Sex and the Single Vampire

"She has refused you, child of the darkness. She has repudiated you. She will not redeem your soul, will do nothing to save you from the torment that she knows will commence the moment she leaves. What say you to this?"

Christian's eyes never left me. For one second, for a fraction of a second, I thought I saw hurt so deep it almost brought me to my knees, but it was gone instantly, the dull hopelessness all that showed in his eyes. I dared not speak to his mind, not with him under Asmodeus's power.

"It is her choice," Christian said finally, his voice so beautiful that tears pricked in my eyes. I blinked them back. "It has always been her choice."

Love welled up within me, love for a man who had made the ultimate sacrifice in order to give me a chance to escape with my life intact. What a wonderful, loving, stupid man, I thought to myself, and firmly squished down every last bit of love I felt for him lest Asmodeus detect it and know I was bluffing my way out of the house.

"This can't be. She's his Beloved," Eduardo argued to Asmodeus. "She has to sacrifice herself; you said it was impossible for her not to. If she doesn't sacrifice herself, we don't get that." Eduardo pointed rudely at Christian. "We've already lost one vampire; I won't have us cheated out of another one. What good will the attraction be without any ghosts or vampires?"

"Attraction? What attraction?" I asked, edging past Christian toward the door. I sent him only one tiny glance, a little one while Asmodeus's attention was on Eduardo raving before him, but in that look I packed every bit of love I had.

He blinked.

"She is not Joined. She cannot be forced to Join with him, and she refuses to sacrifice herself. Unless she does either, she is useless to us."

"She's lying—"

"Attraction? Like what, a haunted house or something? A spectral Disneyland? That's it, isn't it, you guys are capturing spirits and Dark Ones and who knows what else to turn them into a paranormal zoo?"

"She does not lie," Asmodeus said to Eduardo, then turned in a dismissal as clear as any I've seen.

"But you can't know—"

"I know!"

I stepped back, ostensibly out of fear of Asmodeus, as he turned to address Eduardo, but really just so I could bump into Christian. I touched my fingers to his hand. Instantly Asmodeus's head snapped around to look at us.

I swallowed back a lump of pain as I looked into Christian's eyes. "I'm sorry; it's just not working out like you said it would. You were right when you said I could exist without you. I'll see you around." I tossed a glance toward Asmodeus. "Maybe."

Without waiting to see if he believed me or not, I walked out of the room. Eduardo sputtered a protest, but was quickly silenced. Evidently Asmodeus had a tight grip on him as well as Christian, because the ward made no protest when I pushed my way through it into the gray light of a rainy London morning.

"Right," I said to myself as I waved down a black taxi, refusing to think of what Christian would go through before I could return with help. "First things first…"

The taxi that pulled up maneuvered straight into a puddle next to the road, spraying me from the waist down with icy, muddy water.

"Sorry," the driver said as he reached behind himself and opened the door. I looked from the water running in rivulets down my legs to the gray, sodden sky above.

"It's useless," I told the sun as it tried in vain to pierce the dense cloud cover. "Don't waste your time battling fate. I'm doomed to be wet and miserable until I get Christian back."

"Welcome to England," the cabby said. I sighed and got in the cab, ignoring the pain in my leg and the sense of fatigue that threatened to pound me into a fetal ball of misery.

"Where you off to, then?" the cabby asked conversationally.

I gave him Christian's address, then couldn't help but ask, "I don't suppose you know how to defeat a demon lord?"

He pursed his lips in a soundless whistle as I met his glance in the rearview mirror. "Can't say as I do."

I nodded and squelched my way back in the seat, wondering vaguely how the water had managed to soak the back of me as well as the front. "It's no matter. I think I know someone who does. I just hope she can fit me in between destroying the demon and interviewing werewolves."

The ride to Christian's house was accomplished in record time.

Chapter Eighteen

"Do you know that there is a Dark One upstairs lying on a really big bed?" Noelle asked as she came down Christian's front stairs. I peeled off my wet coat and sniffed. Only the faintest smell of smoke—both demon and wood—lingered.

I almost smiled, so happy was I to see Noelle. She was such a nice, normal woman in a world that seemed oddly shy of normalcy. "Yes, his name is Sebastian. I hope you didn't wake him; he's been very ill."

"I didn't go into the room, just peeked in when I was checking for imps."

Well, she was almost normal.