Love At First Bite Part 21

"I'm cool, just need to get my head right this morning, is all."

Rider poured a long trickle of Jack Daniel's into Jose's mug and then capped his flask with a smirk. "That's why we should take a walk. Have your morning coffee and humor me."

"I ain't in the mood."

"Then keep me from accidentally dropping a lit cigarette as we walk and talk."

Jose sighed and obliged his longtime friend. What was the point in arguing with the insufferable Jack Rider anyway? The man couldn't be dissuaded by insults, and at nearly fifty, maybe older, Jack Rider was as rusty as an old barn nail. Jose began walking. He needed s.p.a.ce. Rider hung back, lit a Marlboro Red, and shoved the pack back into his jeans, catching up to Jose in long, lanky strides.

"So, she's back."

Jose stopped walking and just looked at Rider for a moment. "Yeah."

"Old bedroom is calling your name, but she's a brand-new Guardian on newbie lockdown-no fraternizing until all her powers of second sight come in full force, according to the house seer, the inimitable Marlene Stone. I take it that you're in such a foul mood, my friend, on account of the fact that Juanita needs to be judicious in her experiences until her third eye and special demon-hunting powers fully develop?"

Jose began walking again, taking a deep swig of his coffee.

Rider kept stride as his paces increased. "And the house now has a bunch of demon hunters in it, chasing the best memories of your life out the window."

Jose stopped walking. Rider's eyes held his without blinking.

"Been there," Rider said, then took a long drag on his cigarette and slurped his coffee. "Only my soul mate died. Went vamp, lives somewhere this side of h.e.l.l, and I had to deal with it. Conversely, yours is in the house, alive, with her memory coming back by very fast degrees." He took another drag and studied the glowing ember, speaking to it in a philosophical tone. "Don't let the fact that she had to complete her mission to go bring your old line brother to us be a problem. Why stand on some old machismo ceremony? Bottom line is, you were her first; only a seer female could have smoked him out, blocked him from going after the Neteru before she was old enough to deal with a male with a lotta vamp in his veins."

Rider looked up from his cigarette and stared at Jose hard when he didn't respond. "The demon went to ash, hombre. You held his ashes. Dude crossed over and danced with the ancient spirits and went into the Light. Your skills came to the fore lovely, and you ain't scared of the dark, like you were when you were a kid. Embrace the opportunity. Embrace change."

Rider took in a deep inhale of fresh morning air when Jose looked away. "You're a nose like me-smell it. Change is in the air."

Jose glared at him from the corner of his eye. "That was seventeen years ago. A lot's changed. So? We ain't the same people we were."

"I might be several years your senior, but don't let this old Kentucky boy from a trailer park fool you. Smoke and booze ain't killed my schnoz." Rider gave him a sheepish smile. "What did the old man say? Taste your memory?" Rider chuckled and began walking back toward the house. "If you ask me, I'd d.a.m.ned sure let the Thunderbird be on my lips this morning, bro."

Screw the fate of the world; his was shattered. Jose stood in the driveway, his back to Rider, refusing to let his elder Guardian warrior brother see him slowly inhale the fragrance he knew in his sleep. His nostrils flared ever so slightly as Juanita's delicate scent wafted out from the house. Hurling the mug away, he refused to give into that delirium-producing connection. She'd awakened wanting him and was wet. He could separate that out from the thousands of other scents that barraged his senses, but none like hers could compete for his attention.

The night before had been an enigma... Juanita's memory had come back with a vengeance, and their reunion had been heated and grasping, urgent, frenetic, out in the depths of the night shadows while walking point. But now, standing in the driveway with the cold light of day facing him, what did that mean, really?

Her second sight hadn't fully come in; she was still in boot-camp early demon-hunting training. Another man had spent years with her, and how many lovers before that? The ancestors had robbed him of time and freedom, had stolen away what should have been. Yet in the quiet recesses of his soul he knew there was no other way. The demons would have relentlessly hunted him and Juanita down as an untrained pair and killed them if they'd run. It was their destiny to come into this group of night hunters- strength in numbers for those who shared this twisted but sacred path. The young female Neteru, the vampire huntress, had become his friend, his charge, almost his lover, and like all the other soldiers on the squad, his job was to be a defensive line so she could hunt.

The sweet fragrance from the house was beginning to make his hands tremble. Jose dug into his jeans pocket to find his Hummer keys. He was out. This morning he was off duty. But the strengthening scent made him look up to the porch. He couldn't move as Juanita stood in the door frame, a white cotton sundress slightly billowing around her shapely legs from the breeze. She said nothing as she opened the screen and walked toward him, spilling violet and baby powder and ready female fragrance in her wake.

