21 Shades of Night, page 237
Misty’s muffled cry forced her to look in her direction. Bad mistake. Misty was gagged and tied to the wrought iron bed, but otherwise not in imminent danger. Alena, on the other hand was. As soon as Misty distracted her, the vampire pounced on Alena.
After he slammed her against the wood floor, she groaned when her spine ached from the jolt. With fangs extended, he readied to bite her when David yelled out in the other room, “Touché!”
David’s vampire screamed, then grew silent, but this time Alena’s targeted vampire was distracted. She released her wrist blade, then jammed it into the redhead’s heart. Like the other, he screamed in agony, then crumpled into a ragged heap of bone and clothes.
“You should have listened,” Ephraim said to the one he fought. “Too late now.”
A thud on the floor followed.
Alena jumped to her feet and ran to the full-sized bed dressed in more of the same kind of dreary gray. Misty, in her red running togs, added welcome color to the dull room. Her black hair dangled about her small face in disarray as if she’d put up quite a struggle with the vampires who’d taken her hostage. Her sea green eyes pleaded with Alena to hurry and free her. Tape covered Misty’s mouth, and Alena pulled it free first. “Alena, ohmigod, Alena.”
“Misty, thank God you’re all right.” Guardedly relieved, Alena prayed no other vampires would suddenly appear. She hurried to slash through the ropes binding Misty’s wrists, her hands trembling while she attempted not to cut Misty.
David and Ephraim rushed into the room, but David was the one to slice through the ropes at Misty’s ankles.
“They were unable to telepathically contact their brethren because the others must be too far away,” Ephraim said.
“What about that one?” Alena pointed her sword at the pile of bones nearby while she helped Misty from the bed.
The two hugged each other warmly. Alena couldn’t shrug off the worry they had to get to somewhere else safely before the vampires struck at them again, though. She observed Ephraim, not a hair out of place, unruffled, and a true hero, fighting alongside the hunters, aiding them against the vampires, instead of joining the Brotherhood.
Ephraim shook his head. “The vampire must have been coming here to relieve one of the others. He wasn’t here when I first arrived. If David will take Misty someplace safe, I’ll return you to my home. I’m sure before long they’ll come for you, Alena. But we can make a stand there.”
Why should he fight for the League when they wished to terminate him? Why should he fight for their cause when the only thing he truly desired was to have Alena for his mate because he loved her dearly, and they’d deny it?
She realized then, he was more than just a dream. She loved him for being who he was, her hero, tender and giving, yet demanding, a bit of a rogue but not as a vampire. As a Highlander of old.
Yet going against everything she’d ever been taught wouldn’t be easy.
“I’m so glad you were okay, Misty. David can get you home safely this time though,” she said as she hurried her out of the house.
Misty glanced at the dead vampires in the living room and shuddered. “I’m so sorry I endangered you, Alena. But so thankful you came to rescue me just the same.”
“It couldn’t have been helped,” Alena said, rushing toward the vehicles with Misty beside her. “And you know I would have rescued you no matter what.”
David tried to hustle them faster. “Let’s get a move on, ladies.”
As if they were dawdling!
Misty turned back and stared at Ephraim following behind them beside David. She said to Alena under her breath, “Don’t tell me he’s the vampire you invited into our apartment.”
“Yeah, he’s the one.”
“What’s he doing here?”
“He’s the one I’m supposed to kill. So I have to keep an eye on him until the time’s right.”
Misty turned around to look at Ephraim again. Alena caught him wiggling his dark brown brows at her. Misty said with shocked disbelief, “But he saved my life. And yours.”
“I know. It seems these days it isn’t enough.” Alena gave her another hug, thankful her friend was all right. “Something isn’t right. I’m trying to find out what.”
Misty nodded. “If you need my help, let me know.”
Alena wasn’t sure that Misty could be any help, and she certainly didn’t want her in any further danger. But she was a good-hearted huntress, and Alena could trust Misty to keep her secret. “I will, Misty. I will.”
When they reached the cars, David said to Alena, “I’ll check back with you in a couple of hours.” He straightened his back when he faced Ephraim, male posturing to show he was in charge, undoubtedly. “Keep her safe in the meantime.”
“You need not ask me to keep her safe. It is both an honor and a privilege and my duty.”
To Alena’s surprise, David gave her a more than brotherly hug, then hurried Misty to his car.
His efforts rushed, Ephraim grabbed Alena’s arm and hastened her to her vehicle. “I can’t permit this display of affection between my woman and your very distant kin.”
She nearly laughed. “He looks like my brother, for one thing. And for another, he’s never acted in any way but brotherly... pain-in-the-butt kind of brotherly, toward me. So don’t get yourself worked up over our nonexistent lover’s relationship. I’m touched you feel so protective, but I don’t want you and David fighting over me when there isn’t any need.”
“It appeared to me that the warm embrace he gave you was short of carrying you over his shoulder and throwing you on his feather-down mattress, then having his way with you.” Ephraim gave her a pointed look. “He cares for you more than just in kinship. He won’t like it that I claim you for my own.”
