Jeaniene Frost - Eternal Kiss of Darkness

Pity he couldn’t let her complete her victory by running away, however. A human telling the police tales of supernatural creatures was the last thing Mencheres needed. Radjedef would seize on that as more proof that Mencheres had broken their laws.

Radjedef. How odd that Mencheres hadn’t thought about the vengeful Law Guardian since he left the warehouse this morning, but he would tend to his business regarding Radjedef later. First, he had to erase Kira’s memories of everything supernatural. He could pass her off to Gorgon or another vampire in his line to mesmerize, but taking care of Kira himself seemed the least he could do to repay her for the kindness she’d shown him at the warehouse. Even if she regretted that kindness now.

He could always find another way to implement his plan concerning Radjedef after Kira’s memories of that warehouse and him were gone. Mencheres hadn’t seen Radjedef in over a week. No need to rush; he’d accomplish his objective soon enough.

Mencheres let Kira run for a few paces before he stepped in front of her. She collided with him hard enough to knock a scream out of her, but he absorbed the impact as if she were a butterfly.

“That’s two brave yet foolish things you’ve done today,” Mencheres noted.

Kira’s breathing was labored, but her aim was steady as she punched him squarely in the chest. “Damn it! It’s you again, isn’t it?”

He could see her clearly in the dark, but she’d be almost blind with the lack of lights on the lawn.

“Yes, it’s me,” Mencheres replied. He didn’t comment about the punch though he couldn’t remember the last time a person had actually struck him.

“You watched me the whole time, didn’t you?” Kira demanded. Bitterness wafted from her, changing her scent from lemons and sea spray to something harsher. “Why? Did you think it was funny, seeing me try to get away?”

In fact he had been amused, but only because he knew she was never in real danger. The angry desperation in her tone made him pause, however. He might have known that Kira wasn’t in jeopardy, but she hadn’t. In truth, he had told her nothing to truly reassure her that she had no reason to fear, whether she was inside the house or dangling on a rope outside of it.

“I apologize.” Mencheres dropped his hands from her shoulders, where he’d steadied her after Kira had barreled into him. She didn’t attempt to run away once he released her. She just stood there, gulping in breaths and glaring at him.

“What are you? And what do you intend to do with me since it’s clear you won’t let me go?”

Mencheres hesitated for a moment before giving a mental shrug. Soon enough he’d erase her mind. What did it matter if she knew more in the interim about him?

“The modern word for what I am is ‘vampire.’ ”

Kira’s heart had already been pounding, but at that, it skipped a beat.

“Vampires don’t exist,” she said, even though she sounded as if her words were a last attempt at denial instead of a true statement of disbelief.

“That’s exactly what humans are supposed to think, except you’ve seen too much to hold on to that fabrication any longer,” he replied steadily.

“But you were out in the sunlight this morning, and my cross . . .”

Mencheres reached out to touch the emblem hanging from Kira’s neck. Merely touching silver wouldn’t hurt him. Its burning, draining effects were dormant unless silver broke a vampire’s skin. “The effects of sunlight, crosses, wooden stakes, and holy water are red herrings my people deliberately planted along the millennia. Our real weakness is not something we allowed to become common knowledge.”

“Silver,” Kira said.

His brows rose. She couldn’t see it, but she must have sensed his reaction, because she shrugged.

“That must be what those other, ah, vampires were using on you this morning. The knives didn’t quite look like steel, but of course, they were so bloody . . .”

Her voice trailed off again and she looked away, biting her lip. Amidst the shocking silence of her mind, he caught a changing of her scent into something that reflected an emotion he was well acquainted with.

Regret.

She did wish she hadn’t stepped in to help him this morning. Mencheres couldn’t blame her, but to his surprise, he found that it actually . . . hurt.

By the gods, was he really saddened over what a stranger thought of him? He was over forty-five hundred years old! Perhaps it truly was time that he passed on from this world. Before he manifested other forms of what had to be undead senility.

“Those other men were not vampires,” Mencheres corrected her coolly. “They belong to another race known as ghouls, or flesh-eaters.”

It sounded like Kira gagged. “This morning I walked in on ghouls, who eat flesh, hacking away at a vampire who drinks blood. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes.”

Now fear sharpened Kira’s scent, and a fine tremble went through her limbs, but her spine stayed straight. “Is that what you’re keeping me here for? To drink my blood?”

Mencheres couldn’t stop himself from glancing at her throat with its temptingly rapid pulse before he replied.

“No. I told you—you have nothing to fear from me. I would have already returned you to your home except I am unable to erase your knowledge of this morning yet. Once my blood has left your system, and I can clear your mind of this, you will be freed. Until then, you will be unharmed. I give you my word.”

That tremor slowed, but her heartbeat didn’t stop its racing. “This is like a bad dream,” Kira whispered. “You might promise not to harm me, but someone else brought me dinner, and I’m guessing he wasn’t human, either. If you mean it when you say you don’t want me harmed, you have to let me go. If not, I’m only safe until one of the other vampires around me gets an appetite.”

Mencheres couldn’t stop the snort that escaped him. “My word is law among my people. No one would dare to touch you without my permission, and I’ve expressly forbidden it. You are quite safe from anyone getting an ‘appetite’ around you, Kira.”

She was silent for several moments. Mencheres concentrated on her mind, but it remained frustratingly elusive to him. Her scent wavered between mistrust and shock, though, telling him as much about her internal struggle to digest this information as her thoughts probably would.

Kira’s distress was to be expected. Considering she’d started the day knowing nothing about the creatures that existed alongside humanity, then had almost been murdered by some of those creatures and was now held against her will by others, she’d shown remarkable strength. Mencheres had seen leaders of nations reduced to incoherent sobbing under lesser circumstances.

“Even if my life isn’t in danger, I can’t just stay here waiting for my mind to become malleable again,” Kira said at last. “I have a job, and, ah, other very important responsibilities. Please don’t misunderstand, I’m more than relieved that you’re not intending to eat me, but I can’t just disappear for several days. If you let me go, I’ll go home, and I won’t breathe a word to anyone about any of this.”

“Is that where you were intending to go when you ran tonight?” Mencheres asked, his hand shooting out to stop Kira as she started to turn away. “And do not lie to me again.”

Kira’s face flushed as she met his gaze.

“I was headed for your nearest neighbor’s house to call the police,” she replied softly.

Mencheres dropped his hand from her face. “And that is why I cannot let you go while you remember anything about what you’ve seen.”

“But that was before, ” Kira said insistently. “When I still thought you were going to kill me, so yes, the police sounded like my best option. But you’ve proven that I can’t run off without you knowing, and you could clearly overpower me anytime. I can’t imagine you’d go through the effort to lie to me this much if you just intended to kill me. And if you’re not going to kill me, then you must not be the insatiable murderers legend paints you to be, so I don’t need to warn humanity about you. Yes, you killed those people who were torturing you; but that’s justifiable homicide in any court, so there’s no need for me to tell anyone anything.”