J. Ward - Dark Lover

While he was stroking her face like a lover.

He must think she was a moron.

"Look, I've seen my records." Her voice didn't waver. "My birth certificate lists my father as unknown, but there was a note in the file. My mother told a nurse in the delivery room that he'd passed away. She was unable to disclose a name because she went into shock from blood loss thereafter and died herself."

"I'm sorry, but that's just not what happened."

"You're sorry. Yeah, I bet you are."

"I'm not playing games-"

"The hell you aren't! God, to think for even a moment that I might know one of them, even secondhand…" She stared at him with disgust. "You are so cruel."

He swore, a nasty, frustrated sound. "I don't know how to get you to believe me."

"Don't bother trying. You have no credibility." She grabbed her purse. "Hell, it's probably better this way. I would almost rather he'd died than know that he was a criminal. Or that we'd lived in the same town all my life but he never came to see me, wasn't even curious enough to know what I looked like."

"He knew." Wrath's voice was very near again. "He knew you."

She spun around. He was so close he overwhelmed her with his size.

Beth leaped away. "Stop this right now."

"He knew you."

"Stop saying that!"

" Your father knew you ," Wrath shouted.

"Then why didn't he want me?" she yelled back.

Wrath winced. "He did. He watched over you. All your life he was never far away."

She closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself. She couldn't believe she was tempted to fall under his spell again.

"Beth, look at me. Please."

She lifted her lids.

"Give me your hand," he said. "Give it to me."

When she didn't respond, he placed her palm on his chest, over his heart.

"On my honor. I have not lied to you."

He became utterly still, as if giving her a chance to read every nuance of his face and his body.

Could this be the truth? she wondered.

"He loved you, Beth."

Don't believe this. Don't believe this. Don't -

"Then why didn't he come for me?" she whispered.

"He hoped you wouldn't have to know him. That you'd be spared the kind of life he lived." Wrath stared down at her. "And he ran out of time."

There was a long silence.

"Who was my father?" she breathed.

"He was as I am."

And then Wrath opened his mouth.

Fangs. He had fangs.

Her skin shrank in horror. She shoved him away. "You bastard!"

"Beth, listen to me-"

"So you can tell me you're a fucking vampire ?" She lunged at him, punching his chest with her hands. "You sick bastard! You sick… bastard ! If you want to role-play your fantasies, do it with someone else."

"Your father-"

She slapped him, hard. Right across the face.

"Do not go there. Don't even try it." Her hand stung, and she tucked it in against her belly. She wanted to cry. Because she was hurting. Because she'd tried to hurt him back and he seemed utterly unaffected by the fact that she'd hit him.

"God, you almost had me, you really did," she moaned. "But then you had to take it one step too far and flash those fake teeth."

"They're real. Look closely."

More candles came on in the room, lit by no one.

Her breath left her in a rush. Abruptly, she had the sense that nothing was as it seemed. The rules were off. Reality was sliding into a different realm.

She raced across the room.

He met her at the door and she crouched, as if she had a prayer of keeping him away from her.

"Don't come near me." She grabbed for the handle. Threw her whole body into it. The thing wouldn't budge.

Panic ran like gasoline through her veins.

"Beth-"

"Let me go!" The door handle cut into the skin of her palms as she wrenched it.

When his hand came down on her shoulder, she screamed. "Don't touch me!"

She leaped away from him. Careened around the room. He tracked her, coming at her slowly, inexorably.

"I'm going to help you."

"Leave me alone!"

She dashed around him and dove for the door. This time it opened before she even got to the handle.

As if he'd willed it so.

She looked back at him in horror. "This isn't real."

She bolted up the stairs, tripping only once. When she tried to work the latch on the painting, she broke a nail, but eventually got it open. She ran through the drawing room. Burst out of the house and-

Wrath was there, standing on the front lawn.

Beth skidded to a halt.

Terror flooded her body, fright and disbelief seizing her heart in a fist. Her mind slipped into madness.

" No !" She took off, running in any direction as long as it was away from him.

She felt him following her, and she threw her legs out harder and faster. She ran until she couldn't breathe, until she was blinded by exhaustion and her thighs were screaming. She ran flat-out and still he followed.

She fell down onto grass, sobbing.

Curling into a ball, as if to shield herself from blows, she wept.

When he picked her up she didn't fight him.

What was the use? If this was a dream, she would wake up eventually. And if it was the truth…

She was going to need him to explain a hell of a lot more than just her father's life.

As Wrath carried Beth back down to the chamber, fear and confusion poured out of her in waves of distress. He laid her down on the bed and yanked the top sheet free so he could wrap her up. Then he went to the couch and sat down, thinking she'd appreciate the space.

Eventually she shifted around, and he felt her eyes on him.

"I'm waiting to wake up. To have the alarm go off," she said hoarsely. "But it's not going to, is it?"

He shook his head.

"How is this possible? How…" She cleared her throat. "Vampires?"

"We're just a different species."

"Bloodsuckers. Killers."

"Try persecuted minority. Which was why your father was hoping you wouldn't go through the change."

"Change?"

He nodded grimly.

"Oh, God." She clamped her hand over her mouth as if she were going to be sick. "Don't tell me I'm going to…"

A shock wave of panic came out of her, creating a breeze through the room that reached him in a cool rush. He couldn't bear her anguish and wanted to do something to ease her. Except compassion wasn't among his strengths.

If only there were something he could fight for her.

Yeah, well, there was nothing at the moment. Nothing. The truth wasn't a target he could eliminate. And it wasn't her enemy, even though it hurt her. It just… was.

He stood up and approached the bed. When she didn't shrink away from him, he sat down. The tears she shed smelled like spring rain.

"What's going to happen to me?" she murmured.

The desperation in her voice suggested she was talking to God, not him. But he answered anyway.

"Your change is coming fast. It hits all of us sometime around our twenty-fifth birthday. I'll teach you how to take care of yourself. I'll show you what to do."

"Good God…"

"After you go through it, you're going to need to drink."

She choked and jerked upright. "I'm not killing anyone!"

"It's not like that. You need the blood of a male vampire. That's all."

"That's all," she repeated in a dead tone.

"We don't prey on humans. That's an old wives' tale."

"You've never taken a… human?"

"Not to drink from them," he hedged. "There are some vampires who do, but the strength doesn't last long. To thrive, we need to feed off our own race."

"You make it all sound so normal."

"It is."

She fell silent. And then, as if it just dawned on her, "You're going to let me-"

"You're going to drink from me. When it's time."