She shook her head, annoyed at Ephraim’s declaration of owning her. “This isn’t the medieval period, you know. Women are not chattel to be owned.” She slammed her door shut, and he appeared in the seat next to her.
His smile appeared slowly, sensually. “Aye, but you know, lass, you love me for my claims.”
She did, damn him. She loved everything about the stubborn Highlander and wouldn’t have him any other way. After starting the car, she headed back to his house. “I don’t remember you having a jealous streak. Have you always had one?”
“Aye, when it comes to other men’s interest in you. You’re a comely wench, and oft I’ve had to knock a man down here or there to let them know you are taken. Sometimes your saying so isn’t good enough for them.”
She tried to recall when other men had tried to show interest in her, but couldn’t come up with anything. All she remembered was her brother’s insistence she marry someone of his choosing. But another concern kept worming its way into her thoughts. Now that Misty was free, they had to deal with the issue of Ephraim being on her termination list.
“I hate to bring up bad news when we’re having such an interesting discussion, but I need to know what secret project you’re working on, then I have to terminate you. You know, a contract is a contract.”
He smiled. “You always did have a keen sense of humor. We’ll discuss it over lunch and a glass of wine, and then we’ll take a nap afterwards.”
“Seriously, Ephraim. This is a real problem.”
“Aye, lass, how well I know.”
She sighed. “What about Mona?”
“I doubt she needs to take a nap.”
Alena snorted.
Ephraim laughed. “She’s a dutiful maid. She doesn’t care about what I do in my home.”
“Honey?” The notion Mona called Ephraim that still irked Alena. And he had the nerve to say she was just his maid.
“Hmm?”
“Don’t pretend you can’t remember Mona calling you that before we left the house to fight the vampires this morning.”
“Now who’s jealous?”
Alena tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips. “I am not jealous.”
“Aye.” A smile still stretched across his face.
Then she thought about Mona, and wondered how easily other vampires could control her. “Would Mona unwittingly let anyone into your home?”
“Nay. She’s under my control. So, do you truly think we had a child?”
“I can’t imagine having nightmares of childbirth otherwise.”
“Was it a girl or boy, do you remember?”
“A boy as he had the right equipment for the job.”
Ephraim sat quietly after that, and she didn’t say another word, trying to figure out what they were to do next—how were they to destroy the Brotherhood when they didn’t even know who was running it? And what was she supposed to do about Ephraim? She didn’t even want to consider they might have a vampire child they needed to locate.
All of it darkened her mood as she finally reached Ephraim’s house, and she pulled into the circular drive. Once she cut the engine, Ephraim hurried to get her car door. He rushed her along the brick walk lined with evergreen shrubs, his hand gripping hers possessively, and she got the impression he was concerned vampires would attack at any moment. Not that she didn’t share his concern.
Cherry blossoms littering the walkway like pink confetti, scattered in their brisk wake.
“If we have a son out there, we must find him and care for him,” Ephraim said, though he sounded like he didn’t believe that could be the case.
“What if he’s now a rogue? We have no idea who might have raised him.” The thought scared her that she would screw up raising a child who was really not a child and vampiric to boot.
“Do you think he still lives?” he asked.
“I…” She shook her head, hating to tell him no. But she wouldn’t give him false hope. “I’ve never dreamed of him.”
“But if someone else raised him, you wouldn’t have seen him, so you wouldn’t have dreamed of him,” Ephraim reasoned.
“You’re probably right.” But for now, she couldn’t wrap her thoughts around the notion. Not when the Brotherhood wanted her head and the League wanted Ephraim’s.
Mona opened the front door for them, like a silent butler from some old estate, wearing a pair of black denims and a sweater to match.
“What would have become of him?” Ephraim asked, almost to himself.
Alena turned to Ephraim. “I think it would be best if you didn’t get your hopes up about your son—”
“Our son.”
Alena paused in the foyer, his intense gaze holding her hostage. Mona shut the door, glanced from Alena to Ephraim, then slipped down the hall.
“He would be ours, Elizabeth.”
“Alena.” She still couldn’t get used to being called Elizabeth. And she still didn’t “feel” like Elizabeth, except she knew and felt too much about Ephraim to not have been her, but she’d lived so many years as a huntress in modern times with League rules that hadn’t exist in the earlier years that she couldn’t reconcile the differences.
“Alena Elizabeth MacLeod. He would be ours.”
The idea she had a son was too difficult to fathom, yet the gnawing at her that it could be so, meant she had to find him. But would he truly be hers? If she truly was Elizabeth reincarnated, the boy would be hers. The thought was too wild to speculate. How could she raise a boy she knew nothing about?
Someday she intended to have children, but she had every notion they’d start out as babies first. Then she’d grow used to how to handle them... leisurely. By the time they were ten years old, she’d know them thoroughly.
But if his son truly existed, who’d raised him? Would he be evil or as good as his father?
They walked into the kitchen where Mona was cleaning the already sparkling countertops.
“But he may not even exist. I might be all wrong about this,” Alena softly said to Ephraim, then turned to Mona intent on praising her for her hard work and changing the subject from one she didn’t want to speculate further about. “You do a wonderful job cleaning. The place looks spectacular.”
