Sex, Lies, and Vampires

"So the Beloved becomes immortal as well?" A wistful desire filled me to be made whole, to be able to use my affected limbs as they were meant to be used, to never have to suffer the stares and quickly averted eyes when the weak muscles on the left side of my face were noticed. Surely such a gift would be worth regular blood donations. My eyes slid to Adrian, who was looking at our entwined fingers. It would certainly be no hardship to have him around me for eternity. I doubted I would ever get tired of looking at him, and the strange tension I felt around him, the promise of something profound, left me yearning for the completion I was sure we'd find together.

"Yes. She is made immortal once the final step of Joining is made."

"Hmm." The idea was starting to sound better and better with each passing moment. Adrian by my side for eternity, a body without weaknesses, all the time I needed to study the past… oh, yes, the thought of being his Beloved presented a glittering temptation.

"Nell, I will not allow you to become my Beloved."

"Maybe you don't have any choice in the matter," I teased, still mentally picturing myself saving his soul, then spending the rest of our lives together bound in peace and harmony.

"I do," he answered, his lips a grim line. "I refuse to bind you to me."

I pulled my hand from him, pushing down the pain of his rejection. So much for peace and harmony.

"It is not because I do not want you," he said stiffly, grabbing my hand and tightening his fingers around mine. I risked a glance at his eyes, and almost recoiled at the anger visible there until I realized it was an anger directed inward. "You have seen into my mind—you know that I desire you, that my body cries out for you. But I will not bind you to one with whom you can have no future."

Distraught as he was, I knew that this wasn't the time to press him for more information, or to argue my point. Besides, I wasn't absolutely sure I wanted to commit myself to him, especially since I couldn't give him what he so desperately wanted.

"I feel horribly guilty about running out on Melissande," I said, blithely changing the subject. I gently rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand in order to get him to loosen his grip. He dropped my hand like it was made of spiders, turning away to watch the people nearest us.

"You didn't run out on her. I abducted you."

"At first. But you can't really imagine I would be here now with you if I didn't want to be."

His outraged expression gave me the answer to that statement. Before he could go into his "me Betrayer, you Jane" routine, I added, "Yeah, I know, you're the big, bad wolf and all that, but the fact remains that I'm not a pushover, Adrian. I'm here because I want to be here. I want to help you—within the limits of what I can do. But that doesn't mean I feel any less guilty about the fact that I was hired to help Melissande find her nephew. And since you have information that she needs, I figured it'd be a fair trade if you gave me the info in exchange for my help."

He thought about that for a moment. "Melissande cannot help Damian."

"Why don't we let her be the judge of that?"

He grunted a disagreement, but didn't outright refuse to talk. "What do you want to know?"

I settled back on the bench, tucking my hands into my coat sleeves to warm them. Funny how they never felt cold when Adrian was holding them. "Let's start at the beginning—what were you doing at Christian's castle?"

His jaw tightened, and for a minute I didn't think he was going to answer. With an annoyed grimace, he admitted, "Looking for the ring."

"Ah! The ring." I nibbled on my lower lip for a moment or two. "Um. What ring?"

"What ring? Melissande persuaded you to help her without mentioning the ring of Asmodeus?" He shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. "Foolish woman."

"She's not foolish, she's concerned. There's a difference. And yes, she mentioned a ring, but only briefly. I'm sure she would have gone into more detail if we'd had time. This ring—I assume, since you're looking for it, that it has some sort of power against Asmodeus?"

His hands clenched. "Yes. It channels his power. Without it, he is crippled, bound to his prison, unable to free himself."

"That tells me why he should be looking for it, but not who you… oh." Just as the words left my mouth I remembered what Melissande had told me: Adrian the Betrayer was bound to the demon lord Asmodeus. Which meant if his master wanted the ring but was too weak to go hunting for it himself, his tame vampire would be the likeliest person to send on a retrieval mission. "Asmodeus asked you to look for it?"

"Yes."

The word positively dripped ice cubes.

I mused for a moment over the fact that his eyes had gone a flat, dulled ice blue. "OK, got that, but what does this ring have to do with anyone else? Why did you say Melissande was foolish not to have discussed it with me? Wait—does this ring have power that can be used against Asmodeus as well as by him?"

"Yes."