"Hey," she murmured, tossing her long brunette hair over her shoulder. "You going into town?"

"Yeah. Just need to take a ride and get some air."

She descended the steps slowly, her flat sandals padding softly. "Mind if I tag along?"

Jose shrugged and opened the vehicle door. "Whatever."

She climbed into the vehicle next to him from the pa.s.senger's side and touched his arm. "Last night..."

"Was last night," he said, turning on the motor and shifting the gears into reverse.

"We need to talk," she finally said, resting her hand on his as he gripped the wheel.

They rode into town in silence. Good. What was there to say? At least she'd removed her hand from his, but his skin still burned where her caress had grazed him. The moment he pulled into the diner parking lot, Tie angrily put the vehicle into park and turned off the motor.

"All right, 'Nita," he practically shouted. "Talk. Get it over with."

"Last night was... the beginning."

He looked at her hard and then sent his gaze out of the driver's side window. "You're still in love with him. Too much time pa.s.sed, the shaman medicine wore off too slowly, and I dealt with you not being in my life this long. I'm cool."

"Tell me last night didn't mean anything to you," she whispered.

The sound of her voice made him look at her. He could smell the salty, hot tears in her eyes before he'd even turned.

"Tell me what it meant," she said, swallowing hard. "All this time has pa.s.sed and now-"

"Time pa.s.sed," he said, fighting not to breathe her in. "You're a soldier; I'm a soldier. You met others and fell in love; so did I. We ain't kids no more."

"Then your memory didn't fully come back," she said, her voice low and urgent.

"My memory never fully left," he said, gazing at the way her figure had become even more voluptuous with age, her dark eyes more smoky and sultry. "Do you know how many years I chased the phantom memory of your scent? Your touch... your voice?" His gaze held hers in broken fury as his voice hitched when he spoke. "But you went to a master vampire, like it was nothing... didn't even-"

"Stop it!" she yelled. "It was nothing? He wasn't a vampire then and turned later, and it was part of my duty to keep him locatable. But what the h.e.l.l do you think drew me to him!"

"The shaman-"

"No!" she cried, tears glittering but not falling. "He had your eyes! The voice, a vampire line brother's seductive whisper. I had been looking for you way down in my soul and found your near double!" She dragged her fingers through her hair and turned away, her voice going soft. "Just like you found my near double, time and time again, until you found me."

Shame stole the words from his mouth. He reached out to gently push the hair behind her ear, but she yanked it away.

"When I saw you in that cathedral," he murmured, "and you still didn't know me yet, I thought I would put my own nine to my skull."

She unfolded her arms and turned to him. "We'd just been chased into a corner on hallowed ground... I didn't know it was you, at first."

He breathed in deeply and let the quiet shudder pa.s.s. "But you were so angry at me," he whispered. "You kept saying I'd left you, when that's not what happened, and then you pushed me away for months while we traveled back here... and for a while, even here, it was like I was some old, platonic friend."

She covered her mouth and inhaled sharply to hold back the sob. Slowly lowering her hand, she spoke toward the window. "It came back in s.n.a.t.c.hes of memory. All I remembered was the pain of you leaving me, and I didn't know what I'd done wrong."

"Do you know how I felt when I first saw you again? That feeling that tore out my guts... felt like I'd been dropped from the twentieth floor in an elevator with no stops. My stomach was in my throat."

She turned and stared at him, wiping at her face.

"Your hair was all over your head. Your eyes panicked. It brought it all back, and here I was standing in a cathedral, armed, vampires on our a.s.ses, and all I wanted to do was hold you... but you didn't even know who I was."

Her hand reached out and cupped his cheek, and he turned his mouth into it to kiss it hard, covering her hand.

"And every day that I waited for you to remember, I lost a piece of my soul. Every day that I smelled your freshly washed hair, or saw it catch sunlight... or heard you laugh, watched you move around the house that we'd shared for one glorious day... I lost a piece of my soul. Every time I'd pa.s.s you in what's now become a safe-house barracks, and couldn't touch you to pull you into the bathroom or my old bedroom... each time that happened, something in me died, 'Nita." He caressed her face with one trembling finger. "Have you any idea what it does to me when I hear you take a shower? I have to literally leave the house."

"I remember," she whispered, moving closer and gently kissing his forehead. She brushed back his hair and then kissed the bridge of his nose.

"I was so angry at you," he whispered, and closed his eyes.

"I know," she murmured into his mouth.

