The First Vampire Part 28

He smiled wryly, and Ariana watched the smooth movement across his rugged features. Really, when he was calm, except for the fact that his skin was a little too perfect, he appeared more or less normal.

"Yes," he said, "contrary to popular belief, the older we get, the harder it becomes to distinguish us from humans."

Suddenly a thought struck her. "The other night at dinner, you spoke of your wife. Were you talking about my sister?" she asked.

"Of course," Ash replied. "She's still the only wife I've ever had."

Ariana's eyes got misty. "You're the only person I've ever truly hated, you know."

Ash's mouth dropped open. He started to speak but she continued. "So many lives, so many loves, but you were the only one that made me burn with hate."

She held onto his shoulder when he would have stepped away. "No, you don't understand," she whispered. "You're the only one who ever made me burn at all. Everything about me burned brighter with you." She drew in a breath. "Only with you."

"And I've spent a hundred lifetimes pretending to hate you," he said. "For some of that time, it might even have been real." His gaze warmed as he looked down into her upturned face. "The real question is where that leaves us now."

She couldn't speak. She didn't know what was in her heart for this man. Her feelings were all jumbled up. So she just went with her gut and wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, this man who'd tried to kill her, this man who'd given her more knowledge in an hour than she could have learned in a lifetime, this man who was not even any longer a man. When she put her head on his bare chest, he finally ringed his arms around her.

"Ash, you're the strongest man I know," she said, her voice filled with longing, "but I won't break."

His lips were on hers the moment he understood her meaning, and the fire she remembered flared between them. She couldn't fight it, even if she'd wanted to. Whatever ghosts separated them, the pa.s.sion that bound them was a force of nature. She sighed and gave in to the tiny waves of pleasure that his lips and hands had already begun to stir.

Ash deepened the kiss and groaned when she welcomed him farther into her mouth, but he wasn't content with a kiss. In an instant, she was in his arms and he was carrying her to the door.

"Not here," he explained, seeing the confusion in her eyes.

Moments later, he had mounted a narrow staircase, kicked open the door to his bedroom, and was closing it behind them, all without relinquishing his hold on her. Finally, he lowered one arm and allowed her to slide down his body until her feet met the floor.

The friction made her breathless. She turned and the lovely burgundy carpet seemed to rush up to meet her. She staggered and put out a hand to steady herself.

Ash grabbed it. "Ariana, are you all right?" he asked. His eyes, unguarded for a moment, told her how much of his soul was in that question.

"I'm fine," she said, shaking her head. "Just a little tired. I guess I haven't recovered from Toria's butchery as well as I thought."

He led her to the edge of the bed, but didn't join her. Instead he crossed the room and pressed a b.u.t.ton on the wall.

Only a moment later, Nancy opened the door.

"That was fast," he remarked. "Can you bring up some food for Ariana? She hasn't been well and needs to get her strength back."

Nancy nodded. "Yes, of course," she said. She looked from Ash to Ariana and back again, seeming to Ariana's eyes unusually hesitant. "I came to tell you there's a car out front for you, sir," Nancy revealed finally.

"I didn't call for a car," Ash said, frowning in confusion.

"The driver says he was sent by someone named Benson. Luc Benson, I believe. Do you know the name?"

"What's going on, Ash?" Ariana asked.

He shook his head. "A little unfinished business, I'm afraid." He turned to Nancy. "Tell the driver I'll be right down," he said.

Nancy scurried back the way she had come and Ash crossed over to where Ariana sat on the edge of the bed. He leaned down, put both his hands into her thick hair, and inhaled deeply of its scent. "I can't believe I'm leaving you here," he said. "In my bed."

Ariana looked up at him. "Will you be long?"

Ash stood and pulled her against him for another kiss. "Say it again," he said raggedly when he'd lifted his head.

"What?" she asked, still a little foggy from the lovely ministrations of his lips.

"Tell me again that you are here because of me," he said, his voice a silken command. "That this has nothing to do with James or Luc or anything else. That you are here with me because you're mine."

She opened her mouth, but had no answer to give.

He waited a moment, and then took advantage of her opened lips to kiss her again. Her mouth melded to his, answering in a way she could not. He raised his head and raked her bottom lip with his teeth. "Say you're mine, Delilah," he whispered.

