Demon's Kiss

Reaper closed his eyes and let his head fall back onto the seat of the car.

“Who are you?” Seth asked her at last.

She smiled. “I’m Roxy. I’m the oldest living human with the Belladonna antigen. At least, as far as I know.”

Seth lifted his brows. “But I thought we—they all got weak and sick and died young.”

“All but me.”

“How old are you?” he asked.

She fluttered her lashes. “How old do you want me to be?”

Seth’s throat went dry, and Roxy released a bark of laughter and slapped her own thigh. “Don’t worry, pup. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.” She gave him a wink, then bobbed her head toward the windshield. “Here we are.”

Roxy’s place was a tiny cottage that looked like something out of a child’s fairy tale, all cobblestones and little green shutters, flower boxes overflowing with fragrant herbs, gardens flowing like colorful streams around the place and between the flat stones that formed a meandering path to the front door.

She parked her car and glanced nervously at the sky. “Best get him inside, son, before dawn.”

“I can manage on my own,” Reaper said. But his voice sounded so weak and pain-racked that Seth thought he might as well have said, “I can’t lift my little finger without help right now.”

“Fortunately,” Roxy said, “you don’t have to manage on your own. You’ve got Seth now.” She smiled at Seth, and there was so much affection in the look that he wasn’t sure if she was hitting on him or just being friendly. The woman was a puzzle. He had no idea how to take her.

He didn’t ask, though. Just got out, opened the back door and got a grip on Reaper’s shoulders, so he could help him inside.

“Right through here,” Roxy instructed. From the waist down she was wearing a long, flowing skirt in bright splashy colors. From the waist up, she wore what looked like a leotard. Skintight, revealing a figure that was close to perfect, short-sleeved, with a V-neck all plumped full of cleavage. A moonstone glittered from a long chain, resting between her breasts. She jingled when she moved, and he realized it was due to the ankle bracelet she wore, along with flat, woven sandals that looked to be made of straw or something.

Seth looked at her face again, baffled by his inability to guess her age.

She just smiled more warmly and tipped her head, so her hair fell over one cheek. “This way. Put him in the guest room. It’s actually a walk-in closet, but I keep a bed made up in there for my undead friends.” She opened a door and stood aside to let Seth pass, with Reaper’s arm drawn around his shoulders. Reaper was silent, except for little grunts of pain every time he put weight on his leg. Seth figured it was taking all the guy had just to stay conscious at this point.

He helped Reaper ease his way onto the twin bed that sat at the back of the large-closet-slash-minuscule-bedroom. Roxy hurried away, then came back a second later with a porcelain basin full of water and a basket full of other items. She sat down on the edge of the bed, put the stuff on the nightstand, then went to work with a pair of scissors, snipping the leg off Reaper’s pants, so she could better get to the wound.

“Duct tape,” she said, eyeing the patch-up job Seth had done. “Hell, I don’t know if I can even improve on this. It’s not bleeding.”

“And it’ll heal as soon as the sun comes up, right?” Seth asked.

Roxy nodded, dipped her washcloth in the basin and began washing the drying blood off Reaper’s thigh. “You should drink, Raphael. You’re as weak as a kitten from the blood loss.”

Reaper met her eyes, then shifted his gaze to her neck, where it lingered and became suddenly intense. Seth felt hot under the collar and thought maybe he should leave the room.

Roxy said, “In your dreams, Raphael. I have bags in the fridge. I can heat it first, if you’re craving a little warmth, though.” She glanced at Seth. “Come with me, and I’ll get you some, too. And then you’d best get to the basement. There’s another bedroom down there. You’ll be safe and comfortable.”

Seth nodded, still not clear on what the relationship was between Reaper and Roxy. They seemed close. Almost intimate. He wanted to ask but sensed he wouldn’t get an answer. And it was none of his business, anyway.

He followed Roxy into the kitchen. She stopped at the fridge, turned and faced him. “He’s not going to want you to stay with him.”

“I know.”

