Dance with Darkness (5 page)

Chapter 9

Lorena

“I
’m going to stay awhile,” Lorena said as she pretended to stretch on stage.

Jon frowned. “Lor, that’s probably not a good idea, you being here alone at night.”

She stared at her feet so she wouldn’t laugh. “Trust me, I’ll be perfectly safe.” Monsters didn’t have to fear the dark solitude beyond the stage lights or anywhere else. “I’ve got the second set of keys. I’ll lock up when I’m done. You can even lock me in when you go.”

He watched her for a few seconds longer then left, grumbling under his breath. She sighed with relief as she heard the front door’s lock click, signaling she was finally alone in the one remaining place where she belonged.

Immediately she let the façade fall away. No more needless breathing or blinking. She changed the CD in the sound system then gave in to the yearning she’d tamped down all week and let her body go. No more reining in her leaps or turns or pretending to work at the choreography. It was just the music, the stage, the rasp of her shoes on the wooden floor, and her…with all her unnatural abilities. And the new ache that had taken up residence in her chest ever since…

No. She would not spend another minute thinking about that kiss. Or how Conor had seemed to fill her with warmth and light, like drinking down the sun after living in a cave.

As if her thoughts had summoned him, she heard the quiet click of the front door’s lock, followed by the slow approach of his scent. She swallowed but kept dancing. Let him see what she really was. He already knew she was a monster, and she was tired of pretending otherwise today.

He didn’t say anything until the song ended, but she could feel his presence in the space between the front row and the edge of the stage. When she stopped dancing and met his stare, she didn’t know what to expect. So the blatant desire in his eyes stunned her.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured.

“Don’t you mean unnatural? Or dangerous?”

With a quick shake of his head, he took a single step forward, used his hands to push himself up, then climbed onto the stage. Once on his feet again, he brushed his hands off with casual confidence. His silence was unnerving, pushing her to speak.

“Are you here to tell me to get out of town again? Because if you are…”

He walked toward her, closing the distance in only a few steps, until his scent hit her like a slap in the face. “No, I’m not.”

“Then…” She swallowed, trying not to breathe him in. “Then what do you…”

“You. I want you.” He lifted her chin with a single finger until she was forced to meet his gaze. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss all week. I haven’t felt like this since my wife died four years ago. I didn’t think I ever would, to be honest. I don’t know why I feel the way I do for you, but I do. And it seems like it would be pretty stupid of me to ignore it.”

She felt surrounded by him, his scent filling her nose and throat and lungs, his warmth emanating over her, his broad shoulders and those dark eyes filling her vision and making her all too aware of the bed on the stage behind her. Because the dancers had to both dance and lie upon it during a pivotal scene in the ballet, the top mattress was real and soft enough to protect their bodies from unnecessary bruising.

“Maybe you’re just attracted to the fact that I can’t die so easily.” She wasn’t sure where the words came from, but once they slipped out, she knew they were an all-too-real possibility.

But he didn’t seem to think so, judging by the way he chuckled and his eyes crinkled up at the outer corners. “If that were the case, I would’ve gone looking for a vampire girlfriend long before now.”

She was trembling. Her hands fisted, her fingers aching to touch him. But she couldn’t. If she did, she might not be able to stop.

He lowered his head, holding her gaze the entire time, and she had to wonder who was mesmerizing whom. But just before their lips touched, she came to her senses and jerked her head back.

“No, stop! I don’t want to take your energy.”

“You didn’t enjoy our first kiss?”

She turned away, needing to clear her head. “That isn’t the point. You said it yourself. I can drain you with just a kiss. And I… it’s not right. Don’t you get it? I don’t want to be this! I don’t want to…”
To kill you
, she almost said, but the words choked in her throat.

“Lorena, I’m a witch.”

That made her face him again. “What?”

He scowled. “It’s true. I have been all my life. I was born that way into a long line of them. And my family’s not the only one. There are several families with powerful abilities in this area. Our ancestors immigrated over from
Ireland
together centuries ago to escape persecution for their abilities. We call ourselves The Clann, the Irish Gaelic word for “family”, and each member is called a descendant. When we hit puberty, our powers start to develop.”