She gave a half-whimper as her body bid her acquiesce to him, but some more central part of her refused to comply. "Don't call me that," she said, not knowing where she got the strength. "If you're here with me," she ran her hands across his broad chest, "then be here with me. I'm not Delilah anymore."

"Ariana," he said, sucking in a breath. He smiled down at her. "I think I can get used to that."

He stepped back, took a breath she knew he didn't need, and kissed the top of her head. "I have to go," he said. "We'll finish this when I get back." He looked down at her and frowned slightly. "And you're feeling better."

Ariana watched him go and then sank back onto the bed.

CHAPTER 64.

The car Luc sent whisked Ash downtown, but not as far as he'd expected. When it slowed to a stop near a club called Vamp, he began to wonder if this was Luc's idea of a joke.

Ash saw him standing at the corner, and he reluctantly got out and closed the car door.

"You found Memnon?" he asked as Luc approached.

"I think so," Luc answered. "I haven't seen him, but I think he'll be in the ring tonight."

"What ring?"

Luc nodded. "This place has an underground tournament going. I don't know exactly how it works, but they're all gaga over some new warrior."

Ash turned toward the door. He knew how it worked. "Let's go check it out then, shall we?"

Luc led the way, greeting Willie and Derek at the door.

"Who's your friend?" Willie asked.

Luc looked at Ash, but got no signal. "Ash Samson," he replied.

Willie's gaze flew back to study Ash anew. "You don't say?"

"I don't care who he is, you both have to wait your turn in line like everybody else," Derek said. "We're expecting a packed house tonight."

Willie turned to his friend with a look of disbelief. "Are you crazy, man? Do you know who this is? If he wants to come watch the tournament, he gets to come watch the tournament."

"Who said anything about watching?" Ash responded as he and Luc pa.s.sed through the door Willie was now holding open.

"All the way to the back," Willie called out. "Then down to the lower level."

Following Willie's instructions, they pushed their way through the throng of people surrounding the dance floor. Ash wondered what promotion they'd run to fill the place to the rafters on a weeknight. No doubt they needed the noise up here to cover the noise from down below.

Ash led them to a staircase at the back of the room. Down they went, two flights, then three. There the stairs ended.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Luc asked.

Ash looked over the railing. There was a landing about two stories below. He motioned for Luc to take a look.

"I think it's a type of self-selection," Ash explained. "If you can survive the jump, you're obviously in the right place."

Luc slapped one hand onto the metal rail and vaulted over. Ash followed, landing softly on the concrete floor below.

"Show-off," Luc muttered.

Ash smiled. "Just getting warmed up," he said.

"Do you really plan to get into the ring with him?" Luc asked.

Ash turned a surprised look to him. "Isn't that what you intended?"

Luc shrugged. "I don't know what I intended. I was leaning toward letting him fight himself silly and then you taking him out when it was all over."

Ash frowned. "That's not the way a warrior fights, Lucas."

"Well, he's not a warrior," Luc retorted. "He's a murdering b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Ash started forward down the dark corridor. "Aren't we all?"

Luc followed in silence. He could smell blood already.

As they entered the arena, Luc noted that an early match was already underway. Not that he could see anything through the crowd, but the cheers, grunts, and cries from farther up told him all he needed to know.

Some of the vampires back near the entrance strained to see the action, but most were engaged in low discussion or casting curious looks at Ash. Whoever was fighting up front, it wasn't Memnon yet. He would have held their attention.

Ash found a spot near the edge of the room. Since he was a head taller than most, he could see the action in the ring fine from there. Luc was left staring at the back of someone's head.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked Ash.

Ash smiled. Luc wasn't sure why this bothered him, but it did.

"I'm not sure of anything," the first vampire answered, "but it's the only idea I've got at the moment." He looked down at Luc. "Unless you've come up with something better?"

Luc still liked the idea of an ambush, but apparently that was beneath the great Samson. "Well," he said finally, "no, and I can't see a d.a.m.n thing from here, so I'm going to try to get closer to the ring."

Ash nodded, and Luc began his slow progress toward the center of the room. In many ways, this arena resembled the one at Council House, he realized. It was three stories tall, with a square roped off in the center for the fighters. The ring itself was much smaller, though, looking like it was only built for individual matches.

Nor were there any balconies for spectators. Luc wished there were. As it was, he was making enemies literally right and left, but he did finally manage to get just a few rows from the ring, slightly off to one side.

