Sherrilyn Kenyon: Seize The Night

He drained the last of his wine and rose to his feet, then inclined his head to her. "I thank you for the food."

"Any time, Val."

He stiffened at her use of a nickname he despised. The only people to ever use it had been his brother Markus and his father, and then only to mock or belittle him. "My name is Valerius."

She looked at him dryly. "I can't call you Valerius. Jeez. It sounds like some broken-down Italian car. And every time I hear that name I feel the deep need to break out into Vo-lar-ray, Oh, oh, oh-and then I start thinking of the movie The Hollywood Knights and believe me you don't want me to go there. So to save my sanity from that crappy song echoing in my head and images of a lunatic running around a high school gym doing unspeakable things, you can be known as Val or Babycakes."

His gaze darkened. "My name is Valerius and I will not answer to Val."

She shrugged. "Fine then, Babycakes, have it your way."

He opened his mouth to protest, but already he knew better than to argue. Tabitha had a way of doing just as she pleased, all arguments be damned. "Very well," he said grudgingly, "I shall endure Val. But only from you."

She smiled. "See how painless that is? Why would you hate the name, anyway?"

"It's coarse."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You must really be fun in bed," she said sarcastically.

Valerius was stunned by her words. "Excuse me?"

"I'm just wondering what it would be like to make love to a man who is so concerned about being rigid-then again. Nah. I can't imagine someone so regal getting down and dirty with it."

"I assure you, I've never had any complaints in that regard."

"Really? Then you must be sleeping with women who are so cold you could freeze ice cubes on them."

He turned to leave the room. "We are not having this discussion."

But she gave him no reprieve as she followed him toward the stairs. "Were you like this in Rome? I mean, from everything I've read, you guys were raw with sexuality."

"I can just imagine the lies they tell."

"So were you always this uptight?"

"What do you care?"

Her response stunned him as she pulled him to a stop. "Because I'm trying to figure out what made you like you are now. You are so closed off, you're barely human."

"I am not human, Ms. Devereaux. In case you haven't noticed, I'm one of the damned."

"Baby, open your eyes and look around. We're all damned in one way or another. But damned is a far cry from dead. And you live like you're dead."

"I'm that, too."

She ran a hot look over his scrumptious body. "For a dead man you look remarkably fit."

His face hardened. "You don't even know me."

"No, I don't. But the question is, do you know you?"

"I'm the only one who does."

And that simple sentence told her everything she needed to know about him.

He was alone.

Tabitha wanted to reach out to him, but could sense that she needed to give him some space. He wasn't used to interacting with people like her. then again, few were.

As Grandma Flora, the gypsy seer of their family, always said, Tabitha tended to come on to people like a freight train and mow them down where they stood.

Tabitha sighed as he took another step away from her. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Two thousand, one hundred-"

"No," she interrupted. "Not Dark-Hunter years. How old were you when you died?"

She felt a profound wave of pain go through him at the thought. "Thirty."

"Thirty? Jeez, you act like an old, wrinkled-up prune. Did no one laugh where you came from?"

"No," he said simply. "Laughter was not tolerated or indulged."

Tabitha couldn't breathe as his words sank in and she remembered the sight of the scars on his back. "Never?"

He didn't respond. Instead, he continued up her stairs. "I should retire now."

"Wait," she said, rushing up the stairs to sneak around him so that she could keep him still. She turned to face him.

She could feel turmoil inside him. Pain. Confusion. She knew just how hated this man was. Maybe he deserved it, but deep inside she wasn't so sure.

People didn't close themselves off from the world without reason. No one was happily this stoic.

And in that moment, she realized something. It was his defense mechanism. She got brash and wild whenever she was out of sorts or uncomfortable.

He turned cold. Formal.

That was his facade.

"I'm sorry if I said anything that offended you. My sisters often tell me that I've made offending people an art form."

A smile tugged at the edges of his lips and, if she didn't miss her guess, his eyes softened ever so slightly. "I wasn't offended."

"Good."

Valerius was tempted to stay here and talk to her, but he felt uncomfortable with the thought of it. He'd never been the kind of person other people chatted with. Even as a man, his conversations had revolved around battle tactics, philosophy, and politics. Never chit-chat.

His conversations with women had been even fewer than his conversations with men. Not even Agrippina had ever truly spoken to him. They had passed comments, but she had never shared her opinions with him. Merely agreed with him and did as he asked.

He had a feeling Tabitha would never agree with anyone, even if she knew they were right. It seemed a matter of principle that she had to disagree with everything.

"Are you always so outspoken?" he asked.

She smiled widely. "I know no other way."

Suddenly Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Gimme Three Steps" started playing on the radio.

Tabitha let out a small squeak of happiness and dashed down the stairs. Valerius barely had time to blink before she cranked the volume up, then ran back toward him.

"I love this song," she said as she danced to it. Valerius found it hard to focus on much of anything except the sway of her hips as she danced and sang to the song.

"C'mon, dance with me!" she said at the first guitar solo. She ran up the stairs to take his hand.

"This isn't really dancing music."

"Sure it is," she said before she broke into the chorus. In spite of himself, he was greatly amused by her. In all his lifetime, he'd never known anyone who enjoyed life so much, who took such pleasure from something so simple.

"C'mon," she tried again when the singing paused. "It's a great song. You have to admire anyone who can rhyme 'feller' with 'the head color yeller.'" She winked at him.

Valerius laughed.

Tabitha paused. "Oh, my God, he does know how to laugh."

"I know how to laugh," he said lightly.

She pulled him from the stairs and two-stepped around him before she used him as a maypole and continued dancing.

She let go, snapped her fingers and twisted down, then rose back up. "One day, I think you're going to bust out of those hand-polished loafers and actually cut loose."

Valerius cleared his throat and tried to imagine such a thing. It wasn't possible. There had been a time once, back when he'd been human, when he might have attempted it.

But those days were long gone.

Anytime he'd ever tried to be anything other than what he was, someone else had paid a terrible price for it. So he'd learned to stay as he was and to leave everyone else alone.

It was for the best.

Tabitha watched as his face turned to stone once again. She sighed. What would it take to reach this guy? For someone who was immortal, he certainly didn't seem to enjoy life very much.

In spite of all of Kyrian's faults, she had to give him credit. The former Greek general did enjoy every breath he took. He lived his life to its fullest.

Meanwhile, Valerius just seemed to exist

"What do you do for fun?" she asked.

"I read."

"Literature?"

"Science fiction."

"Really?" she asked, surprised. "Heinlein?"

"Yes. Harry Harrison is one of my favorites, as are Jim Butcher, Gordon Dickson, and C. J. Cherryh."