.”

Moments later, they were back in her room. “Will you teach me how to do that?”

“Yes, but I don’t think you’ll need much instruction. I have a feeling you’ll know instinctively what to do.”

Her gaze moved over him. “Are you repulsed by me, by what I’ve done?”

“Hell, no, I’m proud of you,” he said with a grin.

“What’ll we do now?” she asked. It was hours until dawn.

“I’ve got a few ideas,” he said, drawing her into his arms. “But not until we’re out of your father’s house. Let’s go downstairs and see how Frumusanu’s getting along. He could probably use some sleep.”

Leia felt unaccountably embarrassed and uncomfortable when Trent looked at her. What did he see? Did she look different? Was he thinking he had one more vampire to dispose of? Would he still let Janae be her friend? Lordy, would Janae even want to be friends with a vampire? Probably not. Come to think of it, she had never heard Rohan mention any friends—vampire or otherwise—save for the members of the dance troupe. And they seemed more like acquaintances than friends. She wondered suddenly if they knew what he was. “Aren’t you supposed to be dancing tonight?” she asked.

Rohan shook his head. “I called Deer Killer. Told him there was a death in the family and I couldn’t make the rest of the engagement.”

“A death in the family,” Trent muttered, with a sidelong glance at Leia. “That’s rich.”

“All right, you two, that’s enough,” Rohan said. “Trent, stop looking at Leia as if she’d suddenly grown two heads and a tail. She’s the same as she always was. She isn’t going to turn into a ravening monster or try to turn you or drink your blood. And, you, Leia, stop being ashamed. You haven’t done anything wrong. Aside from having to sleep during the day and surviving on blood, you’re the same as you always were. If you want to work, you can teach night school or hold online classes from home, or, hell, I don’t know. There are a lot of night jobs. Right now, our main concern is Josiah. He wants to kill Trent, he wants to make you his, and I’m pretty sure he’d like to take my head even more than Trent does.”

Trent scowled at him. “Very funny. I’m gonna go call Janae and then get some sleep.”

“Good idea,” Rohan said.

“You can use the guest room upstairs,” Leia offered.

“Thanks.” Trent glanced from Rohan to Leia, muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and headed for the stairs.

“Well, that was fun,” Leia remarked.

Rohan settled on the sofa and motioned for her to join him. “It’ll get easier,” he said as she snuggled against his side. “I know you’re confused now, but it’ll pass.”

“What are we going to do about Josiah?”

“I don’t know. It’s doubtful he’ll just give up and go home, wherever the hell that is.”

“Maybe we could leave the country?” Leia suggested.

“It wouldn’t do any good. He’s my sire. He’ll be able to find me wherever I go.”

She sat up and stared at him. “Does that mean you’ll always be able to find me?”

“Exactly. You can run, but you can’t hide.” He lifted one brow. “You don’t want to hide from me, do you?”

“Of course not.”

His gaze searched hers. And then he said, quietly, “If you ever want to leave me, I’ll let you go. I won’t like it, but I won’t hold you against your will.”

“Josiah said he could make me love him, so I guess that means you could, too.”

“But I didn’t. And I won’t.”

She snuggled against him again. “We were supposed to get married on Sunday. I guess that’s off now that Josiah’s prowling around.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“My father would never have approved anyway,” she said with a heavy sigh. “He wasn’t too crazy about the idea in the first place.”