The ring was elevated a couple of feet off the floor of the arena and demarcated by four poles connected by a single piece of rope. On each of the poles was a large bowl partially filled with warm blood. Warm blood also filled a trough that ran around the base of the ring. Luc supposed it was so the fighters could refresh themselves, but the smell of it suffused the entire room, serving the dual purpose of working the crowd into a frenzy.

The rest of the room was just poured concrete. A few pipes hung from the ceiling far above. The only weapons Luc could see were a few long wooden spears on the floor, leaning against the platform.

Several rounds went by while Luc watched, but none of them were death matches. Finally, a couple of Vamp employees came out to clean up the blood on the floor of the ring. As they finished, the crowd jammed in tighter, and conversations quieted to a minimum. Apparently the real entertainment was about to start. Luc was startled when Aleksander Solotnik entered the ring.

"Ladies and gentlemen," his deep voice boomed out over the crowd, "we have three excellent fighters scheduled for this evening's elimination rounds." Cheers went up from the crowd. Obviously the fighters' reputations preceded them, Luc thought.

"As your host, I promise you a night you won't soon forget and all the c.o.c.ktails you can wash it down with. And don't forget," Solotnik continued, "tonight there is a wild card slot-available at the end of the last round to anyone who will dare to challenge the winner."

Luc smiled. That was a great gimmick. It would keep people around even if the first matches were blowouts. Being a businessman himself, he had to appreciate great marketing. And tonight will be the wildcard match of all wildcard matches, he thought, beginning to relish the spectacle.

"First, my son Viktor Solotnik will take on our guest from L.A., the underground champion from the City of Angels, Roderick, better known to his fans as El Toro!"

Two vampires climbed up onto the edge of the ring. Viktor so plainly resembled Aleksander that Luc could have picked him out easily. Too bad his sister didn't also share the family resemblance, Luc grumbled to himself. And too bad she was clearly the favorite. No father who cared for his son would put him in the ring, especially not if Memnon was the next opponent.

Not that El Toro looked like an easy mark. He was dark-skinned, probably a mix of black and Hispanic, Luc thought, and stood almost as tall as Ash. He towered over Viktor and probably outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Being outweighed wouldn't matter to an older, more powerful vampire, but Solotnik himself had only been turned several decades ago. He'd turned his children some time shortly after. There was no way they could be very powerful.

As it turned out, though, the two were pretty evenly matched. Roderick was more powerful, but Viktor was quick and he had the support of the home crowd, which, in the end, made all the difference.

The lack of weapons in the ring, Luc realized, was by design. The crowd had all the weapons. When Viktor looked like he could prevail, swords, knives, maces, and spears appeared from out of the crowd. Viktor was able to grab a sword tossed up by a spectator and take Roderick's head off with it.

Aleksander rushed into the ring to hold his son's arm up in the air. "The winner!" he shouted. Viktor pulled his arm free and went to drink from one of the four bowls of blood. His father carried on. "Now, in just a few moments, you will see Viktor take on last week's winner, Memnon!"

The crowd cheered and heaved to and fro as the blood was once again mopped from the ring floor in antic.i.p.ation of the next round. Viktor never left the ring, and when Memnon joined him, the noise from the crowd fell to a murmur.

Aleksander rushed back to center stage. "Viktor versus Memnon!" he cried, arms flung open to indicate the two men in opposite corners.

The room was now so jammed Luc could barely breathe, much less move. He forgot his claustrophobia, however, when the fight began in earnest.

From the first, it was clear Viktor never had a chance. He let Memnon advance first, dodged his initial blow, and landed a hard kick across Memnon's chest.

It was plain to all, however, that Memnon was just toying with him. Luc knew he could fly or send Viktor skewering onto a spear with no more than a thought, but he never did any of those things. He just physically outmatched him. Where Viktor was quick, Memnon could be quicker. Where Viktor sought the element of surprise, Memnon was always a step ahead.

The fight really went on longer than it should. Luc suspected this was solely because Memnon didn't want to offend Aleksander by offing his son too easily.

In the end, the result was as expected. Viktor lay pinned to the floor by Memnon's superior strength, fangs bared and hissing, but losing blood from multiple wounds.

From his kneeling position over Viktor's body, Memnon met Aleksander's gaze for a moment and Aleksander gave a quick nod.