“And that’s why you’re able to create fire…”

He nodded. “I can create fire in my hands with a single breath, or form water from the air to put it out. There’s a bunch of other stuff we can do too. But the first thing we learn is to hide our power. You know the kind of world we live in, how people react to anyone with scientifically unexplainable abilities.”

She gave a grim nod. The existence of vampires might be an accepted bit of lore nowadays, but that didn’t make it any safer for them to individually come out of the closet. Too many fear-driven vigilantes threatened their survival. She could only imagine how those same people might react to members of The Clann.

He closed the distance between them again. “My point is…you and I are more alike than I realized. Before I met you, I believed what I was taught, that vampires were the enemy because of the way they’re drawn to The Clann’s powerful blood.”

So that’s why his scent drew her like no other human’s before. “The only reason I feel…drawn to you is because you’re descended from a family in The Clann?”

His slow grin was unexpected. “You feel drawn to me? Right now?”

She nodded and gulped. She’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly in her life.

He cupped her cheek, his smile widening. “Tell me, exactly how do I make you feel?”

She closed her eyes. “Like if I don’t kiss you, I’ll never be able to think straight again.”

He chuckled, and his breath puffed against her lips. She licked them. “Lorena, I should also mention…I found this spell after you left my house the other night.”

His words bounced around inside her fuzzy mind, almost lost beneath the need rising inside her for him. “Hmm? A spell?”

The tip of his nose brushed hers once, twice, nuzzling her, tempting her to tilt her head to once side then the other for him. “Yes. This spell was very interesting. It’s supposed to block the energy flow between two people.”

Block the energy flow. “That’s…a good idea.” Her hands drifted up to grip his shoulders against her will.

“And it has an interesting side effect. It makes a sort of shield around people with powerful blood, so gorgeous vamps like you won’t be attracted to our blood.”

“Oh. That would be a good one to try.” She sighed, liking how the muscles in his shoulders bunched beneath her fingers.

“I already did. I’m carrying the charm now.”

Chapter 10

I
t took a few seconds for his words to penetrate her foggy senses. When they did, her eyes snapped open to meet Conor’s grinning eyes. “You…you’re using this spell now?” Which meant she wasn’t attracted to him just because of his blood now? “How can you be sure it’s working?”

Because she definitely still wanted him.

“Well it certainly seemed to knock a few years off my life, if the new gray in my hair’s anything to go by.” His eyes flicked upward, drawing her attention to his hair. For the first time tonight, she noticed his hair now laced with fine lines of gray.

She frowned. “It took years off your life? Why?”

He shrugged as if it didn’t really matter. “It was an ancient spell from the old ways, ways The Clann doesn’t use anymore, probably because it required a sacrifice instead of simply rerouting the earth’s natural energy according to our willpower like the form of magic we do now.”

“A sacrifice?” Her eyes widened still further.

He chuckled. “Relax, it was only a personal sacrifice of a few years of my life. No goats or other animals were involved. And I’m sure I wouldn’t have missed those years anyway.”

Her gaze dropped to his chest where she could hear his heart pounding steady and calm. Strangely she didn’t feel the urge to listen to his blood surging through his veins. Instead, she felt much more drawn to those gorgeous lips of his.

She licked her own lips. “What if the spell simply changed the blood lust instead of blocking it completely?”

“Let’s try it.” He took three long steps away from her, and she sighed at the loss of his warmth. He reached into his pocket and withdrew two items…a glossy black stone, and his Swiss Army knife keychain. He tossed the rock onto the fake bed a few yards away, and immediately his tantalizing aroma hit her full force, making her stumble toward him. She gasped.

“Oh God, Conor…” She held her hands out palm up as if that would somehow stop her from lurching toward him. Desperate to stop herself from the unexpected craving that raked at her stomach, she closed her eyes and her knees collapsed, dropping her onto the edge of the bed behind her. Never before had she lusted after someone’s blood so much. Even the first night they’d met, the blood lust had come upon her gradually enough that she’d been able to brace herself for his nearness. This time, the blood lust had hit at full volume without any warning at all, leaving her stunned by the impact.