"I don't want to ever feel that kind of pain again," he admitted quietly, ending the kiss but enfolding her in his arms. "Not when I love you like this."

"I swear to you, Jose, my memory is fully back. I love you so much. I'm not going anywhere ever again."

She immediately deepened the kiss, her hands tracing wide shoulders that had filled out with disciplined training routines, had been hardened by war and broadened by age and experience. Memory ignited within her touch, burning them both with bittersweet awareness of what they'd had and what they'd missed and everything in between that they'd been robbed of. His hands made fists in her hair, his tongue dueling with hers in a fire dance. Then he suddenly tore his mouth from hers as though a man drowning and dragged his jaw up her neck to whisper an urgent message in her ear.

"Just the scent of your bare skin drives me out of my mind; I can smell you in the house, tell when you're wet, know when you're moving around-I can't even train with you on the mats!" he said between his teeth. "You sweat, I inhale it, and then I have to be with you." He took her mouth again and punished it, breaking to gasp out his complaint. "Do you know how many nights I rode my bike around in circles all over Las Angeles, trying to track you on the night wind? Do you know! Then when I found you, you were with him and didn't know me?"

His intensifying pa.s.sion sent her hands up his back. The need to have him recoup all the time that had slipped by made her pull him against her and roughly seek his mouth. She didn't care if all-night diner patrons walked by and raised an eyebrow. Didn't care that the windows had become fogged or that the air conditioner at full blast did little to cool the vehicle cabin. She had her first lover in her arms, her memory clear, the taste of him exquisite, and the Thunderbird was on his lips.

"I know you now, and won't ever forget," she said in a rushed, hot murmur against his neck.

"Don't leave me again," he whispered in gulps, crushing her against the seat. "Not even to die. Especially not that." He kissed her hard, sought her neck, his hands a coating of pleasure over the swell of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s till she gasped. "Don't ever forget how much I love you or how long I waited to find you again."

They were both crying, kisses cutting off sobs... thick, salty emulsion sheathing battling tongues, breaths. .h.i.tched by emotion and intermittently halted by gasps.

"Take me somewhere quiet for the day, and I'll remind you of what I'd forgotten," she whispered, splaying her hands against his spine. "Let me show you there, in private, all day, what I had locked in my head... within nearly twenty years of deferred dreams." She nipped his neck until he groaned deep within his chest. "Let's make some brand-new memories."

He just nodded, swallowed hard, broke from the kiss, and started the engine, headed for the local motel with no name.

THE GIFT.

by Susan Squires

Chapter One.

London, March 1820 "Rufford's done it! The b.i.t.c.h G.o.ddess is dead." Admiral Groton, in charge of the government's intelligence effort, waved a sheet of foolscap written in a masculine hand. He stood in front of huge windows that gave onto a rainy Whitehall Lane lined with the offices of the most powerful government in the world.

Relief washed over Major Vernon Davis Ware, Davie to his intimates. It was worth putting off his appointment with Miss Fairfield just to hear those welcome words. An image of Asharti rose to his mind, impossibly beautiful, her eyes gone red and deadly, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s brushing his bare chest... He would not think of her. He had banished those dreadful weeks in El Golea when he was in her power from his memory. Now she was dead and all he wanted was a normal life. He was going to offer for Miss Emma Fairfield today and become a government servant in some boring diplomatic post with an intelligent and beautiful wife, if she would have him. And, G.o.d willing, he'd sire a family.

"I didn't think Rufford would prevail," Davie breamed. "He's well?"

"Who do you think penned the letter?" The only other occupant of the room was the Lord High Chancellor of England. The skin over the Chancellor's jowls was paper-thin and spotted with age. "Rufford has averted a world cataclysm."

The Admiral cleared his throat and frowned. His face, tanned from years at sea, had deep creases around his mouth. He was no stranger to worry. "The disaster is not yet averted."

"But the vampire woman is dead." It was unbecoming in a Lord High Chancellor to pout, but so it was.

The Admiral sighed. "Remember, Your Lordship, that these vampires have something in their blood... what did you say it was, Ware?"

Davie cleared his throat "I'm not sure, sir. I only know its effect, and the fact that it can be pa.s.sed through exchanging blood."

"Monsters," the Chancellor muttered under his breath. "They're monsters."

"Are plague victims all monsters?" Davie asked, in spite of the fact that he was questioning the Lord High Chancellor of England. "If the world is saved, Rufford will have saved it."

"The point is they can infect humans and make them vampire, too," the Admiral reminded his superior. "Asharti made an army of them. We're not out of the woods yet."