Mona smiled at her, tucking a wayward curl of hair behind her ear. “Thank you.”
Ephraim cleared his throat, getting Mona’s attention. “Could you tidy up the guestroom?”
“Of course.” Mona crossed the kitchen and exited through the dining room.
When Alena thought Mona was out of earshot, she scolded Ephraim. “You didn’t have to dismiss her.”
“I thought you didn’t care for her to be around.”
Alena sat down at the bar. “I guess I’m getting used to her. And I don’t want her feelings hurt. So what are you fixing for lunch?”
“Seafood salad. How does shrimp, scallops, crabmeat and...” He looked into the fridge. “…oysters sound?”
She shook her head. His thoughts of seducing her were as clearly evident as a treasure map showing the “x” that marked the spot. She had no doubt he thought she was the treasure, and he wanted to plunder every bit of her.
Ephraim chopped up a head of lettuce, then scattered the already cooked shrimp, scallops, and crabmeat over the top. “For centuries oysters have been considered an aphrodisiac.”
“You aren’t still planning to seduce me, are you? Not after I told you what the League wants me to do to you?” Why wasn’t he displeased with her? She was certain if the roles had been reversed, she would have been upset with him if she had learned she had been added to a hunter’s termination list and the hunter had pretended friendship before doing the job he’d been assigned.
“I want to seduce you especially because of what the League wants you to do. Maybe you’ll change your mind.” He cut up tomatoes and cucumbers and added them to the seafood mix.
Did he really think she was still considering that she might want to eliminate him? “You’re that great a lover that you think I would reconsider?” she darkly teased.
“Don’t you remember how it was between us, lass? The way you opened yourself up to me like a flower that spreads her petals in the sunlight, the way you softened under my kisses, and tugged frantically at my breeches to get on with business?”
She raised her brows. “I’m sure I don’t.” Yet she damn well did. And it all began with the shock of seeing that photo of him at the restaurant, his penetrating, alluring, mesmerizing eyes challenging her to deny she knew him, and the way it had triggered the playing of the movie clip versions of their past romantic liaisons in her head.
“Aye.” The corner of his mouth turned up slightly.
She folded her arms, ready to make him squirm. If he was so in love with her, had he waited for her all this time? “When was the last time you made love to a woman?”
Ephraim looked up from the seafood salad he was concocting. “For a hundred years after your death, I couldn’t look at another woman.”
As virile as he was, she couldn’t believe he’d wait that long. “And the two hundred years after that?”
He smiled in an arrogant manner. “You can’t fault me for making sure it was still in working order. What if I hadn’t used it and from disuse it fell off?”
Alena laughed out loud. “Right. Any excuse.”
“I did grieve dutifully for one hundred years,” he said somberly.
“All right. So when was the last time you made love?”
“I don’t think that’s a fair question.”
“Oh?” She leaned forward on her stool and placed her arms on the counter, that ping of jealousy slipping into her blood. “Why not?”
Mona walked into the dining room at just the right moment. “All done. Anything else you want me to do?”
Alena leapt at the chance to get the truth out of him from his housekeeper. “When was the last time Ephraim made love to you, Mona?”
“Who?”
Realizing her mistake at once, Alena’s face grew hot with embarrassment.
Ephraim stared at her in astonishment, probably because she’d used his birth name out loud again. He smiled wryly. “She only knows me as Sutton, Elizabeth.”
“My mistake.” But she realized then, she couldn’t think of herself as being named Elizabeth, since the only time anyone called her that—mostly her father or when her mother had been alive was when they were mad at her and said her full name, Alena Elizabeth MacLeod, in a highly aggravated manner. On the other hand, she felt more comfortable in calling Sutton, Ephraim. Why?
Because despite the weirdness of the situation, she felt as though she’d known Ephraim much longer than she had Sutton. And if she had been Elizabeth way back when, she would have. As Alena, she’d only known Sutton for a couple of days.
As to Elizabeth? She had been Elizabeth for…
Alena stared at the kitchen counter, shock freezing her thoughts. My God, Elizabeth had been the same age as Alena was now when she had died. Her gaze shot to Ephraim’s.
Ephraim was studying her like he often did, watching her facial expressions, her body language, watching for the return of Elizabeth’s memories. “What is it? What do you remember?”
“When… how old was Elizabeth when she died?” Alena asked, her voice hushed. She didn’t want to know the truth. She really didn’t want to know.
Ephraim’s teeth clenched. “She was twenty-two. The same age as you are now.”
“How did you know what age I am?” she asked, frowning at him.
“I saw your driver’s license, lass.”
“He’s never made love to me,” Mona replied, breaking the tension in the air. “I’m his housekeeper. I give him blood when he needs some. Is that what you mean?”
Alena refocused her gaze on Mona. “What?” She’d vaguely heard what Mona had said, but the realization Alena was twenty-two and Elizabeth had been the same age when she was murdered chilled her to the marrow of her bones.
Chapter 11
“WE’VE NEVER MADE love. Sutton and me,” Mona said again to Alena in the kitchen, her tone reassuring as Ephraim listened in.
Alena shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts of the deeper concern. “What about any others?” she asked, caring, but not caring as much now.