“You have to stay anyway. He’s going to need you, Seth.”

Seth frowned, searching her face. She had eyes as deep and dark blue as sapphires glittering up from the depths of the sea. They were fringed by the longest black velvet lashes he’d ever seen on a woman, and all that hair, all that long, curly red hair, seemed too soft to be real.

“Are you listening, Seth? This is important.”

He focused on her eyes again. “I’m listening. He’s going to need me. But how can you know that?”

“Look around, Seth.”

He did. The place was cozy and completely cluttered. There were bundles of herbs hanging upside down from every possible location in the kitchen and beyond it, in the little dining room and the sitting room, which were really one very large room with two parts. He saw a crystal ball on a glass pedestal all by itself. Incense was burning, sending spirals of fragrant smoke throughout the place. Chimes and sun-catchers and plants hung near every window. The dining-room table was covered with tarot cards, spread out in a mystical and complicated pattern, their images graphic and somehow disturbing.

Seth took it all in, and then returned his attention to her.

“I know,” she said. “The same way I knew to be where I was when you had that accident that wasn’t quite an accident. I know him. I’ve known him since he was a little boy at the hematology clinic where we were both patients. I already knew I had the Belladonna antigen. And I knew what it meant, though the doctors didn’t. I was a student of the occult and the paranormal even then, you see. An expert already. Raphael didn’t know anything. He was just a child with hemophilia and a rare blood type. I’ve been watching over him ever since.”

“Kind of the opposite of the way it’s supposed to work, huh?” Seth asked. “I mean, don’t vamps ordinarily watch over the Chosen?”

“There’s nothing ordinary about me, young man. And you’ll never meet one of the Chosen who’s anything like me.”

“I totally believe you.”

That comment brought a quick smile to her lips. Full lips. Moist. Nice white teeth behind them, too. Little laugh lines appeared at the corners of her eyes when she smiled, and when her expression turned serious again, he could still see the tiniest traces of them.

“I’m going with you on this mission, Seth,” she said. “Raphael is a loner, and he’s going to fight us. But he has two partners now, and we aren’t going to take no for an answer, are we?”

“I owe him my life. And this mission is leading me someplace I need to be. So, yeah, I’m in.” He thrust out a hand. “Shake on it.”

Roxy smiled slowly, and closed her hand around his. She squeezed, and said, “Mmm. Strong. I like that.” She released his hand, handed him a glass and said, “Come on, Seth. I’ll take you to bed now.”

He thought his feet would be glued to the floor, but they moved to follow her as she pushed open a door and descended a set of stairs down into the dark basement. He watched the sway of her hips, the play of her long thick hair over her shoulders, and he wasn’t sure whether he was hoping for or fearing whatever might happen at the bottom. Sure, she wasn’t his dream woman. But she sure as hell was something.

It didn’t matter, though. She simply pushed open another door, flipped on a light and stood aside to let him pass. He walked into the room that was to be his. She said, “Good rest, Seth. And don’t worry about Raphael. I’ll see to it he’s safe until sundown.”

“Good night,” he said, out of long habit. He was going to have to stop doing that, he thought. A vampire should say good day or good rest or something, not good-night, not when he was forever going to sleep in the morning.

Roxy stepped out of the room and closed the door. Seth thought she had to be old enough to be his mother. He also thought he could develop a serious case of lust for her, if he let himself.

He got undressed and slid into the bed. But as the day sleep came in like a dark wave to claim him, it wasn’t Roxy’s face he was seeing in his mind’s eye.

It was that other face, that frightened, innocent face with the exotic eyes pleading for his help.

5

Reaper was lying in the bed, as instructed, surrounded by the freshly laundered scents of the white sheets and leopard-print comforter, when Roxy returned with his sustenance. She handed him the glass, and he drank and prayed she didn’t want to stay and talk until the sun came up.

She sat down on the bed, though, so he figured he was doomed. Still, it wouldn’t be more than a few minutes before dawn came and saved him from her knowing, probing mind.

“You’re fuming,” she said.