"But see here, Groton," the Chancellor protested. "You said Rufford and others... like him... they're on a campaign to wipe out her army. If he can kill Asharti, surely they can track down the ones who are newly made. You said they weren't as strong at first, didn't you, Ware?"

"Yes, I did, but they are still stronger than humans. And like a plague, they can spread." Davie managed a lopsided grin. "I wouldn't want to be in North Africa for a while."

The Admiral cleared his throat. "Yes, well. Rufford has requested the a.s.sistance of the British government. And he specifically asked for you."

It was Davie's turn to frown. His stomach churned. "What do you mean?" He glanced from one to the other. The Chancellor wouldn't meet his eyes but paced to the window. Rain battered the panes in curtains. All his years sat upon the Chancellor's shoulders.

The Admiral had rather more courage. He fixed Davie with a steely stare. "We're to provide provisions and equipment. But their campaign requires someone who can move about in daylight to provide logistics. He wants someone who already knows what they are."

"No." Every fiber rebelled against returning to North Africa. "I'm going to make an offer of marriage today."

"Our future depends upon the outcome of this struggle, Ware." The Chancellor sounded almost remote. He clasped his hands behind his back as he stared at the street below. "He didn't ask for armies or navies. He didn't ask for Wellington. He asked only for you."

d.a.m.n Rufford! "What happens in North Africa does not concern us." He couldn't go back there for so many reasons, Miss Fairfield for one and memories of Asharti for another.

"Really?" The Admiral's acid tone cut through Davie's excuses. "And is that why you demanded our fastest cutter to take Rufford to Casablanca in the first place? Surely you thought the consequence was important to England, since we mustered every resource to send him on what we thought was a suicide mission. He went. He prevailed. And now he asks for our help, and yours."

Davie closed his eyes.

"You've got a box full of medals somewhere even if you don't choose to wear them in the drawing rooms of London." The Chancellor turned back to Davie. "After Waterloo you joined the diplomatic corps, so you've served your country several times. This is our most critical hour, not only as Englishmen, but as humans. Don't fail us now."

"We need to know what's going on down there, Ware!" The Admiral punched his fist into his other palm. "Of course we want battlefield dispatches, but we must keep an eye on Rufford and his kind as well. Do you think I sleep well at night knowing there are monsters living among us? Whatever you may say about them being victims, they're immortal, for Christ's sake, or nearly! They're unnaturally strong. They can disappear into thin air and they drink human blood. Perhaps worst of all, they can control minds. And for all his courage and his service to date, Ian Rufford is one of them. We need intelligence, Ware! What are their vulnerabilities? Who directs them?" He strode forward, his pale gray eyes boring into Davie. "So far, the only way to subdue one of them is with another one. Not something that gives me comfort, Ware."

So, they wanted to help Rufford but spy on him into the bargain. Well, Davie wanted none of it. "I won't go back there." He made his voice as flat as possible. "Rufford doesn't need my help. Good day, gentlemen." He turned on his heel as they exchanged glances.

"We'll be in touch," the Chancellor called after him.

d.a.m.n Rufford! Davie thought again as he pushed out into Whitehall Lane. He paused in the pillared portico of the Admiralty, only half-aware that the rain had stopped. He stared at the gaudy squadron of Horse Guards that trooped down the street.

It was that important that Asharti's minions be stopped. Only Rufford and his kind could do it. Did he know for certain Rufford didn't need his help to do the job? The man was true at the center, though Asharti had made him into a monster who drank human blood. If he trusted Davie enough to ask him for help... Davie sucked in the wet March air and slowly let it out. He remembered Rufford's own moment of decision, when he had known he would return to North Africa to face Asharti... Davie had seen the despair in Rufford's eyes, the fear, and the certainty. Davie's dream of stability dissolved into memories of his time in El Golea...

El Golea, 1819 He shouldn't go to her. He knew that, somewhere deep inside himself. The jasmine that dripped from the pergola drenched the night in a flowery musk, but it could not obscure the scent of cinnamon and something else, exotic and sweet, that she exuded. He could barely see her in the darkness of the British compound courtyard. The thick-walled rooms that surrounded it were empty now. She had killed the legation, drained them of blood. They, at least, were at peace.

Only he was left. Why had she spared him? So he could serve her, night after night? He staggered out into the courtyard. No light shone from the surrounding windows, though her creatures were there, drinking and eating in the darkness. He heard their murmuring voices. He had nothing to fear from them. They dared not molest him. That was left to her. His genitals grew heavy with need. Revulsion washed over him. She commanded and his body obeyed.