His footsteps moved away, and after a few seconds, she heard a creak from the bed. And just like that, as if someone had turned the dial down on its volume, the blood lust faded away. Shaken but at least able to think clearly again, she opened her eyes.

Conor sat on the edge of the bed beside her, the black stone in his hand, his eyes gentle. “Better now?”

She nodded. “That was…intense. I wasn’t expecting it to hit me like that.”

“What about now?”

Horrified, she couldn’t speak as he quickly pressed the tip of his knife against his left index finger. A single bead of blood welled up on his skin.

And yet…the blood lust didn’t return.

“Still okay?” he murmured.

“I…yes.” Hope, something she hadn’t felt in so long she almost didn’t recognize it, rose inside her. Could it be true? Could controlling her cravings be so easy as a simple spell?

His eyes darkened with desire again. “We should test it a bit more, I think.” Slowly, he grinned and crooked his cut finger, beckoning her to come to him.

But it wasn’t the blood that made her take those steps toward him until she stood between his knees. And it wasn’t the blood lust that made her hands reach out to cup his head as he looked up at her.

“We should superglue that rock to you somewhere,” she muttered, feeling her rational thoughts fading away under the pull of his gaze.

His grin widened. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”

She ducked her head, hesitating as their breaths mingled, wondering if the charm would truly protect him from her dark abilities. Only one way to find out. Their lips met, drew away, met again. The need to kiss him worsened. But this kiss was different. The light and warmth that filled her up wasn’t like drinking down the sun this time. It was more like she’d
become
the sun somehow, and she was radiating her own heat.

She pulled back and searched his face. “How do you feel?” she whispered. “Dizzy? Tired? Drained?”

His hands slid up the outside of her thighs to grasp her hips, lifting and turning her until she straddled his lap. “I feel like you’d better kiss me again. You know, just to be sure that charm’s still working.”

Laughter, a long lost friend, bubbled up out of her as he nudged her backwards onto the bed. He stretched out beside her, one knee finding its way between her legs until she wrapped a leg around his hips. He kissed her harder then, his tongue delving into her mouth, their hands briefly colliding as they struggled to stroke and caress every inch of each other’s bodies. She felt like a mad woman as she tugged his clothes off, then her own. But she felt like a
woman
, not a vampire. When his mouth moved over her skin, the moan that came out of her throat was a woman’s, and she remembered who she used to be before her life had changed and darkened.

He braced himself over her, that black stone clenched in one hand by her shoulder as he used his other hand to guide himself inside her.

And then he was filling her up, but with an all too real hardness, not some invisible scent. He pulled out, then thrust in again, and she gripped handfuls of the comforter in an effort not to hurt him as the intense sensations drove her hips up to meet his. Intense sensations that were real and normal and as human as they could get.

Need grew within her, and she froze, examining it, checking for the return of the blood lust.

“Okay?” he asked, grinding out the word as if holding his hips still took every bit of effort he had.

But the need had nothing to do with being a vampire, and everything to do with being a woman.

Smiling, she nodded. “Very okay.”

He circled his hips once then found his rhythm again as his mouth captured hers, as if he were the one drawing sustenance from her kiss.

All too soon, the need exploded inside her. Despite opening her eyes wide, darkness filled her vision. But even this darkness was different, filled with tiny pinpoints of light like miniature fireworks. She cried out his name, and his voice was right there beside her ear, murmuring her name over and over like a spell as he came.

While the rushing of their blood calmed, she listened to his breathing, harsh at first, then gradually slower. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling. It had been so long, too long since she’d felt like the woman she used to be. Since she’d felt normal.

Then her smile slipped away as she once again became aware of the bed beneath them. She opened her eyes only to see the fake trees around them that were supposed to simulate a secret wooded glade for the ballet’s forbidden and doomed lovers to spend their one and only wedding night together within. Both the bed and the plywood-framed canvas walls of painted-on woods had been built to be easily rolled onto and off the stage, and eventually loaded into a truck when the ballet moved on to its next performance location.

Whatever this was that Conor and she were building between them couldn’t even become as solid and lasting as these stage props. Her dance company would be moving on soon, and her and the stage props with it, taking her from the only man who had ever made her feel even more alive than dancing could.

How would she ever go back to her previous life when her two remaining weeks here ended?